***** Journal 1999 - Chapter 7 ***** "...and sometimes life slams you head first into a brick wall... repeatedly...without malice, but without remorse... and the only way to stop the pain is to cut off your head..." -Dana Katherine Scully journal entry, December 1, 1999 October 27, 1999 And then slowly, with the gradual grace of a sun rising, the sky transformed from the dull, dark grey to a brilliant red. The flat plain between Scully and the inevitable horizon glowed a blinding crimson. And just as slowly, dark patches of green broke the smooth surface of the ground. Her alien world woke. Tiny rivulets ran down over Scully as her ice prison began to melt away. The sun, hot and oppressive, forced the ice to retreat. With no clouds to provide relief, no trees to shade the sun's baking heat, her flesh began to dry and crack and burn. Her feet, free from the ice, were planted solidly in the searing soil; anchoring her down, rooting her to the land. Even if she could run there was no where to go. No reason to go there. Not when she was alone. Not without Mulder. So she raised her blistered arms to the killing sun and accepted the fiery death it offered. ***** "Scully...Scully, wake up..." A gentle brush against her forehead shocked her world from a vapory mist into the harsh line of reality. She didn't know how long she'd been lying with her eyes opened, but they hurt, like she had sand under her lids. "No," she gurgled, and pushed at the cold hands that were trying to force her to sit up. She needed to sleep. Sleep was good. It was too hot to do anything else. If she moved, she might burn up. Or her chest might implode. It felt as if she had a vise pressing down on her rib cage. "Come on, Scully. I need you to drink something for me. A little water." "I can't..." Her head lolled to one side as he lifted her shoulders. The room around her swirled and tilted, and darkness threatened at the edges of her vision. "Mulder..." "I know, Scully." His voice was soft and soothing. "But you're getting too dehydrated. Yesterday you didn't drink anything at all. Renee says you're getting worse, not better. I need you better, Scully." Something hard was placed against her mouth, and Scully licked unenthusiastically at the moisture that pooled between her lips. Those few drops awakened her thirst and she soon found herself gulping down the whole cup. "Easy. We want you to keep it down." Mulder eased the water from her and brushed the unkempt hair from her face. "So what were you dreaming about, Scully? You've been out for almost ten hours this time." "This time?" she croaked. Her throat was raw and painful. "Yeah, you've been kinda in and out since we got you here." She ventured a glance at her surroundings, and realized that the tent was gone, and a solid structure was in its place. And while the storm continued outside, it seemed farther away, less violent. "Here? Where?" "Well, we're not sure what village this is supposed to be..." The walls of the small room were an uneven off-white, the small window was covered by a heavy green curtain that swept the floor, and against the wall opposite the foot of the oversized bed, a small, dainty vanity held a glass pitcher of water. A wood fire burned somewhere near by, she could smell the wood burning and hear the crackles as it did. "Whose home is this?" Scully asked. "We don't know," Mulder said slowly, studying her eyes. "We found three cottages on this road, with no one home. I told you about this when we got here. You don't remember?" "No." He leaned a little closer. "Do you remember coming here at all?" Scully closed her eyes. They still ached. So did her back, her legs, her head - oh, God, her head hurt. "The last thing I remember is on the plane." She swallowed. "The turbulence." Mulder's brows lowered, and he nodded, but he didn't tell her what he was thinking. "Well," he said at last, "that was five days ago. You were unconscious when we finally landed, and it took both Logan and myself to get us down without splitting the plane in half. Dag got you out. He really can't swim. By the time we got the two of you to shore, you'd nearly drowned." He bit his lip, and then took her hand, but looked up at the wood slats on the ceiling as he changed the subject. "There was a fully stocked medicine cabinet here, thank God, and Renee says you'll be good as new if we can keep you hydrated." And that seemed to remind him that she'd only downed one cup of water, and he got up to get her another. "Where's everyone else? Dag and Renee?" "Dag and Logan went scouting. We take turns trying to figure out where we are. There was nothing in this cabin that indicated location, beyond a couple of French romance novels. We're kind hoping for a big map with a You Are Here dot." He settled himself on the edge of the bed, his thigh solid against hers. The water he handed her was cold. "We're certainly in the Alps; there's no disguising the mountains, even if the peaks are lost in the clouds, and the snow is coming down so hard visibility is nearly zero. But the Alps, even the French Alps, cover a tremendous amount of area." And then he added a playful, "Who knew?" with a half grin on his face and a little shrug. Scully sipped at the water until her arms shook with the effort of simply holding the ceramic mug to her lips. The degree of her physical weakness spoke of just how sick she'd been. Mulder took the cup from her and helped her finish the last of the water. When he released the back of her head, and she sank blissfully into the pillow, she watched him as he lifted the blankets to her chin and tucked them around her shoulders. Then he leaned over her and placed a small kiss on her temple. "You really had me scared. You know that?" He pulled the covers up to her chin and smoothed them over her shoulders. "Sleep now, Scully." "Don't leave," she eked out. He gave her a lopsided smile and shook his head. "I'll be here when you wake up." ***** October 31, 1999 Abandoned cottage Somewhere in the Alps For four days solid, Scully slept, drank water, and ate a little of the broth that Dag prepared from the rations they'd packed for their mission, and what little they found while scouting, while the rest of them went out into the blizzard to try and figure out where in hell they were. Scully could hear them argue in the other room, through the thin wood door when they thought she was asleep. She listened to Logan's growing frustration and pointed tongue, to Mulder's shortening fuse, and to Renee's rare interjection of civility and reason. Morale was running low. Once Mulder and Renee had gone scouting again, and Logan announced he was going out to collect more firewood, Scully heard Dag's hesitant footsteps on the floorboards outside her tiny room. The door was cracked open, and he peeked in. His clear, pale blue eyes met her's questioning. "I'm not asleep," she told him. "You can come in." He slipped inside, with a pensive look on his red, wind-burned face, and then buried his fists in his trouser pockets. His clothes seemed looser, his frame leaner and less muscular. His intelligent eyes flashed to Scully and then away again, and he shifted on his feet. "Is there something you want to ask me, Dag?" He took a moment to collect the words. "You sick because of me." Scully frowned, and sat up a little in the bed. "What?" Dag looked down at his socked feet and wiggled his toes. "Mulder say you sick because I swim not." The guilt he wore slumped his shoulders forward. "No," Scully shook her head. "I'm alive because you saved me, Dag." "Mulder say," he insisted. "I know. Mulder says a lot of things when he's upset. But Dag, you saved my life, and Mulder knows that. He told me that you got me out of the plane when it was sinking. I would've drowned if you hadn't." "He say that?" "He did." Dag's face lightened, and he inhaled deeply, and then gave a little cough to clear his throat. He didn't make a move to leave, though, and Scully wondered if there was something else he wanted to say. After a few awkward moments, though, she had to say something. "Where did you learn English, Dag?" "Tapes," he said after a moment. "One month." "You've only been speaking English for a month?" He nodded. "Hard to find teacher in Norway." "Is that where you're from?" He nodded. "Father there. Great fisherman. Taught me to use knife." His hand went to the decorative hilt at his belt. "Old man now," he continued. "Tired. Sad." Then Dag shook his head and turned to the door. She watched him linger in the door for a moment but then he left, and closed it behind himself. ***** Mulder was getting good at giving sponge baths. When Renee had first showed him how to lift her limbs at a certain angle to get "all the little crevasses," Scully had been too weak to worry about dignity, but now that her fever had dropped almost completely, it was hard not to make it an issue. Scully had always been self- sufficient, and not being able to bathe and dress herself was hard for her to accept. And even though Mulder made it clear that he enjoyed the private time they had together, she couldn't help the feeling of helplessness. His finger brushed the underside of her chin, and raised her head just enough for her to meet his eyes. For a long moment, he gazed into her, seeing the discomfort she was trying so hard to suppress. Then he turned back to where he'd left off on her forearm. "Relax, Scully," he coaxed, as the tips of his fingers skirted her flesh an instant after the soapy cloth. "It doesn't seem right that I should be enjoying this more than you." "You're not the one laying naked while someone rubs you down." "I should be so lucky," he quipped. "And I'm not just any Tom, Dick, or Logan off the streets, Scully. I'm trying not to be hurt." The amusement in his eyes told her he was far from wounded. She shook her head, ignored the slight dizziness that followed, and made a grab for the cloth. "I can do it, Mulder. I'm feeling better." He raised the wet rag out of her reach. "Maybe I want to do this. Maybe I don't get to spend enough time with my wife while she's conscious." He leaned closer to her, and his voice dropped half an octave. "You are my wife, now, and I expect you to let me take care of you when I need to. So, I can feel I'm fulfilling my husbandly duties. Remember that sickness and in health bit?" Scully raised her brows at him. "I don't recall the judge saying that particular line, or mentioning this particular husbandly duty." A wonderful smile spread across his face. "I didn't think you were paying attention." "Oh, I'm always paying attention, Mulder. For instance, your left hand moving up the inside of my thigh." "Maybe I have a vested interest in the condition of his leg." He looked down to his own hand as his fingers working their way up the delicate skin of her inner thigh. Goose bumps rose as a shiver worked its way down her spine. His hand stopped short, and he glanced up into her eyes, and smiled when he found her breathing faster. "You're so beautiful, Scully. I can't believe I spent so much time trying to pretend you're not." He brought the washcloth down on her shoulder and smoothed it over the underside of her left arm. "I tried so hard not to be in love with you. I can't even begin to explain why." Scully smiled. She knew exactly why. It was the same reason she didn't want to be in love with the infuriating, brilliant, destructive man beside her. "I've been telling you why all along. It's because you're crazy, Mulder." He chuckled, and lifted her knuckles to his lips. "That, I must be." I must be crazy with you, she thought, because I love you, too. Just then, the outer door to the cottage slammed open and the sound of the storm roared in. "We've got it!" Logan shouted. "We know where we are!" Mulder dropped the rag in the ceramic basin by the bed and helped Scully cover herself with the blanket. Then he went into the other room. "Where are we?" Through the open door Scully could see Logan and Renee stripping off their layers of snow covered clothes. They looked freezing. "We're in Switzerland," she told him. West Switzerland near the French boarder." "We crashed in Lake Geneva," Logan took over the explanation. "We found the remains of a ski lodge farther up on the mountain. This whole area used to be a resort, but it looks like the lake swelled and swallowed almost everything up." Scully bundled the blanket around her and slipped out of the bed. Her legs were weak, but her knees didn't buckle, and she was able to hobble to the door. "So, how far off course are we?" Mulder asked. Logan's eyes narrowed, looking for an insult. "About 160 miles." "Christ!" Mulder swore under his breath. "That's 160 mountain miles. How the hell are we going to cross that?" "What is mountain mile?" Dag asked. "We can't just go straight across," Mulder explained, slicing his hand through the air in front of him. "There are mountains in the way that we have to go around. It might as well be 1600 miles." "There was no way for me to know that! They gave me nothing to work with." Logan insisted. His arms tensed, ready for a battle. Renee shook her head. "We have another problem." She waited until she had their attention before saying, "If Lake Geneva has swallowed the whole valley, then we can assume that many of the other valleys are flooded as well." "So, we need a boat," Scully said, following Renee's logic. The whole room turned to look at her, aware for the first time that she was there. "And a map of Switzerland," Renee said after a moment, with a smile on her face. "It's nice to have you back, Dana." "Where the hell are we going to get a boat," Logan gripped. "We're in the mountains, for crying out loud!" "We're at a lakeside resort," Renee reminded him. "Actually, we're on a mountain near where a lakeside resort used to be," Mulder said, almost to himself. Scully could see the wheels turning behind his intense stare. He sucked on his lower lip. "Before we do anything, we eat," Renee announced. There was no argument, and as she and Logan hung their wet clothes up to dry, Dag started to reheat the vegetable stew and stale bread that they'd been eating on for a couple of days. It was the last of the bread and potatoes in their rations, and he'd added several more pints of water to make the stew last. Scully dressed while the meal was heating, in clothes that had been washed and hung out to dry for her. They were warm from being so near the fireplace, and smelled of wood smoke. ***** After dinner, the plan was set. For the remaining few hours of sunlight, as dim as it was, Mulder and Dag would make a systematic search for anything that might qualify as a boat. They would start at the remains of the skiing lodge that Logan and Renee found that day, hoping that a tourist attraction might have a layout of the area, giving them a better idea of where to search, and also hoping to find a large topographical map of the country. Logan was allowed to sleep, as exhausted as he was, and Renee was left to take care of the dinner dishes. They managed to finish the stew, so there was no need to fuss about leftovers. Scully sat that the roughly carved table, hands curled around a warm cup of water, sipped occasionally, and tried not to be cold. Part of her was tempted to crawl back into the wide bed in the other room, but if she was going to gain back any stamina, she needed to spend a couple of hours vertical. Then, when Mulder got back, she might spend a night horizontal with him. It really wasn't fair that they'd given her the single bed in the cottage. Mulder had explained that they'd found two other small houses with beds nearby, but the amount of wood it took to keep a large enough fire in the hearth to warm the whole cottage was considerable, and they wouldn't be able to keep three fires going at once. So, they'd made sleeping pallets out of the blankets and stolen bedding from the other houses, and let Scully sleep, oblivious and comfortable in the bed. Scully wondered how much of that favoritism had to do with what she was carrying around inside her DNA, and how much had to do with her overprotective husband. "You're thinking about him, no?" Renee turned to her and leaned against the sink, toweling off her hands. The design in her deep brown sweater complimented the solid weight of her bust, and slope of her hips. With her classic beauty, she could have been a fashion model, except for the fact that she was shaped like a woman. "Who?" "Mulder." Renee took the seat opposite Scully at the table. "I see the look in your eyes, when you think of him. Makes me miss my Philippe." She smiled at some inward memory and leaned across the table to take Scully's hand. The gesture seemed casual enough, everything that Renee did was casual. But for Scully, the reaching out for physical contact was shockingly intimate. Scully wasn't a hugger, and never had been, but Renee didn't seem to notice her unease. "You know, I have seen him with that same look." She sighed and squeezed her hand. "I am glad you are here. For him, and for you. Love should never be divided." "Is that what happened to you and Philippe?" Renee looked startled for a second and then burst into laughter. It was the first time that Scully had heard her laugh. "Oh, no. No. Philippe was my poodle. He had the saddest eyes...broke my heart to look at him sometimes." Scully blinked. "I remind you of your dog?" She was less than thrilled. "It's a compliment. Not many people truly understand unconditional devotion." Renee stood and tossed the dishtowel over one of the cabinet doors to dry, and shook her head in disgust. "English is too limited in the concept of love. One tiny word for all those different feelings." For a moment, Renee contemplated the damp towel. Then she added quietly, "You know, I loved that dog." ***** End of Chapter 7 ***** ***** Journal 1999 - Chapter 8 ***** "...in the end, though, because I loved him so much, I think I burned only to throw more light into Mulder's brilliance. I allowed myself to be swallowed by his all-consuming quest...my beliefs, my moral structure were both sacrificed so that his might survive, thrive, grow. I believed in God, he in aliens. We all know which one of us was proven right..." - Dana Katherine Scully, journal entry, November 5, 1999 November 3, 1999 A valley in Western Switzerland "My God," Scully gasped under her breath. "Does it float?" "Better than you," Logan snapped as he yanked her pack from her shoulder and tossed it in the back of the tin raft. And in truth, it was little more than that. Dag and Mulder had spent the better part of two days securing one of their two tents to the pontoon to give the group a waterproof shelter from the storm, and also to add an extra layer of insulation between the cold metal and their bodies. The result was a make-shift canoe that looked as if it would be difficult to escape if it capsized. Mulder came up behind her with a bundle of bedding in his arms. "Scully, we want you towards the back with the packs, since you won't be able to paddle." He nodded for her to climb aboard, and she reluctantly did. "Towards the back" was a difference of maybe two feet. Logan had evenly disbursed the weight of their supplies, leaving two of the biggest packs at the tail end of the oversized canoe. Aside from the main flap at the front, there were "windows" cut into the sides of the tents, and one at the rear, and a slit on either side that she could only guess were meant as holes for the oars. Mulder helped her settle on the last rung, using blankets and pillows to make a nest around her. "Logan and I are going to start out paddling," he explained as he tucked a second blanket around her legs. "Renee will be at the front as lookout and captain, so Dag's going to be resting back here with you. He'll help keep you warm." "Don't worry, Mulder, I'm fine." He pulled her hood down farther over her forehead. "I am worried. The rest of us are going to be moving and creating body heat, but you'll -" "I'll be just fine. And soon I'll be able to help with the rowing, too." Her cough was getting better, and her stamina grew every day. But somehow the healthier she got, the more Mulder tried to coddle her, and of course the amount of coddling she was able to take decreased exponentially as she felt better. The boat rocked, and Dag poked his head inside the tent flap. He analyzed the small space with a look of trepidation. He took his seat, though, and Logan and Renee pushed the small craft out on to the water. It floated. The storm beat against the sturdy plastic, creating a tremendous amount of noise, and above that Renee shouted commands to Logan and Mulder to get the boat turned away from the shore. Soon, Mulder and Logan broke into an easy rowing rhythm. Every hour or so they rotated the rowing duties. But the scenery barely changed from Scully's point of view. Out the tiny window, when she bothered to look, there was nothing but white and grey snow slanting past, and every so often the shadow of trees or a mountain in the distance. That first day it was slow going. When what little daylight they had finally faded away, Mulder lead them to shore, and they made camp. Logan found a little alcove in the forest about twenty feet up the a slope from the water that he deemed level enough for their raft and tent. The evergreens there gave the added bonus of a small windbreak, but even so, what little dead wood they found was too wet to burn. Dinner consisted of cold dried noodle soup. They ate it because it was nutrition, and because it quieted their growling stomachs. When their sparse meal was done, and the bowls were rubbed clean with snow, and Mulder retreated into the raft/tent for the night and adjusted the blankets into a semblance of a bed. Then, he stripped off his overcoat and two of the sweaters he'd worn that day, tried to make his lanky body fit in the tight space. Scully shrugged out of her coat and joined him. Snuggled under layers of blankets, sleeping bags, her coat over their feet and his over their shoulders, and their arms tightly hugging one another, Scully was able to relax. It wasn't until then that she realized how tired she was. It took a lot of energy to be so cold. She coughed a little to clear her lungs, and then they pulled the blankets over their heads. It was dark in their cocoon, and safe. His heartbeat dominated her hearing, louder even than the buffeted tent around them. The steady, strong rhythm was comforting. His body was warm. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and when she lifted her head to him, his mouth closed over hers. The tenderness in his lips and tongue comforted, reassured. His palm cupped her cheek. His breath on her lips was warm and moist. "How was your day, Mrs. Mulder?" he asked in a low, playful voice. She felt him smile against her lips, his stubble scratched her chapped face. "Oh, you know, Mr. Scully," she mumbled vaguely and then returned to sucking on his lower lip. One of his hands skimmed down to her hip, and he caressed her there through her jeans. "Oh, I know," he echoed. And then added between tiny kisses, "Shopping at that little boutique where you get all your best lingerie, and then a trip to that bath store that sells that shower gel that makes you smell so good..." Scully scoffed. "Lingerie, Mulder?" "And then you picked up a quart of milk to finish off that delicious dinner you had planned for me." "Oh? I'm making you dinner?" "You would make me dinner, wouldn't you, Scully?" He ran the tip of his tongue along the underside of hers. "If I asked nicely." "Mulder," she gasped, finding it hard to catch her breath, "you never ask nicely." "Pretty. Please." He emphasized each word with a nip on the side of her neck. "Oh, Jesus, Mulder. You'd better stop that. There's not enough room in here to finish what I think you're trying to start." "I know," he muttered against her pulse. "I know." Then he kissed his way back to her lips. One of his knees slid between hers. "I just want you to be warm enough." In the distance, muffled by layers of bedding and warmth, over the fumbling of Mulder's hands and the small sucking sounds he made as he kissed her, through the falling snow and howling wind that rattled the plastic of the tent that protected them, Scully heard a sound. It started low and grumbling, almost inaudible. Then in a matter of seconds it was directly over them, blasting and grinding, so loud it made her chest and lung hurt. Mulder threw back the blankets. The cold air wasn't so shocking as the brilliant white light that enveloped their raft/tent. Mulder held her forcefully against his chest and yelled at the top of his lungs to Logan, "Don't move! Don't leave your tent!" Instantly sound and light vanished. The silence that followed was filled with the ruffle of the plastic tent as the wind once again beat against it, and the natural sound of the storm outside. Not a true silence, but after the blast to her senses, Scully's ears began to ring. "You okay?" he demanded. The night that once again covered them hid his face from her, but if she could see him, she was sure panic would be in his eyes. "Fine." She swallowed and realizing she'd been holding her breath, coughed a little. "Logan!" Mulder called out. "What the hell was that?!" Mulder ignored his fear. "Logan, are Dag and Renee there with you?" "Of course." And then, "Holy shit! That was *them*?!" "They know we're here," Scully said slowly, as she came to grips with the enormity of what had just happened to them. "Stay put," Mulder he called to the other tent. "If it comes again, stay inside. I think the snow is protecting us. If they can't read our body heat, they may not be able to see us." "But Mulder, how did they know we were here at all?" Scully reached out and grabbed his upper arms. "They pinpointed us." "But they didn't get us -" "They know we're here," she insisted. They were tracking the group, like a pack of wild dogs in the desert. And as long as one of them had the tag, they would always know how to find them. Her right hand left Mulder and her fingers smoothed over the scar at the base of her neck. "They know I'm here, Mulder." "They don't know anything, Scully. They left because they didn't find anything." "They know." The temperature inside their tent was well below freezing, but her fear was colder. Scully began to shiver. "Hey," Mulder cooed, and pulled her against him. "We're okay, Scully. Everything's okay." But she knew it wasn't. As much as she wanted to believe him, that was how much she knew in her bones that the Colonists had found them through her, and that they would be back. The rest of the night seemed to drag endlessly on, but when the sun did finally rise in the form of a diluted grey light, they crawled from their tents, ate a light breakfast of dried fruit and water, and broke camp. No one mentioned what had happened to them the night before, but Scully knew they were all thinking about it. ***** November 4, 1999 The day that followed was more of the same: rowing, snow, wind, waves. At one point while they were rowing in tandem, Dag turned to Mulder and said very simply, "Food." Mulder met his eyes, and Scully wasn't able to see what transpired between them, but Mulder announced that they were all going to take a break and eat a little something. Rations were incredibly low, but they nibbled on dried apples, a handful of crackers, and some nuts, and then each of them drank their portion of the day's water allowance. By the time evening drained their daylight, they'd only gained a couple of miles headway according to the map that they were working off of. Of course, if the map was wrong, or if their assumed location was in error... Scully refused to think about it. It was out of her control. She'd studied the map Logan had found, and agree with their probable location, and the hypothetical alterations to the geography of the country because of the storm. If they were off course, they were all off course together. Which was something that Scully was growing more and more uneasy about. If the Colonists *were* tracking her through the implant at the base of her neck, then she was putting all five of them in danger. And if they did, by some miracle, make it to the Resistance's underground city, then she'd be leading their enemy right to it. Everyone saw what was inside her as a miracle cure, but in truth it could very possibly be the poison that killed them all. That night, as the hours crept by, Scully played with the idea of leaving the group. Wrapped in the warmth of Mulder's arms it was easy to think brave thoughts. If she stole away while the others were sleeping, she might get a couple hours head start before they discovered her missing. Logic would dictate that since they'd have no idea in what direction she'd set out on, they would have to continue forward to the underground city. But Mulder rarely followed conventional logic. He would never leave her to the certain fate the storm would seal for her. And she could never hurt him like that. He'd left her behind several times, and each was like a burning betrayal. He would never know that kind of pain from her. That only left her one option. And she had to act before she lost her nerve. Mulder jerked awake when she pulled herself from his embrace, but settled back down when she whispered that she just needed to go to the bathroom. On her way out of the tent, she pulled from her pack the knife that Dag taught her to wield, and then slipped it in the pocket of her parka. She stomped her boots on, but didn't bother to do up the laces. What she had to do wouldn't take long. The wind and snow was an abrasive to her dry, chapped cheeks, and as she knelt down in the snow she had to force herself to loosen the hood away from her neck. The wind and snow swept her hair out of the way for her. By the time she pulled out the knife, and she found the tiny scar on the back of her neck with her numbing fingers, Scully was shivering so much she couldn't keep her jaw closed. It didn't have to be a deep cut, the metal chip was just beneath the skin. Not too much blood, she told herself, and with the cold, barely any pain. She hesitated. And in that moment, she lost her nerve. Tears welled up under her closed lids, and snow collected in the back of her open coat. Humiliated to find herself weak at a moment when the group's survival depended on her strength, Scully returned back to the tent. She couldn't bring herself to lay with Mulder again when she felt so overwhelmingly she'd let him down. "Scully, come here," he whimpered. "It's cold." "Mulder, you have to cut the implant out." She hear him sit up. "What?" "I tried, but I couldn't do it." "What!?" He lurched towards her in the dark, and his sudden movement rocked the raft a little. "Did you...are you okay? What did you do, Scully?" "Nothing." It was heartbreaking to have to admit it to him. That she had tried, that she knew it had to be done, but that she couldn't bring herself to actually do the cutting. "You have to do it, Mulder. They'll be back. They'll find us all." "You don't know that," he insisted. His hands were warm against her face, and he pulled her against him. She embraced him, seeking a forgiveness she knew he didn't think was necessary, but she knew it was. He searched out the back of her neck, and finding it intact, cupped his hand over it. "They didn't come here tonight. Maybe last night was a fluke." She shook her head. "They'll be back. I know it." "You can't *know* it, Scully -" "I DO!" She yanked herself free from his arms, and took the strength that the darkness offered to tell him what she needed him to understand. "Mulder, I know. Just as you've always known that the truth was out there, so I know that those sons of bitches will be back. They won't let me succeed." "*I* won't let you cut the chip out," Mulder said, matching her fervor. "Not now, not when there's no other way of controlling the cancer. I won't lose you now, Scully." "You might have to. If you won't help me take the chip out, I'll have to leave the group." "NO!" "Mulder, think about it. If they're using me as a tracking device, I would lead the Colonists right to the Resistance. Look at what they've done to the weather...the earthquakes...they would wipe us out. After what they've done to this planet, erasing one insignificant mountain from the face of the Earth would be child's play." "Scully, they're not tracking -" The light and grinding roar came out of nowhere and bathed their tiny tent in blinding white. The packed snow that had fallen that day left a dark shadow over them, and Scully hoped it would be enough to throw the ship off. If, in fact, Mulder's theory was correct. Maybe, though, they just wanted to make sure their favorite lab rat was still on the track. Like a researcher goes into a hibernating bear's den to make sure it's still alive. Mulder grabbed her and yanked her into his lap, and she held him just as tightly. If the Colonists were there to take her, she wasn't about to go willingly. The rumbling vibrated through her, and made it hard to hear her own thoughts. She closed her eyes, and prayed to God to protect them, trusting that He could hear them for her. For almost a minute they were bombarded, and then the light and sound vanished, leaving darkness and the never-ending storm. Mulder didn't speak. He shook as he held her in his arms, his head buried in the crook of her neck. She felt his hot tears trail down her back between her shoulder blades. Renee called out, "Dana? Mulder?" "We're here," Scully yelled to her. "We're okay." "Are we? Scully? Are we okay?" Mulder didn't bother to cover his distress. "Tell me we're okay." "We will be," she told him, and stroked the back of his head. He pulled away from her, but in the dark she couldn't see the expression on his face. She didn't need to. "Mulder, you know it has to be done. How else would they know? It's in me, Mulder, and it needs to come out." "But -" "Don't fight me on this, Mulder. You know I'm right. You know that I wouldn't ask this of you if I weren't sure there was no other way." "There must be -" "No. I've worked with you for seven years. In all that time have I ever given you reason to doubt me? Mulder?" "Of course not." "Please, then, when we have so little to believe in, don't start to doubt me now." When he didn't say anything, Scully reached into her pocket and withdrew the knife. Then, she reached past Mulder to the side pocket of his pack and pulled out the lighter. The tiny amount of light it produced was more than enough to see the strain and grief on her husband's face. His eyes were red slits on his pale face, his lips trembled with cold, his nose ran. Scully ran the blade over the flame, and then handed him the knife. He took it from her, but stared down at it as if it were a dead thing, putrid. She turned her back to him. It was easier to inhale deeply when she couldn't see his eyes. Renee stood in the tent's main flap, staring at the blade in Mulder's hand, and then at the way Scully adjusted her two thermal shirts, so that the back of her neck was bared to him. She didn't say a word, though, as Scully held the lighter up to throw light on Mulder's work. A single finger brushed the scar she wore almost reverently, and then he kissed her there. Scully tried to calm her shivers, tried to ignore the cold and focus on relaxing to stillness. The more solid she was, the easier it would be on him. "One clean cut at an angle, then you should be able to pry it out with the point of the knife." It was over in a matter of seconds. When Scully turned around to look, Mulder's bloody fingers held the minute metal disk. She took it from him and pressed it between her forefinger and her thumb. So small she could barely feel it, and yet it could've been their deaths. She pulled her shirts back into place and held the front of her parka together as she stumbled past Renee out into the storm. All she had to do was open her hand, and the chip simply vanished on the wind. Renee touched her shoulder on her way back to the other tent, and then Scully returned to the darkened shelter and to Mulder. "Now, that wasn't so bad," she said lightly, as they rearranged the bedding. He didn't say a word. Neither of them slept for a very long time. He held her that night, but there was a distance in him that she couldn't reach. ***** End of Chapter 8 ***** ***** Journal 1999 - Chapter 9 ***** "...yadda, yadda, yadda...aliens from outer space..." -Dana Katherine Scully, journal entry, November 13, 1999 The days that followed were uniform in their dreary, frozen miserableness. Mulder spoke very little and avoided Scully's gaze without actively icing her out. Dag grew increasing agitated at Mulder's newfound solemness, but remained ignorant of its reason. Renee seemed to keep an eye on everyone and everything, and kept a lid on Logan's growing impatience with their situation. Five days after they left the comfort of the small cabin, the food ran out, and all mapped landmarks were either swallowed up by the continuously rising waters, washed away by the unrelenting winds, or blanketed by the impenetrable snow. Ice chunks began to form in the swollen valleys, and became a real threat to their delicate raft. Scully showed Logan what little she knew about fishing through ice, but nothing seemed to be alive under the rocky water. Some leaves and grasses were found buried feet below the mounting snow, but not enough to sustain them. No signs of civilization promised the group any hope. The cold was defeating. But there were no further visits from the bright light in the middle of the night. ***** November 9, 1999 In the middle of the next day, Dag passed out. Mulder and Renee pulled Dag up from his awkward position on the shallow floor of the raft and sat him on the last rung so he could lean back against the packs. He shivered, semi-coherent of his surroundings. Renee worked furiously to unzip and unbutton his top coat and then stripped off her own jacket to lend him her body heat. Scully wrapped several of the blankets around the two of them while Renee rubbed his arms and back vigorously. "What the hell happened?" Logan demanded from behind them. "Shock," Renee explained as she worked. "He's been reducing too quickly for good health." Dag had been more pale than usual, but Scully had dismissed it as too much cold and not enough sun; a condition they were all suffering from. "He's not eating enough proteins for his body to digest the rest of what little food he eats." Logan dismissed the French woman with an angry shake of his head. "That doesn't make sense. The body needs complex carbs and fibers to aid digestion. Everyone knows that." "Yes," Renee accepted, "but you must remember that where Dag comes from fish and goats are more common than grains. His normal diet is extremely high in calcium and proteins, and without them his body cannot function." "Won't he adapt?" Mulder asked. "In time," Renee said thoughtfully. "Yes, I think he might. But it would have to be a gradual process. This is..." Renee frustratingly gestured, searching for the right word. "Cold turkey," Scully supplied. "Okay. Then we have to find a source of protein for him. And iron." The trouble was, the only protein Scully could think of was wearing clothes. ***** Logan stared at the map. "I think we're here." He jabbed his thumb at the icy paper and then looked out the side flap of their tent raft to study the outline of the mountains through the storm. The wind had let up some since Dag fainted, but the volume of snow hadn't changed. "How can you tell?" It all looked the same to Scully; cold and miserable. Even with the five of them huddled inside their tiny shelter, their collective body heat couldn't melt the snow that blew in the tent flaps. "I can tell," he growled, and then stuffed the map into one of the many pockets on his coat. "How far," Renee asked. She was busy massaging the circulation back into Dag's right hand. Logan hesitated, gazed out at the storm. "Two days. Maybe." Renee's shrewd brown eyes met his for a split second, and then she said, "We must find food." "Right," Mulder said on an exhale. "Let's get to shore, make camp, and then see what we can do about finding food." It was the longest sentence any of them had heard from him in days. Briefly, he met Scully's gaze. His expression was tired, defeated. ***** The group worked slower on an empty stomach. With the wind and the snow battering her from every side, and her belly complaining from within, it took a small eternity for Scully, Dag and Renee to get the other tent set up. By that time Logan and Mulder had dragged the raft up the steep embankment, secured it, scouted out the area, and started to collect snow to be melted down for fresh water. Inside the cold, cramped tent, Logan spelled out the plan he'd formulated while Mulder and Renee rubbed Dag vigorously, trying to work some pink into his chalky grey skin. "There's a rocky slope just to the west of here. There's a good chance that some vegetation survived in the nooks there. To the east," he motioned with a thumb over his right shoulder, "the evergreens are thicker. There might be some rabbits or porcupines that have burrowed underneath the trees trying to get away from the storm. It's worth a try." "Someone must stay with Dag," Renee said mater-of-factly. "The body cools quickly when it rests. If he falls asleep, he may freeze." Logan eyed the Norweigin. "Fine. Renee, you stay with Dag, since you know what to do here. I'll go east and try to round up some meat for us." He motioned to Mulder and Scully. "You can check out the rocks and see if there's anything there we might eat. Most roots have a lot of vitamins. Bring back anything looks edible." It wasn't much of a plan, but the focus of her simple task made Scully feel more grounded than she had in a while. ***** It was slow going. The snow that covered the uneven ground was well up to her mid-thighs, and Scully struggled with every step. The two layers of thermal underwear that she wore underneath her jeans did little to protect her legs from the cold wet. Her toes went numb before they lost sight of the tents. Mulder positioned himself in front of her to help pave the way, and he acted as a narrow wind block as they trudged forward. But even his long legs had trouble stomping through the wet, packed snow, and they had to stop every couple of steps for him to check his footing. The rocky slope Logan had mentioned looked like a rock slide froze by a slick layer of ice. Scully had no idea how the Australian expected them to break through that barrier and get at whatever plant life might be hiding beneath the small boulders. They would need pick axes to chip away at ice that thick. Out of breath and starving, Scully dropped on top of one of the larger iced stones and folded herself into a little ball to catch the billowing warmth she was exhaling. Maybe if she could feel her face again, she might be able to think of something. She felt the pressure of Mulder hand through the coat and sweaters she wore, and he worriedly said her name. "I'm okay," she told him. He dropped down beside her and wrapped an arm across her shoulders. They huddled together, folded over themselves, faces mere centimeters apart, sharing the small warmth of their breath. Once again he wasn't looking at her, but his mouth was right there, so close to hers, and they never had a moment alone these days... Scully kissed him. But instead of returning the kiss, as she'd expected, he pulled away. "No," he said as he stood and took a step away from her. "I can't." Scully shook her head. "Can't? Why?" "Because I failed you, Scully. Because I swore I would take care of you, and I failed." He wrapped his arms around his chest and hung his head low. "God, Scully." "Mulder?" He turned away from her. "How could you do it? Scully? How could you make me do it? I could've stopped it, I could've refused..." For days not a word had been said about the removal of her implant. Now, they were finally going to have the conversation she'd been dreading; a conversation she knew they had to have. "There was no other way, Mulder. You knew that." "I didn't know that!" he screamed. "I don't know that!" He spun around and grabbed her upper arms. His intensity frightened her. "All I know is that I was supposed to protect you - I swore that I would protect you - and instead I've killed you!" "NO!" Scully stood as tall as she could and met his eyes. "*I* did it, Mulder. Me. It was my decision, my choice. And I'm not dead, Mulder. Don't write me off so easily." "You threw away the implant -" "I did it, Mulder, for the same reason I've done everything for the past seven years: because I love you!" For a moment he just looked at her, then his face dropped and his eyes filled with tears. "That thing was keeping you alive! How can you possibly...?" He jerked away from her, his hands on his hips, the snow swirled around him. "You tell me you love me for the *first* time..." He shook his head and back away from her. A high-pitched cry an instant before was all the warning Scully had that the bobcat was even there. It leapt at her, landing squarely against her shoulders, and slammed her hard against the brick-hard ice. Its yellowed teeth gnashed at her face, and she managed to force her forearm into the cat's mouth before it bit out a chunk of her cheek. Its jaws were like an iron clamp. She felt her ulna and radius snap, and then the pain flooded through her entire body. Vaguely, she heard Mulder screaming her name above her own panicked cries. Without warning the creature let her go, and she opened her eyes to see it dive, claws extended, at her husband. The knife that had been sheathed in her pocket, intended to cut whatever vegitation they found free from the frozen earth, was in her left hand before she made the conscious decision to pull it out. She ran with all her strength at the bobcat, and plunged the blade into the animal's neck. The cat twitched as it fell to the ground; its mouth opened once, twice, before its golden eyes rolled back and its tongue rolled out of its bleeding mouth. Steam escaped from the growing pool of red near its head. Scully yanked her knife free, and more blood poured out. It coated her hand, filled her nostrils with the smell of death. The adrenaline washed through her and left her shaking and empty. Another death. Always another. Mulder moaned, and Scully rushed to his side. The bobcat had ripped through his coat and sweaters, and he had a bleeding gash across the left side of his torso. Scully pressed her left hand over it to staunch the flow. "It's not too bad," he gasped. "I don't think it's very deep." He looked over at the dead animal and then back at Scully again, astonishment filled his eyes. "You got it." "Do you think you can walk?" All she could think about was getting him back to their camp where they could get out of the storm and Renee could look him over with her medical kit. It was possible that the bobcat had ruptured something, and the intense cold masked the pain from him. "Yeah," he said with a groan as he rolled on his side and then pushed himself up off the ground. "Let's get back," he said over the rising wind. Then, he grabbed one of the cat's hind legs and started back on the trail that they'd carved out of the blanket of snow. Scully slowly followed. They hadn't gone far from the campsite, and yet it seemed miles to Scully. Every step became torture. Her head began to swirl like the flakes in front of her, and her lungs pounded. The cold sapped her energy so completely that when the tents came into view, her knees folded with relief. Just a little farther, she told herself. But the queasy feeling in her stomach kept her from getting up, and before she knew it she was vomiting bile into the white snow. It wasn't until Mulder was beside her, touching her shoulder and asking if she was okay that she remembered her broken arm. She cried out as wave after wave of shocking pain cascaded up her arm and then down the rest of her body. Mulder called for help, and Scully was vaguely aware that Logan was somewhere nearby. "My arm is broken," she told her husband, afraid he might try to lift her by her injured arm. "Let's get you inside," he said, coaxingly, one hand on her back. Her head was still spinning, and there was a ringing in her ears. Scully was sure that if she attempted to stand again, she would either throw up again or end up face down in the snow. "I need a minute," she told him. Mulder wasn't willing to wait. He scooped her up, and with Logan's help, managed to get her into the tent with Renee and Dag without bumping her arm. Inside the tight space, out of the storm, Scully's shivering was more pronounced. She tried not to scream as Mulder carefully took off her coat, but there was no room to move about, and at one point Logan passed Renee the waterproof bag she kept her medical supplies in, and he bumped Mulder who, in turn, knocked Scully's arm. She closed her eyes and waited for the colored lights behind her closed lids to dissipate. Taking off her sweaters wasn't any more pleasant. "What happened?" Renee demanded once she saw the extent of Scully's injuries. The puncture wounds where the bobcat's teeth had sunk into her flesh were black and green, and oozed dark, thick blood. Her forearm was bend at an impossible angle. Scully's dizziness intensified, and she had to look away. It took a while for Renee to set the broken bones, and in that time Mulder was so antsy that Renee ended up sending him to the raft tent so she could concentrate. The two pain pills that Renee produced for Scully didn't even take a dent out of the agony in her arm. "We should eat this before it cools," Logan said as he crawled in their shelter again, bringing with him a bowl full of raw meat from the carcass of the bobcat that Mulder dragged back to camp. He cut off a generous piece and handed it to Dag. The Norwegian stared down at it, not understanding what he was expected to do with the bloody meat. "It's fresh," Logan told him. "You can eat it." "It's no cook," Dag said, confused. "If I could make a fire, I would cook it for you," Logan snapped. "But I can't. Eat." And then, to prove it could be done, Logan took a big bite out of the raw muscle. A line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth down to his chin. Renee watched him in horror. Dag glanced from Logan back down to the meat he held, and then up at Scully. She tried to hide her revulsion. Dag had to eat. And so did the rest of them. They didn't eat the only food they had, none of the would survive their trip to the underground city. If it even existed. Her right arm was bound tightly, so with her left Scully reached out from under her blanket and took a hunk of the meat for herself. It was a little sticky and warm. Not at all like the cube steak she used to get at the supermarket. The meat she held was smelled of blood and the stink of a wild animal. Scully closed her eyes and tried to imagine it as nothing more than a harmless piece of sushi. Then she popped it into her mouth and swallowed it down without chewing. Once she'd eaten her piece, Dag found the courage to eat his own. The first bite for him woke his hunger, and he smiled at Logan and Scully as he snatched up big chunks of the bloody flesh and stuffed them into his mouth. Renee, feeling a little more adventurous after seeing Dag's response, was able to get down a swallow or two, but Scully couldn't. Even if it had been cooked., seasoned, and dished up on bone china she wouldn't have been able to keep the food down. The pain she was in made her stomach cramp. All she wanted to do was crawl into Mulder's arms and sleep the hurt away. She found her husband in the raft, poking at the bandages around his middle. "How's your scratch," she asked as lightly as she could manage. "It looks like Renee's handwork." "Yeah," Mulder said, smoothing his hand over his side. "It's not bad. I probably won't even have any impressive scars. Unlike you." He reached up and put a guiding hand at her back to ease her down beside him. "How's the arm." "It'll mend." They adjusted until the bedding was securely around the both of them, and then Mulder pulled her between his bent legs and she leaned into the warmth of his chest. When she couldn't see his face, he said quietly, "I promised your mother that I would keep you safe." "My mother?" She felt him nod against her head, and then the pressure of a kiss. "I called her from the courthouse the day we got married, when you were in the ladies room cleaning up. I tried calling my mother, too, but there was no answer." He combed his fingers through her hair, smoothed it back from her face. "I told her that we were getting married, and she cried. I promised her that I would keep you safe. I told her that I loved you, and that I wouldn't let anyone hurt you." "She cried?" "Uh-huh." Scully tried to picture her mother in her living room, or maybe in the kitchen doing dishes, and then picking up the phone to learn that her only remaining daughter was moments away from getting married. The last time Scully had seen her mother, her mother wouldn't even let her in the house. She'd known that Scully had come to tell her something bad; she knew instinctively that Charlie was gone. So, Scully had had to stand on the front step of her mother's home and explained the fate of her youngest brother. Her mother had cried then, too. "Mulder?" "Hmm?" "I love you." ***** End of Chapter 9 ***** ***** Journal 1999 - Chapter 10 ***** "...I know They're still alive out there, the men who Mulder and I fought against -- sometimes with our very lives...these men who took Mulder's sister all those years ago, who murdered my sister and abducted me...robbed me of my children. They are still alive. Hiding, perhaps under ground, in an abandoned mine, in windmills... and now Mulder and I are righting Their wrongs, saving the world for Them, so They have something to emerge into when They leave Their holes. After everything They've done to us, to break us and wear us down, They need us. How utterly ironic...how fucking poetic..." -Dana Katherine Scully, journal entry, November 11, 1999. November 23, 1999 Somewhere in the Alps A week passed, and no signs of civilization were found. It wasn't hard to imagine their group as the last people alive in the world. At night, huddled with her husband, Scully closed her eyes and they were alone with no nemesis to fight, no alien force hunting them down, no worries other than basic survival; food, warmth, shelter. And love. Mulder held her, caressed her, and even grazed her temple with his lips from time to time, but he shrugged off her attempts at anything more intimate with excuses of exhaustion and cold. Both of which were legitimate, and yet Scully couldn't help feel the distance between them. It was hard not to tie his hesitancy back to her decision to remove her implant. But then, Scully would consider the stress they were all under and dismiss her suspicions as paranoia on her part. They needed real shelters, real food, a hot bath, physical and emotional rest. In short, they needed to get to wherever it was they were going. An underground city in the heart of a mountain. It seemed like a fantasy, a magical construct to placate a rebellious child. What did they actually know about the German? Nothing that she could get out of her groupmates. And Skinner - he was in all of this somehow - and Scully had had reason to doubt his allegiances in the past. Scully burrowed closer to her husband, wanting to quiet her mind enough to sleep, wishing he would make love with her so she could lose herself in sensation for a while and enjoy what little darkness they had left. Because, then the grey light of morning came again, she knew they'd have to trudge forward. They had to. There was nothing to go back to. ***** November 25, 1999 Thanksgiving Somewhere in the Alps Noah's storm lasted forty days and forty nights. Scully's was on day thirty-nine, and showed no signs of letting up. The flakes were as fat and wet as ever, and the relentless winds blew them at a constant slant. She sighed and closed the pen inside her journal. It was too difficult to write left handed with the raft jerking and bobbing. Her broken right arm lay aching against her middle beneath the blanket. It was impossible for her to row, but she did take her turn out in front of the tent, directing them away from mini icebergs and other floating debris. In ten minutes her turn would come again. She dropped the book at her feet and rubbed her numb nose. How long had it been since she'd worn make-up? Weeks? "Dana Scully, my, my." Logan's taunting voice pulled her out of her reverie and the sight of her journal in his hands made her stomach clench. It wasn't the blue book that had his attention, though, it was the folded piece of paper she kept inside it. "Married in such haste." "Give it back, Logan." She held out her hand. "Put it back inside my journal and give it back." The glint in his eyes told her he was simply having too much fun tormenting her. After all, she was the only sport around. "I just find it interesting that you and Mulder were married the day before the attack. Was it terribly romantic? Were you wearing white?" "Logan, damn it!" "Why, Dana Scully, losing her cool. Imagine that." She lurched for the paper and the boat tipped drastically. Shouts of protest came from Renee and Dag directly in front of them, but it was Mulder's harsh, "LOGAN!" that got everyone's attention. He stood hunched over in the front flap with fire in his eyes. With the additional week's growth on his beard, Mulder looked like a madman, possessed, dangerous. "Give it back to her." Scully took the advantage that Mulder's sudden appearance gave her, and plowed into Logan's middle, knocking him forward and off balance. Scully grabbed for the license just Logan's knee came into solid contact with her broken arm. Pain ricocheted through her arm and torso as her right hand became folded between his leg and belly in the struggle to right the raft. Everyone screamed at once, angry, scared, desperate for control of the situation that had suddenly turned dangerous. If they capsized, not only would they be spilled into icy waters, but they would all be trapped inside the tent. It would be a deathtrap. The small boat lurched over another high wave, and Mulder went crashing down on top of Dag. Logan twisted in an effort to stay inside the solid metal hull, and sound faded out under the rush of blood in Scully's ears. Agony that burned through every cell in her body. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think for the pain. The pain. The pain. It took a lifetime for the raft to settle again, and the water remained rocky and unpredictable. In that time she heard Mulder's voice as if through thick cotton, babbling her name asking if she was all right. She couldn't respond. Until he touched her shoulder and refreshed the pain. Scully curled into a tight ball, sweating and gasping the freezing air, in an attempt to ride out the waves of agony. Somewhere nearby, Logan continued to curse. Mulder was closer. "Scully, let me see your hand." "Please don't...don't touch me." "Scully, we need to see your arm. Renee can't help -" He brushed away the limp hair that cascaded over her face, and Scully jerked up and away from him. Lights danced before her eyes, her stomach revolted and she gagged. The pain was too much. Scully pressed herself against the pack in the back of the raft in an effort to stay upright and conscious. Sweat dripped down her face. The cold made her shake. And the pain... "Scully..." Mulder's voice was little more than a whisper of horror. It was a sound even in agony Scully couldn't ignore. She opened her eyes and saw his pale face, opened mouth, shaking head. Tears flooded his eyes as he stared, unblinking at her mouth. His legs buckled, and he went down hard on his knees. The metal raft pitched. "Scully..." He stared at the blood pooling between her lips. She glanced down at the bright red on her finger tips and then touched her mouth again. The warm wetness covered her upper lip, her left nostril. Scully closed her eyes. Nosebleed. Renee helped her stop the flow, gave her two pain killers, and then bundled her up in a couple of blankets before she turned to Logan and his swelling black eye. Mulder's knuckles on his right hand were red-bruised, so it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. If his fist hurt, though, Mulder didn't seem to notice. He sat on his heels, defeated. "Stop staring at me," Scully whispered harshly. He lowered his head, swallowed. "I'll be outside." "Wait. Mulder." It would still be some time before Scully felt the benefit of the pain killers, and her head was fuzzy and throbbing from the pain. "It's cold. We're at a high altitude. There are a hundred different reasons for the nosebleed." He nodded, but didn't look at her, and then climbed out the front flap and out to the blizzard. "Mulder not okay," Dag said quietly. "He's just tired," Scully told him. "We're all very, very tired." Dag picked up her forgotten journal and the crumpled marriage license, and folded one in the other. "I think we must find Grauspitz soon." "Yes," Scully agreed. She closed her eyes. Funny how they were looking for one particular mountain in the Alps. In a blizzard. Without any way of pinpointing their exact location. Hysterical, even. ***** The sun set quickly, and with the growing night came a harsh wind that kicked the snow up from the frozen ground and drove it like iced daggers at her flesh. Scully hurried from nightly toilet break behind a fallen fir tree back to the raft tent she called home. Mulder was there, in the dark, just as distant as their elusive hidden city. She kicked the snow from her boots before toeing them off. It was important to say as warm and as dry as possible, and that meant stripping off her jeans, coat and sweaters, leaving her in nothing more than her thermal underwear and socks, and then crawling into the makeshift bed with Mulder, even though nothing had been resolved between them. Under the covers, he rubbed her thighs and shoulders vigorously to help promote body heat. It was clear in his touch that was all he was trying to promote. "We need to talk." "There's nothing to talk about." His stale breath was hot against her dry, chapped cheek. "Just hold me, Scully, and go to sleep." If only it were that easy. She wrapped her tender right arm across his chest and smoothed the tips of her other fingers across the soft hair on his face. "If you won't talk to me, Mulder, then make love to me." He stilled her hand. "Scully." "I'm not going to go away. Eventually you're going to have to deal with me, Mulder." She waited for him to respond, and when there wasn't one she continued. "We've never been talkers, you and I. We've always communicated with a touch or a glance. So if it's easier, then kiss me. Or hit me. Just don't shut me out." "I don't want to hit you, Scully." She doubted that was true. "Then I guess you're going to have to kiss -" His lips crushed hers silent, and his hands came up to hold her head steady as his tongue stabbed between her teeth. He made a strange noise, something between a hiccup and a moan, and suddenly he shifted from beneath her, pushed her down where he had been. He covered her with his body. The weight of him on top of her was instantly satisfying. A tingle of excitement fluttered through her belly and thighs. His kisses were aggressive, demanding, but not angry. He told her with his mouth and hands that he loved her. He told her with the salty tears that dropped from his face to hers that he was hurting. She didn't want him to hurt. Getting undressed under the blankets in the cramped space of their tent was awkward, all the more so because Scully was operating one-handed. They took turns, first working her undershirts up above her breasts, high enough for Mulder to push the cotton of her bra out of the way and take the whole of her nipple in his mouth. He sucked and nipped at the sensitive tips until a deep ache burned between her legs and she pulled his head back up to hers. "I love you," she whispered as she kissed him. I love you, she told him with her tongue and teeth. The bottons of his fly were difficult. She struggled with them for a short while, and then abandoned the impossible task to stroking the length of him through the denim. He pressed into her palm, grunted at the pleasure of the friction. Finally, he brushed her hand out of the way, and worked at the buttons himself. When his warmth and weight returned to her, she felt his erection press in to her belly. Blazing skin on skin. She wanted that sensation lower. It was much easier for Mulder to yank her long underwear down past her hips and thighs. By the time she kicked them out of the way, he was there again, his mouth devouring hers, his chest pressed to her exposed breasts, the hairs on his stomach bristling the sensitive skin of her lower belly, the rigid heat of his cock cradled between her legs. It amazed Scully that she'd never made love to him lying down. It seemed so natural, the most natural thing in the world for him to be on top of her, for his tongue to caress the roof of her mouth, his hand to smooth around the underside of her ass, curling her leg up and over his own hip, opening her thighs even more for him. What could be more simple, more basic? Words were too clumsy; easily misconstrued, mistaken, misheard. There was no confusion when his hand guided hers to his erection. She understood completely. Scully smoothed her palm over the soft head of his shaft and found enormous pleasure in his abrupt intake of air. She did it again and was rewarded with a guttural moan. Tracing down the length of him, she found his balls and gently cupped them, squeezed. He collapsed against her shoulder, kissing and sucking at her neck. "Jesus, Scully." One long, heavy stroke of her hand later, and Mulder was positioned and ready to go. He slid into her slowly, smoothly, until his hips rested in the cradle of her legs. They both groaned at the exquisite pleasure. His first movements were small and testing, but he quickly found a rhythm and Scully rocked her pelvis a little to meet it. And, oh, yes, she understood the gasps and grunts, she read his trembling arms as they braced on either side of her head. She knew he was rapidly losing all ability to think. Scully reached down and ran her fingertips over the contracting muscles in his ass. He whimpered in her ear. He told her that she felt intoxicating without ever uttering a coherent word. Scully had long thought there was nothing so erotic as a man in the throes of lust. "Scu..." He was close. His thrusts were harder, faster, more determined. The sensations he produced inside her were pleasure in its purest form, but not enough to send her over the brink. For that she needed more time, more warmth, more room to get comfortable. But he was close, and would soon sink into her so deep, and tell her that he loved her... "Shit!" His outburst was punctuated by their abrupt separation that simultaneously let the freezing air into their tiny nest and sent a cramp through the center of her body. "What's the matter?" she gasped out, yanking the blankets back down to her. He pulled away, let her have the covers. In the darkness she heard him scrambling for his clothes. "Scully..." His voice broke into a whisper, barely audible over the storm. "Oh, God, Scully." "Mulder? What's wrong?" "Scully, I can't...pretend." He sounded angry, upset. "How could you just throw it away? Don't you understand how much you mean to me? Everything. You mean everything to me. I can't watch you die again, Scully." "Nobody's dying around here." The darkness covered his expression; Mulder was impossible to read accurately without reading his eyes. "It's not so easy to get rid of me, you know." "The cancer, Scully." "We've already had this conversation." She sighed. "Listen to me, Mulder, because I'm only going to say this one more time." She waited until she heard the zipper of his parka, and then took a deep breath. "I've been in remission for years now. You don't know that the chip did that for me - don't argue with me. You don't. And even if it did, we don't know that it's kept me in remission. But even if it *was* responsible, there's no way of knowing if it would continue to function in the same capacity. The Colonists didn't create the chip that was in my neck, but they were able to use it to track us. How do we know that they couldn't just turn it off any time they wanted to? How do we know that it would continue to work even after we destroy them?" He was still and silent. She hoped it was actually considering what she was saying. "We don't know." "But Scully -" "As far as I'm concerned, Mulder, the chip in my neck was serving one purpose when I threw it away: to betray our location to the enemy. Now, it can't hurt us." "Oh, Scully." "Mulder." In a fraction of a second, white light and a blaring grinding sound blasted down on them from above. Mulder practically dove for her, he was on top of her so fast. He gripped her tight enough to knock the wind from her lungs. Scully could see the shadows of the snow on top of their tent, and the blizzard still raging around them, and the shape of something lowering from above. It landed hard on the packed snow beside the tent. Mulder whipped out the knife from his pack behind them, and held it out defensively the way Dag had carefully instructed. The creature that approached wasn't alien, though. It was human. "Hello?" A man's bass voice called out. "Anyone home?" Mulder hesitated, but Scully didn't. The man wasn't going to simply leave without checking the inside of the tent, and there was no way that they were going to escape whatever it was that was hovering above them. Better to play along and see what the man wanted. "We're in here," she yelled back. A helmeted man poked his head in their tent. "And there you are," he repeated with a grin on his freckled face. He couldn't have been more than twenty five, and his accent was definitely American. "We've been looking for you guys for weeks!" "What?" Mulder sat in shock, still not letting Scully go. "Come on," the man urged. "I'm Lieutenant Dennis Adams, Special Forces, Search and Rescue. We're here to take you guys home." Mulder looked up at the light that streamed down on them, and then into Scully's eyes. Pain, regret, loss, fear. "It wasn't the chip, it was never the chip." ***** End of Chapter 10 ***** ***** Journal 1999 - Chapter 11 ***** "...in that one moment when time stops and waits for you to catch up again, worlds can be born...worlds can die..." -Dana Katherine Scully, journal entry, October 22, 1999. November 26, 1999 Hidden City in southern Liectenstein Scully's eyelids drooped as the blood slowly drip, drip, dripped from her arm. The catheter attached to her inner elbow was unlike any medical technology she'd ever seen before, much like the strange plane that brought the whole group to the underground vaults. The name Hidden City was misleading. A city was made up of buildings and streets, while the Hidden City was made up of endless tunnels and walkways, rooms and more rooms all lined with a smooth, hard plastic that kept it cold inside their sepulcher. On her left, Mulder sat not five feet away from her, arms crossed, eyes half closed in exhaustion. His face held more lines than ever before. The pale skin where his beard had been stood out in stark contrast to the red, chapped flesh on his nose and around his eyes and forehead. He looked like a man who had climbed Mount Everest, but never made it to the top. Scully felt guilty that he continued to sit in what was obviously an uncomfortable metal chair while the others had left them hours before for the luxury of clean linens on real beds. And the way he stared at her, unblinking was starting to piss her off. "Why don't you go on back to the room they gave us and get the bed warm for me." "I'll stay." His words were hard, unforgiving. He'd turned quiet and distant in their brief rescue plane ride, and in hours since the remoteness had been honed to a bitter point. She knew the catalyst for his dark mood, and had hoped to avoid discussing it until she'd had a full night's sleep. But, unable to take his glower anymore she finally gave in and broached the subject. "Are you angry?" "Why should I be angry?" he asked cooly. Scully sighed. "Mulder, you have to let it go. It's done. The chip is gone. I know that you feel like somehow you've lost the control, but it's all an illusion." "You're saying I haven't lost the control?" he asked, doubtful. She rocked her head against the pillow supporting it. "I'm telling you, you never had it." His bloodshot eyes met hers. "I love you Scully, I married you. I'd die for you. But I can't forgive you. At least not yet." It hurt too much to look at him, his accusatorial stare telling her what he didn't dare voice. She gazed at the polished white ceiling and her cloudy reflection in it instead. "How long will you be mad?" "I don't know." It was an honest answer at least, she took comfort in that. He offered her little else, just his constant presence, a gift which was rapidly wearing her down. She needed to sleep for a solid week before she'd be in any shape to deal with his passive aggression. And now that they were surrounded by civilization again, there was no reason for them to be connected at the hip. Maybe a little distance would give them better perspective. Logically, they'd both be able to think better when their emotions weren't under constant strain. "Should I ask for a separate room tonight?" Logan, Dag and Renee all received their own tiny apartments, so it logical that there would be one more available somewhere in the complex. His lack of response forced her to look at him. Mulder sat forward, stunned and upset. Slowly, he asked, "You're giving up? You used to be a fighter." "This isn't a fight, Mulder. I won't fight you." He shook his head, and his leg started bobbing up and down in agitation. "I won't let you give up on us." He sounded lost. The uncertainty in his voice made her stomach fold over. "On us? Is that what you think? No, Mulder, never. I'll never give up on us. That's not even a consideration. I just thought, if we had a little distance, a little perspective..." Scully was so tired that the tears were difficult to dodge. She inhaled deeply and concentrated on the cast over her right arm. "I wish I could take it back, Mulder. I wish I could make it right. Not because I think the chip was keeping me alive and now I'm afraid that the cancer might come back, but because you believe it will. I can't live with you hating me for it." "I don't hate you, Scully. I didn't say I hated you." He swallowed with some difficulty, and his voice quivered as he added, "I love you..." One of the tears slipped over his bottom lashes, and it skipped quickly down his cheek. He quickly brushed it aside as Dr. Bohr emerged from the narrow door that connected the hospital bay with his office. "Ah." The young Brit doctor had a medley of unidentified instruments hanging from the pocket of his white lab coat, a clip board tucked under one arm, and an excited look on his fair, lean face. "Nearly finished." Bohr seemed a nice enough man, even if a little too preoccupied with Scully's blood and tissues for comfort. He was introduced as Educated in Prague at their National Academy, and as a member of the elite group of scientists that first engineered the Vaccine. She was introduced as Dana Scully. "Once you catch up on your sleep we will go over the lab results and discuss the data that my team has amassed. I'm eager to get your feedback," Dr. Bohr said, not taking his eyes off of the pouch of collected blood hanging from the side of her bed. "And we can also arrange the tests that your husband has requested." Scully's brows lowered and she turned to her husband. "What tests?" "I..." Mulder hesitated as Bohr unhooked the line to Scully's arm. "The doctor said that they have the single most advanced medical facility on the planet right here." "Well." Dr. Bohr chuckled. "That would hardly be a challenge, considering the condition of the rest of the world. I believe what I said was, that if there are any complications as a result of your implant being removed, Hidden City is the place to be." The man lifted her chin with his finger and studied her face. "I've studied women like you." His pupils dilated the smallest bit. The way he looked at her unnerved her. His breath smelled of coffee and cigarettes. "Maybe I can help you. To thank you for all the help you're giving us." He indicated the bag of blood, then unclipped it and held it up to the flourescent light. "The secret's in here. It has to be." Then, once again, Scully was forgotten, and Dr. Bohr scurried from the room with his new prize. "Come on," Mulder muttered as he stripped the warmth of the blanket from her legs. "Let's get some sleep." The walk to their small, private room was a fifteen minute handhold away. ***** December 6, 1999 A week of blood samples, tissue removals, a spinal tap and a bone marrow extraction proved frustrating, excruciating, and ultimately unfruitful. The junk DNA in Scully's cells was so fragmented that it refused every effort of resuscitation that Dr. Bohr had devised. When the last test had been run, and he walked over to where she lay on her side on the hospital bed and shook his head, Scully closed her eyes. Hot tears ran down one cheek and into the pillow. All the weeks of suffering, the starvation, the freezing cold, all the pain that she and the other members of the group had been forced to endure, it was all a waste. But worse than that was the knowledge that now they had no weapon with which to fight the Colonists. ***** December 12, 1999 It was late. The analog clock on the wall said it was 02:07. Scully stared at it until it read 02:08. Then, she turned back to the microscope in front of her. Her eyes were bothering her. The prescription reading glasses she always kept by her computer in her apartment in DC were probably floating under a hundred feet of ocean. And being inside, closed in from any kind of visual distance was putting too much strain on her ocular muscles. The headaches were almost constant. "You're still here? Can the work really be so fascinating?" Renee stood in the doorway, her arms crossed against her ample chest. She wore the standard grey jumpsuit that everyone wore in the City, but somehow it fit her better. She tugged her open cardigan, and took a seat across from Scully at the lab table. "You need to sleep sometime, Dana." "What about you?" "Yes, well," she mumbled and picked a piece of lint from her sweater, a lopsided smirk on her face. "I don't have a husband waiting for me to come to bed." "Neither do I," she muttered bitterly under her breath. "Oh. I see. You have had a fight." "No fight. A fight has some sort of resolution." She pressed the heels of her hands into her aching eyes. "No, Mulder and I don't see each other enough to fight. He is gone when I wake up in the morning, working on whatever it is that he and Dag are doing. And then when I get home, he's already in bed, asleep." Renee's perfectly coifed brows arched higher. "And this makes you happy?" "Of course not. But sometimes I think it's easier." "Easier?" "Mulder blames me. He feels that in my decision to remove the chip I've somehow failed him. And us. I've tried to make him understand, but he closes off and looks at me with those sad eyes of his, and I can't deal with it anymore. If he would talk to me, if he would..." "Would what?" Scully closed her eyes again and sighed. Thinking about Mulder just made her head throb that much more. "Nothing. It doesn't matter. In all of the years I've known Mulder we've never really talked anything through. Usually we fight, and then go off on our own and discover the resolution we need, and the find each other again. But here..." She glanced at the white plastic walls that lined the lab. "There's no place to go." Renee nodded for a moment, taking in what she had said. "Your husband came to see me tonight." Scully's stomach clenched. She studied the slide specimens on the table in front of her. "He did?" "Yes. I was just starting to fall asleep when he knocked on my door." Scully's throat tightened. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear anymore. "Was he all right?" "Oh, Dana," Renee admonished, "You have no reason to be jealous. Mulder simply asked if I had seen you. He said you missed dinner again." "He knows I'm here." "Yes, that seemed the case. But he asked anyway, and then he asked if you had confided anything to me that perhaps he should know. For instance, why you're avoiding him. He thinks, perhaps, you are desperately unhappy." "Oh." Scully rested her head in her hands, and pressed on her temples. "He said that? 'Desperately unhappy?'" "No. I said that. He said, 'In a funk.'" Her attempt at an American dialect brought a smile to Scully's lips. Renee continued as casual as ever, undaunted by the personal nature of her inquisition. "So, do you want to confide something for me to tell him?" "No. No. I'll take care of it, Renee." "Good. I hoped you would say that. He is waiting up for you." Scully nodded. "Thank you." Renee shrugged and slipped off the stool. "One last thing, Dana. No matter what you think, no one faults you for not having the necessary information in your cells to perfect the Vaccine. Mulder said that you took that news very badly. Much worse than the rest of us." "He said that?" Renee cocked her head to one side. "He may not seem to notice everything, Dana, but when it comes to you, he does." Scully slipped into their room and closed the door behind herself. The space heater that Mulder had managed to get a hold of did little to actually warm the room, but it gave off white noise that dulled absolute silence of living a mile below the surface. She found the bed with her knee and then stripped off her clothes and crawled under the blankets of the bed. He wasn't asleep - she couldn't hear his deep breathing - but he didn't move when she found his warm thigh. "Mulder? You don't have to say anything. I just..." He rolled to her and found her face in the dark with his hand. Lightly, with just his finger tips, he brushed over the delicate lines of her brows, the ridge of her nose, and the hollow below her lower lip. Then he leaned closer to her and pressed his mouth to hers. His tongue stroked hers with both strength and tenderness, he pressed her down into the pillow. The flesh of his belly and legs were like fire against her chilled skin, and he covered her with his warmth. He kissed her chin, and down her neck, worked his way to the sensitive tips of her breasts. She opened her legs, and he thrust his way inside. Gasps of pleasure escaped from them both. "Scully." His voice was breathy and dark with arousal, with desire. He rocked above her and sank in deeper. His hips shifted, lifted, and then he pushed back inside her. She kissed his shoulder and then his throat while she tilted her pelvis in time to his thrusts With a grunt, he collapsed down to his elbows, pressed his face into the crook of her neck, and continued to rhythmically impale her. Then he kissed his way to her mouth, and as their tongues dueled, his thrusts became harder and full of passion. Just the way he knew she liked them. For a small eternity Scully let the physical take over, relishing the mixture of sensations and emotions until they all swept through her at once in an overwhelming wave. When she surfaced again, Mulder was just moving off of her, having found a crest of his own. They snuggled together under the weight of blankets, warm skin against skin, arms wrapped tightly, protectively. Not another word was spoken that night, or the next. But in that quiet time, nothing beyond their four walls existed. And when Scully closed her eyes and pressed her ear to her husband's chest, even the loss that she carried in her heart seemed to melt away. When she was a child, Charlie had explained that time was like air, it was everywhere, all the time, and Scully had believed in her six year old way, that if she held her breath long enough she could stop time all together. Like taking a living, breathing picture of one perfect moment. What she wouldn't give to be six again. ***** End of Chapter 11 ***** ***** Epilogue - Journal 1999 ***** "It's been seventy-seven days since Mulder and I married, and seventy-five days since the Colonists first attacked. Tomorrow is the first day of the last year of the twentieth century, and hardly anyone is left to see it. Estimates show that of the six billion people that were alive in October of this year, less than ten million of us have survived. "That's five billion, nine hundred ninety people presumed dead. "It's been seventy days since we've seen the sun. Some days it helps to know it's up there, above the clouds, just waiting for a break in the storm. Some days it doesn't help. "And still, life manages to go on. "I try not to dwell on it. I try not to do the math. It's easier to focus on the work that we continue to do if I don't calculate the overwhelming odds against us. Mulder doesn't tell me that everything will be okay anymore. I think that scares me more than the numbers. "We - and I mean we, the seven thousand of us that make up the primary Resistance force - persevere. We continue to fight like a bull against a matador. We are a beaten people, and we bleed, but the concept of surrender isn't in us. We fight because there is no other choice. We will find the answer to the Vaccine, because there is no other way. Every new day hold the promise of a breakthrough, at least in theory, and that is our mantra. "This is how we, the collective, get through the day. "I'm not sure how I, personally, do it. Except, that I find I fantasize about what I would be doing *if*; if the Colonists had never attacked, if Mulder had been wrong instead of always right, if I were able to conceive. There are a lot of if's for me. And it's strange where some of them take me. After what we have had to endure these last few months, I now look back on the mundane - the trips to the dry cleaners, endless piles of paperwork, buying a carton of milk - with a relish that only the aged and infirm have understood. Now, of course, we all understand. Mulder talks about starting up a baseball team with some of the guys in the Statistics Department so he can play out the 2000 World Series. He tells me the Mets are sure to win if only he can convince Hans from Engineering to pitch, and Dag to play first base. I'm not holding my breath. "But in the mean time, we're trying to get used to living in the Hidden City - or as Mulder refers to it: Ice Planet Hoth. "I wonder how long we will be forced to live like this. "And how long I can keep the nosebleeds from Mulder." -Dana Katherine Scully, Journal entry, December 31, 1999. ***** End of Journal 1999 ***** AUTHOR'S NOTE: The ever lovely Dianora gave editorial feedback on the first draft of this story, and the incomparable Amy Vincent worked through the second draft. Both women deserve my love and gratitude, and have it unconditionally. Journal 1999 was started in June of 1997. It makes me cry when I think about that. Thanks for playing.