A Wilderness Beyond Imagining by Wendiae ---------------------------------------- CHAPTER 3 --------- Casefile. MSR. Post FTF. Rating R. This started as random musings whilst trying to finish Blindsight. Its become a story in its own right!! Chapter 3 is now up. http://wendiae.webs.com/ -------------------------------------------------- We had seen God in His splendors, heard the text that Nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man. Ernest Shakleton: South PROLOGUE BELOW -------------------------------------------------- The ship rocked violently against the waves. They were not particularly large, the Weddell sea was known for its mammoth swells but I had never sailed in the southern ocean before so had no point of comparison. Despite the sub-zero temperatures I found myself braving the deck. I stood back from the rail unkeen to be doused in the freezing ocean spray but close enough to watch passing scenery. It certainly was stunning, this part of the world. The remoteness and desolation gave it a romance that I could not dismiss. On the horizon were shards of what looked like white crystals against the sky. I realised with a start that they were icebergs. I had been told we had passed larger ones on our departure from Port Lockery but I had been confined to the ships medical bay and had not seen them. I searched my memory again, closing my eyes and savouring the cold, hoping it would spark some of my battered neurones into life. There was nothing. The frost nip on my cheeks tingled in the icy wind but I could still not remember how I came to be here. I opened my eyes and watched as next to the deck the waves broke for a moment and I saw what could have been a tail fin emerging from them. Distracted I looked on in fascination as the body of the graceful creature appeared from the ocean, then as quickly as it surfaced disappeared into the murky depths of the sea. The sky was beginning to darken but I knew at this time of year the sun would never completely dip below the horizon. Despite myself I smiled to the wind, the scenery here certainly had a way of putting things into perspective. Ever the investigator, I paused my search for my missing memories and focused instead on what I did know. I had found myself at a turning point, accept a transfer away from all I had knew to be familiar or offer my resignation. I had done the latter. There was no choice really. In Utah Mulder would be hundreds of miles away and I knew myself well enough to know that he was the reason I wanted to stay. I had gone to him in reluctance, not because I regretted my decision but because I feared his reaction. He had not disappointed me I thought wryly. Initially shouting and expounding the importance of his work, but then something had changed. His eyes had softened and I saw in them something I had never expected. I recalled with clarity the moment I knew that his lips were going to collide with mine. The second that I realised I was going to kiss him back. Then nothing. I woke up here, vague memories of snow and ice and cold that gradually came into focus with the industrial walls of Rothera research station. Mulder had kept his distance, hovering far enough away that I could feel his presence but never close enough to touch. The ship rolled, distracting me from my ruminations and making me hold onto one of the deck railings. I considered briefly returning to the warmth of the cabin but out here with the frozen wind on my skin and the noise of the ocean in my ears I felt alive. He had answered my questions, explaining the location he had been given, its proximity to the British scientific base on Adelaide island. He had commented on the penguin colony outside the window, remarked on the desolate beauty of our location but he had not explained the suspicious graze on his temple or mentioned our ill fated attempted at intimacy. The horizon was beginning to clear and I knew soon we would be making our way out of the Antarctic circle, our destination Stanley on the Falkland islands, then on from there; home. I wondered if I would get my answers once back in the States. Somehow I doubted it, but I found myself strangely philosophical. Maybe in this wilderness where man was merely a visitor, surviving against nature not because of it, our personal struggles seemed less important. Maybe it didn't matter. I had lost time before and I had survived, what bothered me more was the phantom feel of his lips against mine. I had woken at night, not thinking of aliens and ice but of his hands on my cheek. It bothered me that that moment had been stolen from me, from us. The swells had died down and the roll of the deck beneath my feet was becoming gentler. I braved the small distance to the outer railings. The sea was crystal clear and I realised as I studied it from a better vantage point that there were miniature versions of the icebergs on the horizon floating on the waves. I looked back towards the continent we were leaving behind. I would never have thought to visit here but strangely I was glad that I had. I knew my time here, missing or otherwise, would forever remain with me, but Antarctica had offered a consolation prize of sorts. I had seen its beauty, seen a wilderness that despite man's ability to land on the moon, had remained largely uncharted. It was comforting, I realised that no matter what happened to the world this place would remain. Desolate and beautiful and untouched.