DO NOT GO GENTLE
An X-Files filler for "Colony/End Game"
by S Esty
AKA: WINDSINGER@aol.com

Updated Author's note: OhMYGOSH this is the first time I've tried to post.
Wonder if it will work. If not I'll ask Gerri to help. This is out on AOL
but it's my first and I'm anxious to see what people think. I really like
reading what everyone else has written and I promise to be better about
getting back to the authors. (when do we have time to write with all this
to read/)

Original author's note: This is my first submission. I actually started big
and have a novel in the works called "Walkers" (5/6 done but needs
a partial rewrite) and a relatively short fantasy called "The Box"
which I thought I was going to finish today (2/26/95) but this idea
popped into my head so here it is. The timing and the distances are
probably off (see my timeline notes at the end if you are
interested) but I wanted to get it out of my head before I go crazy
and so I can finish "The Box".

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 (unisex personal
pronoun intended), for creating this marvelous stuff.

"Do not go gentle into that good night, but rage, rage against the
dying of the light." - Dylan Thomas

"If I should die now, it will be with the certainty that my faith
has been righteous. And if, through death, larger mysteries are
revealed, I will already have learned the answer to the question
that has driven me here..." The X-Files, Prologue, COLONY.

Dana Scully wrapped her fingers around the piece of paper
Assistant Director Skinner had given her. This was her lifeline.
Her only connection to Mulder. Though it was midnight she had
dialed the phone number of the only general she knew who owed she
and Mulder a favor. Mulder's activities had not made him very
popular with the military.
The sleepy voice on the end of the line was not pleased by the
hour or Scully's request.
"What's a civilian doing out there anyway? It's a restricted
area. And what do you need our help for? You people don't usually
work alone."
"No, sir, not usually."
The man sneezed and his voice began to sound more wakeful.
"Mulder, now I remember. He's the one that's not wound too tight,
if I remember."
Scully closed her eyes. Not now, she begged, but she had to do
her best to humor the man. "The brilliant ones often are," she
admitted.
"Send a crazy man to catch a crazy man, eh? Well, it worked as
I remember. Damndest thing."
"Sir," Scully repeated trying to bring the man back to the
subject. "We have reason to believe Agent Mulder has gone into this
area and, as I've said, we are asking if you could arrange to send
in some assistance for him, until we can get there."
"Do you people have access to information we don't have?" the
man asked suspiciously.
"Sir, I don't know everything Agent Mulder knows. He left
rather - suddenly. But from experience I know he never does
anything without a good reason." At least what he considers a good
reason.
The man muttered on the phone. "I don't know, Agent Scully.
You must know the situation is tense up there. I don't know if I
can spare anyone right away. You said he has an ATV? Those things
are pretty well equipped. If he stays with that, he'll be alright
for a couple of days."
"Sir," Scully corrected her voice beginning to shake with
frustration. "Sir, the information we have indicates that Agent
Mulder plans to leave his vehicle and proceed the last ten miles on
foot. He won't hesitate to do that. Also, we hear that a nuclear
fleet is on its way to the area and may be releasing nuclear
warheads directly under the area where Agent Mulder has gone. Sir,"
Scully blinked back tears and struggled to master her voice, "if
those warheads go off they will reduce the ocean in that area and
the ice above it to just so much water vapor."
The general was very displeased now. This was not a little
perk someone wanted. The only reason he had not hung up at the
start was because he remembered she was a pretty little thing and
with half a brain to boot. "You people are pretty well informed.
I'd like to know who's been talking."
"Sir," Scully began but hated the note of pleading desperation
she could hear in her voice which would not help her cause. There
was no time for this. Surrendering, Scully looked over at Assistant
Director Skinner who had stood by her side throughout the
conversation looking magnificently bloody and disheveled. He was
ex-Marine and could pull a few strings of his own. He took the
receiver from her hand.
His conversation with the General was long, but Scully could
not listen. Neither could she sit still. She put a kettle on the
stove for tea. She got out the box of medical supplies she kept at
Mulder's apartment for emergencies. He was a wonder at banging
himself up and Skinner's injuries would need some attention.
Finally, she heard him hang up. She appeared in the doorway of
the tiny kitchen a questioning, hopeful look on her face.
Skinner sighed. "I got a lukewarm commitment, but at least I
got him to agree to send in a reconnaissance group. Though they
won't start out until morning their time."
"That's hours away!" Scully exclaimed dismayed.
"It's the best he can do. I'll follow up in the morning from
here. I did get one concession," he looked at her intently. "You've
got a ride to Anchorage on a transport leaving from Quantico at ten
a.m. tomorrow. From there you can find something to Dead Horse."
Her face brightened, but he continued to look serious. "It's
possible we won't get too much action until we have someone up
there."
She looked at him her eyes misting in gratitude. "Thank you."
He seemed uncomfortable by the depth of the emotion in those
green eyes and looked instead at the alcohol and gauze in her hands
and sat down. "If you know how to use that stuff, you can patch me
up." She moved beside him to do just that. "Besides I have more to
tell you and the news is not encouraging."
"Seven days ago, the Navy lost contact with a charting
submarine in the area where we believe Agent Mulder has gone. They
believe that an unidentified craft seen in the water at that time
was responsible for disabling the ship. The area was searched
hoping that the sub was able to surface, but they failed to find
anything. After three days Naval experts came to the conclusion
that the ice was too thick for the sub to surface. Since then,
searches have been conducted strictly underwater."
Scully gently cleaned off the blood. That filled in some
holes. There was no doubt in her mind that Mulder would have sold
his soul to get there. She just hoped the price would not turn out
to be too high.
"The unidentified craft, the spacecraft," Skinner emphasized
reacting not at all to the sting of the alcohol on his cuts, "was
finally located two days ago by one of the navy's new unmanned
robotic mind sweepers that someone brought in to probe after all
other attempts had failed and after the other search parties had
been pulled. This prompted the dispatch of the fleet from
Anchorage. As far as the General knows, no plans have been made to
search the area above the ice again. It's been closed off."
That would hardly stop Mulder, Scully thought, but it meant he
had gone to a very lonely place with very little chance of his
being able to find assistance on his own if he needed it.
"Ironically," Skinner continued, "the day the spacecraft was
rediscovered is probably the day he met his contact." Skinner
gingerly touched his forehead. "A dangerous man."
Scully applied the bandaids and stood back. "You can be
dangerous man yourself."
"As I told, Agent Mulder," he answered. "That's life."
"And the morning after was when he lied to us and said he was
taking some time off," Scully said. And the morning he left that
damned farewell message on his computer.

Skinner left with instructions for Scully to get some sleep.
But she did not plan to sleep. Did not want to sleep. She aimlessly
cleaned up a few things in Mulder's apartment. Since he never spent
any time there, there was not much to clean. She never liked coming
home to a messy place after she was away. In this way she tried to
assure herself he would be coming home. She planned to leave soon
to go to her apartment to take a shower and pick up a few things.
Then she thought she would drive to Quantico, Virginia and haunt
the halls of the medical facility where she had often taught until
it was time to head for the airfield to catch the transport for
Alaska.
But mental and physical exhaustion had taken its toll. She
made the mistake of sitting down on his very comfortable couch,
savoring the good familiar smell of him, putting her head back, and
allowing the tears of fear and frustration to finally slide down
her cheeks. And she fell asleep.
At some point, she did not remember when, she had awakened
enough to pull down and wrap herself in the afghan from the back of
the couch, the afghan her mother had given Mulder for Christmas. As
she slept, she shivered and pulled the afghan closer.

Scully was cold, so cold. The pain of the cold had gone almost
entirely now from her extremities. She could not feel her hands or
her feet. The cold had crept into her bones and icy fingers were
reaching into her brain. Her eyes, her face alone felt hot.
Burning. Her heart moved sluggishly in her chest. Throb. Pause.
Throb. Pause.
"....if I should die now..." came the whisper into her mind.
But the whisper was not hers, it was Mulder's voice. What's
this talk about dying, Mulder?
"Scully...my faith...has been righteous..." Such a lost and
lonely epitaph. No one to hear it. No one to remember what happened
there.
Suddenly realizing that the cold she felt was his, Scully felt
her eyes grow huge with terror. He was slowly freezing to death.
Alone. So totally alone. Expecting no rescue for he thought he had
covered his tracks well. Almost too well, Mulder. Maybe too well.
Scully fought against the dark, felt the biting cold on her skin as
she labored with all her strength towards the spot from which she
could hear his spirit whispering, where she could sense he lay
alone on the ice. His coat was open and he wore no gloves. If he
lived, he would probably lose the use of his hands. His beautiful
hands. But she could not help him, could not touch him, could not
warm him.
"Mulder," she begged as if to a little child. "Listen to me,
Mulder. Put your hands inside your coat. Under your arms if you
can."
Slowly, she heard his voice answer hesitantly. "Scully?" He
seemed to have heard her. His whisper for the moment was stronger.
He shivered and moved his head weakly searching for her blindly in
the cold dark. Scully stared at him and wept. His face, his eyes
were burned and mottled but not from cold. She had seen something
like it before on the night another man had died and Mulder, that
time, had been returned to her.
Oh, God, I can't do this, she cried, but then struggled to
master her fear. Hysterics would not help him. Steeled against
despair, she started again and repeated again and again about his
hands. It was all she could do. Finally, she sensed movement.
Awkwardly, because his hands were little more than two blocks of
ice, he moved them and hugged himself with little strength, but it
was enough to bring his hands in towards his body. That one small
action seemed to exhaust him. His image began to fade as did his
brief moment of consciousness.
"Scully?" he asked his whisper fading. "I want to
believe...Are larger mysteries revealed ... by death?"
"Poetry, Mulder? At a time like this?" The man could be so
infuriating at times. "Concentrate on staying alive. Please..."
A movement distracted Scully. She looked up and on the frozen
horizon, drawing closer like a leaf on the wind, she saw a figure,
not the alien as she had expected, but a dark angel who touched her
fingers to her lips and blew the dying man a kiss.
"Mulder," she begged reaching out for him, trying to stand
between him and the wraith but being unable to move. "Don't go. 'Do
not go gentle into that good night,'" she cried, "'but rage, rage
against the dying of the light.' Hang on. Stay with me, Mulder.
Help is coming. I am coming. You are not alone."
But the dark angel came nearer to him. And bent down to enfold
him in her chilly wings...

Scully woke up with a start, screaming, only to realize the
phone was ringing and had been ringing for some time. She scrambled
awkwardly, wiping as she did the tears from this face. As she
reached for the phone, Scully hoped, but did not expect, the call
to be from Skinner. Two hours they had said from Eisenhower field
at Dead Horse to the coordinates once they got started. And then
they had to search and finding one man on foot in all that ice and
dark would take time. Might take more time then they had.
Scully picked up the phone cautiously. "Hello?"
There was no pause on the end. Whoever it was did not think it
strange to hear a woman's voice answer Mulder's phone at four in
the morning. "Dana? Dana, are you alright?"
At the first word, Scully had sensed who it would have to be,
but still it was so improbable. "Melissa?"
"Dana," the voice said anxiously, "what's happened to Fox?"
Scully was so rattled she did not even take time to remind her
sister not to call her partner by his first name. She allowed
herself to sniffle and take a moment to compose herself so she
would be understandable. This was, after all, her sister and an
audible sniffle did not matter. "How did you hear there was
anything wrong?"
"Hear?" the voice on the other end of the line exclaimed with
concern. "How could I help but hear. You *sent*, Dana! Woke me out
of a sound sleep. I haven't heard you so clearly since the day you
fell out of that tree when you were ten and broke your leg."
"Melissa, don't be ridiculous..."
"Dana, deny what you will, but I always told you you could do
it. You were always stronger than I if you just weren't so afraid
to try."
Scully pulled the afghan closer. Her mother had dreams, always
had. Dreams that meant something. Her sister could see things.
Things that were not obvious. Things, one might say, which were of
the spirit. And when Dana and Melissa had been little girls her
mother swore that they talked often without either needing to say
a word. But after she had broken her leg, Dana had become too
afraid and closed off that part of herself, refusing to admit the
ability had ever existed. Except for sometimes. Like now.
"Why now?" Scully asked.
"You must have a need," her sister told her. "And you weren't
reaching for me. I just happened to hear you. You were just
reaching. Desperately. And there's only one person I can think of
that you would want to contact that badly. If you can't reach him
through normal channels, then I assume there's something very
wrong."
"You should work for the FBI, Mel."
"You know I don't like guns, Dana. Now give. Where's Fox? Is
there anything I can do to help?"
Scully gripped the phone. Help me live through this if they do
not find him, she thought but told her sister - New Age crystal
reader and sometimes faith healer - everything. Not everything, but
everything she needed to know.
"Why are you sitting around in Fox's apartment?" her sister
snapped after Scully had finished. The flare of anger was
unexpected coming from her California mellow sister.
"Fell asleep," Scully confessed. "Had a dream."
"Not a dream," her sister told her. "You know what is was.
Precognition."
"You saw?"
"Enough to recognize truth when I see it, Dana. Not the
details of truth, but the essence."
Scully's heart beat quicker. "Then he is alive."
"For the moment," she heard her sister say sympathetically,
"but he needs you, Dana. More than he's ever needed you. Between he
and death I see only you."
Scully remembered the wounds on his face. The burns on his
eyes and around his mucous membranes which she had recognized. She
remembered most of all what the investigator from the Infectious
Diseases Institute had told her about the retrovirus.
"Dana?" Scully heard her sister's voice from the receiver she
had forgotten she held.
"I've got a plane which leaves at ten," Scully assured her.
"Take an earlier one, Dana. Anyway you can." The voice was
definite. Scully had heard her mother use that tone before and her
sister, too, and they were always right. "God be with you, Dana. Be
with you both. Now get going."
Scully sat holding the receiver hearing the click of
disconnection. She moved dazed to Mulder's computer and sent
Skinner an email saying she was going to beg, borrow or steal her
way onto an earlier flight. Then catching up her coat, purse and
briefcase she fled the apartment and drove south towards Quantico.
She had no desire even to stop by her apartment for clothes. She
would buy whatever she needed. But as she drove down the pre-dawn
interstate, strangely hushed for Washington, the dream and her
sister's call became more unreal.
The treatment issue gnawed at her insides. The search and
rescue people would do little to treat hypothermia. Even wrapping
the victim in blankets would only halt further deterioration. They
would know warming needed to occur under controlled conditions.
They would airlift him to Dead Horse probably, to Eisenhower field
and Scully just knew how a military physician working in a tiny
independent clinic in the Arctic Circle would feel about taking
advice on the treatment of hypothermia from a civilian. She had to
get there herself and pray her professional credentials and
persuasiveness could convince them to do what needed to be done
even if it were against everything they had been taught.
Please, God, let me get this right.
She floored the accelerator.

The Navy corpsman looked at his passenger. She was a petite
woman, nice looking but tired and coolly detached as if everything
was being bottled up inside. She was like the widows he saw too
often who could hold themselves together just long enough to make
it through the funeral. But there was something more there. A
determination. Maybe it had something to do with her being FBI, or
so he had heard. Now she was sleeping and looked infinitely more
peaceful.
The corpsman went forward to sit in the cockpit with the pilot
and copilot. Besides the woman, they were the only ones aboard the
plane that was being returned to service at Eisenhower Field after
having had repairs made in Anchorage.
The pilot was setting down the plane's microphone as the
corpsman entered the cockpit. "They found him," he said.
"Who?" the corpsman asked.
"That Mulder. The FBI agent our passenger was asking about.
He's the one she's come to find, I guess."
"Is he alive?" The corpsman hated to have to break that kind
of bad news, but someone would have to.
"Yea, but not by much."
"When did they find him?" the corpsman asked glancing back
towards where his passenger slept.
"About an hour and a half ago." The pilot raised his voice
over the engine noise. It was an old plane. "She asked to be
informed immediately when he was found, but someone got mixed up
about what plane she was taking and they just found us."
"Yea," the corpsman agreed. "She wanted to know. Just before
she dozed off she made me promise to call her the minute we heard
anything. Should we do it?"
"Na, let her sleep. If it's bad news, which seems likely from
what they say, it may be the last sleep she'll get for a while. And
she can't do anything to help anyway. The chopper will land in
about thirty minutes and we'll be right behind it. We'll wake her
then. The docs at the base are good. If anyone can save this guy,
they can."

The End
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Timeline for Colony/End Game/Do Not Go Gentle

/*As true to the facts and hints given in Colony/End Game as I can
make it. I realize that for someone with the 'sight' a vision can
depict events which either have already taken place or have yet to
take place so times are approximate, but I had to start someplace.
All times in Alaska are EST+4 hr. All times in DC are EST. -
Windsinger*/

Day 1: The day the sub was disabled in the Beaufort Sea by the
alien craft which had landed about two weeks earlier 87 miles from
Dead Horse, Alaska. (Colony) Beaufort Sea is in the Arctic Circle
north of the border between Alaska and Canada. (FAR from
Anchorage.)

Day 2: (Evening) Scully is kidnapped. (End Game)

Day 2-3: Search parties search above and below the ice for evidence
of missing sub and space craft. Nothing is found.

Day 3: Experts determine that ice is too thick for the sub to have
had a chance to push through. Search of areas above the ice is
discontinued. Robotic mine sweeper begins search under the ice.

Day 3: (early morning) Mulder finds Scully kidnapped. Hostage
exchange is made between Scully and Samantha on the bridge in
Bethesda. (End Game)

Day 3: (afternoon) Mulder meets with his father. Samantha's body is
found. Fire in the research clinic. Mulder is treated for smoke
inhalation. (End Game) Alien leaves for Alaska.

Day 4: Sub punches through ice. Alien bounty hunter boards sub and
begin to torture and kill crew. (End Game) Time is unknown and
event details are suspect due to unreliable source of information;
however, since the alien seems to acquire the memories of the
person he has morphed into (e.g. the Mulder morph remembers he was
shot once) I am assuming the tale told by the crewman he is
impersonating is accurate.

Day 5: Robotic mine sweeper detects spacecraft.

Day 5: Atomic fleet leaves Anchorage for a spot 87 miles from Dead
Horse, Alaska in order to destroy the space craft. (End Game)

Day 5 (about 10PM): Mulder learns from Mr. X about missing sub but
only that sub and spacecraft are in the Beaufort Sea. (End Game)

Day 6 (am): Mulder must decide on a course of action, leave a
message for Scully on his computer, NOT cancel his papers, tell
Skinner and Scully he is taking a few days off, and do
investigation into the incident in the Beaufort Sea (like more
details on location and how he would get there). (End Game) (He
would want to investigate from Washington where he has connections
rather than wait till he is in Alaska where it would be more
difficult.) He would leave his apartment in the early morning since
he probably didn't sleep which would account for one paper left on
his doorstep (End Game seems to show two papers and in Washington
there is not a PM paper so that means two mornings he was not in
before Scully comes to his apartment.)

Day 6 (pm): Mulder takes commercial flight to Takoma Washington.
Not a direct route. If he left at 3pm he would arrive, with time
changes, by evening even if he had to get a connecting flight in
like San Francisco. (extrapolation from End Game)

Day 7 (am): Second paper is left on Mulder's door step
(extrapolation from End Game)

Day 7 (midnight to very early morning): Mulder takes military
flight to Dead Horse, Alaska. Probably with a stop in Anchorage.
Probably one time zone change (maybe two but I'm assuming one).
Arrives in Dead Horse, Alaska at noon. (extrapolation from End
Game). (Note it is cold in Washington which means February is a
good guess. That means it is probably nearly dark all the time that
far north.)

Day 7: (afternoon) Scully arrives at Mulder's apartment and finds
the newspapers and the message on the computer. Visits Skinner.

Day 7: (evening) Scully leaves light on to call Mr. X. Mr. X
arrives and has altercation with Skinner and learns Mulder's
destination.

Day 7: (noon) Mulder acquires the ATV in Dead Horse as soon as
possible upon arrival because he will be anxious to get on with it.
If the spot is 89 miles from Dead Horse that may be by sea. Over
land/ice this may mean at least 79 and maybe as many as 200 or more
miles. At 25 miles per hour max that means a trip of 5 to 8 hours.

Day 7: (about 6pm) Mulder must abandon the ATV by early evening and
begin walking the 10 miles to the coordinates (assumes hard going
or the ATV would have made it. About 3-4 hr).

Day 7: (approx 10pm:) Mulder arrives at sub and is abandoned on the
ice.

Day 8 (midnight Alaska time): Mulder dreams of hearing Scully.

Day 8 (about midnight EST time): Scully and Skinner call the
General to request a search of Mulder's destination and to arrange
passage for Scully on military transport at 10am.

Day 8 (4am EST): Scully has her dream. (With time zone changes
these would be the same time Mulder has his dream of hearing her.)

Day 8 (4:15am) Scully leaves for Quantico. Takes an earlier flight
about 6am. With time zone changes arrives in Anchorage about noon.

Day 8 (8am): Navy reconnaissance squad begin to travel to and
search the area for Mulder. They would have gotten the request
about six hours earlier. Why the delay? Maybe no one was available.
We know from End Game there has to be time for Scully to get up
there. Note: this is 3 days after the fleet left Anchorage. It is
a long way so there is still some time but not much.

Day 8 (2pm): Mulder is found on the ice by Navy. Taken by chopper
to Dead Horse where there is an ER; not a fancy one but an ER.
Obviously the ER in End Game is not in Anchorage.

Day 8 (4pm): Mulder arrives in Dead Horse (It's winter so it's
dark.) Time on the ice 10pm previous day till 2pm. (Time enough for
a good case of hypothermia and Scully needs time to get there.)

Day 8 (4:15 pm): Scully arrives in Dead Horse.

--------------------------------------------------------
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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