Work Text:
Stopping by Woods
by JiM
He held on for six months.
Which was about five months longer than he expected. When he knew that Mulder was gone, he promised himself that he would remain, watch over Scully and do his best to protect her baby. Which meant more lying, to enemies and friends alike, sometimes even to himself. His mask once again firmly in place, he did his best to help behind the scenes and to not think about what he had had to do to keep those promises.
He told no one about the nights he sat and stared at the walls of his apartment until dawn. He was certain that no one knew about the weekends he spent drinking in nameless bars around the city. Hell, there weren't that many people to tell anymore. His friends in the Bureau had all melted away; his friends outside of work had been lost along the way years past. Doggett and Scully sometimes looked at him with concern, but they were easily put off by a few well-placed scowls and some gold-medal stonewalling.
Krycek's body never turned up. After a time, Skinner stopped fearing that it might and began to hope that it would. He needed something tangible, some proof of the moment he had stopped being that man and had become this one. Without Mulder, there was no one who remembered that night, who knew what he had done. What he had become.
He was wrong, of course. Someone had noticed the changes in him. Someone saw... and didn't approve. The first and only hint he had was the garish Halloween greeting card he received in the mail one Saturday morning in early January. He didn't recognize the handwriting and the note wasn't signed. It read only:
You need a vacation. When you get into town, ask for the Cold Spring Lodge. There's a friend waiting.
An e-ticket itinerary was folded into quarters. Dulles to Minneapolis-St. Paul to Ely, MN. Someone was totally insane if they thought he was going to just hop on a plane and fly to fucking northern Minnesota in the dead of winter. Or so he told himself as he went inside to pack.
Because something stirred in him at the word "friend." Because he knew only one person who would tell him to do this. There was only one man in the world who could get him to do this.
He hoped.
Hope had beaten a hasty retreat twenty hours later when he unfolded his tall frame from a tiny seat in the Piper Cub that had flown him up to the small airport outside the town of Ely. He was torn between disgust at his own irresponsible behavior and shock at how sharp and bright the morning was. One deep breath on the tarmac beside the plane had him gasping when the frigid, dry air hit his lungs. He slipped and slid on the hard-packed snow to the tiny terminal and wondered what the hell to do now.
His foul mood was only slightly ameliorated when he discovered an SUV waiting at the rental desk, already reserved in his name. A tourist brochure for the Cold Spring Lodge was resting on the seat. He followed the stick figure map into the town of Ely. The small highway he traveled was sometimes flanked by snow-mobilers, sometimes by cross country skiers, and once, by an entire dog-sled team running at top speed.
Ely itself was a small cluster of houses and shops that whispered 'Middle America' and 'former mining town' to anyone who cared to listen. Now, it specialized in expensive trekking outfitters and guiding businesses for the entire 1,000 Lakes wilderness preserve. There was a certain discreet charm to the sidewalks thronged with booted and muffled people going cheerfully about their business in the sub-zero weather. They looked like no mysteries had ever tainted them.
He grunted in annoyance at his own idiotic maunderings. Any FBI agent could tell you that every peaceful small town had its hidden horrors and secrets. He just hoped this one's would stay decently under wraps while he was here chasing after his own mystery.
Town ended abruptly and he was back on a small two-lane highway, lined with snow-tipped fir trees and naked birches. Sanded snow banks narrowed the road and almost obscured the small sign that signaled his right turn. The access road to the Lodge was nothing more than packed snow and ice, rutted by the passage of others before him. The single lane twisted and turned between ranks of dark firs, giving the impression of dusk in the early afternoon.
Snow slid off the branches of a tree just off to his right; it thumped onto the hood of the vehicle and startled him badly. He skidded to a halt and sat, hands clenched on the steering wheel, blood pounding in his head.
I'm on the edge, he thought and it scared him to realize that he didn't know why.
By the time he had followed the road to its end, his breathing had slowed and he could feel his mask back in place. The pretty teenage girl behind the desk in the empty lodge foyer put down her paperback long enough to smile at him and greet him by name. He was unsurprised when she handed him a small map of the lodge grounds and pointed out the farthest 'X' which marked where his friend could be found. He suppressed the urge to ask what name his friend was using now, declined her offer of a mug of coffee and went back out into the creaking snow.
The lodge road crept along the edge of a beautiful lake and meandered between huddled vacation cabins. Most seemed to be locked up tight for the winter, but a few showed smoke from chimneys or lights shining golden in the dim afternoon. The road ended abruptly at a towering snowdrift, but he could see a small footpath snaking around it, a dirty gray ribbon laid over the pure blue-white of the deep snow. He parked next to a battered SUV and got out.
The air seemed colder now than it had at the airport. He hoped he could blame the lump in his throat and the suspicion of tremors in his chest on the icy knives he was sucking in with every breath. The path led him through a deep copse of firs, the ground beneath them nearly bare of snow, then up a rise and back in view of the frozen lake once again. Off to his left, he saw a single cabin sitting perched on a slight bluff that led down to the lakefront. There were lights in the windows and smoke curling upward into the still afternoon. He started toward it, counting his own footsteps as the packed snow murmured beneath his booted feet.
The path brought him directly to the two wooden steps that faced the lake. The creaking steps led up to a screened porch on which was stacked at least a cord of cut firewood. There was a hatchet stuck in the topmost log beside the door and his eyes lingered on it even as he raised his hand to knock. Snowshoes were leaning against the wall of the house, and a pair of cross-country skis and poles beside them. The door opened.
"Walter. You came," Mulder said and reached out to gather him in.
Skinner, face pressed hard into the soft chamois covering Mulder's strong shoulder, couldn't seem to get a fix on what he was feeling. Surprise, not at Mulder's presence, but at Mulder's greeting. Relief at being welcomed somewhere. Sadness at the realization that he hadn't felt welcome anywhere in far too long. Shock at how good Mulder's arms felt around him; at how slender Mulder felt in his own embrace. Anger. Affection. Need. Hunger.
"I'm cold," was all he could find to say when Mulder pulled back and smiled at him. Mulder's smile deepened and it seemed to Skinner that it gained a touch of sadness, too. "I know," Mulder said. "That's why...." He shook his head and his hand slid down to tug on Skinner's. "Come on in."
And Skinner, stepping into that warm house beside a frozen lake, realized just how cold he really was. Looking into Mulder's face, he began to realize that his body was not the only part of him that needed to thaw.
end