Disclaimer: NO infringement on anyone's copyrights is intended.
loc's appreciated and answered: mgreten@xtalwind.net
Spoilers: Fight the Future; Musing of a CSM; vague MythArc Refernces
Archive: I'll send to Gossamer. All others
please inform me of its where abouts.
S: PG
Summary: Just when you thought it was safe to jump back into the gene pool.
Episode and movie dialogue if any: 1013 writers

IN OTHER CONTEXT: The Cancerman Can
ISMS ARRANGED by Mary Greten.
ORIGINAL MATERIAL by Mary Greten.

Scully's first coherent notion, not counting the "I had you big time" she
mumbled to Mulder after what she groggily thought he... well, never
mind what she thought he did, was that only she and Mulder could find
themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea on a glacier in the
antarctic. She guesstimated the antarctic by the brightness and the
location of the sun and the mere fact they hadn't been here before.
How she got here Mulder would have to tell her later.

Still wearied from the exertion exhorted upon her by her now
unconscious alien chasing lothario, rocking and kissing Mulder's
forehead, she wanted to succumb to the same sleep that claimed him.
She remembered reading that sleeping in the cold was not dangerous.
Consensus was that a lowering body temperature more likely would
waken her after a brief rest than keep her asleep. She wagered on the
fifty one percent...

Except that something continued to jab at her as she attempted to settle
into a comfortable position. Finally after moving about slowly so as not
to re-open Mulder's already serious head wound, she searched her
jacket pockets for the offending whatever. She found Mulder's Global
Positioning Satellite Monitor which not only confirmed her guess
reckoning, but was evidently "Rube Goldberg"ed with an extra red
touch pad that might as well have had "LGM" etched beneath it.
Without hesitation, she pressed the button and pocketed the monitor.

Now fully awake, she felt the slight tremor beneath her. She didn't
have to put her ear to the track to know the express would be rumbling
through the station at full throttle.

"Mulder! Wake up! Mulder!" She washed his face with the cold
snow.

"Come on! Come! on!"

"Five minutes more, Scully, Please. I'm so tired." Mulder pleaded.

"We've got to move now! There is no time." She shouted.

"Scully, Every time you say that, we get into trouble."

"We ARE in trouble!"

She pushed him to his knees, then braced herself against him to rise to
hers. "Stay on your knees. We got to spread weight and scramble as fast
as we can over that ridge. Pray the aftershock will stay this side of it.
Come on, Mulder, let's make it happen."

Prodding each other, they climbed the snow shoal and allowed gravity
to slide them down to it's other base.

Scully saw the yellow glare from the snow tractor.

"Mulder, how much gas is left.?"

Mulder didn't answer.

"Mulder, how much?"

"It doesn't matter, we are both in no condition to drive."

"I can try, Mulder."

"Cans tied to the back. Have to gas up. On empty."

Effecting a compromise, Scully put one can's contents in the tank -
enough to help the stored blankets keep them warm until one of them
regained enough strength to drive the monstrosity. She diagnosed that,
thankfully, Mulder did not have a concussion and that they just needed
sleep.


Scully awoke to Mulder coaxing her to drink some K-10 and eat a
package of trail mix.

"Drink and eat something, Scully. We may be here while."

"Mulder, our clothes, your exposed hair and skin and my entire body is
evidence and not to be tampered with. I'll hold out as long as I can."

Mulder, already angsty over again being the cause of yet another Scully
abduction put on his pouting puppy puss. Scully knew that expression
better than his panic face, but neither was going to work today.

"Mulder, don't go gnawing on my arm again".

"How did you know?"

"The night nurse saw you and told me the next morning. I'm fine.
Really. That tube you yanked out of me seemed to have been a
nutritional intravenous of some kind. I honestly don't feel dehydrated
or hungry right now. In the next five minutes maybe, butnot this instant."
She both scolded and consoled. "Do you need help gassing up this thing?"

"No," grinned Mulder like a little boy with a new toy and a playmate to
share it with, "All done. Time to go 'Varooom, Varoom'".

"Then ahead best speed, Mulder. I'm going to rest some more.
I intend to be a busy little b ...itch when we get back to civilization
taking and overseeing every conceivable evidence analyzing test I
know and then I'm making up some."

"Aye, Aye. Captain."

"And Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Promise me something?"

"Anything, Scully. You know that."

"Watch out for the trees."

He glanced down at her.

"Had you." she mouthed before she closed her eyes.

Mulder roared louder than the snow tractor's engine.


At first, Mulder, not thinking clearly, thought there was a fly on the
window. A Fly? In antarctic??? As the insect grew bigger and the
buzzing louder, he realized it must be the plane that the Lone Gun Men
and Skinner decided would be best to get two injured people off the
Ross Ice Shelf.


The fastest route to the Ross Ice Shelf was torturous. Skinner suggested
that Mulder be sedated and let him and Frohike tend to the travel
arrangements until they got him to the Antarctic. Mulder didn't care as
long as he got there quickly. The cold and coffee and the need to find
Scully fast wore off the sedatives before they got the snow tractor fueled.


Skinner and Frohike. The nineties' odd couple. But they clicked.
Byers was still awed by authority figures and Langly's distaste of
authority figures was palpable. Frohike intuited a kinship; they both
inhaled. What Frohike wanted, Skinner wrangled.

As a Marine in Nam Skinner made some Australian pals and never lost
contact with them. His friends stood him well. Marine buddies,
Australian buddies. He called in most of the soap chips saved over
years from law enforcement hand washings.

He ultimately wrangled a Royal Flying Doctor Service. The de
Havilland Austrailia DHA-3 Drover carried two medical staff and two
stretcher patients. Both men, with similar Scully-like thinking,
demanded evidence collection kits to supplement the medical
equipment. Two samples of everything were to be taken and duplicate
test results to go the LGM who already had the original Scully's cancer
DNA tests, and the X-Files on CD-Roms. Skinner learned quickly that
beneath the veneer of UFO crackpots, the LGM were hard core empiricists.


Mulder, this time enjoying a thrill of his life, rode the snow tractor like
a North American Plains indian's palomino after a white buffalo. He could
feel the glacier harden beneath him the further from the alien ship's
crater he got. The plane should have no problem landing. Good.
Because he believed in his gut Scully would give up the ghost before
she'd give up the evidence that was herself. Wait. Wait.
He didn't press the rescue call button.

Scully. She didn't mention his lapse because she had covered it. How
many times had she done just that before. How long will she
persevere? Was she at the end of her rope? And was his life's line
fraying too? Mulder stopped the tractor. Cushioning his head with his arms
against the steering wheel wanting desperately not to consider these
possibilities now, he waited for the plane and its passengers to commence
their work.


Once Scully was aboard the Drover-3, she became the pain on the
plane. She was Henry Higgins, Colonel Pickering, Eliza Doolittle,
patient, victim, chief of forensics. Mulder lost track of the order of
their appearances. It was a well orchestrated chaos. A Scully tour de
force. He never fully appreciated the Art in her science. But,
understanding himself too well, he predicted he would forget at the first
beckoning of the next X-file when the solution would be unproven,
disproved or at best a combination of Scully's science and his eccentric
presentiment.


At the hospital in Melbourne, Scully underwent proctoscopies,
endoscopies, stomach pumping and what all else, as much as for health
reasons as well as evidence collection. Mulder was admitted for the
ostensibly the same reasons. Actually, Skinner relished the opportunity
of having Mulder's head examined - Pet and Cat scans, MRI - so that when his
superiors tell him he should have Mulder's head checked, he could
say "been there, done that". An additional plus, Frohike joked that there
had to be some other scientific value worth the effort. Skinner was more
than amused and the men shared a hearty parting laugh at Mulder's expense.
Skinner returned to Washington to set up yet another Office of
Professional Review panel - one he hoped would re-open the X-Files
Department.


When her test results were all in, the doctors pronounced her fit to
leave. An unemployed Scully wearing Frohike purchased underwear, jeans and
sweat shirt immediately appeared at the Hospital Billing Department.
She needed to plan a schedule of payments with them to begin when
she returned home and secured a new position for herself. Or allow her
time to beg her mother to take an equity loan out on her house. That
and an early and full distribution of her IRA should cover the costs
entirely. Of course, the early lump sum withdrawal of her IRA, besides
incurring penalties, would also put her in a higher income bracket
increasing her taxes.

"Jeez.", Scully bristled at the injustice of justice, "I barter time for
the world and I have to pay for it."

The Billing Department representative offered Scully a chair while he
called up her charges which scrolled for an eternity of minutes on
the computer screen. Suddenly, he looked straight at the petite
red haired woman before him.

"Scully... Miss Scully, now I remember. I'm sorry, Miss Scully, but
I can't make any arrangements for payments with you..."

Scully gasped.

"But , Sir, I literally came here in my birthday suit. No money or credit
cards, assets or identification of my own of any kind. Will I be able to
at least leave the hospital to go to the American Consulate or Traveler's
Aid for a visa or work permit assistance?"

"Miss Scully, please collect yourself." The clerk smiled. "And let me
finish...because a Mr. Jack Colquitt..."

Collect herself!! Scully's mind raced to retrieve that name from her
memory.

"...hours before you were admitted arranged a meeting with our department
head giving him a handsome pre-payment of your American dollars.
A most unique situation, indeed. Oh!. The screen has stopped scrolling.
Now, Let me see. Ah! yes, Just as I thought. You have change coming.
If you will excuse me, I'll see about issuing you a voucher."

"Wait. Please." Scully implored. "Did your supervisor describe Mr.
Colquitt? Surely, he must recall something about him for such a unique
situation."

"Well. I'll let him tell you himself. I am sure he would like to meet the
object of such intense insinuated emotion as from your benefactor."

"May I use your phone?"

"Of course, I'll be back shortly."

Scully dialed Mulder's extension. He was still waiting for his dismissal
papers.

"Mulder, it's me. Send Frohike down to Billing."

"What is it, Scully?"

"I'm not sure yet. Get him down here."

Frohike arrived panting for breath.

"Sit down, Frohike, ordered Scully. "and tell me again who Jack
Colquitt is."

Frohike blanched and stared incredulously at Scully.

"That's what I thought." Scully sighed.


"Ah, Miss Scully. I am so pleased to meet you." The Billing
Department Manager extended his hand. "My clerk is at Accounts
Payable this moment obtaining your over payment. Understand you
have some questions regarding Mr. Colquitt."

"Could you describe him, please. Jack Colquitt, as far as my friend and
associate Mr. Frohike and I know, is a fictional character in Quasi-science-
Fiction/intrigue novel."

"By Raul Bloodworth" interjected Frohike.

"The second name is unknown to me. Mr. Colquitt wore a dark blue
suit, is of average weight and height, wavy black but graying hair
average cut, dark penetrating eyes, seemingly thin lips. I noticed his
lips because he smoked constantly using thumb and forefinger."

"Morleys, Sir?"

"Then, you know the man." concluded the manager.

"Only in passing", answered Scully.

"Good, because he left you a letter which I was instructed to give you
with your refund".

As the manager was speaking, his assistant stepped inside the office
holding three envelopes. He handed them one by one to Scully.

"Your refund, your billing statement, and this letter from Mr, Colquitt."

"Thank you", replied Scully rising to leave. The manager stopped her.

"No, please. Miss Scully, Stay. I'm sure Mr. Mulder will be released
soon. You are welcome to wait here for him. We don't mind taking an
early lunch." He nodded, "Goodbye and continued good health to you
both."

Scully put the refund in her jeans pocket and gave the billing statement
to Frohike for his immediate perusal.

The letter was a tantalizing temptation. To burn it or not to burn it?
She toyed with the envelope in Holmesian fashion trying to discern its
content from without. She held it up to the light. Opaque. Size 10
envelope, thick, textured, expensive; paper inside probably similar.
Moving it about in her hand, she felt a familiar object. She tore the
envelope revealing a small evidence prophylactic wrapped inside
the folds of a letter. Having opened it, she now felt inexplicably
obliged to read it.

The letter was hand typed in elite font with small margins - obviously
calculated to get the most on one page.

"Dear Miss Scully,

"I beg you to give me the benefit of the doubt and read further.

"Other than a personal request at the end of this letter, which you are
absolutely FREE to ignore, there are NO strings attached to my
payment of your medical bills which you can ill afford having resigned
from the FBI. You will be Agent Scully again. But OPR will quibble
over the cost of your rescue and subsequent fact finding attempts in an
exercise to exculpate their interference and justify the expenses for
their existence.

"I am sure, in what you would adjudge to have been the beginning, you
considered me your mortal enemy. By this time, events may have
caused you to ponder my position in the grand scope of the project.

"I am but an occasionally well-placed knight in a game in which the
rules change erratically and participants must react swiftly and
sometimes harshly to survive.

"I take and I give orders. I can not always be in total control of errant
pawns that are wild cards in a game they should not be playing. Events
are put in place in which I am given no say. I did not order your
abduction and I fought to have you returned; ...they wanted to do so
much more...

"I could not prevent Samantha from being taken; that was Bill's
decision, his last before he left the project. But I could protect and will
continue to protect the mother. When the data tape was the smoking
gun and Bill 's alcoholism was threatening the project, I had no choice
but to act harshly. But, we warned you away; no one was supposed to
be home. Melissa's death was an unfortunate accident which affected me
more than you can imagine.

"I fell out of favor again. I failed to recruit Mulder to my cause. But
still, I would have gotten the cancer remission chip to you myself if push
came to shove. For that transgression, I became a target. Fortunately,
on my own, I made my inroads amongst the Jeremiah Smiths of the world, and
survived my planned demise. When "they" botched up the Gibson Praise
incident, I became their fair haired boy again.

"Because you and Mulder got too close to the Project, I was told to remove
you both. Reluctant as I am to kill indiscriminately
(although this may not always be apparent), I reasoned the shock and
after effects of the x-files' office arson would be enough of a deterrent
for a while and still keep you both alive.

"Then came the impossible scenario we hadn't planned for.

"There were five of us who formed a very loose alliance to counteract the
more unconscionable of our group who would trade humanity for their
personal gain. After the Dallas fiasco, I found myself the only one left
with the field experience to execute our second abduction of you (again
you got too close) only to outdone by a bee. Ironic, but not that it
matters. My thanks to your deity, I had set my plan in motion.

"You were to be given a virus and I had to play out a deception to keep my
position in the project, which is imperative that I retain. I slipped to
my cultured English cohort, who was by then out of favor with the main
group, the coordinates of a base in antarctic to which I was suddenly
given complete control in the 'spirit of co-operation'. While playing
out his orders to kill Kurtzweil, he was to make contact with Mulder for
the precise reason of saving you because we know, that in the end
analysis, only your science can save us. I did not expect the virus to
react so quickly to the vacine...I really thought I lost you both...that it
had all gone to hell. For that moment, I did not want to continue...not
anymore.

"Miss Scully, I have read your thesis "Einstein a new interpretation" in
which you expound that time is a universal invariant. I disagree from
a personally human standpoint. Yes, I am human. Loneliness, once it
loses it's facade of peaceful solitude, distends time which in turn
expands loneliness like a snake eating its tail. Sometimes I feel
have been alive forever awash in loneliness.

"I was an orphan. I noticed in my time at foster homes that families put
time and life in perspective. Having Bill Mulder as my friend in our
army years, I emotionally adopted his family as my own. Bill and
Teena were gracious that way. That connection has ceased to exist and
I missed it desperately. But I do have one other memory, which keeps
me going now."

Now at the end of the page, Scully turned the letter over. She grabbed
Frohike's arm and squeezed it until her fingers hurt. Frohike glanced
back and forth from Scully to a picture printed onto the paper. Finally,
he just threw the billing sheets into the air.

Barring the differences of time, clothes, hairstyle, and minor
facial markings, she could have been looking at a scanned picture of her
great-grandmother.

The typing continued beneath the picture.

"Please forgive my sentimentalism, I couldn't part with the original.

"When I was new army officer, after an assignment abroad, my passage
home was courtesy of the US Navy. At port, I happened to spot a dark haired
woman, one among many, arms spread wide greeting a returning naval officer.
I stared. It was rude of me, I know. To be sure, I checked the picture in
my wallet then I lost them in the crowd.

"If you've read this far, you have my deepest gratitude. Unfortunately, I
can't guarantee it means anything for more than the time it takes me to
type his sentence, but you know that by now and you know what it is I
am asking you to do.

"Jack"


"Well", hummed Frohike,

" 'Who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream,
Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream? ' "

Scully spread the fingers of one hand over her face while giving him
the evidence sample of a single strand of hair with the other.

"Between you and me, Frohike. Send this to an independent laboratory and
unless someone's life depends on it, I don't want to know."

She put the letter in her other jean pocket, crossed her arms in
front of her, leaned back and waited for Mulder.

Mostly, she needed to get the hell out of there.