Title: Stoic Author: RM >lebontrager@iname.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully are not mine. CC, 1013, and FOx have ownership. No fringe intended. SPOILER:::::MOVIE FIC Stoic ===== "Must be strangely exciting to watch the stoic squirm." --"Uninvited" Alanis Morriset...(sp?) ===== Must be strange. All day living like that, acting like that, wanting and needing that. I can't understand how she does it. She's so beautiful, so far away, so mysterious, that it wouldn't matter to anyone if she hurt you, only that she was there. She does this to me all the time. So close to me, so close, and then again, she's far away and getting even more remote. Working with her is heaven, breathing next to her is unfathomable joy, but being on the end of her coldness, is hard. Cold. Alone. I saw her change today. Out on that ice, the cold in my face, her cold in my face, and then a smile. She knew I'd seen two things today that had forever strengthened me. One was the massive ship above us. She probably didn't see that one. The other was her body. She got to see that one every day of her life. I just saw it all today. ~~~~~ "Mulder?" I look up, glancing to her, knowing she is cold, colder than me. "I can't feel anything," she whispers. I hug her closer, tighter, if possible, drawing my warmth and blasting it on her. I bury my forhead into her neck again, letting her warm breath puff out onto my hair, shivering even so. "Mulder?" I sigh and look back up again. "If we don't make it. . . this will be all right." What? There's ice creping into my pants, melting into my brain, cold scratching her fingers across my face and a small, warm, beautiful woman in my arms that thinks she's, we're, going to die. "We're going to make it." "Right." she says. She's far from convinced. "It can't just end like this, Scully. It won't. There's too many things I want to do, too many things I have to do." "But if it does, I think I'm ready." I stare at her. "Why?" I can't understand her total calm about this. If I thought we were going to die, I'd be ballistic, nuts, freaking out. She's simply burying her head into my chest and smiling. "Because things are good." I shake my head. "Oh, that explains it. *Usually* when someone wants to die, they're thinking life is good, yeah, I see that." My sarcasm is not lost on her, but it is gentle, teasing, simply me being grateful that I still have her to tease. "Really, Mulder. I don't want to die. But if we do, I won't have regrets." I shake my head. "I will." "For what? You've seen your sister. You've seen your truth. What else is there?" I am thinking, I am thinking this is also the reason there will be regrets. "Oh, there's more. I'd like to have a family. I'd like to go back to Oxford and revisit some places. I'd like to see my mother and maybe make it better for her. I'd like to make sure you were all right. I'd like to go into the Museum of Natural History and see the dinosaurs again. I'd like to be warm, for once in my life." I say the last part as a joke, looking for a laugh, looking for some warmth from her. "I'm all right, Mulder. You can scratch that one. You saved me." I feel bad taking this kind of adoration. I didn't save her. I merely fixed my wrong. She shivers, her eyes close again. I panic and start rambling, hoping to keep her awake. "I know you think that I did something great, Scully. But it was mainly selfish. I told you what you are to me, you understand. I have to save you. I have to keep you with me. I have to." She shakes her head and mumbles something that comes out a lot like a negative response. "Mulder, stop talking. I'm too tired to argue rationally with you right now." I shiver. "Don't fall asleep." "I won't...." She's already closing her eyes, slipping shut. I shake her roughly, the cold and the ice biting into me as parts of my body come into contact with the wind again. "Scully!" She jerks awake, looks to me. "I'm not letting you die on me, not after I followed you all the way here." She smiles and wiggles in my arms, moving around, keeping herself awake. I run my fingers along her cheeks, already tinged blue and turning colors with frostbite. She winces and shoots me a dirty look. "That hurts." I pull my hands away. There is silence again. A lot of waiting. What are we waiting for anyway, the blind chance that someone will come across this hulking machine and find us? I could shoot myself for not getting more gas. How stupid can a person get? I can feel my stomach rumble in hunger and I twist to forget. "Mulder?" I look at her. "What did you mean?" "Huh?" "Out in the hall. Before the bee stung me." I shiver. "I meant all of it." "But as what?" "Do we have to go into this?" She looks up at me with a contemplative sigh. "If there's anything I'd regret, this would be it." "What? Our not talking?" "Yes." I can feel her digging her hands into my sides, clinging tighter because she's lost the feeling in her fingers. I get this horibble feeling we are going to die out here. Die out here and I won't have told her everything, completely. "I meant it." "I know you did. But exactly how?" "I was desperate. I am desperate. You're leaving me. You're giving up." "I'm not." I shake my head. I don't want to think about this right now. "Mulder, I'm not leaving you at all. We've gotten split up. I'd have to move away! I'm quitting so that I can stay! Don't you get that?" She's angry and it makes heat rise to her lips, color them a bit. Maybe I should egg her on, make her mad enough to warm up again. That's kind of manipulative. "Get what? That you don't want to do this anymore? After this, I understand completely Scully. It isn't worth it at all. I'm not going to stay like this. I'm not going to sit back and watch you get killed when it won't even be your job anymore." "Mulder, getting killed has never been my job. You, the X-Files, have never been my job. This is my life...my life. Not a job. Not something I'm forced to do because it's in a contract, but something I want to do." "Then stop wanting it!" She gapes at me, her eyes confused, her body shivering again. Maybe I am doing this on purpose, but I guess we need this. "I can't....." she cries and buries her head back into my neck, her eyes close to tears. She won't cry though. She's so stoic, so strong. Maybe I want her to be weak once in awhile. I push her back to see me, make her meet my eyes. "You're too important for me to let you keep doing this," I say. It's the only honest, unspoiled truth I know. "And you're too important to me to stop doing this." I close my eyes. I never wanted it to be me. I think she likes dropping these huge revelations on me. She likes watching me squirm. I like watching her squirm even better. In a brief second of unthinking, I guide her mouth towards my lips, just as we had before. I close my eyes. She's letting me do this. I'm letting her do this. Her eyes open, she touches my lips with a tiny finger. "We're not going to die," she says. "There's no way." I think she set this up on purpose. ~~~~~ end adios RM