April 2000.
Distribution: Gossamer, yes; Spookies, of course. Other
archives, please ask first.
Title: Descension
Author: Meredith
Category: V, M/S
Spoilers: Takes place sometime after "Closure."
Summary: What goes up must come down.
Disclaimer: David Duchovny is not Mulder. Repeat after me:
David Duchovny is not Mulder.
Feedback: Would be wonderful: meredith40@juno.com or
meredith_elsewhere@yahoo.com.
Author's notes at the end.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Night passed, morning came...
I brushed the snow away
Gone were the colors of yesterday
I arose from the earth
and walked into the light
of a new season
-- Leo Yerxa
"Descension"
The flash of panic was unexpected. So many elements didn't match
his memory. The weather, the company, the location. It was all
wrong, which made him feel foolish to be caught short of breath.
It had to be the altitude.
As a man who had lived a dozen lives worth of traumatic
experiences, in the end everything reminded him of something
worth forgetting. But often the sense of deja vu never happened,
and the coincidences and similarities of life flowed by
unnoticed, never creating a conscious connection.
So it was odd to be confronted by the past here, and now, with
the mask hiding his panic face freezing solid in the wind.
"I'm afraid it's the only way up," Officer Barnes huffed in the
damp air. "The bodies, or what's left of them, are on double-
diamond runs to the west of Storm Peak. I've been skiing since I
was knee-high and I won't take those runs, so I'm handing you
over to the experts. The Priest Creek Gondola will take you to
the summit, then Ski Patrol will run you along the ridge on
snowmobiles to the Chutes. That's where they were found."
The officer looked up, blinking snowflakes out of his eyes, and
shook his head at the descending cloudbank. "I wish you could
wait until morning, but we've got to get those bodies. We can't
run them down while every damn tourist and nosy
local is cruising the slopes and clogging the lifts. We've got to
do stuff like this after hours." He worried the brim of his
cowboy hat, a common accessory in Steamboat Springs.
The snow was falling at an ominous pace, but no one in the small
party on the ground seemed to take any notice except Mulder, who
clenched and unclenched his gloved fists. The peak generated its
own weather, it seemed, with snow clouds forming at the summit
and draping down the ridges and slopes like a
woolen cloak. Even now he couldn't see where the lifts
disappeared to, as if they deposited people on imaginary planes
of ice and stratosphere. Nightfall and cloud cover fought for
which one would bring the first dark upon the frozen mountain.
The air hung heavy and thick with moisture, as impatient as the
group of officers waiting under the gondola shed's overhang.
Boots were stomped on the ground, more frequently as the pace of
the straggling skiers coming off the slope trickled to a lone,
exhausted few. Only Scully stood calmly, waiting for someone to
make his move.
The lift operator walked out of the control room and signaled.
"Okay," he shouted above the din and screech of wheels on the
aerial track. "Take the next ones and I'll radio up."
Barnes huffed again and scooted closer to the outside wall of the
shed and the small cluster of his fellow officers. "I think we'll
stay here. When you get back down, come on by the office. We'll
have some hot coffee ready. I wanna hear
what you have to say after you see the bodies." Scully had the
presence of mind to thank them, getting a line of serious, silent
nods in return.
She took the lead, grabbing onto the approaching gondola's ski
rack and hoisting herself inside as it swung by, the next
carriage in a continuously moving line of silver cages. Mulder
barely caught on in time, grasping the bars just before the
gondola left the shed and solid ground behind.
Inside, he reminded himself. You ride inside.
Scully exhaled sharply and shut the tiny door behind him. "Glad
you decided to come after all," she said.
He was too preoccupied to make a comeback, masking his
disorientation with the effort of squeezing his large frame onto
the tiny steel bench across from his partner.
The gondola began its ascent with a groan, followed by several
grating thunks as the mechanism above their heads lurched over
the first set of connectors on the line. The inside was as cold
as a long-buried casket, and not much larger.
After a moment the clouds quickly obscured the foot of the
mountain, hiding sheds, lifts, brightly colored skiers, and
countless condominium complexes. Visibility was lost as the snow
engulfed the small carriage, leaving them free-
floating, disconnected, their only view that of each other. But
Mulder continued to stare out the window rather than face the
fact that so much had, and had not, changed in the five years
since he'd last ridden one of these contraptions. He was
still one step behind in the pursuit of Dana Scully.
They eventually rose above the grey-white weight to the calm
above the storm. Breaking through the surface, they saw the
mountain in its private beauty.
He heard Scully's quick intake of breath at the sudden panoramic
view, a slice of clear, muted wilderness sandwiched by dense
layers of clouds both above and below. The bare snowfield
directly beneath them in a line parallel to the rising gondolas,
the boundary of dense evergreen bordering both sides of the rise.
Each tree like a sentry, hedging, waiting. There was no
discernible light source, but the
earth glowed grey-green, a dark luminescence reflected by the
white of the snow.
A feeling of vulnerability swept through him -- at their height,
their precarious situation. He felt it overflow before he could
stem it, as if a tangible wake, and swore he sensed his partner
stiffen as well.
Things were so tenuous right now. One move in the wrong direction
and their fine balance would be destroyed, dashing them to the
ground. His tendency was to push and pull; hers to resist. Maybe
she was merely keeping them in check,
keeping them from disaster by a poorly timed shift. Or maybe this
was all they could hope for -- never-ending suspension.
The margin of error was minuscule. All he wanted was a safe end
to their journey.
"It's almost suffocating, isn't it?" Scully murmured, breaking
the quiet.
Mulder nodded, mesmerized. The gears were nearly noiseless save
for a muffled thump whenever the gondola met a support pole. The
stillness was complete, death-like. He felt like a trespasser, an
aerial voyeur on the ruthless peace of the
wild.
The pines below seemed suffused with resignation, accepting their
fate as bearers of the somber weight of snow. They were tall and
perfectly symmetrical, without flagging or bending, giving an
impression of determination and strength in carrying their
burden.
Mulder had only recently realized that it was sheer stubbornness
that had kept him carrying his own burden. It had been a familiar
weight, after all.
Since Samantha had been found, had lived, died, and been buried,
the culmination of 25 years of grieving had taken their toll for
good and for bad. He didn't regret the time spent, because the
search had been a journey, a long and
arduous road to understanding himself. All men in this world took
similar paths, but most would get there sooner and with less
drama. If any had a worse trip, he pitied them with a depth of
feeling difficult to articulate.
Twenty-five years, each moment a drip of water wearing on
granite. He knew he was a changed man, undergoing a slow and
stuttering metamorphosis into something else, some different
version of himself he was still shy around. This new man's outer
skin had molted, leaving behind a tender, befuddled creature not
used to unfiltered reality and all its textures and sensations.
The quest had been his excuse to hibernate.
He had shed chunks of himself before, here and there, mostly in
the last seven years. Some small coils of skin, leaving behind
sore, fresh spots that stung with glances of this reality he was
now facing the full brunt of. Large sheaves exposed him to joy
less often than pain, but there had been glimpses. His old hide
had usually sealed up the weaknesses haphazardly, leaving behind
a mottled and unpredictable creature. Now he was bare. But as he
had come to
realize, free.
But with freedom came the weight... of freedom.
He didn't want to be here, riding this frozen hulk to the top of
the mountain to view bodies horrific enough to scare seasoned
officers. He didn't want to face the taunting memories of his
inability to save his partner from a virtual death sentence. He
didn't want so many things, and he was petrified of what he did
want being forever denied, forever buried, forever suspended
before the fall.
Scully suddenly turned from the window and looked right through
him, her eyes appraising. He couldn't catalog the myriad ways
she'd changed from the night Duane Barry had abducted her, and he
knew better than to try. Until now, he
would have said her heart had been the only part of her that had
remained untouched. But here, in this cold car, he was struck for
the first time that he might have been terribly, irrationally,
wrong. He felt a pooling in his right eye,
and he glanced away to stare at the rapidly darkening scenery.
She cocked her head, and he knew he'd been caught. She had seen,
he realized with a numbed dread. One glance and it had all
unraveled for no good reason. At least not one she knew.
The swish of gortex was the only warning before he felt his hand
lifted from his thigh. She had slipped off her gloves and was
beginning to carefully free his right hand as well. Their knees
touched as she leaned forward, completing the circuit.
His fingers felt a sting of chill, then dry warmth as they were
enfolded by her hands. He watched her ground him, transfixed by
the sight.
She caressed his knuckles gently with her thumb, her fingers
curving around and sheltering his. He blinked the tears back,
almost successfully.
"Mulder," she whispered, waiting to finish until he could dare to
meet her eyes. "Everything is going to be fine. We're almost to
the end."
END
Inverse Rule of Vignettes: the shorter the piece, the longer the
notes.
Story inspiration: From JET, whom I thank for her meaningful
friendship and my beautiful box of winter in the midst of a weird
and warm February. Also from Kipler, who writes about snow better
than anyone in the world.
Thanks to my great beta readers. MCA for continued brilliance,
Revely for being the voice of reason, GirlGone for being so
encouraging, and Justin for keeping my feet on the ground. I'm
not sure why they put up with me, but I'm eternally
grateful.
"Ascension" continues to be one of my favorite episodes,
providing inspiration when I need it most. With all the confusion
surrounding the possibility of season 8, all I'm pining for is
the end of Mulder and Scully's interminable suspension.
Feedback would be much appreciated, critical or otherwise:
meredith_elsewhere@yahoo.com, or meredith40@juno.com. Thanks.