Melting Snowflakes

by Anna Greenway

A plane crash in the mountains. A story of friendship.

2. Chapter 2

*
DAY SIX

I have no idea what time of morning it was when I woke, but I know that several hours had passed. It was still dark, and I could hear the squeal of the wind outside, a sign that we were in another blizzard. It wasn't as fierce as before, though. Maybe we were near the end of it. I could tell the air was cold only because I was breathing it in. The rest of me was nearly warm, curled up in to John. Our legs and arms were tangled together, trying to get the most out of the body warmth, and I was so comfortable that I started to wonder why the hell I was awake.

My eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and I tried to disentangle myself enough so that I could look over and check on everyone else. Kim was still sleeping, as was Skinner. I made sure to check they were breathing before turning my attention to the gap next to me. Mulder was still there, but there was now an empty space where Scully had been.

But where was she? Our temporary wall was still intact, so she hadn't gone outside. Not that she would have been stupid enough to want to. That only left one option. She was in the pilot's cabin. And sure enough, when I glanced over at the door, I could see faint light coming out from under it.

I only debated it for two seconds before pulling away from John to go and check on her. Holly had shut herself in there, and that had led to some of the biggest mistakes we had ever made. Dana was probably fine, but there was always that tiny chance that she wasn't, and I wasn't willing to risk it.

I tapped on the door as softly as I could, so that I wouldn't wake anyone. "Dana? Are you ok in there?"

I could hear a zip being done up, and I suddenly understood. We had put the chamber pot in there for anyone to use in private during the blizzards. Plan was to empty it again when the weather calmed a little.

The door opened and Dana came out, holding the light, and trying to rub her hands together in an effort to warm them. "I'm fine. Just can't sleep."

I nodded in sympathy. "This blizzard's pretty wild. I can't believe I slept through it."

"You weren't as bad as John," she said, with a smile. "He must have spent close to an hour snoring." She glanced over at his now silent form. "I thought he'd never shut up."

"Haven't you had any sleep at all?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I'm just not -"

I cut her off with a hand hard around her arm. "Shh!"

She eyed me warily. I focused on the noise outside. I could no longer hear the wind. The blizzard must have nearly stopped, too. But there was something else. There was a distant noise, like a quiet rumble, that I could not decipher.

I loosened my grip on her arm. "Can you hear that?"

Suddenly the rumble increased in volume. It sounded like an earthquake, except the ground was perfectly still. It could have been thunder, but my instincts told me it wasn't that, either.

"Shit," said Scully, realising what it was at the exact same time as me. She grabbed my arm hard in panic. "Avalanche."

I knew we only had seconds, so I did the only thing I could. I grabbed her hard and pulled her up against the wall with me, away from the blocked up windows and all holes in the plane. I had a split second to memorise where the other four were, but no time to warn them or wake them. All I had time to do was grab Dana and pull her up against the wall with me.

The rumble grew louder. My ear drums were going to burst. Scully's fingernails were digging in to my arm that deep that I wouldn't have been surprised if I was cut. It was pointless trying to shout to wake the others, they would not hear over the noise. And even if they woke now they would not have time to move.

There might have been a crash, but we could not hear it. All the clothing and bags that had been stuffed in the windows exploded back inside the plane and an endless flow of snow rolled in. The barrier we'd made to block up the hole in the plane crashed in to pieces and the bags and chairs went flying.

After that I saw nothing. I closed my eyes and held tight to Scully. The snow hit my feet, freezing my ankles, and then continued to pile up around us. When it hit my knees I was thrown against the wall by the force, and if I hadn't had Dana beside me I probably would have fallen over and been buried in it. Then it was up to my waist. It started slowing when it reached my chest, and stopped before it had reached my shoulders.

The rumble disappeared in to the distance. Then there was silence.

Dana and I were both breathing heavily. We glanced at each other only long enough to see that we were both fine and then we put our arms out and started to sweep away the snow.

"The others," Dana gasped, frantically digging herself out. "Where are they?"

Everything was buried. There was no sign of John, Mulder, Kim or Skinner. They were under the masses of snow. Somewhere.

I thought hard, trying to pull up the memory. Then I pointed carefully over at the other wall. "Kim was over there, with Skinner. John and Mulder were a bit further up."

But even then I was unsure. They would not have long with limited oxygen. Their survival depended on us knowing exactly where they were. If we were inches out in our dig it could be fatal.

I had finally swept aside enough snow that I could move, and then I started crawling and scrambling over it to get to where I guessed John and Mulder were.

"You find Kim and Skinner. I'll get the others," I said. Scully crawled off in the given direction.

Head and feet. Which end was his head? Cabin end. It was cabin end. If I only uncovered their faces, so they could breathe, that would be enough. I took a stab at it and then started kicking and sweeping snow aside. It was all so soft. I could not find anything. I moved so much snow and yet I had not found a single solid object. They had to be here somewhere. I had never realised how spacious it had all been until it was full of snow.

"John!" I yelled. "John, hang on. I'm digging you out!" I yelled. Then I repeated the same thing to Mulder. I had no idea if they could hear me, but if they could, maybe they would panic less...

And then my foot hit something. The side of someone. It was definitely a body. I changed my direction and started sweeping away snow from my feet.

A patch of clothing. It was a coat. Mulder. Mulder and Scully had been using that coat as a cover.

"Hold on, Mulder," I shouted. "Just a few seconds longer, you're going to be fine..."

I scraped the snow away from the coat, and continued until I found his neck. Then my frozen hands made contact with Mulder's chin, then his cheeks and his nose... I scraped it all away until I could finally see his terrified eyes looking up at me. He started to breathe.

I wasted no time. Mulder could breathe. Digging him out fully could wait until I had found John.

"John!" I shouted. I jumped over to the other side of Mulder, guessing at how much space there had been between them, and then I continued to kick and throw aside the snow.

As I worked, I glanced up at Dana. Kim was uncovered and was breathing deeply. She had the same terrified look Mulder had. Dana was still digging for Skinner.

"John, where are you?" I said, to myself. "Where the hell are you, John?"

I was beginning to think that maybe he had shifted position while I wasn't looking when I finally hit him hard in the chest. I was so frantic that I had forgotten about being gentle.

I scraped snow away from his chest, up to his shoulders, and then I began to uncover his neck and face, exactly as I had done Mulder.

"John," I said, wiping it away from his nose. "Breathe, John. Can you breathe?"

His blue eyes, which I normally found comforting, were full of nothing but fear. He could breathe. Thank God. I glanced up at Dana, prepared to go and help her search for Skinner, but she was already brushing snow off his face.

"Monica," John rasped, "the others. Where are the others?"

"They're fine," I said, and I put a hand to the side of his face. "Everyone's out now."

He relaxed a little, but he was still in too much shock to calm down completely.

I heard some shuffling and I spun around to see that I had dug out Mulder enough to allow him to finish the job himself. He was digging out his legs. Dana couldn't help him. She had cleared the heads of Kim and Skinner, but was now helping them to get their bodies free.

I made a start for John. His chest was mainly free, so I began clearing his arms. First his left, then his right. My hands were so cold. Hopefully I wouldn't have frostbite. They were certainly numb enough.

I freed his arms and I worked my way down to his waist. I was at his hips, nearing his groin, when he dizzily sat up and pushed my hands away.

I stopped and looked at him. Surely he wasn't embarrassed. This was a life or death situation, help from a friend, he couldn't possibly think I was touching him sexually. John looked away from me and gently began to finish the job himself. Something was wrong. He couldn't be aroused. Not only was there nothing arousing about the situation, but he was uncovered enough that I would have noticed if he was. But he was still embarrassed, even now that I was no longer touching him.

Then it dawned on me. John had had an accident. The pressure of the snow, or the shock of it, must have caused him to urinate.

I wanted to tell him that it was ok, but I knew he wouldn't want the others to know. So instead I reached forward and gave his shoulder a squeeze. He chanced looking at me, and I knew that he could tell I knew what his problem was. He sheepishly looked down again, but looked grateful for my lack of reaction. It was almost like he was expecting me to smile or think it was funny, or that he was a child. It hadn't been his fault. It didn't even matter.

Thinking that John would appreciate it if I gave him a moment or two to himself, I turned back to Mulder. He was pulling his feet out from under the snow.

"Mulder, you ok?" I asked. I put a hand on his arm. I didn't know Mulder as well as Scully did. I was still learning to read his body language, but he was shaking. He was in shock.

I put an arm around him, and started rubbing his back. "You're ok now. Everyone's ok."

He nodded and then coughed, trying to find his voice. "Bit of a nasty shock."

I glanced over my shoulder at Scully. She was watching him, even though she was trying to calm down Kim.

Mulder suddenly took my arm. I turned my attention back to him.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you for getting me out."

I continued to rub his back. He was still shivering. I looked back to Scully again and gave a little wave for her to come over. Mulder needed her, not me. She came and sat down on Mulder's other side. I withdrew my arm, and she pulled him in to a hug, his head softly resting on her shoulder.

Kim and Skinner looked fine for the moment, so I turned my attention back to John. He had somehow shifted up to our ruined wall and had dug his bag out of the rubble. He pulled it toward him. I knew he wanted to change, but changing without everyone knowing what had happened wasn't going to be easy.

I felt so sorry for him that I decided to take control of the situation. I turned back to the others. Mulder and Scully had broken out of their hug, and now she was rubbing her hands over him, trying to get him out of his shock and make him warm.

"We should all change," I said. "If you stay in your current clothes the snow will soak through and we'll all end up with hypothermia. Everyone had their bags in here. They should be here, just buried under the snow. If your bag was closed then your clothes inside should be dry and you can put them on."

Doctor Scully immediately backed me up. "That's a good idea. You're right. Hypothermia is the last thing we need right now."

It took around five to ten minutes to find all the bags. Everyone's movements were slow. Mulder was fast recovering from his shock, but Kim was making slower progress. We were all so stunned by what had just happened, and so focused on trying to get our heads around it, that finding bags didn't get much effort put in to it.

Dana and I weren't quite as shocked as everyone else, but only because we had known what was going to happen a few seconds before it did. Short warning though it was, it was still infinitely better than being buried in your sleep, like everyone else. They had woken up to a rumble, and before they knew what was happening they couldn't breathe. Then they had had to lie there for nearly a minute, hoping that someone would be able to dig them out.

Unfortunately, Dana being in the same situation as me meant that she was just as observant as I had been. While everyone was half-
heartedly digging for their bags, she came over to John and I and gave him a worried look.

"Are you ok?" she asked, putting a hand on his knee.

John looked at her hand, as if afraid that it was going to travel higher. "Fine."

I could see Dana catch the way he was looking at her, and her eyes travelled over him, to his embarrassed look, and to his firm grip on his bag, and then where her own hand was.

I could see the cogs turning in her mind.

She took a little longer than I had to piece it together, but the second she figured it, she broke out in to a soft "Oh".

John refused to meet her eyes.

"Don't do that to me, John," she said, almost smiling with relief. "For a second I thought you were actually hurt..."

To my surprise, she squeezed his knee and leant in, lowering her voice. "Don't worry about it. Not your fault. And if it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one who it's happened to."

She glanced meaningfully over at Mulder and then pushed his bag in to his hands.

"Here. Dry clothes. Change. We have more important things to worry about."

*

"Is this really necessary?" asked Kim, closing her eyes. "Can't we just turn around?"

John had already unbuttoned half the buttons on his shirt. Then he caught me looking and gave me a teasing smile. I quickly closed my eyes.

"What difference does it make?" asked John.

"None for you," said Kim. "But given that ten minutes ago I was buried under an avalanche when I was asleep, I'd prefer to keep my eyes open, if you don't mind."

"Yeah, well if we hear one coming, then you have permission to open them," said John.

"The entrance is already blocked," said Scully. "We should be safe for now."

If it was meant to calm her, it failed. "For now? What do you mean 'for now'? Expecting more disasters?"

"I hope not," said Skinner. "I've had enough death and disaster to last me a lifetime."

"I didn't mean it like that," said Scully. "Anyway, what are you worried about? You've survived a plane crash, freezing temperatures, no food, and now an avalanche. It can't get any worse."

"Saying that is a sure sign that it will," said Mulder.

"If we're careful, and sensible, we'll make it. We just have to wait for these blizzards to clear, and then we can think about maybe walking out of here," I said.

There was an unusual silence coming from Kim's direction, and it hit me that she was thinking about what we had done. She would not be able to hike out on an empty stomach, and she must slowly be realising that rescue was not likely. Maybe she would come to see the sense in the idea. Skinner, too.

The thought was broken by John. "We're done. You can open your eyes now."

We opened them and I reached for my bag and dry clothes. It was the females turn to change.

*

We'd finished changing, and now we focused on the situation surrounding us. John and I had begun to get annoyed with sitting on the snow, so we were now both settled on top of our bags. I'd never been more uncomfortable.

"So the entrance is blocked," said Kim, pointing to where a wall had been, but was now completely engulfed in snow. "Have you considered how we're going to get out? What happens when that freezes solid?"

"Well I say let it," said Scully, shrugging. "The sooner the better. It should keep us warm."

"Great," said John. "You mean we're stuck in an igloo."

I gave him a smile. "Where's your sense of adventure, John?"

"Don't have one. I used it all up on that last poltergeist case you all dragged me in to," he said.

He glared at me, and then at Mulder and Scully. I couldn't help smiling.

"That was a legitimate investigation, John," I said, unable to resist the opportunity to debate it. "If we hadn't helped out on that, that poor couple would have been haunted forever. I mean, imagine it. We were only there one night. They would have had to put up with that for years. It might not mean much in the FBI's record books, but that was probably one of the most worthwhile cases we've had in months. Think of how lucky it is that we came across it -"

"Monica?"

I paused, holding back a smile at the look of impatience on his face. "Yeah?"

"Shut up."

I smiled and decided maybe I should get back to the topic. "The snow is heaviest at the entrance to the plane. It should be empty in the pilot's cabin. The windows in there were smashed. It might have a thin layer of snow, but nothing that we can't dig through to get out."

John struggled to his feet. "I'll check it out."

As it was my idea, I got up to follow. I was sick of sitting around.

We pushed open the door and walked through. We'd been right. Most of the cabin was untouched by the avalanche. A very small amount of snow had come in from under the door, but most of it had been held back. We were right about the smashed windows. Some had fallen in from there, but a lot less than there could have been. The seats were covered in it, but I could still see the floor, and that was a lot better than the rest of the plane.

I was carefully putting my hand in between all the shattered glass, to try and estimate how thick the snow cover was, when John softly closed the door.

I turned around, wondering why he'd bothered to shut it, but John just stared at the floor, to where our chamber pot was sitting. It had not moved. It, and everything in it, was exactly as it had been left.

John looked at it with disgust. "Of all the things to have survived."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously, Monica. Think about it. Everything on the whole mountain must have got covered. We all got buried. Our shelter is full of snow. And somehow, that tiny thing, full of nothing more important than..." he waved his hand at it, "that... survives." He rolled his eyes. "If there's a God, he has a crap sense of humour."

I decided to ignore John's accidental play on words and just nodded along, letting him vent his frustration at our situation.

He shrugged and leaned against the back of one of the pilot's seats. "Guess it explains where you and Scully were, anyway."

I nodded and leaned against the other seat. "Where Scully was, actually. It wasn't a team effort." Before he could roll his eyes at my bad joke, I smiled and went on. "I woke and found her gone. I was going to check on her when she emerged from here. That's when the avalanche hit."

"I suppose we're lucky you two were up. If you hadn't been, we mightn't have made it." He looked down at the chamber pot. "Funny. I never thought Scully's bladder would save my life."

I grinned, but before I could joke back, he was looking at me seriously, and the moment was lost.

"Look, Monica. I wanted to say thanks. Thanks for... digging me up. When that hit me, I was sure I was going to die. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't even move. But then I felt you hit me in the chest, and it was like everything was going to be fine. I just... thanks."

He stood up and started to walk over to me.

"You don't have to thank me. I just had to get you out. In fact, I was probably more scared than you were. There was so much snow. I didn't know if I was going to find you in time."

"Well, you did."

He looked as though he wanted to say something more, but then he shrugged and closed the distance between us, taking me in to a hug. I put my arms around his shoulders and pulled him to me. He buried his face in my neck. And we held each other. It was a better thank you than he could have ever given in words, and it also comforted me. So much had happened in our six days. It was good to have a moment with him where we could talk, away from the others. I mean, we loved them, but John and I needed a few minutes just for ourselves. So we used those few minutes to hug, and to not only let our emotions out over the recent avalanche, but of everything else that had happened.

Slowly we pulled away, dropping our arms from each other. He let his hand fall to mine to hold it briefly.

"Maybe we should go back. Any longer and they'll wonder what we're up to."

I nodded and gave his hand a quick squeeze. Avalanches, deaths, plane crashes and not a sign of civilisation anywhere. Strangely, as we went on, I was beginning to get used to it. We could handle anything. We had survived so much that I was starting to feel confidence in our eventual escape. If we were going to die, there were plenty of chances before now. We were going to make it.

*

"I always thought we didn't have much space in here," said Kim. We had cleared a lot of the snow away, leaving us a corner to sit in. "Now, I'm wishing we still had it."

She sat herself down next to Skinner. They were against the wall next to the door that led to the cabin. She was covering herself with leftover coats and was putting on a third pair of socks.

Skinner shrugged next to her. "I think maybe we should be positive. In a funny kind of way, you could call it cosy."

John made a sound that was halfway between a cough and a laugh. "I wish I had an imagination like yours."

I was against another wall, between Scully and John. Mulder was on Scully's other side. We were all tired, but no one wanted to sleep. Having an avalanche bury them during their last one left them with a fear of ever sleeping again, at least until we were back home. Yet not sleeping was one of the worst things we could do. It would only cause our health to deteriorate further.

I didn't need to check a watch to know that we still had hours before sunrise. Not that sunrise was important. The blizzard might not have stopped by then, and there was a good chance we would be stuck in the plane all day. But still sleep was important. Especially for Dana. She had her head leaning on Mulder's shoulder, yet still looked as though she was going to refuse to allow herself to close her eyes.

It made sense to be honest. There was nothing to be gained by lying about it. "I know no one wants to sleep at the moment, but the worst thing we can do is to stay awake. If we're going to make it out of here, we need to be at the best we can be. Sleep deprivation will only add to our problems."

No one looked to pleased, but Mulder was the only one to voice objection. "We just got buried and you want us to go to sleep?"

"I'm not saying that it won't happen again. I know there's a chance it could. But I don't think letting our fear get the better of us is going to do any good." I paused, searching Mulder's face for some sign of agreement. I didn't see any, so I decided to be even more honest and I turned to Scully. "Dana, you need to sleep. You haven't slept at all."

She sleepily shook her head against Mulder's shoulder, too exhausted to even deny that she needed it. "I can't."

"I'll stay awake," I said. "We can take it in turns. Everyone who wants to sleep can do so now. I'll be listening for trouble, and when you wake later, I'll sleep then."

She looked unsure, and I was grateful when John jumped in. "Good idea. I'll stay awake too. Best if you're not alone. You four sleep. We'll take care of everything."

"Are you sure?" asked Mulder. Scared though he was, I knew he wanted Scully to sleep just as much as we did.

"Positive," said John. "We're a team, aren't we? You sleep. I promise we won't shut our eyes until yours are open again."

She was still debating it, so I seized the moment and I reached out to take her hand. "I promise I won't sleep. I mean, we are a 'team', if you go by the dictionary definition of it. But everyone here is also my friend, and I'm not going to let anything happen to any of you. This isn't a game. It's not some stupid FBI exercise. This is as serious as it gets, and I'm not going to let you down. We've already lost Brad and Holly, and I'd rather die than let anything happen to anyone else." I paused, glancing across at Kim, and then went on after seeing that she was all right. "It might sound silly, but I love you... and you can trust me that I'll be right here when you wake up."

Scully nodded to herself, and then looked up at Mulder, who after a moment nodded, too.

"It's not silly," said Kim. "And we love you too, Monica."

She met my eyes and didn't smile, but gave me one of the most serious, meaningful, trustworthy looks I'd ever seen. It completely solidified everything I had thought earlier about our friendship growing. There was a spirit among us. It wasn't an alliance based on tragedy. We had truly linked together in some way, in a way that was too strong for words. And I think that's why nothing else needed to be said. Dana squeezed my hand in return, and then let Mulder draw her closer. Ten minutes later, John and I were the only ones left awake.

*

Conversation was out of the question. Not only would it wake our sleeping friends, but we didn't have much to talk about, anyway. After they all fell asleep, John and I looked at each other, wondering how we were going to fill in the time.

After an hour or so, John dropped a few fingers in to the thin layer of dirt, dust and snow on the floor and drew up a board of tic tac toe. I smiled. He drew a cross in the middle and pulled his hand back, indicating for me to have a turn.

I drew a circle in the top left corner and then pulled my hand back, grinning. To pass the time, John sat back for a few seconds, taking his time to strategise. It only made me smile more. We were stuck in the mountains after a plane crash, trapped by a blizzard, and John and I were sitting playing a child's game, as though it was a normal everyday situation.

We played for twenty minutes before something happened. John had just won for what must have been the thousandth time, and I was considering whispering some suggested rules for making the game more complicated when Dana started tossing and turning in her sleep.

I looked over at her. She was still next to me, and within easy reach. She had rolled away a little from Mulder, though. They were no longer holding each other as they had been at the beginning.

Her head started shaking from side to side, and she was opening and closing her mouth as if she was talking, but no words came out.

"Nightmare," I whispered to John.

We abandoned our game to pay closer attention to her. John came around to sit near her as well, down by her knees. I shifted myself a little closer to sit by her side. It didn't seem bad enough to justify waking her, so I just settled a hand on her shoulder.

"You're fine, Dana," I said.

She continued to toss and turn, her movements only getting more violent and panicky.

"Dana, you're ok," said John, very lightly resting his hand on hers. "It's just a dream."

Still she didn't calm. We continued to whisper reassurances to her, and to gently touch her, but it made no difference. She only became more distressed. The coats that were lying on top of her were thrown aside by her movements. We tried to gently cover her back up, as it was still freezing cold, but as soon as we did she only gave another gasp and turned again. It continued for about thirty seconds before she suddenly gasped so loud that she sprang up in to a sitting position, eyes wide with panic.

"Dana!" John said, catching her with a hand on each shoulder. "It's ok!"

I put an arm around her back, and we both sat, watching her trying to catch her breath. Breathing heavily, she looked first at John, then at me, Mulder, and then frantically looked past to see Kim and Skinner, who were still in deep sleep.

"They're ok," I said, reading her mind. "We're all ok. You're fine. It was just a bad dream."

She nodded mutely, staring in to space as she pulled herself together. Then she brought a hand up to her face, pushing her hair away. If it hadn't been so cold, I was sure she would have been sweating, but the only sign of moisture was in her eyes. She tried to blink it back as she looked at us.

"It was the crash," she said. "I saw the whole thing. Except this time it was different." She looked like she wanted to say more, but she trailed off, her eyes becoming even more tearful as she re-lived whatever horror she had seen.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You were gone. Everyone. We crashed, and everyone was screaming. Blood everywhere. It was exactly how it happened, except that when I got up, you were all gone. I was the only one who wasn't hurt." She paused. "Everyone was dead."

John and I said nothing. We understood how she felt.

"You were looking at me. With those terrified eyes. I tried to help, but as soon as I found my feet, I was alone. There was just silence..." she shook her head. "It was so creepy."

"It's your mind playing tricks on you," said John, squeezing her shoulder sympathetically. "We're all scared. None of us wants to be alone up here. But it was just a dream, Dana. We're all here. All breathing."

I rubbed her back. "Is that why you didn't sleep earlier? This isn't the first time you've had that nightmare, is it?"

She nodded. "I had it last night, too. It just keeps getting worse."

Of course. I hadn't noticed because that had been after Brad's death. I had slept through the entire night in John's arms. John wouldn't have noticed then, either.

I wanted her to go back to sleep, but I also knew that she would not want to. I didn't blame her. If I had had that dream, sleep wouldn't be appealing to me, either. All we could do was reassure her that we were always right there beside her, alive.

Like so many other times since the crash, John was reading my mind. "Here, Dana, lean back."

She leant back against the wall of the plane, still with my arm around her, and John covered her with the clothing again.

"You gotta keep warm," he said. Then he looked up to her face. "Close your eyes."

"Don't ask me to sleep, John," she said firmly. "I'm not tired."

He came around and sat on her other side. "Don't give me that crap, Dana. You're so tired you've forgotten how to sleep. Anyway, I wasn't asking you to sleep. I asked you to close your eyes."

"Why?" she asked. "What's the point of closing my eyes if I'm awake? Just for fun?"

I tried to bite back a smile when John rolled his eyes. "Just do it, will ya?"

She gave him a look but then sighed and closed them.

John, leaning against the wall next to her, started talking softly, leaning in so that only Dana and I could hear him. "Once upon a time, in a land far, far away with no aliens in it, there was a young girl. Her name, if you'll believe it, was Cinderella."

Dana's eyes popped open. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Don't you think I'm a little old for that?"

"Never too old for a story, Dana. Anyway, look around. We're never going to have a better time for a fairy tale."

"I heard this one," she said.

"Not the way I tell it," was John's reply. "And when did I say you could open your eyes?"

She shut them again, but not before giving John another evil look.

"Anyway, she had these two sisters, who were real ugly. And I mean ugly. They had faces like Kersh's backside..."

John continued with his interesting, and less than accurate, version of Cinderella, but before we even got the ending, Dana had fallen asleep against my shoulder.

We didn't move. I knew exactly how Dana felt with her nightmares. Her fear of being alone was understood by all of us. So having her sleep against me didn't bother me at all. If having her know that we were both beside her the whole time helped, then we were willing to make that sacrifice. The rest of the night passed in silence with John and I supporting her.

*

We didn't know the difference between day and night any more. There was no light to judge by. But I do know that it was hours before anyone woke. Possibly some of the most boring hours of my life. Nothing at all happened. Everyone slept on, perfectly fine, and there were no sounds of another avalanche.

Kim woke first, followed shortly by Skinner and Mulder. Mulder was surprised that Dana was asleep between us, and not with him, but I explained it to him in a whispered conversation and he understood. Truthfully, my arm and shoulder were aching from Scully leaning on me, but I was not going to complain, or move her. Not when she was finally getting the sleep she needed.

Most of the activity of the day was completed by Kim, Skinner and Mulder. John and I would have liked to help, but we couldn't move.

After waking, they turned their attention to digging out from our cave and seeing the weather outside. They did this in the pilot's cabin. We listened to them pulled aside glass and snow for nearly ten minutes before Kim ducked back in to whisper to us that they had been successful, that the blizzards had stopped and the sky was overcast, but still we could go outside.

Kim and Skinner went out for a walk around, to stretch their legs and get some fresh air. Mulder came to us for a whispered conversation.

"We have a problem," he said, kneeling at Scully's feet.

We waited for him to explain. I wanted to use as few words as possible so as to not wake Scully.

"The snow from the blizzards has buried the bodies. We'll have to dig for them. We need to... do the same thing we did yesterday. We need to keep our strength up, but we don't know exactly where those bodies were, how deep they are."

"Well we don't have a choice," I said. "We'll have to look until we find them, and hopefully that'll be before the next storm hits. Let's take advantage of this break in the weather to do it while we can."

"Thing is, I don't think Kim and Skinner are going to be willing to help, and I don't know if I'll be able to find them in time on my own," said Mulder.

"I'll come," said John. He started to very carefully pull away from Scully.

I was considering helping, too, but Mulder stopped me. "I thought... maybe you should stay. Scully hasn't slept the last few nights, and since she seems to be now..."

He was looking at her so lovingly that I didn't hesitate to stay. Mulder and John would be able to find the bodies on their own. If I could dig through an avalanche with a one minute time limit, I'm sure John and Mulder could find sixteen bodies within an hour.

*

It seemed that our soft conversation had gradually drawn her out of sleep, because a few minutes after they left, Scully woke.

She spent a few seconds remembering where she was, and then she snapped around at me, realising that she was still leaning on me.

"Oh my God, Monica, I'm so sorry," she said. "I wasn't leaning on you all night, was I?"

I couldn't bring myself to lie, but she looked so guilty that telling the truth wasn't appealing, either. "It doesn't matter. I hardly noticed."

I got to my feet and stretched, intending to go and help Mulder and John.

"Mulder and John are outside, they're going to dig for the bodies," I said. I didn't need to tell her why. She looked down at the floor as soon as I said it, remembering what we had done the day before.

"Where are Skinner and Kim?" she asked.

"They're outside, too," I said. "Though I doubt they're out there to help."

She sighed. "I hate this."

"They'll come round," I said. "It's the sixth day now. They'll give in soon."

She nodded and grudgingly we started to make our way to the pilot's cabin, to climb out through the new hole in the window and emerge on the new snow to help with the graveyard dig.

*

"I can't believe I'm seeing this."

We had found the body that we had taken from before, and now we were all standing around, looking at it, and wishing for the strength to continue what we were doing. Kim was standing off to the side, with Skinner, and her criticisms weren't helping.

"We've been through this. We have to," said John.

"Kim," I said, walking over to her. "Please give it a go. Yes, it's awful, but it's survival. We still have a day or more of blizzards to go. You have to eat. We need you to eat."

She studied my face, and looked as though she wanted to give in to my plea, but then she shook her head. "I don't hate you for it. You have the strength to do it, and that's great. But I can't. I don't care what happens. I can't bring myself to do that."

"Just give it a go," I said. "Don't think about it."

She looked away from me and back to the body. Scully was kneeling there with the knife in her hand.

"Come on, Kim," said Scully. "You're a part of our team. You can do this." She looked to Skinner. "You both can. You don't have to like it. You can hate it as much as you want. Just do it."

Scully turned her back on them, and stuck the knife in to the skin, beginning to cut. Everyone but her looked away. When she finished, she passed a piece to Mulder, to John and then turned to me, where I was standing with Kim and Skinner.

"Monica," she said, holding it out.

John threw a bottle of water across for me and I caught it with both hands before accepting the 'food' from Scully. Like last time, I had the water ready before I put the piece in my mouth. It need to be chewed a little, and I spent a few hurried seconds trying to soften it up, but then it came to a number of smaller pieces and I was able to swallow, throwing down the water after it.

Scully held out a piece to us again, waiting for Skinner or Kim to take it.

It was Skinner who moved. He came forward and slowly took it from her, turning it over in his fingers for a few seconds, before turning to me to get the water. I passed it to him, and he spent a few more seconds contemplating it.

"Just do it," I said. "It doesn't make you evil. It won't make you a monster."

I don't know if he even heard me. But then he slipped it in between his lips and shut his eyes tight, as if unable to bear seeing anyone look at him. We did anyway, and then he was drinking the water. He pulled the bottle away and bent over, putting his hands on his knees and taking deep breaths.

As I reached out to put a hand on his back, a few snowflakes fell on to me.

"It's starting to snow," said Kim, looking all around her.

There was a whistle of wind and Scully's hair started blowing around. Everyone had eaten except Kim, and Scully waved for her to come closer. "Come on, Kim. This could be another blizzard coming. We'd better hurry up."

Kim didn't move. In the end, Skinner stood up and walked over to her side, casually putting an arm around her and walking her forward. "You'll be fine. We're all in this together. Think of it as survival. If you eat, then we can walk out of here."

I wasn't sure that was the best thing to say. Saying to Kim that if she didn't eat, then we would all die was putting a little too much pressure on her. Pressure which would rebound if we weren't careful. But a few tears appeared in her eyes and she silently reached for the water and then for the piece of meat from Scully.

"I'm already responsible for Holly's death," she said. "I'm not going to be responsible for yours, too."

And with those words, she put the flesh in her mouth.

*

"Sleep."

Dana stared in to my eyes, but I only looked away.

"I feel fine," I said.

"Monica, you and John have been up nearly all night. You told us to sleep, now we're telling you. This isn't a one way friendship."

"We're fine, Dana," said John. "We'll sleep later tonight."

"Please," she said.

That stopped me with my mouth half open. I could resist as long as she was trying to order us, but to say no when she was asking us like that was wrong. And maybe she had a point. It was fair for her to ask us to sleep when we weren't tired, when we had asked the same thing of everyone else hours before.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Of course," she replied. "You won't miss anything except for the thrilling sounds of this blizzard. And like you said last night, we'll wake you if anything happens."

I glanced at John and we nodded to each other, then moved over to a corner by ourselves, lying down and covering ourselves with blankets and coats. It wasn't that long to sunset, anyway. I knew we would wake sometime early morning, but then we could take over from the others and let them get some sleep. It was fair, overall.

*
DAY SEVEN

The seventh day was uneventful, to the point of being one of the most forgettable days of the whole experience. I slept much longer than I had intended to, and I woke early morning to see that Mulder and Scully had heroically been up all night, watching us. That was when I understood the guilt Scully had felt leaning on me in her own sleep. So I apologised, and then apologised a few times more, and then after forcing myself to use our chamber pot, I returned only to discover that Mulder and Kim wanted to have another group conference.

The blizzard was still outside, in full force, so I sat down under our 'blankets' with John, feeling that I might as well listen to what they had been thinking. Mulder had had all night to think, and by the sound of it, Kim had had a fair share of it, too.

"I want to get out of here," said Kim, holding the radio.

"I think we all agree on that," said John bluntly. He hadn't fully woken up yet. I was used to the early morning, grumpy John, but not everyone else was. Surprisingly, though, Kim just shrugged it off and got straight to the point.

"I think it's time we started to think about it," she said. She exchanged a look with Mulder. Obviously they must have already developed plans and were just waiting for us to wake up to let us know what they wanted to do.

"What did you have in mind?" I asked, jumping in before John could say anything else.

Kim took a deep breath. "I caught another news report a few hours ago. There's something you need to know..."

Kim stopped, not even able to bring herself to tell us what it was. She looked at Mulder and Scully for help, and they shared a sad look back at her. Whatever it was, I wasn't too keen on hearing it.

Mulder eventually stepped in. "It's like Follmer said. They can only search for so long. It's the seventh day now. They've scaled down the search. They don't have much hope for finding us."

"Don't have much hope?" said John. "That sounds to me like they've given up."

Mulder nodded. "You could put it like that, yeah."

John swore under his breath. I wasn't far behind him.

"So what do we do now?" asked Skinner.

"Well," began Dana, and took a deep breath, "we uh... walk out of here."

She had to be kidding. "There's a blizzard outside. And you saw those mountains! Do you really think... I mean, that's crazy..."

"You've worked on the X-Files, you should be used to crazy ideas," said Mulder, in a courageous effort to lighten the mood.

"Yes, but this is the first one that's threatened my life," I said. It was half true. It had more potential to kill me than anything before. It was the scariest one.

"So what's the plan? We just pack up and leave?" asked John.

"Not quite," said Dana. "We actually thought it would be better if we sent two people. It would be faster that way, and they could walk out and get help for the rest of us. It's less risk."

Less risk? She was talking about it so logically that I felt sick. I would rather go with everyone and risk death together than sit back and watch two others go, watching a blizzard approaching and knowing they were doomed.

"Why don't we all go together? Why just have two?" I asked.

"Because if someone misjudges the right time to leave, then only two people are affected. If we all die, then they'll never find the crash site up here. Those families need to know what happened. They need those bodies back."

That was another problem. Someone wasn't going to get a body back like they would be hoping for. How were we going to explain that? And that was only one of many problems. Holly and Brad were two more. We couldn't possibly talk our way out of everything.

"Maybe it's best they don't," said John, but only so I could hear him.

"We've been talking about it all night," said Kim. "We all think it's the best thing to do."

"So that's it? You're asking us to just go along with it?" John said. I could feel his anger rising. I wasn't too happy about having everything decided for me, either. But there was one more piece of information I wanted before I said anything I could regret.

"We're hoping you'll see the sense in it," said Kim.

I looked to Scully. "If you've already talked about it, then you must already have some idea of who will be going."

"I vote for whoever was crazy enough to suggest it," said John, with all the delicate tact he usually reserved for responding to a theory of mine.

"Well, good, because that's the way it's turned out," said Dana. She looked across at Kim. "Kim and Skinner volunteered."

Kim nodded. "We thought we'd leave as soon as the weather breaks."

I gaped. That was not what I was expecting. I had been expecting Mulder and Scully. Maybe Kim, but definitely not Skinner. Skinner was the oldest among us, it made more sense for someone who was younger to go in his place.

"Kim and Skinner," repeated John. He looked back to Scully. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Hey!" said Kim, and she turned on John. "I'm just as fit as any of you, if not more. Don't forget that it was my idea to walk up that mountain peak. No one would have ever done it if I hadn't suggested it. And let me remind you, that you and Mulder whinged and whined all the way to the top."

She did have a point, there. We all knew how fit, and stubborn, Kim was. She had shown that to us not only on her hike up the mountain, but during her reaction to Holly's death, where we spent nearly half an hour chasing her. Kim was not the one I was worried about.

"And what about you?" I asked, looking at Skinner. "You're okay with this?"

"I've done my fair share of hiking," said Skinner. "Most of it was during wartime. Should be easy."

"I still don't get it," said John, turning back to Mulder. "It was partly your idea. You two are fit and healthy. Why can't you go?"

"We can't," said Scully. But she didn't offer a reason.

There was something about the awkward look in her eyes that worried me. There was something she wasn't telling us.

"What do you mean? What's wrong?" I asked, gently.

She looked to Mulder, who shrugged, giving her permission.

"Mulder's not well. He was sick on and off all night." She looked at him sympathetically. "I think he should stay here."

So that was why we were sending only two people. And looking at Mulder, I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before. He was pale, and looked weak. His positive attitude and efforts to be light about the whole conversation had concealed it, but I could tell that underneath he had been feeling quite sick. And there were no prizes for guessing what had caused it.

"Oh," said John, all his anger forgotten. "Well that's okay then."

Then, in his efforts to be kind to Mulder he said something which made me cringe slightly.

"If you want, Monica and I'll go. We can handle it. You stay here, and we'll bring back help."

"But you don't want to go," said Kim. "I don't want you going if you don't want to, and aren't prepared for it. Skinner and I are ready. We've thought out the whole thing. We're both fit enough, and we aren't stupid. We won't take any more risks than we have to."

"And you're absolutely sure?" I asked, turning back to her.

"Positive," she said.

"Okay then," I said, nodding. "I suppose we don't have much of a choice."

"That's right, we don't," she said. She got to her feet and pulled her bag toward her. "I'm going to start packing."

*

DAY EIGHT

After our settlement that Kim and Skinner were the ones to go, we had spent an hour preparing. We gave them the best bags, all the warmest clothes, bottles of water, the lighter, and were planning to give them some food once the blizzard calmed enough for us to get it. The afternoon had been spent sleeping and talking. It was stories, mostly. Stories about family. We were all missing our families, and talking about them helped ease some of the pain.

It turned out that Mulder had had diarrhoea. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but when it stopped, he wanted to do nothing more than lie down and rest. We let him sleep. I could tell Dana was worried about him. She wouldn't leave his side. The thing that worried me was that it could happen to all of us, and what if it happened to Skinner or Kim while they were out there? It was a possibility. A frightening one. But Kim was still determined to be positive about the whole affair, and I had no reason to want to scare her by mentioning it.

I climbed out through the glass with John. The sight of blue sky was both exciting and terrifying. I knew that Kim and Skinner would not delay. It was the best weather we had seen so far. There were clouds, but they were only patchy. It was not threatening. And sure enough, the moment they emerged behind us, they didn't hesitate to suggest it.

"This is it," said Kim. "We have to go. We can't hang around any longer."

Mulder was a little better. He came out with Scully and they wandered over to the bodies.

"You can't go yet," I said. "You have to take some stuff with you." They knew I meant food, but I couldn't bring myself to say it Referring to the dead agents as food seemed too cold, but there was no other ideal word, either.

Scully already had the knife and she set to work, while Skinner ducked back inside the plane to collect the backpacks they had prepared for the journey. He crossed to Kim and gave one to her, and she hoisted it over her shoulders.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?" I asked. "You can back out right now if you want."

I wanted to give them both an opportunity, just in case they were not as ready as they had both thought they were the day before. To sit in the plane and talk about it was one thing, but to actually get up and leave your friends, to hike in to miles and miles of snow-
covered landscape, knowing a blizzard could strike any time, wasn't easy. It took a lot of strength. And not only for them, but for us, too. We had to watch them go. We had no way of communicating with them once they went. We could only wait and hope. I hadn't known either of them that well before the crash, but during the last seven days I had grown to love them. And to split just when we had all formed such a strong bond was heart-breaking.

"I'm sure," said Kim. "I want us to all get out of here."

"I can't handle sitting around any longer," said Skinner. "We'll be fine. We'll take it easy."

There was silence as Scully came back. She handed a small bag of meat to Kim. Kim went a shade or two paler when she glanced inside, but she quickly recovered and looked to Scully.

"Are you sure this is all edible?"

"Yes," said Dana. "And there's enough there for both of you, for ten days. Hopefully that will give you enough time to... reach somewhere."

She then took another small bag from Mulder and handed it across to Skinner. "Take this, too. It's a few first aid items. It's very basic. Hopefully you won't need them."

Skinner nodded. "What about you? Will you be all right back here?"

"We'll be fine," she said.

"Don't worry about us," I said. "Just look after yourselves."

Skinner nodded and then swung his back off his shoulders to put in the first aid kit. Kim put the meat in hers, and then they both put their bags back on, and looked at us with suddenly sad expressions, knowing that the time had come to part.

Kim was the first to move. Struggling to hold back tears, she came toward me and hugged me. I hugged her back.

"You'll be fine," I said softly in to her ear.

We let go and then she crossed and hugged John, Scully and Mulder. Skinner did the same, with less tears than Kim, but with no less fear in his eyes. I tried to hold back my own tears, but after Kim hugged me, I was failing. Kim and Skinner were leaving. They were going on a hike, for which Scully had prepared for up to ten days for. The weather wasn't likely to hold that long. But then, hopefully they wouldn't need that much time. Hopefully the good weather would stretch until they reached lower ground and, if they were lucky, a town, or some kind of sign of civilisation. But no matter how I looked at it, it all seemed too high risk. I knew we had no choice. We couldn't stay on the mountain forever. But to watch two of my friends risk their lives for us was still heart-
breaking.

"We uh... we'd better be going," said Kim. She pointed up to a mountain. "We're going to go up the mountain first, to get a good view of the area, and to pick a route."

Teary-eyed, they turned to leave, but John shouted out. "Wait a minute!"

We all waited while John ducked back inside and came out with the radio. He held it out for Kim. "Take this. Maybe you might be able to catch some weather reports."

"You might need it," said Kim, trying to hand it back to him.

"You'll need it more," he said.

She nodded and then took John in another hug. "Thank you, John."

After a second they pulled away, and with a sad goodbye, they both turned and started their walk off to the mountain peak.

I stood with Dana, John and Mulder, watching them disappear in to the distance.

"Let's hope they make it," I said.

"They will," said Scully. "They have to."

*

Suddenly we had nothing to do but wait. There were no plans to make. There was no more speculation, or what ifs, there was just time, and waiting for Skinner and Kim to reach civilisation. We sat back in the plane, and to fill in the time we started talking. We talked about everything, but the most dominant topics were food and family.

Scully and Mulder were in talkative moods, and they spent hours talking to us about past cases of the X-Files, and about the sad history of their families. I had never quite realised how much pain they each had in their pasts, but that was probably because we had never before had the time to sit down and talk. We talked all the time about cases, theories and science, but never sat down and got to know each other.

Scully was talking us through her family tree when it happened. She had finished a debate with Mulder about her older brother, Bill, and was progressing to his son, and her nephew, Matthew.

"He starts school soon," she said. "The time has flown."

"Is he an only child?" I asked, drawing out a mental map of her family tree as she talked.

"No, Tara's pregnant again. She's six months along. They don't know the sex yet. They tell me they don't care if it's a boy or a girl, but I know Tara wants -"

"Scully," said Mulder suddenly, putting his hand out to stop her, exactly as I had before the avalanche.

All my senses went on full alert, and that's when it happened. A rise in the wind. It had the sound of an approaching blizzard. Kim and Skinner had only been gone an hour.

"Oh, no," said John, straightening up to hear better. "Hell no..."

I jumped to my feet and ran through the door to the pilot's cabin. I climbed up through the glass and out on to the snow. It was coming down so thick and fast. They didn't have a chance. They would be halfway up the mountain by now. They would have had no time to find shelter, and it was unlikely they would have been expecting it.

John emerged at my side and he put his arms around me, trying to pull me back down in to the plane. "You'll freeze out here! We have to go! Now!"

I was so cold that I turned around and followed. There was nothing we could achieve by standing there. Kim and Skinner would be far away. We could only hope they had shelter.

"We should have checked the weather forecast," said John, letting himself fall on to the floor against the wall. "We were so stupid. Why didn't we check it?"

"We did," said Scully. "She checked while you were asleep. But it changes so rapidly up here..."

"What are we going to do?" I asked. "We can't leave them out there."

"I can't see anything we can do," said Mulder. "We go out there and we'll freeze. What happens if you freeze to death and for no reason? They might have found shelter somewhere. They were out there, they might have known a blizzard was coming and had time to get out of its way."

"Might," said John, swallowing hard. "That's not very encouraging."

"Let's just wait," said Scully. "Wait and pray that it doesn't last long."

"That's it?" said John. "We just wait to see if they lived or died?"

"How will we know, anyway?" I asked. "What if something happens to them, how will we know? Are we going to just wait the ten days, and just hope?"

"They were gone an hour," said Mulder. "How far do you think they could have gone?"

I shrugged. "A few miles."

"They wouldn't have reached the mountain top," said John. "That took us more than an hour to climb last time."

But I was a step ahead of them. "Well it seems logical that Kim would have taken the same track she took last time. We know the way. What if we go up there when the blizzard stops? Just to make sure?"

"If we do that, we risk getting caught in one ourselves," said Scully. "They're depending on us to survive just as much as we're depending on them."

"We won't if we're careful," I said. "We'll keep an eye on the weather as we're walking. Any sign of trouble and we turn back straightaway. Everything's a risk up here. Wouldn't you rather know?"

Scully nodded, but John was staring at me.

"What do you hope to find, Monica? What do you hope to achieve by walking up there?"

"Hopefully nothing," I said. "If we see no sign of them, then we say they must have gone on once the blizzard stopped. If we do find them, well... then at least we'll know for sure."

There was a short silence following my words. We were all working out the odds in our minds, trying to estimate how far they would have walked, and whether there would have been any shelter for them. I don't know about the others, but my conclusions were frightening, and I felt a knot form in my heart. It was the same type of knot that had formed when I heard Brad's gun fire.

"They might be all right," said Mulder. "Maybe they saw it coming and are on their way back now."

I kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to remind them that they would not be able to see in the snow. They would have no idea which direction to walk in. And even if they guessed, and somehow dealt with the cold, it was still so easily to miss the plane. Our only hope was that they found shelter. I dug up every scrap of detail about our hike up that mountain that day. What scared me was that I could not recall any place to take shelter. There were rocks in places, but no trees of any kind. I couldn't think of anything they could have used.

"Let's not jump to conclusions," said Scully. Which wasn't comforting when I noticed how white she was. "We'll wait for now. And if they don't show up, when the blizzard stops, we'll walk up there. Ok?"

We were so scared for them that we all instantly agreed. Even if walking up there killed us, it was better than sitting and waiting, like we were doing now. We had spent eight days sitting and waiting. I'd had enough of it.

*
THE EIGHTH NIGHT

It was after dark before we left. The snow had stopped, and the sky was clear enough to give us some confidence that we would have time to get there and back safely.

Mulder was still wasn't well and when he tried to get up with me and John Scully put a hand out. "You don't have to come, Mulder. You can stay here."

Mulder rolled his eyes and pushed her hand away. "I want to know what's happened to them just as much as you do, and I'll die out there before I stay here by myself."

We didn't question that. We could all imagine the horror of being alone. It was something I had thought about since Dana told us about her nightmares. Sanity depended on the company of others, and knowing that you would all be together if tragedy struck again. But I knew that if I were by myself, I would go insane within a couple of hours. We needed to balance each other out, and to recognise when the others were being illogical or making wrong decisions. We needed that force of everyone looking after everyone else, or we were doomed. So I wasn't surprised when Mulder wanted to come with us.

We were standing out in the snow, gazing out at the mountain that we were about to climb. It was dark now, and in the moonlight I could just make out its shape, with its dangerous slopes and rocky cliffs. The knot tightened.

"Do we have everything?" asked John, trying to hide the fact that he was stuffing something inside his jacket. I decided I wasn't going to ask what it was. He was keen to get going, and I couldn't blame him. It was best to make the most of the fine weather. It could change so quickly.

"I think so," I said, looking around at everyone. We were all wearing warm clothes, the best shoes we had, all had a flashlight, and John and Scully each had a bottle of water.

"Then let's go," said Scully.

And then we were off. We didn't set off at such a frantic pace as we did when we were chasing Kim. We didn't want to exhaust ourselves. It was only a one hour hike, and we deliberately went at the same, easy, casual speed that Skinner and Kim had used. That way, after an hour, we were likely to find ourselves in the same territory they had. Or so the theory went.

"It's freezing out here," John complained, jiggling around in a strange kind of warm-up dance as we went.

"Surprise, surprise," said Mulder, with his usual dry sarcasm.

"It's colder at night," said Scully. "We've probably picked the worst time to be doing this."

"They would have had to sleep out here," I said, looking around at the endless snow. It was bad enough sleeping in the plane. Sleeping in the open wasn't something I wanted to consider.

"Don't use the past tense, Monica," said John, still jumping around. "It scares me."

We stopped talking as we carefully went over some rocks, and then down a slope to the plain that led to the mountain. We didn't address John's statement. His fear of finding Kim and Skinner dead was shared by everyone. It was the reason we had set out on the hike in the first place.

"Is anyone watching the time?" I asked. My mind had set on an image of Kim and Skinner dead, their eyes wide and skin drained of all colour. I wanted to change the subject.

"We've been gone..." Mulder pulled a watch out of his pocket and shone the flashlight on it to read, "...nearly ten minutes."

"More importantly," said John, "Is anyone keeping track of where we're walking? The plane is covered in snow. We're going to need something to find our way back with."

"I've thought of that," said Mulder. "We're just behind that set of rocks."

He pointed to the rocks which we had just climbed over and we nodded. They were in a good position. We would be able to see them from far away, in clear weather, and we should be able to find our way back to them easy enough.

Whether Kim and Skinner would ever see them again was another thing entirely.

*

When Mulder called an hour, we were halfway up the mountain. It wasn't too steep, but it was steep enough to make me wonder what they would have done. There were rocks everywhere, and that only made things more dangerous for them. If they had been caught here in a blizzard, they wouldn't have been able to watch where they were walking.

We all stood there, shining around our flashlights, trying to see anything that would give us a clue. But as far as I could see, there was nothing.

"Okay," I said, glancing up at the still clear sky. "We should have enough time to look around. Let's split up and meet back here in ten minutes."

They agreed, and we all took different directions. I headed straight for the rocks. If I had been in a blizzard, that would have been one of the first possibilities I would have investigated for shelter.

As I began my search, I began to see how pointless it all was. The problem was, I wasn't sure what I was looking for. All I could think of was that if I found nothing, then that was good because then they must have survived and moved on with their hike. They could be far away by now. But even with the thick layer of snow, even if something had happened, I didn't know if I would find them...

I was always listening for shouts from the others, a shout that would tell me they had found something. But none came, and as time crawled on I was getting the feeling that we would all meet back with nothing to report.

As I continued to walk around the mountain, I came to a section of rock that fell sharply downward on a 45 degree angle, where it was shortly met by a cliff of rock at the end. I debated going back to find the others, as our time was nearly up, but there was something about this rock that was drawing me nearer. I can't explain it. It was some kind of force. I had some kind of sense that there was something there.

It was hard to see in the low light, so I shone the flashlight around the snow, looking for anything unusual. I didn't dare step too close to the edge of the slope. There was no doubt it would be slippery, and incredibly dangerous. At the base of the valley formed by the cliff was piles of snow, and I didn't know how deep it was. If I fell down there, there was a good chance I'd never get out.

I stood a few feet away from the edge, shining the beam along the rock. There was nothing. Disappointed that my feeling had been wrong, I sighed and turned back to head back to the others.

I had only taken two steps when I froze again.

Ahead, where the snow should have been flat, was a mound. I went for a closer look. It could have been a rock, of course, but I knew the moment I saw it that it wasn't. There was something too unnatural about it. It didn't add up.

Shaking, I held the flashlight with one hand and I reached toward it with my other, holding my breath as I went to brush away some of the snow.

Most of it was soft, but just as I was about to turn away my hand came in to contact with something hard.

I brushed away a little more and every muscle in my body froze. It was clothing. A piece of clothing Skinner had wrapped over his head.

He was dead.

*

After a minute of staring in shock, I realised I'd have to call for the others.

"Agent Doggett!" I shouted. "Agent Scully!"

I didn't have any breath left to shout for Mulder, but if I'd called for the others, he'd know he would have to come, too.

I didn't call again, but stood with the body, trying not to look down at him. A minute or two later, John came hurrying over a slope with Scully and Mulder a few feet behind.

"Monica! Are you all right? I heard shouting..." John called.

I took a few steps to the side, letting them get a perfect view of Skinner.

They stopped in their tracks.

"Oh, shit..." said John, staring at the frozen body.

Scully and Mulder seemed incapable of forming speech. They spent a minute doing what I had, just staring at the body and trying to come to terms with what must have happened. Then they slowly forced themselves in to action, Scully coming forward to kneel in front of his body, and Mulder and John coming to stand with us.

"Where's Kim?" asked Mulder, looking slowly around the landscape.

"I don't know," I said. "I only found Skinner."

John tore his eyes away from Skinner. "Do you think she went on? You know, continued with the hike?"

"No," I said. "She couldn't go on by herself. If she went anywhere, it would have been back to us."

"Well then where is she?" said John, looking around the snow with Mulder.

"She has to be around here somewhere," said Mulder. "Let's split up and have another look."

Scully stood up to join us. "I don't think he's been gone long. And if he was stopped by the weather, then she must have been too. She has to be here."

We all walked around the snow, but the further I walked, the more puzzled I became. The rest of the snow was even. There was no more mounds, not even a rock. Nothing. She couldn't have walked off. I know that if I had been in her place, I could not have walked on after seeing my friend die. And by then, she must have been in a bad state, herself. It made sense that she was here, so why couldn't we find her?

John came to my side. "You know what I'm thinking? What if Kim died first? What if something happened to her elsewhere, and he was on his way back to us? She might not be around this area at all."

That didn't quite add up to me. "John, put yourself in his place. You've watched a very good friend die, and you're feeling like you're about to freeze yourself. Are you more likely to stay with her or to decide to leave for a one hour hike back to camp, which, by the way, you won't be able to find anyway?"

John shrugged. "I don't know what I'd do."

I was considering the thought when Mulder interrupted. "Agent Doggett! Reyes!"

We turned and started to head in the direction of his voice. We'd walked further than we had intended to. I was in no hurry. That shout sounded like it meant he had found Kim. If he had found Kim, then she was dead, too. They would both be dead, and our mission to hike out of the mountains had failed in the worst way. I stopped the guilt before it had a chance to form. Later. We didn't even know for sure yet.

We found Mulder standing by the steep rocks, which descended to the cliff. He was standing there thoughtfully with Scully, walking along the edge and looking down in to the snow pit below.

They turned to face us.

"I've been thinking," said Mulder, still walking along the edge, "what if she fell?"

"You think that's possible?" asked John sceptically. "She's not stupid."

"Don't forget there was a blizzard," said Scully. "It would have been hard to see. She could have slipped on the rocks, slid down there and uh... well, you know..."

Something in Mulder's face alarmed me. "You're not planning on climbing down there, are you?"

"Not yet," said Mulder. "It's too dangerous without any safety equipment. We could find ourselves in the same mess that she's in."

John unzipped his jacket and awkwardly approached us. I suddenly understood what it had been that John had snuck in there earlier.

"I brought this," he said. "Figured we might be needing it."

He handed a long rope to Mulder.

Scully gave John one of her looks. "You were predicting an event like this?"

"No," he said. "Just that we're climbing one of the highest mountains in the country. Seemed logical to me to take a rope, just like it seemed logical to you to bring first aid equipment."

Scully looked away. I hadn't even known that she was carrying any first aid items, and I had no idea how John did. But by the look on her face, he was definitely right. I wasn't going to criticise them for it. It made perfect sense. So much sense that I was wondering why I hadn't thought of it myself. Guess my mind was so focused on Kim and Skinner that I hadn't thought of things like that.

John stared down at the steep slope and the snow at the bottom. It wouldn't be a long climb, it would just be a dangerous one. It would have only been about fifteen or twenty feet.

"Well, who wants to be the lucky one to go down?" he asked, with a tone that said there was no way he was going to do it.

"Scully," said Mulder. "She's the lightest."

Scully was still peering down the slope at the snow below, but then she turned back to us, took a deep breath and nodded. "It can't be that hard."

Mulder took the rope from John and tied it around Scully's waist. When they were both happy with it, Mulder stood next to John and they both held on to the rope. I stood at the edge with Scully, ready to give her any help she needed.

"Just walk straight back," I said, holding out a hand for her. She took it, and put her other on the rope.

She took a hesitant step out, and when she saw that she wasn't going to fall aimlessly to the rocks below, she squeezed my hand and let go.

Scully might not have been worried, but for the rest of us, it was a terrifying few minutes. There was one point halfway down where her foot slipped, but she held on to the rope, and was soon back on track. We were all holding our breath the whole time. John and Mulder had their hands firmly on the other end of the rope, ready in case she fell. We only relaxed when her feet finally hit the snow below, and she sank in to it, waist-deep.

"You all right, Dana?" called John.

She took a second to find her footing, but then she was steady. "Fine!"

We watched as she started searching through the snow for Kim. As she went on, I was starting to become convinced she would have frostbite before she found anything.

John was thinking the same thing. "Think we should stop?"

"No," said Mulder. "We came up here for answers, and we still need to know what happened. We can't decide our next move until we know what happened to her."

"That's true," I said, "but we don't want Scully to get sick, either." She was waist-deep in the snow, and in places it was up to her chest. Her clothes were sure to be soaked through by now.

John nodded thoughtfully, then he turned back to me. I knew what he was going to say before he even said it. "Monica, maybe we should speed things up a bit. Would you be willing to-"

"Sure," I said, already nodding.

"Okay," said Mulder, and he called down to Scully. "Hey, Scully!"

She stopped and looked back up at us.

"Untie the rope, Monica's coming down!"

The knot had been tied so well that it took her nearly a minute before she had untied it. Then she threw the rope aside and Mulder pulled it up. John took the end and came and tied it around me, then they stepped back and I went to the edge, forcing my pulse to calm as I put both hands firmly on the rope.

"You'll be okay, Monica," said John. "Just take one step at a time."

"And don't look down," Mulder added.

Mulder's advice was a real piece of wisdom, and I tried not to look behind me. One step wrong and I would slip. I kept my eyes on John's, my mind focusing on my feet, and placing them on the rock without slipping.

It took ages, but eventually my foot hit snow again, and I felt Dana's hand on my back. She was reaching up to help me down.

"Be careful, it's deeper than it looks," she said.

She was right. The rock was hidden by the snow, and I had no idea how deep it was, but as I felt down with my feet, I could feel that there was a sudden drop of about a foot before the surface flattened out.

I put one hand on her shoulder, and she directed me where to step, and after a minute I was down safely beside her. I shouted up to John and Mulder that I was fine, and then I turned my attention to Scully and the search for Kim.

My first concern was Scully. "Dana, you're soaked. If you want, go back up and I'll finish things here."

She looked down at herself, apparently not even aware that she was wet. "Thanks, but I'm more worried about Kim right now."

I left it, knowing that in her place I would have said the same thing.

"You search down that way," she said, pointing behind me. "I'm nearly finished up here."

We parted, and I turned around, pulling my flashlight out of my jacket again and shining it around the snow, wondering where the hell I should start. There was so much of it. We could be there all night looking for Kim.

Just as I was wondering how far we'd go before we would decide to stop, fate took over. Like so many other times, things were not going as we expected them to. We didn't expect to crash, we didn't expect Holly to run off, we didn't expect Brad to kill himself, and we didn't expect this blizzard to strike.

I wasn't expecting to run in to Kim so quick.

I could not see her, but the lump against my foot was enough. It was the same kind of hardness my foot had hit when I was searching after the avalanche. It was so close to where Scully had first stepped. If she had gone in the other direction, we would have found her much faster. It didn't matter. We knew where she was now.

I took a few seconds before reaching down to uncover her. I had seen so many dead bodies lately, that I was wondering how much strength I had left. And Kim... I loved Kim so much, I didn't want it to be her, even though I knew that it had to be...

I reached down and started to move away the snow, throwing aside so much of it, digging down toward my foot. She must have fallen quite a while ago, to be buried so deep. It must have been at the beginning of the blizzard.

"Monica, have you found something?" I could hear Scully's voice coming closer. She was coming up behind me, and a second later, was at my side.

"It's Kim," I said softly.

I continued to dig, and then Kim's shoulder came in to view. Dana was paralysed beside me, and by the time she had come out of it, I had already uncovered Kim's head and chest.

I was kneeling down the snow, only faintly aware of the fact that my legs and butt were covered in snow. Dana knelt beside me and reached up to gently touch Kim's shoulders and neck.

"Broken neck," she said. "She must have slipped and fallen in the blizzard."

Instinctively, I looked upward, to the top of the rocks where Mulder and John were standing, their strong grip on the rope loosened as they stared down.

I looked back to Dana, who had sat back and was now sadly looking at Kim. "Must have been hard for Skinner. He would have stood at the top, not knowing what had happened, or what to do. That's why we found him up there."

Dana opened her mouth, but was unable to speak. Her flashlight dropped to her side, leaving Kim's body in darkness. In the low light, I could just make out tears in her eyes. I put an arm around Dana's shoulders, trying to be strong for her while inside I was having my own emotional breakdown.

As I comforted her, I tried to figure out our next move. My heart wanted to take Kim and Skinner back with us, but I couldn't figure out how. We had brought Holly back, but we had all been strong then. There was no way the four of us could take Skinner and Kim back, especially when it was a one hour walk. We could possibly tie the rope around Kim to take her back up the cliff, but there wasn't much point, and we would probably only destroy her body doing it. It felt disrespectful to drag her up a cliff on a rope. We only had one choice, and I hated it. We had to leave her there, and come back for her after we were rescued.

Dana had her head on my shoulder. She wasn't crying, but she was on the borderline. I rubbed her back.

"We have to leave her here," I said. "I can't see how we can take her back. We'll mark the spot, and come back for them after our rescue."

She didn't even acknowledge that she'd heard me. I waited a minute or two until she managed to pull herself together and then she sat back, with a hand over her mouth, staring at the body again.

I worked on the knot on the rope, still tied around my waist. When it was undone, I reached around Dana's waist, tying it around her. I didn't want to leave her in the snow any longer. We had to get her back up to the top.

"Dana," I said, putting my arm around her again. "We have to get back up the top. Can you climb back up?"

She gave a faint nod and walked to the edge of the rock. I helped her for the first few steps, and then she was out of my reach and slowly climbed the rest herself. When she neared the top, Mulder and John took an arm each and pulled her up and away from the edge. Mulder untied the rope from her, and then Scully let her head fall against his chest. John took the rope and threw it back down for me. I tied it around myself and then began to climb up. It was easier climbing up than down. I could see where I was walking, and I had the rope to pull myself up with.

A few minutes later, I was at the top, and John helped me up and together we untied the rope. Dana was standing by herself again. No one said a word. John put the rope back inside his jacket, and then we all stood around, looking down at the snow.

Finally, John said something. "We don't want to get caught out here. We'd better start heading back."

Together we turned and after one more short glance at the bodies, mainly to memorise where they were, we began the hike back to the plane.

*
DAY NINE

No one had dry eyes that night. When we returned to the plane, we all went to sleep together, all next to each other as we had done on the night of the avalanche. I was the last to fall asleep, kept awake by my visions of what must have happened on the mountain. If Kim hadn't slipped, there was a chance they would have made it. Now, all we could do was ensure that their bodies were returned.

So we all huddled together, a mess of wet tears against the cold air, but somehow I was warm. I was in John's arms again, and I could feel Scully's back against my other side. She spent hours crying in to Mulder's chest. I was crying in to John, too. He was trying to keep the tears back, but was failing miserably. After everything that had happened, after all they had survived, the crash and the avalanche... it seemed so unfair for them to go now. We had thought we had all made it. We never expected to see another death. But here we were.

We woke after sunrise. I sat up, glad to see that we were not yet in another blizzard. The sky was cloudy, but there was a certain freedom in being able to walk outside. I didn't want to spend any more days stuck inside the plane.

We had run out of energy to talk. John was sitting inside the plane, staring blankly at the radio in his hands. Scully's eyes were red from crying, but she seemed to have run out of tears. Mulder was looking at a bottle of water in his hands, and like John seemed far away in his thoughts. It seemed that it was going to have to be me to get everyone going.

I chose a seat on top of a pile of clothing, in the middle of our little circle. I didn't look at anyone as I spoke, because looking in to their teary eyes only made me more upset myself, and there had to be a time when we took a deep breath and started thinking again. So I stared at the wall, and tried to bring my thoughts together.

"We have to decide our next move," I said. "We still have to get out of here."

There was a few seconds of silence, then John put the radio aside. "Radio is predicting blizzards today followed by a few days of clear weather. Maybe we should think about using that time."

"Radio means nothing," said Scully. "They were wrong before."

"We can't stay here forever," I said. "It's a risk no matter what we do."

John came to sit at my side. "You want to walk out of here?"

"That's right, I do," I said. "I don't see we have a choice."

"I'd be willing to go," said John. "We could go together, after this blizzard."

I was considering the thought, but Dana sat up straight with such anger that I forgot anything I was going to say. "No! You're not going together. We can't split up any more."

That was exactly what I was thinking. After everyone we had lost, there was no way I was willing to split up with Mulder and Scully. I loved John, but I loved them as well, and parting from them would be too hard.

"I agree," I said softly. "If we go anywhere, we all go together."

"It'd be safer that way, anyway," said Mulder. "Always better to go with a bigger party."

John and I were okay with the idea, and I could tell that Mulder was, but Scully was still worrying me. She had stopped crying, but still seemed weak. She wasn't her usual strong self.

I looked to her. "What do you think, Dana?"

"I think... that hard as Kim and Skinner's deaths are, we can't give up. We've come this far, we have to go on. And I know that there's a chance that we'll hit a blizzard too, but I think I'd rather take my chances out there than stay here. Out there we have some chance, here we have none."

We all nodded, absorbing her words and agreeing with them. We owed it to Kim and Skinner to get out of here. We had to make sure the others were taken care of.

"Well," said John, "If we're going to leave, we'd better start preparing. As soon as this blizzard's over, we have to be out. We can't waste any time as long as the sky's clear."

Scully pushed herself to her feet and started hunting around for the knife. I shut my mind off at the thought of what she was about to do, and what her idea of preparing was. Then, without a word, she disappeared in to the pilot's cabin and out on to the snow.

John got to his feet. "I'm going to take advantage of this nice weather to uh... admire the snow."

I smiled, amused that with John's choice of words. I knew what he meant, and so did Mulder, who followed him out, keeping in line with our unofficial rule.

I had dug out some bags appropriate for the hike and was sorting through all the clothing when I heard the familiar whistle of the wind. Seconds later, Scully came thumping down in to the pilot's cabin and she ran in to me, grabbing my upper arms frantically.

"Blizzard," she shouted. "It's so thick, and Mulder and John... they're out there..."

I leapt to my feet and pushed past her. I stood on the pilot's seat and climbed out the top of the plane to the freezing blizzard. Scully emerged beside me, holding on to my arm, determined not to lose me with the low visibility.

"Where are they?" I shouted at her. "Which direction?"

She pointed off to my right. They must have gone further than normal.

"Shit," I muttered, but the word was eaten by the wind.

Snow was pounding at our faces, and piling up around my legs, already burying my feet.

I put my hands to my mouth and started shouting. "John! Mul-der! Can you hear me? John! We're over here!"

I knew they would have trouble seeing where the plane was, so if I shouted out their names, they would be able to follow my voice to find their way back.

The seconds kept ticking past and we saw no sign of them. I was beginning to get so cold, and I wanted to jump down back inside, but the thought was unthinkable as long as John and Mulder were out there.

I looked to Scully. She was getting even more panicky, and I knew that we had to do something. Before I even knew what I was doing, I had pushed her grip off me and was heading out in to the snow.

She screamed after me. "Monica! Agent Reyes...!"

I ignored her. All I could think of was John, out there, lost. There was no way I was going to lose John. I would rather freeze to death in the search than go back and hide, and lose him forever.

I started off in the direction Dana had pointed. I could not see. I could only feel the snow against me, squinting as I tried to block it from my eyes.

I shouted as I went. "John! Mul-der!"

There was no answer, and their lack of answer meant they must still be out there. I walked on. I'd rather die than go back and hide. I wasn't going to desert John when he needed me. But as I went on, I began to get lost in the whiteness, and after five minutes of walking, I realised that I didn't even know where I was. In my frantic efforts to find them, I had abandoned all sense of direction.

"John! Agent Dog-gett!" I shouted, over and over, and each time I paused, waiting for a sign of a reply, that they had heard me, or were back safe. But none came. If I strained hard enough, I could hear Scully's calls, but after a while, they too faded, and then there was nothing.

Our clothes were not waterproof. I was wearing several layers, but I could feel that the snow had soaked through nearly all. My clothes were stuck to me. My feet and legs were growing numb, as were my hands, which were not protected by gloves. I hugged myself, walking on in any direction my feet chose. They had to be here somewhere. Maybe after John did his business they walked off further, discussing the route for our hike. It was possible.

I could not let them die like Skinner. I wasn't going to stand back and wait for time to pass, until the blizzard ceased and we would walk out to find their frozen bodies. It wasn't going to happen. I had lost so many friends and colleagues already, but if I lost John, I would not be able to go on. Scully would feel the same about Mulder. We wouldn't be able to take any more of it.

The cold was starting to get through to me, and I decided that I had walked enough in the one direction, and that John and Mulder must have been in the other. I turned around. I would walk back to where the plane was, and then pick another direction.

"John!"

I tried to call for Mulder, but my voice wouldn't work. It was as though it had frozen too, along with my feet. The wind was still slapping at me, my hair was plastered to my face, and the tears it brought clouded my vision even more than the snow. Gradually I lost sight of not only where I was going, but of everything. I could not see, and I paused to try and clear the fuzz, but only to realise that my feet would no longer work. The cold had soaked through my shoes and socks, and now the signals that my brain was sending to them were returned halfway. The roads of nerves were impassible from the freeze.

Everything blurred, and I collapsed to the ground. It would only be a short rest. I would get my strength back, and then continue on... to find John...

*

Someone was slapping my face.

"Monica! Get up!"

I opened my eyes, and after a few seconds managed to see two dark blurs. One was John, and the other was Mulder. They each took an arm of mine and were trying to pull me to my feet.

"Come on, Monica!" shouted Mulder. "You have to help us, here!"

He had to be kidding. I couldn't move. I was so numb.

"Monica, come on!" shouted John. Then between them they had pulled me to my feet, throwing an arm around each of their shoulders. I tried to work my feet, to make them support my weight.

John and Mulder were both fully supporting me, and pulling me in some unknown direction. I tried to make my feet work, but it wasn't until we had gone for twenty or thirty seconds that they came to some kind of life. They worked, but John and Mulder were already carrying me that much that I didn't have to work hard.

I didn't try to make my eyes work. They were so cold, and stinging too much from the wind. I gave in to John and Mulder, and let them lead me.

And after a few minutes, a familiar voice sounded to my ears.

It was Scully, shouting, with a serious case of mania. "Mul-der! John! Monica! Mul-der...!"

She blurred in to view, but just as I was trying to focus on her, she disappeared again. Then Mulder let go of me, and I was relying completely on John to stand. Before I could figure it out, John was pushing me to kneel down, and then there was no snow any more. My stinging eyes made out the pilot's chair, and Mulder and Scully beside it, reaching up to pull me down. So that's where they were... how funny...

"Put your feet down!" shouted John, and I was faintly aware of him putting his hands on my legs, and then working with Mulder to bring me down in to the plane. It was more of a fall than a skilful climb. I arrived with a thud on the pilot's chair, and then Mulder lifted me off it, on to the floor. John jumped down with practised perfection, and then he took the other side of me, Mulder and John both pulling me in the main part of the plane.

The moment Scully shut the door behind us, John weakened his grip on me and I collapsed to the floor and closed my eyes.

All I wanted to do was sleep, but a muttering from Scully kept pinching at me. "Mulder, get her bag... and some blankets... that's right, over here..."

Then suddenly she became much louder. She held my hands gently and knelt over me. "Monica, can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes, Monica. Open your eyes..."

I just wanted to sleep. I was considering if I could ignore her when John backed her up. "Come on, Monica... please open them..."

I slowly opened them, and then there was brightness. I could see. There was no more snow. But it hurt to look. Every part of my body was cold. I could not move. I had no energy.

"Good," said Dana, and she gave my hands a little squeeze. "Monica, I need you to listen to me carefully, okay?"

I glanced at John. His eyes were pleading. They both looked so scared that I forced myself to give in. I looked back to Dana, meeting her eyes. I couldn't speak, so I just waited for her to continue.

"Monica, you have serious hypothermia." It was strange to see her eyes so scared. The only time I had ever seen it before was when she was worried about Mulder. "Monica, listen to me..."

I realised that my eyes had wandered up to the ceiling, and I forced myself to focus and look back at her.

"You have serious hypothermia. I don't want you to worry. We'll take care of everything. You just need to stay awake, okay? We'll help you, but it is crucial that you stay with us. You can't shut your eyes."

It didn't make sense. My first question was why not? But then I forced myself to focus, and I knew that must have been some kind of medical reason. John was still looking terrified, and I focused up on the roof again, rather than look at him.

Scully gave my hands another squeeze, bringing my attention back to her. "The first thing we're going to do is take your wet clothes off, okay?"

She didn't wait for an answer, but it didn't matter. I was far beyond caring. Her hands moved to my jacket, and she unzipped it. Her eyes kept coming back to mine, to check I was still awake.

After a few seconds everything started to fade again. I gazed at Scully's jacket, and her red hair, but without really taking in anything I was seeing.

"What's your name?" asked Scully suddenly. "Can you tell us your name?"

I dug through my brain, and was surprised when it took me a minute to find the answer. It took me longer while I tried to find my voice. "Monica."

One word was all I could manage.

"What about mine?"

John's face came in to view. He moved to hold my hand, now that Scully had let go.

"John."

"And where do we live?"

That one took a little longer. I fought way back for a memory. I could see our office, then my apartment, but I searched for a name.

"D.C.," I whispered.

I saw Scully nod her approval, and her face came back in to view. "Monica, we need you to sit up a little. Just so we can slide your jacket off..."

I didn't get a choice. John was already pulling me up. Maybe he knew that there was no way I would have been able to manage it on my own. He brought me to sit up, leaning against him. I put my head on his shoulder and slipped out, letting my eyes close.

"Monica, stay with us!" shouted John. "Don't leave us."

I struggled to open my eyes again. Scully grabbed hold of my arms and was working to get the jacket off me. After a minute she succeeded and threw it aside.

She moved her hands to my first shirt, her fingers hurriedly undoing the buttons. "Do you know where we are now?"

Again, I tried to unfreeze my voice. "Plane..."

"But where?" asked John. He supported me while Scully moved my first shirt, moving then to my second.

I tried to visualise a map in my mind, trying to remember where the hell we were. Eventually an answer came to me. "Canada..."

"Good," said Scully, again. She paused while she removed my second shirt, leaving me in only my bra. "Lie down."

I was so grateful that John let me lie down on the floor again. The longer I sat up, the more dizzy I had become. But on the floor, everything was a fraction more manageable.

Dana had a towel in her hands and was wiping down the top half of my body, removing all the wetness from the snow.

She caught my eyes again. "Can you tell me what Mulder's doing?"

That was a hard one. I had no idea what Mulder was doing. I could see him down near my feet, but I couldn't quite see what he was doing, and the longer I hesitated, the more worried Scully and John became.

I let my head fall back on to the floor, giving up. "Don't know..."

I saw them exchange a look.

Scully put the towel aside and then put her hands on my arms, pulling me up again. "Come on, last time, I promise."

I grudgingly sat up, letting my head fall again on to John's shoulder. It hadn't even entered my head that he was seeing me with so little on. I was too frustrated with not being able to answer Scully's question.

I was going to take a look at what Mulder was doing, but Scully distracted me again. "Monica, I'm going to change your bra, okay?"

I became faintly aware of her hand sweeping around my back, and then she was sliding it over my arms. John was looking away, down at my feet. He was trying to be a gentleman. He was wasting his time. I was so close to him, and to Scully and Mulder, that I didn't care if they saw me naked. In our situation, with all we had been through, it was stupid to care.

I waited a few more seconds while Scully took another bra from my bag and helped me put it on. When done, she grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. John was looking back at me now.

I looked down at Mulder, and finally realised what he was doing. He had removed my shoes, and socks, and was towelling my feet dry. I hadn't felt any of it. A small panic started to rise within me. Not feeling my feet was bad. That was why John and Dana looked worried when I couldn't answer.

Scully had her hands on my shoulders and was pushing me back down to the floor. I welcomed it. My head hurt being vertical. As soon as I was horizontal again, she moved her hands under the blanket and was working on my pants.

"Can you feel Mulder touching your feet?" she asked, unzipping the first pair of pants, and reaching under me to pull them off.

I searched for any sign of feeling, but there was none. "No."

John's eyes shot up to mine, but he said nothing. He only put his hand on my shoulder, rubbing through the blanket.

Scully was at my feet with Mulder. They pulled off my first pair of pants, and then Scully came straight back up to my waist, reaching under the blanket again for the second pair.

She was working to get my second pair of pants over my ankles. "What about your knees and legs? Can you feel them?"

I couldn't tell. Dana came back up to my waist, working on my third and final pair of pants. Again, she reached under the blanket and unzipped them.

She paused to put her hands on my stomach. "Can you feel my hands?"

"Yes." They were surprisingly warm, too. Or maybe it was just that I was so cold.

"Good," she said, and she pulled my pants down, working them under my butt, over my knees and down to my ankles, where the job was taken over by Mulder.

My legs now bare, Scully put her hands on my shins. "Tell me if you can feel them now."

"No," I said.

She moved them to just above my knees. I could feel that, slightly. "A little. Just."

She gave a look to John. It was another one of those worried looks, too. I didn't have time to think about it, because Dana had pulled out some black underwear from my bag and put it beside me. I didn't need to ask what she was going to do. I didn't care, either.

John was looking away again. Mulder was rubbing my feet, trying to get the circulation going, but he, too, was trying to be a gentleman.

Dana didn't hesitate. She reached under the blanket, and pulled my existing underwear straight off. She did it so quick that it was almost like she'd had plenty of practise. She threw them aside, and then grabbed the other pair and was pulling them over my numb feet, and up to where they were supposed to be. Then she ran the towel over me, and pulled the blanket back down over me, down to my ankles.

She looked to John. "John, we need your help..."

He stopped her halfway through. "I know what you're thinking, Dana. And I'm happy to do it."

I looked from one to the other, trying to work out what they meant. Then it clicked. The treatment for hypothermia in situations like this was body heat. Oh my God...

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I'll do it if you'd prefer."

"No, I'll do it," he said. He moved his hands to his jacket, working to get it off. He was going to do this properly... help...

Half my body was numb. I was freezing cold. But I was still not sick enough to miss what this meant. If anything, it was only going to speed up my recovery. The only thing was I wished it was under different circumstances. But still, it could have been worse. At least I was waking up. Before I could not keep my eyes open. A small improvement.

John continued to strip until he was down to his briefs. Then he shrugged and looked at Scully, waiting for directions.

Scully took my hand. "Monica, are you okay with this?"

She'd already guessed I would be, or she wouldn't have had John strip before asking me.

"It's fine, Dana," I said, and was immediately impressed that I'd managed to pull together more than one word.

"Okay," she said, letting go of my hand. "Leave this blanket on the floor. We'll get another to go over you."

I pushed the blanket away from my body, and down on to the floor like she'd suggested. I saw John's eyes sweep over me, but he pulled them away just as quickly. Then Dana put a hand on his back, gently pushing him in my direction and then he was lying down next to me. He turned on his side, reaching for me with his arms. I tried to crawl toward him, but my legs were still numb, so it was too hard. Seeing this, John crawled further toward me and put one hand on my waist, pulling me around in to him. I was on top of him then, and I let my head fall against his chest, bringing my arms up his sides to feel his warmth.

"You're so warm..." I said, burrowing in to him.

He slid his arms around my back, one floating down near my underwear and the other up near my shoulders.

"That's the whole idea," he said.

A blanket hit my back. It was Scully and Mulder, wrapping us up in blankets, and everything warm they would find.

"Don't get too comfortable, Monica," said Scully. "I still don't want you to close your eyes."

"I'm awake," I said, with a certainty I'd never managed before.

My head was against John's chest. He was so warm, and I was free to use that warmth. It was almost worth faking sickness so I could stay longer. Almost. I'd never do that, but it was a good thought.

I could feel one of John's hands in the ends of my hair. "Monica, your hair's all wet."

A towel gently landed on the back of my head. It was from Dana. She was going to dry it, but John took over.

"I'll do it," he said, and he took the towel with both hands, running it over and through my hair.

I forced my mind back on Dana's statement. Don't get too comfortable. Right. I could do that. Every inch of me was being warmed by a near-naked John, but I wasn't comfortable.

Mulder expertly distracted me. He came to sit next to us with Scully. "Are you going to tell us what happened out there?"

I didn't know what had happened out there.

Scully jumped in. "We were worried when you didn't return. Monica went to find you."

I was expecting the anger. I was expecting to be called a stupid idiot, but surprisingly, the moment never came.

Mulder nodded with understanding. "We went for a short walk. We were discussing the route we were going to take for our hike."

"That's what we thought," said Scully.

A thought struck me. If all three of us had been out there, then why was I the only one with hypothermia?

"Where were you?" I asked. "How did you escape unharmed?"

Now they were looking awkward.

John paused drying my hair to answer. "Turns out we came back shortly after you left. Dana told us you'd gone, and we changed in to dry clothes and came to find you."

Now that I thought about it, it was all piecing together. They would have stopped for a minute to warm up, and would have then come out to find me. They found me after I'd collapsed, and that was when I woke to them lifting me to my feet.

If I'd stayed, I wouldn't have got myself in to trouble, and I wouldn't have risked their lives a second time. It was fine for them to not blame me for that, but I couldn't help feeling guilty.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I waited a few minutes, and I guess I panicked when you didn't show up. And after Skinner and Kim... I just had to find you."

"We're not blaming you, Monica," said John.

"You going out there to save us was no more insane than us going out there to save you," added Mulder.

"Dana didn't," I said. She had been the one to stay. She had been the logical one all along.

Scully gave a little laugh. "I was considering going out when you did it before me. I only stayed because I knew you'd need someone to call for you, so you could find your way back. If it hadn't have been you, it would have been me. So don't feel bad."

I nearly smiled. Mulder was right. Me wanting to save them, was just the same as them wanting to save me. And in Scully's place, I would have done the same as her. If she hadn't been there, shouting, we would have never found the plane again. It all made sense now. No more needed to be said.

"What about the hike?" asked Mulder gently. "Are you still up for that?"

I didn't need to consider it. "Yes. We need to get out of here."

"Okay," said Scully. "Well just take it easy for a few hours, while this blizzard passes, and if your temperature is back to normal afterward, we'll think about it then."

"You'll be fine, Monica," said John. He had given the towel back to Scully and had his hands down on my back again, rubbing up and down.

"Thank you," I said softly.

"We love you, Monica," said John. "And we're going to get out of here. End of story."

*
THE NINTH NIGHT

We couldn't leave in the night, so we had no choice but to sit it out in the plane, and wait till morning to come. The blizzard continued for a few hours, but it stopped somewhere around 11pm, and that's when Dana and Mulder started to launch in to a talk of their plans.

Dana pulled a thermometer out of her bag and pushed it in to my mouth. I knew I was fine. I had been since shortly after I'd curled up with John. But if it made her feel better, then I would let her do it.

A minute or so later she pulled it out again, and pushed it in the beam of her flashlight to read it. "You're fine. Completely normal."

Mulder gave a sigh of relief, grabbing my bag and throwing it towards me. "Here, you might want to get dressed now."

John reluctantly released me from his arms and I pushed the blankets aside and crawled off him. As I dug out some dry clothes, I couldn't help noticing that Mulder and John had turned away in an effort to give me some privacy. I smiled.

"What are we going to take for the trip?" I asked. I couldn't stand the silence, and had to fill it with something.

John started ticking the items off on his fingers. "Water, all the warmest clothes, food, rope, radio, guns -"
"Guns?" I asked, stopping halfway through buttoning up my shirt.

"We won't need them," he said quickly. "It's just in case we encounter any wild animals. Self-defence."

I still had the memory of Brad in my mind, but there was too much logic in John's argument to argue with. There was a good chance there was wildlife out there, and it was better to prepare for it than get in to trouble later.

Dana turned to me. She'd been rummaging through someone's bag and had pulled out a jacket. "Monica, I want you to take this. It's warmer than anything you've got, and it's waterproof, too."

I recognised the dull grey. I knew that jacket. "That's Brad's."

"I know," she said, with an apologetic look, but she still held it out for me. "But he was your friend, and I'm sure he'd prefer you to take it rather than get sick again when we go out."

"Dana, if I wear that, it'll be a constant reminder of what happened," I said. "I feel bad enough already."

I was expecting her to shrug and turn away, but she surprised me by moving closer and pressing it gently in to my hands.

"We all feel bad, and not just about Follmer. About everyone. But we know they wouldn't want you to give up. Someone has to get out of here, and it has to be us. Take it. It's purely for your own warmth. That's all."

I still hesitated. Things just kept getting worse for us.

"Please," Dana whispered. "Monica, I don't know if you realise how close you came after that blizzard, but I don't want you to come that close again."

I nodded and took the jacket.

As I zipped it up, my eyes fell on Mulder. He was standing up, writing something on the wall and roof of the plane with a small tube.

"Mulder, that's my lipstick," I said, staring at him.

He didn't even stop. "I'll buy you another one."

"What are you writing?" I asked, moving to stand next to him so I could read it.

"I'm writing that we're going, where to find us, and where to find Kim and Skinner. If someone finds the plane while we're gone, hopefully they'll be able to track us."

"You don't have to write it now," said Scully, also coming over to admire Mulder's art work. "We agreed we're not going anywhere till it gets light."

"I want to be out of here at the first ray," he said, turning to face us. "We won't be able to hang around, wasting time."

John turned to face us. "And if that's the case, we'd better get some decent sleep."

*

DAY TEN

"John, wake up."

I reached over him and shook his shoulder gently. He groaned, but otherwise ignored me.

"Come on, sleepyhead," I said, lightly slapping his face. "It's time to go. This is it."

He sat up, yawning and squinting. I couldn't help grinning.

"Honestly, I'm going to kill Mulder. 'First ray'. What an idiot." He threw the blanket aside and started feeling around for his shoes.

I got to my feet, waiting for John at the door to the pilot's cabin. "Scully's finishing off our food situation. We're leaving in two minutes."

Thinking it would be good to leave John alone to recover from his early morning grumpiness, I went and climbed out on to the snow, to join Scully and Mulder. It felt like a mistake. Waking up to seeing Scully cutting out internal organs made me feel sick. It wasn't a sight I was ever going to get used to. I could learn to deal with it. I could learn to force myself to eat for survival, but I could not shake the thought of what the families would say when they found out. I turned and chose instead to look out in to the snow, gazing at the slopes that we would soon be climbing.

"John! Glad you're here. We were about to go without you."

I turned back around to see Scully grinning at John. He yawned again.

"Be there in a minute, Dana. I can't have my usual breakfast or shower, but I'm not going anywhere without my early morning pee."

I smiled at him and watched him go around the other side of the plane.

"Speaking of which," said Scully, throwing a bottle of water at me, "Have a drink. You'll need it."

I took a few gulps of water and then returned my attention to the mountains. "Have you checked the weather forecast?"

"Yes," said Mulder. "Clear weather for at least two days."

"There's a lot of land out there," I said, scanning the mountain peaks. "Are you sure we'll make it in time? It's cutting it fine."

"No," he said. "But I'm sure that we'll go crazy if we stay here any longer."

John came back around just in time to give another memorable remark. "You already were crazy, Mulder."

I walked back over to where my bag was waiting for me on the snow, and I stuffed the bottle of water in to it. I picked it up and swung it over my shoulders.

"Are we ready?" I asked. The more I stared at the mountains, the more I just wanted to start and get it over with. We were wasting good weather standing around talking.

Dana finished packing the food in and then pulled up her own bag. "I've had enough of this place. Let's get out of here."

We all exchanged smiles, took deep breaths, and then began to hike out for the mountain that Kim and Skinner had died on.

*

We had walked all morning, and only stopped at the peak of the mountain for lunch. The weather was still being kind to us. We had taken a short break at Kim and Skinner's bodies, but after five minutes of fighting tears, we came together and said another prayer, and that seemed to help. It was scary, though, to see their bodies frozen there, their failed attempt on a hike for rescue. What if we failed, too? What if we ended up like that? I tried to push the thought out, tried to rationalise it by saying that it was only because Kim slipped, and if we watched where we were walking, we would be fine.

By the time we reached the top of the mountain, we were all physically and emotionally exhausted and in need of a long rest. Of course, no rest could have ever been long enough for me.

"Anyone want something to eat?" asked Scully. She threw her pack down off her shoulders and started digging through it.

No one replied. The food in there was hardly something for us to be enthusiastic about. But as much as I hated it, I knew we needed the energy. To not eat would be disastrous.

It turned out that she didn't need an answer. She dipped her hand in and pulled out an unrecognisable internal organ. I felt my stomach turn.

"John," she said, holding it out for him. I gave John a sympathetic look, but he moved forward and took the food, turning away to nibble on it without us watching.

She didn't speak my name when she held the next part out for me, but I got the message. I took a deep breath and took it from her. It was something I would never get used to doing, but it was a necessity. It was that, or death. Simple choice.

Dana and Mulder were the last to take food, and when they did, they declared they wanted a few moments for themselves and disappeared over a few rocks and around a bend, out of sight.

"What do you think?" asked John, coming to stand next to me with his hands still full.

"Of what?" I replied. "You'll have to narrow that down or we'll be here forever."

"Our chances."

I exhaled slowly while my mind again drifted to our friends who didn't make it. "I don't think you want to know."

John nodded sadly. "Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too."

I hated to put doubt in to his mind. We were here now, so there was no use in being negative. I searched for something positive. "Depends how you look at it. I would have said our chances at surviving a plane crash were next to impossible. I would have said our chances at surviving an avalanche were fairly slim. And I would have said our chances at surviving ten days weren't good, either. But we've done all those, and maybe if we survived all that, we'll get lucky one more time, and we'll survive this one, too."

"Well it'd be annoying to be stopped now when we've survived so much," he said, looking down a the food still in his hand. He raised it hesitantly to his lips, frowning as he took a bite. "I just wish it was easier."

"Life wasn't meant to be easy," I said.

"It wasn't meant to be like this, either," he said. "When God invented people I'm sure he didn't have cannibalism on his mind."

"The bible allows for it in situations where it's a matter of survival."

"Even so, don't you wonder if we're doing the right thing?" He stopped eating and turned to face me.

"Of course we are," I said quickly. "It's definitely not an everyday experience, and definitely not a pleasant one, but I've thought it through, and I think we are doing the right thing. It's the ultimate sacrifice, doing that for your friends. I mean, if I died right now, the thought that my body would help you survive long enough to get out of here is comforting. And not only will you not care if you're dead, but your soul has already departed and so it doesn't matter. All we're doing is eating a body which would decay to nothing in normal circumstances anyway."

John drifted off in to deep thought, but I could tell I had him mostly persuaded. There was nothing that could persuade us to enjoy doing it, but there were plenty of reasons that argued for why it was the right thing to do.

Our thoughtful silence, gazing out at the other mountains, was interrupted by sudden shouts from Mulder and Scully.

"Scully!" screamed Mulder. "Scully, hold on!"

Trouble. There was trouble. We could tell from the panic in his voice. John and I dropped everything and ran around the rocks, around to the area where they had walked. Jumping over a large rock, I came to a sudden stop, John grabbing the back of my jacket to prevent me from going off the edge of a cliff - the cliff that Dana was already hanging off.

I threw myself down on my stomach and wriggled up next to Mulder. He had her by the wrists, but was struggling to maintain his grip and pull her up. I reached down and took one of her wrists, leaving Mulder to move both his hands to her other.

"Hold on, Dana!" I yelled.

I don't know if she even heard me. Her legs were thrashing around, and her eyes were wide with terror. Mulder and I slowly pulled her up. I didn't want to rush it and lose my grip on her. We took it slowly, and soon we had her shoulders over, and Mulder took her in his arms while I reached down to pull her legs up. I shifted back a little to give her room to sit on the edge of the cliff, and then she was up. She threw her arms around Mulder's shoulders and buried her face in his neck.

I looked over my shoulder, exchanging a relieved a look with John. The whole thing had happened so quick. That was the way it seemed to happen up here. No death ever approached you gradually. Like the avalanche. You didn't get any time to see it coming.

Dana wasn't crying, but she was severely shaken. Mulder calmed her down after a few minutes, and she loosened her grip on him and pulled away.

"Oh my God," she said, taking another slow breath to try and calm herself. Then she reached toward me and took me in a tight hug. I held her.

"Thank you, Monica," she whispered in my ear.

Her grip was still strangling me, and I started to get concerned. "Dana, you're okay. You're all right."

She pulled away a little and glanced around at John and Mulder. They were both wearing expressions as puzzled as mine. Dana wasn't normally one to fall apart that deeply.

"I was just..." she paused as she took another deep breath. "I just can't get Kim's fall out of my mind, and for a minute, I thought that... I mean, I understood..."

She broke off and shook her head, unable to explain to us what she was thinking. But that had been enough for me to get the idea. It made sense now. Like me, she was constantly thinking of Kim and Skinner, and how their last few moments must have been. Kim's terror as she could feel herself falling, and Skinner's helplessness. When Dana slipped, she understood exactly how it felt for Kim, and we had understood how it felt for Skinner. We had come close to losing Scully the same way that we lost Kim. I couldn't blame her for being shaken.

I was the first to react. I brought her back in to the hug, pressing a kiss to her cheek. "You're okay. It could've happened, but it didn't. We're all fine, Dana."

Mulder brought a hand to her back in sympathy, and she pulled away again, this time not bothering to try and gain control.

"It's so unfair," she said, her voice flat. "I wish so much she was here with us."

I wished that about everyone. Especially Brad. I was still wearing his jacket.

"We all do," said John, who had knelt down beside me. "Kim was a great person and didn't deserve what happened. I mean, she lost everything just because of one little mistake. They should all be here with us."

"I hate death," she said. "There just doesn't seem to be any logic to it."

"Not up here," said Mulder. "Up here it's random. If you let down your guard even for a second you're gone."

Dana nodded thoughtfully and then suddenly got to her feet. "If that's true, then we're a sitting target here. We'd better get going."

We followed her. We had a long way to go, and only limited daylight and clear weather. We couldn't spend too much time sitting and talking.

*
THE TENTH NIGHT

Scully going off the side of the cliff dampened my positive attitude. She was right. So many people had died. Was there really any chance of our survival? Maybe we were just talking toward the inevitable.

And it wasn't an easy path. We didn't know exactly where we were, or which direction was best to walk in, so we just picked west. West had to lead to civilisation eventually. The path would be easy for quite a while, but far up ahead there was another peak that Mulder wanted to climb to see if we could get a good view from there. Then it would be tough. I was already exhausted.

We walked all afternoon. Most of it was easy. The first part had been downhill, and then it was flat as we worked our way around the edge of the mountains. There were rocky bits, and a few unexpected climbs, but nothing too alarming. But even so, by the time night fell, we were all exhausted. My feet were numb again, as were my hands, and we started looking for a spot to spend the night.

"How long are we resting for?" asked John. We had come across a section of rock that would allow us to be partly sheltered from any wind. We immediately threw our gear down amongst the rocks and sat down, leaning back and searching our packs for water.

"We should probably get some sleep," said Scully. "So for a few hours, but it's probably best if we're off again before sunrise."

John wriggled closer to me, until our shoulders and thighs were touching. By now, I was so used to him doing it that it had become routine. It was for warmth. Even with the clear sky and lack of snowfall, it was still a freezing night. I finished drinking the water and then shifted to lean against him. He didn't object. He only pulled me even closer until I was fully against him, feeling his chest rise and fall as he breathed.

Dana had brought two blankets with her, and she pulled one out and gave it to me. I wrapped it around myself and John, and then let my head fall back against his chest, willing myself to sleep.

It was a long while before sleep came. Thoughts kept rushing through my mind. Images of Brad dead, of Kim's frozen face, of Skinner's body, and of Holly - our friend who had gone so early on, due to our carelessness. Poor Holly, who had to live with her wounded leg. We hadn't realised the consequences of it. Dana had commented once or twice that she thought Holly would have been delirious when she walked off, not realising how far civilisation was. That only made me feel worse. If she had been, then it made the fact that we hadn't noticed much worse.

And poor Kim. Kim who had trouble dealing with the guilt of Holly's death. Kim who was so strong, and hiked us all the way up the mountain peak that we had struggled to climb again today. She was a gem. Then she snapped, but we were there for her, arriving in time to prevent another Holly-like disaster. Then, when she had coped with the most extreme circumstances, she was struck down by a misplaced foot. Dana was right. Kim was such a lovely person, and one who I was only beginning to get to know. If she had still been with us, we could have been great friends. Fate was so cruel.

Skinner. My boss who I hadn't had much time to get to know on a personal level, but who was great friends with Mulder and Scully. When we stopped by his body this afternoon, I could see the pain in their eyes. They tried to disguise it, but I could see it. What hurt me was that there was nothing I could do. Skinner shouldn't have had to die. It was all wrong. What kept me awake the most was imagining what he would have felt after seeing Kim fall. He wouldn't have wanted to go, because he wouldn't have known for sure if she was okay. He couldn't leave her. But at the same time, there was nothing he could do. He couldn't attempt the climb himself. And while he would have been standing there, too shocked to move, the snow kept falling, until it was too late for him to do anything.

I loved Skinner, Holly and Kim. I would never, ever forget what happened to them, and I wasn't sure we would ever fully recover from it. But the pain I experienced thinking about them still didn't come anywhere near the torture of thinking about Brad. What a turbulent friendship we'd had. But it was wrong. His death had not been committed by nature, it had been by himself, and our lack of support. I had recognised his pain. I had tried to deal with it, but somehow failed. My head kept telling me that Dana was right, that there was nothing I could have done. But my heart was torn. I was supposed to be his friend, and yet he managed to walk off and commit suicide without anyone trying to stop him. And what if it happened again? What if I turned my back for a few seconds, failing to recognise pain in one of the three people with me now? What if they did a similar thing? I didn't want to bring the guns with us, but we had no choice. I wasn't comfortable having my friends armed as long as we were in the mountains.

Eighteen people were dead. Seventeen had been killed by the mountains in which we were now surrounded. What on Earth gave us the idea that we would survive? It was a hope, a hope we held on to out of fear of going insane in the wait for rescue. Did any of us really believe that we could walk out of here? We had no proper gear, and no proper food. We had nothing that we would need. It was a blind hope. Nature had attempted to kill us several times now, and there were no signs that it was going to give up. It slowly picked us off, one by one. Maybe we weren't immune. There was no certainty that we stood a chance. All we were doing was hoping, and I didn't know if that would be enough.

Trekking across these mountains with no equipment would take more than hope. It takes guts and strength which I wasn't sure we had. We were all strong individuals, but we were currently at our very worst, and as long as the images of our dead friends filled my mind, I was having trouble maintaining the strength we needed. I wasn't the only one, either. Dana's temporary loss of control today was a sign that we were all feeling the same. As was John's concern when he asked me what our chances were of making it out. They felt the doubt, just like I did. They felt the pain, and I wasn't sure if pain was going to carry us out of here.

It would take more than hope for us to make it out of here, and the way we were going, we didn't even have much hope. I sighed and turned over, back in to John. It was going to be a long night.

*
DAY ELEVEN

Our golden rule for survival in the mountains was to expect nothing to go to plan. I'd forgotten our rule when I woke, but I was soon reminded of it.

The first thing I noticed was that it was still freezing. Even more so than it was the night before. The second was that part of the reason was that John was no longer behind me, and I was leaning against a cold rock. The third was that Scully and Mulder were awake, and it was them who answered my question before it was even out my mouth.

"John's sick," said Scully. "He's been sick the last few hours."

I didn't have to ask her to explain what she meant by "sick". It would be the same kind of sick that Mulder had been dealt. Poor John. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the consequences.

"We can't leave until he's better," said Scully, a worried look on her face at how long that might be.

I sighed and took my bag, looking for my bottle of water. "I guess it was too much for everything to be going so well."

Mulder held out a bottle for me. "Here, we took yours to fill it up again."

I raised an eyebrow. They must have been awake for hours.

Another unpleasant thought hit me. "But John will be able to hike, right? He'll be all right, won't he?"

Scully hesitated. "He won't be feeling too great, but he should be able to, with our help. But with that and the time we've already lost, we won't cover as much ground as we did yesterday."

I looked around at the surroundings rocks and snow. "Where is he?"

Scully pointed over another set of rocks. "He's behind there. He'll be all right. I've been checking on him every fifteen minutes or so. Might be best to leave him alone for a while. He's a little embarrassed and frustrated, to say the least."

That was a situation that reminded me of Brad. It was always dangerous to leave someone alone with their thoughts for too long. I was debating whether to go see him when Mulder came around and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry. We took his gun. And he might be sick, but he still wants to get out of here. It delays us, but we'll still be all right. We have plenty of time."

I tried to give him a smile, but it didn't quite work out. "I just wonder if we're ever going to get out of here."

*

We set off about an hour and half later, and the walk turned out to be a hundred times tougher than it had been the day before. John was weak, and I walked beside him the entire time. I tried to help, but he was angry with himself for delaying us, and didn't want to be a burden by allowing me to help him walk. So, in the end I gave in to his stubbornness, and I just stayed beside him, ready to help him if he needed it.

Hours later, we fought our way up the second mountain, reaching the peak to get a good view of the surrounding landscape, and searching for any sign of civilisation or low land.

"We're doomed," said John, looking around a the endless snowy mountains as he caught his breath.

"Pessimist," I said, trying to smile. Someone in the group had to be positive.

"Give me a reason to be positive, Monica," he said, turning back to me, with something approaching anger in his eyes.

I searched for one out in the mountains. And I found it, way in the distance. "See that? It's green over there."

"Do you realise how far away that is?" he shouted. "We'll never make it!"

"We might," said Mulder, who had come over to see what we were looking at. "If the weather holds a little longer."

"A 'little' longer?" shouted John. "That's miles away! There's no way we're going to get through that before the next blizzard."

"Not if we stand here arguing," said Scully, crossing her arms.

"John," I said, taking a step toward him, "We'll make it. Just take it easy."

"Take it easy?" he said. "I don't see any reason why we should be taking it easy. We're stuck in the middle of nowhere!"

"We'll make it," I said, trying to calm him down.

But he wasn't calmed. "That's what everyone else thought, and look what happened to them!"

We all stopped, silent. John was still staring at us, waiting for a reaction. He didn't seem to have realised what he'd said. We'd been trying so hard to make it past the deaths of our friends, and here John was bringing it up again.

"They were accidents," I said weakly.

"Accidents?" he said. "There's no such thing, Monica. We've been escaping death ever since we crashed in these mountains. One time after another, over and over. First the crash, then the avalanche, Holly, Kim, Skinner, Follmer... the list goes on. Don't you get it? We're meant to die. We're not meant to get out of here. This is it. We were doomed right from the start."

"And what are you going to do?" I asked, feeling my temper beginning to rise. "You just going to sit here and wait to die?"

"And what if I do?" he shouted. "Wouldn't you rather die happy up here, than die of exhaustion a few miles on? We're doomed, Monica. Don't you get it? I mean, look at us! We're all weak. We've lost eighteen other agents, what on Earth gave you the idea that we could survive out here? Holly, Kim and Skinner all died doing the same thing, and you just blinded yourself to that and walked on anyway! When are you going to stop? When are you going to realise that there's nothing you can do?"

"When there truly is nothing we can do," I said. "But we aren't there yet. We can still make it out of here. We have food, and we have water. Kim and Skinner dying doesn't necessarily mean that the same thing will happen to us. I'm not just going to throw my bag down and wait for death, John. And that's not like you. It's not like you to give up. Just a few more miles and we'll be out of here. You'll see your family again, and can go back to your normal lifestyle."

"Go back to normal?" John repeated, shaking his head. "There's no going back, Monica. We've lost eighteen agents. You think that's just something you're going to walk away from? And what about that food you've got in your bag? It's like Kim said. What are you going to say about that? How are you going to explain that you ate a colleague to preserve your own life? Or worse. How are you going to explain that the Assistant Director shot himself, because we were all too preoccupied with our own petty concerns to take any notice of him."

I opened my mouth to strongly object, but John was on a roll and he turned to shout at Scully before I could get a word in.

"And what about you? You're a doctor! How are you going to explain to Holly's family that you failed to notice the side-effects of her condition? That you fell asleep, ignoring the fact that she was delirious, and left her to die? Have you thought about that? What about the families of those you've cut up, Dana? What are you going to say to them? You all can't wait to get out of here, but it hasn't occurred to you that you may not be welcomed with open arms."

"Okay, so what about you, Agent Doggett?" shouted Scully. "Your solution to that is to sit down and give up? You're just going to wait for death to come?"

"I told you," he said. "This is fate, Dana."

"I thought you were a sceptic," I said. "When did you change sides?"

"It's logical," he said. "You calculate it yourself, Monica. There is no way we're going to make that green patch before the next snowfall. No one here ever thought we would make it! Ask Dana and Mulder. You don't find it odd that they delayed our departure so easily? Have you asked why they wanted to leave before sunrise? You know the time is limited! You knew that we'd never make it. That's why when I got sick, you weren't at all bothered. You knew that nothing changed, because we were doomed from the start, anyway. You only started with this trip because you couldn't handle sitting in the plane. You didn't care that you were dead, you just wanted to keep your minds occupied."

I turned to look at Scully and Mulder. Now that he'd mentioned it, that did seem odd. But it still didn't add up.

"If we'd thought there was no hope, we would have never let Kim and Skinner go out on that hike," I said.

"We knew it was a long shot. It's just that no one had the energy to hold Kim back. She's a force no one wanted to argue with."

This conversation was getting ridiculous. "John, everything we've done has been right at the time we did it. We've made mistakes, but only in hindsight. You can't blame us for anything that's happened. I don't deny that when we get out of here, some of our choices are going to be hard to explain, but we'll handle that together when the time comes, just like we told Kim we would. All I know is that I'm going to make it out of here. And so are you. I refuse to sit down here and wait for death, John. If I die, it won't be before I put in a decent effort to avoid it."

John didn't say anything.

"John, I know you aren't feeling well, but that's no reason to give up. We'll help you every step of the way. You just can't give up." To make my point I held out my hand for him. "Come on, John. Walk."

He didn't move, and I walked forward and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, John. This isn't you. You're not giving up. Hear me? We're going to get out of here. All you have to do is walk with me. Walk with me, John."

Still John didn't move. I pulled my hand away and took a step back, trying to think what to do.

"John, all those events we've been through don't show that death is inevitable. It's not our fate. The fact that we've survived all those things shows that we're meant to. We're meant to get out of here, and we will."

John wasn't even looking at me. Even Scully and Mulder weren't sure. They were staring at me with disbelieving looks, and then looking out at the mountains, and the green patch in the distance. I could see their minds debating it. John had shut down. I could only think of one more thing to do to persuade them that it would be all right.

I pulled up my bag and put it over my shoulders. "You don't believe me? I'll prove it to you." My bag on my back, I straightened up and turned around, roughly choosing a route to the green land, and locking the image in my mind. "I'm going for help. When I make it, I'll bring help for you."

"I'll see you in a few days," I said. I gave them a smile, blew them a kiss, and then turned and walked off.

*

It was the biggest gamble of my entire life. I wasn't just gambling with my life, or with theirs, but also with our friendship. But even though it was a risk, I was fairly certain that I wouldn't get far before they came after me. If I had done the same thing before all this happened, then they would let me go, but I knew that we had all become much closer since the plane crash, and I knew they would worry about me enough to chase.

We had also let Holly and Brad go off by themselves, and I was guessing that they still felt bad enough about that to not let it happen again. I knew they'd chase, but I still meant every word of what I had said. We were going to get out of here, and leaving them alone for a moment would help them sort themselves out. They would realise that I was serious, and that I was not willing to hang around and wait to die.

In the time it took them to catch up with me, I'd hiked off most of my anger. It was just so ridiculous that they would sit there and choose death over trying to make it, and I was willing to do anything to change it.

I'd hiked for nearly twenty minutes before I heard shouts behind me. They'd taken a little longer than I thought, but when I turned around to face them, I could guess why. John was looking upset, and Scully's determination showed that they must have had a heated argument in my absence.

The three of them stopped in front of me. Scully and Mulder just casually gazed around at the surrounding snow. It was John who spoke.

He took a deep breath. "Monica, I'm sorry." Another deep breath. "I guess I just lost control for a moment."

I gave him a nod of acceptance, but I still wanted to dig a little deeper. "You seemed fairly sure that we were going to die."

He nodded with exhaustion and wandered over to a rock, leaning against it. "I was just feeling so bad this morning, you know? I mean, I compare myself now to how I was over a week ago, before this happened. Do you remember how tired we were then? I was so tired I fell asleep on the plane. And then the plane crashed, and we had injuries and deaths, and suddenly everyone's depending on you to be strong. But it just kept going. We've had some tough cases, but nothing has ever come close to the experience of being stuck up here. I was already tired, but you just keep going, because you're needed. But then we lost those three unconscious agents, and then Holly, and it just eats away. I just can't figure it out. I'm so damn tired, Monica. And then we lost Kim, Skinner and Follmer. And when we were hiking yesterday, I just couldn't get them out of my head. We're taking a risk. This is the biggest risk I've ever taken, and after everything we'd already been through, I mean, I was far from my best. After that, I just wondered how long it was going to take for us to end up like Skinner. Frozen. I just..." tears appeared in his eyes. "I'm just tired."

He looked so upset that I immediately forgot about everything and walked up to him, putting my arms around his shoulders and pulling him to me in a hug. He hugged me back, firmly holding me in his arms and burying his face in to my neck.

We broke apart a few seconds later, and I took a step back so that Mulder and Scully were in our circle again.

"We all feel that way, John," I said. "It's not just you. It's been tiring for everyone. First when we crashed, and taking care of Holly, only to end up making the biggest mistake of all by falling asleep. I felt so guilty, but you bottle it up, because there's Kim, and others, who are still worse off than you are. So we dealt with Kim, chasing her across the slopes, which is tiring in itself, and then I stayed with her, holding her, all night. And just when I thought I might get a second for myself, we got that newsflash that the blizzards were coming, and Brad goes off and says he wants to leave. And then of course, it was another disaster. More pain and emotional turmoil. I was so sick of it all, John. And then I woke up the next morning, only to discover that Dana had a new idea for survival -" I gave Dana an apologetic look, but she only smiled in understanding. "And my God, John, I don't know how we ever got through that. And again, when you think you've got a minute and let your guard down, something else happens. An avalanche. And I'm so incredibly tired, on all levels, but then Dana and I are digging for you! And all I can think of is what if we're too late? But we made it, and had a short break before all the disaster with Kim and Skinner, and then to get hypothermia, which drains me yet again, and suddenly I'm fighting for my life in your arms. Then we have to leave anyway, up here, and with all that..." I couldn't help laughing, "...John, I don't just understand how you feel, I know. I am so tired. Walking out here is just as unappealing to me as it is to you. But I'm not going to sit down and die now. Otherwise, why did I bother to survive everything else? I want to make it out of here."

John was looking down at the snow. "I want to make it out of here too, Monica. I want it so much. But I don't know if we have the strength to do that. Like you just said, we've been through so much. I don't know if either of us have the strength to walk across all those hills. How do you plan to do that?"

It was Scully who answered that one. "The same way you both survived everything else."

I had a feeling I knew what she was hinting at, but John had absolutely no idea.

She smiled at the look on John's face and explained. "You said it yourself, Monica. 'Don't ever think you're alone'. You said it to Kim that night we chased her. And I think that that's exactly how we've all made it through everything. Everyone has had their weak points, but they've had strong ones too. When you think you can't go on any further, suddenly someone comes along and helps you. Like when Kim was upset. She thought she couldn't handle it, but then we were there for her. Or even later when we found her, and we were digging through that snow..." she stopped and looked at me, gulping. "I mean, if it hadn't been for you, Monica, I would have never made it back up to the top of that cliff."

I couldn't help smiling. It was a sweet moment.

Mulder made it sweeter. "I'll second that. When that avalanche hit, that was the most terrifying minute of my entire life. I had no idea you and Scully had survived. After a while I thought it was the end for us, but then I felt you kick me, and it hurt, but I'll forgive you for it since you saved my life."

I smiled. I knew he meant it. I could remember how shocked he was when I unburied him, and the way we'd hugged. That had been one of Mulder's weaker points of the last week.

John had been thoughtful, but then he walked away from the rock and threw an arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer. "You have been pretty amazing, Monica."

I waved my hand and shook my head. "You're missing the point. It's not just me. Like Dana said, we've all had our good times and bad times. You've all been great too. Those times when I thought I couldn't go on, you've all been amazing. Like when Brad died. I never thought I'd make it through that night, but then everyone was there for me. Everyone let me talk about him, everyone asked questions, for my benefit. And then, John, you were there." I glanced at him, and one look in his eyes told me he remembered holding me while I cried. "And that wasn't the only time. When I collapsed, searching for you in that blizzard, you and Mulder were there for me. You both carried me all the way back to the plane, and then helped me with my clothes..." I trailed off. I didn't need to complete the sentence. "I mean, you were all strong for me, then. It's like Scully says. It was one of those times when I didn't think I could go on. There was no way. But then I let go, and everyone else supported me. It's not the blankets or dry clothing that made me better, and able to cope. It was the fact that you had been there. The fact that I didn't have to worry about anything, because I knew I could trust you."

All the emotion was getting to me, and I felt tears come to my eyes. I quickly wiped them away. I wasn't going to be the first one to cry.

I'd momentarily lost the thread I'd been on, but Dana completed things for me. "John, it's okay to be sick. We understand that. But when you think you can't go on, that's why we're here. You might not think there's a chance, because you're not as strong and tough as you were, but none of us are. The point is, we don't want to die. I'm not going to wait for it. We have lost so many others, and I don't care if the families won't understand why we've done what we've done. I don't care, as long as I can get out of here to have a chance at explaining it."

"I agree," I said. "I just have to try, John. Even just for the people we've lost. We owe it to them to make it out of here. And you're allowed to be doubtful. You're entitled to lean on me, or any of us, as much as you want. Just as long as you don't stop. When I was sick, the one thing Scully told me to do was to keep my eyes open. It's the same thing. John, we'll take care of everything else for you. You just keep your legs walking. Because we're here. Like it or not, I want to make it out of here, but I refuse to leave without the three of you. So you're coming with me. I'm not leaving you behind."

John smiled. "Says the one who walked off on us half an hour ago."

I grinned and looked down. He knew very well why I had done that.

He tightened his arm around my shoulders. "Thanks."

I put my arm around his waist. "Thank me when we're out of here. Ten days and I haven't had a single cup of coffee."

Mulder smiled and squeezed Scully's shoulder, then reached down for his bag. "I think that's a hint that she wants to go."

Scully picked up her own bag, which she'd thrown down on the rocks while we were talking. "It's not a hint, it's an order. We have a patch of green to aim for. That's good enough for me. Let's go."

They worked their way around us, leading the way. John and I pulled our own bags back over our shoulders, and then slowly followed them. John smiled and then reached out a hand toward me. I slid my hand in to his and he held it warmly within his own. Then we walked off together down the slippery path to civilisation.

"Everything's going to be all right, Mon," said John.

I smiled. John was smiling again. Mulder and Scully were happy. The sky was still clear, and we had a goal. He was right. We were going to be fine.

*
THE ELEVENTH NIGHT

It was hard to judge distances in the mountains. From the mountain peak, it had looked like a long way. Which it was. But it wasn't quite as long as we thought. As we began to realise that it was actually within a day's walking distance, I considered that maybe it was our growing pessimism that made it seem further than it really was. To walk when you are emotionally drained is difficult no matter how far it is. But now that we were all somewhere near stable, or even happy, the walk didn't bother us.

We continued walking long after sunset. It wasn't much further, and we all agreed that we preferred to keep walking than to stop for sleep. We had reached a section of the hike which was mainly downhill, and we knew that the lower we walked, the warmer we would get. We kept telling ourselves that it was just another hour before we stopped, but then the green fields and trees starting to come in to sharper focus, and we found ourselves keeping going. No one wanted to stop. The sight of green so close sent us in to an emotional flip, and suddenly resting seemed crazy. I wanted to get there. I didn't care if we walked all night. I didn't care that my legs were tired. It had been eleven days since I'd seen grass, or trees, and I wanted to collapse on it and kiss it. I wanted to breathe in the scent and feel the dirt under my fingernails. Funny how I'd never appreciated it before. In the past I thought snow was beautiful. Now I hated it. I'd had enough.

As we got nearer, we started to find signs of civilisation. An odd tree here and there and pieces of rubbish. I've never been so happy to see litter. But the thing made me sure that we were finally saved was when we worked our way through a short stretch of forest and Dana suddenly let out a yelp.

"Mulder!" she shouted, pointing in to the distance.

John and I had been walking a little behind and we rushed to catch up. Then we saw.

"A fence," I said. A wire fence that bordered a field. If there was a fence and a field, there had to be a house not too far away.

"I can't believe it," said John. He was staring as though the low light was deceiving him and making him see things that weren't there.

"Sceptic to the end," muttered Mulder.

I grinned. "You know, if you don't mind, I'd like to get out of here."

We didn't immediately hurry out as I thought we would. Dana wanted to stop and bury the food we had brought with us. We wouldn't get another chance to dump it later. So we spent five minutes burying it, and then we hurried over to the fence, climbed between the lines of wire and headed out in the paddock, looking around for a house.

We soon found it. It was a brick house, and though there were no lights on, I had the feeling that someone was home. We were saved. We paused at the second fence to admire it, taking a moment to look at each other with giddy smiles and tears of exhaustion. After a moment I gently pulled on John's arm.

"Come on. Let's see if there's anyone home."

*
DAY TWELVE The Hospital

"Mulder, you're not supposed to be in here."

I had been put in a room with Dana, and now she was glaring at him from over in her bed by the window. I looked between them, and then smiled when I saw John poke his nose around the corner after Mulder. Both were still in their hospital gowns.

John shrugged. "We got bored."

They shut the door again and came around to sit with us, John on the edge of my bed and Mulder on Dana's. I was sitting up, having just finished my second meal in a row. I was so hungry. John glanced at the empty tray and gave me a smile.

"It's funny, isn't it? It's the first time in my life that I've enjoyed hospital food," he said.

I turned around the plastic hospital cup in my hands. It was empty now. I'd drank it all.

Mulder couldn't resist. "No coffee, then?"

I smiled and pointed at another empty cup on my tray. "They tried to keep it from me, but I soon made them give in."

Mulder gave an understanding smile. "I know the feeling. For a second there they tried to make me use a bed pan. They didn't get away with that one, either."

Dana rolled her eyes. "You can't resist, can you? The idea of actually behaving yourself is just too much."

"They have flushing toilets, Scully. It's paradise. I hadn't seen one in so long that I'd almost forgotten how to use them."

I grinned. Dana was joking. We all agreed with Mulder. Compared to the plane and the mountains, the hospital was a five star resort.

She suddenly turned serious. "Have you heard anything about our families?"

"They said they'd be here soon," said John. "I talked to one of the nurses and she said they're only letting in immediate family, with ID. Apparently the media want to talk with us and have been trying to get in."

Scully frowned and opened her mouth to comment on what she thought of the media when there was a wave of voices coming from outside our door and suddenly it burst open, hitting the wall, while in came our relatives.

My mom and dad practically ran toward the bed and threw themselves down on it. John grinned as my mother threw her arms around me and pulled me close, holding me so tight that I wouldn't be surprised if she broke a couple of ribs.

"Monica! Oh my Monica!" she shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks. "We prayed to God to look after you and our prayers were answered. You're okay." She gave my body another tight squeeze. I let my head rest on her shoulder. It was so good to see them both. "I thought I'd never see you again. Oh, my girl..."

"It's good to see you, too," I said, hearing tears in my own voice. I pulled away a little to look at my dad, who was standing beside the bed. "Both of you."

My dad always had trouble finding words when he was emotional, but he moved forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and that said enough.

My mom turned to look at Mulder, Scully and John, who were all watching.

"And these are your friends?" she asked, not bothering to wait for an answer. "It's good to meet you. I'm so glad you're all right. They gave up on you days ago." She turned back to me, and suddenly put her hands on my waist, her small fingers poking me in the stomach and in the sides.

"You're so thin!" she said. "You've lost so much weight!" She gave me a puzzled look. Obviously she'd been expecting me to emerge unchanged. "What happened to you out there?"

My smile fell. I couldn't answer that question. She would be told sometime, but I wasn't ready to give all the details. I looked across to the others for help. They were no longer smiling. They knew how I felt. I would give my mom the essential facts, but nothing more.

I hesitated. "It's just... it's just been a long week."

She seemed puzzled my lack of information, but she quickly covered it and gave me a smile, putting her hand to my hair. "Of course. You're all had a hard week. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

The awkward silence was broken by the door flying open again, this time revealing Dana's mother, and John's parents. The three of them were just as enthusiastic as my mother was. Dana soon found herself in hug just as tight as the one I'd just had, and John's parents were crying so much that they couldn't even find any words. They hugged him in silence.

My mom brought my attention back to her. She reached down for my hands, holding them gently within her own. "You've been through so much, Monica. You need a break." She glanced at my dad, and I had a feeling I knew what was coming. "Come back to Mexico with us. Just for some time away. Come home."

I saw Mulder watching over her shoulder. He was wondering what my answer was going to be.

I felt another tear slip down my cheek. My mom was being so nice, but she just didn't understand. I hadn't been expecting them to. The only ones who understood were John, Dana and Mulder. The story would be reported worldwide, but they were the only ones who truly knew. I loved my parents, and I couldn't be happier to see them. I was so grateful for them flying up here to see me. But I could not go back to Mexico.

"I can't," I said. "I have to stay with them." I nodded in the direction of my three friends. She looked so disappointed that I couldn't help feeling guilty. "We just have a lot to sort through right now. But you're right. It would be good to see the family. Maybe I'll come down when it all settles down."

She smiled and squeezed my hands. Maybe she did understand. A little. She knew that a lot had happened up on the mountains that we weren't ready to talk about, and that I needed to be with the people I'd shared it with, until we dealt with it enough to go on with our lives.

I gave my mom another hug. I was still crying. It was extraordinary. Twelve days, and I still wasn't short of tears. "It's so good to see you, mom. I love you so much."

She smiled and held me. "We love you too, Monica."

*

Scully and John's parents had reacted the same way as mine. They tried to be comforting and loving, but they couldn't understand because they weren't there. It didn't matter, though. We'd made it out. We were all right. Now, it didn't matter what anyone thought. We would make it through it all, like we said we would when we were in the snow. We would deal with it together, when the time came. And that's what we were doing. That's why Mulder and John had come to our room, and that's why I told my mother I couldn't yet go to Mexico.

It was a strangely slow afternoon. The press still hadn't been allowed in. Not that we cared. I wasn't interested in talking to them. The rescue crews had been sent up in to the hills, after being given directions, and they were already collecting the bodies of our colleagues. No doubt they would get a lot of information for the media from that. We had also given them directions for the location of Kim and Skinner. We weren't sure they would find the spot on their own, but we were prepared to go back up there to help, if needed.

Our orders were to rest in hospital, until the doctors said we were 100% healthy. I was pretty sure we already were, but we definitely didn't mind the rest part. It was nice for the four of us to sit together. We weren't alone with our troubles, that way. We were comfortable with each other.

An unlikely visitor came mid-afternoon. A nurse knocked and opened the door, giving us a smile. "We have a visitor for you. A Mr Kersh from the FBI. Are you happy to see him?"

We knew Kersh would find a way in no matter what the nurse said, so we nodded, feeling that we might as well. It was now or later. Let's get the beating over with.

It was the time for unexpected surprises. It wasn't surprising that he had come to see us. With the loss of so many agents from the Bureau, it was natural for him to come up here and sort things out. But the surprises were how he did come to see us. The nurse stepped back and let him in, and I jaw nearly dropped.

Kersh had a bunch of flowers in his hands. I might have been able to excuse that as a formality, but he was wearing jeans as well. The suit was gone. He was wearing old sneakers, jeans and a casual shirt with a brown jacket. He looked nothing like the Deputy Director of the FBI. It was all wrong.

He stopped near the door. "Agents. It's good to see you."

None of us had had good experiences with Kersh, but he was trying to be nice, so we played along. We had no energy to be angry.

He held the flowers up for us, giving us a small, awkward smile. "I have no idea what they are, but I liked them. I thought you might like to have some, to smell them."

He put them on the bedside table beside me. I picked them up and brought them to my nose. The scent filled me and I smiled up at him. "They're beautiful. Thank you."

I passed them over to John, for him to smell, and then to the others.

Kersh put his hands back in his pockets. I couldn't get over how different he was. He could even be called likeable.

He spoke in a low, friendly voice. It was a tone I'd never heard him use before. "I've spoken with the crews who went up to the mountains. I can give you an update if you're interested."

Kersh being sensitive. I must be hallucinating.

And I wasn't the only one. "Well... yes. Bring us up-to-date," said John. Mulder and Dana were still watching carefully, not believing what they were seeing and not sure what to do about it.

"We've recovered sixteen of the eighteen bodies. They haven't yet been able to locate Kimberly and Assistant Director Skinner. Though they tell me that you're willing to help find them and that they won't be left up there."

Kersh looked down. I suddenly understood why he was being so nice. It wasn't like he was an outsider, like our families had been. Kersh knew every one of the people who were dead, and he would be feeling the tragedy quite deeply. He would have to deal with the media, and the families, and then try and bring the FBI back to functional again. We had lost two Assistant Directors. He would be having a nightmare managing everything.

"We've talked to the families. Some of them have come up here. The bodies are being taken back to Washington, where they'll be given a proper funeral. They've said they're going to wait a few days, though, to give everyone time. I've arranged so that you'll be notified of when and where the funerals are, if you want to attend."

I knew instinctively that we would be attending the funerals of Brad, Holly, Kim and Skinner. But we hadn't talked about the rest. We would probably be worn out after four of them, but then I still felt bad about the other fourteen, too.

Kersh looked at the wall behind Mulder. He was thinking, trying to find courage for his next words. "There's some other things you need to be aware of. The rescue crews have drawn some conclusions based on the states of some of the recovered bodies."

I exchanged uneasy looks with my three friends. This was one of the things we had been dreading.

Kersh went on. "You don't need to worry. The minute the news spread of your survival, the experts were telling us to expect it. It's already been leaked to the press. You'll have to suffer some negative reactions, of course, but I think the majority are on your side. Some of the families might want to have a few words with you, though." Kersh brought his head up again. "But whatever happens, I can promise you the FBI is on your side. We'll defend you if there's any trouble."

Dana and Mulder were still speechless, so I filled the gap. "Thank you, sir."

"The FBI is giving you all a week of leave, to recover. You can imagine that things are a little hectic now, anyway. It's going to take that long to sort everything out." He a quick breath, as if he'd said everything he wanted to say. He was going to turn back for the door when he thought of something else. "The press want to take interviews. I'm leaving it up to you to decide whether you want to do that or not." He made an effort to smile. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. You just take it easy. Get some rest."

He turned and headed for the door. I couldn't stand it any longer. He looked so sad, and the look on his face was one which would be reflected throughout the whole of the FBI. Maybe we weren't alone, after all. "Thank you for coming to see us, sir."

He had the door open, but gave us a smile over his shoulder. "Get well soon."

The door clicked closed.

*

"Pinch me," said Mulder. He was sitting on the edge of Scully's bed, a look of impressed shock on his face.

John was on his feet still, and he turned around to look at him. "I can't believe it. I've never seen him that nice before."

"It makes sense when you think about it," said Scully. "The whole FBI is going to be upset over what happened. We've lost so many people that we've all worked with for so long. Kersh will be worn out. He's left trying to manage it all."

I leant back in to the pillows on my bed. "I'd never thought of that when we were up in the snow. It never crossed my mind."

There was a short silence. John came to sit back on my bed, beside my legs.

"He said he's leaving us to decide if we want to talk about it," said John. "What do you want to do about that?"

Dana didn't hesitate. She'd obviously thought about it a lot. "I don't want to say anything. There is no reason why we should, other than to satisfy people's curiosity. It's none of their business. I'm willing to talk privately to some of the families, the ones we need to, but I have no interest in giving a public statement."

That wasn't too far off what I was thinking. "I agree. Most of it I want to keep between ourselves. Like you said, there are a few families of certain people who we are going to need to talk to, but we'll handle that in private. But Dana, there's also the whole of the FBI and the country that's going to be grieving for those lost. I think we need to say something. Maybe only very brief, and in the broadest, most general terms, but we need to give them something. Just some facts about the crash, and things like that."

"You mean just the broad, general idea?" asked Mulder. "What the crash felt like, how cold it was, when we gave up on the rescue... things like that, right?"

"Right," I said. "Just a few details that don't matter. Nothing too deep or meaningful."

"And if they ask for more?" said John.

"Then that's their problem," I said. "We don't give any more than we're willing to part with. They can throw as many questions out there as they like. We don't have any duty to answer them. There are so many things that the average person doesn't need to know about. They won't get it, and we'll only make things tougher if we talk about it. We can handle it between ourselves. They don't need to know."

Dana nodded. "Okay then. I guess I can agree to that."

John and Mulder also agreed, and I smiled. "Besides, we're all X-
Files agents. No one here has ever cared what other people think of them. None of you have ever been bothered by having cameras on you on tough cases. This is no different. There is no reason to start caring now. We all know what happened. That's enough for me."

John smiled. "You're right, you know. I'm beginning to think there's some real wisdom in those words of yours."

"Words of mine?" I said, trying to remember what he was on about.

Dana smiled again. "Don't ever think you're alone."

Now it came back to me. The words I'd said to Kim. The words I'd said to John when he lost hope. None of us were ever alone. We had no reason to fear the consequences of our experience, or to fear that we could never recover from it, because we each had three other people who knew exactly how it had all happened. And that was enough. It was all it took. Like we'd promised so many days ago, we would deal with any problems together. We would go to the funerals together. We would talk to the families together. We didn't have to follow each other to the toilet any more, but we were still looking after each other. Just in a different way, that's all.

"So," said Mulder, reaching for Scully's tray to fill himself a cup of water. "I propose a new plan for us. A new life. Come on, grab your cups. I don't care if it's only water, we're having a toast."

I sat up and reached for my own cup, also filling it up again. I held it up, waiting for John and Dana to do the same.

Mulder held up his cup. "To a lack of snow, to beautiful food, and to the possibility of taking advantage of Kersh's kindness to get ourselves a pay rise."

I shortened it. "To a pay rise."

We drank and then lowered our cups, grinning.

"Now my turn," I said, checking there was still water in my cup. They all waited, still smiling and looking at me. It had been so long since I'd seen their beautiful smiles. "To my friends, who are finally smiling, and who are the three most incredible people anyone could ever be fortunate enough to work with."

We all raised our glasses.

"To friendship," said Dana, simply.

"To the smiles," said Mulder.

John put his free arm around my shoulders. "May there be plenty more."

*
The End.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

First, a HUGE thank you to Lisa for betaing this for me. Lisa beta'd this as a WIP over the five weeks that I wrote it and has been very, very helpful. So thanks, Leese! Couldn't have done it without you.

Second, I feel I have to say something about where I picked up this idea. I had to fill in an hour before one of my exams in November, and I wandered into the library and somehow found the story of the Andes survivors. As I read, I was wondering how the agents would go in a similar position. That's where my story came from. I do want to say that my version is extremely different to the real one. I don't think my version is very realistic. It was just a fun idea. From the real story, I borrowed only a few events. I borrowed the idea of the cannibalism, and I borrowed the avalanche. That's it. All the other stuff in my fic, especially all the psychological stuff (eg Holly), is straight from my own insane mind.

Hope you enjoyed.