Hold Your Fire

A continuation of "Once Upon A Time"

By: Claire Doyle

Category: MSR, Angst, FowleyTorture

Archive: Anywhere, just let me know.

Feedback: Gimme at cofeeguru@netscape.net

Spoilers: Everything up to and including the season 6 finale

Rating: PG-13 (language)

Disclaimer: Same as last time, song's not mine, they're not mine. Fine.

Note: The song for this one is "Mission" by that great and wonderful
(though not quite as wonderful as the Moody Blues) band Rush. Good
music, but start with the "Hold Your Fire" album if you want to listen.
Trust me on this one.

Summary: What happens when the fire doesn't die, and you refuse to let
the flame burn out, despite the odds? A continuation of "Once Upon a Time."

Dedication: To Claire (not me) and Jess. You guys were the first to ask
for a sequel, and you got it. Thanks for the inspiration and
encouragement. And this is further dedicated to Matt, my best friend who
introduced me to Rush and all of the wonderful music they have to share
with the world. Merci, ma cher.

/Hold your fire, keep it burning bright. Hold your flame till the dream
ignites. A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission./

The plane touches down without a moment to spare. I fly down the aisle,
ignoring my bags. I don't give a good God damn about them now. You're
all that matters at this point. "Hang on, Mulder, hang on." I'm moving
as quickly as my legs will carry me. It seems like an eternity before I
see my car in the parking lot. I shove my key into the ignition, and it
roars to life. I'm on the highway in a moment.

I keep seeing your face on the way to the hospital. At this point
protocol and appropriate actions aren't worth shit. You're coming with
me to the Ivory Coast, come hell or high water. It's the only way I can
save you, if I can indeed save you. You aren't dying while I'm around.
That's for damn sure. And no former lover of yours with aging borderline
good looks is going to stop me from keeping you alive, and recapturing
your sanity. You have a fire inside you, Mulder, and it isn't going to
burn out simply because a group of men said so. That's my job. I'm on a
mission of mercy, to save you from your dive into the abyss.

/I hear the passionate music, read the words that touch my heart. I gaze
at the feverish pictures, the secrets that set them apart. I gaze at the
powerful visions that fire's made alive. I wish I had that instinct, I
wish I had that drive./

God, that music, playing over and over again. If I wasn't already
insane, I would have gone nuts hearing it day after day. There's only
one song that could ever bring me out of this, and that's hers. Scully
has music flowing through her veins, which gives her a power and a
strength that is all her own, but at the same time invigorates me.

I suppose that it's because I love her that she affects me this way.
Even when I shouldn't, by rights and common practice, have any coherent
thoughts left at this point, she brings me back from the edge of
insanity and gives me a solid thought to focus on, at least until the
voices start again. But in just the past few hours her vision has stayed
with me longer and longer, and the voices have been kept at bay. I
wonder if the doctor notices. I wonder if Diana, who I know is watching
me with morbid fascination on that screen, has any idea. I doubt it.
They don't understand me, and they really don't understand Scully. She's
too much for them to handle, and she'd kill them before she'd let them
kill me. Of course, if situations were reversed, the same would hold true.

Now I send a prayer up to the powers that be. ‘Please, let me get
through this, so that I can keep this from ever happening to her.' I
wonder if they heard me. I hope so. But for right this moment, the
voices are creeping back to take over, and now they're getting louder,
and louder and louder and-"Aaaaah!"

/Spirits fly on dangerous missions, imaginations on fire, focused high
on soaring ambitions, consumed by a single desire. In the grip of the
name of the possession, slave to the driving obsession, a spirit with a
vision is a dream with a mission./

I make it to the hospital in record time, and burst through the doors
without a glance to another person. You're in all of my thoughts, and
right now death couldn't stop me from reaching you. What I plan to do is
crazy, impossible, perilous, and foolhardy, but it's the only thing that
can be done, the only thing that I can do for you. I love you, you
bastard, and you'd better hang on.

The first person I deal with is the doctor. He stops me in the hall from
entering the observation rooms and asks me my business. I wither him
with a look, and he protests just once, weakly. So I do the natural
thing and lie. "I've been called in as a specialist to observe this
case. Dr. Melissa Scully." Sorry, sis, but you're more help to me than
you can imagine right now. "I need to see the patient immediately. I
have a radical treatment that may help his case, but it needs to be
administered within the next 72 hours, or it will most likely be too
late." For all I know, it's already too late, but I'm not giving up
without a fight.

He hesitates for a moment, but only a moment when he sees that I'm
packing. "Right this way Dr. Scully."

"Thank you." I try not to start running down the hall to the observation
deck. He leads me all the way there, and tells me the pass codes to get
to you. I can barely contain myself, but I do, so that I could face the
next obstacle. "Diana."

She spins around to face me. "You. What the hell are you doing. . . ."
The anger in her voice is obvious; she has lost her cool demeanor, and
now she's pissed. "You shouldn't be here. It's not a pretty site."

"I'm sure I've seen worse, Agent. In fact, I'm taking Mulder out of here
now, so that you'll never have to see it again."

Her eyes widen a little at my bluntness, and she grins condescendingly.
"I don't think that they're going to let you do that, Scully. It's just
not wise. He's deteriorated to a hopeless state, even you can see that."

I narrow my eyes. "What I see is a victim of a horrible act of hatred
committed against him. What I see is someone who's trying to stop me
from attempting to cure him." I walk closer to her. I may be small, but
I can take on the biggest opponents. And I have been waiting for this
for a long time. I have to get to you, and this is the only way.

Her grin is wavering, I can tell. She turns mildly threatening. "Do you
think that they're just going to let you walk out of here with a
screaming lunatic?"

I take yet another step. "Yes, I do."

"I won't let you." The smile is completely gone. Now there is only pure
unadulterated hatred in her eyes for me. "He's too important to the
project-"

"And you just told me that you were involved in it. Thank you." I take
the small tape recorder I have in my pocket out, and show it to her.
"Funny how these things end up in the most convenient places, isn't it?"

She takes a step towards me, her last mistake for a while. I let her
make that inevitable lunge in my direction, step out of the way, and let
her fall, banging her head against the wall that was behind me and very
conveniently knocking herself out. Then I call an orderly. I try to look
helpless. "Sir, that woman just attacked me. I don't know what's wrong,
but I hope you can help her." And I disappear down the hallway.

/I watch their images flicker, bringing life to a lifeless screen. I
walk through their beautiful buildings, and I wish I had their dreams.
But dreams don't need to have motion to keep their spark alive.
Obsession has to have action, pride turns on the drive./

It's always cold in these rooms. Maybe since they spend all of their
funding on driving people further into the depths of insanity, they
can't afford heat. Or maybe they think they can freeze the demons out of
us. All I know is that it's damn cold.

I've actually been able to sit and have a conversation with myself for
the past few minutes, though I'm screaming my head off so that they
won't know. Who knows what they would do if they found out the voices
weren't taking over anymore? If they asked why, and I told them, they
would keep me locked up in here with no hope of ever leaving. Who would
believe that Scully saved me from the voices? I don't even know where
the hell she is. All I know is that she's close by, somewhere.

Now, I wonder what would have happened if I had never joined the FBI,
never had Sam abducted, never walked through hell every day of my life
since I was twelve. There may have been less trauma in my life, but if
other things went on as they did, the world would be taken over by
aliens, so it probably wouldn't have mattered. But the biggest problem I
have with an ideal childhood is that I wouldn't have met her. I would
have stayed in Massachusetts my entire life, probably moving to Boston
to set up shop there, doing some mundane thing. But she would have
traveled a different path from mine, my blue-eyed savior, and I never
would have been redeemed.

Maybe it's selfish. I don't know, and I don't really care at this point.
I want Scully, I need her, and I love her. I just wonder where the hell
she is.

I hear the doctor opening the door. Oh, great, another shot. Maybe I
should complain. Yeah, right, like that would get me anywhere. I turn,
sighing, and immediately lose myself in blue.

I don't know if I black out or faint for a millisecond, because suddenly
she's at my side, holding one of my arms to support me. "No," I whisper
hoarsely. I hadn't used my vocal chords for anything but screaming in so
long, they were out of practice. "Your eyes. I. . .Scully." I'm lost.
She's here, standing by me, and I'm hers. I can't disobey her ever
again, even if I wanted to.

/It's cold comfort to the ones without it. To know how they struggled,
how they suffered about it. If their lives were exotic and strange, they
would likely have gladly exchanged them for something a little more
plain, maybe something a little more sane./

I'm lost. All you have to do is say my name and I'm yours. I don't know
what I expected when I opened the door; a shell of yourself, with dead
eyes, overcome by a sound I didn't hear. A monster that would attack me
when I opened the door. I expected anything but this. This is Mulder, my
Mulder. You are thinner, haggard, but there's a light in your eyes.
You're alive in there.

When you turn to me, I think you're going to faint. Without a thought, I
rush and grab your arm to keep you from falling. The moment passes, and
you look at me. Then you say my name, and I give myself to you
completely. "Mulder, I-" I don't know what the hell to say. You are
looking at me like I was the Holy Grail, and all I can think about was
how beautiful your eyes are. "I think I found the cure."

You shake your head. "Shhh." A finger to my lips, a slight smile on your
face. I don't know what you want to do, until you remove your finger and
replace them with your lips. Oh, Mulder, do you know how long I've
waited for you to kiss me? You probably do. About as long as you've
waited for me. But here we are, standing in a padded room, you with
voices you can't control screaming inside your mind, and me with a
potential cure that's far more radical than any theory you've come up
with in our six years together. And we're locked in an embrace more
passionate than anything I have ever imagined could exist. It's fitting,
isn't it?

I don't want to stop, I really don't, as you hopefully know and
understand. But we have to get out of here before Diana wakes up. It's
essential. I pull out of your arms with a sad smile, and hurry to the
bundle I dropped by the door when I walked in. I hand it to you. "Hurry,
Mulder, we have to get out of here fast."

"Is this a break, Charlie? I'm gonna see the light of day again?" That
playful grin is back in place, and I know that I'm never going to let
you go.

"You bet ya, Willie. Finally, a chance to get outta this rat hole." I
can play too, now that I know that you're here with me.

The smile lights up your whole face. "I love you Scully." Then you look
down at the clothes. "Uh. Can you give me a hand with these?" Your
fingers tremble slightly, and I know why you're asking. At this moment I
will gladly kill every doctor in this hospital, Diana, and the entire
group of shadow men without a second thought. What they have done to
you. . .

I help you get dressed quickly, and while it might turn steamy very
quickly, there are better things on our mind then, like getting you out
of here, and making you well again. However, you spare the time to
remark, "We're gonna have to do this again sometime, partner."

"Name the place, and I'll do it any time," I retort.

We just leave the door wide open, and hurry out of the hospital. I don't
bother to check you out; I had called the Gunmen on my way there, and
they said that as long as I could cure you, they would handle all the
details. I trust them.

We make our way past the room where they have put Diana. She's screaming
about what I'm doing, and the nurses are attempting to calm her. You
just raise an eyebrow, but don't even miss a beat. Then we're out the
door and into my car, heading back to the Ivory Coast, for a cure, a
discovery, and a future for the two of us.

/We each pay a fabulous price for our vision of paradise. But a spirit
with a vision is a dream with a mission./

The sunrise over the water is beautiful, isn't it, Scully? I've never
felt so alive in my life. Maybe it's because you're tucked into my arm
and we're staring at it together. The sun is reflecting off of your
eyes, making the blue oceans they contain shine and sparkle. You should
wear sundresses more often.

We made it to the Cote D'Ivoire in what seemed like no time. I couldn't
sleep on the plane, couldn't risk the voices coming back. You just held
my hand the whole time, and I survived, the voices humming, but not
overpowering as they had been. You never asked me why they lessened in
the first place. Maybe I'll tell you once we go inside. But right now
let's just look at the sun.

There was nothing much to do once you took me to the coastline and
showed me the ship. You were right, as usual. There was something in the
harmonic convergence of that thing out there that stopped the voices.
But first they reached such a crescendo that I screamed out again, and
nothing could stop the pain. But they abated, and you were there. I had
somehow fallen to my knees, and after the last echo faded away, I buried
my head in your stomach and cried. You saved me yet again, my little
blue eyed angel, and I'll never be able to repay you. I'll spend the
rest of my life trying my damnedest to, though.

After you cured me, Scully, you helped me into bed, and let me sleep,
really sleep, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. I
didn't want you to leave, and I wouldn't let go of your hand. You know
that I'm paranoid, but I didn't want you out of my sight ever again. I
was afraid that you'd disappear. So you stayed, and you held me while I
sank into a beautiful, quiet unconsciousness, where the only thing that
existed was a vision of you.

The ship can wait for later. I'd much rather stand here by your side
than discover the mysteries of the universe. We've come so far to find
the truth, Scully. We've lost so much; people, health, time. But that
time has come, and I swear to God that I will spend every last moment on
earth with you. I can't let you go now, ever. I want to see every
sunrise with you, and every sunset. I want to see the fire in your eyes
when you've made a discovery, or when we're making love. I just want
you, Scully, for the rest of my life, forever. That is the truth, the
ultimate truth.

You turn to face me now, the sun framing you so that you look like a
fiery being, a feminine manifestation of the Holy Spirit. You smile up
at me, and I can't help but smile back. "Mulder?" My name on your tongue
brings it to life, make me a human being.

"Mmm?" I say. Words just don't seem appropriate to answer a savior like you.

"I love you." The oceans of your eyes overflow, and they spill down your
cheeks like rivers. I pull you tightly against me, lay my head on yours.
There is nothing to say, after all has been said. Except maybe. . .

"I love you, too, Scully." And the world is at peace. We have our
destiny, we have our mission, and it will be fulfilled, and we will do
so. Together.

/A spirit with a vision is a dream. . ./

End

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