From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 02:46:38 -0500 Subject: Friends by Abra Elliott Source: direct Reply To: xilerui@hotmail.com TITLE: Friends AUTHOR: Abra Elliott E-MAIL: xilerui@hotmail.com CLASSIFICATION: MSR; Mulder POV; post-colonization SPOILERS: for just about everything through Requiem RATING: R (for a little messing around) ARCHIVE: I'd be honored; just let me know where. SUMMARY: Mulder muses during a long, cold night FEEDBACK: Please, please, please. But be gentle; it's my first time. DISCLAIMER: If I were making money from this, I would be living in a much better apartment. And I should mention that I'm pretty well lost between black oil, green blood, and various and sundry alien viruses. Please forgive any liberties I may inadvertently have taken with the facts as they currently stand. NOTES: The title and poetry are from "Friends," by W.B. Yeats. ------------ FRIENDS *** Now must I these three praise Three women that have wrought What joy is in my days *** Ultimately, most of the world went without much of a fight. The three of us, Scully, Samuel, and I, have been on the run ever since. An underground railroad of sorts has been laid ahead of us, constructed by those few survivors who have heard about us, our work, and our son. They work the "fields" during the day, tending crops of incubating bodies in cold, damp laboratories. At night they return to cement shanties, huddle around tin stoves, and, sometimes, they let us join them. They're always ready for us, setting aside the driest, warmest room they have for our use and going hungry so that we may eat well before the next leg of our endless journey. When we leave, they pass us carefully-drawn maps on scraps of paper, leading us to our next resting-place. I keep them all; if our work is successful, the maps alone will bear witness to the myriad sacrifices made on our behalf. The survivors know they're only being kept alive for as long as they're useful to the colonizers; until they begin to weaken, to grow sick from exposure to the cold. Then they're added to the crop. I guess the colonizers hope they'll have a viable batch by the time the last of the survivors coughs that tell-tale symptom. From what we've heard, the process is taking much longer than even they had expected; one of our few blessings. Scully, Samuel, and I may be the only free humans left. We're certainly the only ones in North America. We travel under cover of the deep woods by day, not towards any specific destination, but just to get to the next warm room where Scully can unpack and continue her research. The days of antiseptic labs, latex gloves, and sharp scalpels are long gone; now she simply carries a backpack filled with small glass vials, one aging Bunsen burner, a battered microscope, and various other rusty tools of her trade. Sometimes, when she's really frustrated by the slow progress forced on her by our circumstances, she'll start muttering about the Middle Ages and leeches. Both Sam and I have learned the hard way that this means she needs some breathing room. It turns out that Diana was right: it *was* known for a long time what I was. I don't understand it entirely, but surviving an encounter with the green blood, and later with the fragment, seems to have combined to make my own genes pretty resilient. Scully, too; the antidote I gave her in Antarctica seems to have given her a degree of immunity as well. Alone, we might each be able to withstand some genetic experimentation, but neither of us has the ability to generate an effective vaccine ourselves. Sam, on the other hand, does. At least, we think so. Scully usually sleeps as we travel. We've taken to riding horses through the woods, Scully, tied to my back, riding with me and Sam on his own little pony. He's a good little horseman for a seven year-old, but it's still pretty slow going. During the long nights she works. Sam often climbs onto my lap then, and the two of us watch her flying hands until we nod off, lulled to sleep by the warmth of her warm fire. Sometimes, before I drift into sleep, I look down at the small red head bobbing against my chest, and I wonder if Sam's what the Consortium had in mind when they engineered Scully's transfer to the X-Files. I don't see how it's possible; how could they have predicted my exposures? How could they have predicted that damned bee? And yet...well, it makes you wonder. Such a sweet little boy. I know he's mine. Any fool could see it, and I hate myself for even wondering why he came to be...but then I remember Spender, how his dark presence always seemed to lie just beneath the thin surface of even the best days, and I can't help but wonder if this miracle of ours hasn't somehow similarly been touched by his cold hand. Scully doesn't have the time or patience for my troubled musings. She loves us both fiercely, her two "boys" (I know I should probably resent that appellation, but somehow I don't), and ceaselessly works towards a vaccine. She's become the reluctant believer to my erstwhile doubting Thomas, and the most I can do is just make sure she's safe, warm, and free to work. *** One because no thought, Nor those unpassing cares, No, not in these fifteen Many-times-troubled-years, Could ever come between Mind and delighted mind; *** "Mulder, wake up." I open my eyes to see Scully leaning over me, softly shaking me as her still-flaming hair falls over her weary eyes. "Wha-what is it?" My heart racing with adrenaline, I scramble to sit upright in my chair, casting a quick glance around the room for Sam. I spy him fast asleep on an old blanket on the floor, his poor, worn teddy bear grasped tightly in his small arms. That beat-up old bear has stood guard against nightmares for more nights than I care to remember. A tired, crooked smile tugging at her lips, Scully closes her eyes, puts her hands on my arms and softly murmurs, "It's nothing...nothing. I just wanted to talk." "God, you scared me..." I plop back in my chair, cradling my aching head and rubbing my bloodshot eyes. What I wouldn't give for some aspirin. "I'm sorry...we just haven't had a chance to talk in so long...and...well, I miss you." As she sits down on the dusty floor, leaning wearily back against the drab concrete wall, her clear blue eyes look up at mine. The lonely longing I find there goes straight to my heart, and I feel my own eyes soften in response. We *don't* talk much anymore, mostly because we barely see each other awake these days. We don't talk much right now, either. Before, we could debate the details of a case for hours on end, until the words got heated and sometimes even cruel. But, looking back, I find that it was our quiet times that I hold dearest in my memory. Times when we communicated without uttering a single word between us...times when I held her silently, letting her tears fall...comforted by her when it was my turn to cry. And, in those final happy months before I was taken away and our world was turned upside down, we learned to be silent together in a whole new way, our eyes and bodies communicating a joy in each other that no words could convey. Tonight we look at each other with those same eyes. In hers I find both the fresh-faced young woman I first met so many years ago, and the sadder, wiser woman she later became. I don't miss the one, and I don't regret the other. We're here together now as much because of our intertwined losses and failures as because of our triumphs. Love may have kept us together, but shared tragedy has tightened the bond. She knows this; I see it in her eyes. I see her eyes soften as she stares into mine. I know she finds mine world-weary and eternally frustrated. She secretly smiles then, knowing that it's in my nature to never be satisfied, to always be railing against the present in hopes of a better tomorrow. Her small, pale hand reaches out and covers my rough fist. We sit together for a long time, our eyes silently speaking our love and strength to one another. *** And one because her hand Had strength that could unbind What none can understand, What none can have and thrive, Youth's dreamy load, till she So changed me that I live Labouring in ecstasy. *** Soon, we're not sitting anymore. Rising from my chair, I pull her body to mine. As her thin arms slide around my waist, mine enclose her small shoulders. There's something reassuring in the way her head, as always, fits neatly under my chin, and we stand together like this for some time, my rough cheek sliding against her hair as I nuzzle against her. She sighs sadly and I step back a bit, my hands cradling her face as she looks up at me. Scully has always been a reluctant lover...not unwilling or even uninterested, but rather all-too-aware. Her losses have made her wary, and she seems to sense the weight of our actions each time we come together like this. Scully, who is so strong for us all, seems somehow diminished now. I rub my thumbs over her soft cheeks, her pale lips, as I gaze into her eyes (it turns out that I *do* gaze at Scully) and reassure her that *this* is right. Out of all the wrong that the world has become, we two still have this one right thing. Her hands slide under my sweater. I've seen those hands wielding a razor-thin scalpel hundreds of times, marveling at their sharp precision. I should confess that Scully, the scientist, turns me on as much as any other Scully; there is a pleasure I find in watching her work that is the equal of any other joy I feel in her presence. At such times she is lost in an ecstasy of discovery, and I can do little more than stare in rapt admiration, captive to the marvels those small hands perform. But, luckily for me, those hands perform other marvels as well. Right now they are *precisely* sliding between our bodies...rubbing slyly against my tightening jeans as she looks up at me, eyes more merry now. I feel myself smiling back, a goofy grin creeping across my usually-sober face. There are sometimes moments like this when, colonization and the probable end-of-humanity notwithstanding, we slip into the shadows of our former selves. The silly smart-ass I once was is coaxed from his hiding place by her ministrations, and I look down to find my oldest, best friend staring back up at me. "Mulder," she says in the exasperated tone she used to reserve for my legendary slide-shows. "What is *this*?" Her soft hand squeezes me gently as I softly suck in air and groan into her hair. "*That* is a complete mystery to me, Agent Scully. And if you don't...stop that..." God, she's making this hard. Well, you know what I mean. She smiles and looks up at me, wide-eyed and innocent. "A mystery, you say? Don't tell me it's the forty-foot python that ate New York..." "You should be so lucky." Her fingernails scrape against my jeans. My eyes roll back in my head. Jesus...what this woman does to me. "It had better not be the last of the sewer-dwelling snakes from beyond the grave..." I look down at her wide-eyed. "Why, Scully, I didn't know you were paying attention that day." She gives me a good, tight squeeze...*groan*...as her eyes slyly find mine. "Mulder, I was *always* paying attention..." Grinning down at her, I counter, "Well then, you must remember that the only way to subdue the monster..." A few minutes later, I find I'm very glad that her hands are not the only things she's good with. *** And what of her that took All till my youth was gone With scarce a pitying look? How could I praise that one? When day begins to break I count my good and bad, Being wakeful for her sake, Remembering what she had, What eagle look still shows, While up from my heart's root So great a sweetness flows I shake from head to foot. *** Leaning against the damp wall, I cradle a sleeping Scully in my arms and watch cold rays of morning light filter through the thin window at the top of our small cell. We have to leave this morning...we can never stay in one place for more than a few days without risking exposure. I sigh and glance over at our still-sleeping son, who has since flung his poor teddy far across the room. If I were someone else, I might smile indulgently at the discovery; instead, being only me, I purse my lips and swallow inconvenient tears. His small, defiant gesture of strength pulls at my aching heart more than I care to confess, even to myself. Right now, the day ahead seems almost unbearably long and arduous. Our life is a lot to ask of one long-suffering woman, and so much more to ask of an innocent little boy. These are my dark hours, when our lives hang precariously in the balance as I struggle with my soul. I know, in my heart, that we're fighting a losing battle. How can the three of us ever hope to offer any kind of resistance to a force capable of decimating most of humanity? How can the worth of my son's life be reduced to his genetic value? How can I stand by and watch Scully waste away as she works herself into an early grave? A dark spirit seems to descend on me as I contemplate the unthinkable. Humanity is doomed; why not go easily and quietly? I have a gun, and a small vial of cyanide squirreled away...I know Scully knows about it, but we've never discussed it. Instead, she watches me, her eyes challenging me to continue to the bitter end. She sees that silent desperation that I'm so prone to, and, in an instant, the past comes rushing into her eyes. Her losses, a sister, children, time, love, become mine, and she dares me to turn my back on them. Even now, as she breathes evenly and easily against my chest, my hand absently stroking her hair, I can see her defiance in the sleeping set of her features. There is a vigilant firmness there that I can choose to ignore, but only at the risk of losing her completely. Our son has that same look, but his is tempered by a certain fretful wrinkling of the forehead that I recognize as my own. In the end, it is as much the reality of that little boy, indelibly ours, as it is Scully's relentless determination that steel me for another day's journey. Whatever else he may be, Samuel embodies a love that can't give up the fight, no matter how desperate and hopeless it may be. The light softens as it fills the cold room, and a rare ray of sunshine falls to the floor. Its yellow warmth sets the blazing hair of my two loves alight; I am baptized in its glowing radiance, and I close my eyes. Breathing deeply, I finally smile. Morning is here, and our souls are hope. ~Finis~