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        This author's e-mail address has changed to: shalimar@attbi.com
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Hi everyone,

**A note to Vincent, thanks for putting these stories in the gossamer archives! (And for
maintaining that fabulous entity.) Thanks.**

This is NOTHING like "Everything We Couldn't Say With Words" so be forewarned. Quagmire
struck me as totally absurd and this is the somewhat peculiar result. It does have some shippy bits.
(That's short for Relationshippy, for those of you who haven't yet succumbed.) And Scully's in a
tearing, swearing kinda mood. So if you dislike profanity or an MS relationship, steer clear. R for
language. Quagmire spoilers. No sex. 

DISCLAIMER M & S and Big Blue are property of CC et al and used without permission. The
title "My love for you is like a sinking ship" is a line from a song from the seventies by Kate &
Anna McGarrigle (sp) also used without permission. The rest belongs to me.

SUMMARY This is a "missing" scene from Quagmire. It starts right after the scene where they
have been rescued from the rock by the frog scientist, the sheriff comes by, the scientist gets
bitten and Mulder runs off after the monster, leaving Scully.

My Love For You is Like a Sinking Ship by Shalimar 5/13/96


Damn it, Mulder. Scully pressed hard on bleepin' what's-his-name's bleeding artery and watched
Mulder run off into the darkness of the forest after whatever-the-hell was out there. Leaving
her--yet again.


Don't get eaten! 


She almost yelled the words after him. She stopped herself, she didn't want to start sounding
needy.


Damn it, Mulder. She'd like to see for once what he'd do if she ran off into the night on some
pathetic search for yet another incredibly idiotic, unbelievable and dangerous thing, leaving him
stuck with both hands pressed on somebody's bleeding artery.


But no. She was too sensible to have any ridiculous obsessions. No. None at all. She threw
another glance in the direction he'd disappeared, and gnashed her teeth. Damn it.


And they'd been getting somewhere on that damn rock till bleeding bleep-head here butt in. She
was tempted to tell this guy to hold his own artery. She'd been working her way around to telling
Mulder something. Not just about him, but about her. Although she didn't know what-the-hell
what.


Not that her little tirade had exactly sunk in to that thick head of his. Because five minutes later
on shore, there he was, spewing forth more insane conjecture about the frog population. She'd felt
her heart sink then, yup, right down to the bottom of the lake.


But at least Mulder was obsessed with a purpose--wacky as that purpose seemed. All she seemed
to be obsessed with was Mulder. And at the moment it seemed a helluva lot stupider and more
dangerous to her sanity than any Big Blue.


Yeah, that would be the total irony. Something she'd really like to see. Mulder forced to watch
*her* consumed by her own stupid obsession.


Mulder could sit there and watch her--both hands stuck stopping someone's blood flow--as she
spun slowly downward. Down. Down. Down. Into the futile and dangerous depths of her own
murky obsession for him. And he wouldn't be able to even throw her a rope. 


Actually he wouldn't even notice, cause that's exactly what her little performance on the rock had
been all about. Damn it.


Gunshots crashed through the night. In quick succession: 1-2. 3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10. Shit! His whole
clip.


Scully grabbed what's-his-name's hand and shoved it over the makeshift bandage. "Press down
hard and don't move or you're a dead man," she ordered and ran in the direction he'd gone,
yanking her gun out as she went.


Twigs, branches grabbed at her head and tangled in her hair, pulling her back, slapping her face.
She tripped over God knows what and staggered through a pool of icy murk up to her knees.


"Mul---der," her cry rang out through the dark forest. "Mul---der."


Damn it, where the hell was he?


She stopped short in her tracks and listened. Everything was eerily still. She squinted into the
darkness. No light anywhere. Why had she left the damn lantern?


Suddenly she heard a sound from the left and froze. She turned in that direction and reached out
with all her senses. There is was again. A wretched gurgle.


Oh, Mulder. Please don't be eaten.


Gun held in front of her she moved in the direction of the sound. It was a horrible sound and it
made the hair raise up on the back of her neck. A coughing, gurgling, gasping sound. But she
knew. It was him.


She ran, stumbled, clawed, scrambled her way the few feet to his side. She dropped to her knees
beside him in the mush. More scared than at anything in her life she reached out to touch him.


He was convulsing, she realized. He must have had a whole limb bitten off and lost a lot of blood.
Damn the darkness. She couldn't see a thing. Quickly she ran her hands up and down his body,
along each extremity, waiting for the moment when her hand would encounter nothing but air. 


Oh, God. Pegleg.


But her hands found nothing but cold wet clothes covering solid skin. Two ankles, two boots. She
grabbed his arms. Two hands. She felt relief prickle across her scalp and down her back to her
toes.


What was wrong with him? Why was he shaking and making that horrible noise? A bite to the
chest? Now the noise had become so horrible it almost sounded like he was laughing.


"Mulder, Mulder. Damn it."


She ran her hands quickly all over his torso. He seemed whole. No warm blood gushing from
anywhere.


Was he choking on his tongue or something? She tilted back his head and stuck her fingers into
his mouth. She felt around. There was his tongue. Nothing else. But did it seem like he wasn't
breathing? His pulse was rapid but strong.


Scully grabbed his neck, pinched his nose. She took a deep breath and lowered her mouth to his.
She blew in two quick breaths and turned her cheek to feel the returning air. She put her other
hand on his chest to see if it raised with her breath.


Mulder went still beneath her hand. She lowered her mouth to breathe another breath into him.


All at once his mouth moved under hers. When she would have jerked her head back, Mulder's
hands slid into her hair and pulled her lips more firmly against his own. And suddenly she was
kissing him and he was kissing her and they were kissing each other for all they were worth. And
he smelled like mud ind she smelled like lake. A`d it was better than she'd ever imagined and
worse than she'd ever imagined because now she knew it would be worse than before. Because
this only confirmed she was trapped in his quagmire and she was going down with him. But at
least they were going together.


Scully remembered she was holding his nose and let go. One of Mulder's arms moved around her
back to pull her tightly against his chest and he kissed her harder.


And Scully kissed him harder, too, with all the relief of knowing he wasn't eaten. Her arms snaked
around him to hold him close. But suddenly he was making that noise again. Now it really
sounded like laughing.


They broke apart and sat up. Something was pushing them apart. Just like on the rock.


"Damn it, Mulder. What the hell's the matter with you?"


He made that helpless gasping noise again.


"Oh-my-God, you *are* laughing." She felt like slapping him. "I thought you were dying."


"I think I'm having hysterics for the first time in my life," he choked out the words.


"Why? What the hell happened?"


Mulder felt around on the ground for something. He flicked on his flashlight and pointed it. Scully
squinted down the beam. Not two yards from their feet was a huge dead alligator.


An alligator. She felt a wave of compassion for Mulder. Damn it, why couldn't she stay mad at
this idiot long enough to get the hell out of town. "I'm sorry, Mulder."


He just looked at her and shook his head, still making helpless little hiccups. "First, you tear into
me on the rock, then that bleep-head calls me ludicrous and crazy. Then the sheriff...
Then--that--that thing. At last, concrete evidence that I am truly nuts."


And what did that make her? 


"And it's funny, don't you think? That at last I've hit rock bottom?"


"Hysterical," she said dryly. So he had heard her on the rock.


"You're right, I'm wrong. Happy now, Scully?"


No.


In fact. No.


"What the hell were you trying to do to me just then?" he said.


"Me?" He'd kissed her first. "I thought you weren't breathing."


"And you were falling on my still form with kisses?" 


"I was giving you mouth-to-mouth," she said.


"Oh."


They sat on their knees in the muck and stared at each other in the dim glow from Mulder's
flashlight. A dead alligator at their feet. Instead of bringing them together, the kiss lay between
them like a hole in the ground.


Damn it, Mulder. What the hell could possibly happen next?


Scully heard a stick break behind them in the direction of the lake, and then a huge crashing
through the undergrowth.


"Now what the hell was that?" Mulder said.


"I don't know but it ain't no duck."


Mulder swung his flashlight. It was hard to see down the feeble beam but there was something.
Something enormous, crashing towards them through the vegetation.


"Shit!" said Scully and fumbled for her gun where she'd dropped it in the goo.


"Shit!" said Mulder and fumbled to load another clip into his own gun.


Scully got her gun raised first. She paused one second to make sure it wasn't human, but no, it
was grey and twenty feet long and had a medium-sized mouth full of teeth, small black eyes and
was bearing down on them with the speed of a large cow. She emptied her whole clip into its
open mouth. 


For a split second she glanced at Mulder and it was as if she saw his whole soul standing there.
When she glanced back at the creature, the strangest thing happened because now she was seeing
it with Mulder's eyes.


It was grey and slimy and thirty feet long, and had an enormous mouth bristling with huge teeth, it
had mean beady little black eyes and was bearing down on them with the speed of a stampeding
elephant. She watched as he emptied his whole round into that gaping maw.


The thing fell to the forest floor with a crash that rocked them both. Scully shook her head,
rubbed her eyes and saw it again as she'd seen it first. Whoa. She'd been in Mulder's head there for
a second.


"What the *hell* IS that?"


"Whatever it is, it's a lot more capable of sinking our boat and biting people in half than that
alligator. And look, is that the tooth from the photo?"


Cautiously they moved closer, both fishing out another round of bullets and inserting them into
their guns.


"Oh, my God," said Mulder.


"What is it?"


It was definitely dead. They lowered their guns.


"This doesn't look anything like the pictures on the T-shirts," she said. "Assuming Big Blue is a
plesiousaur, I don't think this is him...or her." "It's a Carcharodon carcharias terra firmas--family:
Lamnidae."


"What? No, Mulder--it can't be." Scully poked its rough grey skin cautiously with her toe.


"It is. It's a Great White Land-Shark," he said. Scully could hear the joyful note creep back into
his voice. "Do you know the story?"


"Of course I know the story, Mulder. Land sharks had been thought of as a myth for centuries,
until Dr. Lorne Michaels managed to catch one on film during the mid-seventies. But that's been
the only sighting."


"So Scully, you have to agree, some myths are based in valid scientific fact."


"But what's it doing in a freshwater lake?"


"How the hell do I know?"


Scully was glad to hear the joy of the quest back in his voice. After all, what was Mulder without
his obsessions? They turned and made their way back through the forest towards where they
could see the faint glow of the lantern.


"Should we just leave it there?" said Scully. "What if it disappears?"


"You saw it, Scully. That's enough for me."


Wow. So in some weird way she validated his quest for him. That was a little nicer than going
down with the ship.


"Way to go, Ahab," she said.


Mulder paused and turned to face her.


"Scully?"


"Yeah?"


"When you call me Ahab', you aren't really calling me Daddy' are you?"


Um, no.


"Um, no," she said. At least she hoped not. Although who-the-hell knew what her shrink, Dr.
Carter, would say.


"Good. I was a little worried there at first."


"Why?"


Mulder stuck a muddy finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up. His gaze dropped to her
mouth. "Because of this."


He touched her lips softly with his own. Giving her the gentlest but sexiest kiss she'd ever had.
Except of course in her fantasies about him. They could work on it, though.


He drew back and looked at her. Waiting.


"Damn it, Mulder."






The end.






Me again, I enjoy hearing what you think, so please send any comments to me at
71061.1041@compuserve.com Thanks for reading! Shali