Title: A Life At Arm's Length
Author: Martha
Email: marthalgm@yahoo.com
Category: Gen / JTS
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Jump the Shark (XF), TLG (Season 1)
Summary: What will it finally take to be the first to reach out?
PLEASE NOTE:  This is a missing scene to Jump The Shark (US9)
that DOES NOT alter the televised conclusion.  For those who
would rather not read this now - or ever - please hit delete.
Disclaimer: The characters contained in this story are the
creative property of 1013 Productions and FOX Broadcasting and
are used without their permission.



Throughout her life, Yves had kept people away. 

Not too close, she warned.  Keep your distance, she scolded. 
She relied on herself; she needed no companionship, for those
who had tried to provide it had failed her.

Those few in the past that she had allowed access had misled
and disgusted her, which fueled her distrust and drove her into
a life of secrecy.  She learned quickly their game of deception
and amassed the means, through information and money, to keep
her secrets.

And then there were those whom she had loved who had died. 
There was Leonardo Santavos, who, in the space of a dance, had
fallen in love with her and she with him.  He had given his
life to spare hers, even knowing that she had betrayed him and
had deceived him all along.  She had allowed herself to become
attached, and again she was abandoned.

Now she watched as Jimmy and the Gunmen silently communicated
their good-byes, as the Gunmen stepped away from the glass to
spare the two of them the full horror of what was about to
transpire.  Her first instinct was to grab Jimmy and pull him
away, to save the innocent from the unfolding disaster.  But
she knew that Jimmy would not be torn from his friends, not
now.  And so she waited with him and served as witness to
fallen heroes whose final moments must be preserved for the
ages. 

Frohike was the first to falter.  Frohike, who had known all
along what kind of person she really was along with pieces of
her past but who gallantly kept what little he knew of her
secret in exchange for diverting the air disaster that saved
Byers.  Langly caught him as he slumped, then cradled Frohike
to the floor when unconsciousness quickly and mercifully
overtook him.  She watched as Langly mouthed his name over and
over, as his tears slipped under his glasses and streamed down
his face in his grief.    

Byers knelt beside the two and placed his hand over Frohike's
heart as a final loving gesture or perhaps to still the
convulsions.  Or, ever the analyst, perhaps to determine just
how much time he himself had before the toxin overtook him. 

It did not take long.  Byers stretched out on the floor beside
them, his hand still on Frohike's chest.  Yves could not see
his face and could not tell if he had lost consciousness.  When
Langly grabbed his hand and shook it a few times with no
visible response on Byers' part, she realized that he too was
now gone. 

Her heart sank further when Langly turned back to look at the
glass.  She knew that *he* knew that he was now alone, and it
would just be a matter of moments until his end.  It had been
over even before she was aware of it; Langly's eyes never
closed, and he slumped over only when gravity pulled him down. 

To be the last to die might have been a comfort to Langly, as
he was not alone.  Where there was one, she had observed on
many occasions, you could always find the other two.  The only
justice in this tragedy - if one must be found - was that the
three had died together and in each other's arms.  But her
heart broke for Jimmy - he had to watch and there was nothing
that he could do to stop it. 

In silent tribute, Yves placed her hand on the glass where the
others had been moments before.  The lies they had told each
other, the animosity between her and the Gunmen dissipated with
the knowledge that they had died to save her, just like
Santavos.  Jimmy had been the one to reach out then and comfort
her in her sorrow, and she could only pay tribute to their
memory by making her own sacrifice.

She gathered up a grief-stricken Jimmy in her arms and held him
tight.  He tried to push away at first, not wanting to
disconnect himself just yet from his friends, but Yves held him
fast.  Through the tortured crying, through the wailing, she
clung to Jimmy and offered him some release from his pain. 

Within her arms, she held their memories, their comradeship. 
Byers' fairness, Langly's sense of play, and Frohike's
stubbornness were all centered within Jimmy.  However odd a fit
he had seemed with the Gunmen at the beginning, he was now a
perfect complement to the trio.  He would never forget them,
would not let the world forget them.  She held them all within
the circle of her arms.     

And she would never again let go.  


~~~~~~~

Author's note:  Although I have killed off the Gunmen in fanfic
- several times in fact - it was never canon, and they would
always show up again in my stories like nothing had ever
happened.  If Mulder can get out of a burning boxcar and CSM
can recuperate in a snowy cabin after being shot in the chest,
then I can choose to believe that the Lone Gunmen are still out
there, fighting the good fight and arguing about cheesesteaks.           
 
end
written & distributed April 2002