Category: Story, Angst Pairing: Mulder/Scully Rating: R for adult themes Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Chris Carter does. Archive: Nowhere, thank you. Feedback: My muse starves without it. Send to cicilean2@aol.com ========== FROZEN by CiCi Lean, 1998 cicilean2@aol.com ========== It was ninety-five degrees in Arizona that morning, with the highway unraveling endlessly before them, all gold sun and burnt umber sand. Bumps had been built into the road as to keep careless drivers from falling asleep at the wheel, but Mulder's eyes never even blinked at the monotony. Scully ran her tongue lightly over her lips, dry cracks filled with red lipstick, melted crimson silk, now waxy dull to the taste. She pulled it in at every bump, to avoid any bites. //...miles and miles to go before I rest...// There was only one body this time. Two tourists, heavy with sweat and puffing under the shimmering heat had found it, speckled with sand that blew away under the slightest wisp of air. The body lay, with stiff arms, hands, stretching upward through the sand, praying to a cruel sky, the one without a solitary cloud to smile shade or rain upon the land below. An occasional lock of bleached hair wavered, then blew, across its sightless milk blue eyes: a mannequin modeling the latest style of death. The scavengers had refused to touch it. Scully tapped the file on her lap with self-manicured fingers, ragged cuticles notwithstanding. She'd seen the photos, read the initial autopsy, spilt coffee on two of the reports. Held them up, dripping, over the garbage pail, as the victim's face came into view, peaceful within her serene blue skin and coal iris stare. No one knew who she was, the fingerprints hadn't been returned yet. She was christened underneath the scalpel, at it traced her name in blood across the Y- incision. "Jane Doe" she was called now, along with the number of her file. //...See Jane run...// They'd discovered fingers, oddly white, bloodless, and blister-drenched. Toes that followed suit, and lips... lips so dry they cracked right in half to show bloodstained teeth; two rows of rusted white. //Victim's cause of death: Severe hypothermia.// "Hypo" means "more." A foul diagnosis in a Puritan land. "Thermia," Latin, loosely meaning "temperature." Too much cold, too little warmth, everything else too late. Jane Doe was quite dead, killed by hypothermia, her body stiff and blue underneath a relentless sun. Jane Doe had frozen to death in the middle of an Arizona desert. And Fox Mulder wanted to know why. //...Run, Jane, run...// ========= The body stank so badly by the time Scully had gotten to it, she nearly used the cologne; a tiny spray of sweet chemicals she occasionally dotted into her mask, only on bad days. Like the bad days after the chemo, or the radiation, when she knew her stomach couldn't take any stench other than the smell of her own deteriorating body. The smell of cancer, the smell of failure... the smell of her own slow death. But she was better now, and wanted to be brave again. Young again. Alive again. So, Dana Scully put the cologne aside. She cut away at the stitches, sloppy Frankenstein lines cris-crossing rot, and dug in with feeling. Gouging, scraping, weighing, prodding... finding nothing unusual. As usual. The diagnosis was correct. Every sign was clear, there was no mistake, and Scully quickly grew bored. Jane, sweet Jane, had been taken from a freezer, dumped into the desert, and Mulder would more than a little disappointed. With luck, the giant machine, the alien wizardry, he'd envisioned wouldn't be so magnificent that it would blind him to dull fact. Maybe this time he'd shrug and nod, toss her the car keys and concentrate on the passing scenery as they flew home. Maybe this time she'd not hate herself for inspiring yet more danger and restlessness in his eyes. //Victim's cause of death: Severe hypothermia.// She clicked off the recorder before it had time to capture the sound of instruments being thrown. ======== Mulder had greeted her in her motel room with a bottle of J.Roget, stolen from an ancient mini-bar with a broken lock. She'd taken a huge swallow, mindlessly, and choked on the cheap froth that threatened her nostrils, breathing deep when done. "I think that we should quit the F.B.I. and move here," he said, stretching out on the bed, pulling the remote up from its Velcro place mat, and switching channels aimlessly. Scully took another long swallow. Felt the dull throb of a headache form. "She was frozen, then dumped. That's my theory." The Weather Channel came on, with an old man pasting sunny faces onto a dull beige map. Some of the faces wore sunglasses, looking happy over Arizona. The others wore mitten and scarves, looking miserable and cold everywhere else. //...Happy sun, sad sun...// "I still think we should move here," repeated Mulder, reaching out for the bottle. She handed it to him, but not without a final gulp. Wondered if the mini-bar had some wine left in it somewhere. "I don't like the heat," she lied. Mulder shrugged and switched to the Cartoon Network. Watched as Tom and Jerry beat each other with candlesticks. "It's a dry heat," he muttered, as Jerry laughed while Tom refused to bleed. She stared at him, and then took a surreptitious glance at his body, thin, long and perfect over dull yellow polyester. Momentarily pictured herself next to him, then above him, straddling his thighs, teasing his buttons open. Picturing him laughing beneath her, eyes bright. //...Run, Jane, run...// She turned away and reached for the bottle once more. Blindly. He silently handed it to her. Flicked to the next channel, and a courtroom came into view, filled with cameras, but no jury. The judge was wearing makeup, her lipstick green and runny-looking through the glimmer of the cheap screen. Scully took a short, popping draw on the champagne, sputtered, and wished she'd thought twice before starting to drink. She felt sick, not drunk. Felt cold, without a hint of warmth. Glanced again at Mulder, who'd shifted onto his side, and was staring at her, not sparing her the heat of his eyes. Stripping her naked, without crudeness or falsehoods, forcing her bare, ripping skin from white bone. She put the bottle down. //...Run, Jane run...// "Sometimes," he began, and she remembered sitting in that first motel room with him, candles burning, her robe drawn too tightly about her waist. "Sometimes, I think that you and I are both searching too hard for the same thing. We start at the same point, go in opposite directions, but stop before our destined meeting... before we complete the circle." Mulder rolled onto his stomach, and Scully noticed the smooth line of his back, all spine and slim curves. She imagined the "shttttttttt" of her hand sliding down the cotton of his dress shirt, down to where his belt, drawn too tightly about his waist, would stop her. She turned her gaze back to the television, and waited for the verdict instead. //...See Jane run...// Mulder spoke to the headboard. "But, I think that you believe that we're traveling in a straight line throughout all of this. East and west, never the twain shall meet." The judge's gavel clapped smartly throughout the room. //Guilty.// Scully picked up the remote and clicked the television off. She rose, wobbling slightly, but covered it well. "She was frozen, then dumped... that's still my theory," she said. Coldly. Standing there, hating, no fearing, the heat that threatened winter's thaw. "Of course," replied Mulder, tracing with a slim finger the outline of two lions carved deeply into the headboard. "That was my theory all along." Scully stumbled back, just a tiny step, but recovered quickly. "Good," she breathed. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we aren't that far apart after all." "Maybe," replied Mulder, closing his eyes, as Scully nodded curtly in reply. His eyes were still shut as she left the room without a backwards glance. She entered her own room, and hoped that the walls were thick enough to mask the sound of thrown clothes, thrown shoes... thrown lamps. Crawling into her bed without showering, Scully shivered. It was very cold in the desert at night, she thought to herself, trembling beneath her blankets, alone... her bones shaking with frost, the skin pulled away, the whiteness bare. It was freezing. Scully lay there for a long time, with stiff arms, stiff hands, stretching upward, praying to a cruel ceiling of white, one without a solitary cloud to smile shade or rain upon the woman below. An occasional lock of tear-stained hair wavered, then blew, across her sightless blue eyes... as if she were a mannequin modeling the latest style of death. As if she'd been frozen... In the middle of a desert. =========== The End. All comments welcome. cicilean2@aol.com