Year's End By Thea thassalia@yahoo.com Because the fabulous haphazardmethod had a birthday, a little X-Files prezzie for her. Season Four. Lateish. Because I'm lazy, I haven't gone back to review any of the canon I'm riding roughshod over. All mistakes my own. Thanks to kernezelda for the suggestions and support. PG-13 ****** "She came up into the woods by herself, at night. Didn't tell anyone where she was going, just left after having dinner at her mother's. We found her car the next day." The deputy didn't have gloves on, and he rubbed his hands together, blowing on them for warmth. The noise echoed in the stillness of the clearning. Snowflakes landed on the brim of the deputy's hat, darkening the felt to a tobacco brown. Mulder leaned heavily on the foot going uphill, trying to maintain his balance in slippery shoes, trying to watch Scully without hovering. A four hour plane ride, and she'd barely said more than Happy New Year, and turn off the overhead light. She hadn't even complained about being pulled away from the last day of her holiday, last day with family, just showed up at the airport in a dark work suit and a white overcoat, which she still wore, no time to change clothes at the motel before dusk settled. Deputy Riik had met them at the airport. The storm had just started, he'd said. If they wanted to see the scene before the snow eradicated any traces of evidence, it had to be now. Scully wore leather gloves, but her coat hung open, loose and lax like a woolen blanket. She didn't bother to clutch it tight around her body. There was a time when her coats used to fit her. Now, standing in the thin winter light, snow falling onto her hair, she looked like a child lost in her mother's clothes. Her hair shone copper bright, crimson, the only spot of color in the landscape, but the wet of the snow dulled it, weighing it down so that it matched the line of her shoulders, slumped under the coat. She looked too tired to hold herself in, hold herself up. "Yep, the tracks lead up to here, Agent Mulder." The deputy interrupted his thoughts. Riik was young, trying to cover his age by wearing a few days growth of heavy beard. His eyes were dark, the hat shadowing his features. "Snow's covered 'em up, but I can show you where they stopped at least." "The dogs found her scent?" Mulder asked absently. Deputy Riik nodded. "She had reported threats from her ex-husband before she disappeared," Scully's voice was low, and she didn't turn to look at the deputy. It wasn't a question. She'd read the report on the plane. "Yeah, but Mark's a decent guy. He's havin' a rough time. The divorce hit him hard and he was just bein' an asshole about her new boyfriend." "I don't think threatening his former wife counts as him simply being an asshole." The expletive was thin in her mouth, prim and free from irony. The deputy turned to Mulder, a pleading look on his face. Scully sighed, weary, and scuffed the flat sole of her high heel against the covering of snow on packed ground. Mulder wanted to say her name, have her turn her head so he could see the hollow cheekbones, the way they negated the perfect makeup and haircut. This was a new form she'd taken on, growing into her beauty and her skin as her body ravaged itself. She made him think of consumption victims, Victorian women flush with fever, dying in their full glory. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. "I'll hike further into the woods with Deputy Riik," he offered, trying for conciliatory. "Why don't you go back to the station, review the evidence they've collected?" She did turn then, leveling a flat gaze at him, barely acknowledging the officer. "Fine," she said, turning back and picking her way down the hill towards the car. She had just passed him when she slipped suddenly, flailing, a foot out of his reach. He overcompensated, grabbing for her, clunking his head against her shoulder, wrist- bone striking her mouth. He slipped, sliding in the snow, his slick-bottomed dress shoes useless on the ground. He landed in his knees, coming down hard. "Fuck," she muttered under her breath, catching her balance against a sapling. He winced at the word, she was so very rarely anything less than professional, articulate. It wasn't like her to give in to frustration, especially in front of someone else. "Fuck," she said again, louder this time. Dirt edged the bottom of her coat, damp and heavy with the snow. She put her fingers to her lip, bringing them away bright with blood. Mulder sat back on his heels, ignoring the cold seeping in through his pants. He looked up at her, brushing his hands together to get rid of the dirt, the snow and the small bits of gravel embedded in his palms from the fall. "Scully," he started, but she faced towards the road and made her way to the car without further incident. "Agent Mulder, here." The deputy held out his hand, helped to haul Mulder back to his feet. "You still want to see where we found the blood?" "Yeah," he said, absently waiting until he heard the sound of the engine turning over, the way that noise filled the still clearing, then forced the weight of his focus back to the problem at hand. Margie Coleman had disappeared a week ago, three days after Christmas, leaving behind blood, signs of a struggle and absolutely no other conclusive evidence as to what had happened. Tracks led into the woods, but not back out. The photographs and the reports suggested that she'd been plucked away from the spot where she'd last stood. Couldn't be accounted for, said the police reluctantly, people left traces behind, especially in the woods, said the coroner. Mulder had read through pages, alone in the basement, the halls dark and quiet, empty at the holidays. He had sifted through the photos and the histories and the convoluted and messy romantic entanglements of Margie Coleman, Mark Coleman and Buddy Rayburn, keeping himself busy. He spent an uncomfortable night at his mother's on Christmas, silently eating turkey and making excuses to leave early, to get back to the city. He found himself eager to get back to fights and threats and sugar in a gas tank. Back to the night Mark Coleman spent in jail thanks to a butcher knife confiscated by a scared patrolman on a flat empty stretch of highway at two in the morning. The only road to Margie's house and Mark said he just needed to make her understand. But Mark had been hunting the week of the disappearance, and witnesses vouched for him. Teenagers parking near the edge of the clearing had heard noises that they couldn't identify, had seen the flash of lights and something that couldn't have been gunfire, but no bullets or casings were found. Margie's beat-up hatchback was still parked at the bottom of the hill, offering up nothing more than empty fast food wrappers and a worn leather purse that held Margie's driver's license. "Show me where she disappeared." *** Scully's cheeks were flushed when he found her, hours later, hair a beacon in the window of the small coffee shop. She didn't look up as the bell over the door tinged, nor when he slid into the booth opposite her. There was a clear mug, empty now, next to her papers and he picked it up, sniffing. Coffee and something sweet and sharp. "Havin' a little afternoon tipple, Agent Scully?" "No one's used the word tipple since my great Aunt Mary Margaret died, " she said. There was a pen resting loose in her fingers. She'd tucked her hair behind her ears, and her glasses rested on the other side of the brown folder she was perusing. Meant she was scanning, not really reading, meant she probably didn't want to talk despite the potential foray of linguistic reprimand. "Gotta keep the old words fresh," he said, hopeful, jovial, but she didn't bite, didn't rise up and he pushed back in his seat, waving the waitress over for fresh coffee, bitter and black. "This is a waste of our time," she said quietly, folding the glasses carefully and looking up at him. Her lip was still swollen, and her skin was very white, the color in her cheeks a false positive, a shock. She'd said similar things before, but now the resonance was different, amberish and hard. A literal waste of the time she had. "Margie Coleman's gone," he said, unable to keep the sharp bite out of his voice. The waitress put the coffee down in front of him, and Scully shut the case file, folding her hands as carefully as her glasses. "No one knows what happened to her, and no one can explain what happened in those woods." "She died," Scully said softly, "Her ex-husband murdered her, or she froze to death, or maybe she wandered away so that she wouldn't have to be afraid of dying at the hands of someone she'd loved. There are plenty of explanations, but you just don't want to believe." She looked around the small bright diner, at the faces, the people speaking, sharing their lives, didn't look back to him as she continued, voice small and flat. "No one does. No one wants to think that there are some things that will never get answered. But there are." "You don't care about finding out what's happened to this woman?" He was shocked, angry at her suddenly, had enough training to know why, but he couldn't help himself. "It's a new year, Mulder, and I've made some resolutions." Her eyes were fever bright, smudged circles underneath, purple ash. "Like giving up, dismissing possibilities out of hand?" He heard the petulance in his voice, the wavering crack, and coffee spilled over the rim of the mug as he set it down with too much vigor. She looked him in the eye, not flinching. "Maybe. Yes." "So, all of this is just… a waste of time. This case, my work, your…" He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence, and the weariness set down in his shoulders, his neck, slumping him forward, blinking against hot tears of anger, against the future. She didn't bother to deny the hot allegations. "I'm going home in the morning," she said. "Why'd you bother to come at all, then?" She raised her slim shoulders in a shrug. "Margie Coleman disappeared," she started, mumbling a little, looking for her words. "and they wanted you to find her. I thought…" she ran her teeth over her bottom lip, opening up the cut, and she winced, pressed her napkin to her mouth. "If we came out here, they'd see us, understand, maybe focus more clearly on her husband." "Ex-husband," he murmured. "We can't help them," she looked back at him, then swept her eyes closed, breathing quietly. Anger banked for the moment, he stretch out his hand, tentatively, fingers against the bony nob of her thin wrist. "I can't help them." Scales and balance he thought, her skin warm under his touch. Different types of justice. He let his fingers circle her wrist, felt the beat of her pulse against his thumb. She turned her wrist and he let go, hand covering hers. Her thumb stroked the top of his hand, slowly and then she pulled away. Put her hands in her lap. Margie couldn't be saved. He knew that, had only wanted to offer up a possibility. But the trade off wasn't sound. False hope wasn't better than nothing, it was bitter and saccharine, broke down with radiation swiftness. "We'll leave in the morning," he said. "You don't have to," she started, but stopped at his expression. "Too much blood, " he said, feeling wooden and hollow. "And no other incidents. Mark's cousin was dead drunk the night Margie disappeared, and their old neighbor only saw Mark get into bed in the cabin. He might have fallen asleep. There could be ways…" She set her jaw, small chin defiant. "If I thought we could help, offer any insight, any expertise." Mulder slid out of the booth, not wanting to be there any longer, unsure if it was justification or truth or both. Neither. Something else he couldn't face right now. He dug a few dollars out of his pocket and dropped them onto the table, chest tight like a storm, pressure sensitive and full. "I'll see you at the motel," he mumbled, and pushed away, walked out the door. The snow was falling heavily now, the flakes fat and white. The sky darkened in the background, the shift from afternoon to night seamless in the absence of sun. He shivered in the cold, and looked through the window, squinting against the glare of the bright lights inside the diner, the words on the glass. Scully bent her head over the file, open again now. She'd put her glasses back on, and the picture of Margie laughing and smoking a cigarette in a local bar, stared back up at her. She pressed at her lip, worrying the cut, but she didn't look back up. He walked back to the motel in silence.