Title: "Carried Away", #2 in the "Gone" series
Author: JiM
Date: 3/00
Pairing: XF, M/Sk
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Someone gets carried away.
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* * * 
"Carried Away"
by JiM

* * * 

He's quiet; he hasn't really said much since we hit the interstate. But the 
silence between us isn't strained; it ought to be strange, but it's not. 
That *is* strange, I think, and grin to myself. Everything about tonight 
should be strange, I ought to be checking Skinner's blood to see what color 
it is, maybe checking his pockets for controlled substances. Instead, Walter 
Skinner showed up at my door a couple of hours ago, told me he was leaving, 
and then he smiled. It was the freest expression I had ever seen cross his 
face. I wanted to reach out and touch it, to warm myself with it. Then the 
reality of what he was saying hit me.

Leaving. A lot of people have left me and I've been OK. Some have left and 
the world has tilted and rocked. But for the first time since I was a kid, 
someone was leaving and I wasn't sure who I would be once he left. Then he 
asked me to come along. No one has done that in far too long. All the 
departures in my life, but so few have been my own. I don't think that 
Skinner knows the gift he has given me. In return for that, I give him the 
strangeness of this night without questions.

We're not on the run, that much I can tell. Otherwise, he would have had me 
bring my weapon. Hell, there's no one left to care what we do; the Consortium 
is gone, the aliens are obviously disinclined to move in, and even Krycek has 
disappeared. I like to think of him furnishing a small hole in some obscure 
grassy patch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I ignore the stab of pain that 
mean little pleasure brings me. 

But I'm not being entirely fair; there's Scully, I know she cares. I emailed 
her and told her not to expect me in to work this week. I promised I'd call 
because I know she's not going to react well to that note I sent. 

//Scully - Skinner and I are on a road trip. I won't be in this week. Cover 
for me? - Mulder
P.S. I'll call.//

I grin into the darkness; she's going to be pissed for sure. And curious. 
After all, Walter Skinner and I are not your usual type of road-tripping 
buddies. Hell, I'm curious. Why me? But the silence between us doesn't 
invite that question just now. I have a feeling that I will come to know the 
answer if I simply wait. So for now, I wait. And watch.

I slouch against the door, half-turned on the seat of Skinner's 
conservatively stylish Dodge sedan. This model looks sedate but it has a 
hell of an engine under the hood; we are breezing by the few other cars on 
this dark ribbon of road. I ignore the obvious metaphors and watch my 
companion. His hands are light on the wheel and one rests on his thigh. His 
eyes flick between his mirrors and the road ahead, a conscientious driver, 
for all the speed he seems to need.

Need. That's the key. He needs this, in some deeply subterranean way. But 
what is this journey to him? Escape? Quest? Retreat? All three, or none at 
all? I think that once I know the answer to that, I will know more about 
Walter S. Skinner than any man alive.

We hit a toll road and I realize that we are not necessarily heading anywhere 
in specific. Skinner is just driving. There is a sign for Stroudsburg. 
Pennsylvania, I think, and mentally shrug. 

"Are we stopping tonight?"

"Are you tired?" He sounds neither crisp nor tired, although the instrument 
lights flash weirdly on his glasses.

"No. You want me to drive for a while?"

"No." But he nods a little, to show that he appreciates the offer.

There is a CD sticking out of the player. I gently push it in with one 
finger. Old Clapton spills out of the speakers, mellow and longing. I watch 
his head nodding slightly in time to the beat, one finger tapping time on the 
steering wheel. Lonely music. The lane markers flicker by in time and I 
have slipped into sleep before the end of the second track.


When I awaken, it is to the pale greenish glare of a highway rest area. We 
must have just pulled in, Skinner is just taking the keys out of the 
ignition. He cocks his head at the bathrooms and I nod and clamber out of 
the car into the cricketing night. The parking lot lights blot out any 
stars, but the moon is down and the night air has a desperately sweet scent 
to it, like tears and rum and cherry blossoms. We are the only people here 
and the noises we make sound alien and remote. Footsteps, breathing, water 
dripping, lights humming, zippers hissing .. it all reverberates strangely 
inside my skull. At the sink next to Skinner, I wash my hands then cup the 
cold water up and press my face into my hands.

I need coffee.

Suddenly, I realize that I need a lot more than that. I need to get a life. 
I stare into the mirror at myself. No one looks good at 2 am, I know that. 
But I look so ... I look like a man who needs a hell of a lot more in his 
life than I've got. I glance into the mirror again and catch Skinner's 
dark-eyed stare. 

I look like he does.

Well, shit. I thought I was just a ride-along for his mid-life crisis, now I 
find out that we're booked on the same trip.

"Ready to go?" he asks.

"Right behind you."


Walking back to the car, we stop and stare at one another stupidly for a 
minute. Then he tosses me the keys and crosses to the passenger side door. 
He folds himself neatly into what had been my seat and is asleep before we 
hit the highway. It feels good to drive for a while, Skinner asleep beside 
me, trusting that I will get us wherever we're going. The wing window is 
open, the spicy cool air pouring onto my face. The road is humming away 
beneath us, behind us and the night keeps unfurling and it feels so good to 
finally let myself be carried away on the crest of someone else's quest, only 
to discover that it's my own.


Finis


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