Mile High

Subject: New: Mile High 1/5 (sequel to Abductee)
Date: 30 Jul 1995

MILE HIGH - A X-Files Romance (1/5)
by S. Esty (Windsinger@aol.com)
7/30/95

Synopsis: Mulder deals with recovery from a severe injury and with
his developing feeling for Dana. Sequel to THE ABDUCTEE and prequel
to Windsinger's MEMORIES. See About This Series at the end of this
story. The story takes place in the first season before the
'Erlenmeyer Flask'.

Rating: No sex, no violence, just hormones.

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to my dear friends Youkneek, Livengoo
and Izzycat for their encouragement on this piece. (Any wierdness
is entirely mine.)

This story is based on the characters created by Chris Carter, Ten
Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Used without permission
and no infringement is intended. Thanks guys, for creating this
marvelous stuff. Remember, imitation is the highest form of
flattery.

The Reluctant Invalid - Chapter 1
Baltimore, Maryland

The leaves had long since fallen from the old maple and oak
and occasionally a breath of winter drifted across the little back
yard in Baltimore. A man lay on the chaise lounge, bundled up
against the occasional chill and dozing in the last of the
afternoon sun. A new book about paranormal phenomena lay open near
his right hand. At times, the man could hear the wind turn a page,
but he made no move to pick it up and save his place.

<I'm turning into a pumpkin,> Fox Mulder thought languidly.
<How will I ever go back to work again?>

After a week at Dana Scully's apartment, Fox swore he could
actually feel the walls closing in, so now that he was spending a
few days at Mom Scully's in Baltimore, he elected to get outside as
much as possible, even if it was November.

Scully ... <No, Dana,> he reminded himself. Margaret Scully
always looked at him oddly when he called his partner 'Scully' in
her presence ... *Dana* had taken good care of him, the best, but
he had to admit, he had been glad when Skinner asked if she could
take a short assignment out of town. She was due back tomorrow.

At first the rest was needed, then the inactivity had begun to
bug the daylights out of him, now he had taken the slothfulness
into his soul, at least for the moment, and chose not to fight it.
The two women were formidable opponents and had managed to thwart
his every move to circumvent Dr. Adams' instructions. The CIA could
do worse than hire these two to uncover sinister plots. They could
see his mind working even before he did.

But, realistically, Fox thought with a smile, those spooks
across the river would have to fight him for Scully. She was his
partner and always would be if he had anything to say about it, and
he intended to say plenty.

As he allowed his thoughts to drift lazily, something small
and sharp hit him on the cheek. Mulder idly brushed it away and
then another hit him almost on the nose and bounced on the blanket
which covered him from knees to shoulders. It was an acorn, but
where no acorn should be, because the lounge was set up squarely
under the bare branches of the maple tree. The oak was on the other
side of the yard....

Sleepy, hazel eyes instinctively traveled in that direction,
so he was turned that way when a short balding head bobbed once,
then twice, above the top edge of the fence.

Nonchalantly gathering the blanket around him, Fox stood up,
his gaze straying towards the house, scanning each window. He saw
no face peering out to check up on him. Casually, he drifted over
to the fence where he had seen the head.

His back to the house, Mulder said to the fence, "This is odd
behavior, Frohicke, even for you."

"You have no idea, Mulder, what kind of odd behavior I'm
capable of. How are you doing?"

"It's a pretty prison, but it's still a prison."

"With two beautiful Scully women to wait on me hand and foot?
I wish I were so lucky," the small man said wistfully from behind
the wooden slats.

"No, you don't," Mulder said with great seriousness, because
the tall, young man still felt a twinge in his back where his
kidneys were and a continued dragging at his muscles. They were
reminders. "So what brings you here under such unique
circumstances."

"Remember that information you called me down to the hospital
to talk about?"

Mulder's posture straightened, took on his 'fox is on the
scent' look. The next was not a question. "You found it."

"I did."

Fox found he was actually quivering. Maybe his instincts were
not gone, after all. "Where?"

"You're not going to believe this - "

"The house," Mulder said. This, too, was not a question.

"Bingo."

Fox's eyes gleamed and he could feel the humming in his veins.
He needed this as much as all the rest and relaxation he had been
getting. "Do you have it?"

"You think I brought it with me? Hard copy? How many trees do
you want me to kill? I sent it to you over the Net. When you didn't
open your mail, I thought I should investigate to see if they'd
given you a lobectomy."

Mulder sighed deeply. "Mrs. Scully doesn't own a computer."

"Jeez, Mulder, what primitive hell hole have the sent you to?
Well, come by the office then."

Fox growled. "Damn it, Frohicke, I'm practically a prisoner
here. I just can't leave. For one, I don't have a car. Why didn't
you call me? I left the phone number on your answering machine."

The little man jumped a little to show Mulder a flash of his
angry face. "I *tried* to, but Ma Scully must have me on her list
of people you are not allowed to talk to. After I called the first
time, she got my voice down... even disguised. She's good, Scully's
Mom is."

"Then drive me," Mulder said, flipping off the blanket, his
body suddenly flowing with energy. Now that he had the opportunity,
he felt capable of bounding over the fence... to be gone... to be
out from under watchful eyes.

"What?" Frohicke said is terror. "And risk the wrath of Dana
Scully. No thank you."

Mulder easily looked over the fence and down onto the little
man crouched behind. "Who are you more afraid of, Scully or me?"
Realizing what he had said and Frohicke's obvious answer, and what
his answer would be if he were in Frohicke's shoes, Mulder
continued, "Let me rephrase that -"

"Fox!" a woman's voice called from the house. "It's getting
cold out there. You better come in."

Mulder cringed like a kid caught stealing apples.

"'Fox'?" Frohicke intoned. "Mulder, she called you 'Fox'."

Mulder made a show of slowly folding the blanket. "She does
that," he said with a great show of injured tolerance, but inside
he had begun to find it comforting. Over these days, hearing it so
often and with caring, never in anger or fear, the sting of that
name and all it represented had begun slowly to heal.

"Can I?" the little man asked mischievously.

"No," Mulder said curtly. "For the last time, Frohicke, are
you going to help me or not?" Hearing an intact of breath which was
not his own, and which he expected would be answering in the
negative, he continued, "If you value our friendship you'll think
about it."

"If I value my life, I won't. If Ms. Scully were to find
out..."

In the end Mulder trudged wearily into the house, the folded
blanket flung over his arm.

Dinner was, as ever, excellent and Fox was, as ever,
encouraged to make a pig of himself, which he did not. Maybe it was
his medication or maybe just the memory of the nasty stuff which
had been hidden in his food for so many days, but he still found
the sight of food less than appetizing. Add to that the fact that
his stomach was still sore and often unsettled, and each mealtime
he had at least one Scully woman shooting him disapproving looks.
Both were concerned about his putting back the weight he had lost
and both were disappointed in how little progress he was making.

The morning before she left, Scully had caught him coming
fresh from the shower, wearing only a towel around his waist with
the sweats he had worn the night before over his arm. Casually, and
not meaning to be unkind, she had remarked that, if he did not
hurry and get about it, she would still be able to count each one
of his ribs at Christmas. What she was doing in that particular
part of the house at that hour of the morning Fox wasn't sure, but
then he had a perfectly good robe, too, which he had been
forgetting to take with him to the bathroom all week. He preceded
to eat two envelopes of chocolate-frosted Pop Tarts for breakfast,
so upsetting his stomach that he skipped lunch altogether.

When he asked that evening, as he did every evening, if he
could wash the dishes, Margaret Scully actually allowed him. This
was a big concession to his stamina, though she had added the
warning that he should leave them, if he got too tired.

<I am not tired!> he grumbled to himself afterwards, though he
wondered later why he preceded to fall asleep in the big armchair
after dinner. In the end, he blamed it on the dreadful sitcom
Dana's mother was watching.

"I think I'll go to bed," he told her taking his unread book
in his hand. It was only eight-thirty. Very early for him, even on
medication.

Margaret looked up from her knitting. "Are you sure? You can
put something in the VCR if you like. Anything but - "

"Sailors of Love?" he asked sheepishly. She and Dana had
caught him one night, long after the rest of the house had gone to
bed, spread out on the couch watching his favorite adult video with
the sound off. He had smuggled it in wrapped in his underwear, not
that he needed to, but, hey, vicarious thrills. His life had become
so regulated there were times he wanted to scream from the boredom,
and even orchestrated crises were a welcome diversion. But skipping
his medication, which forced him to sleep an unheard of eight hours
a night, had put him in hot water with his keepers. Now they made
a point of reminding him to take it and usually managed to hang
around the kitchen to actually see that he did. It was a subtle
piece of coercion.

"'Sailors of Love'? No actually, that was rather interesting,
what I saw of it," Margaret said not missing a beat. "No, I meant,
'The Fly'. I hate that movie. Gave me nightmares as a kid."

He smiled wryly. "Thanks, but I think I'll just read and then
go to sleep."

"Don't forget your - "

"Good *night*." He waved his hand and vanished into the
kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind him. There he made a
good, loud show of reaching for the bottle, making the pills
clatter around each other, flipping off the cap, pouring water into
a glass and snapping the lid of the bottle closed with a sharp
clack. However, he did not actually take any of the little green
and white pills.

Fox went to the spare room on the first floor, which had
become his room. He was grateful now that they had thought it too
much of a strain for him to climb the stairs. From his current
room, the drop from the first floor window to the side yard below
would be relatively easy. They had wanted to put him in the bedroom
next to Margaret's, the better to keep an eye on him.

Closing the door, Fox went fishing in the closet for his
backpack in which he had brought books. Since his coat was kept in
the hall closet and he could think of no way of getting it into his
room, he packed two thick sweaters, his ID, and his billfold. The
latter, unfortunately, contained no money, Scully having taken it
for safe keeping when he was in the hospital. He added to this,
items he had surreptitiously acquired during the hour before dinner
- a flashlight, a bottle of water, some granola bars, and Margaret
Scully's car keys which he had bundled into the toe of a sock to
keep them from jangling. As an afterthought, he packed the vitamin
E ointment Scully had given him, after first smearing some on the
fresh scars on his arms and legs where they had taken the stitches
out. The healing skin itched!

Finally, he bounced on the old bed to make the springs squeak
convincingly. Silently then, he crept off, threw the backpack over
his shoulder and eased open the window.

Or tried to. As is true of most windows in old houses, it was
stuck. He found he had to strain more than he would have expected
to break the frame loose from the clinging paint, but, at least,
when it came free, it groaned only a little.

The sound of a heavy door opening somewhere in the house made
him wary. Silently he paused, his hands on the open window sill and
listened. Had she heard? No, he made out two voices, two women. He
could not distinguish words, however, because of the alarming
beating of his heart in his ears and the louder than expected hiss
of his breathe.

<Cripes, Mulder, you only unstuck a window. You must be in
worse shape than you thought.>

So, Maggie Scully had a visitor, a woman. He had been afraid
for a moment that it might be Skinner. Now, then, was a good time
to make his escape while she was distracted. With silence he had
learned sneaking out of motels while Scully was asleep in the
adjoining room, Fox crawled through the window and dropped into the
night. As he landed with a crunch on the ornamental gravel,
breathing a sigh of relief that he had not twisted an ankle or
otherwise injured himself, he remembered that sneaking out of motel
rooms without Scully actually never worked very well, nor that
often.

He crept in a half-crouch to the side of the car, feeling like
he was tracking mutant serial killers and not just out to hijack
his mother-in-law's -

Fox Mulder dropped to all fours stunned. What was he thinking?
He had just thought of Margaret Scully as his mother-in-law. <Get
a grip, Mulder.>

Ignoring further embarrassing subconscious slips, ones that
Freud would have thought too obvious even to be interesting, he
opened the car door, crept behind the wheel and pulled back the
seat. <Ugh! Short people!> Turning on the ignition and hearing the
engine sweetly turn over, he backed the car as quickly and quietly
as he could out of the narrow driveway.

He had backed the car all the way out into the quiet street,
a huge grin of triumph on his face, and was beginning to pull
forward, when a tawny figure flashed into his peripheral vision,
leaping directly in front of the car. The figure even bounced its
hands smartly on the hood to get his attention.

Mulder turned off the ignition and stared. What else could he
do? A furious Dana Scully was standing and glaring at him through
the windshield, her hand on her hips, her jaw thrust forward with
determination.

<Hell, Scully! Why did you have to pick tonight to come home
early.>

Mulder unwound himself from the front seat and faced his irate
partner. He refused to look beaten, but he could not remove the
slump from his shoulders.

"Fox Mulder," Scully screamed, "don't you ever, ever do that
to me again, or, I swear to God, I'll transfer to Quantico for
sure!"

Fox choose to ignore her threat but filed it away for further
consideration. "You're home a day early, aren't you, Scully?"

"And a good thing, too."

The muffled voice he had heard talking to Margaret in the
living room had obviously been hers. He saw, too late, her car
parked under the dark shadow of a tree at the far end of their
property.

"How did you find me so quickly?" he asked. Maybe next time he
wouldn't make the same mistake if he knew what had tipped her off
this time.

Scully had walked right up to where he still stood leaning
over the open car door. "I counted your pills before I left. I
counted them again this evening. There was one dose extra in the
bottle than there should have been. Then I checked your room."

"That's illegal," he accused, "or it should be. Scully..." He
looked hurt. "Damn it, Scully, don't you trust me?"

Her eyes were stubborn pools. "We're standing in front of my
mother's driveway and I'm blocking you from stealing her car *and*
driving against both Dr. Adams' orders *and* mine. No, Mulder, I
don't think I do."

***

An hour later she was sitting by his bed. They had had a cup
of tea and discussed her trip and her case and then he had
resignedly taken the pills. He lay now, fighting their effects by
trying to carry on a coherent conversation with her. She knew why.
He hated to feel the drug take him over. Though he tried to hide
it, the loss of control carried with it too many disturbing
associations. When he was in the hospital, he would call her if she
was not there, and they would talk until he fell asleep, literally,
until he fell asleep. She found out later that the nurses usually
had to pry the phone from his insensible fingers.

"Where were you going tonight?" she asked, her voice catching.
"What is so important that you would risk your health?"

Mulder realized at that moment that beneath her anger was a
real fear for him. He had let himself forget how badly she had been
frightened when he had disappeared, when she had seen him in that
house, when she had thought he had died as they waited for the
ambulance, he with his head in her lap. His current mission did
seem childish in comparison.

"Frohicke and the boys pulled up some information on unusual
atmospheric readings and trackings detected during the night when -
you know - when the house was 'visited'."

"Still looking for evidence?" Dana asked.

He let out a deep breath, moved his head uneasily from side to
side. "It doesn't matter. I know what happened in that house. And
I think you do, too, though you can pretend that you don't, if you
want."

Puzzling that odd concession, she watched his eyes finally
begin to close, though he forced them open, obviously not wanting
to go yet. "Don't fight it, Mulder," she told him. "I'm here. Just
go to sleep."

But he was not ready. Something bothered him, something he had
to say while he could still think. "I thought you trusted me,
Scully... the little things don't matter... but the big picture."

He sounded so sad. She knew that skipping out occasionally on
his medication, this sneaking off to see The Lone Gunman, was just
a game to him, a part of his personality he needed to indulge or he
would not be Mulder. She felt her eyes begin to ache with the
familiar approach of more tears. "I'm sorry about counting your
pills... that was really low and I should have respected your
ability to set your own limits. I just want you to get well, can
you understand?"

Dana put her hand on the arm that lay outside the covers. He
moved his arm away from her, but not too roughly, but his temper
had spiked just a little. She had hurt him, but he was too tired to
fight. "Scully," he exhaled with exasperation, "I'm trying to, I
think I do." His voice was slurred now. He had to struggle to keep
his eyes open. He hated what the drug was doing. "But, as much as
I love you, you have to understand, too... I am not an invalid...
not a child who needs protection."

He got his left eye to open long enough to see her gazing down
upon him with a strange fondness. "Wha-t?" he asked suspiciously.

She was smiling at him in the slightly yellow light from the
night light. "What you said, Mulder."

"Huh?" he wondered, slightly more awake. He had a passing
suspicion that he had missed something and became for a moment more
lucid. "That I want to understand you ... that I want you to
understand me?"

She raised the covers up around his shoulders. "Just think
about it, Mulder. Just think about it." But he did not have time to
think about it any more that night.

End of Chapter 1

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: New: Mile High 2/5 and 3/5
Date: 30 Jul 1995 12:51:32 -0400

MILE HIGH - An X-Files Romance (2/5 and 3/5) (This post contains
chap 2&3.)
by S. Esty (Windsinger@aol.com)
7/30/95

Chapter 2

FBI Headquarters
Washington, DC

Scully was still wearing that odd, soft expression the next
morning, but Fox had a feeling he was better off not asking.
Something he had said when he was drugged and half-asleep had put
her in this state and perhaps it was best to let well enough alone.

They would be returning to her apartment this morning, but
being Saturday, she also wanted to drive into the office for a few
hours to catch up on some work. He thought he had won a small
victory when she allowed him to come along, instead of dropping him
off at either her apartment or his.

Nothing strenuous, she cautioned him, just read your mail.

That was how Fox found himself sitting behind his very own
desk four hours later, twiddling his thumbs and shooting discarded
sunflower seed shells into the waste basket, as he waited for her
to come back from the archives vault. He had read his mail both
electronic and 'solid' and now, having been forbidden to look at
any casework, he had nothing to do.

"Agent Mulder?"

The familiar voice roused him from gloomy thoughts of
continued uselessness. He straightened up from his slouch and would
have gotten to his feet, but Walter Skinner just waved him down and
pulled Scully's chair over to his.

"How are you doing? Agent Scully's report shows you are
improving."

Mulder looked down at his faded jeans and then up at Skinner's
tie and stylish striped shirt and felt at a disadvantage here. It
was Saturday... didn't the guy ever quit being an Assistant
Director?

"They say better," Fox told him, "but it's hard for me to
tell. The 'women'," and he said that carefully, trying to judge
Skinner's reaction, "won't let me lift a finger."

"Getting a little cabin fever?" Skinner asked,
sympathetically.

"A *lot* of cabin fever. I know Scully means well, but -"

Skinner nodded understandingly, stood up and ran a hand over
his bald pate. Fox thought, not for the first time, that, if he
ever went bald, he hoped he looked as good as Walter Skinner did.

"I was injured in Vietnam," Skinner told the younger man. In
response to Mulder's look of interest, he added, "I'll tell you
more about that on another day, but it was bad, very bad, and they
sent me home for six months on medical leave. After two months I
was climbing the walls."

Mulder nodded. It had only been two weeks and he felt that
way.

"Worse," Skinner continued, "I had this girl friend...Emily
Blankenship."

Fox's eye brows climbed. Skinner with a girl friend? A *young*
Skinner with hair *and* a girl friend?

"That was hard," the older man told him. "I wanted to be
virile... manly... around her. She just wanted to mother me."
Skinner looked pointedly at Mulder. "Of course, with Agent Scully,
that's not quite the same thing, is it, Agent Mulder?"

Fox felt the man was looking right into his heart where he
still held his newly developing feelings for Dana Scully like a
closed treasure chest, hidden, secret, still unexplored, and,
perhaps, just perhaps, full of marvelous things. "No," Fox agreed
after a moment's hesitation that he hoped Skinner had not caught.
"Not the same thing....but she is my partner and it's still
important that she feel confident in my ability to do my part when
a case get difficult." By 'difficult' both knew he meant
'dangerous'.

Skinner pursed his lips and kept looking at this young man he
had acquired, never imagining what difficulties this brilliant,
problem child and his X-Files were going to cause him.

"I came down here to offer you an assignment, Agent Mulder. It
is completely voluntary as you are still, officially, entitled to
medical leave."

Fox's eyes glistened, for once he wasn't even suspicious.
"I'll take anything."

"You haven't heard me," Skinner cautioned a little more
coolly, a little more like his usual self. Mulder took the hint and
sobered, too. This was business.

"An old partner of mine has a case he has been having trouble
with. They have collected a lot of material, but no one can get a
handle on what's going on, what the real scope of this is. We're
talking white collar crime, Agent Mulder, extortion and such.
Nothing fancy, and not very dangerous. That's important, because,
if you take this, you are still under doctor's orders to be on
those sedatives for at least another two weeks. That means you are
forbidden to carry a weapon or to drive a car."

Fox nodded slowly. No gun? That made him feel vulnerable and,
not being allowed to drive, would put a damper on any
investigation.

"You'll have access to a driver," Skinner explained, sensing
Mulder's concerns, "and there's a hotel within walking distance of
the office where you'll be doing most of your work. Richard thinks
the analysis will take about two to three weeks."

"Where?" Fox asked, warily.

"Ah..." Hands in his pockets, Skinner looked down at the
floor. "Richard Charles works for the state of Colorado's
Department of Justice out of the D.A.'s office in Denver. He's
actually a floater. His home base is in a small town some hours
from Denver. By the way," Skinner added, saying the next very
carefully, "this assignment does not require the services of a
forensics expert."

Fox felt his stomach constrict. Colorado! For two weeks...
alone... not only alone, as in private, but also alone, as in
lonely. Alone without Scully. He was certain, all the blood had
drained from his face. She was mothering him to death and she had
herself hinted the night before that she was not enjoying the role
she felt she had to fill here. Maybe they needed some healing time
apart. Time where he could get his strength back and come back to
her healthy and then maybe...

The offer was the best they were likely to get. He would talk
it over with her, of course, but he had seen her eyes when she
admitted, shame-faced, how she hated herself for counting his
pills. He knew she would agree. She would be reluctant, but she
would agree.

How he would miss her.

"I'll take it," Mulder said to Skinner. "When do I leave."

***

The office made plane reservations for the next day, the rush
plainly designed to give him inadequate time to change his mind.
There was barely time to get all his laundry done, have his suits
cleaned and pack. Dana also made an appointment for him with Dr.
Adams, the resident who had taken care of him during his most
recent hospital admission. She felt it was important that everyone
understood what he could and could not do during the next two
weeks.

Fox was satisfied. Dr. Adams required that he continue to take
the medication at night, but she approved his going back to work as
long as it was not stressful and focused primarily on the analysis,
rather than the investigatory, side of his job. She also agreed
that he could begin to exercise again, as long as he built up to it
gradually and as long as there were no nagging pains, especially in
the area around his kidneys. She gave him the name of a local
clinic and a physician in case he needed them.

All this did not appease Scully's fears completely, however.
They were both quiet, unsure around each other. He knew she was
worried about him, though she should not be. He was weak, that was
all, and still needed to put on some weight, but otherwise it was
time for him to get out.

She drove him to Dulles Airport and refused to let him carry
any of the luggage but her small lap top which she had lent him. He
felt distinctly uncomfortable with these arrangements, but in the
interests of harmony, let her have her way. The incident did drive
home to him, however, the fact that this was the right decision.

In the boarding lounge, after all of the other passengers for
his flight had boarded and the flight attendants were looking at
them meaningfully, the tall, slender man and his petite red-haired
companion stood facing each other, he towering over her. Her face
was raised to his, questioning. There was nothing more to say. He
took her hand and rubbed her palm very gently.

He was not certain what he should have done. There was still
doubt in him about what was best for them. Whether they should risk
what they had for something more, or gamble and perhaps lose it
all.

Fear held him back, but that was not all. Because, if he was
going to do what he dreamed of doing - to take her in his arms and
hug her small, sad body to him tight enough to make her breath
pause, to put his mouth over hers for a long, tender, lingering
kiss that would tell her everything that was in his heart, but
which he couldn't put into words - because when he was ready to do
that, Fox did not want her to worry. He did not want her to
hesitate or be afraid in any way because he was ill. He wanted her
to feel free to respond to him with as much passion as he sensed
was in her. They had waited this long, he could wait till the time
was right...

When he returned to her...

Perhaps then...

If he was sure...

End of Chapter 2MILE HIGH - A X-Files Romance (3 of 5)
by S. Esty (Windsinger@aol.com)
6/1/95

COLORADO - Chapter 3

Tuccon, Colorado
Two weeks later

The Rockies glistened icy white, catching the earliest rays of
the eastern rising sun. Down in the town still wrapped in grey
dawn, a tall young man ran along a silent residential street which
was not so silent now for it echoed with the regular beating of his
foot falls and the breaths he took in the frosty air.

Fox had left his lonely hotel room a mile behind and was just
beginning to feel the burn in the long slim muscles of his thighs.
He hoped he would hit the runner's high by the time he completed
the circle of the park, but he doubted it.

In the two weeks since he had arrived in Colorado and had
begun to exercise regularly, he had yet to achieve that euphoric
balance of effortless almost-pain. The town's altitude, even higher
than Denver's, had put a literal cramp on his running. The previous
times he had begun to feel faint before ever reaching that plateau
and had had to slow himself down to catch his breath. The length of
his runs had consistently improved, however, which did give him a
modest feeling of satisfaction. Still, as his own personal goal, he
hoped to hit the high this morning, since this was going to be the
last morning he would be running up here in the stratosphere.

For tomorrow he was going home. Assignment over. Back to
Washington, back to his little dark apartment, his fish, his adult
video collection, his cluttered basement office at the Bureau, the
X-Files, and Dana Scully.

He blinked the cold sweat out of his eyes, because even a mild
day in early December was downright chilly this early in the
morning, and concentrated, as always, on the task of getting back
into shape. He did not want to arrive back in D.C. and have Scully
think that he still needed taking care of. Not that he did not
appreciate all that she had done for him in the two weeks between
his getting out of the hospital and the start of this assignment,
but he hated being that dependent on anyone on more than an
occasional basis... even Scully.

And then he had been handed this assignment. Only after he had
settled into his hotel and the days had become routine, did Mulder
begin to wonder if he had been manipulated into taking it, and very
cleverly, too. He remembered Scully had not wanted him to take this
case, but he had his suspicions and wondered whether she had not
orchestrated it all along.

The idea had to have come from either her or Skinner. Or
*both*, Fox thought for the first time. Skinner, that no nonsense,
tightly controlled, ex-military officer, knew Mulder thrived on
work so he had offered him this assignment on the pretext of
getting him away from Scully and her mother's mothering. What
Mulder now suspected was that they had conspired to maneuver him
into accepting, so that he could be sent away to work in isolation,
knowing if he stayed in Washington and near his precious X-Files,
that he would pursue them if he got bored, which Scully had seen
coming. So Skinner had found him a nice quiet assignment where he
could rest his body and exercise his mind and not get into
mischief.

He should have been angry, he should have been furious, he
hated being manipulated, but for some reason, on this occasion, he
did not mind, for their plan had worked. He felt better physically
than he had in months. He was going home and that was all that
mattered.

The entrance to the park was coming up. He saw the Forest
Service's characteristic brown wooden sign with the recessed yellow
lettering and spurted forward. Before he dropped under the drooping
branches of the pines, he looked up once more to appreciate the
brilliant mountains.

Scully would love the mountains. For the tenth time that
morning and for about the hundredth time that week, Fox wished she
were here with him, not that he missed her 'doing' for him. He just
missed her... to talk to in the middle of the night... to throw
ideas out to... to sit across from in those lonely restaurants that
always viewed singles so uncharitably... just to sit with in
companionable silence. He could not list all the reasons he missed
her. There were reasons that he could not describe even to himself.

A single tear crept out from the side of his right eye and was
whisked away by the chill wind.

<What's wrong with me?>

Since coming here his emotions had been so close to the
surface. He had spent years working violent crimes before the X-
Files and before Dana Scully, and he had always worked alone or
nearly alone. He rarely had a regular partner and his reputation
for odd behavior and even stranger theories had not won him many
friends. But he had never felt the loneliness during those years,
as he felt it now. He asked himself - when did she become
inseparable from him? When did his professional credibility, his
happiness and stability, become linked, irrevocably, to her?

That statement from her, that had been a surprise. She had let
her guard down. She had amazed even herself that she had said it.
For once in his life he had not known how to respond. He just came
back with a joke, but one that let her know he had heard. The
moment passed, but they had planted the seed.

It was as if the last few months they had been trying to get
back to that moment. When he had thought he was going to die there
in Angela's house, what he regretted most was never having kissed
Dana. He thought he remembered asking her to kiss him, and he
thought she had, but he could not remember that part very well. Fox
wanted to remember kissing Dana. The hope of it, and then not
remembering if they had, left a hollow, empty place.

Mulder picked up the pace as if by running faster he could
make time pass more quickly. Tomorrow he would be going home. Home.
Home.. his footsteps on the soft path of pine needles seemed to
say. Home had never meant much before.

The ache in his side and the pain his chest finally became so
great that he had to drop down to a jog before he made it all the
way around the park. No high. Not a physical one anyway. A mental
one, however. Thinking of Scully so strongly, after so long apart,
made him wonder, <Am I in love? Has it finally happened to me? Is
this what it felt like? Not an infatuation, but the real thing?>

That was when he saw her. The long legged, blond in the skin-
tight electric-blue and neon-green jogging suit, just coming in
from the cross street a block before him. At their respective paces
she would intersect him.

Fox had noticed her the day before, trailing discretely a
hundred yards behind him. Even though he had been dressed, as now,
only in sweats and an old Celtics sweatshirt, she must have liked
what she saw for after three miles she had passed him and let him
trail her, like today, for two miles more, as she took the same
route he always followed back to his hotel. He remembered following
her; remembered distinctly that nothing jiggled and nothing was
left to the imagination. After what he had been through, this
woman's behavior made him distinctly uncomfortable.

And here she was again. As she drew near, she threw him a
smile. A dazzling, provocative smile that also left nothing to the
imagination. If he was not already flushed from running, he would
have blushed. He gave a non-committal shrug and did not change his
current pace or direction. After a block he sped up, even though
the stitch came back into his side, hoping she would not be able to
keep up, but he was tired and not use to the altitude, and she was
able to match his pace easily. Then he slowed down drastically,
hoping she would get bored with the pace and go on without him, but
she dropped back and stayed with him smiling again. Damn.

He was too far from his motel to change his route without
risking getting lost in the strange town and thus being late for
work and so he focused on ignoring his uninvited running partner.
For a man with an eidetic memory, he had the world's worse sense of
direction; having a map in your head was only good if you had some
sense of which way you were facing. About half a block from his
motel she turned to him and, giving him a small, disappointed smile
and a slight wave, veered off down a side street. Fox sighed. Maybe
he had been wrong. Maybe running at this particular time and place
was part her normal routine. Either that or she had finally gotten
the hint.

That was when he heard an cry of pain and saw blue-and-green
go down just as she was leaping onto the sidewalk from the street
she had just crossed. She was holding her ankle. Mulder slowed down
and looked back at her. Swearing under his breath, he headed back
towards her. Maybe it was in his genes, but he could never ignore
someone in trouble, even though he suspected strongly that most of
what he was seeing now was an act.

"Are you hurt?" He asked crouching down. Fox could feel
himself chilling down already. He was not supposed to do that. He
could see Dr. Adams' disapproving gaze.

Blue-and-green grimaced and stretched out her foot. "Just a
sprain. It will be all right in a day or so."

"That's only if you don't walk on it now."

She smiled up at him and extended a hand. "That's right. Hi,
I'm Helen Baines. You sound like you know what you're talking
about. Are you a doctor?"

"No, I just work with one and I'm been on the receiving end of
her treatments often enough to have caught onto the basics."

The woman did not look like she was in much pain. She was so
beautiful, so sexy and so obvious. "I had hoped to meet you. But
not like this." She lowered her eyes demurely. "I hope you don't
mind."

He looked at her. Once and not so long ago, he would have
found her alluring, would have taken her up on her 'offer', and it
was pretty obvious what she was offering. But now - no. He had no
interest for a couple of very good reasons - Scully being one, his
memories of Angela being the other.

They were in the business district now. He stood and looked up
and down the street, now beginning to fill with early morning
traffic. Within a minute he saw a cab and flagged it down. When he
quickly bent down and picked her up in his arms, she looked
surprised for a moment and then pleased. He swiftly deposited her
in the back seat of the cab. Fishing in the pocket of the pouch he
wore when running, he was happy to see that the spare twenty he
tried to always carry was still there. He handed it to the old
Hispanic man behind the wheel.

"Take her where she needs to go," Fox told the driver and then
he turned to the woman whose eyes were wide with confusion. "Hope
you are feeling better soon." With that he shut the door and
watched the taxi pull away with no little satisfaction. 'Got out of
the quicksand that time, Mulder,' he thought ruefully and trotted
the final block to his hotel.

End of Chapter 3

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: New: Mile High 4/5
Date: 30 Jul 1995 12:51:34 -0400

MILE HIGH - A X-Files Romance (4 of 5)
by S. Esty (Windsinger@aol.com)
7/30/95

Chapter 4

After a quick shower Mulder headed for the Waffle House down
the block and sat down before a stack of pancakes and sausage. He
was not really hungry, but each evening when he called Scully, she
always asked if he was eating. Though she tried to frame all her
prying questions in the most inoffensive way possible, he knew the
questions were still there. Irritating, but he knew she wouldn't
ask if she didn't care. The thought of Scully brought a vision of
her to his mind, in particular, the memory of her standing by the
hospital bed saying softly "Your body's fine by me, Mulder." It was
as if she was touching his heart - and other things - and the
pleasure was just simply overwhelming...

Fox looked up to find his waitress almost in his lap. Her
firm, rounded hip leaning against his table.

"Is there anything you need?" she purred.

***

Fox stood in front of the mirror in his hotel room and stared
at his reflection. He had been having these odd encounters, such as
his experience with the waitress, at least two dozen times during
this assignment, especially over the last week. He had become
accustomed to being looked up and down by women - measured - but
this was more obvious, more overt. Maybe it was a frontier woman
'thing'.

After forcing down half the pancakes, more for Scully's
benefit than his own, he had fled the diner and now he looked at
his image and tried to make sense of this change in his 'luck', if
luck it was, now that he had decided, or thought he had decided, to
forego casual liaisons until he had a hold on his feelings for Dana
Scully. Maybe he was subjected to all this attention just because
he was alone on this case, not walking in with Scully at his side,
as if she were some kind of shield against unwanted advances. That
might be part of it, he knew, but not all. He saw in the mirror the
same face he had always seen; wide set, hooded, hazel eyes, hair
consistently unmanageable, a strong jaw, straight nose - though a
bit long - and a high forehead. A pleasant face. Nothing more.

What changes had there been recently to account for this
attention? For one, the medication he still took was giving him the
best sleep he had had in years, so, for once, no dark, sunken eyes.
Dana always asked about how well he was sleeping, too. She also had
been true to her word and he was told the hospital's transfusions
had brought his hematocrit up to normal levels. He was not as pale
as normal and, physically, he felt better than a man, who five
weeks previous had nearly died from arsenic poisoning and
exsanguination, had any right to feel. Maybe Scully was right and
he did tend to run on the anemic side. Maybe he should start
taking vitamins. But, he doubted that either of these
'improvements' could be attracting women so.

Still mystified, Mulder started rummaging in the toiletry bag
for his toothbrush. Scully had given him the brown leather case for
his birthday because she had become fed up with his constantly
mislaying his razor or toothbrush or shaving cream when they were
on a case and asking to borrow hers. The thought of all the times,
having connecting rooms, that they had wandered innocently half-
naked through each other's space, discussing rates of decay of
human remains or the effect of the phases of the moon on the human
psyche, brought that memory of her back again.

That intimate touch again, that blissful, sweet happiness.

At that moment he looked back up into the mirror and stared at
the stranger he saw there. It was his face, but not him. Not one to
preen before his reflection in the glass, this was not any image of
himself he had ever seen. He was smiling, but not the smile of the
rogue, or of the taunting, teasing jester, or of the wry, sly fox
but the smile of a truly happy man. He looked so - young.
Certainly, no more than twenty-five.

Fox was a smart man. He only needed to be hit by lightning
once. He had been replaying this scene with Scully over and over
during the past week. If he had been unconsciously, foolishly,
smiling like this to himself out in public all week, no wonder the
women were dropping into his lap.

It was embarrassing.

***

At that moment on the sixth floor of a tallest office building
in town, a big man frowned at the long-legged blond sitting in his
office. Her hair was still wet from the shower.

"Hey, you're a pretty good-looking woman, Stacie. What is it
with this guy? Is he blind or gay?"

"He's probably got someone," the woman pouted.

"Well we need that file. Severnson wants to know what they
have on us. We need to know what parts of the operation he needs to
close. He doesn't want to shut down anything he doesn't have to."

"Mulder will be at work now," the woman noted, "and he'll have
the file with him."

"Yeah, and we know that he has reservations to fly out to
Denver early tomorrow morning, so if we want to get that file we'll
have to break into his motel room tonight. I wish Peters had told
us about this complication earlier. The local police have nothing,
we know that, but this Mulder from Washington... he's getting too
close."

"He's FBI," the blond said rubbing a knee that had hit the
sidewalk during her 'accident'. "Getting him to invite me up for a
little before breakfast 'treat' will look easy compared to breaking
into his room in the middle of the night."

***

Fox finished dressing, choosing his wildest tie, the one
Scully truly detested, in the hope that it would help deter the
unwelcome attention he had been getting from the opposite sex
lately. Then he walked the four blocks to the Tuccon County
Sheriff's Office. He arrived only slightly late and was determined
not to think about Scully. Even with the tie and his thoughts
focused on work, he was still given the once over by both the
female desk officer and the office secretary before he even made it
back to the small temporary office he shared with Inspector Richard
Charles.

Inspector Charles was already working. He was as tall as
Mulder and may have once been as slim, but he had thickened
somewhat with his fifteen additional years. He had salt and pepper
hair with a bristly beard that was more like salt. In his tweed
jacket and half height reading glasses he looked, more than
anything, like one of Mulder's Oxford professors. He and Skinner
had been partners for a while when they both worked in the New York
field office and Mulder had no doubt that Skinner had enlisted the
man's help to keep an eye on his recuperation. But Richard's
stewardship had been as non-intrusive as Scully and her Mom's had
been over-protective.

As a roving senior detective with the Denver Department of
Justice, Charles did a little bit of everything while using Tuccon
as his home base. Fox knew the man had a wife and two girls. Fox
also knew that he liked the man more than almost anyone he had met
at the Washington Bureau. Maybe it was because Richard accepted him
on face value. If he had heard the 'Spooky' Mulder stories, he gave
not indication. In any case, since their current assignment
involved a complex white collar extortion ring, it was a safe bet
that Fox Mulder would not be proposing that little grey men were
shaking down the food, alcohol and auto parts distributors in a
four state area for 'protection' money.

Richard Charles looked up now and smiled. "Mulder, I read the
draft of your profile. It's brilliant. I told Swenson in Denver
about it and he's tickled. Can't wait for your briefing tomorrow.
In fact, since you've completely reorganized the material, he's
asked us to send up the file today so that they can become
acquainted with the details before you arrive. Marcus is leaving
for the Denver office in a half hour and he'd like to take it up
with him."

Considering how the morning had gone, Mulder appreciated
hearing some good news. "You know that was just a draft of a
preliminary report. I haven't finished yet. There's some leads I
want to pursue when I get back to D.C. I'm going to need my notes
just to finish the report for tomorrow."

"Can you work from a copy? I'd like to send the original to
the big man. By the way, I love your tie."

Mulder put his brief case up on his borrowed desk, his mind
jumping ahead. If he caught the commuter flight to Denver today,
maybe he could move the meeting up, maybe get an earlier flight out
tomorrow. "I should just go on to Denver today," he said casually.
"I can prepare for the briefing as well there as here."

Richard shook his head. "That would work, but the flight's
booked. We had to bump a little old lady just to get Marcus on. The
sheriff doesn't like to pull his weight any more often than he
needs to."

"Sure." Mulder recognized his deep disappointment for what it
was as he flipped open his brief case.

"Hillary," Richard Charles was saying into his speaker phone,
"would you come in here and get this file from Agent Mulder and
make a copy for us?"

Mulder flipped through his office-in-a-box, as cluttered as an
office the size of a brief case can get. He put his hand on the
file in question and looked up, just in time to see the office
secretary at his left elbow and well inside his personal space.

"Right away," she said in a sultry alto, taking it from
Mulder's limp fingers and vanishing out the door with a very
suggestive flick of her hips.

Richard Charles laughed when she was gone. "Man, I wish,
Hillary would move that quickly for me."

"No, you don't," Fox said, obviously uncomfortable.

Inspector Charles smiled broadly at the younger man's
predicament. "Mulder, you look surprised. Don't the women in
Washington react to you like this?"

Mulder shook his head, mystified, and poured himself a cup of
coffee. "Not like here. I thought it was just a Western cultural -
ah - variation."

"Women are women, you poor schmuck. I guess when they see a
good catch -"

Fox hrumpted and began laying out his materials in preparation
for getting down to work. "I don't think I'm an especially good
catch."

Richard's eyes narrowed. "Ignoring, for a moment, your
physical assets, which I assure you the women do not, you're FBI
from Washington, the Nation's capitol and these are small town
cops. You might as well be from Hollywood. If the women in
Washington don't react, then I guess they've changed more than I
thought. Women in the big city these days may be interested in
their careers, but that should make them more interested in -
other, less permanent distractions." Richard leaned back in his
chair and waited until Fox had brought the cup to his lips. "So
when did you realize you were in love?"

Fox almost choked on his coffee. "What?"

"Mulder, boy, it's written all over your face. Even I've
noticed it, especially the past few days, and I don't have the
female radar. You kind of phase out -"

Fox let his forehead drop down onto his desk with a solid
thump. "- and get this silly grin on my face."

The older man was impressed. He had thought his young
colleague had been totally oblivious. "Oh, you know about that."

"Only since this morning."

"Drives the woman crazy, you know. There's nothing like
romance. Like moths to a light. So anything change in your life
recently?"

"You mean besides almost dying," Fox said unsmiling.

Richard leaned forward. "So?" When Mulder did not answer
Richard elaborated. "So what changed because of that?"

Mulder knew what he was getting at. He had only just come to
the same conclusion himself. Richard was someone he would not need
to see back in Washington. Maybe he would never see him again.
Somehow he felt okay talking to Richard about this. "I realized how
much I would miss her, if I died."

Now we are getting someplace, Richard decided. "Who?"

Mulder hesitated. "Scully."

Richard's eyes widened just a little. "Your partner? Oh,
Mulder..." Richard had worked for the FBI in New York. He had had
a female partner for a while. He knew how it worked.

"It's worse," Mulder went on.

"How could it be worse?"

"I think she feels the same way." Mulder was boring holes into
his desk top with his eyes. "I think she'd like to be closer. I
mean we're already as close as two people can be mentally, but, I'm
talking about, the *other* thing."

Richard exhaled. This poor guy needed a reality check before
he showed up on his partner's doorstep in Washington or who knew
what would happen. An idea came to him. When Walter Skinner had
asked his old partner to take on Mulder's recuperation, he had left
open the possibility that the younger man might need some looking
after, might even need to live with Richard and his family if it
began to look like Mulder would not be able to take care of
himself. That had not happened, far from it, but Sheila, Richard's
wife, kept asking her husband to bring Walter's protege home for
supper.

"He's not Walt's protege, Sheila."

"No? Well, I hung around the New York office enough to know
that this is not your typical supervisor-subordinate relationship.
Why's he handling this one with kid gloves, Richard?"

Hillary picked that moment to appear at the office door, the
copy completed. She headed towards Mulder with the single
mindedness of a kudzu looking for a tree to wrap itself around, and
Richard could see the young man cringe. "I'll take those," Richard
said holding out his hand for the file and its copy, effectively
intercepting her. Hillary paused, changed direction, frowned, and
put the stack in Detective Charles' hand.

Before leaving she faced Mulder again, smiling sweetly. Fox
flinched. "I know Richard's been taking you to that dive around the
corner for lunch, I know of this place - "

"Hillary," Richard interrupted warningly, "Agent Mulder and I
have a lunch meeting."

On her way out she threw the older man a look which said in
essence, <I don't *that* for a moment.>

Fox shut the door and looked at Richard with gratitude. "We
don't have a lunch meeting."

"No we don't."

"Thanks."

"No problem. There are times when we men have to stick
together." The interruption had given Richard the time to make a
decision. "You know, you shouldn't be alone tonight. You're pretty
vulnerable, what with all these prowling Western women about. Why
don't you check out of your hotel at lunch time, come home with me
for dinner and stay the night. We have a guest room and I was going
to drop by your hotel and give you a ride to the Airpark tomorrow
morning anyway."

"I wouldn't want to impose -" Fox began.

"No imposition at all. Sheila's been asking for me to bring
you, but I didn't want to intrude upon your privacy."

Fox did like his privacy; liked being able to get up when he
felt like it, watch what he wanted on TV, leave the set on all
night if he wanted to, be a total slob, but he did not relish the
idea of heading into a restaurant alone again for dinner and
breakfast. And he realized, suddenly, that he genuinely liked
Richard, which was surprising in itself because he did not make
friends easily. "All right. If you're sure?"

"No problem. Now I'll let you get to work." Richard gently
smiled. "I know you need to get ready for that meeting tomorrow."
He wondered if Mulder knew for which meeting he would need the most
preparation - the one in Denver or the one back in Washington.

***

At lunch time Fox began walking the four blocks from the
Sheriff's office back to his motel. When he tried looking at the
ground so he would not catch the eye of any predatory female, he
walked into a light post. After that he kept his eyes on the shop
windows, which was how he happened to see the shop. It was a gift
shop, but from the window display it concentrated on AmerIndian
crafts, fossils, and minerals. On a whim, Mulder decided he would
like to get something for Scully.

The interior of the shop was warm, dark and earthy. Indian
artifacts were hung on the walls. There were items of wood and
hide, skin and feathers, fur and beads. Fox spent a few minutes
looking at the fossils. They were first rate and normally he would
have gone for a trilobite, but today he wanted something of a more
personal nature.

"Can a help you?" The shop keeper was at least part Native
American. Her skin was flawless and her hair absolutely black. She
wore a colorful gauze blouse cut low, even though it was December.
She looked at him from underneath thick eyelashes. There had been
a time -

"Ah, I need a girl - ah- gift," he stammered. That was when
Fox remembered why he hated shopping.

"For a girl?" she woman asked with humor in her eyes, her gaze
straying to his left hand, though the absence of a wedding ring was
not a sure sign. "Wife, mother, sweetheart, lover, daughter?"

<'Daughter'? Am I that old? Yeah, I guess I am.> "Friend."

"Uh, huh," the woman said with irritating perception as if to
say, <Another male who refuses to make a commitment.>

"Is she a rock collector or collector of any other type? We
have some good carved animals, both in soap stone and wood." On the
display she indicated were an array of animals obviously created by
many different artists.

Mulder decided to take the plunge. "Ah, do you happen to have
any tigers or foxes?"

She raised her eyebrows a little at that and began searching
the table. "Maybe a fox. The tiger is not exactly a desert animal."
She picked up a figure in yellow soapstone. "Yes, here it." She
handed it to him. "He's not your Eastern fox but a desert fox. They
have bigger ears and longer legs."

Mulder had to admit it looked a lot more like a dog than what
he envisioned. He did not like the expression on its face either,
too much cartoon cutziness.

"No, I don't think so," he said handing it back. "What about
jewelry?"

The woman flashed him a look as she swished her long skirt
behind the counter. This look said, <Maybe there is some hope for
this one after all.>

With unhurried deliberation, she slowly pulled out several
large trays, tracing the outline of her upper lip slowly with her
tongue as she did so. Mulder concentrated fixedly at the contents
of the trays already on the counter and evaded her eyes and her
lips.

He ignored the rings as being *too* suggestive, and the Navajo
turquoise and silver necklaces he thought too large for Scully's
small person and too expensive for his meager savings account. He
concentrated on the pins and bracelets. One bracelet caught his
eyes. It consisted of multicolored stones, each caged in loops of
silver wire. He turned back to the page in his memory on rocks and
minerals which had been stored there since he was fourteen. There
was the aqua of turquoise, of course, but also the deep blue of
lapis, the green of malachite, pink of rose quartz, yellow of
butter jade, purple of amethyst, crimson of garnet, warm brown of
cat's eye and the mercury-drop steeliness of hematite. The bracelet
would go with everything - and nothing, Mulder thought ruefully.
Scully would hate it.

"I'll take this one he told the woman." He did not ask the
price.

"Would you like it gift wrapped?" the woman asked languidly.
"No charge." She wasn't eager to let this one get away.

He shrugged slightly. He had gone this far. "Why not," he told
her, then added, "but nothing too - frilly."

As she put it in a box with white cotton and wrapped it in
sand colored paper decorated with cactus and Indian designs, Fox
stared unfocused at one of the displays on the wall. He thought
about how surprised Scully would be when she saw he had brought her
a present. He felt the shiver of pleasure again at the thought,
then was jerked into the present as he felt a hand touching his.
The young woman's darker than dark eyes were huge and luminous and
staring into his face. "Cash or charge?" she asked but her voice
was saying anything but.

Mulder fumbled in his wallet, hoping she couldn't see him
blush.

She let her hand touch his as she took the credit card, let
her hand touch his again as she handed it back. She extended a
cream colored card and a pen. "Do you want to address it?"

He hesitated; he just wanted out of there. Without thinking he
scrawled 'To Dana' on the card and stared at it a second wondering
why he had written that. With a knowing smile the woman tied it to
the rust colored ribbon of the small package with a piece of yarn.
Gripping the bag containing his purchase, Fox escaped into the
sunlit street.

End of Chapter 4

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: New: Mile High 5/5
Date: 30 Jul 1995 12:53:52 -0400

Okay, here's the end of Mile High. Tomorrow I'll post a new revision of
MEMORIES which first appeared in 3/95 but follows Mile High in the series.
PLEASE, send comments.... Constructive comments, if possible What's good,
what's bad.

MILE HIGH - An X-Files Romance (5/5)
by S. Esty (Windsinger@aol.com)
7/30/95

Tuccon, Colorado

Mulder carefully wrapped the present in with his clothes,
checked out of his room, and carried the suitcase, Scully's laptop
and the garment bag containing his suits, all of which needed
cleaning by this time, back to the Sheriff's office. Two weeks
before he would not have been able to make it without a rest or two
along the way, he had been that weak, but he made the trip easily
now. Getting accustomed to the altitude had helped and taking care
of himself. Eating right, getting regular exercise and sleeping
well may be all right for a while, he thought, but long term such
a healthy life style would make him crazy.

By four, he had finished the preliminary draft of the profile
and report for the Denver office and put them and the copy of the
case file and his notes into his brief case.

<Let me get through tonight,> he thought. <Then commuter to
Denver... meet with the Denver office... flight to National
Airport... Scully.>

He looked up and caught Richard's laughing eyes who was
wagging a finger at him. "None of that till you're finished work."

"I'm finished," Fox responded, defensively.

"Well, let's go then." Richard slipped into his coat and,
grabbed the suitcase and laptop. He waited as Mulder took up the
garment bag and brief case, then led the younger man out to his
car.

***

The drive was longer than Fox expected, but the Medicine Bow
Mountains were beautiful. "No use living in the mountains unless
you can live *on* a mountain," Richard told him. After a long
vertical climb, during which time Mulder wondered if Richard owned
a dog sled for winter commutes, they reached the top of the ridge.
Richard's home was a log house made of square, rough-cut logs on
the outside but modern within. They were met by warm air, the smell
of beef and spices, a big fluffy dog and two tall, blond-haired
girls aged about five and seven. The dog and the girls leaped upon
Richard barking or shouting enthusiastically.

A short, round woman with long, blond hair the color of her
daughters', came into the room from the kitchen to lean over the
kids and the dog to kiss her husband soundly. "This is Sheila,"
Richard called to Mulder over his shoulder and the din, as he tried
to unwind the dog and the smallest girl from his legs. "Honey, this
is Special Agent Fox Mulder."

Sheila smiled and took his hand in her small, warm one.
"Pleased to meet you at last, Mr. Mulder. Richard calls you
'Mulder' so I take it you don't like 'Fox'."

"Something like that." He smiled at her open, lively face,
the dog, the kids - and found himself liking this scene. It made
him realize how lonely he had been by himself in his hotel room so
much of the time.

""Fox'!" the oldest of the little girl's shouted in a clear
voice from below them. "Is your name really 'Fox'? Cool!"

Sheila rolled her eyes. "Kids have big ears," she apologized.
"Honey, Mr. Mulder does not like to be called 'Fox'."

Mulder shook his head. With kids it was okay. "Don't worry
about it. I think my psyche can stand it for one night."

Sheila eyes showed approval. "That's kind of you to indulge
them. Let me show you your room. "She led him upstairs to what was
obviously a guest room cut out from under the eaves.

Seeing him crouched over, she sighed. "My, my, Richard didn't
tell me you were so tall. Being short I never think about it."

"It's fine." He showed her that he could stand up almost
straight under the point of the roof. "Tall people learn to stoop."

"Well, get as comfortable as you can under the circumstances.
Take off your tie, change if you want."

"I'm afraid everything's pretty foul by this time."

"And you're meeting the Denver big wigs tomorrow?" She
exclaimed. "Roll some of that stuff into a ball and you can throw
it in the washer tonight. No trouble at all."

Mulder smiled at her common sense. He was wondering what he
was going to do about that. Stand downwind? He started to take off
his tie as she turned to leave the little room.

"Ohhh, that tie!" Sheila said smiling. "If you like that, I
have some old ones of Richard's I can give you."

Richard had come up behind her making the small room feel
quite a bit smaller. "No you won't," Richard replied, protectively.

Mulder glanced at the gaudy thing, also smiling, and not
taking the least offense. "Thank you, but I don't think Scully
would appreciate my having any more. I - ah - wore this today as a
sort of talisman."

Sheila looked puzzled. "Against what?"

Richard winked at Mulder, knowingly, and touched his wife's
arm to lead her out of the room, whispering, "I'll tell you later,
Dear."

Dinner was a family affair. As he ate Sheila's pot roast and
potatoes, Fox appreciated the happy diversion of the chattering
girls to keep him from dwelling upon the last time he had had a
similar meal. He declined the homemade apple pie, however,
explaining nothing to Sheila's quizzical glance. One temps Fate
only so far.

Fox wondered how Richard and Sheila ever got a chance to put
more than two sentences together in a conversation as the children
jabbered, asked questions, poked each other when they were being
ignored and sang. They were very musical, knowing every word of
every song in *Aladdin*. When their enthusiasm went beyond the
boundaries of good manners, they were calmly, but firmly removed
from the room without fuss only to reappear a few minutes later, at
least minimally chastised. Consequently, there was much coming and
going by both children and adults. It turned out Richard and Sheila
were also into a modern parenting techniques which emphasized that
children should do as much for themselves as possible without
having to depend upon adults. The fact that it took four times as
long for a task to be accomplished that way did not seem to be an
concern.

Mulder escaped to the relative serenity of the living room as
the children dived into a half gallon of Neapolitan ice cream. He
heard Richard instructing them not to take all the chocolate as he
started on the dishes.

"Not what you're use to, I gather," Sheila said following
Mulder with a mug of herb tea.

"Not - exactly," Mulder admitted, not wanting to admit that
the dinner had given him a mild headache.

"It's easier than it was when they were little. We feel if we
put the effort in now, they'll be self sufficient by the time
they're twelve."

Tuning out the kitchen crowd and its snatches of Barney
dialogue and a long negotiation over who had to clean up a spilled
glass of apple juice, Fox found out that Sheila telecommuted. She
wrote computer user's manuals and technical documentation. "Do you
like telecommuting?" he asked.

"To tell you the truth," she told him, confidentially, "I'd
rather work in an office, less distractions, but it's not worth a
ninety minute commute. Not when you have kids."

After a sip of his tea, he asked, "Do you wish you had done
things differently?"

"Moving away from New York, having kids, or marrying Richard?"

Mulder found himself smiling. "You choose."

Shiela took a sip of the tea as she considered. "Every time
you make a decision in this life, I feel you open one door and
close four or five. As you get into your forties, as you'll find
out some day, you see that you've closed a lot of doors. When you
are young you think there will always be time to go back. You feel
your mortality when you finally realize that it is too late to turn
back for some things. I could never be single, for example, or
childless, or marry anyone other than Richard. Richard and I made
our decisions. We don't regret them, but it doesn't mean we don't
appreciate the sacrifices each of us has made. It doesn't mean we
don't wonder what might have happened if we had made different
choices."

Fox's eyes drifted to a picture on the wall of a tall, young
man in a smart, black beard and another young man with clear eyes,
a strong open face, and a receding hairline. Both wore wide grins
and black jackets with 'FBI' on their left breast pockets.

Sheila saw where he was looking. "I think you know Richard and
Walt were partners once. Did Richard tell you Walt introduced us?"

It took Mulder a minute to realize she meant Walter Skinner.
He smiled wickedly. Blackmail material... "No, he didn't."

She leaned back in the soft, Apache pattern couch and sighed.
"Walter was handsome, though he didn't have much hair, even then,
and he was *very* serious. I was a contractor working on some
programs for the New York field office. He had just gotten divorced
and I was mad about him. We went out a couple of times, but he just
didn't want to make a commitment, you know. Too early."

"So he dumped you off on Richard?" Fox asked smiling.

"Are you psychic?"

"Not last time I checked. It's just something that Skinner
would do."

Sheila took a sip of her coffee. "He's a good man, Walt is."

Mulder nodded. "I'm coming to appreciate that."

Just then, a thump and a crash came from upstairs, followed by
a child's wail, and Sheila dashed up the steps without a pause or
a word. Mulder was surprised that the small woman could move so
quickly.
***

Later than evening Sheila took her husband aside at one point
while Fox Mulder was having a very serious conversation with the
two little, grey-eyed girls about the overall conflict between of
good and evil and life and death in the *Lion King* which had just
come out. "Honey, he's adorable," Sheila said. "I thought Walt told
you he was going to be a basket case? Gloom and doom and unable to
take care of himself."

Richard shrugged. "As I told you, he had just gotten out of
the hospital. He was so quiet the first few days he worried me and
I thought I would have to pull out the trump card and order him to
stay here with us, but he seemed to work it out for himself. First
class piece of work he did for the office, too."

"He's fidgety, though," Sheila noted. "He's got someone. Can't
wait to get home. Bets he asks to use the phone any minute now."

Richard grinned broadly and put his arm around her."You mother
hen-ning again, Sheila? Maybe trying to play matchmaker from two
thousand miles away? I'll tell you, because you'd get it out of me
anyway. All this private time he's had since he's been here? He
think's he's in love and it's driving him nuts. I would have put
him on the flight today if there was room. Hell, I would have
driven him to Denver so he could catch an earlier flight from
there, but he has that meeting tomorrow."

"Ah, now I see why you finally brought him home. Before he
goes back to DC and to proclaim undying love to his lady, you
wanted to give him a taste of married life."

"I thought he should know what he may be letting himself in
for," he smiled at her. "Can't say I didn't warn him."

"He won't make the connection. They never do."

"True, heart and flowers don't naturally lead one to think
about diapers, orthodontia bills, or college tuition, but I had to
try." As if it explained it all, Richard whispered, "It's his
partner."

Sheila made round 'oh' with her lips and took in the lanky man
currently sprawled on her living room floor with one child on his
stomach and the other holding a stuffed lion over his head. "He's
gorgeous," she said wistfully. "They've got troubles ahead, but
she's still a lucky woman."

"I wonder what Walt will do about it?"

Sheila leaned against her husband as they stood in the doorway
to the kitchen. "Poor Walt. He sends the guy out here with one
problem, and we return him with another. This love stuff, Sweets,
think it's our Colorado air? I'm glad we left New York and came out
here."

"We fell in love in New York, Dear."

She rubbed her face affectionately into this beard. "Who's to
say whether we'd still be together if we hadn't left."

"True," Richard said softly. As he gazed into her eyes, he
draw her closer, bent down and kissed her. They both looked up at
that moment to see their tall house guest. Fox looked as if he
wanted to ask a question, but had paused, embarrassed at having to
interrupt them.

"Hey, you're not disturbing anything, Mulder. We're not going
to do anything improper -"

"Not immediately," his wife cooed. "Bet you thought, old
married people didn't engage in this sort of thing."

Richard smiled at her and tightened his arm. "We like the
girls to see intimacy as a normal healthy activity. Not as anything
wicked or shameful."

Fox relaxed somewhat, but did not stop feeling like the third
man out here. "If it's all right, I'd like to make a long distance
call."

"Use the phone in our bedroom," Sheila suggested casually,
"it's more private."

As she watched her house guest disappear upstairs, Sheila
poked her husband in the ribs. "See I told you," she whispered.
"Pay up."

He nibbed her ear. "Later..."

***

<Private is right,> Mulder though uneasily as he went into the
Richard and Sheila's bedroom. All the private little bits of an old
established married couple's life were spread out before him; two
dressers each piled with private stuff, two night stands with their
own choice of books, one long bathroom counter covered with razors
and hair dryers, toothbrushes and curling irons. Shoes were
intermingled on the floor, his and hers.

He felt as if he were intruding, but was warmed as well. He
realized suddenly that he knew so few married couples as if, once
married, couples either kept to themselves or with their own kind,
almost as if they were a different genus and species. After seeing
Richard and Sheila together, Mulder wondered if they may not be
right.

He sat on the edge of the bed and punched in Scully's phone
number, feeling more uncomfortable and not only for the butterflies
he was fighting down in his stomach. <It's just, Scully,> he told
himself. <Yeah, sure.>

The voice he had longed to hear answered so quickly that the
first ring was cut off. She had obviously been sitting by the phone
waiting for his call. A dam burst releasing a fresh flood of
hormones. Her familiar voice caressed him, calmed him, made him
feel that everything was complete now. They did not even identify
themselves. There was no need.

"Hi,"

"Hi, yourself."

"How's the case," she asked. She always asked that first.

"I feel like a miner,' he moaned. "Dig, dig, dig."

"Did you find anything new today?" she asked with real
interest. She did not ask out of politeness. She knew how much his
work meant to him.

He did not feel like being serious, however. Not tonight. "Oh,
sixteen tons, but I'm not sure what it all means. Since all my
sources have dried up here, I might as well come on back and finish
in the comfort of my own home." He took a deep silent breath and
plunged in. He had been practicing saying this all day, he might as
well get it over with. "I've missed you, Scully."

There was a pause on her end. But not too long. Very gently,
and with sincerity, came the reply he hoped to hear. "I've missed
you, too." He felt the butterflies make a bombing run. When he
didn't respond right away, she continued as though she felt their
conversation was getting too serious, "It's been boring here."

He sighed. Okay, he was back on safe ground again. Back to
their normal word play. He felt himself smile roguishly. "Well," he
replied, "I'll just have to see what I can do about that." As soon
as he said it, he knew that, following his previous admission, the
statement had meant a lot more than he intended, a lot more than he
intended but not a lot more than he truly felt. Off into the
quicksand again.

Her voice was slightly unsteady when she finally spoke. "Tell
me when your plane's due in and I'll have dinner ready at your
place."

He almost gasped. Her voice had been like velvet. "You don't
have to do that," his voice said but his tone said, "I'd like
that," and he knew she could tell the difference.

"No trouble," that velvet voice came back at him.

Nervously, Mulder shifted the phone to his other ear in an
attempt to keep his idle left hand from shaking. He didn't need to
refer to his itinerary. He had memorized it days before."I'm taking
a commuter plane out of here tomorrow morning at eight. I've got a
long layover in Denver but I've got to stop by the field office
there to brief them. I'm booked on American flight 405 arriving at
National Airport at eight fifty-two."

There was a pause and he could visualize her writing at least
some of that down.

"I could meet you," she offered.

He did not think he could handle that. "No, just wait at the
apartment," he said slowly. "I wouldn't want to make a scene in
public." He gulped. Why had he added that last bit? It might have
been a joke once. Meant too much now.

Then he heard, he swore he heard, a sigh.

The fact that he had pleased her so much, pleased him, and he
hummed a pleasurable note which sent the air vibrating up in his
sinuses to come out as a sort of a buzz. "I got you a present," he
hinted.

"Oh, another video of football highlights or one of those, 'My
parents went to Colorado and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' t-
shirts?"

<Hey, the t-shirt is a good idea,> he thought. <Have to pick
up one of those when he got to Denver.> What he said, though, was,
"You'll see." A comfortable pause. "Everything all right with you?"
he asked.

"Nothing having you back won't solve," she announced,
uncharacteristically.

<Now there's a high,> Mulder sighed silently, enjoying the
tingles in his spine. <Who needs a burn?>

"I'll be there unless the pilots go on strike," he told her.

After that, what more was there to say? It was time to stop
before the conversation started getting maudlin. "Got to go." He
paused. "See you soon, Scully."

"Same here, Mulder," she replied.

***

That night, sleeping in the bed under the eaves in Richard
Charles' house, Fox Mulder dreamed. The sedative did not repress
the REM cycle, but he found his dreams were harder to recall in the
morning. Much as he hated taking drugs of any kind, he had to admit
that, if he had had nightmares during the past month, he did not
remember them. This night he dreamed of Dana, he remembered that.
He did not remember, however, that in his dream she was crying.

***

At two in the morning three men in dark suits burst into the
former motel room of FBI Special Agent Mulder and accosted a sleepy
traveling salesman and the waitress from the Waffle House. Not
entirely stupid, the three did not shoot anyone but took some
credit cards, jewelry and cash to make the whole business look like
a robbery and then quietly disappeared.

The big man called his boss a few minutes later. "Damn it,
Severnson. He wasn't there. He'd checked out. Now what are we going
to do?"

A more controlled voice answered. "I had the airpark watched
just in case. Wherever he is, he didn't leave today and he still
has reservations on the morning flight . You'll just have to make
Mr. Mulder's acquaintance more publicly. I have some contacts.
It'll work out just fine."

***

Fox woke at five-thirty and stared at the darkness beyond the
window. On medication he usually slept longer, but not this
morning, not today. He would see Scully by nightfall and, since he
would lose two hours for time zone changes, the time should go by
quickly, though, he knew, not fast enough. The house was still
silent, so he should not get up, not just yet, another disadvantage
of staying in a private home. He turned over, burrowing into the
soft mattress and listened to the rain and the wind and feeling the
slight draft from the window. The weather had changed.

Waiting for the morning, Mulder replayed his conversation with
Scully the night before and marveled at his daring. What was he
walking into? He fought down the old panic and focused on the
feelings that washed over him. He felt suddenly aroused, but
pleasantly so, like the afterglow from sex. Damn, he'd be glowing
all day at this rate. If he was going to be infatuated with Dana he
was going to have to deal with this or lose that fine, detached FBI
demeanor. It was that sort of thing that would get them split up.

Suddenly, he realized that being separated from her for so
long, and being mentally and physically unchallenged by this
assignment, were probably all attributing to the level of hormone
activity he was experiencing. When he got back on a good case with
Scully at his side, Scully being cool and controlled, he would be
fine. But would he lose his feelings for her? No, he did not think
that would ever happen, but maybe he could deal with them a little
better and not let the whole world know what was for her alone.

The End (Follow this with the revised version of Windsinger's
MEMORIES, 7/95.)

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About the series: REVELATIONS

'Revelations' takes place in the latter half of the first
season, after FIRE and after TOOMS ('I wouldn't put myself on
the line for anybody but you, Mulder.') but before the
ERLENMEYER FLASK. In the world of Revelations, the X-Files
have never been closed, Scully has not been abducted, and most
of the dark events of the second season never occur. Or, if
Fate cannot be averted and these events must come to pass,
they happen sometime in the future.

1. THE BOX (On Ftp.cs.nmt.edu)
2. THE VACATION (This is just a working title so far. I only
have a vague outline about this one.)
3. THE ABDUCTEE (Posted end of June 95)
4. MILE HIGH (Situated in time before MEMORIES but please
read after MEMORIES. Released right after THE ABDUCTEE.)
5. MEMORIES (On ftp.cs.nmt.edt parts 01, 02, 03. Note: There
is another story on this site with extension .TXT which
is not mine. Sorry about the identical titles. I try to
check these things out.)
6. JUST THE TWO OF US: Under construction (August '95?).
7. SKUNKED AGAIN: probably. Great title, though.
8. REVELATIONS: May become a pre-quel to THE BOX. This is
germinating in my brain cells.

Not in this series:
DO NOT GO GENTLE (on ftp.cs.nmt.edu)
DELIVER US FROM EVIL (posted 4/17)
WALKERS (working title: There's already a fan fiction called
'Walker'.) Coming late in the summer. Really long!

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"Goodbye," said the fox,
"And now here is my secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
What is essential is invisible to the eye."
A. de Saint-Exupery