TITLE: Like Falling AUTHOR: Birgit Mueller EMAIL ADDRESS: rm12908@navix.net DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Yes, please. :) SPOILER WARNING: Fight the Future (aka ThE mOvIe...) RATING: PG CONTENT WARNING: MSR CLASSIFICATION: SRA KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully romance SUMMARY: Coming back from the brink of a crater... a missing scene from FTF... DISCLAIMER: A poem, by me... Blood cells are red And bruises are blue I no make money So you please no sue. FEEDBACK: ...will be taken in and loved as if it were my own!! ;- ) ================= Like Falling by Birgit Mueller (rm12908@navix.net) ================= It had taken every ounce of strength Mulder had to get them both back over the ridge and into the snow crawler. He was cold, so cold he despaired of ever being warm again as he refueled the impossibly slow vehicle with a constant, worried eye on Scully. He hauled himself through the deep snow and into the driver's seat with another anxious glance at his partner. She was slumped against the seat, burrowed into his enormous parka with her head flung back and her eyes closed, and she didn't flinch when he slammed the door. He reached out and smoothed the frozen hair back from her pale face. Frostbite was beginning to etch its red-white marks against her cheeks and nose. Still, her chest was rising and falling rhythmically, and her pulse thrummed strong and fast against his fingertips. She was beautiful. He started the engine and the crawler began its slow, jerky trek across the Antarctic wasteland. Almost irrationally terrified that her breathing would stop again, he reached out for her blindly with one hand as he negotiated the terrain with the other. His right hand clenched around her left, tightly, so tightly, as if it were a silent vow that nothing on this earth or any other would sunder the connection. And though she never opened her eyes, relief flooded him as he felt her lace her fingers between his, intertwining them, holding them together -- holding him together. Relief...and something else, an unexpected tide of emotion that brought an amazed flush to his face. He drove non-stop the four hours to the abandoned Russian research station with his left hand. ================================= An empty flagpole rose up out of the seamless, flat expanse of snow like the mast of a lonely shipwreck. The sun was setting as Mulder wrenched the crawler to a halt in front of an old, rusting metal bunker. He turned the key, and the motor clanked to an uneasy stop. Scully didn't move as he gently pried their fingers apart and moved out into the snow. He walked around to the passenger side and opened her door. She lay unmoving, and he reached out to touch her carefully on the shoulder. She let out a strangled cry and snapped suddenly awake, seizing his hand and twisting it backward in a standard self-defense hold. He yelped a startled, "Hey!" as he was forced instantly to his knees, his body having no choice but to follow the path of his strained wrist. "Stop!" she shouted, her crystal blue eyes wide, panicked, unfocussed. "Scully, Scully, easy!" Mulder intoned. He caught her gaze, watched as realization poured into her, watched as she came fully awake. "It's me, Scully." Her iron hold on his wrist faltered and the panic faded from her expression. "It's me," he repeated, lowering his voice to a soothing murmur. "It's ok. You're ok." "Mulder?" she whispered, bewildered. Afraid to move, he only nodded slowly. "Yeah, Scully, it's me," he murmured again. "You're safe." She dropped his hand. "Oh, Mulder, I'm sorry," she breathed, horrified. "Are you ok?" Relieved, he stood, rubbing the wrist he knew would be bruised and hoping he could keep that fact from her. "Yeah," he lied gently, "no damage done." "I'm sorry; I'm sorry," she repeated, gulping air in sudden, unexpected empty sobs. He reached around her, nestling her head against his chest in an abrupt, protective embrace as she dissolved into tears. ================================= A half-hour later, after her sobs had subsided to the occasional hiccup, he had gotten the gas-powered heat system going and had moved her inside the bunker. She sat now, wrapped in blankets and huddled on a small cot before an ancient radiator that gave off hot air in indiscriminate waves. Daylight had all but disappeared, and a kerosene lantern sat next to her feet, its glow an odd yellow-green. She watched as he approached with a first-aid kit and a basin of water. The cot dipped as he sat down beside her. Without a word, he removed a tube of salve from the kit and squeezed a liberal supply onto his fingers, then reached for her face. Annoyed, her control slipping slowly back into place, she pulled away slightly. "Mulder, I can do this myself," she snapped. "Don't be silly," he replied easily, never skipping a beat. "You can't even see it." Stunned at this new behavior on his part, her mouth opened, then closed again, and she simply surrendered, unable to argue with Mulderlogic like that. Her eyes fell shut against his touch. When he finished, he sat back to admire his handiwork. The salve had all but disappeared into her skin, and with that and the warmth of his hands, the white patches that so worried him had begun to turn the angry vermillion red that signaled eventual healing. He knew they had to be hurting her, but she never flinched. Her lids fluttered open finally, just as he was beginning to worry anew. For an instant, he saw the flash of something in her eyes, something that made his heart skip, before it was subsumed beneath the pall of sudden, utter fatigue. "We need some real rest," he said. Without preamble, he snuffed the lantern, reached out, and pulled her to him as he reclined on the cot. He was gratified when she did not protest. Instead, she reached around him with the edges of the blanket, increasing the contact between them. "Hey, Scully," he remarked, his voice low in the darkness, "does this mean we're sleeping together?" He felt her lips twist upward against his chest. "Just what are you implying, Agent Mulder?" He let out a short bark of laughter. "Nothing either of us are in any shape for at the moment." He was thankful she couldn't see his face when he swore he heard her murmur, "Too bad." She was letting him in, giving him access to so much more than just a cot, and the enormity of that fact was not lost on him as he took up a leisurely, absentminded caress of her back and shoulders. A moment of utter silence descended, and the impossible events of the last forty-eight hours began their flickering journey across the canvas of his mind like a surreal horror film. A shudder ran through him. It was so easy to conjure the image of her face, frozen in mute horror beneath green, in his mind's eye. So easy to imagine the gaping, open crater her loss would leave in his life. One more wound that would never heal. And so it hurt that much more to realize he would have to let her go. Salt Lake City or not, she deserved a life more ordinary, a life without the eerie insanity that seemed to be the staining birthmark of his own. Hell, she deserved a *life*. Wasn't that why he'd quite literally gone to the ends of the earth to get her back? He didn't realize he'd been crying until a tear spilled over onto skin and startled him. He wiped at it half-heartedly with the back of one hand. Just then, her drowsy murmur pulled him from his musings as if she knew his thoughts. "I knew you'd find me," she whispered. Involuntarily, his arms tightened around her. Her next words left his heart in splinters. "I'm not leaving you." "Jesus, Scully," he choked out, his voice full of emotion. "No," she said, pushing herself swiftly up on one elbow. "No matter what happens when we get back, I'm not leaving you." He reached out for her, palm sliding against her face. "Scully, I --" "Shhh," she whispered, her fingers finding his lips. Without thinking, he kissed her fingertips. She pulled her hand away slowly, and the lost contact left him cold and certain he had crossed one line too many. And then her lips closed over his in the darkness. And like falling, he lost himself in the unexpected kiss. =END= Feedback cheerfully accepted at rm12908@navix.net. "We never close." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The development of our cerebral cortex has been the greatest achievement of the evolutionary processes. Big deal. -- Fox Mulder, FBI M&S Angst-O-Rama, fanfiction, pix, and more.... http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/5368 XFU Chris Carter Library of Internet Fanfiction Classics... http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/5368/xfu_library_main.html Dean, Department of Fanfic General Studies, XFU http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/5368/xfu_fgs.html