TITLE: Friend AUTHOR: mountainphile RATING: G, early-season M&S EMAIL: mountainphile@yahoo.com URL: http://www.geocities.com/mountainphile DESCRIPTION: Season 2 post-episode for "Firewalker" and what might have followed after decontamination quarantine. Originally written 3/16/03 for "A Picture's Worth" BtS photo challenge and languished unnamed on my website afterward. A reader's interest prompted me to re-tool and christen it for general posting. DISTRIBUTION: It's always an honor to be archived. Please tell me where, so I can visit. DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully, and the X-Files remain the property of Carter, 1013, etc. Just borrowed them for a little blast from the past. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: To Toniann for selecting the photo that spoke to me. Click on the following link to view the misty picture that inspired this S2 snap: http://www.geocities.com/mountainphile/2inmist.jpg ***** The caves are gone. Everything on the slope of Mount Avalon resembles moonscape, a rough, loose field of shattered scree. It's as though some massive grinder has chewed up and spat out the mountainside in vengeful disdain, but Mulder knows who's responsible for the transformation. And why. It's always like this. Their field notes, the only substantive proof concerning the fate of Firewalker's crew and the alien spores they uncovered, have disappeared. Over the past month everything left at the science station was appropriated by the Army Biohazard Corp. That includes the mountain's rocky face near the cave -- destroyed, plugged up, whitewashed, bulldozed over. Erased from existence. Frustrated, he fumes aloud, his breath clouding the moist air. "What'd I tell you, Scully? Everything... gone again..." She insisted on coming back here to the Cascades with him. Whether to watch his back or to help them both gain closure, he isn't sure. But she knew, as well as he did, the altered scene they'd find here, and her presence calms him with more than the sense that he isn't walking alone. After thirty days of mandatory decontamination and inactivity she must feel like he does – anxious, twitchy, eager to see how thoroughly the Powers That Be have destroyed what little evidence remained at the site. Those fungal spores are a case in point. Or were. Alien in origin, they managed to decimate an entire scientific team of geothermic pioneers, besides stretching a half-dozen individual systems of belief, including his. He'd almost lost her. Painfully, he feels responsible, at fault for leading Scully once more to the brink of doom. In the cave he'd affirmed that she was his colleague, and Daniel Trepkos cocked the gun to kill him where he stood. But calling her 'Friend' made all the difference in the world. With unspoken understanding both men acknowledged the significance and depth of devotion plumbed by that one small word. They had gone back to the station together, each to claim his respective female companion. Of the two, only Scully emerged unscathed. And though she's not a lover in the physical sense, like O'Neil had been to Trepkos, her alliance and faith in their work transcends anything he's ever hoped for in a partner -- or in a woman friend. He stops, not for breath, but to scan the gray sky. So much still lies beyond his grasp, eluding him, wounding him. Out there in the mists -- somewhere, the unanswered questions, the truth about Samantha, Scully's recent abduction, the hidden explanation and rationale for everything that's been snatched from him over the years. "Next time, Mulder..." Fingers curve around his forearm, a squeeze of solidarity in the forbidding, empty landscape and hazy drizzle. He looks down to the parka hood beside him, to the damp auburn bangs and the blue eyes that confront him with cool assurance. Small and resilient, she's this little bulwark of grit and slender strength. The end of her nose is pink from the cold, which prompts a smile from him, cleaving his momentary fatalism. "What did you say?" "I said, next time we may just get lucky." Her words touch him in a tender hidden place. Off-color repartee evaporates in the presence of her sincerity and obvious concern for his emotional well being. It occurs to him that before they took the case he'd made the casual comment that Daniel Trepkos, despite his ambition and brilliance, had finally run out of luck. "Still game for more of the runaround, Scully? Careful what you wish for; Trepkos told Jesse O'Neil that this experience would change her life." His grin fades to hard lines of regret. "Remember what happened the time I told you we were going on a nice trip to the forest." He sighs and her grip tightens on his arm, her gaze commanding his. "We both know there are dangers involved in the cases we accept. Cases no one else would dare touch or try to comprehend. That's why they're called 'X-Files.' Mulder... am I right?" "On the nose," he concedes grudgingly. "Besides, you said it yourself a month ago -- we're not exactly proper channels." Nothing remains for them on the mountainside, except yawning wilderness and empty questions. One last glance and he allows his partner to steer him around. He slows, his gait matching Scully's shorter stride over the uneven rock, and then takes her hand in his to better facilitate their descent. With any luck they'll make it down to the car together before the deep fog shifts and the skies pour. ********** The End 02/28/04