From: Margi Kleinjan Subject: A Glimpse Of The Future Date sent: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 19:26:21 -0000 Title: A Glimpse Of The Future Author: Daria Rating: PG-13 Classification: VRA Summary: A tragic event changes Mulder and Scully's lives forever. But maybe it could be stopped. Disclaimer: The lyrics aren't mine. The characters - they're not mine. *****NOTHING IS MINE*****. Except 'the people', 'the woman' and 'the man'. Great, huh? Notes: I don't know why I'm bothering to write this, but it's cold outside and I'm bored. Actually, I do know why I'm writing this - it's cos Nicole dared me to. So here you are, Nicole - role reversal. A Glimpse Of The Future By Daria "Don't do that." Scully snapped. "Don't do what?" Mulder took his eyes off the road for a second to assess his partner's expression. "Keep your eyes on the road. Stop tapping your fingers like that." Mulder knew better than to argue. "Sorry." He said, instead. Scully leaned back and stared blankly out of the window at the passing midnight city lights. "It's getting misty." Mulder said. "Yeah." "The weather forecast was for storms." "Yeah." Mulder glanced at her again. "Are you all right?" "Yeah." Scully snapped out of it. "I'm fine. Just watch what you're doing." "Okay." They drove on in uncomfortable silence for at least an hour more. Scully listened to her breathing, watched the condensation cloud up against the window pane and then slowly fade away. She had been a bitch since the second they got in the car. "Mulder... Are you okay?" "I'm fine. Are you?" Emotionless. "Fine." Scully ran her finger through the fuzzy grey condensation. "Do you want me to drive for a while?" "No... no, it's okay. I'm okay." Even less emotion. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. Before." Scully remembered her cruel words as their journey began. Words cutting through everything from Mulder's family background to the way he drinks his coffee. She had told him angrily that Samantha was never coming back, and even if she did, there's no reason why she'd want anything to do with a loser like him, long lost sibling or not. Mulder hadn't said a word the whole time. He had watched the road, ground his teeth together, clenched his fists around the steering wheel. "I didn't mean any of it." Scully continued, hoping Mulder read the genuineness of her tone. "I don't even know why I said most of it -" "It's okay." Mulder said blankly. "No, it's not. It's... not. I..." This was getting nowhere. "I was just angry. We all say things we don't mean when we're angry." "It's not the fact of what was said which upset me, Dana." Mulder said, finally showing emotion. "It's the fact that *you* said it." Scully pressed her lips together and pulled in air through her nose. "I didn't mean it." She whispered again. Mulder was silent. The mist was fading a little and spots of rain were falling onto the windshield with clean clear taps. "You can't really think that I meant what I said?" Still silent. "I didn't mean to hurt you..." "I don't believe that you undermined my work, my family, my beliefs, my... my *life* - without hurtful intentions." Scully paused. "Okay, so I meant to hurt you. But that doesn't mean that I don't love you." She took a deep breath. She hadn't meant to say *that*, that's for certain. "You don't love me. You don't love anyone. You're incapable of it. Ice Queen, right?" She braced herself for the long, hard ride ahead. she told herself, . But Mulder was making her feel worse. He wasn't speaking. He was sitting there in defiant, superior, not-stooping-to-*your*-level silence. "Ice Queen." She repeated, the syllables bringing back many a whispered comment she wasn't supposed to hear - or maybe she was; gossip overheard in the bathrooms; sneers; evil childish laughter... And then she was crying. So few times had she let Mulder see her cry, and every time he had wrapped his arms around her and all the cold memories went away, for a short time. Her soundless tears matched the running of the rainstorm against the car windows. "I don't want to argue." Mulder said, finally. "Not tonight." Scully's brow crinkled. "Why not tonight?" Mulder didn't reply, and instead he handed her a clean handkerchief. "I accept your apology." He said, frowning at the windscreen which the wiperblades weren't quite clearing properly. Scully blew her nose; an ugly sound. "This storm isn't getting any better, we might have to stop." Mulder said. "Maybe we should - to be on the safe side." "I didn't mean that... that Ice Queen stuff." Mulder's grey-blue eyes darted to her profile for a few seconds. "It's okay." It was as though their conversation had descended into a polite one between strangers. One statement, one universal answer - 'I'm fine' - 'it's okay' - 'sorry' - Scully watched the wiperblades for a moment longer. "I guess we're even." She said, seconds later, wondering if she had left the pause too long to continue the conversation. She turned her head to see him, and his eyes turned on her, and in that moment a million different things were sparked in the lives of so many different people. There was more than just air between Mulder and Scully - there was much, much more. There was heat and there was feeling and there was love. Slightly less noticeably, the heavy rain and hail stopped pounding against the glass - things were suddenly so quiet again. The mist was gone, and as Scully's eyes flickered away from Mulder just for a second to see out of the now clear windscreen, her entire life flashed before her eyes. Losing concentration for a split second on these winding, cliff-face roads was dangerous enough. But falling in love during a heavy storm was probably fatal. Scully could hear a screaming voice yelling Mulder's name. It was hers. He looked back out and saw the hairpin bend he was about to miss. His numbed foot felt around blindly for the brake pedal but stumbled upon the accelerator. The car lurched forward, the tyres losing their grip on the frictionless road. At that speed, the roadside barrier was inevitably going to be broken. Mulder and Scully sped through it and out into the cool night air. For one single second, the car stood still, waiting, just waiting for gravity. As so often happens in intense moments of fear, love, *emotion*, words appeared in Scully's head without reason. Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us, only sky That so much was true. Nothing below, nothing above, nothing in between. The car fell. Scully's eyes were jammed open, her mind perversely forcing her to take in every sickening detail. "I'm going to die." Scully said. "Not tonight." Mulder said, for the second time that evening, and then Scully could hear nothing but the whistling in her ears and the music in her mind. She had sat through mindless action movie after movie - cars falling from cliffs, exploding in a molten ball of flame on impact - she could see no way out from this fate. The drop wasn't as bad as she had anticipated. It wasn't quite as steep, once the car hit the grassy slope down. The car skidded through the mud, down and down, forwards and back and sideways and nothing Mulder tried was making any difference. Then there was the road below. The main road. The busy night highway. Scully's movie-drugged mind imagined a large petrol-silo truck, moving at just the right pace for them to slide sideways into - no way out - quick burning death. The catherine-wheel style movement of their vehicle as it careered down the hill had attracted the attention of the oncoming traffic. It slowed, it gaped, horns were beeped but no crunching metal sounds were heard. Mulder and Scully went straight across the six lanes, upsetting many vehicles without even touching them. Why were they so out of control?? Why had they barged through a barrier, zoomed past so many obstacles without any sign of hinderance? What cruel twist of fate had ordered them to be finally travelling down a final slope, past the road, and into the dark unseen trees? :( Scully came to with the smell of blood and petrol. She was alive. She could feel her feet. Her injuries were minor. Mulder was alive. Sure, he was hurt pretty bad, but it had taken Scully hour-long seconds to pluck up the courage to look at him. His eyes were open, and blinking, and his hand reached for hers. "You're okay, Mulder." She said, reassuringly. "We'll get you out of here and you'll be fine." "Let me hold you, Scully." "There isn't time." Scully said, clasping his hand and assessing the situation. "Can you smell the petrol?" "Please, Scully. You're going to be okay. But I need you to hold me." Scully's face fell as she realised what Mulder was implying. She remembered the way he had told her they mustn't argue that night. Not tonight. Not this night. They had hit a tree. They would have gone straight through it if they had been made of something more substantial. Glass was shattered over Mulder, he was bleeding everywhere, possibly - probably - injured worse than she could tell. "Scully." She undid her seatbelt and climbed across the fragmented glass to rest her head against Mulder's chest. His arms encircled her. Arms which were rich with deep red blood and made Scully more and more anxious for his survival. "Are you hurt?" She asked. "I'll be fine." "Seriously, Mulder. Where are you hurt? There's a road just up there. I can get help and you can *really* be fine. You know that." "Don't go." Mulder held her closer and she could almost hear the tears as they filled his eyes. "I won't." Scully vowed, although the smell of petrol was intensifying and she feared for the worst. "We should try to get out." She whispered. "Both of us together. We can't stay here." "You'll get out alive." "You don't know that." She couldn't understand why he was behaving so strangely. Had he known? Foreseen this? Had he sat through insult after insult knowing that if he didn't make amends, those could be their last words? She closed her eyes and buried her face in his bloodstained sweater. "Don't worry." He said to her. "You are going to be fine." The rise and fall of his chest was slowing; his breaths were wheezes. He was losing too much blood, from somewhere, and Scully was afraid of the petroleum which filled her senses. She was sure he was no longer breathing. For a split second she held him closer and in that moment decided to stay, with him, even if this meant death. "Run." He said, startling her somewhat. His voice was a whisper but was highly audible. "Run away, Dana." :( "Can you help me? You have to help me." She fell to her knees in the grass in front of the people who had seen their car fall and had come to help. There was a wail of sirens too, but Scully couldn't tell if this was real or just the ringing in her ears. "He's in the car - I think he's still alive. You have to get to him." The voices weren't clear - nothing was clear. The ground was wet and it soaked through Scully's clothes while the people assessed the situation. A woman gave Scully her coat. It was too big, but it shielded her from the rain which had started to fall again in thin drizzly sheets. The woman sat with Scully, even though she must have been freezing and drenched, and Scully leaned on her like a child would lean against her mother, and listened to her soothing words. "What's happening?" Scully asked the young woman. "I'm sure they'll get to him. See? The paramedics are here." Scully cried. Things were taking such a long time, and she knew that time was the one thing Mulder didn't have. She could feel every singular drop of rain as it fell in her hair, and each tiny drop was like a thousand drops of acid. She wanted out. Through the confusion of gathering crowds, one voice was clearly audible. It was the scream of someone who was afraid, of someone who had seen something that would haunt them until their dying day. Scully knew it was the scream of the man who had found Mulder. With a sudden strength she was on her feet and running - sliding - down the hill to where the car had hit the tree. She didn't get far. Against her will, one of the men was dragging her away from the wreck. They - in turn - didn't get too far either. The blast from the explosion knocked them to the ground before they were very far away. The heat on Scully's back was no pain in comparison to the knife which split her heart when she thought of Mulder. She pressed her face deep down into the cold wet earth and soaked it with her tears. She could hear the flames licking at the sky and realised that was the end of everything. Her cruel words tore at her heart, deeper and deeper until she could do was dig her fingernails into her arm, again and again until she bled, for penance. Scully was not just carrying the pain of one loss. She was carrying the pain of the loss she had suffered in every lifetime. Every time this was acted out, the pain built up, and now it was insurmountable. And Mulder knew. :( "Don't do that." Scully snapped, and Mulder snapped back to reality. "Don't do what?" Mulder had been in a dreamworld for the past twenty minutes. No - scratch that - *nightmare*world. "Keep your eyes on the road. Stop tapping your fingers like that." Mulder clenched the steering wheel tighter, and then resolutely pulled over to the side of the road. "What are you doing?" Scully asked, still uncomfortable with the whole situation. "I'm too tired to drive. Maybe we should just stop here for the night." They stopped, and listened to the gentle patter of the thin sleety drizzle for a few seconds longer. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. Before." Scully said. "I didn't mean any of it. I don't even know why I said most of it -" "It's okay." Mulder said, taking her hand in his, and holding it tight. "No, it's not. It's... not. I... I was just angry. We all say things we don't mean...-" "Scully, really - it's okay." He reassured her. "Life's too short to worry about stupid arguments, isn't it?" "I'm sorry." "I know. And I forgive you." "I'm glad." Just as she had done in Mulder's nightmare, she slipped out of her seatbelt and held him close. He brushed his fingers across her soft hair and she closed her eyes. "That's nice." She said, snuggling down. "I do love you, Mulder." "I love you too." He confessed. "More than anything." And then he kissed her. Even though Scully didn't know exactly how, she knew that her life had just taken a turn for the better. As so often happens in intense moments of love, words appeared in her head without reason. Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us, only sky She smiled into his sweater. She had already found her heaven. the end Okay, so this had a slightly happier ending than 'Only A Shadow' (and an even thinner plotline), but I figured I didn't wanna make as many people cry this time (or maybe I did ::sadistic rubbing of hands::) Hope you liked.