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.

Rating:            PG
Classif:      Missing Scene
Keywords:      Lone Gunmen
Spoilers:      Jump the Shark (XF S9), The Lone Gunmen (Season 1)
Summary:      What will it finally take to be the first to reach
            out?

A Life at Arm's Length
by Martha
marthalgm@yahoo.com

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