TITLE: Stitches in Time
AUTHOR: Myriss
EMAIL ADDRESS: myriss1013@yahoo.com
DISTRIBUTION: *No archive*
RATINGS WARNING: G
CLASSIFICATION: V
KEYWORDS: MSR. Future.
WARNING: Shipper-friendly. SAP, SAP, SAP.
SPOILERS: Some minor spoilers.
THE DISCLAIMER: Any character you recognized from the t.v. series
belongs to 1013 and Fox (except for Mulder and Scully who
belong to each other). I am just borrowing them.

AUTHOR NOTES* It's pretty sappy. No betas. Mistakes are
all of my own. Sorry.

SUMMARY: Sharing memories over a quilt.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A small finger traced the stitches of the quilt.

"Tell me again, Gramma," a little voice demanded. "Where did
this one come from?"

The old lady smiled indulgently at the little girl. Her
hand, stiff and translucent with age, swept down the quilt lovingly.

"That one was from the suit that I wore when I first meet your
Pawpaw," her grandmother laughed. "I was so sure of myself--armed
with my science and medical degree--I didn't think anything could
knock me off my orbit."

"But Pawpaw did, huh?" the young voice asked eagerly.

"Oh yes. He sure did."

"And this one, Gramma? Where did this one come from?"

"This is the black dress I wore when we went to Hollywood--"

"When they made that movie about you, huh? The one Pawpaw
said was a--uh--tra--tray-ves-tee and should have sank like 
the Titanic."

"The very one."

"They play it all the time on the classic channel on the
Holo TV, you know," the little girl said importantly.

The old lady hid a smile. Oh, how he had raged on and on
about the gullibility of the public to swallow such trash! It 
had astonished them no end when the movie emerged out from 
obscurity into a cult classic, revered by the younger 
generation.

"And this one, Gramma?" A small finger stroked a patch of
faded blue cotton.

The old lady's hidden smile faltered. "This is the shirt
that your Pawpaw wore the day he was taken away from me--" Even 
after all these years, the memory of loneliness and pain could 
still swallow her whole. Oh, god, she had missed him so. Her 
heart had lost its soul.

She had gone numbly through those endless days, trying to
keep from shattering into pieces of glass.

The shirt that he had worn before the fateful trip had been 
tossed carelessly onto an unmade bed. She had slept every 
night with it crushed beneath her cheek. His lingering scent 
enveloping her with his love.

The little girl patted a frail old hand. "But he came back, 
Gramma," the little girl reminded soothingly.

The old woman closed her eyes, the shadows of the past
slipping away like mist, and sighed deeply. She opened her 
eyes and said, her voice husky, "Yes, dear. Yes, he did."

"And this dark green patch, Gramma? What happened on that day?"

Her Gramma's face softened, painted with a master's brush.
One head bent. Another reached up. Pair of arms embraced. Two 
foreheads pressed together lovingly.

Young and old whispered the words together.

"A miracle."


The End