This author's email address has changed to: [email protected]

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Subject:Tempest (1/15) by Missy Pennington
From: [email protected] (JosieChung)
Date: 21 Oct 1997 05:49:00 GMT

Tempest
by Missy Pennington ([email protected])

Classification:  X/S/MSR

Rated:  Strong R for adult language and situations

Summary:  Mulder and Scully survive a plane crash to find
themselves injured and stranded in the Appalachian wilderness.

Disclaimer: All characters which have been seen or mentioned on
the X-FILES belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions, and the
FOX network, and are used without permission.  All other characters
are my own imaginings.  I mean no infringement.

This story has been a work in progress for almost a year, and it would
never have gotten finished without the unfailing support and
discerning eyes of some wonderful friends and editors.  My most
heartfelt thanks are extended to Paula Graves, Jenn Francis,
JulietttXF, Paul Leone, Deb Bennett, Alanna Baker, Shari Long, Chris
McNickel, and Andrea Rouleau.

Special thanks to L.C. Brown for loaning me the concept of the
"Your Fault" game, which she used so charmingly in the story
"Blizzard."
 

TEMPEST

Character is nurtured midst the tempests of the world.
 -- Goethe
 

 Hartsfield-Atlanta International Airport
 Monday, April 30
 11:17 A.M.
 

Dana Scully mindlessly twisted her wrists back and forth inside
the steel handcuffs that bound her, wincing as the unforgiving
metal made yet another scraping pass on her already sensitive
skin.  She hadn't expected it to take so long.  A private plane,
a quick takeoff -- that was what they had promised.  That was
what she had counted on.  It wasn't their fault, she knew.
Nobody could have foreseen the fog that had rolled in before
dawn.  No one could have predicted the two-hour runway delay.
But it hadn't been two hours for Scully -- it had been a
lifetime.

She hated being afraid.  Hated it with a passion.  The anxiety of
knowing that everything -- even her own safety -- was too far out of
her own hands.  It made her feel small and vulnerable --
characteristics she'd profaned even as a child.  She had always
preferred to be in control, always chose to take the initiative.
Passivity, her father had told her, only bred dependence and fear, and
like him, she had no use for either.  But she wasn't in control, not
this time.  She had given up that right, agreed to let them call the
shots.  She had willingly made herself a victim.  And God help her,
she was afraid.

Don't think about it, Dana.  Don't think about it....

She settled into the soft seat with a nonchalance she didn't
feel, and picked up a magazine from the pocket in front of her.
The pages blurred together as she turned them mindlessly.  She
couldn't concentrate on anything except the cold steel of the
handcuffs that bit into her wrists.

It's all out of your hands, Dana.  It's not in your control....

She gave up -- slapped the magazine closed and tossed it into the
empty seat beside her.  This is ridiculous, she chided herself. You
might as well get over it, Dana.  You've gone too far to stop it now
anyway.  It'll be okay.  It'll have to be okay...

She craned her neck toward the cockpit of the plane, catching a
glimpse of Special Agent Fox Mulder's head over the seat back in
front of her.  Her partner was still engrossed in conversation
with the captain.  He hadn't said a word to her in over an hour,
and that in itself was telling -- testimony to how seriously he
was taking this case.  They rarely passed time in close quarters
without some semblance of small talk, some feeble attempt, at
least, to distract each other from the nightmare of field work
and public transportation.

Desperate for that distraction now, Scully considered calling him back
into the cabin.  Conversation would be a welcome relief for them both,
she knew, but something in his stance kept her from asking.  He was
tense.  Alert.  Standing guard.  He was playing his part as watchdog;
and since he was playing it on her behalf, she kept her silence.

She sighed and continued to fidget in the wide leather seat,
unable to get comfortable.  A trickle of sweat ran down the back
of her neck.  God, she was hot.  The air vents had been off for
as long as they'd been idling on the runway, nearly two hours
now.  The stillness of the air in the confined space was growing
more uncomfortable by the minute, but it was pointless to
complain -- she couldn't take her jacket off over the handcuffs,
and no one was around to commiserate.

You're helpless, Dana.  Completely dependent.

She dropped her head heavily against the seat back, causing an
errant strand of blond hair to fall across her eyes.  Without
thinking, she raised her right hand to tuck it back into
position, wincing as the left hand followed it up automatically
within the confines of the handcuffs.

The absurdity of the situation hit her all at once.  Blond.
Handcuffed.  In a confined space.  It sounded like half of
Mulder's apocryphal video library.  She felt a laugh
bubbling in the back of her throat and momentarily considered
giving into the release of nervous tension.  But the sound of a
shot from outside the plane sobered her instantly.

She was completely unarmed.  Heart pounding, she bent forward,
covering her head instinctively.  Hunched over in the small seat, she
listened intently for any sign of approach from outside the plane.
She heard nothing but silence.

In a matter of seconds, Mulder was in the cabin.  "Luggage
transport backfired," he told her as he knelt down in the aisle
beside her.  "We're okay, Scully."

She sat up, heart pounding wildly.  For a moment, she couldn't
find her voice to answer him.

"Scully?"  He placed his hand on top of hers, shaking her gently.

"It's okay."  It's not okay.  I hate this.  I don't want to do
this, Mulder.  I want my gun back.  The words spun endlessly in
her mind, but remained unspoken.

Finally, she gave him a feeble smile.  "I'm fine, Mulder."

Of course he didn't believe her.  But his gaze held hers long
enough to search for the truth in her eyes, giving her the
benefit of the doubt.  Finally he nodded and rose, unconvinced,
she knew, but obviously  willing to concede.  When he returned to the
cockpit, leaving her isolated in the cabin once more, she felt utterly
alone in the world.

But she wasn't alone, and that was the problem.  Somewhere
outside that plane, they were looking for her.

Watching.

Waiting.

Making plans.

Scully looked at the handcuffs on her wrists and willed the plane to
start moving.  She hated being afraid.

 *  *  *  *  *  *  *

She hadn't been fine, and he knew it.  Hadn't been even remotely
convincing telling him she was.  And still he had walked away
without a backwards glance, bowing to her spoken words rather
than argue about the unspoken ones.  The end result would have
been the same, even if he had chosen to push it.  After four
years of practice, Scully was too good at the argument.

"I'm fine, Mulder."   The words echoed through him.  She'd
uttered the phrase so often, he had no doubt that she believed
it, but to him the words were hollow.  Just one more in a long
line of automated responses that had become habit.  She wasn't
fine -- she was terrified, and that was why he'd given in so
easily.  The uncharacteristic fear in Scully's wide blue eyes had been
just the wellspring of strength that he needed to rise and head back
to the cockpit to resume his watch.  He couldn't protect her in the
cabin.

He could have distracted her, taken her mind off the fact that
half the world seemed to have a gun pointed at her small blond
head, but distraction was a luxury they couldn't afford.  Every
second they sat on the ground, the noose tightened just a bit.
Anonymity wouldn't cover them for long; they hadn't taken
precautions against this type of delay.  One observant bystander
was all it would take.  One observant bystander in one of the
busiest airports in the country.

The clock was running.  He knew it and Scully knew it.  And so
she lied -- and told him she was fine.  And he lied back -- and
acted as though he believed her.

The irony of it all was not lost on Fox Mulder.  As he walked
away, leaving his partner alone and handcuffed in the cabin, he
couldn't help but wonder how a man who spent his days in pursuit
of the truth had gotten so damn good at blinding himself to it
when he had to.

He stopped at the door of the cockpit, looking through the window over
the shoulder of Captain Daniel Davis.  The young pilot looked up at
Mulder as he returned.

"Agent Scully okay?"

"She's fine," he lied.  There was nothing Davis could do about
it.

"Good.  We should be cleared any minute now."

Mulder watched as one plane after another made it's way into the
clouds.  He nodded in silent agreement.  It had to be their turn
soon.

"Cessna Citation NS84, you are cleared for takeoff."

Mulder jumped at the announcement, feeling a strange mixture of
relief and anxiety.  Out with the old trauma, in with the new, he
thought.  But nothing was worse than the waiting game.  Once they were
airborne, they could begin to answer some questions.  They could lay
out a game plan.  They could do something to make themselves feel more
in control.

Davis gave Mulder a brief nod, reaching across the agent for the
handset.  "That's us, Agent Mulder.  Go strap yourself in, and
let's get this thing in the air."

Mulder began to back out of the cockpit, then hesitated.  "Where
are we going, Davis?"

The young pilot flushed.  "You know I can't tell you that, Sir.
Not until we've leveled off."  He looked away, obviously
uncomfortable at having to deny the more experienced special
agent.

"Bureaucratic bullshit," Mulder said with a small, tight smile.
"I know it well."

"Yes sir."  Davis grinned an apology.

Mulder was struck once again by the DEA agent's youthful
appearance.  God help us, he thought.  We've put our lives in the
hands of McCauly Culkin.  He eased out of the cockpit, leaving the
young pilot to maneuver the small jet out of Atlanta and toward more
unanswered questions.

 *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Scully was already prepared for takeoff when he returned to the
plush interior of the cabin.  Her trademark professionalism was
back in place.  She seemed perfectly calm.

She looked up at him as he made his way toward her.  "We're
going?"

"Yeah.  Any minute now."

He sat down in the seat across the aisle from her, still unable
after 6 hours to keep from smiling at the sight of Special Agent
Dana Scully as a bleached blond.  The makeup didn't help.  Her
large blue eyes, usually so professionally colored with subtle,
natural shades were now rimmed with heavy black eyeliner.  Her
bowed lips were sticky with lipgloss.

She glared at him, obviously irritated by his amusement.  "One
word and you're a dead man, Mulder."

He held up his hands in protest.  "I didn't say a thing."  Though God
knows I deserve a medal for restraint, he added mentally.

"Yes you did," she grumbled.

Mulder chuckled, and fastened his seatbelt, listening to the
increasing drone of the engines as the plane rolled slowly out
toward the runway.  He tried several times to maneuver his long
legs into a more comfortable position, but there wasn't one to be
found, and he gave up finally with a grunt of frustration.  Small
private planes, he decided, were obviously not made for tall people.

He felt, rather than saw, Scully's gaze upon him and looked over
at his petite partner, who seemed to be swimming in leg room.

"Comfy?" she asked innocently.

"Hardly."

"Well then we're even." She held out her hands to him.  "Come on,
Mulder, I'm tired of being 'in custody.'  Get me out of these things."

He shook his head ruefully, acknowledging her plight.  "Can't
risk it.  Not until we're in the air.  You know the drill."

She huffed a strand of blond hair out of her eyes and glared at
him.  "You don't have to sound so happy about it."

His answering grin only seemed to darken her mood.

As if on cue, the plane began to make its way down the runway,
launching itself into the air with amazingly quiet grace.  Within a
matter of seconds it seemed, they were well within the clouds.

Wondering at the silence that had fallen between them since
takeoff, Mulder ventured a sideways look across the aisle.
Scully's eyes were closed, hands clenched together in agitation. It
was obvious she would have been gripping the armrests if the handcuffs
weren't preventing it.  Scully hated to fly, and between the takeoff
and the handcuffs, she had somehow managed to adapt a look that could
only be described at totally disgruntled fear.

Still, Mulder knew it wasn't the flight that was foremost on his
partner's mind.  She had that all-business, let's-examine-this-
from-every-angle look on her face.  She was thinking about
Escabedo.  About the safehouse.  About what would happened next.

What will happen next, he wondered?  God, do I even want to know?

Dreading the conversation they would soon have to start, he
sighed heavily, the sound catching Scully's attention.

"Did Davis tell you where we're going?"  The plane began to
slowly level out and she raised her hands to him again, her eyes
hopeful.

Okay, enough torture, Mulder thought, as he unfastened his
seatbelt and rose, digging for the key to the handcuffs in his
jacket pocket.  "No.  He won't tell us until we're leveled off.
I'll head up there in a minute."  He crouched down in the aisle
and took her hands, manipulating the metal cuffs so he could find the
lock.

When she winced, he stopped instantly.

"Scully?"  He looked down, seeing for the first time the raw skin
underneath the metal brackets.  His own casual words came rushing back
at him.  *Not until we're in the air.  You know the drill.*

Mulder, you're an asshole.  You didn't even look....

"It's nothing, Mulder."

Another Scully favorite, he thought.  He didn't allow himself to
be appeased this time.  "You should have said something, Scully. I
could have loosened them, at least"

"It's really not that bad, Mulder.  Just some chaffing.
Handcuffs have a tendency to do that, you know."  She favored him with
a mischievous smile.  "What do you usually do for that?"

He choked at the unexpected question, causing her to laugh out
loud.  He was thoroughly charmed by the moment.  Scully didn't
laugh enough.

Okay, Scully, he thought.  You want to play?  Never let it be
said that Fox Mulder passed up an obvious challenge.  He leaned
in as he inserted the key in the lock, purposefully invading her
personal space.  "So tell me," he began, affecting his best
'what's-your-sign' tone of voice.  "Is it true what they say?  Do
blondes have more fun?"

The handcuffs slipped away and he pocketed them, as Scully rubbed her
wrists gingerly.  She ran slender fingers through her hair, and
hastily removed the brassy blond wig to reveal the soft copper tresses
beneath.  "You're welcome to find out," she replied, unceremoniously
tossing the lifeless hairpiece at him.

He caught it easily.  "Well it's really not my style," he told
her, twisting to drop it into the empty seat behind him.  "But I
must say I'm surprised."

She raised an eyebrow.  "Why?"

He clucked his tongue in exaggerated disapproval.  "Dr. Dana
Scully giving up the chance to irrefutably prove a scientific
theory of this magnitude?"  He turned at started back toward the
cockpit.  "What's the world coming to?"

Her voice followed him up the aisle.  "Mulder, if blond hair or
handcuffs are supposed to be fun, I'm obviously doing both of
them wrong."

So we'll practice--

The words were almost out of his mouth before he caught himself. That
kind of comment wouldn't take them anywhere they needed to go right
now.  They had enough to think about.
 

 *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mulder entered the cockpit to find Davis grinning at him.

"Eighty seven seconds, Agent Mulder.  What took you so long?"

Mulder chuckled.. "I got delayed by the weather."   He sat down
in the empty co-pilot's seat, taking in the array of gauges and
meters in front of him.  His eyes fell upon the compass reading. "So
we're heading north.  How far north?"

The pilot's hands moved over the controls, casually flipping
switches as he navigated the plane through the cloud coverage.
He handed Mulder the flight plan.  "Ever been to New Jersey?  I
hear it's lovely this time of year."

Mulder glanced at the paper and affected a horror-stricken look.
"We're going to Tuckerton, New Jersey?  Hell, Davis, what'd we ever do
to you?"

The young agent laughed.  "I don't pick 'em, Agent Mulder -- I'm
just the delivery man."  His smile faded as he looked earnestly
at the FBI agent beside him.  "The team waiting for you in Jersey is
top notch.  Agent Scully couldn't be in better hands--"  He broke off
abruptly.  "Did you hear that?"  His head tilted slightly as he
listened intently, concentrating on the hum of the engines.

"I don't hear anythi--"  Mulder started.

Davis help up a cautionary hand, silencing him.

Mulder looked at him anxiously.  God, that was all they needed --
mechanical problems.

After a tense moment, Davis waved it off.  "Shit, now you've got
*me* paranoid."

Mulder looked at him, warily.  "You sure?"

Davis nodded.  "Yeah.  Everything's fine.   No problem."

Mulder rose from the seat and reached for the door handle.
"That's what you think."  He opened the door, then leaned back in
toward Davis, his voice low and threatening.  "Wait until I tell
Scully you're taking us to New Jersey."

 *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Scully looked at the array of paperwork spread out before her and
wondered, not for the first time, why she was even involved in this
case.  It was a DEA case all the way; she and Mulder were completely
out of their element.  But the photograph in her hand had sparked more
than mild curiosity, and once she had seen it, there had been no way
to refuse.

She stared at the young woman in the picture.  Lindsey Carrol was
young and blond.  Superficial, but pretty.  Her small, heart-shaped
face was framed by a platinum, shoulder length bob, her large green
eyes rimmed with too much dark makeup.  But somehow, rather than
giving her a hard, streetwise look, it only seem to emphasize her
youthful features.  If anything, it made her look younger than her
twenty-seven years, like a young girl playing dress up.  Certainly not
like a woman about to turn state's evidence against her Columbian
drug-lord boyfriend.

It was only in the depth of those eyes, that her past was
evident.  A glint of cynicism, a silent edge that spoke volumes
about he living she'd done, the things she'd seen.  It wasn't
evident to the casual observer; Lindsey Carrol would never stand
out in a crowd.  In fact, the overall picture she presented was
more girl next door than lifetime criminal.  But it wasn't the
ivory soap image of the young woman that caused Scully's
head to swim with questions.  It was the fact that beneath the
makeup, softly framed by highlighted strands of blond hair, was
the face of Dana Scully.

End of Part 1
 
 

Subject: Tempest (2/15) by Missy Pennington

*  *  *  *  *  *  *
 

"You okay?" Mulder's voice broke Scully's concentration, and she
jumped.

"Sorry.  I didn't mean to startle you."

"No, it's okay.  I'm jumpy today."

"Well, that's understandable."  He reached down and took the
picture from her hand, shaking his head in wonder as he
scrutinized the unsettling familiarity of the stranger in the
photograph.  "It's still fascinating, isn't it?"

She nodded.

He handed the picture back to her.  "Does it bother you?"

She took the photograph, contemplating the question for a moment.
"Honestly, Mulder?  I don't know.  I think..." her voice trailed of as
she searched for the right words.  Did it bother her, this stranger
with her face?  It was hard to explain to someone who had never come
face-to-face with his own countenance.

Mulder didn't press the question, letting her find her way to the
words she needed.  Instead, he moved to his seat across from her and
sat down, reaching behind his back, as a puzzled frown creased his
forehead.  He shifted his weight and withdrew the blond wig from his
seat, dangling it on his index finger in front of her.  "I believe
this is yours."

She smiled and took it, stuffing it haphazardly into the carry-on bag
between her feet.  "It's not the resemblance that bothers me," she
told him at last, as she straightened to look at him. "Uncanny
resemblance is something you can write off to a quirk of nature."

He was quiet, waiting for her to continue.

"It's that....." she paused for a moment, thought some more.
"it's like looking into a mirror and seeing my life as
interpreted by someone else.  I mean, I look at this woman, and
she looks *just* like me, Mulder."  She pointed to the woman in
the photograph.  "That's my face right there -- this could *be*
me.  And knowing what I do about Lindsey Carrol's life, I have
this overwhelming sense of 'there but for the grace of God....'"

She laid the picture down on the folder and looked up at Mulder,
surprised by the utter solemnity on his face.

"Is that why you agreed to all this, Scully?" he asked.  "Out of
some unfounded sense of guilt?  Because I have to tell you, when
Agent Westbrook suggested this whole decoy thing, I was pretty
sure you wouldn't want any part of it. I mean this..."   He
gestured around them, indicating the plane.  ".... is not what we do.
It's not what we're about.  And yes, Lindsey Carrol looks amazingly
like you, but any number of female agents could have put on a wig and
gotten on this plane.  So why are we here?"

She lifted her chin ever so slightly, unwilling to let him know
she'd been stung by his words.  "WE didn't have to be here,
Mulder; I was the one they approached."  She opened the folder in her
lap and began rifling through the papers.  "It's only four days until
Lindsey's called to testify.  If I can divert attention away from her
until then and help put away one of the biggest drug czars to ever see
a trial in this country, why in the world wouldn't you think I'd be
willing to do that?"

He pressed on, completely disregarding her attempt at
indignation.  "Because there are four dead agents awaiting burial
right now in Atlanta.  And if Escabedo manages to find us in
Tuckerton, New Jersey -- the way he found the last three safehouses
they've had her in -- you and I could very well be numbers five and
six."  His voice softened.  "I just want to know why, Scully.  Why did
you agree to this?  We've never worked outside the FBI before, and
given that even with your uncanny resemblance, they've still got you
disguised in a wig and heavy makeup, there's no reason why somebody
else couldn't be doing this now.  Your involvement wasn't necessary."

Scully bit back the retort that sprang to mind and forced her
breathing to a slow, steady rate.  She didn't look at him; she
didn't trust herself to.  If she looked at him, she would want to hit
him.

Her involvement wasn't necessary?  Woo hoo.  Big fat surprise
there, she thought.  Wasn't that just everything in a nutshell?
She didn't want to tell him how close his casual remark was to
the truth.  For all his talk about it, Mulder wasn't one to
revere the truth when it didn't serve his purpose.  Mulder's
truths, Scully thought,  were elusive and idealistic.  He had no
use for the truths that cut to the quick -- the truths she
sometimes ached to slap down in front of him.  There were too
many of them to count, these undesirable truths.  And the one she
wanted to fling at him this moment was that she was sick and goddamned
tired of being made to feel her half of this partnership was
unnecessary.

Scully swallowed and took a deep breath, finally looking up at
Mulder's inquisitive expression.  He really, honestly didn't have a
clue how useless he made her feel sometimes.  She wanted out of this
conversation fast, before she said something she'd regret.

She placed the picture of Lindsey Carrol in the file and closed
it quietly, calmly.  Only when she was certain she had her anger
in check, did she lift her head to look at him.  "I don't know
why, Mulder," she lied.  "I just wanted to help."

He looked doubtful.

She pasted on a smile she hoped looked more genuine than it felt.
"Everyone talks about the war on drugs, but no one does anything about
it.  Well.... I'm doing my part.  I'm helping the real Lindsey Carrol
stay alive long enough to put her ex-boyfriend away for life."

Satisfied or not, Mulder finally gave up the inquisition, leaning back
against the seat with a sigh.  He rolled his head to the side to look
at her again.  "Well, I hope it's worth it in the end.  I'd hate to
think we went to New Jersey for nothing."

She smiled for real this time, relieved at the passing tension.
"New Jersey, huh?"

"Yep."

She grimaced for effect.  "Charming."

He chuckled and closed his eyes.  "Wake me when we get there."
 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

"Come on, do your business, I thought you had to go."

She sighed impatiently as the Pomeranian pranced back and forth
at the end of his leash, obviously in no hurry, nosing around,
sniffing each blade of grass, his canine senses honing in on a
scent only he could discern.  He suddenly bristled, the small
fox-like head snapped up, black eyes focused straight ahead.  His
shrill bark shattered the silence.

She shook her head.  "Queequeg, we're not gonna go into the
woods."

The barking persisted.

She was uneasy, suddenly aware of the fact that she was alone,
surrounded only by the smothering blackness of a moonless country
night.  A thousand stars glistened overhead, but their dancing light
was an illusion.  Only the tiny, worthless beam of a cheap flashlight
kept the darkness from being complete.  She looked toward the woods
and saw nothing.

She listened anxiously, hearing only silence.  Only solitude.
And yet...

Queequeg lunged.  The leash dropped from Scully's hand and
disappeared into the darkness as the small dog made for the
woods.

She ran after him, flashlight in hand, trying to keep the yellow
handle of the leash in her sight.

"Queequeg!  Where're you going?"

The dog ran at a frenzied pace, dragging the leash behind him.
He tore through the brush, and she stumbled behind him,
oblivious to the branches that pulled at her hair and clothes.

"Queequeg..."

Determined, she followed the yellow plastic handle deeper and
deeper into the woods until it came to an abrupt stop, caught by
the branches of a rotted log.  Out of breath, she bent down to
retrieve it, flipping a small lever to retract the excess line.

Then she heard it.  The pitiful cry of an animal in distress.
The yappy little bark she had been following with such irritation
ended abruptly in an agonized whimper that turned her stomach.

"Queequeg?" she whispered, looking desperately for the dog as the
leash continued to retract.

>From somewhere close by came the scream of a small animal in
pain, then nothing.  The only sound she heard was the pulley
leash, winding the rope that Queequeg had extended.

Heart pounding wildly, she scanned the darkness, seeing nothing
from the thin beam of her flashlight.  She began to hear the
faint jingle of Queequeg's dog tags as they traveled over the
rough terrain, but the sound didn't comfort her.  It sounded
wrong.  It was travelling too fast, too smoothly; there was no
resistance.

And then she saw why.

She felt herself start to sway, and she looked in shock and
horror as the pulley leash retracted the last bit of line.  The
tattered remains of Queequeg's collar dangled sickly from the end of
it, broken...and empty....

Scully woke with a start, the sound of her racing heart pounding
furiously in her ears.  She placed a hand over her chest
instinctively, feeling the surge of the quick beats underneath
her fingers.  She looked at her partner, hoping he hadn't seen
her startle from the dream, but his eyes were closed, his
breathing steady.

She was relieved.  She didn't want to talk about it -- not with
Mulder.  It was Mulder's fault she'd even had the dream.  She
only had it when she was upset.  No, that wasn't true -- she only had
it when she was angry at him.  It was her own little subconscious
blanket of guilt that she threw over him at will. Queequeg had just
been another one of her little life traumas that Mulder couldn't be
bothered to deal with.  Someday she was going to tell him as much.

Someday.

She got up and stretched, shaking her legs to loosen the knots
that had formed while she dozed.  She looked at her watch --
they'd only been in the air little over an hour.  Obviously the
stress was showing on all of them.  She glanced at Mulder's still form
across the aisle and the last remnants of her bad mood faded.  He
looked completely different when he slept, wistful and vulnerable.
She allowed herself to scrutinize his face, something she'd never been
able to do while he was awake, and was overcome suddenly by the
complexity of her feelings for this man.

One minute she wanted to throttle him, the next minute she was
overwhelmed by the need to protect him somehow, although she knew the
impulse was ridiculous.  He didn't need her protection.  He certainly
didn't want it.

Still, she thought, taking in the uncommon peacefulness on her
partner's face, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.  With all
the emotional baggage they had between them at this point, what
was one more guilty little secret?  She didn't need his
permission to feel the way she felt.  She might want to kill him
half the time he was awake, but if she wanted to protect him
while he slept, by God, then who was he or anyone else, for that
matter, to tell her she couldn't?  She brushed one stray lock of hair
off his forehead, and he sighed in his sleep, his contentment obvious.
 

Damn straight, she thought.

Smiling, she walked to the cockpit, knocking on the door even as
she pulled it open.

Daniel Davis beamed when he saw her.  "Agent Scully.  Come on
in."

She smiled at him.  He's so cute, she thought.  Why can't I just
find some nice guy like this and fall madly in love, she
wondered.

Because you don't want someone like this.

She pushed the thought away.  "How's it going up here?"  She sat
down in the empty copilot seat.

"We're pretty much on schedule, factoring in the weather delay.
I did have a little problem with some gauges, but I raised some
ATCs in Chattanooga, and they helped me out.  Our ETA is about
three hours, twenty minutes."

She nodded, looking around the cockpit at the various controls.
How did anyone ever know what it all meant?  She didn't like to
think about it.  She could only distract herself from one anxiety at a
time.

Davis wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, a gesture
that seemed to stem from anxiety more than heat.  "I have to tell you
Agent Scully, I'll be relieved to have this one over.  I didn't have a
good feeling about all that time we spent on the runway."

Scully nodded.  "The waiting game always--"

"Sucks?" he supplied.

She laughed.  "Yeah.  That."  She traced her fingers over a few
of the controls.  "So what kind of problem are we having with the
gauges?"

"No biggie, really."  He shook his head for emphasis.  "I think
we're safe.  If your cover had been blown, they would have gone
for something much more significant.  Subtlety isn't high on
Escabedo's list."

Catching her reflection in the cockpit window, Scully smiled.
"Judging from the amount of makeup on my face, I'd say it's not
too high on Lindsey Carrol's list either."

Davis laughed appreciatively.  "Obviously not."

The plane shuddered, and Scully scanned Davis' face to gage his
reaction.  He seemed perfectly calm.  "You might want to strap
in, Agent Scully.  We're about to hit some turbulence."

Wonderful, she thought.  I was feeling positively bereft without
it.  Wouldn't want to deprive ourselves of one of the best perks
of air travel, would we?

But she only smiled at the young pilot.  "Okay.  I have some more
reading to do, anyway."  She rose and reached for the door.  "Let us
know if we hit any more snags, okay?"

"Will do."  He gave her a casual salute.  "But I'm sure we're be
fine."

Scully nodded as she left the cabin.  "I hope so."

She closed the door behind her and was almost to her seat when
the plane began to shudder and jerk.  Robbed of her balance, she
stumbled to the left, almost recovering her equilibrium when her
foot struck the carry-on bag she had placed beside her seat.
Without a word, Dana Scully committed the single most ungraceful
act of her adult life, falling forward in a tangle of flailing
limbs, right into the arms of a sleeping Fox Mulder.

"Ooph."

She was absolutely mortified, feeling the heat of embarrassment
flood her cheeks instantly.  She was face down on top of him, her face
pressed up against his tie, one hand over his shoulder, the other
pinned between them.  Her entire weight rested heavily upon him;
neither of her feet were on the floor.  For a moment, she was afraid
she'd hurt him, then she felt the shaking of his body underneath her
and realized he was laughing.

Reluctantly, she lifted her face to him.  Her mouth opened and
closed several times without sound. "Sorry," she managed finally.

She pushed herself up using the back of his chair as leverage,
and began to disentangle herself from him.

He was still grinning as she climbed back into her own seat,
buckling her seatbelt as the plane continued to shimmy through
the turbulence.  "Smooth moves, Agent Scully."

"I'm so glad I amuse you," she told him dryly.

"Oh come on.  Where's your sense of humor?  You gotta admit, that was
funny."

She looked at him without smiling, but her eyes twinkled with
mischief.  "That's not exactly what a woman wants to hear when
she throws herself at a man, Mulder."

They looked at each other in silence, sizing up the moment,
recognizing the fork in the road.  Neither was sure which path to
travel.  It was Mulder who finally chose one.

"Hand me that file on Lindsey Carrol, would you, Scully?  I need
to look it over before we land."

She let her breath out, surprised to find she'd been holding it. She
pulled the folder from her bag and handed it across the aisle to him,
her heart catching just a bit when she realized he had put on his
glasses.

Mulder had no idea how much she relished the times he wore his
glasses.  The all-too-infrequent sight never failed to make her
heart beat just a little faster than usual.  He had been wearing
them the day they met.  She had reluctantly walked into that
small basement office to find herself facing a man who greeted
her with a mixture of thinly veiled hostility and obvious
distrust.  And even then, her only coherent thought for a good
two minutes had been, "God, he looks good in glasses."

Someday, Dana told herself.  Someday I'll tell him how much I
love those frames.

She slid deeper into the reverie.  Someday, she mused, there's no
telling *what* I might tell him.

She pulled her own glasses out of her bag and put them on,
joining her partner in the case-related reading.  Gradually, even
their silence fell into quiet natural rhythm, letting her know that,
even without words, they were working in tandem.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

12:50 P.M.

Scully startled into consciousness, surprised to find she had
been dozing.  She didn't know what had roused her, only that she
should have been working and wasn't.  She turned to look at
Mulder, expecting to find him grinning at her embarrassment.  He
wasn't grinning.  He was grim and tense.

"Mulder?"

If he answered, his reply was drowned out by a mechanical whine
from outside the window.  It ended abruptly, replaced by a
sputtering that could only be a sign of worse things to come.

Scully felt the blood drain from her face.  "Oh my God."

The sputtering stopped and the plane shuddered violently in
response.  She raised the shade closest to her and looked out.
There was nothing unusual in what she could see, but what she
could hear scared the hell out of her.

Silence.

The engine outside her window had completely shut down.

She stared at her partner, as the electronic whining from
Mulder's side of the plane started again.  Within a matter of
seconds, it too gave way to silence, and the plane began to fall.

Mulder was halfway to the cockpit when Davis' voice reached them
from the cockpit.

"Strap in and brace yourselves!  We're going down."

Mulder turned and wobbled back toward Scully yelling as he neared his
seat.  "What the hell is going on, Davis?  What happened?"

"I don't know!  I don't know!"  Davis' voice was thick with fear. "We
were fine and then we weren't.  It's like someone set off a goddamned
timer."

The plane's nose dropped sharply, and Mulder's face smacked the
seatback in front on him as he fumbled with his seatbelt.

"What the damage?" Mulder yelled.

Davis didn't buffer the news.  "The engines are gone - our
landing gear's not operational.  I'm gonna try to glide through
the peaks, but we're definitely going down.  I can't stop it."

Scully stared straight ahead at the cockpit door, as though she
were looking at Davis himself.  Her brain would not absorb the
words.  "Through the peaks?" she repeated softly.

As if he had heard her, Davis continued.  "We're directly over
the Appalachians.  I'm trying to raise the ranger station there
at the national park, but I haven't gotten anyone."

Mulder looked at Scully and back toward Davis.  "What can we do?" he
called to the pilot.

Davis' voice was grim.  "There's nothing any of us can do but
pray."
 

End of Part 2
 
 

Tempest, part 3
 

Scully tightened her seatbelt, adrenaline surging through her
body as the plane lost altitude with amazing speed.  She had the
grotesque sensation of free-falling sideways.  It was a feeling
of utter insignificance, as though the plane itself was no more
than a dead leaf, blown hurriedly across the sky.  Her shaking
fingers reached for the tiny gold cross dangling from her neck,
and she clutched it tightly, looking out the plane's window as
the mountainside spiraled closer and closer.

A million thoughts raced through her mind.  Mulder, Queequeg, her
apartment, her mother.  Oh, God.  Her mother.  She wouldn't be
able to stand it, not again.  Too much loss, too much pain.  A
husband, two daughters....

It wasn't fair, Scully thought frantically.  Why should such a
kind, loving woman have to live with so much grief?  Who would it
be, she wondered.  Who would be the one to tell her mother that
she had lost another child?

The mental image of her mother receiving the news hit Scully
hard.  She really was going to die -- she knew it with certainty.

Strangely, accepting the inevitability of it seemed to calm her.
The pounding heartbeat that had been resounding in her ears began
to fade, and a quiet peacefulness overtook her.  The world slowed
down to half time, and she realized, with a wondrous sense of
detachment, that she was probably as ready now as she would ever
be to die.  There was never a perfect time to go.

She spared a sideways look at Mulder, feeling vaguely reassured
by the sight of him close to her.  His hand crept across the
aisle toward hers, and upon finding her fingers he laced them
with his own. It was, in the face of death, the most intimate of
gestures; his way, perhaps, of telling her that whatever was
about to happen in this world or the next, they would face it
together.

She marvelled at his calm.  No matter what life threw at Mulder,
he always seemed to roll with the punches.  While she struggled
daily to make sense of the world around her, he went about the
business of living with all the guileless enthusiasm and wonder
of a child.  If he was sometimes too quick to believe, it only
complemented the fact that she was sometimes too slow to accept.
Complements, that's what they were, Scully realized, offering up
a short prayer of thanks for the time she'd had with him.

The plane began to shudder violently, and the evil silence of
their quick descent gave way to an even more ominous humming that
seemed to resonate from every seam and crack in the plane.  It
grew louder and more frenetic with each passing second as the
small craft struggled to hold itself together against the
tremendous force of gravity.

Scully looked at her hand, still linked with Mulder's.  Her
stomach dropped as the plane lost altitude, and she tightened her
hold on his hand.  God, she wanted to tell him...tell him what?
What was there to say?  The silence between them was more than
fear, she knew; it was a silence of futility.  Too much had gone
unsaid for too long.  They had both felt it at one time or
another and blinded themselves to it willingly.  It was so much
easier to ignore it than to deal with it, she mused.  But then
she met his gaze, saw in his eyes the same regret, and she was
lost.

"Mulder..." she started, her voice barely a whisper above the
noise of the plane.

The aircraft dipped violently to the right and then seemed to
nosedive.  Scully's eyes widened, her words stopped in panic of
the now impending crash.

Mulder shook his head as she tried again to get the words out.
"I know, Scully."  He squeezed her hand reassuringly.  "Me too."

He looked out his own window, then back at her, his eyes
unreadable.  Then he raised their clasped fingers to his lips and
brushed a kiss across the back of her hand before releasing it
slowly.

The plane dipped sharply again, and Scully had the absurd impulse
to run, as if she could somehow distance herself from the plane
before it crashed.  She looked at Mulder, trying one last time to
get the words out, but her mind had already closed down.  She
stared at him blankly as he bent forward in a crash position,
motioning for her to do the same.

He grinned at her sideways, a smile that didn't quite reach his
eyes. "We'll talk about it later."

His words were inaudible, but she understood.  She returned his
smile weakly, and glanced one last time out the window at the now
sickeningly close landscape.  It's only a matter of seconds, she
thought numbly, looking through detached eyes at the
fast-approaching mountain.  Already she could see the leaves on
the trees, the small rocks filling crevices where their plane
would soon be.  She removed her glasses and bent forward, eyes
clenched shut, arms folded protectively around her head.
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."

The impact came before she finished.  Scully heard the scream of
the plane as it tore itself open on the rocky landscape, and the
rush of dust and wind that filled the cabin told her that some
part of the plane's body had been ripped apart.  She made the
mistake of opening her eyes, trying in vain to find Mulder in the
swirling chaos.  What she saw was a gaping hole where the right
side of the plane had been, where Mulder had been.

Scully's brain registered his absence only fleetingly as the
plane slid sideways, and she watched the approaching
configuration of rock bearing down on her through the gaping
wound in the right side.  There was a flash of blinding light as
the earth turned upside down, and then blessed darkness
descended, wiping clean the sound of twisting metal and the
horrifying images of what seemed to her the end of the world.
 

*   *   *   *   *   *
 

1:07 pm
Cherokee National Forest
Appalachian Mountains, Tennessee
 
Fox Mulder was twelve years old all over again, paralyzed by the
brilliant intensity of the light that surrounded him.  He tried
to move, to call out, but he was incapable of doing either.  He
was helpless against the force of the light, helpless to do
anything as his sister Samantha seemed to float on an invisible
cloud out the window and out of his life.  He struggled in vain
to reach her, but the light, the terrible haunting light would
not release him.  In a heartbeat, she was lost to him and he
moved forward in slow motion toward the window as the light
gradually faded.

But the light didn't fade this time like it usually did.  And
Mulder, hovering on the brink of consciousness, slowly began to
realize that the awful light of this particular dream had no
intention of releasing him at all.  The hateful glare surrounded
him wholly, burning his face and neck, leading him to raise his
arm over his face in an effort to shield himself from the
radiance.

The movement brought him to full consciousness as pain registered
completely in his mind.  God, he hurt everywhere.  He chanced
opening his eyes and blinked rapidly into the bright sky,
noticing for the first time that he was outside and flat on his
back.  He wasn't dead, that much was obvious.  Beyond that, his
brain ceased to function.

He tried to raise his head to get a good look at his
surroundings, but after a monumental effort, he gave up.  It was
too damn hard.  From where he lay his eyes took in a thick
covering of trees that seemed to tower miles over his head,
giving him absolutely no indication at all of his location.  He
was completely disoriented.  Even the blinding sunlight that had
vexed him into consciousness was, he realized, no more than a
single tiny sunbeam that had managed to cut through the thick
foliage.

Christ.  Where was he?  In a daze, he tried to replay the day's
events in his mind, but the shroud of confusion that covered him
was overwhelming.  Sleep still beckoned like a siren call, luring
him back toward an easy escape from the pain in his head.  He
knew it would be so easy to give in to it, but his mind wouldn't
let him.  Not yet.  Not until he realized...

Something was missing.  Something important that should have been
there with him and wasn't.  He had no idea what it was, but the
disturbing emptiness he felt was like a phantom pain inside him,
convincing his mind beyond the shadow of a doubt that part of him
was unaccounted for.  He turned his head to look beside him, and
a stabbing pain shot through his body.  Mulder heard himself
groan, and then the lure of sleep returned, too strong to resist.
Resigned, he gave himself back to unconsciousness, the
unexplained feeling of loss still gnawing at his gut.
 

*  *  *  *  *
 
1:20 pm
 

The plane lay on its side, mangled and twisted on the rocky lip
of the mountainside where it had come to rest.  It balanced
precariously on a thin shelf of earth that seemed to defy gravity
by stretching too far over the cavernous valley below.  The
gaping hole that had been the right side of the cabin now opened
toward the sky, allowing the early afternoon sun to beat down
upon the exposed interior.

Perched as it was, the wreckage gave the appearance of a
sacrificial offering, held out from the arms of the mountain.  It
was quiet now.  The creaking and groaning of the framework had
settled, replaced by the eerie stillness of tension, as if the
plane, aware of its position, was somehow holding its breath.

Inside the cabin, Scully groaned, awareness returning to her in
bits and pieces, like a nightmare recalled from the safety of
dawn.  She opened her eyes slowly, blinking several times to
focus her vision on the confusing jumble of images that swam
before her at eye level.  Her carry-on bag, part of a seat
cushion, broken glass, pieces of metal--

Mulder!   Her mind screamed his name.  Where was Mulder?

She twisted frantically, ignoring the pain that shot through her
with every movement, desperate to find some trace of him amid the
debris.  There was no sign, not even a sound to let her know he
was anywhere close.

She forced herself to breathe deeply, trying to calm the
paralyzing fear that was hovering.  Panic was not an option;
hysteria, while tempting, was energy wasted.  Mentally, she went
through her "repertoire" as Mulder called it, the standard
physician's checklist:  no broken bones, no paralysis, no
significant loss of feeling although there was some definite
numbness in her left leg, several scrapes and scratches, endless
bruises, probably a concussion.  Not too bad for a plane crash
survivor, she concluded.  She was alive.  It was enough.

She looked around, assessing the situation, and realized that she
was lying face down upon the emergency exit door.  Rather, what
used to be the door.  In the tilted cabin, it now appeared to
serve as the floor, and Scully was wedged against it, held nearly
immobile by the loose debris that surrounded her.  Her seat had
broken free upon impact, its warped frame now clinging to her
body with the desperation of a small child.

Lucidity continued to return slowly as she maneuvered herself
carefully around the jagged pieces of structuralized metal,
inching her way closer to freedom.  It was a tedious process, but
she didn't have the luxury of waiting for rescue--she had to find
Mulder.

She succeeded finally in liberating her left arm and used it to
unlock the seat belt that had kept her prisoner.  She sat up
gingerly, rubbing stiff muscles and joints, getting her first
unobstructed view of the remains of the aircraft.  She was
definitely alone; Mulder was nowhere in the cabin.

She didn't dwell on his absence.  She would find him; it wasn't a
matter of question.

Scully looked toward the cockpit, her right arm grasping the
armrest to steady herself when the sudden movement made her
dizzy.  She had to check on Davis.  Her mind called up an image
of the handsome blond pilot who had so recently been flirting
with her.

So young...

Summoning courage and breath in the same instant, she tentatively
called out to him, shattering the utter stillness of the air with
a voice that was too fragile, to tentative and childlike to sound
anything like her own.  "Davis?"

The resounding silence that answered was chilling.

Scully forced herself to stand, ignoring the throbbing ache in
her leg, and began to make her way toward the front of the plane.
It was awkward with the plane lying sideways.  She crawled and
stepped as carefully as she could over broken seats, strips of
jagged metal, and shattered windows, pulling herself forward with
agonizing deliberation.

Please God, she prayed.  Please let him be alive.

She called again.  "Daniel?"

Nothing.  There had been no sound at all from the cockpit since
she regained consciousness.  She reached for the door and with
shaking hands, pulled it open.

Overall, the cockpit of the plane looked surprisingly intact.
Despite the vulnerability of its position, it seemed to absorb
the impact of the crash better than the cabin had.  A few loose
items had been tossed around, Scully noted.  Gauges in the
instrument panel were cracked and most of the glass was broken.
Davis was still in the cockpit, strapped in the pilot's seat.
The ninety degree angle of the plane gave him the appearance of
lying on his left side, allowing Scully to see him only in
profile as she crawled over the door.  His eyes were closed; he
was pale and still.  But she saw no obvious injuries, no blood on
his uniform, and she allowed herself a moment of Mulderesque
optimism that he might still be alive.

"Please.  Please be alive," she breathed placing her fingers on
his neck to check for a pulse.  She didn't feel one, but the
position of her hand was unnatural in the cramped area, so she
reached her hand around him to the other side.  Her fingers
encountered the warm, thick, stickiness of blood almost
immediately, and she jerked her hand back in horror.

Scully's bloody fingers touched Davis' chin, pulling his face
toward her as she leaned over him in an attempt to see the wound.
His head slid toward her with a freedom that was sickening,
exposing to her view a large triangular shard of glass protruding
from his throat.  It had severed both bone and muscle,
effectively decapitating him, save the thin layer of skin than
stubbornly held his head to the right side of his body.

He probably died before the plane stopped moving, Scully thought.

She released his chin, watching as his head bobbed unnaturally
several times, then stilled, the blood continuing to flow from
his neck into a pool on the wall beneath him.

She turned her attention from Davis' body and began to look at
the control panel, searching for the radio.  She found the
microphone dangling beside Davis, and raised it to her lips,
forcing her voice to sound stronger than it felt.  "Mayday,
Mayday.  Can anyone here me?"

The only reply was silence.

"Mayday.  This is Cessna Citation NS84.  We are down--I repeat,
we are down."

There was nothing, not even static.

She turned the frequency knob back and forth, trying to raise
some signs of life from the instrument, but it was useless.  In
disgust, she flung the microphone at the control panel, feeling
no satisfaction as the crystal of yet another gauge cracked under
the impact.

She looked blankly at the various gauges and dials on the console
before her.  They all looked alike.  Her head began to ache with
more intensity as she struggled to make sense of the readings.
She had no clue what she was looking at, no way of figuring out
her location.

Mulder would probably know, she thought.  Mulder and his
photographic memory.  If anyone had ever halfheartedly explained
the workings of a plane to him, he would remember it exactly.

But Mulder wasn't there.

Her heart skipped a beat.

God, what happened to him?  Please let him be safe.

Scully caught a glimpse of Davis' body  in her peripheral vision
and suddenly felt light-headed.

You're losing it Dana, she warned herself.  And if you fall apart
now, you won't be any help to yourself or Mulder.  The voice made
sense, but the wave of panic rising within her was too strong to
deny.  She was alone.

Alone in a wrecked plane.

On a mountain.

With a dead man.

She backed out of the cockpit as quickly as she could, distancing
herself from Davis' body, sitting down on the side frame of a
seat and thrusting her head between her knees.  She forced
herself to inhale and exhale slowly.

She had to find Mulder.

Mulder.

She couldn't think about what might have happened to him.  All
she knew with certainty was that he wasn't dead.  Surely if he
was, she would feel it...

Her head was pounding with more ferocity now, and she raised her
hands to her temples in an attempt to ease the pressure.  Sticky
warmth registered against her face and she jerked her hands away
in horror, dazed eyes staring at fingers still covered with
Davis' blood.

Don't faint, don't faint...

But the dim ringing in her ears was already growing louder.

Don't faint, Dana, you've got to get out of here....

White spots began to dance in front of her eyes, and the colors
of the world seemed to dim all at once.

Scully made a weak grab for the twisted seat beside her, swiping
feebly through the air as she sank down into a displaced seat
cushion.  The blackness approached her quickly, picking up speed
as the world spun in circles around her.  Her last thought as
she slipped into the abyss was that she had never fainted in her
life.
 

*  *  *  *  *

 
1:30 pm
 
Mulder awakened slowly to the feeling of soft hair brushing
lightly against his neck.  It was a pleasant sensation, one that
evoked erotic images of silky auburn hair trailing his body in
the sensuous afterglow of passion.  He was tempted, momentarily,
to indulge the fantasy, until he caught a whiff of the unpleasant
odor that accompanied it.  It smelled musty and dirty, almost
like a wild anim....

His eyes snapped open to reveal two shiny black ones staring back
at him.

"Agh!"  The startled cry came as a reflex, but it had the desired
effect.  The frightened raccoon turned and scurried back to the
undergrowth, leaving Mulder alone once again.

Fully awake now, heart pounding, Mulder looked around.  His mind
slowly replayed recent events, searching for the missing pieces
that led him to this place.

Then he remembered.  The impact.  The screech of metal.  The
feeling of flying through the air, soaring, free falling...

Scully!  Where was Scully?

He tried to sit up, but something was holding him, preventing him
from moving.  Mulder fought a wave of panic before realizing that
he was still connected to the plane seat, held tight by the nylon
safety belt he had donned before the crash.  He released the
clasp and sat up quickly, ignoring the pain that his sudden
movement caused.  With eyes that struggled to focus, he surveyed
the area.  It was heavily wooded, with an expanse of trees in
every direction.  With the exception of the airplane seat and
himself, the area seemed completely undisturbed. No plane, no
sign of wreckage.  No Scully.

He did a brief check for broken bones.  Finding none, he stood,
wobbling on unsteady legs.  He walked a few feet, then stopped,
realizing he had no idea where he was going.  He leaned weakly
against a large tree, listening intently for some sound that
would guide him toward Scully and Davis.

All he heard was the dull throbbing in his temples.  His head
hurt like a son of a bitch.

Thoughts of Scully flashed through his mind.  He wondered if she,
too, was thrown clear of the wreckage, or if she was still in the
plane, trapped and hurt.  Was she calling out to him?  She'd
called out to him before and he'd been unable to help her.  Was
he failing her again?  Was she even still alive?

The last thought stunned him, as he contemplated the very real
possibility of finding her lifeless body amid the crash debris.
God, he couldn't take that.  He couldn't.  His stomach lurched at
the thought.

He remembered the look of terror in her eye as the plane was
going down, and how she had looked to him for reassurance.  And
still he hadn't told her.

Fucking coward, he cursed himself.  Why didn't you tell her?

The image of Scully, bruised and bloody, lifeless amid the
wreckage came unbidden to his mind, causing him to lose the
valiant struggle with his stomach.  He sank to his knees and
vomited, thankful if only for a moment for the solitude of his
surroundings.

 
End of Part 3
 

Tempest, part 4
 
 

1:46 pm
 
For the second time in an hour, Dana Scully regained
consciousness amid the broken remains of  Cessna Citation NS84.
Unlike the first time, however, the second awakening was
accompanied by lucidity and a feeling of calm.  Davis was dead;
Mulder was missing; she had survived.  Help would be coming soon
enough, she realized.  What had to be done in the meantime, she
would have to do herself.

She would have to find Mulder.

She struggled to her feet, catching her breath at the burning
sensation that raced down her left leg as she stood.  The white
hot pain ran down the back of her thigh in blistering waves,
amazing her that she hadn't felt it before.  She twisted at the
waist, trying to get a good look at the back of her leg.  When
she did, she wished she hadn't.

"So much for walking away unscathed," she whispered, stunned by
the sight.

The left leg of her pants was ripped from thigh to knee in the
back, stained dark red with blood -- *her* blood, she realized,
somewhat dazed.  She hadn't even felt it.

She sighed, more at the thought of having to delay her search for
Mulder than at her own discomfort.  Damn.  She would have to take
the time to dress it.

She couldn't get a good look at the cut through the material, so
she unfastened her pants and let them drop, wincing as the torn
material slid off of the wound and fell to a pile of bloody
scraps at her feet.

She pulled her carry on bag out of the rubble and opened it,
scrounging around inside for the tube of antibiotic creme she
usually carried, finding it with surprising ease.  She pulled out
a bottle of drinking water and looked around for something
she could use to clean the wound.  There was nothing except her
discarded pants, so she used them to wipe the blood away
carefully before smearing the wound with creme from the tube.  It
was a savage, devastatingly deep cut; she knew it needed
stitches.  She'd also be lucky to avoid infection; she had no
idea what had cut her.

She used her blouse to dress it, ripping the soft cotton into
strips and wrapping them firmly around the gash.  Satisfied, she
donned the spare change of clothing she always carried on board
with her and began searching the cabin for essentials.  She had
her gun; Mulder had been wearing his.  She took inventory of her
bag, noting with some satisfaction that the bottled water and
miniature candy bars that Mulder so often teased her about would
definitely come in handy until help arrived.  She had only a few
medical supplies, small and relatively useless against a wound
such as hers, but she didn't know what kind of shape Mulder would
be in, so she left them in the bag, hoping they would be enough.
The one medical comfort she did have was a single syringe filled
with Demerol.  The way Mulder found trouble, she never travelled
without the comfort of a "single serving" pain killer.  She'd
learned long ago he was far too much of a little boy to endure
quietly.

She was unable to keep from smiling at the thought, then sobered
instantly as she contemplated the condition in which she might
find him.

We're okay, Mulder, she told him mentally, echoing his words from
earlier in the day.  I'm coming to find you.

She hastily finished packing the bag, careful not to overload it
with more than she could carry.  Finally satisfied, she zipped it
closed and stood, putting her head and left arm through the
strap to keep it anchored as she climbed.

She moved to stand upon the broken seats directly under the hole
in the plane, cursing her lack of height.  She couldn't reach the
opening.  She stepped down and began pulling the frame of a
second seat on top of the one she had been using.  As she moved
it, the gleam of metal and reflection caught her eye.

Mulder's glasses.

Amazingly intact.

She bent and picked them up, wiping them carefully with her
shirt, tears blurring her vision.  She'd almost left them.  She
couldn't explain the overwhelming sense of responsibility she
felt to return them to him.  She only knew that they were a part
of Mulder.  A part she'd secretly always loved.  The only part
she had with her now.  And she'd almost left them.

She unzipped the bag without removing it from her shoulder and
placed the frames carefully inside, protected by the fabric of
her jacket.  Dragging the back of her hand across her cheek, she
swiped at the uncharacteristic moisture there and climbed back
upon the makeshift ladder of broken seats.

"Okay.  This is it, Dana.  Let's hear it for upper body
strength."

She took a deep breath and jumped slightly, hoisting herself up
through the torn metal, drawing her knees up until her feet could
leverage her onto the solid frame of the plane, away from the
jagged edges.  Feeling immensely pleased with herself, she took a
moment to catch her breath, trying to ignore the uncomfortable
sensation of hot metal underneath her injured leg.

"One down," she congratulated herself.  "Now which way to find
Mulder?"

For the first time since the crash, she looked over the edge of
the plane, expecting to see rocks and shrubs.  She saw nothing
but air.  Terrified, she looked behind her and saw the gentle
upward slope toward the top of the mountain.  The plane had slid
down the ridge like a child's sled down a snowbank, stopping just
before they fell into the abyss.

Oh God.  Oh God.  Oh God.

Adrenaline coursed through her instantly.  She was on a cliff.
All the moving around she had done inside the cabin, changing
clothes, gathering items, stacking debris--

--and she was on a cliff.

She inched backward, toward the rocky hill behind her, trying not
to cause so much as a tremor on the plane, fighting the
overwhelming urge to cry out.

Yell for help.

Scream for Mulder.
 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *
 
Mulder cleared the last small cluster of trees and walked easily
out of the foliage toward the large patch of scarred earth he'd
been searching for.  With no way to gauge the site of impact from
ground level, he had carefully searched the area where he had
regained consciousness, trying to determine the path his own seat
had taken.  It was a slow process; tracking had never been his
strong suit.

He had, over the course of the early afternoon, managed to regain
his strength.   Amazingly, he had no long lasting physical
effects of the crash at all.  A few bruises, but that was all.
The headache had finally disappeared, taking with it the
dizziness and the nausea.  The shakiness of his legs had finally
ceased.  He was better off than he had a right to be.  He
wondered endlessly if Scully had fared as well.

Standing at last in front of the path the plane had taken, Mulder
scrutinized the razed, barren path of land in front of him, a
frown creasing his forehead.  Somehow the angled path looked
awkward, but he couldn't put his finger on why.  He walked
alongside the huge scar in the mountainside, following the wide
trail as it led--up?

That couldn't be right.

He looked behind him, visually marking the point where he had
picked up the path.  Then it hit him.  He was walking uphill.
Very slight, barely noticeable, but definitely uphill.  The plane
couldn't have slid uphill.

Mulder turned and retraced his steps, following the crash course
down the mountain in the other direction almost a quarter of a
mile before he saw the drop--the point where the path of the
plane seemed to veer off into nothingness.  It had fallen, and it
had taken Scully with it.

He sank to his knees, unwilling to look over the side, cursing
himself for every kind of fool.  He'd failed her...lost
her...again.  She might have survived one crash, but he knew
there was no way she'd survived two.

And he hadn't been with her.

Grief and rage battled within him, each feeding on the other
until they issued forth a desolate, heartbreaking cry he was
completely unaware of.

He sank further to the ground, head hung low, palms flat to the
dirt as grief finally won out over rage.  He couldn't do it
again.  He couldn't pick up and move on without her.  It wasn't
supposed to happen like this.  Not to them.  Not to Scully.

Her voice reached him through the haze of his desolation, so soft
he thought he'd imagined it.

"Mulder!"

He heard it clearer this time, his heart stopping completely at
the sound.

"Scully!   Scully where are you?"  He looked frantically around,
unable to locate her.  Their words mixed together and echoed from
every direction; she could have been standing beside him and he
wouldn't have known it from the sound.

"I'm here, Mulder!  Down here on the ridge."

Her voice was thin and tight, quiet almost.  It terrified him all
over again.  He scrambled toward the thin shelf of the ridge and
leaned over until he saw her.

His mouth went completely dry.

She was sitting on top of the wreckage.  The wreckage was sitting
on top of nothing.

"Don't move, Scully!  Don't move an inch."

The tremble in her voice cut through him like a dagger.  "The
plane is sliding, Mulder.  It's gonna fall any second."

And then he could see it -- the wreckage was moving.  Almost
imperceptibly, but it was moving.  And he was powerless to stop
it.  He didn't have a rope; his belt wasn't long enough to reach
her.  And that face, that beautiful face he'd so recently thought
lost to him forever stared up at him like a beacon of hope in the
blackness that was his life.
 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *
 

She could hear him above her, frantic movements that echoed the
unexpressed urges within her own mind.  She closed her eyes.

"Scully!"

She didn't open her eyes.  "What?"

"Is Davis still in the plane?"

"He's dead, Mulder."

If the news jarred him in anyway, there was no indication.  "I
need you to look up, Scully.  Is there anything above you that
you can reach or hold onto?"

"I don't think so."  She looked up.  "Rocks and sky, Mulder.
That's it."

"Okay." His voice was deceptively light. "Just hang on for
another minute.  I'm working as fast as I can up here."

The plane shifted underneath her.

She forced her voice to sound steady. "A minute might be pushing
it, Mulder."

His voice changed instantly, suddenly as shaky as she felt.
"Well, grab something.  Anything!"

Her patience snapped.  "For God's sake Mulder, if there was as
much as a speck of dirt down here that I could hold on to, I'd be
holding it!  Grabbing something when you're falling is not a
survival skill that slips your mind!"

"Did I mention I'm working as fast as I can up here?"

Fear and agitation gave way to a reluctant, tentative smile.  "I
think you mentioned it.  Did I mention I'm holding my breath down
here?"

"Try not to think about it."

Her sharp bark of laughter echoed lightly across the canyon.
"Words to live by, Mulder.  Now tell me not to look down, okay?"

She'd already made that mistake once.  Looked down into the
emptiness that momentarily supported her.   What was he doing up
there?  The wreckage groaned and slid forward, moving her another
inch away from the mountain.

She had no idea what he was working on overhead, but it didn't
seem to be progressing very quickly.  She looked beside her,
hoping to find an indentation in the rock, a foothold she could
maintain, a protrusion of any kind that she could grab to
forestall the encroaching freefall into the rocks below.  Several
feet above her, thick rocks jutted outward from the mountainside,
but they were too far out of her grasp.  She had no way to reach
them.

"Hey, Scully?  Let's talk about something."

His voice pulled her back toward him, as though he had
instinctively known the direction of her thoughts.  He was trying
to distract her.

"What?"

"When was the last time you saw a really good movie?"

That did it.  She was going to get the *hell* off of this cliff
if for no other reason than to strangle Fox Mulder.  Forget the
knight in shining armor crap -- Special Agent Lancelot up there
was *toast.*  She carefully rose to her knees, testing the
stability of the teetering plane before standing.  She placed her
tennis shoe against the loose dirt of the hillside and struggled for a
foothold.  The plane shifted and groaned.  She froze.

"Scully!"

"I'm fine, Mulder."

"Heads up."

"What?"  She looked up.

*Thwack!*  A heavy tangle of fabric hit her square in the face
and she lost her equilibrium as the world went suddenly black.
Momentarily knocked off balance, she clawed at the offending
material, trying not to panic.

It was Mulder's shirt.

Tied to Mulder's pants.

And t-shirt.

Either he was trying to save her or he'd gone stark-raving mad.
She didn't care; it was a lifeline.  She grabbed the shirt and
tugged, testing its strength.  "Got it."

The plane slid forward an inch, creeping down the mountainside.
The underbelly of the plane screeched against stone, metal
ripping with an almost human wail.  Scully's heart ratcheted into
doubletime as the world shifted beneath her feet.

The plane was going down.

"MULDER, GET ME THE HELL OUTTA HERE!"  She pushed to
her tip toes and grabbed for the knot that held his shirt to his pants
just as the plane gave one final lurch and disappeared from beneath
her feet, taking a large hunk of the hillside with it.

Suddenly, she was dangling over a 100 foot drop, with only
Mulder's clothing between her and certain death.  The bag looped
over her neck and shoulder banged against her hip, almost causing
her to lose her grip.  She dug her fingers more tightly into the
fabric of Mulder's shirt and held on for dear life.

Breathe, Scully.

She forced air into her lungs in slow, steady rhythm, drawing on
her training to still the frantic cadence of her heart.  It's a
rope.  A cliff.  Basic obstacle course training, Agent Scully.
You know the drill.

Hand over hand.  Up the makeshift rope, she followed perfect
form.  Knees tight, legs thrusting despite the screaming pain of
her torn thigh.  Her hands found the next knot, fingers curling in
the soft white cotton of Mulder's undershirt.  She brought her
feet up, searching for the bottom knot to leverage herself
upwards and momentarily take the weight off her aching arms.

Her right foot caught and she heard a ripping sound as the fabric
gave way beneath her.  Her weight shifted, almost causing her to
lose her grip on Mulder's t-shirt, but a frantic, scrambling
second later, her feet found the knot.  The bag thumped the back
of her thigh as she steadied herself, and pain shot through her,
taking her breath away as she dangled helplessly.  She
redistributed her weight and worked to shift the bag away from
her leg and back toward her hip.

Scully paused to catch her breath and pressed her forehead
briefly against the soft cotton shirt as she regained control.
Oh, God, it was still warm.  A faint, male fragrance clung to it.

Her head swam for a second, and she tightened her hold on the
knot.

"You okay, Scully?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine."  She took a deep breath and pushed upward.
Slow.  Steady.  Hand over hand.  She felt the rope moving
slightly upward as she climbed. Mulder was pulling her, helping
her along.

She could see trees, she realized as she looked up to gauge her
ascent.  She was close.  Closer than she had realized.  She had
gone past the t-shirt, on to his jacket.  Peeking over the edge
of the overhang was Mulder's blue and gray spotted tie, double
looped and double-knotted.  Just a scrap of material that didn't
look all that sturdy, she realized.  Especially considering the
way the fabric was sliding back and forth against a sharp
outcropping at the edge of the cliff.  She imagined she could
actually see the frayed fibers giving way one by one.

She redoubled her efforts, scrambling upward.  Just another
couple of feet....

Suddenly, she was lurched up and forward.  She grabbed for the
side of the hill, clutching at the rocky protrusions at the edge
of the cliff.  Her hair fell forward into her eyes, blinding her
for a second.

Then hands circled her upper arms and hauled her up and over,
dragging her to her feet and into the circle of warm, strong
arms.  She closed her eyes and leaned into his embrace, trapping
the makeshift rope tightly between them as her arms wrapped
around his waist.  She rested her head against his chest, taking
solace in the sound of his heartbeat underneath her--not the
slow, steady beat of traditional reassurance, but the erratic
thumping of panic that had mirrored her own.

They stayed that way for some time, neither speaking.  It was
Mulder who broke the silence.

"Are you sure you're okay, Scully?  You're not hurt?"

She hesitated.  If she told him about her leg, he would worry,
and there was nothing he could do.  It wouldn't serve any purpose
to tell him, she reasoned.  So she didn't.

"Just a couple scrapes and bruises."  She answered from the
cocoon of his arms,  unwilling to relinquish her hold on him yet.
He was so solid, wrapped around her, so whole and so real.  She
pressed her hands flat against his back, slowly rubbing the taut
muscles.  "I'm okay, Mulder," she breathed against his chest.
"I'm okay."

She felt him nod in silent agreement, his chin touching the top
of her head.  She was always amazed that he could make her feel
so safe.  She was a trained special agent.  She could handle, HAD
handled dangerous men twice her size.  But this man had the power
to make her feel safer, more protected  than she had ever felt in
her life.  Just his presence was enough.

Unthinking, she trailed her hands down to his sides, her
fingertips moving slowly over bare skin.  She felt him shiver and
fleetingly wondered if it was due more to the scare they had had
or her soft touches.  She trailed her nails up and down his sides
in a feathersoft touch and heard his sharp intake of breath.

Question answered.

Scully smiled into his chest.

Her mind's focus on the day's events began to blur softly as she
relaxed, her clear memories of the day fading into one another,
blurring like wet watercolors until she had only a muted, hazy
understanding of what had happened and how she came to be on this
cliff in Mulder's arms.  She didn't care; she didn't want to
remember the details -- they would come rushing back later
whether she wanted them to or not.  This was enough for now.  It
was all she needed and everything she wanted.

She concentrated on the sensation of Mulder's warm skin and soft
breath enveloping her.  How many of her days had been filled with
too much blood and death and fear?  She lost count years ago,
because she was hardly fazed by it anymore.  But today it had hit
too close to home.  Today had been an endless bombardment of
ugly, harsh reality, and she just wanted to stand here and not
think about it.

Her hands rose toward Mulder's shoulders, kneading the tired
muscles.  She couldn't tune it out.  God, she had come so close--
so close to losing everything.  Mulder.  Her family.  Her life.  Her
fingertips moved slowly down to the small of his back, delighting
in the feel of his bare skin.  She traced light patterns on his
hips, his thighs, his....

She froze as reality sank in.

"Mulder?"

He didn't move, and she was afraid to.

"Yeah?"

"You're naked."

She felt him smile into her hair.  "Thank you for noticing."
 

End of part 4
 

Tempest, part 5
 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

2:37 pm

Scully jumped away from him, leaving the bulky cloth rope she had
pinned between them to fall in a puddle at his feet.  Then slowly, as
if trying to give the appearance of utter nonchalance, she turned away
from him, allowing him privacy to redress.

The act was casual, but he'd seen the color staining her cheeks.
Dr. Dana Scully, expert of forensic pathology, was flustered.  He
couldn't help grinning at the thought.  It amazed him that she still
had the capacity to blush after all they had seen and been through
together -- by rights, she should have been as jaded and cynical and
world-weary as he was.  God, he loved the fact that she wasn't.

He stooped to pick up his clothes, fumbling over the cloth knots
for a starting place; they were all pulled tight from Scully's
climb.

"You should have said something."

He could hear the censure in her voice.  "I didn't exactly have
time to consult you, Scully."

"That's not what I meant."

Even with his back to her, he could see the exasperation on her
face. "I know what you meant."

He frowned at the knot he was working, wishing again that he'd
had the foresight to pack extra clothing.  Scully had not only
packed extra clothes, she'd had the presence of mind to change
into them before climbing out of the plane.  She never ceased to
amaze him.

The material finally moved apart, and he shook out the garments
and stepped into his boxers and suit pants. "You can turn around
now."

She didn't, and he grinned at her absurd sense of decorum in the
face of recent events.  Tactfully, he changed the subject.  "Were you
able to use the radio?"

"No.  Everything was gone."

"Well, there's no point in going after it," he said, tugging at
the knot that connected his dress shirt and T-shirt.  "If it was
repairable before, it's certainly in a million pieces now."  The
knot gave way, and he slipped on the stretched cotton undershirt
and tucked it into the waistband of his pants.  He looked
enviously at Scully's jeans.  She would be a lot more comfortable
during this misadventure than he was going to be.

"We should probably get down there anyway, Mulder.  Our chances
of being seen are going to be a lot greater if we stay with the
plane."

"Exactly, which is why we don't need to be anywhere close to it."

She turned around to look at him.  "Why?"

He put on his shirt, leaving it unbuttoned as he casually
examined the gaping hole in the fabric.  "Because we don't have
any way of knowing whether or not Escabedo was behind the crash. At
this point, and for our own safety, we have to assume he was. And if
that's the case, he'll want confirmation -- he'll send someone to
verify the remains...."

"That's assuming that Escabedo was behind the engine failure,
which we can't prove."

"Are you willing to take that chance?  You want to go back down
there and just wait for whoever shows up?"

"Mulder, I'm not saying I want to paint a bull's eye on my
forehead and jump up and down.  But staying within shouting
distance of the wreckage would increase our odds of being found,
and since the DEA has the flight plan and knows exactly where
they lost contact with Davis, chances are that they'll be there
before Escabedo even knows we're down."

Mulder walked toward her, lowering his voice out of habit.
"Okay, then think about this...if Escabedo *is* behind the crash, the
first thing he's going to do is send someone to look for that plane.
If we're not there, they're going to find Davis alone and start
combing the woods for a runaway blond and her bodyguard. The longer we
can make them believe that Lindsey Carrol is wandering around out
here, the better chance the real Lindsey has to make it to trial."
He reached out and fingered a strand of her auburn hair, rubbing it
slowly between his thumb and fingers. "If they realize right away that
Lindsey Carrol was never on that plane, they may or may not give up
looking for *us* but they're going to head straight back to Atlanta
and start combing for her all over again."

He scanned her face, watching the play of emotions on her
features as she considered his words.

"You've given this some thought."

He shrugged.  "I thought about it while I was wandering around
looking for you."

Her eyes were unreadable to him.  He thought he glimpsed a trace
of anger in them, but he dismissed it without much thought.  Why
in the world would she be angry?

"Okay," she said quietly.  "On the off chance that you *are*
right, I agree we shouldn't risk it.  I guess the best thing we
can do right now is to make it to the nearest ranger station and
radio our position to someone we know we can trust."  She raised
an eyebrow at him.  "Think there's any such person?"

He smiled, trying to lighten the mood. "Oooh, a woman after my
own heart.  I love it when you're paranoid."  He stooped down to
pick up the canvas bag at her feet, shouldering it easily.

She didn't smile back.  She looked pale, tired.....distant.
Hell, she looked positively irritable, he noted. "Something was
still bothering her, he realized, and it had nothing to do with
this case.  The tension between them had been festering for days, and
it started well before the Drug Enforcement Agency had come knocking.
Mulder had no idea what it was, and judging by the look on her face,
he wasn't sure he wanted to know.  CrankyScully was not one of his
favorite companions.

He unzipped the bag and stuffed his coat into it, filling the
nylon pouch to capacity before he closed it again.  It hung
awkwardly from his shoulder, too full now to be anything but
cumbersome.  He turned slowly in a circle, taking in the
landscape.  "Any idea which way to the nearest McDonald's?"

His attempt at humor fell flat. Nothing. Not even a smile.
"I don't have a clue, Mulder.  But then I was hardly in a
position to sightsee."

"Well then I guess our best bet would be to head back up to the
top of this ridge and see if we can spot any kind of lookout
tower or ranger station."  He turned and started up the path,
turning after a few steps to make sure she was behind him.

She was following quietly -- slowly.  It seemed she was purposely
keeping the distance between them, he noted, continuing up the rocky
hillside.  He looked over his shoulder and made one last attempt at
conversation.  "If we make the top of the ridge within an hour or so,
we should have plenty of time to get started in the right direction
before nightfall."

"Fine."

Her terse reply caught him off guard, but she didn't continue,
and he didn't press it.  Okay, Scully, he thought.  We can play
the quiet game for now.  But sooner or later, you're going to
tell me what's bugging you.  We've got no one to talk to but each
other.

He fell quiet, concentrating on the rocky landscape, listening
occasionally for the sounds of Scully following behind.  She
could have her way for now, he decided.  They had a long
afternoon ahead of them, and probably an even longer night;
tomorrow was too far away to think about.
 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

6:36 pm

It had been the longest day of Scully's life.  Even without the
crash it had been one long, foggy nightmare from which she
couldn't awake; the crash had just been the final straw.  She
trudged along the rocky trail behind Mulder, keeping him in her
sight, but not following too closely; she needed the distance.
She hadn't realized how out of shape she had gotten since leaving the
academy, and her injured leg wasn't helping her mobility any.

One foot in front of the other, Scully, she told herself.  Just
like hiking up Grayson's Ridge with Charlie and Bill.  Just watch the
ground, step carefully, and put one foot in front of the other.

Her muscles were screaming at her with every step.  All right,
already, she groaned, inwardly addressing her aching limbs.  I
promise I'll go to the gym more often if you'll just get me down
from this mountain.  Her answer was a flash of pain that shot
down her neck and shoulders.  Yeah, well, same to you, she told
her traitorous body.

She couldn't ask Mulder to stop.  No, that wasn't the truth.  She
*wouldn't* ask -- there was a difference.  They hadn't gone far enough
to take a break; when they had, she would propose a brief stop.

She caught a glimpse of him ahead of her, his work shirt
discarded, T-shirt wet with perspiration, sticking to his back.
The bag he had taken from her bounced easily against his side,
obviously not bothering him in the least.

It bothered Scully.  It bothered her a lot.

It bothered her that he had picked it up automatically, relieving her
of a burden she hadn't asked to be relieved of.  A burden, in fact,
that she had fought tooth and nail to hold onto.  He was always doing
that, taking the lead, making decisions, setting the pace.  He was
always the senior agent to her novice; he was always the last word to
her careful suggestion.  He was always the adult treating her like a
child.  Well she wasn't a child, damn it, and she *wanted* her bag!

God, he was such a ..... a *man* sometimes.  She stumbled lightly on
the loose rocks lining the hillside and fleetingly considered chucking
one of the small pebbles toward him.  A fiendishly childish act, to be
sure, but one that would feel so good.

A pine sprig slapped her in the face and she swatted it away,
scraping her hand in the process.  Tiny beads of blood surfaced
on her skin, and she wiped them away on her jeans.

Her jeans.  Another perfect example of the Y chromosome at work.
How in the hell could he have failed to notice that she had
changed clothes?  He was a Special Agent of the FBI, for God's
sake.  He had a photographic memory on top of that.  And yet it
somehow "slipped his notice" that her wardrobe changed completely from
point-of-impact to site-of-rescue?

Typical Mulder. Hell, it was *vintage* Mulder.

Mulder and every other man in the world.  They all had that
annoyingly selective attention span.  The one that let them tune
out the sound of the telephone ringing off the hook right next to
them, but allowed them to hear every bit of television sports
commentary over the din of the civil defense siren blaring in the
middle of a thunderstorm.

She watched him up ahead, gaining higher ground, turning around
every once in awhile to make sure she was following.

Well she was.  Hell, wasn't she always?  That was *exactly* what
she had become, she groused:  a follower to his leadership.

Mulder might not have noticed that she changed clothes, and
obviously couldn't be bothered to notice she was limping, but by
God, if there was a bag to be carried or a pace to be set, he
would be the one to do both.  And the worst part, she admitted,
was that she had allowed it to get to this point.  How many times had
she acquiesced when she should have held her ground?  How much of
herself had she sacrificed to keep up with Mulder?  Too much, she
thought.  And she was just beginning to realize how much she resented
it.

>From twenty yards ahead, Mulder paused and turned to face her.
They were near the top, and it was obvious he had seen something; he
was grinning like a boy scout on a nature hike.  He looked totally
invigorated.

She felt completely drained.

She climbed steadily toward him, thankful that the pain in her
leg had been replaced by total numbness over an hour ago.  She
felt absurdly pleased with herself that she had kept him from
noticing.  It was her injury, her cross to bear.  And she'd be
damned if she'd give him control over her mobility.

She reached him quietly, leaning against the roughened bark of a
large pine tree to catch her breath.

"There's a lookout tower halfway up the next ridge.  We won't
make it tonight, but we should be able to get there tomorrow.
There may be a radio."

Scully nodded.  "You want to camp here tonight?"  God please let
him say yes, she thought.  She'd managed okay for most of the
day, but her leg was growing heavier and heavier with every step. She
didn't know how much longer she could keep up with him.

"I guess we ought to start thinking about making camp," he
agreed.  "We don't have a lot of options."

She looked up at a sky resplendent in deep shades of pink and
orange.  It was later than she'd realized.  "No, we don't," she
readily agreed.  Darkness would come fast, Scully knew, and when
it came, it would be complete.  Impenetrable.   "I guess this is
as good a place as any."

He looked at the small clearing, sizing it up, finding it,
ultimately to his satisfaction.  "I'll go round up some
firewood."  He walked away into the lengthening shadows.

Scully watched him go without a sound, sliding down the length of the
tree trunk until she was sitting on the ground with her legs stretched
out in front of her.  She was too tired to muster any real indignation
at his hunter/gatherer mentality.  Mulder was the least of her
problems now, she was beginning to realize.

She had no sensation at all in her left leg, and while the
numbness had served her well today, she knew it would be in worse
shape tomorrow, after a night of inactivity.  It was probably going to
get infected. If so, she would know it tomorrow.

"Then what," she whispered.  "Then what will I do?"

She didn't have an answer.  And it scared the hell out of her.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

10:47 pm

Flickering firelight danced in the blackness, leaping and
stretching in a myriad of ways, illuminating those objects
closest to the campfire, encompassing them within an illusion of
light and safety.  But beyond the small circle of orange warmth,
the liquid radiance spread slow, deep shadows into the unfamiliar
woods, dissolving far too quickly into the larger, smothering darkness
of the Appalachian wilderness.

Stretched out on the forest floor on a blanket of pine needles,
Scully shifted uncomfortably, trying yet again to concentrate on
Mulder's incessant rambling, unable to focus on anything beyond
the all-consuming pain in her left leg.  She rolled onto her
left side and breathed a sigh of relief as the wretched burning
subsided.

"Don't you think, Scully?"

"Uh huh."  She had no idea what she was agreeing with.

Why couldn't she sleep?  Was it the darkness?  The stillness?
They'd never really bothered her before, and she'd camped dozens
of times as a child.

She stifled an urge to fluff the twigs underneath her, knowing
that no matter how she patted and arranged them, they would never
transform into her big soft bed at home.  Instead, she pushed the
image of home from her mind and pulled her jacket up snugly underneath
her chin like a blanket, crossing her arms underneath it.  It covered
her from chin to hips in the front, leaving the small campfire to warm
her legs.  The comforting warmth she felt lightly against her back,
was Mulder.

"....was that how you interpreted it?"

Oh.  He was talking to her now.  "Um, yeah.  That was pretty much how
I interpreted it."

Mulder seemed satisfied with her response, because he began the
droning again.  God, she'd never been this tired in her life.  So why
couldn't she sleep?  She was warm, she was exhausted, she was
relatively safe, given that both she and Mulder were armed.  If they
*were* approached by an animal, despite their meager campfire, they
could easily defend themselves.

The sound of Mulder's voice behind her began to grate on her
nerves.  It seemed he had been talking ever since they had
finished their dinner.  Dinner.  Ha.  That was a laugh.  Five
miniature Three Musketeers bars each and one shared bottle of
Evian.  Not the most nutritiously balanced mean she'd ever had,
but her stomach hadn't cared.  At the time it seemed nothing had
ever tasted better.  Even the lukewarm water was exceptionally
good.

Water.  They needed water. They would have to find a water source
soon; the small six pack of Evian was going fast.  What kind of
National Park was this where there wasn't even a meandering brook, she
wondered?

Behind her, Mulder continued his monologue.  "...if that's okay
with you."

"That's fine with me, Mulder."   She hoped it was.  Damn, her leg
hurt.  I should tell him, she thought.  He'll be angry if I don't tell
him. But her pride still refused to let her say the words.

Oh, who gives a shit if he's angry, she decided at last.  It's
not like he can do anything about it.  And telling him will only
give him more reason to act like he needs to make all the
decisions and I can't do anything for myself.

She nodded in the darkness, pleased to have won the argument with
herself.  He should have known anyway, she thought unreasonably. She
always knew when *he* wasn't well.

She was suddenly aware of the silence.  Was he waiting for her to say
something?

"I'm sorry, Mulder, what did you say?"

He didn't respond.

"Mulder?"

Finally, the steady sound of deep breathing answered her, and she was
filled with an overwhelming sense of resentment.

Sleeping.  The son of a bitch was sleeping.  One minute they were
having a conversation, and the next minute he was off in slumberland.

Okay, she conceded, maybe she hadn't exactly been holding up her
end of the conversation this evening, but if he had an ounce of
common sense, he'd know why.  He should know why, she groused.
She frowned into the darkness.

Unbelievable.  Even his subconscious ditched her.

Scully closed her eyes, calling up comforting visions of home and
family.  She could rest, at least.  She could lay here and relax and
think about getting out of this entire DEA fiasco.  And if sleep
continued to elude her, she would deal with the fatigue tomorrow, and
Mulder would be predictably oblivious.

A cool breeze swept over her face, caressing her cheek and
ruffling her hair.  She shivered, snuggling down under her jacket and
curling her legs up as far as she could without hurting herself.  She
inched back towards Mulder in search of the warmth his body provided,
pressing her back tighter against his.  She found the warmth she
sought, but not the comfort. The comfort was gone, taken away without
warning.  The comfort was sleeping.

Her leg began to ache again, and Scully bit her bottom lip to
keep from moaning as she steeled  herself against the hot
sensations.  Eventually, through the haze of pain, her
subconscious began to beckon her toward the soft void of sleep,
and in her mind, Scully walked toward the dreamscape slowly,
almost painfully.

And alone.

Always alone.
 

End of Part 5
 

Tempest, part 6

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

3:37 am

He was cold. No matter what he did, he couldn't get warm.  He
stood, sick and trembling outside Scully's door, praying he would
still be standing when she opened it.   The door swung open
suddenly and he stumbled inside, off-balance as she reached
out to steady him.

"Oh.  Mulder."   Her arms went around him.  "Thank God."

He felt sick.  And fuzzy.  There was so much blood.  They would
think he did it.  They would think he killed his father.

Scully reached a cool hand toward his face, gasping as she made
contact with his skin.  "Look at you.  You're sick."  She closed
the door and reached for the zipper of his jacket, yanking it
downward in an effort to take it from him.

"Let's get this coat off."

Didn't she know he was cold?  He was so cold.  He just wanted to
sit down.  "No, I'm okay."  He slumped into the chair beside her
door.

"No, don't."  She pulled him up.

Why wouldn't she let him rest?

"I want you to lie down."

He moved toward the chair again.

"Don't," she repeated.  "I want you to lie down.  Come on, take
your coat off."  She unhooked the zipper of his jacket and pulled
it from him.

He gave up this time, shrugging out of it.  He would just have to
be cold.  "We have to find them, Scully."

She didn't seem to be listening.  She pushed him ahead of her
down the hall and into her bedroom.  Everything was blurry.  *He*
felt blurry.  She guided him toward the bed and he sat down,
craving the coolness of her hands as she stroked his face and the
back of his neck.  She leaned him back toward the pillows, her
silken touch everywhere on him.  She would take care of him.  She
would take care of everything.

He stretched out on her bed and she walked away from him
suddenly.  She was leaving.

Scully, don't leave me.

Dad, don't leave me.

His father was gone.

He struggled to a sitting position, ignoring the dizziness that
engulfed him.  He looked down the hall where Scully had
disappeared.  "We've got to find out who killed my father."

And then magically, she was back.  Her hand closed around the
back of his neck and eased him back to the pillow.  "Well right
now, you need to rest," she told him, placing a cool cloth on his
forehead.

It felt good.  It made him feel better.

"Rest," Scully whispered.

She sounded far away.  She sounded so tired.  He didn't want to
rest.

"It's okay," he heard her breathe close to his ear.  "It's okay."

He slept, and the coldness left him.

He was unaware when she had joined him in bed.  He only knew that
at some point in the night, she had begun to talk in her sleep.

"I'm okay," she whispered.  "I'm okay, Mulder."

He rolled over onto his side, taking in the pallor of her face.
She was trembling all over.  She didn't look okay.  She looked
cold.  He reached out to touch her cheek, surprised to find it
unnaturally hot.  Scully's eyelids fluttered below the damp cloth
on her forehead.  Had she been sick?  She must be sick.

"I'm cold, Mulder."

Her skin was so hot.  What was wrong with her?  He couldn't see
anything wrong with her.  But the bed began to shake from the
force of her trembling, and she began to moan softly in her
sleep.  He reached out for her, and she sighed when he touched
her.  Feeling reassured that he was doing the right thing, he
gathered her to him, ignoring the heat of her skin, and wrapped
himself around every inch of her as she trembled from cold he
couldn't feel, and battled demons he couldn't see.

Slowly, the shudders that racked her body began to subside, and
she relaxed against him.  He felt unbelievably tired now.  Scully
sighed and rolled over on top of him, sleeping peacefully at last
with one arm stretched up around his neck and the other curled
under her chin like a small child.  She weighed nothing, he
thought, nothing at all.  Almost as if she wasn't there.

He was dreaming.  He knew it then. But he didn't want to pull
himself out of it.  He wasn't ready to let it go.  Instead, he
anchored himself tighter into the dream, wrapping his arms around
the small waist of his dream Scully, content merely to be next to
her, even within the innocence of sleep.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *
 
6:46 am

The unusually loud song of birds close by broke through the thin
veil of sleep that covered Scully, pulling her softly into the
vague awareness of morning consciousness.  Eyes closed, she
reached her right arm out in a slow languid stretch.  Lord, she
was tired, and her bed felt so good, she just wanted to sleep all
day.  But the unmistakable light of day was evident even through
closed eyelids, and Scully knew she had to get up.  Her alarm
would probably go off any minute.

Her alarm?  Her alarm hadn't gone off.

Since when did her bed smell like Mulder?

She opened her eyes, squinting away the morning glare, and
blinking rapidly against the unrelenting sunshine.  She was
outside.

The crash came back to her in a wave, wiping away every trace of
sleepiness.  She was miraculously alive...and she was lying
completely on top of a sleeping Fox Mulder.  At some point during
the night, she had rolled over on top of him and obviously found
him more comfortable than the twigs she had gone to sleep on.
Not an inch of her touched the ground.  Her left arm was straight
down beside her, resting along the length of his torso, her right
arm was curled under her chin.  Her legs were stretched down the
length of his, the toes of her shoes pointing in toward each
other at Mulder's shins.

Bit by bit, Scully's awareness of her body came fully into focus.

Her growling stomach was the first to complain.  She was
ravenous.  Nothing she could do about that one.  Her head hurt.
Damn.  There was nothing worse than a morning headache -- they
were the hardest to get rid of.  But at least she had some
aspirin in her bag somewhere.  Next?  She *really* had to go to
the bathroom.  There was only one way to take care of that one.
She sighed.

Slowly, trying desperately not to disturb Mulder, she put her
hand down on the ground beside him and attempted to raise
herself.  She failed miserably.

Not only could she not lift her body from his, she realized with
horror...she couldn't move at all.

Not an inch.

Nothing.

She was one big sore muscle -- completely immobile.

Move, damn it, she commanded her body.  Oh God, she thought,
don't let him wake up and find me like this.

One by one, she began carefully testing her limbs, flexing and
relaxing her muscles to gauge the damage.  It didn't look good.
Her arms were stiff and sore, her back was aching already.  She
couldn't seem to move her legs at all.

Concentrating intensely, she managed to bend her right leg,
dropping her foot over the side of Mulder's leg, feeling a twinge
of hope that she could eventually work her way off of him bit by
methodical bit.  The stiffness she would worry about later.

Her optimism was short lived however.  Her body straining with
every movement, she inadvertently pressed her hips hard into
Mulder's as she fought for control of her muscles.

And Mulder's body responded instantly.

She went completely still, trying not notice the growing hardness
underneath her, but her own body's response made it impossible.
Her mouth went dry, her nipples hardened against his chest.  Her
heart began to pound furiously.

Not good, she thought.  This is not good.

The only thing that kept her from being completely mortified was
the knowledge that his body reacted to hers of its own volition,
while he continued to sleep. As if on cue, the birds began their
morning song again, louder than any birds Scully had ever heard,
loud enough to wake the dead, she thought.

Loud enough to wake Mulder.

No, no no, Scully thought frantically.  Shut up.  But the aria
was in full swing.

Mulder's arm went around her waist and hugged her gently.

Oh God.

Dreading what she knew she was going to see, Scully lifted her
head, groaning with the effort, and found herself staring
straight into Fox Mulder's very wide awake hazel eyes.  His body
surged underneath her, and she felt the heat in her cheeks as she
realized she was completely incapable of rolling off of him.  She
didn't know what to say, so she said nothing.  She simply stared
at him.  She'd never been in a more awkward position -- and she'd
never been more aroused in her life.

He didn't say a word.  He didn't make a move toward her, even as
his body continued talk to hers.  His breathing was as shallow as
her own, she noted, and he swallowed hard a couple of times.
After what seemed an eternity, he lifted his head from the
ground, his face drawing closer, his lips nearing hers.  She
readied herself for the inevitable contact as his arm tightened
around her waist.

"Ooh!"  She couldn't suppress the cry of surprise as Mulder sat
up without warning and rolled her off of him in a single fluid
motion.  Her bottom hit the ground with a solid thump, sending
waves of pain to every muscle in her body.  Before she could
even process what had just happened, he had disappeared into the
surrounding trees.

Pressed against the rough terrain, her injured leg felt like it
was on fire, and it was the motivation to alleviate that agony
that finally prompted Dana Scully to stagger to her feet, wincing
with every movement.

She looked toward the trees where Mulder had disappeared and
began limping slowly in the other direction to attend her own
private needs.  Above her, the mockingbirds whistled shrilly,
their loud unceasing song beginning to grate on her nerves.
"Obnoxious little bastards," she muttered.

She wouldn't think about Mulder, she told herself.  She wouldn't
give a second thought to what had almost happened.  It was
obvious his arousal had been induced by sleep and her intimate
contact -- not because he wanted her.

She looked down at her dirty jeans and her scratched hands,
wishing desperately for a toothbrush to eliminate a few of the
tiny little sweaters that seemed to cover her teeth.  Gosh,
Mulder, she thought, pulling a leaf from her hair.  What's not to
want?

The sound of her bitter laughter rang clear through quiet
mountain morning.  Overhead, the birds laughed back.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

7:03 am

Mulder was already back in the clearing, pacing restlessly when
she returned.  She walked carefully toward him, determined not to
show the pain that coursed through her with every step.  It would
get better, she promised herself.  She would walk out the
stiffness and it would get better.  She hadn't looked at the
wound this morning.  Her makeshift bandage was still firmly in
place, and she knew if she had taken the time to unwrap and
examine it, Mulder would have come looking for her.  Since she
couldn't clean it anyway, she had left it alone.  It wasn't worth
the argument it would cause if he knew.

He turned to face her as she approached, seemingly oblivious to
her discomfort, and she was relieved.  When she realized he
wasn't going to bring up their early morning encounter, she was
doubly relieved.  Then she got her first good look at him, and
her relief turned to alarm.

"Mulder!  Oh my God, your face!"  The purple bruise high on his
cheekbone had escaped her notice this morning when he had lifted
his head, and his hair had covered the deep scratches on his
forehead.

"It's nothing," he told her.  "Doesn't even hurt."

He winced slightly as she pushed his hair out of the way to get a
better look.  "Liar."

His lips twitched.  "Okay.  It hurts a little.  But not nearly as
much as my shoulder.  How are *you* feeling this morning?"

She ignored the question.  "Your shoulder?"

"I'm fine, Scully."

"Uh huh.  Let me check it."

He sighed.  "How come it works when *you* say it?"

She chuckled.  "Because you're a wise man." She walked around to
stand behind him.  "Right or left?"

"Left," he replied.  "It's just bruised, Scully.  I think I
probably landed on it yesterday."

"Take your shirt off, and let me look at it," she ordered.

He complied without comment, wincing as her fingers probed the
sensitive area on his back.

"Well, it's ten shades of purple, and it'll probably be fifteen
shades of blue and green before it's done, but I don't think
anything's separated or torn."  She walked back to face him,
indicating he could redress.  "It's going to be awfully sore
though.  I think you better take it easy today, Mulder," she told
him casually.  "Don't over do anything.  Pace yourself today."

Smooth, Scully, she congratulated herself.  Make him slow down
and think he's doing it for himself.  You are good, you know
that?

"It doesn't hurt when I walk, Scully.  I'm fine.  Are you ready
to go?"

Damn.  "I think so," she sighed.  "Just let me get the bag."

Mulder began kicking dirt over the black ashes of what had been
their campfire, as Scully walked toward the canvas bag, mentally
taking inventory of the contents.  Their limited supplies weren't
going to support them longer than a day, she knew.  She picked up
the bag and shouldered it, absently patting the side of it.  It
wasn't much, but it was all they had.  Two more meals worth of
Three Musketeers, and enough bottled water to last the day if
they were frugal.  Aside from that, they were painfully short on
anything remotely helpful.  Their jackets, the antibiotic cream
and syringe of Demerol, a lighter she had thrown in as an
afterthought when she saw it in the plane, and Mulder's glasses.

Mulder's glasses.

Oh God.  Where were they?  She had wrapped them in her jacket
before leaving the plane, but then she had slept under her jacket
last night and she hadn't seen them.  Where were they?   She
pulled the bag around to the front and unzipped it, pawing
through it roughly, removing her wadded up jacket and Mulder's to
get a better look inside.  The glasses were gone.  She had no
idea what had happened to them.

She'd lost them, she thought, somewhat dazed.  She'd managed to
save them from the wreckage only to lose them within a day.  She
blinked hard, embarrassed to realize she was close to tears.  She
wasn't a crier.  Dana Scully had never been a crier.  But she'd
never been in a plane crash before, either, she consoled herself.
It was stress.

That had to be it.  Just stress.

She sniffed and blinked back the last of her remorse, pulling out
the antibiotic cream and returning the rest of the items to the
bag.  She and Mulder had both lost things in the crash --
clothing, personal items, paperwork.  It could all be replaced --
even his glasses.  She just wouldn't tell him she had ever taken
them from the plane.  It seemed less of a failure that way.
Somewhat mollified, she zipped the bag and turned to her partner.

"Here," she said, waving the tube of cream at him.  "Let me put
some of this on your forehead before we go.

He nodded allowing her to administer the ointment liberally
before returning it to the bag.   "Okay," he told her, breaking
the short silence that had fallen between them.  "We're heading
west now, and I figure from the last point where we could see the
lookout tower that we're about a good ten or eleven miles from
it.  We won't know for sure until we crest the next hill, but for
now, let's just head this way.  Hopefully we'll find a stream or
a river before lunch time.  Okay?"

She sighed, looking through the trees at a day's worth of
mosquitoes and discomfort.  Fuck it, she wanted to say.

"I'm ready if you are," she said.

Mulder turned and walked easily into the trees.  Limping slightly
after her long-legged partner, she left the clearing without a
look back.  It hadn't been an outright lie, she thought -- she
was as ready as she was going to get today.  Mulder just didn't
have a clue how "not ready" that was.

End of Part 6
 

Tempest, part 7

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

1:13 pm

Mulder swatted away an errant pine branch and winced as the
needles added yet another jagged scratch to his hand.  He ran his
knuckles across the fabric of his pants, wiping away the blood
beginning to bead.  Sweat ran down the back of his neck and
disappeared into the damp fabric of his T-shirt.  It was too goddamned
hot for barely being May.  Wasn't it supposed to be cool in the
mountains?

As Scully followed several steps behind him, lost in her own
thoughts and observations, Mulder continued walking down the
sloping landscape, slipping now and then on the overlapping piles of
fallen leaves.  Occasionally, there were squirrels and rabbits that
bounded across his path.  Once, he saw a snake.  He hadn't mentioned
that one to Scully.  She hated snakes, and with the mood she was in
now, he just wasn't sure how she would have taken it.

He was beginning to feel discouraged.  Despite the hours they'd
been walking, they weren't making good progress at all.  His
muscles were screaming at him with every step, and although she
hadn't mentioned it, Scully was obviously faring even worse.  She was
limping noticeably, stumbling along several paces behind him. He'd
slowed down automatically when he realized she was struggling to keep
up.  Not that she'd been forthcoming about it. Oh no, not stoic
Special Agent Scully.  She hadn't complained once -- hadn't really
said anything at all outside of basic small talk when they'd stopped
for lunch -- but Mulder knew something was eating away at his partner,
and she stubbornly refused to tell him what it was.

At first, he had thought she was hiding an injury from him.  But
the longer she kept her silence, the more certain he became that
it had something to do with their uncomfortable encounter that
morning.

Uncomfortable?  Hell, that was the understatement of the decade.
Waking up with the soft inviting form of Dana Scully stretched out
prone like a blanket on top of him was hardly uncomfortable -- it was
exquisite.  He hadn't awakened to a hard-on that intense since high
school.  And judging from the look on Scully's face this morning,
she'd been horrified at his body's response. Now she was keeping her
distance.

It wasn't like he'd done it on purpose, he rationalized; some
things were just automatic.  Still, he knew first hand how
seriously Scully took her professionalism.  Her status with the
Bureau depended on it.  As a woman, and a small, attractive woman at
that, she had to be on guard all the time.  Mulder knew the ugly truth
that Scully fought so hard against: men take advantage at every
opportunity.  Did Scully think that about him now?  That he had tried
to take advantage?  That he had propositioned her?

Christ.  *Had* he propositioned her?  There had been a moment
when he wasn't sure.  They had stared at each other, neither
saying a word, but the reality of their position was all too
evident to them both.  The truth was, he could have broken the
contact sooner...but then so could she.  He honestly hadn't been
sure what he was seeing in her expression, and so he had waited,
hoping she would say or do something that would give him a clue
as to what his next move should be.

In a way, she had.  Her silence had ultimately moved him to roll her
off of him before he humiliated himself completely.  But one
word...just one...and things might have been different.

What had she been thinking, he wondered.  Why hadn't she said
anything?  And why, he asked himself, was he agonizing over
something that hadn't been his fault?  She could have moved.
She could have broken the silence.

The silence.  Scully was a paradigm of it lately.  This morning
had just been one more piece of the unending jigsaw puzzle that
had become their relationship.  He didn't know where he stood
with her anymore, and it was really beginning to piss him off.

He stopped walking.  God, it just hit him this very second.  He
really was pissed off.  Scully had been acting strangely for days now
and treating him as though he should know exactly what was going
through her mind.  Well he didn't know how to read minds, and he
surely wouldn't hazard a guess as to what was going through one as
paradoxical as Dana Scully's.

No.  She was going to have to tell him.  Spell it out.  Come
clean.  And he would pry it out of her tonight if he had to use a
fucking crowbar.  She owed him that much.  She did.

"Mulder?"

Her voice startled him.  "Huh?"

"What's wrong?"

That's the million dollar question, isn't it, he thought.
"Nothing," he told her.  "I was waiting for you to catch up."

Her lips thinned.  "Sorry to have held you up."

If she was looking for an apology, she wasn't going to get one.
"No problem," he told her, turning to start back down the path,
ignoring the surprised look on her face.  He took several steps
before he heard her make a move to follow.

Oh yeah, he thought, slapping another pine branch out of his way.
Tonight it was going to be resolved one way or another.  And he really
didn't give a shit whether or not she was ready to talk about whatever
it was.  He was ready enough for both of them.
 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

3:42 p.m.

Scully really needed to stop long enough to get a good look at
the back of her leg.  She could feel the wetness seeping through
the bandage and into the fabric of her jeans.  Oozing wetness
wasn't good, wasn't good at all.  If she could see it, she could
verify the infection -- gauge how long she had before the
situation became critical.  Losing her leg was a real
possibility, she knew, and it all hinged upon the amount of
tissue damage she sustained before beginning antibiotic
treatment.

Another wave of acid burning pain shot down her limb and she
moaned softly.  She had to be realistic.  Losing her leg was only one
of the extreme possibilities that was becoming less and less extreme
with every passing second.  Left untreated under these conditions, the
cut could easily be life-threatening.  She needed to look at it.  She
needed to, but she wouldn't.  God forbid Special Agent Chuck Yeager up
ahead be forced to wait for her again.  No, she could go as long as he
could.  She'd wait for *him* to stop.  To hell with complaining -- she
was her father's daughter.  She could endure.

A waist-high cluster of golden wildflowers caught her eye and she
brushed her fingertips lightly across the soft petals.  She loved the
velvety softness of flounders.  It was lovely at the beach this time
of year.  She straightened and shook her head.  Where had that come
from?  She looked ahead.  Mulder was farther away than she realized.
With a deep groan, she limped after him.

The pain really wasn't so bad once she made up her mind to ignore it,
she thought.  The weather was nice, and the sun was casting the most
interesting shadows all around her.  Some of them actually moved.
Weird.  She'd never noticed that before -- it must be a mountain
thing, she decided.

She tripped on a rock and took a small skip to regain her
footing.  She laughed out loud, and the sound seemed far away.
She hadn't skipped since she was a little girl.  Skipping.
Hopscotch.  Missy's childish voice came floating back to her.
You're out, Dana.  You stepped on the line.  I did not.  Did too. Did
not.  You're such a baby!  You're such a pukeface.  You're a butthole.
 Mom!  Missy called me a butthole!

Missy called me the night she was killed.  The phone rang
shrilly.  Don't answer, Mom.  There's been an accident.  Melissa
was shot.  Shot.  C'mon Dana.  Do another shot.  The tequila
burned her throat as she swallowed and placed the slice of lemon
in her mouth.  The party was in full swing.  How long will your
folks be out of town?

You're going out of town again?  Her mother's voice was
reproachful.  I have to, Mom.  That's part of my job.  Agent
Mulder sees more of you than I do these days.  Well we're even,
Mom -- I see just as much of him.  Do you enjoy the view?  MOM!

It's a nice view, she thought dreamily, staring at the slightly
blurry backside of her partner several yards ahead of her.  Such
a nice ass, she marveled.  It was an ass that should be carved
into the side of a mountain somewhere 200 feet tall people could
make pilgrimages to it on vacation.  Mt. Muldermore.  And that
was her professional opinion too.  She was a doctor -- she knew
about these things.  Great ass.  World class ass.

Mom! Dana's cussing!  She keeps saying "ass."  Did not!  Did too! Did
not!  Did too!  Liar!  Tattletale!  Tattle...tattle...
battle...rattle...rattlesnakes?  Her brother's voice now, so close by.
 Very, very close by.  A rattlesnake can kill you within 20 minutes if
it bites you more than once.  She hated snakes.  Hated them.  Mulder
hated bugs.  But he had liked the bug girl.  What was her name?
Fluffy?  Barbie?

No. Baaaaaambi. That was it, she scoffed.  Hmph.  Real people
weren't named Bambi.  Nobody was *really* named Bambi.  Fucking
deer.  She hated Bambi.  It was her least favorite Disney movie.
Disney.  Pbbbbbbbbbt.  What was WITH all those little characters
losing their parents?  What kind of freakin' sadist WAS that Walt
Disney, anyway?  Bambi, Dumbo, Ariel, Simba, and oh...that little
Jungle Book kid in the loincloth.

She wished she was wearing a loincloth.  She was too damn hot to
be traipsing around out here in the bright sun.  She'd feel
better if she could rest.  Just a few minutes.  The world spun
around her, making her stomach lurch like she was on a roller
coaster.  Whee.  Free ride.  She almost giggled at the thought,
then sobered as her equilibrium returned with the slightest bit
of mental acuity.  She'd made a mistake keeping her injury from
Mulder.  She should have told him.  He was going to be angry.

Are you mad at me Mom?  Her mother's hand still held the crumpled note
from Mrs. Allegro.  I'm not mad, Dana.  I'm disappointed in you.
Tears begin to slip down Dana's cheeks.  I think I'd rather have you
mad at me.

So long ago.  So far away.

Mulder was so far away.  He looked to be miles ahead of her now. Why
didn't he see she wasn't there?  He was leaving her.  He was leaving
her alone.  She could keep up better is she didn't have to drag around
this heavy bag.  Why wasn't Mulder carrying the bag?  He should have
been carrying the bag.  It was so heavy.

I didn't mean to drop it, Missy.  I just wanted to look at it.  I
didn't know it was heavy.  More tears.  Comforting arms around her.
It's okay, honey.  Don't cry.  I didn't like that figurine
anyway...I'm gonna get a crystal one that matches my room.  One that
matches...

You're not supposed to play with matches, Bill.  You're gonna get it
if Daddy catches you.  Who's gonna tell him, Dana Raina? Matches start
forest fires -- my teacher said so.  So I won't go near the forest.

Don't go near the forest.  Don't go near the forest.   My name's
Forrest Gump.  People call me Forrest Gump.  You can't be
serious, Mulder.  *Everyone* has seen Forrest Gump.  I keep
meaning to get around to it, I just haven't had time.

The thoughts swirled through her foggy mind.  No time.  No time.
Running out of time.  Wasted time.  Tired.  So tired.  So much blood.
Alone now.  No Mulder.

Mulder was gone.

Through tear-filled eyes, Scully scanned the wooded landscape.
When did she fall so far behind?  She'd completely lost sight of
Mulder and not even realized it.  How long ago had it been?
Seconds?  Five minutes?  An hour?  She had no concept of time.
Everything was distorted and wobbly.  Everything moved.  Even the
ground was moving.  Was she moving?  She wasn't moving.  When had she
stopped moving?

She stood, wavering on unreliable legs, and lifted her face into
the soft breeze met her from the east.  Which way were they
walking again?  She didn't know, and she'd never figure it out
without Mulder.  She hadn't been paying attention.

"Scully!"

Mulder's voice reached her distantly, like the cry of a small
animal imagined through the roar of a summer storm.  She spun
around, looking for a sign of him, seeing nothing but trees.  The
sudden movement stole the last of her balance, and she knew she was
going to fall.

Her knees buckled and she pitched forward, scraping her palms
across the rock-strewn ground as she broke her fall.  She ignored the
pain in her hands.  All she could feel was the pain in her leg.

"Scully!"  Mulder's voice was closer now.

"I'm here."  She yelled the words, but her voice resounded in her head
as the thinnest of whispers.

He found her anyway.  Struggling to stand despite the
heart-stopping agony of her leg, she suddenly found herself
looking directly at his outstretched hand.

She slapped it away.  "I don't need your help."  Her words
sounded thick...not like her own voice at all.

"Scully what is going on?" he asked as she dragged herself to her
feet.  "Why won't you tell me what's wrong?"

"There's nothing wrong," she mumbled.  "I need some privacy,
Mulder."  She hobbled off toward the trees.

"Scully?"

"Just give me a minute.  I'm fine."  She straightened her back
and walked slowly and deliberately away from her partner, praying with
every step she took, that she hadn't lied to him.  But in her heart
she knew the truth.  Fine was the very last thing she was.
 

End of part 7