Snows II: Running
by Te
1/99

Disclaimers: They don't belong to me, and I apologize for
trespassing. Gimme a minute to repack the picnic basket 
and I'll be on my way.

Spoilers: None.

Ratings Note: R for some rough language and implied 
m/m.

Summary: Mulder has been dreaming.

Author's Notes: This one owes quite a bit to Viridian's 
marvelous "Under." Read it now. And this is a direct 
sequel to "Snows," though I'm not sure it's necessary to 
read that one first. 

Acknowledgments: To Sister Blue for knowing the value 
of a good catch. To Laura for... a lot. <g> To Dawn Sharon 
for fine audiencing and many helpful suggestions, and to 
Ladonna for fine beta. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Snows II: Running
by Te
Daddy793@aol.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've seen him watching me. 

He has to know. Hell, our eyes have even met once or 
twice.

Four times, actually. The first was in some unmapped 
town in Nebraska. The sort of town that makes you think 
"village" and start looking for the town well and stoning 
grounds.
 
He shouldn't have been there. Plaid and denim aside, 
everything about Alex screams "outsider" in such a place. 
Or maybe it's just the fact that I was staring at him 
myself. Waiting.
 
He's been a regular informant for some months now, and
I've been trained to consider his presence a prelude to a 
hint, a clue, something. 

That's not precisely true, though. He's never *showed* 
himself when he was handing off information. Not since 
the first time. Or the first time I knew it was him. Or the
first time he didn't just let me beat him. Something.
 
It's always an envelope in my paper at those times, and 
sometimes there's an accompanying phone call. The 
first time he called me it was because I was taking too 
long to follow up. I've since resisted the urge to hold on
to his scraps in the hope of more... He either calls or he 
doesn't.

Just a few words, nothing more insinuating than his 
own voice, nothing more satisfying than his own 
dubious confirmation of a list of numbers or addresses.

And not even that when I see him.

The last time was just last night. The streetlights were 
bouncing off the day's snowfall, and the entire world 
seemed strangely orange. It was lighting my apartment, 
and I wanted to sleep. I went to the window to pull down 
the shade, and there he was, sitting on the hood of his 
car. Crosslegged and blank-faced. Too much. It was after 
three a.m., and thus, perhaps, safe, but...
 
He's not supposed to be so *obviously* hallucinatory.
 
It's only natural that I'd feel him in every shadow. We've 
had too much history for this latest game of his not to 
make me even more paranoid. But he's not supposed to 
*really* be there. When I looked again, he was still there. 
He'd even shifted a little, perhaps so I could be *sure* I 
wasn't... fantasizing. 

When I went to sleep, I dreamed of him.
 
I've always felt it was a cheat to dream something that 
really *was* on your mind just before you went to bed -- 
why can't I ever do it on purpose? -- but there it was. 

In the dream, I'm running through city streets, and the 
snow has drifted. It's up to my knees in places. There are 
no other footprints, no sound but my own breath and the 
heavy winter silence. The city is empty. 

The future, then.

I look down, and even though I'm wearing nothing but old 
sweats, I'm not cold. And then, of course, I'm cold. It's 
an almost seamless change from casual run to slow torture 
and impending frostbite. Almost. I couldn't see my breath 
before, and now I can. 
 
It blocks out the scenery with each puff, just slightly too 
thick to be real. I never stop running. 

I ask myself what I'm running from, and then I hear the
footsteps behind me. I turn, and it is, of course, Alex. 

He's perfectly realized, finely rendered in the same padded
jacket, jeans, and motorcycle boots I just saw him in. But 
he's not running, just moving after me, like I'm towing a 
statue on a rolling platform. 

And then I *am* towing him, and even though his 
expression is no blanker than the one I just saw, I wake 
up shuddering. 

I get up, write a report, and go for a run. My first clue 
that this will be a less than restful night is that my 
apartment suddenly leads directly out into woods. 
 
I curse myself for not noticing that I couldn't see a word 
I'd written in the -- brilliant, of course -- report, but 
it fades fast. I'm happy I'm wearing shoes this time. 

The woods are familiar. I look up and it's the thick canopy
of the rainforest, and the sun is strained darkly through 
the green. But the snow is still up to my knees, and when I 
look up again it's New England evergreens at night. It's 
always soothing to have things match up within a dream.
 
And there are Alexes everywhere. 

Sitting calmly on a tree stump, leaning against nothing 
at all... waiting for me to run up and chase him. I wait 
until I get one that smirks at me before I leave my chosen 
path. 

But he doesn't run, just stands there and waits for me to 
get to him, which I do, much too quickly. I push at him 
and he looks at me like I'm insane for a moment before 
shrugging awkwardly and running off with a small sigh.

This is where I want to wake up shuddering again, but 
instead I just run. Bogged down here by a drift, tripping 
over a tree root there. 

It begins to snow again, and I quickly lose Alex in the 
stinging wind and darkness. The moon has been quite 
accurately hidden by slate clouds. I stop to catch my 
breath against a tree that's only too smooth for the space
of a heartbeat and there's Alex again, some fifteen yards 
away. Revealed by an obliging gust, or perhaps just by 
his own obliging self.
 
It continues that way for a long while, and I feel myself 
running easier. I know I'm falling into a deeper sleep, but 
there's nothing I can do. Alex, of course, takes advantage 
by refusing to run any further. I crash into him, and for a 
moment I'm passing *through* him into something like 
freedom... But the image is too much somehow, and I am 
slapped back into my ruthless re-creation of reality, and 
to the ground. 
 
Alex settles beside me and sighs again.

"You could just let the real you catch me some time. You're
gonna be exhausted when you wake up."

I'm looking up into the sky, and I'm glad I've never seen 
snow this beautiful before. It's crystalline, soft and 
gently painful -- I would have frozen to death years ago. 
"Why do *I* have to do all the work?" 

"This *is* just a dream."

"But it's an obvious echo of my life."

"Our lives."

"You're not really here."

"You want me to be."

"Fine. So let's pretend you're really you, Alex. Tell me 
why you're screwing with me?"

"Everything I say will just be your own analyses of the 
situation."

"Humor me."

"If I was the real me, I'd probably hit you."

"No you wouldn't. Alex never hits me unless I hit him 
first. He's barely even threatened me."

Alex snickers. "You're proving my point, you know."

I glower at the sky, and it stops snowing until my face 
evens out again. "OK, you're not Alex. Just tell me my 
latest theory on why Alex won't come get me, once and for 
all."

"He knows you'd lay back and take it, but believes you 
would instantly deny it. He would gain power by being 
the... taken... one."

"No, that's the *old* theory. He loves me, and is afraid 
I'll reject him."

"Yes, but that's your Muldertheory. I assumed you 
wanted your Alextheory."

At that point, it was finally too confusing to be a dream, 
and I woke up.

At least, I'm pretty sure I did. The problem with those
nested dreams is that you're never sure you're awake 
when you *do* wake up. I know from experience that I'll 
have this vague feeling of paranoia until something comes 
along to distract me. 

Well, more paranoia. It used to be enough to *tell* someone 
about the dream-within-a-dream, but then I started 
dreaming that I'd told someone about the dream, etc.
 
If nothing else, nights like these at least prove that I 
*do* trust myself. It feels good to realize that I usually 
have some measure confidence in my ability to sift dream 
from reality, even if reality itself is often ephemeral.

Some small measure. 

I'm writing this down, though, and I don't think my brain 
is so advanced that I'd still be able to read these words 
if I was really asleep. 

Then again, I plan on destroying this record immediately 
after I'm done, so it's entirely possible that I'll be 
right back where I started. 

Well, not quite. I looked outside, and Alex is gone. For 
now. For now?
 
If I knew what was going on in his head, I could plan some 
appropriate course of action. I think I know, but I can't 
trust. None of my other profiles changed this often. Part 
of me thinks Alex is absolutely positive he's being 
crystal-clear. "Here I am, Mulder..."

Part of me *knows* Alex knows that he's doing an excellent
job on me. It's what he was trained for...

Part of me just wants to be able to shoot him, another 
points out that it would be profoundly stupid to shoot 
an informant, another points out that that's not the *real*
reason I can't shoot him, another thinks I should've gone 
back to bed an hour ago.
 
It all adds up to the idea that I'm too close to the 
subject to profile effectively, and should report my 
unfitness to the SAC immediately and take a vacation some 
place warm.

Or at least tell Scully precisely who has been keeping me
up nights working on the wrong assignments and let her
arrest him.
 
He's looking at me like I'm insane again. I can see him. 

But he's not really here.

I want to resolve to catch hold of him and *make* him 
tell me what's going on. Or catch hold of him and figure it
out for myself. But I feel as though making that sort of 
resolution *guarantees* I'll never see him again. Not in 
such a convenient way, at least.

Perhaps he's only so eager to be caught in my dreams. 
Perhaps this is only particularly lazy surveillance, or a 
warning of surveillance to come. Perhaps if I ever reach 
out for him he'll disappear in a spangle of dark glitter.

Or simply prove himself a statue tethered to my waist. 

It's a terrifying thought. Alex could be a perfectly 
mundane Krycek of a thug, mooning over something he 
can't have for the sole reason that it's... something he 
can't have.

Reason enough to catch him next time, cure myself 
instantly of this idiotic dream. Show it to be nothing but 
banal lust on his part and childish fantasy on my own, 
and thus be free. 

Only I don't think I want to be free at all.

~~~~
End.
~~~~