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SPOILER WARNING FOR DETOUR
Summary: Mulder's recollections as the partners spend the night in
the wilds of the Florida forest.
Rated: PG
Category: V A MSR but still 'unresolved'
Spoiler: Detour, Redux and Redux II
Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me, I used them
without permission. No infringement intended.
Note: Just another fill in the blank, folks.
Archive: Please put this anywhere, just keep my name and the
disclaimer attached.
Thanks to Susan Proto for the 'request' and the spelling corrections :)
and for reading this when she should have been cooking.
Comments to me at vmoseley@fgi.net

Turns In the Road
By Vickie Moseley
vmoseley@fgi.net

"Mulder! Mulder--where are you?"

I'd love to answer, Scully, if I wasn't busy clawing for my life
against what feels like a bear in a moss suit. The smell is what really
gets to me, and rather quickly. Dead, decaying, rotten--an earthy
smell that I won't soon forget, but know now that I'd love to. I do
manage to call out a strangled 'Scully' before the Incredible Hulk is
taking another pawful of my shoulder off. Holy Shit! That hurts!

"Mulder?" Scully sounds scared now, and I would really, really like
to stand up and tell her it's all okay, but not with this bastard slicing
at me with razors on the ends of his hands. In a flash, I can see that's
what they are--hands. Not paws, hands! Scully!

The first shot whizzes past my ear and I flinch instinctively. Shots
two, three, four and five follow in rapid succession and I've decided
that not moving is the best course of action. Scully would be really
pissed if she missed the guy attacking me because I inadvertently got
in the way. She likes to shoot what she aims at, and for once, that's
not me.

Two more shots--sheez, Scully, give it a rest! The man/bear lets go
of my shoulder with a grunt and I fall flat on my back, knocking the
wind out of my lungs. I blink as fast as I can, I try to see where the
hell it went and catch my breath and Scully is standing over me like
some Valkrye out of a Norse legend--

Chalk one more up to the forest. Forest beings--2, FBI--nada.

Scully takes a minute to get down from her adrenaline high, and I
take a minute to figure out if I still have a left arm. Why is it always
my _left_ arm? Admittedly, it's rather convenient. That way, my
writing and gun hand are relatively unaffected. But it's getting
damned tiring having the same shoulder gouged, shot, and ripped
from it's socket. It's sore before a weather change now--my own
personal barometer. I glance down at the tear in my sweater--40
bucks down the rag bin, and notice that it's bleeding nicely, thank
you very much. Scully's gonna love this.

"Mulder, why is it you have to get injured EVERYWHERE we go?"
she demands. "And damnit all to hell, I left my first aid kit at the
motel!" she adds, actually stamping one of her dainty size 6 Nikes.

"You brought the first aid kit? We were on our way to a conference,
Scully," I decide to comment. At least my voice is working again.

She glares at me--that look that tells me just how stupid all men are
and how superior all women have been for all time--and grits her
teeth. "I know we were going to a conference, Mulder. I trust your
ability to be wounded anywhere, anytime."

"Even at Disney World, Scully?" I protest.

"_Especially_ at Disney World, Mulder! With your luck, you'd fall
off Peter Pan's Flight and end up in traction!"

All the time we're discussing my penchant for pain, she's pulling off
my jacket and I'm struggling to get ahead of her and remove the
sweater before she pulls out a pen knife and does the job herself.
Luckily, I have a tee-shirt on, because for Florida, it's damned cold
out. Last night on the news, the announcer was telling of the smudge
pots that were being set out in the orange groves to ward off the frost
expected last night and tonight. Leave it to the Bureau to schedule a
conference in Florida when the state is experiencing record breaking
cold temperatures.

The tee-shirt is fairly loose and so I don't have to take it off for
Scully to get a good look at the injury. "That's pretty deep," she says
quietly, assessing the damage. "How's your head?" she asks. Her
entire attitude has changed. She's softer, gentler. Worried, yes. Still
a professional, always. But now she's more--she's my friend and she
doesn't want me to be hurt. I feel guilty doing it to her again.

But hey, wait a minute. This time it's not my fault, I remind myself.
I was ready to go back to the car, I was being a good guy for once. I
didn't go running off this time, I did everything right. And still I look
like I jumped into a food processor and hit 'pulverize'.

"Were you out at all?" she asks, and she's running her hands over my
head, checking for lumps.

"No, Scully, I got a front row seat for the whole experience," I assure
her. Damn, the shoulder is really hurting and now I notice just how
cold it is even with my tee-shirt on. "Can I put my jacket on? I'm
gettin' really cold here." To prove my point, my teeth decide,
independent of any direction on my part, to chatter.

Scully jumps into action, as usual. She puts two fingers to my
throat--which never ceases to annoy the hell out of me, and informs
me that I'm going into shock.

It's a funny thing about shock. I don't really know what it entails,
but I seem to find myself in it's state quite frequently. I know it
means I'm gonna be really cold, and that I'm going to feel like
throwing up, but beyond those simple facts, I don't really have a
notion as to what it means--medically speaking. But it always seems
to make Scully nervous as all get out and she uses it as an excuse to
drag me into the emergency room 9 times out of 10.

Lucky me. No emergency room nearby. Unlucky me. No blankets,
no soft comfy couch, not even a roach infested rat hole of a cheap
motel in the immediate vicinity. It's getting dark, we have no
communication devices save cell phones that are as effective as
paving bricks in the dense forest, and we are for all practical
purposes, lost.

Did I mention that there are at last count two predators on the loose
and one of them already had a sizable chuck of my left shoulder for
afternoon tea?

I'm trying to remember what was so bad about those glowing green
bugs from the last time we spent a little time in the forest.

"I need something to stop the flow of blood," Scully says, more to
herself than to me. Now that I'm officially in shock, I have been
relegated to the position of 'patient'. Since the vast majority of
Scully's 'patients' are deader than a doornail and not a single one of
them has ever required a bedside manner of her, I might as well sink
into unconsciousness--at least I'd be comfortable.

"Uh, Scully. You could use my tee-shirt," I offer. It makes
sense--it's relatively clean and it's already torn up, at least part of it.
And it a far sight cheaper to get a bag of new tee-shirts than to rip up
the sweater, although at this point, it's a loss anyway.

She snorts at me. I hate that. "Mulder," she says in that 'you only
got as far as psychology and I made it through medical school' voice
of hers, "you need to keep warm. You need that tee-shirt more as
covering than as bandage. But I'm wearing a tee-shirt--"

It's time to put my foot down. "No, Scully. It's supposed to get
below freezing tonight. You need that tee-shirt. You're still recov--"
I don't get very far with my argument before I'm sent the 'glare of
stone'. I might be absolutely correct in my assessment that she needs
to maintain her body heat as much as I do, even given my current
situation, but not on this plane of existence am I allowed to remind
Scully of that fact.

Just to spite me, and to show me what she thinks of my objections,
she stares me in the eye, pulls off her jacket and starts to unbutton her
sweater. I decide retreat is a really good idea, and close my eyes
before she strips right there in the woods before my wide eyed gaze.

The image of my partner taking her clothes off for me is pretty
unbelievable at this point. Now, last night, in the motel room, aside
from all the bad jokes about 'Tail Hook'--it might have been at least
understandable. But I couldn't sit around and watch her struggle
with this enormous problem of 'us' last night, and so I admit, I bolted
to the safety of the case.

Something is in the wind. I can sense it. It's not exactly like when
I'm profiling a monster, but the analogy is too glaring to totally
dismiss. I've gotten into Scully's head recently, and I can feel my
partner making decisions--decisions that will affect us both. I don't
think they're decisions she's making lightly. I think she's struggling
with them almost as much as I did when I made them. Funny
thing--it took her being abducted for me to realize that I would give
my life to keep her safe, and that I love her beyond all reason. It took
her almost dying of cancer for her to realize that I might have a
permanent place in her life, as well. Why couldn't we just fall in love
like normal people?

But until we figure out separately how to deal with these revelations,
we can't act on them. And so, I'd rather not have my fantasy life
invaded by men covered in moss. I'll leave my eyes closed for now.

"Mulder. Mulder, don't pass out on me," I'm ordered. I reject the
urge to laugh at that. Passing out sounds like a great idea to me. But
I know what she's thinking. Scully wants us to find someplace
safe--safe in a forest with invisible predators--a new high in
oxymorons. But I know we can't just sit where I've fallen, so I open
my eyes and see her now back in her sweater and jacket, tearing her
tee-shirt apart with her teeth. I know there's the makings of a really
great porno video here somewhere, but I never have a camera when I
really need one.

She folds a piece of the tee-shirt--I see the label and know that she's
sacrificing a Victoria's Secrets tee-shirt, which, in the last catalog,
went for 15 bucks, on sale. I'm gonna owe her big time when this
little escapade is over. She's all efficiency in motion, winding the
strips around my shoulder just like I'm sure she learned long before
med school. She then pulls my tee-shirt down and helps me on with
the sweater and jacket.

I can sense by the way she's moving so slowly now that Scully's
starting to let our predicament get to her. That happens sometimes. I
know I'm scared, it doesn't surprise me that Scully is scared, too.
But somehow, I can handle being scared a whole lot better than she
can. I need to do something and quick.

"We could try to find the way out," I suggest. Even I know it's lame,
but I ran out of ideas about half an hour ago and I'm scraping the
bottom of the barrel. Besides, Scully's always more confident when
she's shooting down one of my harebrained ideas--and one of us
needs to be confident right now.

"Mulder, look up," she sighs with an exasperated tone. "Do you see
the sun?"

The sky clouded over a while ago and the sun is setting. It's starting
to get dark. "Moss grows on the north side of trees, Scully," I can't
help but interject in my own defense.

"Look at these trees, Mulder. They have moss growing all the way
around them! This is Florida, remember? Home of mosses of all
varieties. And even if we could find due north, I'm not sure which
way the car is anyway." Oh, yeah, she's on a roll. I can see that
determination flaring in those big blue eyes. Yep, I just saved us
again, and she doesn't even know it.

"No, we can't possibly find our way out. But we can move over
there--" She points to a fallen log that I think the invisible man
dragged me over. "And I can try and build a fire."

I start to get to my feet and manage to get all the way to my knees
before I find myself rather ungainly sitting on my backside again.
Dizzy. I forgot, I tend to get dizzy when I'm in shock, too. Dizzy
and faint and the whole forest just got a whole lot darker, especially
around the edges of my vision.

"Mulder," Scully is saying just off in the distance and it sounds like I
stuffed my ears with cotton.

The next thing I know, I'm laying on the ground with my feet up on
the log. Classic shock position. I hate laying like this--it looks
ridiculous! But from the way Scully is moving around me, never
letting her eyes stray too far from me, I figure I just passed out on
her.

"Hey," I say rather meekly.

She drops the armload of twigs and comes to sit next to me. "How
are you feeling?"

I decide to be honest. "I'm cold. I'm thirsty. My shoulder hurts.
And I wish I'd stayed long enough last night to drink that wine
because then I could blame all this on a hangover." She grins at me
and it makes me feel good that I can still make her smile.

"Yeah, well, I'm hungry," she replied. "And I could use some water,
too. But I'm a little more worried about you. You're susceptible to
hypothermia, you know."

Kind of hard to forget, there, Scully. I remember waking up in
Alaska and wondering if the pins and needles feeling would ever
leave my hands and feet.

"You got a good wood pile there already," I note, trying to find a
safer subject. "What are you going to start it with?"

I hate it when I say something and it's like I just hit her in the head
with a brick. "I don't have anything to start it. Shit!" A big dark
cloud just formed right over her head. "No matches! Nothing!"

"Scully, I'm fine--really, I'll be fine," I protest but she's not listening
to me. She's already searching the ground and for a minute I wonder
which of us is losing it. Finally, she jumps up with a triumphant yell
and waves two rocks in front of my face. "I'll make a spark hitting
these together!" she cries.

I don't have the heart to tell her that unless one of them is flint, we're
in for a mighty chilly evening.

By now, laying on my back and watching her upside down is starting
to make me queasy. And passing out is far preferable to tossing my
cookies, especially since I've not had anything to eat for a while, so I
make my intentions known. "Yo, Scully. If I promise not to pass
out, can I sit against the log?"

She glances at me over her shoulder. "Let me help you." She gets up
and helps me move around so that my head is now propped against
the log, jerking on my shoulder a couple of times in the process. I
grit my teeth because I don't want to scream in her ear, but I think
she's aware of my discomfort. "Sorry, Mulder. I didn't mean to hurt
you," she says by way of apology.

"S'OK, Scully. It hurts even when you don't yank on it," I assure
her, with a grin. She makes sure the bleeding hasn't started up again,
and then goes back to her task.

It's been over thirty minutes by my watch and so far all that Scully
has gotten for her efforts with the rocks are sore arms. My head is
pounding, but I'm pretty sure that it's from my shoulder and not the
incessant thud of two pieces of stone striking each other. At least,
that's what I'm convincing myself or I might be tempted to shoot
Scully just to shut up the noise.

In answer to my unspoken prayers, she finally stops her attempts and
asks what I would have done--as an Indian Guide. Gee, on the two
camping trips we took as father and son, my dad's Zippo managed to
start even the dampest kindling. Somehow I don't think this piece of
information will merit us a solution to our problem. I suggest going
to the store and buying matches.

Scully has really gone off the deep end now. She's prying apart one
of her shells in an attempt to get the gun powder out of it and she will
then use this to start the fire. Gun powder is an explosive. By it's
very nature, it doesn't burn slowly. Any fire that might result from
this endeavor will burn itself out before we have a chance to catch
even dry leaves--something that I haven't seen in abundance around
us. As a matter of fact, so far everything I see is wet. Not
damp--wet. And that goes for my clothes.

I let her know that I'm a little apprehensive of her success. "And
soon it will start raining weiners and marshmellos," I mumble, but
darn it all, she hears me.

"Do I sense a note of sarcasm, Mulder?" she asks. Now, before I
answer, where is her gun? In the holster and her hands are full. OK,
I can be honest.

"No, yes, actually, yes." There, as definitive an answer as any I'm
likely to give tonight. I am now shivering in earnest and it's
beginning to sink in that I might be in some trouble here, at least
before the night is out.

Somehow the conversation turns to talk of sleeping bags and
crawling into them naked. Not a topic I really want to pursue at this
juncture. The most I could do in that situation right now would be
shiver some more and I'm certain parts of my anatomy wouldn't even
register on the screen. Nope, not a good topic.

Until I hear Scully's whispered comment, that if it started raining
sleeping bags, I might get lucky. OK, file that one away. Definitely
worthy a few long nights on the sofa, dreaming that one up. But
again, it's not a topic I can even hope to pursue this evening.

So what does Scully want to talk about? Dying. I've been trying to
broach the subject for weeks and here, in the middle of the
Appachacola forest, now, in the darkest part of a very cold night, she
decides to have a bare-your-soul discussion on the meaning of death.
Scully, I have to hand it to you. You are a woman with a great sense
of timing.

I know what she's going through. Well, I can identify it, define it.
And yes, to some extent, I can even identify with it. She's
experiencing survivor's remorse, for lack of a better term. She was
dying of cancer. She didn't want it, god knows I didn't want it. But
somewhere, on some level, we were preparing each other for that
eventuality. OK, so now what?

There have been studies of the 'baby boom' generation. A whole
generation raised on the inherent belief that the world would end in a
nuclear holocaust before they'd reached middle age. They did
everything in their power to avoid that fate--some did drugs to
escape, others became activists. So, the Doomsday clock has stopped
at 5 minutes to midnight and now all those Yippies are middle aged
and balding. They never thought they'd live long enough to worry
about retirement funds and pension plans. What do you do when the
world doesn't end?

And that's where Scully is right now. But for her it was more
imminent. For us, it was a matter of days. I won't deny that when I
walked into her room at the ICU, I fully expected to kiss her goodbye
and never see her again. That's why it hurt so much to have Skinner
drag my ass out of there. He wasn't just inconveniencing me, he was
destroying my last moments alone with Scully. And quite possibly
stealing away the time that I could finally tell her just how much she
means to me. I hated him that night. A part of me still hates him for
doing that to me, to us.

I'm having just as much trouble with her survival as she is, I guess.
I'm happy, joyous, esctatic that she's alive, getting better every day,
that we no longer have this death knell droning on behind our backs.
But on another level, I'm scared. I know that once again, we cheated
the odds. I wonder how many more chances we'll have before the
house decides it's time to cut the winners off. It's a game I don't
want to lose.

Scully gets the shell casing apart as I'm rambling on about growing
old. That in itself is a minor victory. And she carefully pours the
contents on the little pile of wood. I know exactly what is going to
happen, but I've learned something. Women don't like to be told
exactly what is going to happen when they have it in their heads that
something else is likely to take place. And that goes double for
Scully. So, in this new found enlightenment, I keep my big trap shut.
And wince when the gunpowder catches only to blow up in her face.
At least it didn't singe her eyebrows. But it did singe her pride. It
sure as hell didn't start a fire.

Now we have nothing left but each other. I'm so cold now that it
hurts. Bone deep. All the places that hurt when I woke up from my
last major bout of hypothermia are humming with the cold. My
shoulder is just hot pain and I know deep in my heart that with my
luck, it will be infected by morning. Provided we live that long.
Maybe we'll get lucky and the Mothmen will come eat us.

Yeah, I'm just a little ray of sunshine tonight.

But the evening is not over yet. Scully is pulling at me again. If she
knew just how much that hurt, I'm fairly certain she would stop this
tugging shit. But she's got bigger fish to fry. She's yanking me up
on her lap.

My body, at least lower regions, takes this opportunity to point out
how many times I've dreamed of just this scenario. OK, lose the
forest, the Mothmen, the pain in the shoulder and the wet clothes--oh,
yes, lose those wet clothes, and it's just what I've dreamed about.
But not here. And certainly not now when I can't fully enjoy it.
Why the hell does she do this stuff to me? Why is she always
reaching for me when I can't reach back? It's getting damned
annoying to be the ship passing her in the night.

"I don't want to wrestle," I tell her and hope she gets the hint. No
luck. She's in doctor mode.

"You need to get warm," she answers. Well, so much for what I
want. Immediately, I feel it. It's warmer on Scully's lap than on the
forest floor. Warmer and dryer. Smells a hell of a lot better, too. All
thoughts of dreams, long term committments, telling her I love
her--float from my mind with my fading consciousness. I want to
sink into oblivion instantly, but know that I shouldn't. We can't fall
asleep. We'd both be dead by morning.

We can't asleep, but Scully makes certain that I know I can. I don't
want to fall asleep on her. I don't want to leave her to stand watch
for the night. I realize I would do the same in a heartbeat, if the
situation were reversed, but with her recent illness, it's just not that
easy. Still, I'm so tired, so goddammed tired that I can't think
straight.

I have to help her stay awake. It's the only way I'll rest. I won't kid
myself or her. I'm not going to stay awake much longer, best
intentions notwithstanding. My body needs the sleep and for once,
I'm not in a frame of mind that can argue the point. But I don't want
to leave her alone.

I tell her to sing. It's dumb, I know, but somewhere back in the
myriad of stupid stuff they crammed into us at Quantico, some
instructor told us that if we really didn't want to fall asleep, we
should sing. Anything. The more off key and the louder the better.
Well, I don't want to get too loud here abouts, but I'm pretty sure
anything Scully would come up with would qualify in my mind as a
lullaby right now.

I've never fallen asleep to Joy to the World by Three Dog Night. It's
off key, it's not the right words all the time, but it's not as bad as it
could be. It's coming from Scully. That probably has a lot to do
with my approval. Just having her hold me seems to be enough right
now.

As for her singing voice? Maybe, I'll sing our kids to sleep.
Someday.

the end.
Vickie

Season's Greetings
Peace and Joy