by Marie Endres
joemimi@prodigy.net

Classification: Post-ep for "Orison"; MSR

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: "Orison"; "Irresistible"

Summary: Frozen is a temporary state.

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully are not mine.
They belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions
and Fox Broadcasting. No infringement is
intended.
 
 

"Frozen"
 

        I can remember skating as a kid,
skating on thin ice. It seemed secure, solid
underneath my feet and then suddenly, not.
Layers shifted, lifted, and finally, cracked
under my weight. My friend, with whom I had
sneaked down to the pond, quickly noticed my
quandary. Tonight, my only rescue hope is in
need of me. Tonight, what cracks and slips
under my feet feels as slippery and unsure as
the frozen water thirty years before. If only
it could be that innocent.

         Glass is everywhere, carpeting her
floor in a frightening reminder of the past
couple of hours. It lines the narrow path to
her bedroom as I follow her in there, believing
she is packing a bag to leave.

         We talk. I try to convince her of her
innocence. She tries to condemn herself. What
else is new? She never does get to filling that
bag as an EMT walks in and taking a few of her
vitals, advises us that without some rest and
care, she is near to going into shock. The
quilt which surrounds her is not doing its job.
I know I better do mine.

         "C'mon, Scully," I say as I lay my
hand tentatively, almost hesitantly, on her
shoulder. "Let's get out of here."

         "No," she says definitively.

         I close my eyes so that she cannot see
me roll them up to the ceiling. I lean in close
to her, saddened and frightened anew to see her
shift away from me. I lower my voice in some
vain attempt to keep this disagreement private,
hidden from those who still mill about us.

         "Scully, you are * not * staying here
tonight. Please, I'll bring you anywhere. Just
not here." My words take on a pleading tone,
but I don't really care how pathetic I must
seem.

         She doesn't respond. Awh, help me out
here, I beg no one in particular.

         "Do you want me to bring you to your
mother's?" I ask, attempting to make eye
contact.

         She moves her head slightly right,
then left.

         "Then you're coming home with me," I
decide. I bring my hand to her elbow to help
her rise from where she is sitting. She does
not move.

         I cannot take that she will not look
at me. I kneel down in front of her and clasp
her hands together with mine.

         "Scully, look at me, please," I
practically beg. "Please come home with me. I
can't, um, won't leave you alone tonight."

         She closes her eyes for a brief moment
of decision and begins to stand. My arm goes
around her shoulder, willing her to let me
shelter her. She carefully walks toward the
door. As we move from her bedroom, like Lot's
wife, I turn back, for one last look before
leaving. My eyes sweep the room, damning the
evil that was just present here. How often did
this room appear in my fantasies, day and night
dreams, where Scully and I would touch and not
stop? Where we would taste and see that life
could be good? Now instead of passion and
pleasure, all this room would ever bring to my
mind would be pain and perdition.

         "Mulder?" she calls softly, turning
from her progress to the door.

         Knowing that she needs me more than my
self indulgent pity party does, I catch up and
meet her at the door. I stop the burly, local
officer who meets us there with a quick raising
of my hand and a promise to personally return
Agent Scully when I deliver my report the next
morning. Seeing the look on my face, he thinks
better of pressing the matter. Good move,
Sherlock.

         I speak to Scully in a gentle whisper:
"Do you have the overnight bag in your car
downstairs?"

         "Yes, yes I do," she stammers.

         "Let me get your coat and bag," I say
as I turn away. Suddenly, her hand has closed
around my wrist like a cuff. I return to my
former place, so near to her. "It's OK; I'm
just turning to get your things; I'm right
here," I assure her.

         She nods and lowers her gaze. I
retrieve the coat and bring it to her. I reach
to remove the quilt from around her shoulders
when her hand shoots up to throw off my touch.

         "I can do it myself," she hisses as
she shrugs off the quilt and takes the coat
from me.

         I instinctively take a step backward.
Her sudden swings from desperately needy to
fiercely independent do not surprise the
psychologist in me, considering the situation.
They do, however, hurt the man.

         "Ready?" I ask, no longer assuming her
compliance.

         "Yes," she says without emotion.

         There are so many people coming and
going from her apartment that we slip out
without any further hindrances. Opening the
door in the lobby, we feel the night air hit us
like a wave at a winter's beach, bringing with
it clarity and power. It feels holy, clean, and
clear after the warm, murky malevolence that
pervaded Scully's apartment.

         "I'm right out front," I say as a
directive that I think she may need. They
should give me my own parking space by now, I
think to myself. Like a spot reserved for the
handicapped, it would be closer to the
building, except mine would say, "Reserved for
the out-of-his-mind-with-fear partner of the
woman who draws psychopaths like cripples to
Lourdes." Why do they always want * her *? Is
it her purity, her grace? Is it why I can't
help but be drawn to her myself? Do they seek
the same wholeness that I crave and find in
her?

         My car is right in front of us and I'm
suddenly struck with the dilemma of whether to
open the door for her. I usually donít, but
tonight, I want to do nothing but care for her,
make anything I can easier for her.

         "Mulder, I need my bag. Can you get it
from my car?" she says as she hands me the
keys.

         "Sure," I reply thankful to have
something to keep me from making the wrong
decision about the car door.

         I find her car in its usual spot and
open the trunk. The light within illuminates
the contents. I find her bag quickly and as I
lift it, I see a flyer. A post-it is attached:
"Give to Mulder" it says in neat Scully
handwriting. The event on the fairly new paper
touts an Elvis convention combined with a
gathering of psychics. I smile at her
understanding of me, even if she doesnít share
the comprehension. We sometimes have to look
for evidence of intimacy wherever we can find
it.

         Closing the trunk and turning to go, I
realize that my feet have suddenly lost contact
with the earth. Black ice, my mind absently
registers. Before I can grab hold of the car,
the asphalt is having its way with my ass. The
fall reminds me again of the tenuous hold we
have on things. One minute we are so secure;
the next, we need our companions to help us off
that which is not as solid as we think and put
one foot in front of the other on stable
ground.
 

         I scramble to my feet, dust myself
off, and make my way quickly, yet carefully to
my car. It's freezing and I know that being in
the ice cold car is not the best of
circumstances for my soonñto-be-in-shock
partner. Must find warmth, must find some way
to help her, must bring her home. I settle for
bringing her to my place.
 
 
 

         I stand outside my door, fumbling with
the key, while Scully stands a few steps back.
When I open the door and move to go in and turn
on the lights, she's still out in the hallway.

         "I walked down that hallway once,
pretending that you were dead, Mulder. After
everything that had happened, I almost believed
the lie myself," she said in this empty sort of
voice.

         Before I could get to her, to bring
her inside, she turned to face the other
direction, looking away from the elevator this
time.

         "I was almost dead here once, too,"
she said somewhat wistfully.

         Must stop this little trip down memory
lane. "Scully, come inside, please," I plead
with her.

         Her steps are as measured as if she
was trying to cross a frozen pond in April. "Do
you want some tea?" I ask her as she crosses
the threshold.

         No response. "I'll go put the water
on," I say without waiting for her reply.

         She's still standing in the entryway,
coat still on as well when I return with two
mugs in hand. "Your coat," I say as I cross
into my living room and put the tea down on the
table, turning on lights as I go. "Come sit
down," I instruct.

         Miraculously, she does, after
shrugging out of her coat and placing it on a
chair near the door. She sits a little distance
from me, but at least she's sitting near to me
on the couch. I hand her the mug with tea fixed
as she likes it.

         "Thank you," she says as her cold
hands skim past mine as she cuddles the mug.

         "No problem," I say as I raise the tea
to my mouth.

         "Mulder, what * are * you going to say
in your report?" she says with such hesitancy
it makes me want to scream.

         "That Donnie Pfaster held you against
your will, not once, but twice; that he would
surely kill again if given half a chance, and
that he refused to surrender when I confronted
him," I say with surety as I take another
swallow of the hot, smooth liquid.

         "Don't," she says in a voice that
could stop a train. "We still don't know why or
how I pulled that trigger, Mulder."

         I can hold myself in check pretty
well; after all, I haven't tried to harm Bill
Scully at any time, but this I can't stand
anymore. "Scully, the only thing I see at work
here is not a matter of good vs. evil; it's a
simple matter of survival. That's why you
pulled the trigger. You wanted to survive." I
wait half a moment while I consider the
frightening other option.

         "I know I didn't want him to survive,"
she says while never meeting my eyes.

          "And inherent in that thought is a
will to live, free from threat and violence;
Scully, it's all very clear," I assure her.

         "No, no it's not," she says as she
stands and walks across the room in the
direction of her coat.

         She can't go, she simply can't. I
won't let her. "Don't go. Please. We can stop
talking about this. Just don't leave," I
implore.

         "I can't * stop* talking about it,
Mulder," she says in a hoarse reply.

         "OK, so we won't. I just want you to
see that what you did was not wrong or evil or
any of the other reasons why you think you did
this. I think you wanted to live, Scully, and
that's all," I say beginning to feel exhaustion
set in.

         Still facing away from me, she shakes
her head. This can't be happening. I walk
toward her and, Whoever is in charge forgive
me, I grab her arm and not too gently turn her
toward me. "You mean to tell me that you fought
and won because of some evil compulsion rather
than a decision to survive? Doesn't all that
we've seen and shared count for some sort of
will to live? I know it makes me take every
breath, every day."

 
         "That's your reason for survival,
Mulder," she spits out.

         "And yours?"

         No response. Can she be this empty
inside, feel this alone while by my side, to
think that she does not have a reason to
survive? That because of her emptiness, evil
could simply take over her heart and use it for
its own agenda?

         I realize my hand is still on her arm
when she tries to wrestle it away from me. "No,
Scully. I'm not letting go. I won't ever let
go, not where it concerns you," I say with a
catch in my voice.
 

         "Please stop," she says as the tears
start to fall.

         I take her into my arms, willing life
back into her just one more time.

         She pushes hard against me and turns
to flee. My hand catches hers, "Scully, maybe
there  * was * something in this whole mess
that you were meant to learn," I say in a
desperate attempt to stop her from leaving
here, leaving me.

         "Yeah, what?" she says, as she barely
looks back at me.

         "That song. What did it keep saying
over and over again? What was it trying to tell
you?"

         She stops and says quietly, "Don't
look any further."

         "Scully, why can't you?" I say as I
tighten my grip on her hand. Her tears are
beginning to truly fall now. "Why can't you let
me in?"

          "That's awfully egotistical, don't
you think?" she replies with dripping sarcasm.

         Despite a sudden urge to put my fist
through the wall, I just lean in closer,
thanking Whomever that our hands are still
joined and say, "No, I don't. Not when we've
always had everything all along."

          One more thing, one more thought and
I think I'll be just a little closer to
reaching her. Either that or she'll hurt me.
"What is it, Scully?" I say as my lips near her
ear. "What are you afraid of? Afraid you'll
*feel* something?"

         The next thing * I * feel is her fist
connecting with the side of my head. I guess
she chose the latter.

         It doesn't stop me. "That's it,
Scully. It's alright to feel rage, to feel like
you want to break free. It's alright to feel,"
I say with calm authority.

         Her knees buckle under her as her
tears come in torrents. I catch her on the way
down and before I realize it, she is gathered
in my arms and I am rocking her like she is a
child afraid of the dark.

         I begin: "Five years ago you allowed
me to comfort you, to release you from what
bound you that night in Pfaster's mother's
house. Let me do that again, Scully. Don't look
any further than right here, " I say as I take
her hand and place her fingers over my quickly
beating heart. As she leans her head against my
chest, my lips come down to caress her brow
while my hand covers hers.

         Again and again, I kiss her head, her
hair, the hand that rests in mine. Her fingers
reach up to touch my face to brush away my own
tears that have quietly begun to fall. Her hand
moves down, across my jaw, and then to the back
of my neck, pulling me down toward her.

         When our lips meet, it is sweet,
tender, loving. A fire deep inside me begins to
build, making me desire even more than this,
wishing for everything, with all that is within
me. As much as I want her, have always wanted
her, I know that tonight isn't for that,
though. Tomorrow, perhaps, or the day after, or
the day after that. Tonight, our lips gently
move back and forth, giving and taking
pleasure, as life hums and flows between us.

         It is a life born of ice and slow
thaws, cold and fire that brings a beautiful,
crystal clarity. It is a life that is beginning
for us, stronger than any evil. A life that
will go on despite the cold, no longer frozen.

END

Feedback: Warm me on a midwinter's day
joemimi@prodigy.net

Many thanks to Sue, who read this first and
reassured me that all was well. And as always
to Georgia, whose friendship can melt any
heart.
 

END