TITLE: "Keeping Time" (2/2)
BY: Ten
E-MAIL ADDRESS: kristena@ocean.com.au and/or
kristena@netconnect.com.au

xXx

However, what good was frozen time if the whole world had stopped?
The situation would be just as hopeless. She couldn't move Mulder.
The ambulance wouldn't be coming...

Then Scully looked up, out a window, and realised she could see
the tops of trees waving in the wind. She could hear birds. Life
was going on outside. The ambulance would arrive. Scully nearly
sagged with relief.

But how had this happened? Missing time? Aliens? Had she somehow
willed it? Had God answered her prayers, her desperate thoughts?
Had the song acted like some sort of spell or wish? Scully
remembered the feeling that had gone through her as she had sung
the second verse. How she gathered Mulder, her whole world, as
close to her as possible.

What if she had gathered up more than him at the same time? Not
just the physical, but the metaphysical?

The Greeks had believed that every person's life was a thread spun
by the Fates. What if time had threads too?

And somehow Scully knew that she was holding the ones in this
room.

If so, could she control them? And could she release them when
needed? What if she was locked in some sort of delusion in her
mind, traumatised to the point where she believed this was real
because the alternative was too difficult to face, and she was
neglecting CPR because of it?

Unsure if events and grief had sent her out of her mind, and, also
wanting proof, she loosened her grip on Mulder a little.

Mulder's chest slowly, sluggishly, rose. Blood resumed its course
out of his body - she could feel and see more on the bandage, warm
against her fingers. She heard the clock give a drawn out 'tick'
as she stared at him. Reluctantly she tore her eyes away just long
enough to seek more proof. Yes, the bird's wings were moving.

Her partner *was* alive. Relief and joy nearly overwhelmed her.
But...

Every breath and every progressive moment in time would put him
closer to death.

So to save him, she actually had to halt time again, stopping his
heart and his lungs. If she could.

Scully quickly squeezed, resuming her full grip, and everything
ceased.

"Oh my God..." This was really happening.

She was the three Fates rolled into one.

Wait - one sister spun the thread of life, another measured it and
the final sister cut it.

She was their antithesis. She had stopped the spinning, denied the
measuring and NO ONE, nothing, was going to sever this thread.

But the stretched out stillness and the angst of waiting were
eerie. Thoughts jostled in her head. Her breathing was so loud.
How can I still be breathing? Am I out of time but not out of
space? She felt herself start to panic, then made herself focus on
Mulder instead. He was what mattered. The laws of physics didn't.

However, that set off more worries... Is it all right to leave a
tourniquet on a 'frozen' man? Should I try to release it? Can I?
And I might undo this whole thing if I try. CPR was impossible
like this too, but at least she would be doing *something* while
waiting.

Scully laughed. 'Doing something?' She certainly was.

She sat on the floor and continued to hold time by the throat.

And she thought of so many things that she wanted to say to Mulder
but never had, and so many things they hadn't done.

Eventually the wail of an ambulance siren could be heard in the
distance. It came closer and closer, louder and louder, until she
could hear the vehicle pull up outside.

Scully took a deep breath. "Okay, Mulder, are you ready? We're
going back." Then she loosened her grip, enough to release the
room, putting it back in alignment. The bird flew on without
missing a beat, flapping out the window, raising a ruckus all the
way, but it and the clock's tick tocking were all background to
the weak breathing coming from the man in her arms.

Two EMTs entered the room. She could see the surprise on their
faces when they realised that Mulder was still alive. But they
quickly set to work.

However, even with help now here, even with the aid they were
administering and the equipment they had, Scully knew there was a
strong possibility that her partner could still die. The distance
back to the hospital... Hopefully the treatment he was getting now
and would get on the way would be enough to sustain him. If his
breathing or heart did stop, there was a better chance of reviving
him.

If need be, she would freeze time inside the ambulance until it
reached the hospital. Just the back of the ambulance. The physics
major in her said that freezing time in a room was one thing, but
halting it *inside* a moving vehicle...? What sort of effect would
that have: the ambulance moving while the suspended rectangle of
time didn't, resulting in it tearing through the metal or bursting
out the back like a box falling out of a truck? Or tearing apart
the very fabric of time and space?

Just pray. Don't look for trouble. But if it comes, be ready to
halt it in its tracks.

xXx

Century General Hospital

Mulder had held on.

He was roused briefly in the Recovery Room but drifted off again
and had been asleep now for several hours. The artery and wound
had been sewn up and bandaged, and Mulder had been given enough
units of blood via transfusions. So he would recover very quickly
now.

Scully sat at his bedside. There was plenty of time to think, but
her brain kept shying away from what had happened. And she let it,
wanting to focus on Mulder's condition, on the fact that he was
here and alive.

During this time, one of the field office agents arrived to take
her statement - AIC Blackwell knew there was no way Scully would
be leaving the hospital any time soon - and to report back about
Mulder's health. Scully was not being charged with the shooting.
The field agent also had some news. Gordy's cabin was being
searched. A journal had been found. Even a quick skim through the
pages at the scene had provided insight into Gordy's mindset.

The journal would be photocopied and a copy delivered to Scully to
examine. She had been one of the first officers on the scene and
Blackwell's team wanted her specific input on its contents.
Something else to keep her mind occupied.

She and her partner were alone in the room when he stirred.

Most times when Mulder woke up in a hospital, he could remember
right away the reason why. True to form, this time he blinked at
Scully and muttered, "Gordy..." He glanced down at his injured
arm, which was in a velcro sling. But there was one detail that
creased his brow. "I'm alive?" he asked uncertainly, wincing as
pain started to register in his mind.

"Yes, you are. Very much so."

Scully used the intercom to ask the nurses on duty for his
medication. One had been preparing to come anyway, having seen by
the data on a monitor at the nurses' station that Mulder was
awake. Scully then gave him some water while waiting for the nurse
to arrive, partly because he needed a drink and partly to distract
him from the pain.

Mulder was still puzzling over the fact he was alive. "But... I
thought - the distance... Did the ambulance achieve warp factor
nine or something to get to us?"

"Not quite," Scully hedged. "Your arm will need some physical
therapy, but it will be fine. It's in a sling to stop you doing
anything foolish until it heals properly, and you're on
antibiotics in case of infection."

The nurse came in. After asking Mulder some questions and
performing some checks, she delivered the painkiller via his IV,
then exited. His eyelids drooped as it took rapid effect and
Scully tried to hide her relief.

"It's okay. We're got plenty of time. Sleep."

Mulder was 'drifty' for what was left of the afternoon and most of
the evening, mainly because of the pain medication, which would
make him nap for an hour or two each time. The nurses were able to
rouse him easily enough when required. There were checks that
needed his conscious input, like having him wiggle his fingers to
check his motor skills and seeing if he could feel when his
fingertips were being touched. Then he would quickly fall asleep
again.

Scully spent the time studying the photocopied pages of Gordy's
journal and additional information provided by the crime team
agents when they visited. The latter was news from interviews with
Gordy's ex-workmates and rangers, which backed up and expanded
Gordy's notes and character.

And she spent time watching Mulder. When her thoughts started to
slide towards what she had done, she would hastily focus on the
pages again.

xXx

The time came when Mulder was alert enough to have a proper
conversation. He looked balefully at the sling. "How long am I
stuck with this thing?"

"You have to wear it for a week, perhaps two. Even in bed."

"You're kidding..."

"No, I'm not. The doctor doesn't want you to risk opening up those
sutures. And I don't want that happening either!"

He pouted, then asked her what had happened with the case.

Scully said, "Blackwell's team searched Gordy's cabin. They found
a hidden journal which brings to light quite a few things. It
isn't a 'day to day' journal as such. It had a more specific
purpose. He called it his 'unicorn' book." She indicated the pages
on the bedside table. "The forest background in the unicorn
paintings is a real glade in the park. A very isolated one, hard
to get to. Gordy and Rob Durie stumbled across it one day. It
isn't mentioned in the guidebooks. The expense to get a decent
trail and access to it was too much. But Gordy would go there
often to paint."

"Must have been quite a place for him to go to the effort of
hauling his supplies there then." Mulder got the profiler look in
his eyes again, any tiredness he was feeling immediately banished
to a corner. "Lemme guess. Instead of having a close encounter
with a UFO there, he thought he had one with a unicorn instead?"

"He thought he did. Even before the first 'sighting' he recorded
in his notes, he'd always had an obsession with them, and had been
putting them in the paintings he was doing of the grove, because
it seemed 'right'. His diary and the rangers and guides all
mentioned his 'thing' for unicorns - 'Unicorn Man' was the
nickname his work colleagues gave him. They didn't know about his
'sightings' though." Scully paused briefly. "I think Gordy wanted
to see unicorns so much and was so into his fantasy world that he
*made* himself see them. Unless he was high while out there. His
notes show he believed that the grove was a sacred place that the
unicorns could cross over into at will from their own universe."

Mulder chuckled. "Unicorns... In a national park. Sheesh. And
people think *I'm*..." He trailed off and his expression and tone
became more serious. "And those people died because of his
obsession. He would have wanted to be the keeper of the grove and
guardian of the unicorns."

Scully nodded. "To keep the 'secret' safe he tried passing the
grove off as a place in his imagination."

"I bet he grew more and more obsessed and protective as time went
on..."

"Yes. His sightings and notes became more frequent and frenzied.
He wanted to keep the secret safe, but felt compelled to paint
them and show their beauty to others. They were bringing the money
in for him too."

"And Rob Durie and the hikers went tramping around in there or
were heading that way?"

"Yes. All the bodies have been found. Gordy didn't mention the
killings in his journal, but it looks like he caught up with them
on the way back to the marked trail and campsite. Durie and two of
the hikers were further back than the others. Gordy might have
thought up some ruse to split the hikers up, then pick them off -
with the five together in a group, the odds of him being
overpowered or someone escaping were high."

Mulder nodded. "And since Durie knew Gordy, he wouldn't have
thought anything of Gordy coming up to them... If Gordy had been
able to head them off before they reached the grove and convinced
them to go elsewhere instead, he probably then wouldn't have
killed them..." Mulder sighed.

"Something still under investigation is that no cameras or
photographic equipment have been found on the bodies or amongst
their equipment. It seems odd that no one was carrying one. One of
the field agents told me it was being looked into - the victim's
relatives were being asked to check the homes and possessions of
the deceased to see if they'd taken their cameras with them. So
there is the possibility that Gordy stole their cameras and the
films. Or that the hikers just weren't photo people..." Scully
theorised.

"And Gordy didn't want us and a whole search party violating the
place - the thought of it made him snap, otherwise he would have
bided his time and not risked attacking us at the cabin." Mulder's
good hand plucked at the bedsheets as he spoke.

Scully said, "It was so isolated out at the cabin I think he might
have tried to get rid of us and our car - probably into that river
- and then tell Blackwell or Lees that we never arrived..." There
was a pause. Scully tried to lighten the mood a little and also
satisfy her curiosity about an earlier comment. "Mulder, it
sounded like you don't actually believe in unicorns... I'm
shocked."

"Even I have limits, partner. Some mythical creatures are just
that - mythical. I think that even after I've read the journal and
been to the grove, I'll still believe that the unicorns were most
likely in Gordy's mind, if anywhere."

The profiler light dimmed in Mulder's eyes, tiredness taking over.

"Go to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."

He did. And she was.

xXx

Mulder was feeling stronger and was being more active in his
'requests' to be discharged. And for the last few hours he and
Scully had gone over information together that the crime-scene
team had brought to them.

Mulder said, "I've been thinking about Gordy leaving the bodies
where he did... You said they hadn't been dragged there from
elsewhere. They died there."

"And?"

"I'm wondering if he considered hiding them elsewhere. He knew all
the places - the victims might never have been found. But then
again, the search team would probably have looked in the glade
anyway, defeating the purpose."

"Plus defeating all that effort," Scully pointed out. "There would
have been the risk of him being caught in the act, trying to
dispose of five bodies. There's the time it would have taken. And
it would have been messy. Probably a trail of blood marking the
way and blood on him too. Even more than what was most likely on
him after the murders."

"True. With the bodies found, there was still the risk of the
glade being searched for the killer or clues. It doesn't look like
there's any evidence that Gordy tried to set up the crime to look
like Durie or a hiker did the stabbing. His glade had been
trespassed on. That was all that mattered to him."

Mulder blinked sleepily in the following silence. She could see
him make an effort to batter the sleep away. Something else was on
his mind. "Scully?"

"Yes?"

He took a deep breath. "What's wrong? There's something you're not
telling me. I can feel it - have been feeling it since I first
woke up in here." There was silence, during which she tried to
deliver a convincing denial, but couldn't manage it. Mulder said,
"Did I say or do anything that upset you when..." He swallowed,
then plunged on. "...in what I thought were my last few minutes on
this earth?"

"It very nearly *was* your last few minutes on this earth, Mulder.
That was quite upsetting enough. That's what it is. I'm getting
over the scare."

He just stared at her. He was not giving her an out this time. And
Scully remembered how she had felt when he was frozen in her arms,
and realised that she didn't want an out.

"Do... do you remember me singing to you?"

He thought for a moment, then said, "Yes. 'Time in a Bottle'."
There was a pause, a long look exchanged. "I feel the same way.
But if you don't want to -"

"It happened. It came true. Time stopped," she blurted out.

"What?"

"I... *I* stopped it," she said more firmly. Mulder was definitely
wide awake now, so she took a deep breath and proceeded to tell
him exactly what had happened.

When she had finished, he said, "So, it was sort of the reverse of
Alaska. This time you saved my life by *stopping* my heart." He
squeezed her hand. "My miracle worker."

Scully opened her mouth, not sure what she was going to say, but
found that once again nothing would come out.

Mulder got one of those 'theory-building' looks on his face. "I
wonder... What if Gordy really did summon up his unicorns? The
parkland area might have 'pockets' of space, like the glade, where
time and space or energy can be used. Maybe Gordy wanted his
unicorns badly enough that he was able to will them into existence
for the periods of time he was there or open a portal to their
universe."

"Mulder -"

He gave a look that was the equivalent of a shrug. "Perhaps...
Perhaps not. Well, is it any more strange than stopping time? What
if there was a 'pocket', a tear in the cosmic fabric, in Gordy's
cabin too?"

"Then he'd have unicorns in his kitchen." Accepting and admitting
that time had frozen was one thing, but couldn't Mulder let her
pace herself a little?

Mulder shook his head. "He'd only 'summon' them in the glade. The
proper 'setting' for such creatures. Otherwise he would have
considered it sacrilege. It didn't matter if they were real or
imagined. I'm sure his journal shows that being visited by the
unicorns was like a religious experience to him." He considered
for a moment. "Though if there was some sort of pocket in the
cabin, Gordy mustn't have known about it, otherwise he would have
used it to his advantage when he attacked us. Unless he didn't
realise what else it could do."

Then Mulder turned his intense gaze on Scully. "*You* were able to
stop time, because you didn't want me to die. You willed it."

She swallowed. "I think God gave me the power. Or our bond gave me
the power. I wasn't going to let you go, and somehow that force of
will, that prayer, manifested itself." She stumbled on, nervous
but determined. "There have been times before... When my life
support was turned off when I was in the coma, when we were in the
frozen wastes of Antarctica... There are so many other examples.
By all rights we shouldn't have survived, but -"

"We did." He nodded. "You're right."

"And in the past I haven't said anything after each incident, but
after this, I can't stay quiet or be afraid anymore. I don't stop
time for just anyone, Mulder."

They looked at each other, their feelings unguarded on their faces
and in their eyes. And they touched. Mulder's good hand stroked
Scully's cheek, while her fingers ran through his hair. Scully
leaned down and kissed him on the lips.

Soon she got up onto the bed - on Mulder's 'good' side, and
settled down against him, her arm around his waist so she didn't
jostle the sling.

"You stop my heart all the time, you know," he remarked sleepily.

"Huh?"

"To quote another song: 'Every time that you walk in the room'."

"Mulder..."

"I can't help the effect you have on me!"

"I'm flattered. Now get some sleep."

"Is that one of the things that you said I'd get to do in your
arms? You said I'd get to do many things."

"Trust you to remember that. Yes, it is."

"Will I get to do it again once we leave here?"

"Yes," she said with certainty.

xXx

Seven weeks later
Scully's apartment
Bedroom

The phone. The phone was ringing. Scully managed to scoop up the
receiver and say her name.

"Laura - hi!" Scully then listened and her eyes widened. "Oh. No.
Not at all... I'm fine. Better than fine. It was actually...um...
a happy noise. A very happy cry. They all were... No distress, no
kidnap or attack in progress. ...Yes, thanks for checking. Bye."

She put the phone back in its cradle and snuggled her naked body
back under the blankets against her just-as-naked partner's body,
feeling their hearts still racing, a feeling of bliss still in
their systems - and now, laughter on their lips.

"Laura..." Mulder mumbled, as he wrapped his arms around her
again. "Isn't she the woman in the next apartment?"

"Yes." Their voices were still somewhat breathless from their
exertions. "Laura has had to call the police a few times in the
last few years thanks to me. She heard the thumping and strange
noises... and of course feared the worst."

"She's never heard two people get it on before?"

"Mulder, *I* have never heard such noises issuing from my throat
before... No wonder she got concerned." Scully stopped momentarily
for breath. "It's not like my apartment has been full of males
before now. I lived like a nun. She thinks I don't have a life,
let alone a sex life... And your name can sound akin to 'Murder'."

"Well, she'll be hearing it a lot from now on. So let's hope she
learns to differentiate... Or that you learn to enunciate clearly
when in the throes of passion."

"I'm lucky I can remember my name... I think you scrambled my
brain."

He laughed. "Well, you sure did a number on me too... Looks like
halting time is only one of your extraordinary talents. Or our
bond, our own power, manifested itself again. That was... I'll get
back to you when I find the right words."

Scully didn't know how long they then lay quietly for. She felt
her breathing go back to normal, and thought that Mulder had
drifted off to sleep, but he suddenly asked quietly, "Did I thank
you for saving my life?"

"You did a pretty thorough job of thanking me just before. I love
your brand of gratitude."

Mulder nestled even closer against Scully. "Love you," he said
into her hair.

"I love you too."

Mulder said, "I'd ask 'bigger than a breadbox', but I know the
answer. Bigger than the laws of physics."

"I think we just broke a few more rules of physics..."

He grinned. "What's that saying? 'Stop the world, I want to get
off.' Well, we sure did! In all meanings of the phrase." She
elbowed him gently.

They were silent for a few moments in their embrace, totally
content. Mulder whispered, "I wouldn't mind stopping the world
right here and staying in this moment forever..."

"Then we wouldn't be able to do it again. We'd be stuck in
perpetual afterglow. And I think that would be a shame, even as
lovely as it is. I'd miss going supernova. Especially now that I
know what it's like."

"I like your thinking."

"And I like your doing. So let's get to sleep so we can do some
more of it in the morning..."

"Fine by me. You set the alarm, didn't you?"

"It's over your side of the bed. You check."

"Yeah, but you're the time-keeper. Literally."

Scully gave him a look. "I wonder if a tongue can be frozen but
the rest of the body be left viable?"

"You weren't complaining about my tongue just before!"

"Good night, Mulder."

She felt his smile and silent laughter and let herself drift in
the pocket of happiness of their own making.

THE END (PART TWO OF TWO).


Author's notes:
In the episode "Monday", the story centred around time 'hiccuping'
over and over until events played out the way they were supposed
to. I wanted to try a variation - a situation, a tragedy that was
inexorably going to happen unless time halted.

Months ago, a few hours after I discussed the core of this idea
with friends, my aunt said she had found a CD she had been after
for ages. She put it on. By typical X-Files coincidence, the first
song was "Time in a Bottle".

"Time in a Bottle" was written and is copyright Jim Croce.
"Every Time that You Walk in the Room" - I'm not sure who owns the
copyright to the lyrics, but have been told it was recorded by the
Searchers and then Paul Carrack. No infringement intended.