From: "Kirstin Hollingsworth" Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 19:11:51 0000 Subject: Source: direct Title: Forever Author: Kirstin V. Hollingsworth Email address: ScullyAngel@angelfire.com Rating: R (Mostly for the use of strong language) :-) Category: Romance

Keywords: MSR, angst, UST, finally RST Disclaimer: I invented Mulder and Scully. I own The X-Files, 1013 productions, The Fox Network and the little kid at the end of The X-Files that says "I made this." Go on, Chris Carter, sue me. I dare ya. Spoilers: Detour, Redux, Emily, Christmas Carol, The Movie and minor spoilers for others throughout the 6 seasons. Plot synopsis: Mulder and Scully's chopper comes down in hundreds of square miles of Canadian forest and they have to fend for themselves. Thanks: I want to thank Katherine who plays hookie with me, lol, Charli for being my badass buddy, Amy for keeping me grounded and Traci for trusting me. The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, 9.05am, May 3rd Dana Scully stepped out of her car. It was a brand new convertible and was she ever proud of it. Its shiny blue paintwork gleamed in the early summer sun. She absent-mindedly ran her fingers over the bonnet, admiring it. She checked her watch. She was a little late, so she quickly locked the car and left the FBI parking lot, entering the main building. She showed her badge and took the elevator to the basement. She opened the door of the basement office. The door read "Fox Mulder." she frowned slightly. "Hi Scully," Mulder greeted her. "Skinner wants us in his office for a new assignment in about 2 minutes. I don't know what it's about, but I think it's a Big Deal. He seems kinda anxious." Scully nodded, saying nothing. *Skinner's anxious about something. This MUST be big. Hmmm, nice tie Mulder. Not.* Scully looked at Mulder's tie. It was covered in lots of tiny alien heads. Mulder glanced up at her and grinned. "Like my tie, huh? I saw this in the new mall downtown, and, what can I say? I had to have it." "It's, uh, very you, Mulder." "It came with matching boxers, you know." Scully smiled slightly. Mulder got up and gently touched Scully's elbow. "Come on, Scully. Don't wanna keep the Assistant Director waiting, now." Scully knocked on Skinner's door. "Come in," he called. She walked through, with Mulder straight behind her, his hand just touching the small of her back. *It's so cute the way Mulder does that. To let me know he's there. Backing me up. Not letting any harm come to me.* "Sit down, agents," Skinner said. *They have no idea, do they? The way they're always touching each other. Both of them have way to much pride to actually do anything. They work so well together.* Skinner cleared his throat. "OK, agents. This is quite a big matter. I had to push to allow you to work on this, but I think my efforts will be rewarded." He handed Mulder a file. "In this file are details of a case which I feel you both be interested in. Recently a team of scientists disappeared in a Canadian forest, and I do mean vanished without a trace. Their equipment was, as far as anyone knows, in perfect working order. But as from April 2nd, no-one heard a word from them. Search airplanes and the local PD were sent out, and their equipment was found. Food supplies not depleted, radios in perfect condition, tents set up. What's intriguing police even more is the fact that the ground nearby the campsite was scorched in a per fect circle, 22 and a half foot in diameter." Skinner paused, and Scully watched in amusement as Mulder's eyes lit up. "Agents, I want you to go to the forest. I have arranged for a chopper to come pick you up later. Questions?" "Uh, how soon are we going?" asked Mulder. Skinner smiled and raised his eyebrows slightly. "As soon as you're ready." "Sir, I understand this is an important case, but don't you think that this could just be a missing persons case? I mean, maybe the group of scientists got lost in the woods, the scorching could have been camp fires." Scully interjected. Skinner shook hi s head. "No, every time they left camp a group would stay behind to guard, under strict instructions to radio HQ if the wandering group didn't return in 3 hours, and the scorched circle is perfect. There's no way on this earth that the circle could have been made by campfires." XXX Chopper flying over US/Canadian border, 3.21pm Mulder turned to Scully, showing her a photo of the scorched circle. "Skinner wasn't joking! Look at this scorched circle! It's perfect. Exactly 22 and a half foot in diameter, 11 and a quarter foot in radius..." "So, what, you think this a UFO?" interupted Scully sarcastically. "Well, I think that this was some form of alien activity. Maybe a flying sorcer. Scully, just think- why would any human go to such lengths, or indeed how could any human go to such lengths to scorch a huge circle in a forest floor without disturbing anyt hing underneath? It's just impossible!" Scully shrugged. *What's eating her? She's been like this ever since we left DC. But she DOES look cute when she pouts, like a little kid when her mommy tells her that it's bedtime...* The Chopper pilot, a youngish man in his early thirties with mousy brown hair, who had introduced himself as Chuck broke the slightly cool silence. "Ok, We're just coming into Canada now, if you look down, you can see some dense forest, covering hundreds of square miles. The roads here aren't too good, which is why you're coming up here by chopper. We're going to be landing in a specially cleared pat ch of forest where you can meet Amy Wiltshire who is conducting this investigation. Might I add that She's a very nice woman to work with. Very pleasant. Known her since she was a kid." *Thanks for that, Mr.Patronization,* thought Mulder sardonically. Mulder buried himself in the file again. A group of 15 scientists, investigating possible causes into the diminishing numbers of wildlife in the forest. All of them were young people, none of them over thirty. The investigation was lead by three people, t wo women and a man: Traci Wilson, Charlotte Armstrong and Matt Ellis. Scully watched him reading, his eyes traveling down the page and using a slightly inkstained thumb and forefinger to turn the pages. She spent a lot of the time just watching him. In the office. During meetings. *Does he ever notice? I know he watches me sometimes. I feel his eyes on me. Why do we play this weird little game?* She was cold, glad that she'd brought her thick wool trenchcoat with her. Mulder glanced over at her. Feigning indifference, she looked out of the window into the dense forests, pretending to be interested in the lakes that appeared abundantly on the ground below. It looked icy. It was still only May. *If I wasn't here with Mulder, I'd ask the pilot to turn around now. I don't know what the Hell Skinner was talking about "pushing" to get us assigned to this case. Bullshit. More like he wanted a bit more time to screw his secretary without us barging i n on him.* Scully was shocked by the harshness of her own thoughts. She liked Skinner, and she was pretty sure he'd never actually made out with his secretary. It just seemed that if they spent all day, every day together, often alone, that something would happen. S he smiled. Not that something had ever happened to her with Mulder. She thought about it a lot. What would happen if they ever got together? What would happen if they didn't? Mulder looked at her curiously. *What's she smiling at? She does that a lot. Goes off into her own little world. Never lets anyone else in. I guess we're similar in lots of ways. We're both so self-involved. Maybe that's why we've gotten so close over the years. But we always were. Close. We get closer but nothing ever seems to happen. Maybe we're going to get old, retire from the Bureau, send each other cards at Christmas and agonise about what might have been, eventually dying alone because we're both j ust too damn proud to ever make a first move, too afraid of rejection. That would be so typical of my life. * Suddenly the chopper swerved violently downwards, shaking Mulder from his little reverie. Mulder and Scully looked up, alarmed. Chuck was shaking. "Oh my God! Mulder, the pilot's having a fit! Help me move him out of the seat then take the controls. The only thing we can do is wait for the fit to subside before I can help him..quickly!" Mulder and Scully lowered Chuck gently to the floor and Scully sat next to him, squashed and hit by Chuck's flailing body. Mulder sat in the pilot's seat and held the controls. "Scully! What do I do? I never learned how to fly a chopper in Quantico." "Try and get back on course- maybe we'll fly near the landing-use the radio, our cell phones don't work out here..... I didn't even bring mine." Scully sounded as if she was having difficulty forcing herself not to scream. Mulder found that it was much harder to pilot a chopper than it sounded. *Which way was on course? and why didn't the radio work, for the love of fuck?* The chopper spiralled downwards. Mulder frantically pushed and pulled at the control, the forest below coming closer every God-forsaken second. Mulder saw a lake ahead. If the chopper could land in that, maybe they'd have a chance, maybe. The ground was coming in faster and faster, but the lake was coming nearer...at that point he must have passed out, because the next thing he knew, the chopper was filled with water and sinking. His legs hurt like hell. He got up from the seat. Scully was trying to wrench the door open, water pouring in all the time from the broken window. Mulder waded over to Scully and pushed at the door. It wasn't moving. Exchanging panicked glances, they both shoved together and the door gave way with a loud pop. Water flooded in, filling their mouths and lungs. Instinctively Scully grabbed Mulder's hand and they dragged themselves upwards , heavy over-coats dragging them down. The surface seemed a long way up, a vague, pale light shining dimly above them. Mulder saw a red dot in front of his eyes. His lungs burned, and things started to go black, unconsiousness dragging him in. *Nope, not going there.* Scully was pulling him up, upwards, and they both finally broke the surface, inhaling so much air that it hurt. Dazedly, they both swam to shore and collapsed on the sandy mud on the edge of the lake. Neither of them said anything for a long while. Maybe it was the sight of Chuck's floating body which had been pushed out of the chopper that was the real conversation-stopper. "Scully?" "Yeh?" "Are you alright?" "Uh, I think so." "You do realise we're stuck here, don't you?" "Fuck." "My thoughts exactly." Mulder dragged himself up and looked around. Trees. Everywhere. A small cliff jutting out into the lake. Some bushes. A lot of bemused looking birds. Scully just lay on the ground, looking up at him, making no attempt to move. She was still wearing that damn trenchcoat. Mulder helped her up, his shirt torn. His beloved tie gone. Scully leant against him, drained, her face ivory against the darkness of her clothes. He wrapped his arms around her. She was shivering. They helped each other to the foot of the cliff, a place a little more sheltered than the openess of the lake. "Ok, Scully, we gotta make shelter. That's what they do in the movies, right?" She nodded. "C'mon, Mulder-we gotta find, I don't know, some branches or something." Scully still couldn't take it in. It didn't feel as if she had just been in a helicopter crash. She felt strangely serene and un-panicked, as if this was just a game. They seaeched the trees around the lake , all huge Redwoods, but there were no branches fallen anywhere. No tree convieniently felled by lightening. Scully giggled. This was funny. Mulder looked at her, concerned. "Scully....Are you OK? What's funny?" "Uh, fine. It's just that, y'know, this WOULD have to happen to us, wouldn't it? I mean, it's uncanny. I've probably been trapped, or lost or stuck somwhere in the past 6 years more times than most people would even consider possible." "You gotta love this job." "Aren't we supposed to be looking for shelter? I don't see any logs we could use, Mulder." "Then we're screwed." The side of the cliff was soft, almost dirt. Mulder tore at it, making a large indentation. Scully knelt beside him and dug until her fingers bled. When they were done, (When their fingers bled too much to dig any more) they sat back into the side of the soft rock. "I hope this doesn't all fall down on us, Mulder." "It won't. That would just be too much bad luck for one day...I guess we'd better see what we got with us, Scully- got any firelighters, matches or food supplies in your purse? Or perhaps even a transistor radio?" Scully dug in her trench coat pocket. "'fraid not, Mulder..I got some wet tissues, my front door key and..wait a minute- 47 cents." Mulder turned his pockets inside out. Half a packet of damp mints, his wallet and a condom fell out. Scully rose an eyebrow at the last item but didn't say anything. "Got anything else, Scully?" She searched through her pants pocket. "Yeh. A piece of fluff that's been through the wash and a lipstick." "Great. So I guess it's mints for dinner." Scully surveyed him. *Where's his jacket gone? What the hell's he doing with a condom? who was he planning to have sex with? Fowley? Do they still have something going on? Frohike seemed to think that they did. It's his business though, I guess. Not mine.* *What's she looking at me like that for? The condom? I can't exactly tell her that I've been carrying that thing around since I was 12. Damn. She looks hurt now. The sky slowly got darker. Mulder sat up, leaning against the cliff. Scully was sleeping, in a foetus-like position next to him. Eventually Mulder fell asleep too, his head inches from hers. XXX May 4th Scully stretched and got up, her back stiff. *jeez, I'm still wearing these clothes. I can't believe we survived that crash. I guess I should feel grateful* Scully looked at Mulder, sleeping peacefully. She didn't feel grateful. She felt sticky and thirsty. The only thing to drink was the lake water, and that was probably full of bugs. *I wonder if the berries here are safe to eat? Well, I guess there's only one way to find out. Ewww! These things are so sour. Maybe they're not ripe yet. Not that Mulder and I can wait until they're ready. All we got left is 2 mints.* It was still early morning, the sun was only just risen and there were mosquitos everywhere. Scully walked over to the lake and dipped a hand in. The water was warmer than she had expected. She squinted in the sun and looked over to the far side of the lake, where Chuck's body floated. *I'm gonna take a swim. Just not near Chuck.* Scully started to take off her clothes. Blouse, pants, shoes, pantyhose, bra and finally her panties. She folded the clothes up neatly and waded into the lake. *Damn, It's colder than I thought. Ha. What do you know? I haven't been skinny-dipping since I was 16....* It was very peaceful. The extent of the damage to Scully seemed to be minimal. Slightly ripped clothes, bruises. Small cuts. She floated on her back, looking up at the sky for any sign of an airplane or chopper. Nothing. "Scully!" Scully flipped over to her back and looked up guiltily. Mulder was standing on the shore of the lake, the expression on his face triangulating between surprise, amusement and enjoyment. *God! What should I do? How was I supposed to know she'd be swimming naked? Not that I mind, hell no... but doesn't she know what she does to me?* Scully looked up at Mulder. He was disheveled. *He looks so sexy just standing there! It's so hard to tell what he's thinking, but surely even I can see he looks slightly turned on. OK, more than slightly. A lot.* Scully took a deep breath and swam nearer the edge, where she could stand up. She carefully stood with the water up to her neck so Mulder couldn't even see the tops of her breasts. *Why should I care that he's found me swimming naked? It's not like he hasn't seen me naked before, and I'm not going to let him think I'm embarrassed.* She smiled invitingly. "Mulder? Like to join me?" Mulder's eyebrows nearly disapeared into his hairline. *Has she had a knock on the head or something? Does being lost in the woods really turn her on? This ain't the Scully I know, but hey, why not humor her? It's probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Better make the most of it.* "Scully? You're serious?" "Uh huh." *Well, here goes!!* Mulder started to remove his clothes. Scully looked on approvingly, admiring his taught stomach and the way his butt curved so neatly. Mulder looked up and caught her staring. "Is that a blush I detect on your fair cheeks Special Agent Scully?" Scully smiled and swam out a little further. Mulder easily outpaced her, swimming in front of her and holding her shoulders so she couldn't squirm. "Scully, are we gonna do this every morning or what?" Scully caught her breath in her throat. He was so close. Mulder grinned as Scully said nothing and gently wiped away some water droplets from Scully's eyelashes. For a brief moment, the air crackled. *He's teasing me. Taunting me to do something. Bastard. Does he do it intentionally? Scully turned away suddenly and headed for shore. *What's her problem? She was the one who invited me to go skinny-dipping with her! What did I do? Mulder headed after her to shore. Scully was sitting with her back to him, still naked, arms and legs crossed. She could almost sense Mulder coming up behind her. She spoke to him in a flat tone. "Mulder, how are we gonna get dry? and what are we going to do?" Her voice started to break with emotion. "What if we're stuck here forever? What are we going to eat and drink? The lake water'll give us stomach upsets. Our families are going to think we're dead. We don't have our cell phones. Chuck's dead. Skinner's going to blame himself for the crash, for p ushing to get the case.." She broke off, starting to cry. Mulder's irritation melted and he put his arm around Scully. He said nothing. He walked over to where they'd built the tiny shelter. He started to dry Scully with the trenchcoat, gently rubbing it on her skin. He sat in front of her and started on her chest. Scully leaned in closer, so her forehead was resting against his, her tears running onto his cheeks. He moved in slowly, kissing the bridge of her nose. They were inturrupted by a loud noise,the droning of an airplane in the sky. They both lept up, jumping wildly, forgetting the fact that they were naked, signalling and waving at the small search and rescue plane. It came in closer, about half a mile from them, scanning the trees. "We're over here! We're over here!" Mulder hollered. Almost as if it could hear them, it came closer, lower, but without warning it swiftly turned and came back from where it had come from, towards the south-west. Scully's jaw dropped in amazement. She fought back the tears. From the looks of things, Mulder was too. *How did it come so close yet not see us? and it interupted where I was going with Scully. That stupid motherfucker pilot came in, ruined the atmosphere then left like he didn't give a shit that he probably just cost us our only hope of getting home. Men tal note, if I ever do get home, I must write Canadian Search and Rescue an extremely strongly-worded letter.* Mulder turned to Scully, a weird look on his face. "I never did like Search and Rescue airplanes anyway. No in-flight movie." "We laugh that we may not cry." "Spare me the arty crap, Scully." They got dressed slowly. Mulder just wore his pants and T-Shirt, putting his shirt over the side of the tiny shelter. "I guess this means we got more time to work on our, uh, accomodation." Scully gave him The Look, possibly for his previous comment on arty crap. She lay her trenchcoat on top of Mulder's shirt so that it covered the whole shelter. It started to rain. XXX May 23rd Mulder and Scully were laying, side by side, next to each other in the shelter, which was slightly bigger now than it had been. The rain was leaking in slowly and steadily, dripping on Mulder's cheek. "Scully, this may sound contrived but we gotta do something." *Way to state the obvious, Mulder, you bearded wildman.* It had been 19 days. 19 days of hell. 19 days of fruitless searching for rescue planes. 19 days of mosquito bites, bug-filled water and berries, and yeh, tensions had been running high. There had kind of been this weird silence since the day the plane cam e over. It was like the airplane had come, taken their hopes and emotions and left them. Left them as bitter shadows of their former selves. They had both lost a lot of weight, the berries and the dirty water saw to that. The constant rain had left everything too wet to make a fire. They had nothing to hunt with and neither of them was particularly looking forward to the long, slow death from malnutrition which seemed to lay ahead. "Scully, I mean it. We gotta do something. We'll stay alive. We won't die. I know you feel pretty damn miserable, but remember when you were fighting your cancer? How strong you were? Remember in Florida, in the forest with those Mothmen? You didn't give up then, you cared for me. You've always been the strong one. I've, I've, just tapped that strength in the past, it didn't come from me, it came from you. I don't see why you're losing that strength now.. you've no reason to." Scully turned to him, vaguely surprised . She shrugged. "Mulder, I felt my life had purpose then- life had dealt me my cards, but I was going to fight them because I could. Then Emily happened. That little girl was my daughter. She was taken from me, and I could fight as hard as I could but I couldn't keep her alive. It seems as if in the past 6 years, life has spat in my eye and kneed me in the crotch time and again. Maybe I should just stop fighting. I don't want the rest of my life to be spent in a continuous battle that I can't win." "Scully, you can win. You will win, you always do. You're too stubborn to let anything get in your way." "I guess." She didn't sound convinced. *I can't let her get like this. She is so depressed. I don't realise how much I rely on her. She's my eternal ally. The calming yin to my raging yang. Jeez, even my thoughts are cheesy today..* Mulder got up, his grubby clothes hanging off of his thin body. He looked at Scully from above, her hair knotted and tangled and her cheekbones too prominent in her pale face. "Mulder, where are you going?" "I'm going to swim down to the Chopper. Why stay here, just waiting to die? There must be something down there we can use, and even if there isn't, at least I know I tried." "Mulder! are you crazy? The lake's deep in the middle, where the chopper is, maybe 80 foot down! There's no way you could swim down there without any equipment!" "Your point being?" *He's delusional. No proper food for almost 3 weeks would make anyone crack. Can't he see he's going to kill himself?* She pressed her right palm to his forehead. "Mulder, you're not thinking clearly. You've had no proper nourishment in 3 weeks. It's a really stupid idea. What if you become trapped in the wreckage? Then what?" Her voice rose in urgency. *Finally, the first proper respose I've had from her in weeks.* "I'm going, Scully." Seeing that this was one battle she couldn't win, she nodded. "Fine, then I'm coming with you." XXX Mulder stood on the edge of the lake, looking down into the water. Smiling at Scully and fully clothed, he waded in. Scully followed anxiously behind. Together they swam silently to the sunken chopper. "Scully, what are you thinking?" "Uh, I was just thinking what we're about to do is really stupid, that I wouldn't be doing something like this right now if it was with anyone apart from you- and that I could really go for a hamburger right now." *She wouldn't be doing this with anyone apart from me? What does she mean by that? Does she mean that in a I-wouldn't-put-myself-on-the-line-for-anyone-but-you kind of way or in a I-wouldn't be doing-something-this-stupid-with-anyone-but-you kind of way?* a tense pause followed. " Uh, Ok, Scully, I don't think the chopper's as far down as we thought. It's maybe only 20 foot down. You wait here." "How come you get to go down and have all the fun?" "I thought you didn't want to go down." "I don't." "Then why'd you ask?" "Habit, I guess. You get to do all the interesting stuff." He dived down to the sunken chopper. The door was open, a huge, gaping black hole. Chuck's body was laying just behind the chopper, making the water cloudy and putrid. Neither Mulder or Scully had been particularly fond of the idea of burying him. Mulder swam quickly into the chopper cabin, aware that he probably only had a minute, max, to try and salvage anything down there. The cabin was empty, with the exception of his waterlogged cell phone, which wasn't worth the effort of salvation. He looked around desperately. There was nothing in the chopper apart from some watervests. *Don't you just love irony?* Mulder tugged at the door of a tiny hatch, expecting it to be locked. To his surprise and delight it contained a small box. Mulder's lungs were begging for air. He grabbed the box, and with difficulty swam upwards toward the sunlight. "Mulder! Are you OK? I was getting worried." He held up the box in triumph. "Look what I got." Scully's eyes widened in disbelief. "Where did you get that?" "There was this little hatch on the wall. It was in there." "Oh my God, Mulder. What's in it?" "How should I know?" *I love it when she gets all impressed at me like that. It almost never happens.* They got back to shore quickly, eager to open the box. Mulder lay the box on the sand. The box was made of metal, with a hinged lid. It was bolted shut. Scully leaned over, pulling the bolts back and then opening it. "Mulder! There's a radio transmitter!" Her voice was shrill. She grabbed it and turned it on, longing to hear the crackle of static. Nothing. Her face fell and she threw the radio angrily onto the sand. Mulder took it, flicking the switch a couple of times. "Hello, can anyone hear me?" Scully put a hand on his shoulder. "It's broken, Mulder. No-one can hear us." "Then we're going to die." He said this with a chilling note of finality. Scully lay her head on his shoulder. *Mulder's right. We're going to die. We've got nothing to light a fire with. There's nothing to eat. We've got nothing to hunt with. It's funny, actually. I'm facing death, but I don't care. Maybe it's because we're facing death together, me and Mulder. I n death as in life.* "Scully, are you scared to die?" "Uh, no. I don't know why. I think that the time we've had on earth is special. Our shared time. I want you know that I've enjoyed what we've done together. When I first started to work with you, It seemed a chore. Something that I had to put up with, but Mulder, you mean a lot to me now. As a friend..... a very, very good friend." "Scully, I don't say this often, but I'm sorry." "What for?" "Everything. For being such a jerk sometimes. For pissing you off and ditching you, but you've stood by me. Defended me. You didn't have to. Thank you." "Mulder, don't start saying your goodbyes. Stop talking in the past tense. It's not over yet...we've probably still got a couple more months left, before we go mad with hunger or claustrophobia and hack each other to death with axes anyway." "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." "Mulder, when you were a kid, did you ever imagine that your life would turn out this way?" "Yes, but then I was a very depressed child." Scully took his hand and laughed. *This is so weird. We're actually having a proper talk. About things that matter. OK, and stuff that doesn't. If we'd have met under any different circumstances, we'd be married by now.* *If Scully dies, a part of me would die to. If she died before me here I don't think I could bear it. Looking at her lifeless, without that spirit she has would kill me on its own.* "Scully, I love you." Scully felt her heart stop then start up again. *Mulder has said he loves me. He's not drugged/semi-concious. Oh. My. God.* "I..I.." "It's OK, Scully, you don't have to say anything." Her eyes started to fill. "Mulder, I always have..." A memory of the previous summer, in the corridor outside Mulder's apartment drifted through Scully's brain. Mulder started to cry. A cliched thing to do in retrospect, but it seemed fitting at the time. Scully held him, rocking him gently. The distant rumble of an airplane shook their enclosed world. It was flying very low, obviously searching for something. * We've been waiting for a rescue plane since we got here, and as soon as we resign ourselves to our fate and Scully tells me she's always loved me the fucking Search and Rescue come along. They soooo know how to pick their moments, don't they?* Mulder and Scully exchanged exited glances as the airplane came in lower around them and started to circle the small clearing. The pilot had seen them. They jumped up and the airplane landed on the still surface of the water. They both ran over and the pilot left his airplane with some difficulty, swimming to the shore. Coming into the side of the cliff he just looked at Mulder and Scully in amazement. "Agents Mulder and Scully?" "Yeh. Hi," Said Mulder, obviously as dumbfounded to see the pilot as the pilot seemed to be seeing him. "Our search was called off last week for you guys. Are you Ok? I mean, the chopper you were in just disappeared. Everyone at HQ thought that your chopper must have come down somewhere in the trees or a lake..." The pilot just trailed off. "Uh, we're fine," muttered Scully. "How did you find us? We saw this airplane come in, and we thought we were saved, but it just flew away-we thought that we'd be stuck here for ever." "Uh, about 10 minutes ago, my radio started to make this weird noise- I heard a voice- so I followed the signal." The pilot was sraring at them as if he'd never seen a half- starved pair of FBI agents with matted hair before. "Come, come on, get in the airplane. I have some food in the plane." The search and rescue man didn't seem very awake. "Where's your the chopper pilot?" Asked the search and rescue man, glancing over Mulder's shoulder as if Chuck was going to appear out of the bushes at any moment. "He died." Scully pointed at the lake. The search and recue man's nose wrinkled slightly in disgust at the sight of Chuck's body, which he had obviously missed on his way into shore. The search and rescue man lead Mulder and Scully silently over to the lake. Mulder took Scully's hand as they waded over to where the airplane landed. They clambered aboard with some difficulty, the pilot muttering something about getting someone else t o come pick up Chuck's body later. Mulder and Scully sat squashed together in the back of the small airplane and looked out of the window as they left the still cold and raining Canadian forest for good. The search and resue man passed them back hot coffee and cookies. They ate quickly. "Mulder, what happened back there, the togetherness we had...we're still going to have that, right?" Scully whispered. Mulder nodded. "Scully, we're gonna have that forever, because if our time together counts for anything, then I'll be honored for you to grow old with me." They would have made out then and there if the search and rescue man wasn't looking so intently, but as it was, they had to wait until they got back to the FBI parking lot where Scully's brand-new car was waiting. THE END! WHOO HOO! I FINISHED IT! FEEDBACK PLEASE, I'LL LOVE YOU FOREVER!!!!