South of the Lake
Rating: PG
Summary: The Gunmen go to Area 51.
Timeline: Season 5. Somewhere between Christmas Carol/Emily and All Souls.
Word Count: 4000.
Disclaimer: Frohike said it was okay to use him in any way I wanted. I don't think this is what he had in mind.
Thanks: to samincittagazze for kicking my pidgin English's ass into shape. And to wendelah1 for being the fastest beta gunslinger west of Washington. You guys rule.
Written as a gift to discordantwords for Xf_santa 2013.
~~~~
Sunday, 1pm.
“I'm telling you guys, this building wasn't here two months ago.” Langly takes a bite from his burrito, a big dollop of salsa falling on his plate like a red Rorschach. “Holy Cow, Melvin! I keep telling you to go easy on the chillies,” he wheezes, coughing and wiping his eyes with the long sleeve of his Ramones t-shirt - one of many.
“And I keep ignoring you,” Frohike replies, pulling a satellite photograph towards him. “What do you think, John?”
Byers wipes his mouth with his paper napkin, his long fingers spreading the pictures across the kitchen table. “I think it's too close to Groom Lake not to go take a look.”
Frohike stands up, taking his plate along with him. He drops it in the sink with a clatter. “I'll get Dana ready.”
Langly drops his half eaten burrito back onto his plate with a long suffering sigh. “Your camper van’s name is creepy, Dude.”
“Bite me.”
~~~~
Wednesday, 11pm.
“Electric fences.” Byers comments, his eyes glued to a pair of binoculars.
“So, there is definitely something worth guarding,” Frohike says, fitting an enormous lens onto his camera.
“We could have picked a grassier knoll,” Langly mutters, nudging a rock from underneath his thigh.
“You're the one who didn't want to carry a mat,” Frohike points out while setting the shutter speed.
Langly flips him the bird, using his free hand to pull down his night vision goggles. “How much do you bet these fences are linked to an alarm system?”
Frohike sighs. “Short of digging, I can't see how we're going to get through.”
“If this is the kind of security they have 10 miles away from that building, imagine what it's gonna be like around it.” Langly winces, shinning a small flashlight on a Topographical survey map.
“Richard, didn't you say you had a buddy who's obsessed with mines?” Byers asks.
“Charlie? Yeah, except I haven't talked to him since he killed Lord Manhammer's Displacer Beast.”
“Maybe it's time to forgive and forget and join him for another round of D&D,” John suggests, opening the Velcro flap from his binoculars' pouch to slide them back in.
“Why?” Frohike asks, carefully putting his camera down to wipe grit off his mittens.
Byers doesn't reply. He slides backwards down the slope until it is safe for him to stand up.
Frohike and Langly stare at each other.
“Groom Lake lead mines!” they shout as one.
~~~~
Sunday, 3pm.
“Are you sure the tunnels go this far across?” Byers asks, drumming his fingers over the map spread before them.
“Read this.” Langly hands him a printout.
“On August 20, 1963, Dan Sheahan was contacted regarding the present status of the Groom mine. Sheahan has access to the property upon written application to the proper government authority,” John reads out loud.
Frohike waves a piece of paper he's holding. “It says here the Sheahan family have owned the mine since 1889. They had to stop mining because the government were doing nuclear testing in the area. Dan tried to sue the government for damages of their mill.” Melvin leafs through a couple more papers. “He dropped the suit.”
“Of course he did,” Langly scoffs.
“The only work undertaken on the property since the mill was destroyed in 1954 has been assessment work,” Frohike finishes.
Langly reclines in his chair, clasping both hands behind his head. “Assessment work, yeah right.”
Byers nods. “What else did Charlie say?”
“That if it were his mine and there were still ore to be extracted from those veins, he would have kept digging no matter what the government said. He bought some old survey maps drawn by Osborne at an auction in Vegas and extrapolated the tunnels' paths accordingly.”
“Who's Osborne?” Byers asks.
“The guy who owned the mines back in 1870,” Frohike replies.
Byers points at a tunnel on the map, “If he's right, this one would take us in the vicinity of our target.”
Langly stands up to joins them by the cluttered desk. He points at another location further south on the map. “Charlie thinks the Sheahans dug a tunnel over here and used this shaft to access the mine from their land, unbeknownst to the military. All we need to do is find that shaft, follow these tunnels and exit through one of these other shafts. It's likely most of them will have been condemned, but it's worth a try.”
“Let's hope the military haven't found them all,” John muses, stroking his beard thoughtfully, “or we might have to dig our way out.”
“Oh, joy,” Frohike grumbles.
Langly starts gathering the maps. “Aren't mines your natural habitat anyway, Hickey? Will you teach me how to whistle?"
“Shut up, Ringo.”
~~~~
Thursday, 3am.
“I never thought we'd get out of here. This place is like a maze,” Langly whispers, hauling himself out of the hole.
“Can you stop yapping and hold the ladder steady,” Frohike snaps, head emerging from the narrow shaft.
“Shhhh... quiet you two!” Byers whispers urgently, kneeling behind a rocky outcrop and lifting his binoculars.
“Bingo,” he smiles, turning towards his companions - unlikely ninjas in their black outfits. "We got ourselves front row seats, guys.”
Langly scrambles next to him, snatching his binoculars. “Wow, thank you Charlie,” he says after a beat. The rectangular building they spotted on the satellites photos can't be more than a half a mile away.
“I bet that makes up for killing your fantasy pet cat.” Frohike grins, crouching between them, wiping a smudge of dirt from his face.
“The Displacer Beast is not a cat!” Langly hisses.
“Whatever, man.”
Byers snaps his fingers to get their attention. “I don't think it would be very wise to go wandering around. The area is most likely booby-trapped. So we stay put, wait for sunrise and see what happens then.”
“That's fine by me. I could do with a nap,” Frohike replies. Thankfully, it isn't one of those bitingly cold desert nights. The air feels quite warm for the season.
“Go ahead, I'll pinch your nose if you snore,” Langly offers, pulling a half eaten Snickers from his flak jacket.
“One day, I'm gonna dig up those sheep shears my cousin Bryson brought me back from New Zealand and try them on your head,” Frohike threatens, slipping his backpack under his head.
Langly chuckles around a mouthful of chocolate.
Frohike stares at the skies above him. Thousands of stars greet him, the great white scarf of the milky way gently snaking among them. “I had forgotten how well you can see the night sky in the desert.”
“Less light pollution,” Byers says, still inspecting their surroundings through his binoculars.
Frohike sighs. “So many worlds, so little time...”
Byers lowers his binoculars to rub the bridge of his nose. He looks up at the stars as well. “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
“Perfect night for a Sagan quote, my friend.”
“Do you think something incredible is in there?” Byers asks, nodding towards the structure.
Frohike shrugs. “Incredible or terrible, or both.”
“This pretty much sums up your weekly laundry basket,” Langly chimes in.
“Have another Snickers, Twiggy, your buccal appendage is making noises again.”
“Hey, you promised you'd stop calling me that.”
“I lied.”
~~~~
Someone is shaking him by the shoulder. “Melvin, wake up.”
“Uh - what?” Frohike shoves his hat back and sits up with a start.
“Something is happening,” Byers says.
Frohike rubs a gloved hand over his eyes. “What time is it?”
“7.30 am. Get your camera, people are coming out of the building.”
“Noooo wayyyy,” He hears Langly whispers next to him. His friend is peering over the rocks through a pair of Leupold binoculars.
Frohike leans against one of the boulders hiding them and hurries to lift the camera to his eyes. He quickly adjusts the focus.
“Dios mio.”
~~~~
Thursday, 9 am.
The dust colored building is a small rectangular structure with no windows and only one door. The door itself looks like something out of a bank vault. Earlier, they had all agreed it must be the entrance to a wider underground complex. In front of the building - looking incongruous - is a square patch of lawn with four benches - one along each side. “Maybe it's Area 51 picnic area,” Langly had joked earlier.
None of them are joking now.
Frohike takes a sip from his water bottle, wishing he had something stronger to pacify the knotted feeling in his gut.
Moments earlier, the building door had swung opened and four heavily armed soldiers had come out, along with two men and a woman in lab coats.
Then the children had followed.
He counted ten of them, all very pale and frail looking. They wore the same clothes: white trousers, white long sleeve t-shirts, white tennis shoes.
All girls.
All alike.
All redheads.
Their age ranged from toddler to early teen. The youngest held the hand of a slightly older child. One of the teen was in a wheelchair.
“Creepy crippled clones,” Langly had anxiously alliterated next to him.
As Melvin kept his finger firmly pressed on the shutter, taking as many shots as he could, he had seen what his friend meant. Most of the kids had something wrong with them. A few were missing one or several limbs, one was wearing a white eye-patch, the toddler was hydrocephalic. Another child - who was being led to a bench by two others - was obviously blind. Only three of them didn't show any outward signs of disability.
The three men had carefully slid back down against the rocks, shock turning their faces as gray as the dust covering their boots.
Langly had been the first one to break their shell shocked silence. “Man, this is fucked up.”
“I think we can all agree on the family resemblance,” Byers had stated glumly.
They'd all nodded.
~~~~
The children are sitting on the grass or on the benches. There is no running, no games, no familiar sounds of playground chatter. These kids are too quiet, too still, too strange. Frohike can't speak for his companions, but it's a fair assumption they creep the bejesus out of them. Langly has stopped being an ass, which is never a good sign. Byers has a twitch in his right shoulder. His OCD has always been mild - mostly, John is just very neat and anal about organisation - except when he's freaked out. Melvin wonders how long it's gonna take before he starts rearranging the pebbles at his feet.
He zooms in on a little girl sitting cross legged on the grass. She is staring ahead, towards the white glare of the distant Groom Lake. Her left arm is missing, the sleeve of her t-shirt hanging limp from her shoulder down. The knot in his stomach twists further. He knows those blue eyes, that pointed little chin, the straight nose, those cheekbones, that stubborn brow. It's not features you forget, not when you have a bit of a crush on its original owner.
Frohike lowers his camera. His head is pounding, the dry air and desert dust scratches his throat. He wants to go home.
On his right, Langly looks like his previous binge of Snickers and Twinkies are about to show up for an unwelcome encore.
Byers reaches out for his water bottle. Frohike guesses his throat must be as parched as his. But as he lifts the bottle up, John's fingers slip against the brushed steel and the bottle clatters to the ground.
The three men flatten themselves behind their hideout, bracing themselves against what will no doubt follow: orders being barked, the wail of sirens, the loud static of military walkie talkies, gun fire, rifle shots, maybe even the distant woosh of a helicopter.
Melvin can already see himself in an orange jumpsuit, forgotten forever in an unmarked cell, deep in the bowels of Area 51.
They don't know how long they remain this way, with their faces kissing the dust and their bladders reminding them that they have been drinking too much water. Five minutes? Ten? Fifteen?
Long enough for them to realize that no Hell is breaking loose on the other side of the rocks. Maybe the noise didn't carry this far. Maybe it sounded louder to them than it actually was.
Frohike lifts himself up cautiously, “I'll take a look,” he whispers to his friends, retrieving Byer's binoculars that have ended up wedged between two tufts of dry grass.
There is only one kid left outside. Everybody else has disappeared. Even the soldiers are no longer visible, though Frohike suspects they must only be a few feet away, inside the building. The vault-like door is still open but he can't see inside it from this angle.
They have been heard all right.
The remaining child is the one in the wheelchair - the one who looks like she's the oldest of the lot. She could be anything between eleven and fourteen. She's turned herself in their direction and Melvin can see more clearly the white blanket covering her lower half. A chill twists itself up his spine like bindweed - whatever lies underneath that blanket is not leg shaped.
Frohike knows he's too far away to be seen with the naked eye but the girl's deep blue eyes seem to be staring right at him all the same. Her short red curls flutter in the light breeze. Her small fists clutch the side of her wheelchair and she suddenly jerks her head backwards, opening her mouth wide like an unlikely upside down gargoyle trying to catch invisible drops of rain.
Something shifts in Melvin's mind.
“What the - ”
His brain feels like its being pushed and prodded from the inside. Thoughts are being pulled out of him like sinews from a piece of meat.
He is no longer in Nevada. His nostrils breathe in the characteristic disinfectant smell of an hospital wing. His bow tie is too tight against his neck and so is his jacket across his shoulders. He didn't know what to wear. None of his clothes had felt respectable enough. In his hands the flower stems had felt hard and unyielding underneath the paper before he'd given them to the nurse. Dana Scully is lying in a bed in front of him. Tubes are sticking out from her nose and mouth. Electrodes are taped to her forehead. She's not breathing on her own. They say she's dying.
A wave of nausea hits him, throwing him backwards into the present. He collapses behind the boulder, the binoculars clanging down along with him. He no longer cares how much noise he's making.
“Hey, what's wrong, Dude? Are they coming after us?” Langly asks in alarm.
Frohike swallows the bile in his throat. “Not yet, but we have to get out of here. Now.”
~~~~
Friday, 2pm.
“Are you all right Melvin? You don't look so good,” John's concerned face is slightly blurry around the edges.
“I'm okay,” he replies, washing down a couple more Tylenols with a sip of Dr. Pepper. The camper van's suspensions really need changing. They weren't that bad before, were they? He rubs his thumbs against his temples, wishing time would speed up so they were back in Takoma Park already.
“I can stop if you're gonna puke,” Langly calls out from the driving seat.
“I'm not gonna puke.”
“Good, but if you do, you're the one cleaning Dana.” He adjusts the rear-view mirror to catch his eyes. “Even if you don't puke, she could use a little TLC,” he adds, waving at the various wrappers, papers and cans, littering the seats and floor. It's been a long trip.
“Don't call her that.”
What? Dana? But you - ”
“Just don't.”
Langly opens his mouth, but Byers' hand lands heavily on his shoulder and he gets the message. He shrugs and starts fiddling with the radio stations.
Byers casts Frohike a weary look. “We need to tell them what we saw.”
Melvin nods, “I'll take care of it.”
~~~~
Sunday, 8pm.
“Frohike?”
Just by the way she's staring at him, he knows what his first words need to be.
“Mulder is fine. I just need to talk to you.”
Scully looks puzzled but invites him in. She's wearing a white terry-cloth robe and her hair is damp. Her apartment smells of almond soap - or maybe it's her shampoo.
“Would you like some coffee? I'm afraid I don't have anything stronger.”
Why would she assume that he drinks? He feels mildly offended by her assumption before remembering the night he'd shown up at her door with a bottle of whisky that needed recycling. He'd thought Mulder was dead, surely this counted as extenuating circumstances? “Coffee will be fine, thanks”
“Please, sit down,” she tells him, gesturing towards the kitchen table.
Frohike opens the worn leather satchel that used to belong to his father. He pulls out the file containing the pictures he shot in Nevada. There are quite a few of them. He puts the file on the table, letting his forearm rest over it.
“So, what brings you here?” Scully asks while she retrieves two blue mugs from a cabinet above her head.
“Have you ever heard of Groom Lake?”
She smiles at him and he feels something flutter in his chest. “Area 51. I work with Fox Mulder, remember?”
He smiles back. “Just checking.” He watches her grab the coffee jug and fill the two mugs. “We went there three days ago.” he begins. He tells her about the satellite photos, the new structure, the Sheahan mines. He knows he's rambling but he can't help himself. This was a bad idea. He wants to excuse himself and run outside. The file under his arm feels like it's taking much more space than it should.
Scully sets his mug in front of him and goes to sit at the other end of the table.
“This is all very interesting,” she says in a polite way that suggests it really isn't, “but shouldn't you be talking to my partner about this?” She takes a cautious sip from her coffee. It must be too hot because she sets it aside again. “Or did you already? Do you need my medical expertise on something you found?” She grins impishly at him. “Did you find an alien corpse?”
“Scully, please.”
The tone of his voice abruptly wipes her grin away. She tilts her head with a worried frown. “What - ” She's looking at the file under his arm.
Frohike slowly pushes it towards her.
She opens the file. The first picture is a group shot of the children arriving on the lawn. Scully goes very still. The color drains from her face as her slender fingers fan the pictures over the table - faces of little girls staring up at them like a twisted version of Happy Families with nothing but daughters.
“This is why I came to you first.”
She nods slowly without looking at him. He knows about her stolen ova. It was, in fact, the cause of one of the worst arguments he ever had with Mulder. They didn't speak to each other for two months after that.
“How can you hide something like this from her?” he'd asked him, furious.
“I'm protecting her!” Mulder had shouted back. “She can't know about this. She can't know the extent of what they've done to her!”
“This is not for you to decide. This is her genetic material. It belongs to her!”
“Don't you think I know that? I will tell her if she gets better, but not now.” His voice had dropped menacingly low. “And if you know what's good for you, you will keep your goddamn mouth shut, Frohike.”
“You're an asshole, Mulder.”
“And you're a clueless little troll.”
Mulder had stormed out. Frohike had punched a filing cabinet and left a sizable dent. When Byers and Langly had returned from whatever errands they'd been running, they only had to take one look at his clenched jaw and his bandaged hand to know better than to ask questions.
There's no point in lying to himself. One of the reasons he's sitting at Scully's kitchen table tonight is because of a ripple effect from that day. Is he here because it's the right thing to do, or is it to get back at Mulder in some way? He would like to think he's not that kind of man, but he can't be entirely sure.
Scully puts the pictures back one by one inside the file, closes it shut, and slides it back towards him. Her eyes are too bright when she looks up at him. “Can you keep them somewhere safe?” she asks in a thin voice.
“Yes, of course.” He wants to tell her how sorry he is that she had to see this, that he is here for her at anytime if she needs to talk about it, that he will find the bastards who did this and make them pay - but he can't force the words out.
“Mulder cannot know about this, Melvin. If he sees these pictures, you and I both know he'll go and get himself killed.”
“You have my word,” he nods. She's never called him by his first name before. It sounds so intimate he feels himself blush. “What are you going to do?” he croaks.
She runs both hands over the flat wooden surface of her table, like she's wiping the space where the photos were a minute ago. "I don't know. I don't know if there is anything to do. These men-the men who are responsible for this-do not answer to the law like we do." She shoots him a wan smile. "But you guys know this already."
She stands up. His cue to leave.
Her direct stare makes him squirm. “Thank you for letting me know.”
She accompanies him to the door.
“Dana, can I ask you something?” She slowly blinks at him. Hey, she's the one who started this first name basis thing.
“Go ahead,” she replies.
“This isn't new information to you, is it? You knew these children were out there, didn't you?”
She shakes her head. “No, I didn't.” She hesitates. “But there was a little girl in San Diego last Christmas.” She stops, looks down at her feet. “She wasn't a clone, but she was...” She stops again.
This is hard for her and Frohike kicks himself for being such a curious idiot. Why didn't he keep his mouth shut? He's about to tell her it doesn't matter, that he doesn't need to know, but it's too late.
“They used my DNA to create her, but she was very sick. She died." Her voice is so steady; he doesn't know where she finds this kind of strength.
He remembers Mulder's call from San Diego around Christmas time. Something about babies being born and hormones given to women who shouldn't have needed them. His heart breaks quietly inside his chest. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry.” He can't even look at her. The creases of his boots are still gray with Nevada dust.
She pats his shoulder gently. “That's okay, but you need to understand this: I had to beg Mulder to let it go, and that one time, he listened. But if he finds out about what you just showed me - nothing will stop him from going after them.”
There is an ash like taste in his mouth. “Maybe he should.”
“I can't lose him,” she says simply.
He nods, his throat tight. Mulder, you lucky, undeserving bastard.
~~~~
Frohike climbs into his van and casts one last look towards her apartment building. There is a faint light coming from her bedroom window. He doubts she will get much sleep tonight.
He probably won't either. He hasn't told anyone about what happened to him in Groom Lake - the way the clone prodded his mind. Not even her. What would he have said? "By the way Scully, those clones of yours, they can suck memories out of your brain too."
She wouldn't have believed him anyway. Mulder sometimes refers to her as “Doubting Dana" or, when they have a fight he didn't win, "The Queen of Denial". What little Melvin knows about Agent Scully suggests the G-man isn't far off the mark. He wonders if she will try to forget about the girls from Nevada, like she has been trying to forget about the dead little girl from San Diego.
He starts his engine. As his - now nameless - van pulls out from the curb, his tires spray water from a puddle towards the shadowy side of a hedge.
The girl looks down at the muddy streak on her white tennis shoe.
THE END
Note: The historical background of the Groom Lake mines as discussed by the Gunmen is, AFAIK accurate.