Everybody Having a Good Time 2/6 [XF, Apocalypse, MSR, 201k]
TITLE: Everbody Having a Good Time 2/6
AUTHOR: Sabine
CATEGORY: Novel
RATING: R, Character Death
DISCLAIMER: Consider it disclaimed. Please don't pay me.
SPOILERS: Through mid Season 6
Haven't seen you in quite a while, / You were down the hold, just passing time. Last time we met it was a low-lit room / We were as close together as a bride and groom. We ate the food, we drank the wine, / Everybody having a good time / Except you, You were talking about the end of the world.
In my dreams, I was drowning in sorrows / Till my sorrows, they learned to swim. Surrounding me, going down on me, / Spilling over the brim. Waves of regret, waves of joy / I reached out for the one I tried to destroy / And you, you said you'd wait until the end of the world.
~ U2, "Until the End of the World"
Everybody Having a Good Time
Continued from part 1
KITIKMEOT, CANADA, DECEMBER 29th, 1999 2:00 p.m. T-minus 3 Days
"Boss man's getting angry," Eisenberg said, taking a strip of jerky from a Tupperware container and chewing on it with half his mouth.
"At least he's driving again," Sumner said, calling up the image of the FBI Agent on his monitor. "Spitting his sunflower seeds like fuckin' chaw. I thought he'd stay in that Inukshuk field forever, just curl up and die there."
"And they'd find some way to blame us for it," Eisenberg agreed, sitting down. The eskimo at the sonar controls called out something in his native language and the eskimo at the power generator gave the box a kick.
"Hell of a time to lose power," Sumner said, rubbing his fingers across his short auburn beard. "3 more days, Buddy."
Buddy leaned back in his chair and pushed it away from the console, letting the casters skate across the tile floor. "Lindsay knows why we're here, right?" He asked Sumner.
Sumner nodded. "Why? Penny still doesn't? I thought you were gonna tell her after Winnipeg."
Eisenberg shrugged. "She hates it up here," he said. "I keep telling her after the New Year we're gonna go back to Boston. She knew my job ended in Y2K -- I just spared her the details."
"Pretty important details," Sumner shook his head. "Guess she'll find out."
"She'll have to thank me then," Eisenberg tried to laugh, but his voice broke. "What are we gonna do about the woman agent?" he asked, changing the subject.
"Not my job," Sumner said. "Not my responsibility."
"Three more days," Eisenberg said, after too long a pause. "Three more days."
***
NUELTIN LAKE, CANADA, DECEMBER 29th, 1999 3:49 p.m. T-minus 3 Days
The world was on fire.
The world was on fire.
The world was on fire.
Scully swayed in the wind, pulling herself along the deck rail to the bow of the boat to get a better view. The Inuit was already there.
In the distance, maybe a mile away, the world was on fire. A deep red-orange glow like the borealis shimmered off the ice and reflected in the absence of stars above. Something was definitely burning; they could smell it, even at this distance. Black exhaust bursts of smoke rose up and darkened the steely sky. And still, it was cold, so cold.
"Belamute," the Inuit said, pointing at the flames.
Scully was sure she could hear the chorus of a thousand thousand voices screaming. Belamute's population was sixty, the Inuit had told her, but in death they multiplied, joining the others, generations upon generations lost. Millenial ancestors sobbed in the smoke, and were shut up, sizzled, fizzled out by the unyielding flame. Belamute had fallen.
The ice boat skidded to a halt several meters from shore, and the Inuit handed Scully a leather package.
"Food," he said. "And coffee. Your partner will be here; you must go to Noorenson. You must do what you have come here to do."
She took the package and let him help her down onto the rough ripples of frozen lake. She could feel the warmth from the fire lick her face, even from here, she could see her shadow flutter on the ice.
"And stay away from the flames until they have stopped," he said. "They will kill just as quickly as the cold. You have to find someplace safe. I trust you, Agent Scully. You will succeed."
The Inuit was already turning the mast, sliding the boat away. Scully called after him, "thank you!" but he was gone, he was off, he was heading home. His daughter was getting married.
Scully crossed the ice to shore and watched the flames.
Warm. Beautiful. Shocks of color, glorious color in this land of white and grey, shocks of familiar, shocks of safe. It couldn't hurt to take a step closer, could it?
She looked over her shoulder at the ice boat, growing smaller across the lake.
Just one step closer.
Oh, mom. Thanksgiving leftovers and a cup of tea on a tray they sat side by side on the couch, watching Christmas movies with the sound off.
Just one step closer. It was still so cold.
"Want pie?" Margaret asked. "Pop it in the microwave. It's better heated up."
I'll get you a piece too, mom.
Just one step closer.
The world was empty, around her. The ice boat traced its trail home, the world was lighter, dying, empty, and Scully was alone again watching someone else's home burn.
Just one step closer. She held her palms to the flames. Here's what used to be a house, black charred piles of clay smoking, smelling foul.
Just one step closer.
Missy, mom made pie. Want a piece?
Just one step closer.
Merry Christmas, Emily. That's a beautiful dress.
Just one step closer. Scully crushed wood underfoot, burned logs crumbled. Flames crawled at her ankles and she begged them to consume her, take her, keep her warm, bring her home.
Mulder?
Just one step closer. Flames were all around her, now.
An earthshattering CRACK! and the world opened up.
The flames had melted the ice, weakened it, and a fissure ripped open across the surface of the lake, icy water shooting up like a geyser, drenching the flames. Chunks of ice tore apart, violent ripping, clattering, crumbling, volcanic earthquake tectonic cataclysm across the lake's surface, stretching out and casting its own shadows.
Scully ducked water and shivered as the flames flickered out.
The soft lingering orange glow was just enough for her to see the Inuit's boat hit the fissure, pitch forward and sink under, sink away.
She stood on the shore, staring, as all around her the calm returned.
*
***
SOMEWHERE NORTH OF SALMON STREAM, CANADA, DECEMBER 29, 1999, 9:40 p.m. T-minus 3 Days
The Rover was sputtering and Mulder flashed back to Antarctica, which had somehow been more hospitable, somehow tamer. Where Antarctica had been crisp- cold, sunlit, perpetually still like photography, the Arctic was wild, dark, and teeming, infested with horrors. Bears stared back into his headlights in all their enormity, casually flipping up a paw in the snow, playfully displaying a handful of razors.
The forest had thinned, dwindled, disappeared; now all that interrupted the sea of snow were Titanic-terrifying Gibraltar-bergs, rock and stone. North had become east without Mulder noticing, northeast, really, and what had been the Salmon Stream Trail stretched out ahead, only indistinguishable from the desert off to either side by the tracks of a snow cat that had driven it before, though whether it had been a month ago, or a year ago, Mulder couldn't tell.
The Rover sputtered and he downshifted again, figuring the transmission was closer to expendable than the engine was, going northeast, north-northeast, east-northeast.
He thought back to Antarctica, the same frozen fingers. Scully. That had driven him, then, she had driven him across the impossible; there had been no doubt in his mind then that he would make it, he would find her, he would bring her home. He hadn't even felt the cold until the two of them had blown free that place and waited in the snow cat for the rescue team, taking turns with the blanket and telling stories to keep their lips from freezing.
Was she home, now? It was the 29th, the day before the day before Y2K and he pictured her in her apartment, unpacking, humming off-key. If the Inuit had gotten the RCMP and a rescue chopper she'd have made it to Ottawa or somewhere, some international airport, she could have caught a jet to Washington and been home an hour ago.
"Ottawa's gone, you imbecile," Mulder muttered to himself. He didn't want to believe it, he wanted to know that the insanity had stopped the minute he severed himself from it, the minute he let Scully go. The Inuit woman's green envelope lay on the passenger's seat unopened; he didn't want to know.
She'll be fine, Scully will. She knows how to take care of herself, she'd have gotten herself home, she'd have channeled her resources -- all that brilliance and all that commanding he knew her to have -- and she'd have made it happen. She'd have gotten home. He didn't even wonder if he were lying to himself.
The Rover sputtered again, coughed, the transmission smelled like sweat. Mulder downshifted again and slowed the truck. He was barely moving, now; glinty bear- eyes watched him from the dark as he rolled across the plain.
It didn't matter, really. In Antarctica Scully had been the wire that hooked him and dragged him through the snow to her side; now, knowing she was safe, what else mattered, really?
He furrowed his brow and tried to remember why he was here.
The cold had cracked the double-reinforced windows, and the wind whistled through the back seat, singing its drugged wailing requiem.
She is safe, he told himself, tired. It's over. She's safe. It's over.
The Rover had slowed to four miles an hour; every turn of the tires was labored, painful.
Mulder took his hands off the wheel, balled them in his lap, trying to get the circulation back. His eyelids were heavy.
She's safe. It's over. Nothing matters, anymore.
He closed his eyes and he could see her.
***
I'm in the office, throwing pencils at the ceiling, telling myself I'm waiting for a phone call but really it's because I don't want to go home. And you come in.
You're in black like you're mourning, white cotton shirt under the jacket like you're saved. Neckline open revealing the cross, like you're blessed.
You smirk at me, you lean forward on the back of the chair across the desk and stare at me with locked elbows and locked eyes. You're being playful, but don't worry, I won't tell you I recognize it, and you won't have to admit there's a reason for it. Deal?
You ask me about a casefile and I make a joke and you pretend not to laugh but I see you smiling through your freckles. It's summer, sunset outside, thick heavy blossoms on trees. There's noise, laughing from the hall as people bid their weekend plans and gossip, scraping for nicknames to call one another, drenched in familiarity.
You click your tongue and I savor the sound, the sound of power, the sound of two millenia of all the great intellect of the universe bottled in my incredible partner. I will never know how I got this lucky, Scully.
Race you to the corner and I'll buy you a hot dog, just ten more minutes, Scully; let's play. Ten more minutes and we'll watch the sun sliver behind the capital skyline and you'll grimace up at me about nitrates, mustard on your nose. Then I'll let you go, just give me this, the last respite of a dying man.
It is my world, Scully, because you're in it.
***
Mulder didn't even notice that the Rover had stopped.
***
BELEMUTE, CANADA, DECEMBER 29, 1999, 10:29 p.m. T-minus 3 Days
She had watched the Inuit's boat sink under the ice and had stared out after it as the flames died down behind her.
Doctor Scully surveyed the ruins of Belemute, black flecks of burned skin on her thumbs from testing the pulses of the dead. She'd tried to count the bodies, but flesh in snow became indistinguishable from wood, from blackened stone.
She was alone, truly alone, way the fuck alone, fucking alone, alone in the middle of nowhere with no one, with nothing, for miles and miles and miles and miles. She was alone, she bellowed to the empty sky, time meant nothing, she wept. She was alone; the world was gone, Mulder was gone, everything was gone; she crouched among Inuit corpses and clenched her eyes shut to hold back freezing tears.
Camera pulls back for a wide shot and there she is, a speck, a dot, a tiny breathing nothing in nowhere, snow is general, snow for millenia, world without end coming to an end.
If a woman screams in the Arctic and there's no one around to hear her, does she make a sound?
From the ruins, with frozen, frostbitten hands she piled ruins upon ruins, scraped herself a hiding place in the snow. There was no way Mulder would find her here, even if he were trying, even if he were alive, which she was certain he wasn't. She was alone, alone, alone.
Hours ago she'd curled up here, in this thumbprint in the snow, hugged her teeth to her knees and willed herself to stay awake, but it was hard, so hard. She'd finished the Inuit's cold coffee and she'd rationed the food but her stomach was hollow, her eyes heavy.
She built a fire, warmed her hands off it but it kept going out when the wind whirled in, and she lost the strength to build it again.
Her watch had stopped; she didn't know how much time had passed; days, maybe; weeks. She'd lost the feeling in her legs and somewhere she knew she should find a knife and cut out the frostbitten sections of her flesh so it wouldn't spread, but somewhere else she knew it didn't matter, anymore.
She'd lost feeling in her heart.
From her snow-dent on the shore she stared out into the blackness and wondered where the armchair was.
She'd fallen asleep on the couch again; it was the third time this week. It was cold, but she was too tired to get up and shut the window so she hugged her teeth to her knees and stared out into the blackness and wondered where the armchair was.
It was possible that it was too dark, but she was used to seeing it over there in the corner of the living room, the first thing that met her eye every time she woke up here and realized she'd fallen asleep on the couch again.
She'd picked it up unconsciously from Mulder, this working-till-all-hours and falling asleep with her face dented by file folders, and though she'd never admit it, she loved the feeling of waking up and seeing the armchair and knowing she'd done her job well, she'd completed the marathon and was deserved of the luxury to collapse.
Where did Mulder get that kind of focus, every day? Where did he channel that determination from, that stamina?
She was gifted, she knew, but she was also given a gift, the gift of working beside him, the gift of access to all he had and all he was, a Ponce de Leon- worthy fountain of wonder, an unyielding passion and an unrivalable sense of loyalty. Never would there be anyone as lucky as she was, for what she had, for what she'd been given and had had the good sense to keep.
But she was tired, now; she'd done her job, she'd worked a full night and now she would sleep, here, on the couch.
When the sun rises I'll see the armchair, Mulder, I'll see the files and the answers and we'll do it again, like always, we'll triumph, you and me, me and you, you wondrous, unfathomable partner of mine.
She shifted in the snow, felt it crunch under her as her head sank.
Good night, Mulder. We did good.
***
KITIKMEOT, CANADA, DECEMBER 30th, 1999, 1:01 a.m. T-minus 2 Days
"Oh, Jesus Christ," Barrett said, pushing through the double doors and waving a file folder over her head.
Eisenberg looked up from his Game Boy. "How'd it go?" he asked her.
She groaned, sitting down at the console opposite his. "Business went fine, no snags yet, knock on wood."
"We've still got two days for something to fuck up," Eisenberg said.
"I don't wanna hear it," Barrett said, raising a hand. "We've got another problem. Look at this."
She opened the file folder and three black and white photos slid out. The FBI Agent, asleep in his car.
"Terminals are down except for the ones in the control room; we got these off the remote camera," she said. "Fuckin' A."
Eisenberg blinked at the photos. "Let the son of a bitch sleep," he said. "What does it matter to us?"
"It matters to El Capitan," Barrett said. "He's pissed as shit about losing the woman; he needs this guy."
"So start up the Rover with the remote," Eisenberg said. "We've still got two days, the remote should still be operational."
Barrett stood up, gave him a pat on the shoulder. "I'll get Nanook over there..." she jerked a thumb toward one of the eskimos "on it right now. Good idea."
Eisenberg nodded vaguely and went back to his Game Boy.
"Hey, Buddy," Barrett called, walking away. "How long has it been since you've slept?"
Eisenberg grinned. "Days and days and days," he admitted. "Who can sleep?"
"Not me," Barrett grinned back.
She was halfway across the room before she stopped and turned back. "Hey, Buddy," she said again, softer this time.
"Yeah?"
"You, uh, you know Boston's today, right?"
He didn't look up from his Game Boy, and didn't answer. On the tiny game screen, a fleet of men died.
***
BELEMUTE, CANADA, DECEMBER 30, 1999 3:16 a.m. T-minus 2 Days
"Queequeg!" Scully murmured, giggling and swatting at her face where the yapping dog was nudging her with a cold nose. "I'm sleeping!"
Queequeg didn't care, just kept barking, louder now, a lot of bark for such a little dog, but then again, that's what she'd always said about him. Strength in small packages, Ms. Scully and her little dog.
"Shhhh!" she tried to sound angry, but it was hard to be, at the sound of his snarling voice, playful and affectionate...
And then there were two dogs. And one was baying, hollow and low, crying at the night.
"Queequeg?" Scully rolled over in bed, stuffed her hands under the cold side of her pillow. Very cold.
And then there were three dogs, and four.
Licking her lips, Scully opened her eyes, and out in front of her, starlit only in blackness, stretched the rough frozen Arctic lake.
Sense returned; she was freezing, she was starving but she was awake now, she remembered where she was, how she'd gotten here.
And from somewhere, dogs were barking.
***
Continued in Part 3.
AUTHOR: Sabine
CATEGORY: Novel
RATING: R, Character Death
DISCLAIMER: Consider it disclaimed. Please don't pay me.
SPOILERS: Through mid Season 6
Haven't seen you in quite a while, / You were down the hold, just passing time. Last time we met it was a low-lit room / We were as close together as a bride and groom. We ate the food, we drank the wine, / Everybody having a good time / Except you, You were talking about the end of the world.
In my dreams, I was drowning in sorrows / Till my sorrows, they learned to swim. Surrounding me, going down on me, / Spilling over the brim. Waves of regret, waves of joy / I reached out for the one I tried to destroy / And you, you said you'd wait until the end of the world.
~ U2, "Until the End of the World"
Everybody Having a Good Time
Continued from part 1
KITIKMEOT, CANADA, DECEMBER 29th, 1999 2:00 p.m. T-minus 3 Days
"Boss man's getting angry," Eisenberg said, taking a strip of jerky from a Tupperware container and chewing on it with half his mouth.
"At least he's driving again," Sumner said, calling up the image of the FBI Agent on his monitor. "Spitting his sunflower seeds like fuckin' chaw. I thought he'd stay in that Inukshuk field forever, just curl up and die there."
"And they'd find some way to blame us for it," Eisenberg agreed, sitting down. The eskimo at the sonar controls called out something in his native language and the eskimo at the power generator gave the box a kick.
"Hell of a time to lose power," Sumner said, rubbing his fingers across his short auburn beard. "3 more days, Buddy."
Buddy leaned back in his chair and pushed it away from the console, letting the casters skate across the tile floor. "Lindsay knows why we're here, right?" He asked Sumner.
Sumner nodded. "Why? Penny still doesn't? I thought you were gonna tell her after Winnipeg."
Eisenberg shrugged. "She hates it up here," he said. "I keep telling her after the New Year we're gonna go back to Boston. She knew my job ended in Y2K -- I just spared her the details."
"Pretty important details," Sumner shook his head. "Guess she'll find out."
"She'll have to thank me then," Eisenberg tried to laugh, but his voice broke. "What are we gonna do about the woman agent?" he asked, changing the subject.
"Not my job," Sumner said. "Not my responsibility."
"Three more days," Eisenberg said, after too long a pause. "Three more days."
***
NUELTIN LAKE, CANADA, DECEMBER 29th, 1999 3:49 p.m. T-minus 3 Days
The world was on fire.
The world was on fire.
The world was on fire.
Scully swayed in the wind, pulling herself along the deck rail to the bow of the boat to get a better view. The Inuit was already there.
In the distance, maybe a mile away, the world was on fire. A deep red-orange glow like the borealis shimmered off the ice and reflected in the absence of stars above. Something was definitely burning; they could smell it, even at this distance. Black exhaust bursts of smoke rose up and darkened the steely sky. And still, it was cold, so cold.
"Belamute," the Inuit said, pointing at the flames.
Scully was sure she could hear the chorus of a thousand thousand voices screaming. Belamute's population was sixty, the Inuit had told her, but in death they multiplied, joining the others, generations upon generations lost. Millenial ancestors sobbed in the smoke, and were shut up, sizzled, fizzled out by the unyielding flame. Belamute had fallen.
The ice boat skidded to a halt several meters from shore, and the Inuit handed Scully a leather package.
"Food," he said. "And coffee. Your partner will be here; you must go to Noorenson. You must do what you have come here to do."
She took the package and let him help her down onto the rough ripples of frozen lake. She could feel the warmth from the fire lick her face, even from here, she could see her shadow flutter on the ice.
"And stay away from the flames until they have stopped," he said. "They will kill just as quickly as the cold. You have to find someplace safe. I trust you, Agent Scully. You will succeed."
The Inuit was already turning the mast, sliding the boat away. Scully called after him, "thank you!" but he was gone, he was off, he was heading home. His daughter was getting married.
Scully crossed the ice to shore and watched the flames.
Warm. Beautiful. Shocks of color, glorious color in this land of white and grey, shocks of familiar, shocks of safe. It couldn't hurt to take a step closer, could it?
She looked over her shoulder at the ice boat, growing smaller across the lake.
Just one step closer.
Oh, mom. Thanksgiving leftovers and a cup of tea on a tray they sat side by side on the couch, watching Christmas movies with the sound off.
Just one step closer. It was still so cold.
"Want pie?" Margaret asked. "Pop it in the microwave. It's better heated up."
I'll get you a piece too, mom.
Just one step closer.
The world was empty, around her. The ice boat traced its trail home, the world was lighter, dying, empty, and Scully was alone again watching someone else's home burn.
Just one step closer. She held her palms to the flames. Here's what used to be a house, black charred piles of clay smoking, smelling foul.
Just one step closer.
Missy, mom made pie. Want a piece?
Just one step closer.
Merry Christmas, Emily. That's a beautiful dress.
Just one step closer. Scully crushed wood underfoot, burned logs crumbled. Flames crawled at her ankles and she begged them to consume her, take her, keep her warm, bring her home.
Mulder?
Just one step closer. Flames were all around her, now.
An earthshattering CRACK! and the world opened up.
The flames had melted the ice, weakened it, and a fissure ripped open across the surface of the lake, icy water shooting up like a geyser, drenching the flames. Chunks of ice tore apart, violent ripping, clattering, crumbling, volcanic earthquake tectonic cataclysm across the lake's surface, stretching out and casting its own shadows.
Scully ducked water and shivered as the flames flickered out.
The soft lingering orange glow was just enough for her to see the Inuit's boat hit the fissure, pitch forward and sink under, sink away.
She stood on the shore, staring, as all around her the calm returned.
*
***
SOMEWHERE NORTH OF SALMON STREAM, CANADA, DECEMBER 29, 1999, 9:40 p.m. T-minus 3 Days
The Rover was sputtering and Mulder flashed back to Antarctica, which had somehow been more hospitable, somehow tamer. Where Antarctica had been crisp- cold, sunlit, perpetually still like photography, the Arctic was wild, dark, and teeming, infested with horrors. Bears stared back into his headlights in all their enormity, casually flipping up a paw in the snow, playfully displaying a handful of razors.
The forest had thinned, dwindled, disappeared; now all that interrupted the sea of snow were Titanic-terrifying Gibraltar-bergs, rock and stone. North had become east without Mulder noticing, northeast, really, and what had been the Salmon Stream Trail stretched out ahead, only indistinguishable from the desert off to either side by the tracks of a snow cat that had driven it before, though whether it had been a month ago, or a year ago, Mulder couldn't tell.
The Rover sputtered and he downshifted again, figuring the transmission was closer to expendable than the engine was, going northeast, north-northeast, east-northeast.
He thought back to Antarctica, the same frozen fingers. Scully. That had driven him, then, she had driven him across the impossible; there had been no doubt in his mind then that he would make it, he would find her, he would bring her home. He hadn't even felt the cold until the two of them had blown free that place and waited in the snow cat for the rescue team, taking turns with the blanket and telling stories to keep their lips from freezing.
Was she home, now? It was the 29th, the day before the day before Y2K and he pictured her in her apartment, unpacking, humming off-key. If the Inuit had gotten the RCMP and a rescue chopper she'd have made it to Ottawa or somewhere, some international airport, she could have caught a jet to Washington and been home an hour ago.
"Ottawa's gone, you imbecile," Mulder muttered to himself. He didn't want to believe it, he wanted to know that the insanity had stopped the minute he severed himself from it, the minute he let Scully go. The Inuit woman's green envelope lay on the passenger's seat unopened; he didn't want to know.
She'll be fine, Scully will. She knows how to take care of herself, she'd have gotten herself home, she'd have channeled her resources -- all that brilliance and all that commanding he knew her to have -- and she'd have made it happen. She'd have gotten home. He didn't even wonder if he were lying to himself.
The Rover sputtered again, coughed, the transmission smelled like sweat. Mulder downshifted again and slowed the truck. He was barely moving, now; glinty bear- eyes watched him from the dark as he rolled across the plain.
It didn't matter, really. In Antarctica Scully had been the wire that hooked him and dragged him through the snow to her side; now, knowing she was safe, what else mattered, really?
He furrowed his brow and tried to remember why he was here.
The cold had cracked the double-reinforced windows, and the wind whistled through the back seat, singing its drugged wailing requiem.
She is safe, he told himself, tired. It's over. She's safe. It's over.
The Rover had slowed to four miles an hour; every turn of the tires was labored, painful.
Mulder took his hands off the wheel, balled them in his lap, trying to get the circulation back. His eyelids were heavy.
She's safe. It's over. Nothing matters, anymore.
He closed his eyes and he could see her.
***
I'm in the office, throwing pencils at the ceiling, telling myself I'm waiting for a phone call but really it's because I don't want to go home. And you come in.
You're in black like you're mourning, white cotton shirt under the jacket like you're saved. Neckline open revealing the cross, like you're blessed.
You smirk at me, you lean forward on the back of the chair across the desk and stare at me with locked elbows and locked eyes. You're being playful, but don't worry, I won't tell you I recognize it, and you won't have to admit there's a reason for it. Deal?
You ask me about a casefile and I make a joke and you pretend not to laugh but I see you smiling through your freckles. It's summer, sunset outside, thick heavy blossoms on trees. There's noise, laughing from the hall as people bid their weekend plans and gossip, scraping for nicknames to call one another, drenched in familiarity.
You click your tongue and I savor the sound, the sound of power, the sound of two millenia of all the great intellect of the universe bottled in my incredible partner. I will never know how I got this lucky, Scully.
Race you to the corner and I'll buy you a hot dog, just ten more minutes, Scully; let's play. Ten more minutes and we'll watch the sun sliver behind the capital skyline and you'll grimace up at me about nitrates, mustard on your nose. Then I'll let you go, just give me this, the last respite of a dying man.
It is my world, Scully, because you're in it.
***
Mulder didn't even notice that the Rover had stopped.
***
BELEMUTE, CANADA, DECEMBER 29, 1999, 10:29 p.m. T-minus 3 Days
She had watched the Inuit's boat sink under the ice and had stared out after it as the flames died down behind her.
Doctor Scully surveyed the ruins of Belemute, black flecks of burned skin on her thumbs from testing the pulses of the dead. She'd tried to count the bodies, but flesh in snow became indistinguishable from wood, from blackened stone.
She was alone, truly alone, way the fuck alone, fucking alone, alone in the middle of nowhere with no one, with nothing, for miles and miles and miles and miles. She was alone, she bellowed to the empty sky, time meant nothing, she wept. She was alone; the world was gone, Mulder was gone, everything was gone; she crouched among Inuit corpses and clenched her eyes shut to hold back freezing tears.
Camera pulls back for a wide shot and there she is, a speck, a dot, a tiny breathing nothing in nowhere, snow is general, snow for millenia, world without end coming to an end.
If a woman screams in the Arctic and there's no one around to hear her, does she make a sound?
From the ruins, with frozen, frostbitten hands she piled ruins upon ruins, scraped herself a hiding place in the snow. There was no way Mulder would find her here, even if he were trying, even if he were alive, which she was certain he wasn't. She was alone, alone, alone.
Hours ago she'd curled up here, in this thumbprint in the snow, hugged her teeth to her knees and willed herself to stay awake, but it was hard, so hard. She'd finished the Inuit's cold coffee and she'd rationed the food but her stomach was hollow, her eyes heavy.
She built a fire, warmed her hands off it but it kept going out when the wind whirled in, and she lost the strength to build it again.
Her watch had stopped; she didn't know how much time had passed; days, maybe; weeks. She'd lost the feeling in her legs and somewhere she knew she should find a knife and cut out the frostbitten sections of her flesh so it wouldn't spread, but somewhere else she knew it didn't matter, anymore.
She'd lost feeling in her heart.
From her snow-dent on the shore she stared out into the blackness and wondered where the armchair was.
She'd fallen asleep on the couch again; it was the third time this week. It was cold, but she was too tired to get up and shut the window so she hugged her teeth to her knees and stared out into the blackness and wondered where the armchair was.
It was possible that it was too dark, but she was used to seeing it over there in the corner of the living room, the first thing that met her eye every time she woke up here and realized she'd fallen asleep on the couch again.
She'd picked it up unconsciously from Mulder, this working-till-all-hours and falling asleep with her face dented by file folders, and though she'd never admit it, she loved the feeling of waking up and seeing the armchair and knowing she'd done her job well, she'd completed the marathon and was deserved of the luxury to collapse.
Where did Mulder get that kind of focus, every day? Where did he channel that determination from, that stamina?
She was gifted, she knew, but she was also given a gift, the gift of working beside him, the gift of access to all he had and all he was, a Ponce de Leon- worthy fountain of wonder, an unyielding passion and an unrivalable sense of loyalty. Never would there be anyone as lucky as she was, for what she had, for what she'd been given and had had the good sense to keep.
But she was tired, now; she'd done her job, she'd worked a full night and now she would sleep, here, on the couch.
When the sun rises I'll see the armchair, Mulder, I'll see the files and the answers and we'll do it again, like always, we'll triumph, you and me, me and you, you wondrous, unfathomable partner of mine.
She shifted in the snow, felt it crunch under her as her head sank.
Good night, Mulder. We did good.
***
KITIKMEOT, CANADA, DECEMBER 30th, 1999, 1:01 a.m. T-minus 2 Days
"Oh, Jesus Christ," Barrett said, pushing through the double doors and waving a file folder over her head.
Eisenberg looked up from his Game Boy. "How'd it go?" he asked her.
She groaned, sitting down at the console opposite his. "Business went fine, no snags yet, knock on wood."
"We've still got two days for something to fuck up," Eisenberg said.
"I don't wanna hear it," Barrett said, raising a hand. "We've got another problem. Look at this."
She opened the file folder and three black and white photos slid out. The FBI Agent, asleep in his car.
"Terminals are down except for the ones in the control room; we got these off the remote camera," she said. "Fuckin' A."
Eisenberg blinked at the photos. "Let the son of a bitch sleep," he said. "What does it matter to us?"
"It matters to El Capitan," Barrett said. "He's pissed as shit about losing the woman; he needs this guy."
"So start up the Rover with the remote," Eisenberg said. "We've still got two days, the remote should still be operational."
Barrett stood up, gave him a pat on the shoulder. "I'll get Nanook over there..." she jerked a thumb toward one of the eskimos "on it right now. Good idea."
Eisenberg nodded vaguely and went back to his Game Boy.
"Hey, Buddy," Barrett called, walking away. "How long has it been since you've slept?"
Eisenberg grinned. "Days and days and days," he admitted. "Who can sleep?"
"Not me," Barrett grinned back.
She was halfway across the room before she stopped and turned back. "Hey, Buddy," she said again, softer this time.
"Yeah?"
"You, uh, you know Boston's today, right?"
He didn't look up from his Game Boy, and didn't answer. On the tiny game screen, a fleet of men died.
***
BELEMUTE, CANADA, DECEMBER 30, 1999 3:16 a.m. T-minus 2 Days
"Queequeg!" Scully murmured, giggling and swatting at her face where the yapping dog was nudging her with a cold nose. "I'm sleeping!"
Queequeg didn't care, just kept barking, louder now, a lot of bark for such a little dog, but then again, that's what she'd always said about him. Strength in small packages, Ms. Scully and her little dog.
"Shhhh!" she tried to sound angry, but it was hard to be, at the sound of his snarling voice, playful and affectionate...
And then there were two dogs. And one was baying, hollow and low, crying at the night.
"Queequeg?" Scully rolled over in bed, stuffed her hands under the cold side of her pillow. Very cold.
And then there were three dogs, and four.
Licking her lips, Scully opened her eyes, and out in front of her, starlit only in blackness, stretched the rough frozen Arctic lake.
Sense returned; she was freezing, she was starving but she was awake now, she remembered where she was, how she'd gotten here.
And from somewhere, dogs were barking.
***
Continued in Part 3.