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Title: The Furious Winter
Category: S, ladlings of A, MSR, post-col
Rating: R? You all know I can never figure out the system.
Spoilers: Try the whole abduction/cancer-arc thing...plus
teeny ones for TRATB and Detour.
Summary: "A cry of Absence, Absence in the heart,/ and in
the wood the furious winter blowing."
Archive: Yes to Gossamer. Anywhere else: I won't say no, but
*please* ask
for permission first, because I like to know where this stuff's
going :).
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013 and Fox, even
though
sometimes I like to put on surfer gear and a blond wig and
pretend they're
mine. No copyright infringement intended, and I'm not making a
penny off
this.
Feedback: Always worshipped at CazQ@tesco.net
Author's Notes: Sometimes a girl just needs to have an angst-out.
I must
pay tribute to Analise and 'A Thin Veneer' for reminding me that
the
razor-clawed alien babies don't like the cold. And no, I don't
know what it
is with all these snowy stories in the height of summer. Thanks
to Alicia,
Kristy, Shawne and EPur for tip-top betas: love yez, kids.
Dedicated to Windle, my skiffy pal, as a thank you for skits,
wavs., and
shared...uh, obsessions <veg>, and to jerry, for many
months loyal and
exceptional beta service.
******
The Furious Winter (1/2) by CazQ
(CazQ@tesco.net)
"Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going;
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing."
'Winter Remembered', John Crowe Ransom.
******
The world is uncreated, a sheet of blank paper: purely, coldly
white and
sterile. Silence presses in on him from every side, a stifling
feather
blanket weighing heavily on his skin. So much silence; he feels
as if the
weight of it will cause his skull to crack and cave inwards.
Something in him would welcome that. He can feel it within
him, a dark,
whispering void hidden deep beneath skin, blood and muscle,
nestled
in the cage of his bones.
No, no, must not think like that, he reminds himself. He knows
that he's got
to keep going, just that little bit further. He's got to get to
her. Almost
there.
This is high country, the air thin and searing in his lungs.
He's been
on the move for days, sleeping by day, walking by night, going
under cover
of darkness. He's being a little careless, almost, breaking cover
before
nightfall. She would probably scold him for his recklessness if
she were
travelling with him. Still, he's high enough above the snowline
now to avoid
pursuit, hopefully, and in this snow-blind world there's little
need for the
cloak of night.
Hot now. So hot. He can feel the sweat soaking through his
layers of
clothes, under the shell of his parka, as if there's a fire
rising deep
under his skin. It's tempting to stop, to halt for a moment and
try to take
a little more oxygen from this burning, empty air, but that would
be the
worst mistake. This heat is an illusion; his core temperature
would drop
quickly in the open, even in all these winter clothes.
He can bear it a little while longer, because he's almost
there. He
recognises the shape of a huge boulder looming out of the
whiteness, a
silent stone sentinel. He swings left, turning to follow the way
around the
shoulder of the mountain now instead of climbing upwards.
The going is no easier, though; he's trail-breaking, feet
growing heavier,
number, slower with each step as he slogs through the deep snow,
muscles
screaming out in protest. He walks in boots of iron, intimately
aware of the
seductive downward pull of gravity. His pack weighs heavy as
guilt on his
back.
So tempting to give in, to let gravity draw him down, through
the crisp burn
of the snow, through the face of the earth, letting the dark
oblivion of
rock close around him. A bone-dry voice spirals up from the void
within and
whispers that the dead are lucky, luckier than they could ever
know, cradled
in their silent chambers of earth. Nothing can touch them there.
Enough. He doesn't know what that voice means, doesn't want to
know. He
does not need to know. After all, she's waiting for him, isn't
she? And he's
nearly there, isn't he?
Isn't he? Of course he is. There is no voice within, crackling
like dead
leaves underfoot. There never was. Just a little further.
He comes across the ridge right on schedule and pauses for a
second
before the final descent into the hollow, gazing at the haven,
the blessed
sanctuary. Below him, the mass of the cabin is just visible
through the
snow-flurries, eaves showing dark beneath the thick blanket of
snow on the
roof. No smoke rises from the bent tin chimney; the fire's gone
out.
That was careless of her. He'll have to help her get it going
again when he
gets inside.
A sharp crack reverberates suddenly around the mountainside,
deadened
only a little by the falling snow. He still jumps out of his skin
- at
least, he would, if he wasn't so bone-weary. Instead he
instinctively drops
to the ground, hand going to the cool, solid weight of the Sig he
still
wears at his hip, casting about for the direction of the threat.
Identify
the threat, evaluate it, neutralise it, his trained instincts
scream.
Then he realises. There is no one firing at him. The real
menaces these
days don't carry guns, of course. A branch, breaking under the
weight of
accumulated snow, nothing more. Nothing more.
Still, it's enough to galvanise him into action for the last
leg of his
journey, sending him leaping and tumbling down the valley side
like a clumsy
mountain goat. He wonders if she hears him coming, down there in
the hollow.
He hopes not. He doesn't want her to come outside and see him
just yet. He'd
like to surprise her.
He loses his footing near the bottom on a rock slick with ice,
and plunges
headlong into the drift on the valley floor. For a moment, he's
tempted to
stay where he is, snug in the snow...then instinct kicks in
again, screaming
at him to pull himself out of there before he suffocates.
He emerges with cheeks and eyes burning, spitting snow,
gasping for air,
arms flailing. For the sake of his dignity, he's glad she didn't
see *that*
particular tumble. Digging himself out, he hefts his pack onto
his back
again and stumbles towards the cabin. The shutters are closed, no
light
spilling out from within, which is only sensible of her, if a
little
disappointing.
The last few steps are more like a sustained fall as he
flounders and
battles through the drift up against the door. Looks as if she
hasn't gone
outside for days - probably conserving heat. That explains the
fire being
out; she must've got snowed in before she could make another trip
to the
woodpile.
The last vestiges of his strength go on wrestling the door
open, and then
slamming it behind him to keep the biting, piercing wind out.
Home, such as
it is. He's home.
He blinks the snowflakes out of his eyes and peers into the
cabin, which
looks dusty and dim through the haze of melting flakes of ice.
Then he
blinks again, and the tiny building is suddenly warm, safe,
filled with a
blaze of light. There she is, stepping forward with a smile on
her face and
all the lights of heaven shining in her eyes. He sighs and falls
forward,
unable to stay upright a moment longer, even to greet her. As his
eyes slip
shut and darkness takes him, he feels warm arms go around him and
her
voice, whispering one word.
"Mulder."
******
When he wakes, he's lying stretched out on a bedroll in front
of the fire,
which, he's glad to see, has been lit and is now blazing away
again.
Somewhere along the line his layers of clothing have disappeared.
A motley
assortment of blankets, furs and even spare items of clothing are
piled on
top of him, stuffed around his body, creating a cosy nest.
The warmest thing in this nest, though, is her. Like him,
she's naked as the
day she was born, snuggled up alongside him, legs entwined with
his, hair
brushing lightly against his shoulder, one hand lying over his
heart. This
probably doesn't qualify as a sleeping bag, he guesses, but who
really gives
a damn? Not him, not with her exchanging body heat with him in
this
makeshift cocoon.
He turns his head, tearing his gaze away from the leaping
flames, and meets
her gaze. She's not sleeping, as he'd assumed - eyes as blue and
shadowed as
twilight by the ocean meet his, anxiety swimming in their cool
depths. Her
eyes, he thinks distractedly, oh, her eyes. A bluebell wood in
early spring,
a rippling haze of pure blue smoke, secret, shifting and quietly
luminous.
"Hey, Scully," he whispers.
"Hey."
That apparently contents her for a minute. While he thinks
over his next
words, he reaches out and idly runs the pad of his thumb back and
forth
along her lower lip, feeling the flesh warm and giving as a
summer's day
under his touch.
"I made it."
He realises as the words leave his mouth that that wasn't the
right thing to
say. She dips her head, breaking eye contact, pulling away from
his
touch.
"Just," she says, gazing intently at a constellation
of freckles on his
shoulder.
"I'm here now, though. That's what matters, right?"
"I kept thinking..." she says, biting her lip, still
refusing to look at
him. "It got later and later, Mulder, and I kept thinking,
dear God, I don't
want to go out in the morning and dig his body out of a
snowbank."
"Scully..." he starts, reaching out again to cup her
cheek. She shies away
from his touch like a nervous colt, and keeps talking.
"And then, then I started thinking, what if I don't have
to? What if he just
never shows up at all? Then what would I do?" Her teeth,
white as lilies,
dig into her lip, until the blood drains from it, flesh turning
the palest
of pinks under the pressure. "I can't do this again, Mulder,
I just can't.
I'm going with you next time..."
"You know you can't," he whispers, voice strained
and rasping. "You can't
go down to the lowlands, not with that, that *thing* in your
neck. You have
to avoid close proximity to Them. Ruskin Dam was close enough. It
was *too*
goddamn close. I won't let Them take you now, Scully, not if I
can
prevent it. This is a safe place for you, you *have* to
stay."
She makes a small, frustrated sound, half-sigh, half-sob, and
presses her
face against the skin of his shoulder, hair falling down over her
eyes. "I
feel so *useless*, Mulder, hiding away up here while you're down
there,
fighting back. I *need* to do something..."
"I'm sorry," he mumbles, as if it might help, as if
that could give her back
her freedom, give her back the lost world.
"I know," she sighs, breath hot against his skin. He
feels a small,
open-mouthed kiss being planted on his neck as she raises her
head, and
then her mouth is on his, crushing, hungry, needful. Weeks of
desperate
loneliness are communicated through lips joining, tongues
meeting, breath
merging. The kiss tastes bitter-sweet with intimations of
mortality.
They touch each other in a fury of love. It's hot, demanding,
burning,
driving away all coherent thought. They fall asleep tangled up in
each
other, exhausted not merely by lovemaking. Their weariness stems
from a
month's separation, from the pent-up fear of never seeing,
touching, holding
one another again, from the strain of imagining the worst every
day.
Later, as the storm continues to beat and roar at the windows
of the cabin,
wind whistling round the valley, they wake and hold each other
for a long
time, close enough to feel each other's hearts beating steady and
strong.
Then they make love slowly, lazily, with a quiet, miraculous
tenderness
that makes him bury his face in her neck as he climaxes to hide
his tears.
"I love you, you know," he murmurs afterwards,
watching the glow from the
banked fire turn her creamy skin to rose-gold as she lies on top
of him,
head pillowed on his chest.
"I know," she replies, turning her face from the
fire to place a soft kiss
at the base of his throat. One small white hand creeps up to
thread through
his hair, and he wonders if she's noticed the spreading grey at
the temples.
He's only forty - old before his time, and little wonder. They
both are, he
thinks, but with her, at least in his eyes, it's all on the
inside; she's
still as glorious as ever to him. He can no longer remember a
time when
he didn't think her as beautiful and essential as the sun.
"You're going a little grey," she says gently, as if
reading his mind. She
strokes the hair back off his forehead, and concludes, "I
like it. Makes you
look distinguished."
Amazingly, wonderfully, he finds he still has some laughter
left in him.
Such are the gifts she bestows on him in these interludes of
mercy.
He reaches up to grab the hand twining through his hair, and
presses a kiss
to the palm. When he takes his mouth away from the delicate
crease of her
lifeline, she curls her hand closed, as if that way she could
trap his kiss
and hold on to it.
"I don't think I can afford to look distinguished,"
he muses, as casually as
possible, fighting the constriction in his throat. "I have a
reputation to
maintain, you know."
"Really? You've always been distinguished to *me*,
Mulder," she
murmurs, idly tracing circles along his jawline with one slender
finger.
"Yeah?"
"Oh yeah. Just because *you* always saw yourself as the
Monster Boy in the
basement didn't mean I saw you that way, Mulder."
"So, uh, what did you see me as?" he inquires,
carefully fixing his gaze on
the top of her head, on the sparkles of light reflecting like
fireworks off
her hair. Tiny blossoms of light, so beautiful.
"Heroic," she whispers sleepily, with a tiny smile,
leaning down and
planting a kiss over his heart. Her tongue flicks out to touch
the bare
skin of his chest, and he feels the minute contact all over his
body, as if
she were somehow kissing him in a thousand places at once. He
would like to
dip her kisses in glass, in gold, thread them on a chain and wear
them round
his neck, render them eternal.
Nothing is eternal, of course. He knows that. Nothing of this
earth is
outside time. For tonight, though, as he slips back into sleep
with the warm
weight of her resting atop him, he imagines them into eternity.
******
The lights of heaven have faded when he wakes a second time.
He's lying
stretched out on the floor, cheek pressed against the rough,
splintered
boards. Inhaling, he smells the dry, dusty, dead pine. He licks
his dry,
chapped lips, and tastes the tang of blood caking the cut on his
lip where
his face met the floor.
There is no fire. There are no warm, glowing lamps. There is
no strong,
loving hand over his heart. There is only the mouse skittering
across the
floorboards in the corner, the spiders crouched in the eaves, and
the man
lying cold and desolate on the floor. The lights of heaven have
all gone
out.
Joints cracking in the still air, he rises unsteadily, slowly
to his feet,
and automatically goes about the business of building a fire,
making a bed,
changing his clothes. He does these things with great economy of
movement,
as if there is no energy left in his body for any superfluous
gesture.
When he is finished with the mechanics of survival, he sits
before the fire,
wrapped in animal skins and blankets. He does not look at the
flames.
Instead he rests his head in his cradled hands, unable to bear
the weight of
memory. He does not cry; that would require energy he cannot
summon
up any longer.
Tears would be self-indulgent, anyway, and that would not
honour her,
because she was never self-indulgent, not even at the end. So he
sits, and
as the weak, watery sunlight fades somewhere above the massed
snowclouds,
he sits and remembers.
What was it he had said once? "The future is here, and
all bets are off"?
Something grand and nonsensical like that. As it had turned out,
he had been
so, so wrong. The real future had arrived not so very long after
he said
that, one freezing, grey day in January, more than a year ago
now. The
day the first ships arrived.
He numbly recounts the events of the past year to himself,
carefully using
them to pry apart his previous delusions of warmth and happiness,
trying to
force himself to look at the world and see it for what it is once
more. The
events etched into his memory seem at once clear and curiously
distant, like
images flashed up on a movie screen. He sits, remembering, and
strives to
eliminate that distance, to maintain his tenuous grip on the here
and now.
Many, so many, had died in the first few days, killed off as
they sat
shell-shocked in their homes, wiped out as they wandered the
streets in a
stunned daze. They hadn't even been the targets, that was what
made it so
insufferable. They'd been caught in the crossfire as the war in
the heavens
descended to an earthly battlefield.
The Colonists had entrenched themselves, descending on the
face of the
earth like a biblical plague. Then the other side, the dogs of
war.
Creatures without faces, wolves in the skins of men, coming to
stalk the
streets and fields of Earth. Burning, cleansing, purifying.
Laying waste. A
season of death.
Some humans had fought back against both sides, turning on
these new
aggressors with the same tooth-and-nail ferocity that primitive
man must
have shown to the carnivores that prowled round the mouth of his
cave. It
was no longer a matter or resist or serve. Kill or be killed
became the law.
Kill to survive. Kill to reclaim what is yours by right. Kill to live.
He and Scully had been among those who survived the first few
weeks, who had
determined to stand to the last. "Together," he had
said to her one dark,
bloody morning, squeezing her hand as they watched a rose of fire
rise from
the charges they'd set around a Colonist compound.
"Together," she'd replied, nodding, hand tightening
around his until her
nails broke the skin of his palm. He'd carried the marks like
thin crescent
moons on his right hand for days, scars of honour. They'd become
lovers that
night, the old excuses and pretences finally stripped away. He
can still
feel her nails raking down his back as she cried out beneath him,
just once,
in the night.
He opens his clenched fist now and looks down at the palm in
the firelight.
Beyond the lines cobwebbing the skin, it is blameless, unmarked.
If he
concentrates, though, he can still feel the imprints of nails. He
tightens
his grip around phantom marks and looks away.
He turns the lens of memory on the time that followed. In the
end, they'd
stood for nearly three months, learning how to harry the enemy,
how to duck
and run, how to make shadows and night their allies in battle. A
little at a
time, they'd shed the trappings of their old lives, becoming
fighters, pure
and simple.
Three months, he thinks, squeezing his eyes shut against the
horror of it.
Three months is not enough time to save the world. He's not even
sure if
it's enough time to save a soul, not any more.
That was when the Callings had begun again. She'd begged him
to help her
remove the chip in her neck. She'd been terrified that one day
she'd find
herself close to the source of a Call, unable to resist when the
traitorous,
life-saving metal in her neck pulled her to come and be consumed.
He remembers refusing, hating himself for being unable to help
her, even
hating her for asking him, for being so afraid when his own fear
was so
great. He'd needed so desperately for her to be unafraid, in
order for the
world to continue turning, and she'd been so, so terrified.
And so she'd done it herself, taking a scalpel to her own skin
in the
bathroom of an abandoned Holiday Inn somewhere near Boulder. The
incision
had been small, but oh God, the blood...blood everywhere, it
seemed, when he
discovered her sobbing on the bathroom floor. Blood spattering
the sink,
smeared over the tiles, dappling the towels like roses scattered
on a field
of snow.
All that blood...he'd been so terrified she'd tried to hurt
herself, that
she was dying. Then he'd found the cut on the nape of her neck
where the
blood welled up, bright and shocking, and he'd understood.
Now, crouched before the fire without feeling its warmth, he
bows his head
with shame as he sees the next part unfold in his mind, the
images
horrifyingly immediate. Even understanding her reasons, he'd
snapped,
had started frantically searching the bathroom for the chip,
yelling at her
that it wasn't too late, that she had to tell him where it was so
they could
put it back in.
"Scully, goddammit, what did you do with it? What did you *do* with it?"
His voice had risen to a harsh, panicked shriek, until she'd
pointed with
one shaking hand at the open window, and then he'd known that the
world
had truly come to its end.
He'd sat down then, joining her on the bloodied tiles,
gathering her into
his numbed embrace, and rocked her while she sobbed. He remembers
it all
with hideous clarity, remembers thinking that now they might all
sit down
and weep, and never get up again.
Now he sees again the day when the nosebleeds began, only four
weeks later.
He remembers now how he'd been stunned, stunned that such a small
person
could lose so much blood as she seemed to and continue living.
Of course, she could not, did not continue living
indefinitely. She was not
eternal, as he'd always wanted to believe. The cancer had
metastasised even
faster than before, and, constantly on the run from the wolves in
the fold,
they'd been unable to treat her. She'd been their only doctor in
their small
band of rag-tag resistance fighters, and it had been almost
beyond them even
to provide her with palliative care as she weakened.
So he'd brought her here to die, to a cabin he'd heard about,
above the
snowline, where it was too cold for Them to venture and too
remote for Them
to care. At his insistence, finally, they'd said their farewells
to their
small group of fellow survivors and made their way up into the
mountains.
He'd carried her most of the last leg of the journey,
staggering uphill,
pitching her into the snow on several occasions. Each time she'd
smiled
a little when he dug her out, kissed him gently and told him it
didn't
matter, as the tears froze on his cheeks.
Eventually they'd reached their haven of rest, and barred the
door against
the cold bite of winter. He'd thought that for that short time
they had left
together they'd be able to forget, to just close the door and
forget the
world, forget the endless, wearying struggle, forget everything
but
themselves.
She'd had other ideas. As she'd lain nestled by the fire,
she'd held his
hand, gripping his fingers with a strength born of desperate
love, and made
him listen. She'd spoken in a quiet, relentless voice of
continuing the war,
of the things he must do, of the duty he had to the future. She'd
wiped away
his tears as he'd cried, lifting her voice to be heard over his
harsh,
hoarse sobs, but she'd refused to stop speaking until she was
satisfied he
would do the things he had to do.
She had always been the stronger one of them, though, hadn't
she? He'd loved
her and hated her for that strength, needed it even as he
despised the way
it cut away his weakness, like a steel blade. When she'd exacted
his promise
to continue on, she'd kissed his hand with her pale, pale lips,
and
whispered "I can't sanctify you, Mulder. Don't ask that of
me." Then,
finally, she'd broken, her sobs noiseless, shaking her body and
his as he
gathered her against his chest and waited.
The spiders and the mice look on as he sits by the fire,
shaking violently
despite the furnace-blast of heat pouring out of the hearth. He
does not
make a sound, though. He will not make a sound. It isn't really
weeping, as
long as he stays silent.
******
Some days later, the clouds break for the first time, tearing
up into loose,
scattered fragments as a strong wind carries them west. Spring is
not far
off, he realises, with a dull kind of surprise. He ventures
outside for the
first time in a week, fills his lungs with crisp, clean air, this
time using
the snowshoes stored in the cabin to move over the thin crust of
hardened
snow.
Time to move on. If the weather holds, he may make it west
over the
mountains without being caught out in the open. He must make it
west, or no
one there will know how the Eastern resistance passed away. He
knows there
are people in the west, living, breathing people. He's heard
rumours of an
organised command structure, of a safe place in the desert
somewhere. He
hopes in some kind of future, as all men must in order to hold
onto life and
sanity in an insane existence.
He retreats inside, fills his pack with survival rations, adds
extra layers
of clothes, slowly, methodically. He puts out the fire, closes
the shutters,
stores away the bedding against moths and mice.
Finally, he steps outside, shuts the door and latches it
against the wind.
He climbs out of the hollow carefully, trying to sense the ice
under the
snow before his foot lands on it. Wouldn't do to slip now, fall
back down
and spend the rest of the winter hobbling round the cabin on a
broken leg.
At the top of the slope, he pauses, struggles with himself.
Lot's wife, he
reminds himself dryly. He won't look back. There's no one,
nothing at his
back.
He looks back. He sees the quiet hollow, dormant under its
blanket of snow,
waiting for the spring that never comes this far up. He sees the
rough wood
of the cabin, the bent tin chimney, the woodpile sheltered from
the
elements. He sees his own tracks from the door to where he stands
now. In a
few days they will be covered with snow, leaving no sign that he
was ever
here. There is nothing else to see.
There is nothing else to see, and yet he still sees a woman
standing by the
door, one hand raised, wisps of copper escaping from the hood of
her parka,
cheeks and the tip of her nose rosy from the cold. All the many
lights of
heaven shining in her eyes.
A single eagle drifts high in the sky beneath the tattered
veils of cloud.
Its cry reaches him, harsh and distant, as he turns his face
west, drops to
his knees in the snow, and rocks back and forth. No other sound
breaches
the stillness. It is not really weeping, as long as he does not
make a
sound.
FINIS
******
I apologise to anyone upset by my decision not to label this
story as
containing a character death: I felt that to do so would be to
ruin the
story, which I truly hope you will understand if you made it this
far :).
Feedback warms my heart more than a roaring fire.
CazQ@tesco.net