TITLE:  Friend
AUTHOR:  mountainphile
RATING:  G, early-season M&S 
EMAIL:  mountainphile@yahoo.com
URL:  http://thebasementoffice.com/Musea/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://thebasementoffice.com/Musea/mountainphile/shorts_files/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