From: Vickie Moseley <vmoseley@fgi.net>
Subject: [xfcreative] NEW:  Out of the Cold (03 of 25)
Date: Friday, April 30, 1999 1:08 PM

From: Vickie Moseley <vmoseley@fgi.net>

Out of the Cold
by Vickie Moseley
vmoseley@fgi.net
disclaimed in part 00
part 3 of 25


Elm Cliffs Retirement Center
Springfield, Illinois
February 1, 1991  1:20 pm

The ride on the plane almost killed him.  The pressure from the
cabin felt like it was imploding his chest, and it was now almost
impossible to take a deep breath.  Mulder discovered too late that
he'd left the antibiotics on the bathroom sink at the motel after
taking one when he woke up.  He thought about calling Jerry to ask
him to pack them before he left for Oregon, but the flight was late
and he almost missed his connection to Springfield.

Elm Cliffs was so named because it rested on Elm Street, in the
middle of the city.  It was a nice retirement home, clean and well
cared for.  He could see Pink Henderson in the sun room, sitting
next to the picture window and watching a bird feeder with two
cardinals doing a mating dance.

"Mrs. Henderson.  I'm Fox Mulder, with the FBI.  I asked to speak
with you?" Mulder said, holding out his hand in greeting.

Pink looked him up and down.  "Nice, tall, boy, aren't you?" she
asked.  "Have a seat.  Can't tolerate having boys towerin' over
me," she said with a coy smile.

"Mrs. Henderson, I'm here trying to find out more about Stephen
Paige, your nephew."

"Poor Stevie," Mrs. Henderson said softly, shaking her head.  "He
was such a good boy.  I raised him, you know.  Raised him from
the time he was just a little snip of a thing.  My sister, she ran off
and married that no account husband of hers and when he got
hisself killed in that car wreck, well she just took off one day.  We
never did hear a word from her.  Jus' up and disappeared.  So I
wasn't going to let that sweet boy go to no orphanage!  I mean, he
was my own flesh and blood.  My own John Andrew and I, we
never had children and with him dying in the war--well, Stevie was
all I had.  He took good care of me, he did.  Good care of me." 
Her eyes took on a far away look and she twisted the handkerchief
in her hands.

"Did you have any idea who might have killed your nephew, Mrs.
Henderson?"

She came out of her thoughts and stared at him.  "No," she said,
shaking her head thoughtfully.  "I can't say I did.  'Course, I never
liked that little whore who hung on him.  Excuse my language, but
that's what she was.  A whore.  Hung on him, wanted to spend his
money . . ."

"Could you tell me her name, Mrs. Henderson?" Mulder asked
gently.

"Oh, let me think.  I never liked her much, hoped she'd get the hint
and find some other patsy.  What was that name?  Now I
remember!  It was Crown.  Abigail Crown.  He called her Gail all
the time.  She was a fine one," Mrs. Henderson sneered.  "Called
herself his assistant.  HUH!  The only thing she wanted to assist him
in was separating himself from his money!  No account, two bit
hussy!"

"Mrs. Henderson, where does Abigail Crown live now?  Do you
know what happened to her?"

The old woman narrowed her gaze to a glare.  "I know what didn't
happen to her.  She didn't git killed like Stevie!  She's probably
shacked up with some poor sot in Colorado.  That's where Stevie
met up with her, after he did so well on the TV show.  As far as I'm
concerned, I hope to never lay eyes on her again!"

"Thank you, Mrs. Henderson.  You've been very helpful."

Mulder had a nice long wait in the Springfield airport waiting for
his flight to St. Louis, so he put in a call to Bill.

"Her name is Abigail Crown.  Last known residence is
Colorado--wish I could be more specific," Mulder related over the
phone.

"I'll get someone on it, Mulder.  How are you holding up?" Bill
asked.

The concern in his voice almost threw Mulder off track for a
moment.  Then he remembered.  Bill needed him.  Without Mulder,
there was no one to do the magic that made Bill look so good to
the higher ups.  Can't have a prize race horse go down with the
colic, Mulder thought angrily to himself.  "I'm fine, Bill," he
answered, stifling the burning urge to cough.  "I'll be getting in
about 10:45 your time."

"LaMana will be at the airport to pick you up," Bill promised. 
"Why don't you see if you can't get some rest."

"Yeah, Bill. Good idea," Mulder said and hung up the phone
quickly so he could cough again.  It left him hurting from his throat
to his stomach and his knees didn't want to carry him to the nearby
lounge, but he forced himself over there anyway.  He was hungry,
but he didn't feel up to walking all the 50 feet down the concourse
to the little bar, so instead, he used his coat as a pillow and leaned
back in the chair.  In seconds, he was sound asleep.

"Sir.  Sir.  Your plane is boarding, sir.  You have to wake up."  The
gentle voice that greeted him was matched by an equally pretty
face, but the airlines services rep didn't look as impressed by
Mulder's appearance.  "Sir, are you feeling all right?" she asked
anxiously.  "Should I call a doctor?"

Mulder started to open his mouth to object, but a spasm of
coughing reduced him to a gasping lump in his chair.  The young
woman looked alarmed and started off toward her desk.  Mulder
had to reach out fast to grab her sleeve and stop her.

"No, I'm fine," he rasped.  "Really.  I have to make this flight so I
can catch a plane to Oregon.  It's just a cold, really," he pleaded.

"It sure doesn't look like a cold," the woman replied, eyeing him
critically.  "My brother's a nurse at the ER and he tells me all the
time about people walking around thinking they're fine, then
keeling over with pneumonia.  Just like Kermit the Frog," she
added woefully.

"Kermit--?" Mulder repeated, gathering himself and his briefcase.

"You know, that Henson guy.  He thought it was just a cold, too. 
Three days later, they're burying him!  You should get to a doctor
as soon as you can, sir," she told him.

"I will, I promise," he pledged.  "Just as soon as I get to Oregon."

The plane landed in St. Louis, just as a winter storm hit, coming out
of the Rockies like a freight train.  The airport was socked in with
winds gusting up to 55 miles per hour and zero visibility.

Mulder felt like he was going to collapse as he stood with a dozen
or so other would be passengers around the ticket booth.

"I'm awfully sorry," the service representative for the airlines was
saying.  "We'd put you up in local motels, if we could.  As it is,
they aren't even letting the shuttle buses on the highway.  We'll try
to accommodate everyone here in the terminal with pillows and
blankets, but that's the best we can do in this storm."

Mulder glanced at his watch and realized Jerry would have to be
notified.  He stormed over to the cluster of pay phones, waited an
indeterminate eternity to get to the head of the line.

Jerry had already called the airport and been informed of the storm
delaying departures.  He told Mulder he'd keep calling with the
flight number and would be there to get him in the morning.

Mulder hung up the phone and the suppressant stopped working at
almost the exact same moment.  He was hit with a coughing fit that
threatened to knock him to his knees.  The bent over, coughing
harder and harder, certain he'd pass out, but he didn't.  When he
finally was able to straighten up, several people were giving him
worried looks.  He ignored them all.

It felt like all air left his lungs.  Mulder swayed, but made it over to
a bank of lounge chairs and sank down into them.  The fever was
back, and with it the chills.  He huddled in his coat and shook.  The
same services rep who'd given them the bad news came over
eventually with a pillow and a blanket.  After giving Mulder a good
look, he handed the agent two blankets and then moved on to the
next person.

Sitting up was uncomfortable, so he tried to stretch out on the
floor.  That was an immediate mistake, as he found that lying flat on
his back or even on his side made it impossible to breathe.  He
pulled himself back up into the chair he'd just vacated.

"Sir, are you all right?" asked a young woman who was also trying
to settle in for the night in the chairs just across from him.

Mulder was really getting tired of everyone taking such interest in
his health.  "I'm fine," he growled, then saw the hurt expression on
her face and felt like a heel on top of his other woes.  "I've got this
cold," he told her apologetically.

Her face brightened immediately.  "Oh, I have some medicine for
that," she said happily, getting up to dig around in her carry on bag. 
She handed him a triangularly shaped bottle.  "This stuff will knock
you out," she confided, then glanced around them at the general
chaos they were in.  "But that might be a good thing, considering
where we get to spend the night," she added with a wink.

He looked a little concerned.  He wasn't used to taking medicine
from strangers.  But a couple of words on the label caught his eyes. 
The stuff claimed to help with aches, pains, coughs, and . . . yes,
thank the heavens, fevers!  He resisted the urge to snatch the bottle
from her hands.

"Uh, thanks, I appreciate it."  He looked quizzically at the little
plastic cup that fit on the lid and squinted at the markings on the
side.  

"You're pretty tall.  I'd just take two of those capfuls, if I were
you," his new friend answered his unasked question.

He grinned over at her and poured himself one capful, then tossed it
back.  The stuff was awful!  It tasted worse than any medicine he
could remember and burned all the way down.  He looked over to
find his new friend stifling a giggle.  "Go on, you don't want to
wake up in an hour feeling worse, do you?" she encouraged.

"No, I don't," he agreed and slammed back a second capful.  That
one wasn't so bad, the first having blazed the trail down to his
stomach already.  After swallowing, he suddenly got worried. 
"That stuff isn't a narcotic, is it?" he asked nervously.  The last
thing he needed to was to show up in front of Patterson, stoned out
of his head.

She smiled and shook her head.  "Nah, it's over the counter.  But it
works.  You'll sleep like the dead," she assured him.

"Sounds good to me," he told her.  In minutes, he was feeling very
drowsy.  In less than half an hour's time, he was sound asleep,
sitting up in the chair.

St. Louis Lambert Airport
February 2, 1991
10:15 am

The flight attendant woke him up the next morning and was nice
enough to make sure he made it to his next gate.  The four hour
flight to Oregon was almost enough to render him unconscious.  A
fit of coughing hit just as they were making their descent, so he was
saved the embarrassment of becoming the Rip Van Winkle of
United Airlines.

Jerry was standing at the gate, looking slightly annoyed.  "Did you
forget something?" he asked sarcastically as he handed Mulder the
prescription bottle of antibiotics.  "You _said_ it was a 'cold'," 
Jerry's tirade of righteous indignation was cut off when he got a
good look at his friend.  "Shit, Mulder, you look like death warmed
over!"

"I think I have to agree with that assessment," Mulder said,
punctuating each word with a few well placed coughs.  "Jer, just
get me to the motel, please," he begged.  

Jerry half carried his friend to the car and loaded him in the
passenger seat.  "Mulder, are you sure I shouldn't take you to the
hospital.  You're lookin' bad, big guy."

"I forgot my medicine, Jer.  I'll take one now, and get some sleep, I
should be fine later, I swear.  Just take me to the motel."  Mulder
could tell Jerry was deciding how much resistance he had in him. 
"Please, Jerry.  Don't do this to me.  Just take me to the motel and
let me sleep."

Jerry didn't say a word, just started the car and pulled out of the
parking garage.  He kept glancing over at his friend, eyes narrowed,
regarding him coolly.  Finally he broke the silence.  "You start
taking the medicine," he said firmly.  It was an order, not a request.

"Absolutely.  I feel like shit," Mulder admitted.

"And you go to sleep, as soon as we get some food in you," Jerry
continued, ignoring Mulder's agreement for the moment.

"Sounds like a great plan.  How about Chinese?  But can we eat in
the room?" Mulder asked, trying to be conciliatory.

Jerry wasn't ready for a reconciliation.  He continued on with his
tirade, ignoring the flushed man beside him.  "And if I get my ass
reamed out because Patterson finds out you're worse, I'm hanging
you out to dry.  I'll tell him you left the medicine behind on
purpose, I tried to stop you but you wouldn't listen," LaMana
finished, glaringly daring his friend to object.

"I'll build my own gallows," Mulder said with a half-baked grin.

Jerry turned his attention back to the road.  "OK, no hospital for
now.  But if you wake me up moanin' and coughin' up stuff and
shit, you're ass is in the nearest one I can find and I'll stick you
with the needles _myself_!"

"I always pegged you for a sadist, Jer, I just never had proof,"
Mulder grinned evilly for a second, but soon dropped his head back
on the headrest and dozed until they got back to the motel.

They decided to 'dine' in Mulder's room.  The Mu Shu Pork was
a little hard to swallow, but the wonton soup went down fine. 
Mulder ate his container and begged some of Jerry's, remembering
the Snicker's bar that had served as dinner the night before.  

After lunch, Jerry imposed his orders.  He promised Mulder he'd
wake him up before dinner and they could discuss the case then. 
Mulder wanted to put up a fight, but really didn't have the strength. 
He took one of the antibiotics under Jerry's hawk-like stare, and
then Jerry left for the police station and Mulder crawled into bed.

Mulder didn't remember his head hitting the pillow, but he
remembered LaMana shaking the life out of him much later. 
"Mulder, damn it all, wake up!"

"M 'wake," he mumbled and tried to focus on the alarm clock next
to the bed.  It read 10:35 pm.  "That can't be the time," he said
emphatically, shaking his head in denial.

"It is if you're in Portland," Jerry said dryly.  "You were out of it,
Mulder.  I thought I was gonna have to do CPR."

Mulder shot him a glare.  "Don't even go there," he warned.  He
sat up stiffly on the bed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

Jerry grinned and handed Mulder a styrofoam bowl, it's contents
steaming.  "Chicken noodle soup.  The coffee shop across the street
from the station makes it.  Pretty good, too, I had some for lunch."

Mulder sniffed at it.  The heady aroma of chicken broth and just a
touch of garlic on the steam instantly opened up all the clogged
sinuses in his head, and even seemed to be melting the cement block
in his chest.  "Thanks, Jer.  I owe you one," Mulder sighed
contentedly and grabbed the offered bowl and spoon.

"I'll put it on your tab," Jerry shot back, then sat at the desk and
watched his friend wolf down the soup.

Satisfied that his friend was not going to starve or dehydrate,
LaMana turned his focus to the reports sitting in his briefcase.  "We
got some more info on that Crown woman.  She was his 'assistant',
you know, helped him in the show," Jerry said, passing a set of
faxed papers to Mulder.  "She was appearing as a headliner until a
couple of  months ago.  Her own hypnotist act."

Mulder looked up from the paper, lowered his face to look over the
rim of his glasses.  "Did you say hypnotist?" he asked.

Jerry gave him a shrug. "Yeah.  Why?"

"Oh, nothing," Mulder said, making a mental note.  "So where is
she now?"

"Good question.  She took a powder.  Her landlady hasn't seen her
in almost two months."

"The time span of the murders," Mulder muttered.

"She left all her stuff, but she took out a post office box.  Her
mail's been picked up, regular as clockwork," Jerry continued.

"Where?  In what city?" Mulder asked excitedly.

"Denver," Jerry replied.  "You think it's her?" he asked,
incredulous.  "Mulder, I have her description here.  She's 5 foot
nothing, weighs 90 pounds!  These were big guys she brought
down."

"Where is Bill?" Mulder demanded, grabbing the report and
heading for the door.

"Room 315, down the hall," Jerry said, trailing his partner.  "He
was beat, he was up all last night goin' over stuff with the locals."

Bill Patterson wasn't asleep, but he wasn't exactly expecting two of
his agents.  After some quiet pounding on the door, he let them in,
tieing his robe around him.  "Mulder, I heard you were asleep," he
said, staring holes in LaMana.

Mulder turned to stare at Jerry, too.  "I told him you didn't get
much sleep last night, at the airport," Jerry explained.

"Oh, yeah, thanks," he said, struggling to find the logic there.  He
turned his attention to Bill.  "I just woke up," Mulder explained. 
"We need to put out an APB on this woman."  He handed
Patterson the report on Gail Crown.

"Give me a reason," Bill said, putting on his glasses and reading the
report.

"She knew Steve Paige.  She has been to every one of the motels
that we've located matchbooks for so far and I believe she has a
motive," Mulder said, sitting down on the edge of the bureau.

"A motive?" Bill looked up from his reading.

"Yes.  I think she killed Steve Paige and now she's going back and
killing men she knew back then.  They might have been men she
met, men she had brief affairs with."

"Are you saying that a, what, a 5 foot tall woman lured these men
to remote locations and killed them without them putting up any
resistance?" Bill sputtered.

"Yes," Mulder said, only now beginning to see the leap this
conclusion required.

Patterson ran a hand over his thinning hair.  "Mulder, look.  We
haven't established that Stephen Paige is in anyway connected to
this case.  This is beyond even your usual 'spookyness', don't you
think?"

"Bill, there is a link.  And Abigail Crown disappeared at about the
same time as the murders began.  I bet if we looked hard enough
we could backtrack and find her trail during those months, we'd
find that she was in the same city as each of the murders, during the
time the murders occurred."  Mulder said, his voice trailing off into
coughs.

Patterson shot a glare to LaMana, who quickly held up his hands. 
"He's taking medicine for it, Bill."

"I think the medicine is affecting his mind," Bill snorted derisively. 
Then he turned his level gaze on Mulder.  "Are you willing to stake
your career on this?  Because if we spend time and resources
tracking this woman and it turns up a bust . . ."

"I'm flipping burgers at McDonalds, yeah, Bill, I know," Mulder
said seriously.

"And I'll be your crew chief," Bill said sarcastically.  "OK, I'll get
someone on this immediately."  He glanced at the clock.  It was
almost midnight in Oregon, DC was four hours ahead.  "Somebody
on grave yard is gonna love you, Mulder," he smirked again. 
"Now, you two go back to your rooms.  We won't hear anything
for a several hours.  Might as well make the most of it.  Get some
more sleep."

"I'm not arguing, Bill," Mulder vowed and he and Jerry left the
room.

He shouldn't have been tired, he'd just slept all day.  But by the
time he laid his head down on the pillow, Mulder was
already beginning his journey into dreamland.  Jerry frowned, then
returned to his own room next door.  Jerry wasn't used to a Mulder
who actually fell asleep before he did.  And he didn't like the
sounds his friend had been making all evening, either.  There were
sticky sounding rattles coming from Mulder's chest when he
coughed and a telltale wheeze every time he took a breath.  But his
friend did look a little better since he'd eaten the soup, and he
seemed to be all right at the moment.  

Too late, Jerry remembered the medicine bottle in his pocket.  He'd
made sure Mulder had taken the pill when he'd gotten to the room
from the airport, but that had been around noon.  Jerry read the
label.  Mulder was supposed to be taking the pills four times a day. 
By Jerry's count, that put him way behind schedule.  Jerry thought
about waking Mulder up to make him take it.  Mulder had looked
dead to the world as he said goodnight.  And that was a very
unnatural state for Mulder.  Jerry decided to let 'sleeping dogs lie'
for the night, and just make certain Mulder didn't miss the morning
dose.  He watched his friend from the doorway, then closed the
door and went on to his room next door to get some much needed
sleep.

February 3, 1991
7:00 am

There was just a trace of faint, winter sunlight creeping around the
dark curtains when Jerry thought he heard water running.  Sure
enough, when Jerry went into his bathroom he could hear water
running next door, Mulder was in the shower.  Jerry went back out
to the bedroom and stared at the clock--it was 7:03.  He showered,
dressed and went next door.

Jerry knocked loudly on the door.  A moment later, Mulder opened
the door, still toweling off his hair.

"I forgot to leave a wake up call," Jerry said.

"I woke up on my own.  I was going to wake you in a bit.  You
looked beat last night," Mulder offered.

Jerry shrugged, then remembered the pills.  He reached in his
pocket for the bottle, shaking out a pill as he came back over to
where Mulder was standing in his boxers digging through his
suit bag.  "Here, take this.  You forgot last night," Jerry said, trying
not to sound like he was making an accusation.

"Oh, yeah, I did.  But I don't want to take it on an empty stomach. 
I'll just toss it up if I do that," Mulder said, not bothering to take
the medicine out of his friend's hand.

Jerry looked around the room until he spied the sacks from the take
out lunch the day before.  He smiled triumphantly as he retrieved a
package of two almond cookies.  "Here, I'll get you water to wash
it all down," he grinned from ear to ear.

"No wonder you don't get any dates, LaMana, if this is your idea of
'Breakfast' in the morning," Mulder grumbled, but took the cookies
and pill, consuming them all and drinking a full glass of water. 
"Happy?"

"No, but at least Patterson can't accuse me of not trying," Jerry
said.  "I forgot my briefcase, I'll be right back." 

Once Jerry was out of the room, Mulder collapsed on the bed.  He
was exhausted and keeping up a good front for LaMana took more
out of him than he'd expected.  He dreaded keeping up the facade
for Patterson, who wasn't as easy to divert.

He'd come awake around 5:30am with a wicked bout of coughing
that left him weak.  His lungs burned with each breath of air. 
Somewhere in the foggy recesses of his mind, he remembered the
doctor telling him that hot showers would open up his air passages,
so he'd crawled into the bathroom and turned the water on full hot. 
He'd sat there for almost an hour before he felt he had the strength
to stand under the spray and clean off.  But he knew that if he
didn't face the world standing, Bill would use his considerable force
to put him on a plane back to DC.

There was something about this case that clawed at his mind.  He
knew he was on the right track, he just didn't know if he was on the
right train.  Steve Paige was the key, of that he was certain.  There
was too much evidence pointing his way.  If Mulder let his
imagination run wild, he could almost envision a scenario where
Steve Paige had come back from the dead to avenge himself of his
girlfriend's transgressions.  A pretty neat trick, if it was remotely
possible.  

But the disappearance of the girlfriend had left him no alternative
than to believe that she was the murderer.  He wasn't comfortable
with that.  She was a tiny woman, by the picture he'd seen in the
file.  The MEs had all agreed that it took considerable strength to
kill these men.  He didn't think she was capable of that--but there
weren't a lot of other answers.  The important thing was to find her
and question her.  It was also possible that she was on the run, that
she knew whoever was committing the murders and didn't want
them to find her.

Mulder got up from the bed and the room spun around him.  Big
mistake, he chided himself.  Got up too fast.  He sat back down,
then decided that maybe laying down would be the better option. 
In the bathroom, he could just make out Jerry singing off key in the
shower.  Sounded like the Police.  Maybe Genesis.  With Jerry's
voice, it was hard to tell.  Mulder closed his eyes for just a second
and fell fast asleep.

His feet were running.  His legs, thighs, hips, spine, all reacted
to the pounding of the pavement, the pumping of muscles, the
throbbing of blood through his veins.  It felt wonderful.  He'd hit
the high, his favorite part of any run, when the aches in his calves
and back faded into a dim memory and his vision went slightly
unfocused.  When he could look down and see the pavement
speeding past him and wonder at the marvelous machinery of his
body that could work in such perfect rhythm.  

Air was whistling through his nose, puffing out his mouth.  He
could feel it as it invaded his chest, cold at first, then warmed by his
body he would expel it out into the atmosphere, sucking in more air
to continue the cycle.  It was a wondrous rush, each breath, and
the endorphins were singing in his veins.  He felt if he just spread
his arms a little out to the sides, he could fly.

When Jerry peeked in to look at his friend, Mulder was soundly
asleep, arms spread out at his sides, a faint smile on his face.  Jerry
smiled in return, closed the door and went on to the station.

end of part three
Vickie

Come visit my web page, brought to you by the fabulous Shirley Smiley!

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/5821/index.html

Now featuring 'Out of the Cold':

"Bill Patterson stood in the door way, looking to Mulder just like
one of God's avenging angels.  His thinning hair and dark rimmed
glasses lead to the confusing image that this man was a scholar, a
teacher.  Mulder alone knew the truth.  This man was the Marquis
de Sade, with a badge and gun."

Out of the Cold, part one, by Vickie Moseley



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