i. breathing in snowflakes
the girl standing across from them could not be more than twenty. she has bleached-blond hair that matched the color of her lips and that is stiff from too much hair spray or too many bleachings or both. she was pale and shivering in the gently falling snow of the late virginia winter with a thin, ratty raincoat and holey gloves her only sources of warmth. crystal clouds, caught in the light from the streetlamp above them, formed in the air with every exhale from the girl's lungs. her voice is raspy from the sting of the february wind or, she thinks, (more likely) from other, less natural substances that leave scars and burns on their way through her nasal cavity. the girl is beautiful, but her beauty is wasting away into an ashen, pallid face with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. she can hear loose change jingling in the girl's pocket with every strong gust of wind. she had recently required some less-noisy currency from the two agents in exchange for information about their murder victim, a friend of hers, whose death had left this more lucrative street corner vacant and its nightly visitors quite deprived.
as scully observed the girl while mulder made conversation (after all, he was more the type the girl was looking to entertain than she was), she couldn't help but see herself reflected back at her. this girl pleased men for a living and scully made a habit of never aiming to please men, and yet, maybe there was one man she did prostitute herself for, just not in the literal since of the term. she lets her gaze wander over to mulder and she watches the movements of his lips as he questions the girl. those lips, and what comes out of those lips, have bent her to his will more times than she cares to admit. she threw herself into anything he asked her to do, sometimes without question, sometimes with multiple objections, but always she would acquiesce. she was fiercely loyal, probably to a fault and her loyalty had left her body pale and cold and dying from cancer, her face had been identical to the young girl's in front of her; her loyalty had also rewarded her with a dead sister, the alienation (ha, what an ironic word) of most of her friends, and a home in a musty, cramped basement office. she noted that all of these things had come free of charge when she bought in to his cause. some days she felt like all she had was a thin, ratty raincoat and holey gloves to keep the cold and darkness at bay. like the girl in front of her, she had her own drug that she was quickly discovering that she couldn't live without. he was her drug of choice, and although she had tried quitting him and walking away several times before, she always came back to him, just when her withdrawal became too painful to bear.
mulder's voice pulled her from her daydream. "hey, scully, are you coming?" the young girl had walked away, and mulder was halfway to their rental car before she realized she was still standing on the sidewalk. "it's too cold out her, scully. let's grab some food and call it a night." and she turns and follows him like she always will. she's stuck with him, heroin that walks next to her instead of filling her bloodstream.
as she gets in the passenger seat, she sees the girl standing a little way off, sans jacket and gloves, breathing in the snowflakes like they were her source of strength and dignity. strangely, she felt connected to the girl through the falling snow, and before she closed the door, she inhaled deeply, letting the snowflakes baptize her face and the oxygen drown her lungs. she exhales as she closes the door and she registers mulder beside her, and his presence is a comfort, not a curse or a weight like most drugs become over time. maybe he is not a drug after all, but something more pure and cleansing.
she looks at him and he smiles at her and she thinks, he is the snow that falls through the night, quiet and unassuming, and in the morning, the ground is bathed in bright white that blinds your eyes with its perfection and beauty. he is not her drug, no; he is the new fallen snow in which she places all of her angels that cannot fly.