Title: Make-Believe 
Author: RM >lebontrager@iname.com<
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is
intended.

SPOILER:::Up to and including Fight the Future AND THAT'S IT!!!!!

Setting: When Scully goes unconscious near the drainage pipe and Mulder
must perform CPR.

~~~~
Make-Believe
~~~~

The cold was a kind of annoying playmate now, tagging along behind her
when she only wanted to go home.

It started up games of pretend in her head and danced in dress-up along
her limbs, like some scratchy tutu that was always too tight or the
floppy hat that slumped over her eyes.

She just wanted to take a nap.

Was she too old for this?

"Scully. . ."

Something Grown-up and Important crept into her head, and she felt the
sudden panic that it brought seize her and drag her away from
Make-Believe and into reality.

Her eyes opened.

He was above her, breathing hard, his hands clasped at her chest,
brusing and heavy, his eyes like two round disks of dread.

Her lips moved with that same shy playfulness that she'd had at six, and
he leaned in closer.

"I had you. . ."

His relief was like a slap in the face, and she struggled to understand
where she was, or why he was above her, frightened.

She saw a flash of green and teeth and stiffened as Mulder pulled her to
a sitting position, but coughing wracked her world and it was all she
could do to breathe.

"I can't. . ." she whispered, but he was yanking her up, pushing her
into the drain pipe thing, and screaming for her to MOVE.

Move.

She couldn't even breathe.

But his adult tone snapped her from her giddiness and down the tube,
pushing herself forward, crawling like a baby, knowing that somewhere,
she wasn't six anymore, and this wasn't fun either.

"Go, Scully, go go go."

She could feel him almost on top of her, scuttling forward, his hands
catching on her ankles as he moved. She wanted to tell him to find his
own playground to crawl through, but something was telling her this
wasn't McDonalds, and he wouldn't understand.

The steam brought her back from her cold-induced insanity, and she felt
the heat seep into her like night time in a child's world.

<Time to come in. . >

Hadn't her mother said that to her over and over in the summer, when she
and Bill and Charlie and Melissa would start hide and seek with the
neighborhood kids until the stars were the only ones you could find?

Time to come in. The warm heat of the place was telling the same to her.
Time to stop pretending, time to forget all the cold and its
make-believe stories, time to start moving or you'll never play again.

She shivered and crawled out of the tube, digging her numb fingers into
ice she couldn't feel and praying that it was fast enough.

Mulder shoved her bottom up and over the rim, and then he was scrambling
forward, on the edge....

looking back, seeing that scream of a face, like the beasts that hid
under your bed, and . . .

a flash of fire scalding and hot in her eyes.

She closed her mind, her thoughts, to what was in that beast's knowing
look, and simply lay there, too exhausted to try.

It was bath time now, and she and Melissa would giggle in her parents'
bathtub while Charlie screeched in the shower with Bill. The older
brother always managed to make little Charles upset.

They had bubbles. Copious amounts that would spill onto the tiled floor
and tickle their freckled noses.

She could feel the bubbles now, popping and dancing on her skin like
ballerinas, light and fluid, smooth and graceful.

Then she was yanked from her bath and into the arms of Mulder, to
stumble down and down and down in snow and cold, and she couldn't
understand why Mulder had pulled her from the bathtub.

Usually her mother would come in and tell her and Melissa that they
could stay in until they got pruny. . .

"I'm not pruny, yet, Mulder."

He was breathing too hard to hear, and she was pitching forward in the
snow, falling once, then feeling the shake and rumble of the earth
collapsing at her feet.

At that moment, she remembered a song she and Melissa used to sing while
they got ready for church in the morning, trying to be as sacrilege as
possible, but not really knowing how.

<I feel the earth, move, under my feet. I feel the sky tumbling, a
tumbling down>

Then there was nothing.

No fluffy blue towel to dry her off, no bedtime kiss on the cheek, and
no warm footed-pajamas to shimmy into. No cool bedsheets, no soft
blanket.

Hard, white, icey snow.

She hit the ground hard and couldn't breathe.

Was Bill in here trying to hold her head under again?

She choked and sputtered and screamed for her mother. . .

No, no, she was breathing again, and Mulder was pulling her to him,
whispering something, pleading.

She just couldn't lift up.

"Scully. . ."

Was he looking at stars out of the skylight, pointing out the Big Bear
as she craned her neck to see?

His eyes slipped shut and his cheek came to rest on ice.

She froze.

Mulder.

Mulder.

Childhood far far away, she pulled on him, panicked, frightened, sick
and ready to cry.

She hauled him into her lap, like pulling a hurt child into a mother's
embrace, leaning forward to encompass all of him.

She pressed her cheek and forehead to his so cold hair, wondering at how
wet and frozen it could have gotten so quickly.

She hunkered down, feeling lost and alone, too much like the time she'd
been left behind at the grocery store, three and not even knowing her
address.

No.

Mulder. Mulder.

She closed her eyes and thought about grown-up things.

Driving to work. 

Pointing a gun, shooting.

Needing Mulder(. . .maybe not so grown-up. .)

Painting her bedroom back to that off-white after experimenting with the
violet she'd gotten because the landlord hadn't been too thrilled with
purple.

Filing papers into *his* system and gradually coming to understand why
mothmen were under the C's, since, after all, some kind of creature
similiar to it had eaten Cincinnati. Once. Or something.

Grown-up, yes.

But still alone and childlike inside.

She wanted her mom.

She wanted Mulder to wake up and save the day. Or rather, finish saving
the day.

But she had to be an adult, had to get over her fear and childish ways.

Scully glanced up, burrowing her chin into Mulder's hair, blinking her
eyes.

Something.

Something just right there. Yellowish? Maybe really orange with all this
snow.

Big. So, maybe nearer than she first thought.

She stood up, slowly, trying to see if this growing up had given her
strength.

Not really.

She weaved, Mulder's head resting on her feet so that it would not be in
the snow.

Then she grasped his vest and began pulling him. His broad back made a
good sled, and it was sloping down, as if this section of ice had once
been a kind of hill, but had been leveled somewhat by the earthquake.

She grinned and surged forward with more enthusiasm, trying to pace
herself even though she had the ridiculous, childish urge to shout and
race ahead.

About half the way there, Mulder began to twitch, so she stopped,
grasping his head again.

He opened his eyes, frowning.

"Scully."

She nodded. "That's me."

He snorted as he tried not to laugh and attempted to get up.

She helped him, then sort of swayed on her feet, feeling dizzy.

All her adultness was just about gone.

She collapsed into his arms, feeling lightheaded and faint.

"Something. . ." she murmured and nodded her head to the bulk that was
before them.

"SnoCat. I drove it in."

She nodded and her eyes slipped shut again.

Darkness and memories began to chase her, but she felt her body being
swept up into his arms and carried like a baby before she consented to
another game of Make-Believe.

This time, she knew she'd win.

She had her best friend playing pretend right beside her.

And he always had the best stories.

~~~~

end
adios
RM--so how dumb was it......=-/