From: FirePhile Date: 10 Jul 1998 02:52:28 GMT Subject: NEW - And Blood Turns To Ice (1/1) by FirePhile Title: And Blood Turns To Ice Author: Rachel Ehrentreu (FirePhile@aol.com) Rating: PG Spoilers: XF: The Movie Keywords: M/S UST and Flickfic Summary: Flickfic - Scully's thoughts on the ice. Archive: Anywhere, just ask first. Disclaimer: The characters in here aren't mine. They belong to 1013, CC&CO and FOX. Author's note: Thanks to Alanna and Suzanne for beta-ing and editing :) Send all feedback to FirePhile@aol.com. This one's dedicated to Jennifer Stoy, just because :) And Blood Turns To Ice I have found hell. Bleak, desolate, frozen, barren, the kind of place that makes moving impossible and breathing even harder. I used to think that winters at home were cold. Playing in the snow, throwing snowballs, building forts, all while trying to keep that white stuff away from direct contact with any part of your body. Gloves ending under jacket sleeves, feet firmly entrenched in boots and thick socks. Face covered by a thick scarf if you didn't win that particular argument with mom. That was nothing compared to this. I have lost most if not all feeling in my face and hands. At first it was painful, grabbing handfuls of snow to survive. Adrenaline can only get one so far. Now I'm numb. I feel so little that I can almost believe that I am dead and this is my purgatory, to sit in the middle of a giant snowfield for all eternity. I feel your hair against my cheek and your heartbeat, like a clock against my chest. It feels as if we had escaped hours ago, even though I know it was only a few minutes. Memories are fading so quickly. I remember a sharp pain in my neck, something about a bee and then climbing out of that place and encountering.... A government experiment using innocent test subjects. That's what I think. Oh, who am I kidding? No use lying to myself anymore. This may be one situation from which there is no escape. I've never felt so helpless. I'm so cold, teeth chattering can barely feel my face cold. At least you're unconscious, spared from this hell. Where is this place anyway? Are we in the Arctic Circle again Mulder? Figures those aliens would come back to the same place. Now I'm talking like you.... Caressing your cold face with my colder fingers doesn't seem to help. It just makes me feel worse. I'm not afraid of dying -- quickly, relatively painlessly. This isn't like cancer, which was like living every day with a loaded gun to my head and wondering when it would be shot. It's not even like dying of a gunshot wound, there's not even a second of unbearable pain. It's just like going to sleep. I can hear my dad's voice when we had to put my pet dog, Evan, to sleep. He's just taking a nap, Dana, nothing to worry about, he won't feel a thing. Is this the way he felt as he slipped away into nothingness? I believe in life after this world, but I'll miss you. There I've admitted it. Since it's confession time, bless me father for I have sinned...I don't blame you for anything, really I don't. Regardless of your guilt complex. More than that...Mulder, you gave my life meaning. Before you I drifted from school to the academy to teaching, without having a real purpose. Unbound to anyone, some friends but none that I would call very close. At one point I wanted a life like that, I was a rock, an island.... Then you came into my life and it changed. You brought me into your quest, your cause...whatever you want to call it. I had a reason for getting up every morning, even when I was in pain and wanted nothing more than to bury under covers and go back to sleep. What I do now is something I could have never predicted, investigating paranormal activity wasn't on the career aptitude test. I'll admit I've been skeptical, perhaps overly so. But when everything was falling apart I needed that disbelief to get me through. If I gave in -- I felt that something would happen. I would change -- cease to be me and become someone else. I realize how ridiculous that fear is now. I have the proof, it's in me and I'm still the same. It's starting to become hard to think. At least there's no retrovirus this time. Grinning through the pain. One more thing since you'll never hear me and we are both going to slip away soon. There's no one as important to me as you are. I love you. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't around. That's why I wanted to quit, I couldn't be without you. That far from you -- away from you. I don't care how it sounds, there are no consequences now. There have been times, after things have happened where I've wanted nothing more than to hold you, hug you -- as a lover not a friend -- and let your pain become mine. To kiss away your tears and show you that you're not alone -- that I'm here and always will be. It never occurred to me that you had the same thoughts. You told me, you were the braver one. One of us had to make the first move. At that moment, when your lips were mere millimeters from mine and I could feel your breath against my cheek, I felt free. It was as if the merry go round had finally stopped. No more wondering, worrying if I was important, if you felt the same way. Beating myself up for holding you back, feeling that I was stopping you from doing something. I've never told you this, but in the kaleidoscope of people whose deaths I take onto myself, you've turned up. I've dreamt that I'd be responsible for your death. I thought it was anxiety -- self-analyzed my dreams but God, I guess I am responsible. You're in my arms, heartbeat becoming slower and slower. Body colder and colder. If you weren't such a headstrong... maybe one of us would have survived this. God, do you realize what will happen if we die? We're the only ones who know what's happening and are in a position to stop it. Those things, those people...all those murders. That little boy and those firemen, each one with their own mourning families. We can't let this happen, come on wake up Mulder...we've got to get out of here. But the ground feels so soft and the darkness so inviting. This is the end, my friend... I lean over and kiss your unresponsive lips, trying very hard not to cry. The tears will freeze. At the last moment I hear something that sounds like a buzz.... ***** "Two figures...it's them sir." The pilot announced to his passenger. "I figured as much." "If I may ask, sir, how did you know they would be here?" "Philip's death reached us all rather quickly. Once I realized what happened, it was simple. Who else would my old boss consider important enough to be killed over? "But why save them?" "They're the only ones who know, outside of that smoking bastard, what happened here." "If I may sir, aren't you working for the same side?" "Right, of course. But, it never hurts to get a little bit more information." He lied through his teeth, not wanting to alert the helicopter pilot. "Go down," The pilot landed the helicopter near the two people. "For once, they'll owe me." The man said stepping out of the helicopter and looking down at the bodies. "They're unable to tell you anything now Sir, look at them. Any information...." "Not now, later. When I need the information, I'll call on them." The pilot lifted the limp bodies into the helicopter. The man held the door open with his right hand. As they lifted off the man allowed himself to smile -- this may give him the leverage he needed to take over Philip's place in the organization. He couldn't wait. END Send all feedback to FirePhile@aol.com Rachel Ehrentreu - FirePhile@aol.com http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~jstoy/rachel.html "Sure, fine, whatever." - "Whee Dumbo!" Member of EMXC, SPCDD, XFF, atxc, FT, XF...etc.