This was written before George Hale and is my only other completed X-FF. Please overlook any medical inaccuracies . Hope you enjoy.
DEMONS - Afterwards
Spoilers: Demons, Elegy
CHAPTER 1
The sound of footsteps, almost in sync, grows louder before they come to a complete stop. Someone calls her name. Detective Curtis, followed by two of his officers, stops in the doorway of the dark room and asks if she is all right; if Agent Mulder is all right.
"We're fine," Scully replies, her voice trembling. She lifts her head from Mulder's back. His shirt is damp from sweat. And he is shaking.
She tugs an old blanket from a chair and carefully spreads it across his shoulders. "Is there an ambulance outside?"
Curtis nods, watching Mulder carefully. "Called one just in case."
"Have them come in."
Curtis repeats the request into his radio. He asks Scully if she needs help with Mulder.
"We're fine." She repeats and pulls the blanket tightly around Mulder.
When she stood in front of him, terror in her eyes, Mulder could feel his strength vanishing. He watched her quietly move around him, never taking her eyes off him. His memories flashed in front of his eyes for the last time and he fired seven times until they disappeared forever.
And then it was over.
He didn't hurt her. She didn't let him hurt himself.
Mulder just nods when Scully tells him they are going to the hospital. He doesn't protest when two attendants bring the stretcher into this room where he almost ended his life, and maybe Scully's. He has absolutely nothing left as he sits down on the side of the gurney and lets one of the attendants ease him down onto his back.
Scully stands to the side. The Doctor in her is clawing to take over but only the Agent succeeds. As she follows them out of the house, she flashes her badge and tells the attendants that she will be riding in the back with them. She is terrified Mulder will have another seizure and that if she is not inches away he will die. It is irrational, she knows this much, but right now - zapped with fear, buried by exhaustion - she is not going to take any chances.
"Immediate family?" the attendant asks automatically.
"Yes. No. I'm his partner."
There is just enough confusion in this reply to make the attendant think she means the domestic kind. He has learned not to press the issue.
"Of course, ma'am," the older attendant says as he helps his partner lift Mulder into the ambulance. He has seen worried relatives before. This one isn't any different, except maybe that she is packing heat and a badge. The fear in her eyes is as clear as any other frightened loved one. "Your partner is going to be fine."
Scully is dizzyingly grateful for this reassurance. The paramedic sees the man in the stretcher for who he is; not an out of control, homicidal, discombobulated FBI agent, but simply a man in distress. And when Mulder has a seizure in the ambulance it brings Scully a second wave of relief. For once, it won't be Scully's word against the world. Now, she has a witness.
Mulder and Scully were here nearly eight hours ago. By the time Scully climbs out of the ambulance, it might as well be eight days. The neurologist they saw before has left for the day but a second neurologist is waiting for them on the third floor.
Mulder, aware of where he is and why he is there, reaches over and finds Scully's arm. When she leans in towards him, he whispers, "Go home, Scully." This is his first full sentence since the cottage. He wants to sound normal, back in control, telling Scully what to do. Even he isn't buying it.
She does not remind him that home is a long drive away. "I'll go soon. I have to fill out some paperwork here. I'll be up to see you in a few minutes. And Mulder – please do what they ask you to do."
Their first visit was full of second-guessing from a dazed, confused and irritable patient whose agenda was to identify a murderer – himself, if necessary. The same patient, at this moment, is simply used up.
She watches the bottoms of Mulder feet disappear behind the closing elevator doors and wonders what is going through his head right now; wonders what is going through her own. Scully is suddenly so tired, so physically and mentally drained. She barely has it in her to get Mulder's information correct on the admitting form.
Scully signs the bottom and slides it across the desk to the nurse. "Neurology?" she asks.
The nurse plucks the pen out of Scully's hand. "Third floor. Same as this morning."
Wise-ass.
Scully finds a couch in a waiting area down the hall from Neurology. She is tired and the moment she lies down on her side and closes her eyes, every little detail of her future swirls through her brain. She should call Skinner and let him know one of his agents will not be in the office for the immediate future.
More unintentional planning slips in because Skinner should know everything; he should have the details of Everything Mulder, for When I'm not here. It isn't until this moment that she realizes that she has been doing a lot of this lately, making a mental list of, Things To Deal With Before...
"Agent …. Agent …."
A strange rocking motion begins in her shoulder.
"…Agent Scully."
She opens her eyes and bolts up. She has been sound asleep on the word's grungiest couch. "Yes. What – Oh..."
Detective Curtis is towering over her, his hands in his coat pocket, and he looks appropriately awkward. "Sorry to wake you."
She jumps to her feet, and tries to pull herself together. It shouldn't matter but the old habits force her hand to check that her hair is in place. Stupid. Useless. Like all of this is.
"That's all right – what's – is it Mulder?"
"No, no. I haven't heard anything yet. I –" He is looking at her with that same quizzical expression. "Are you all right, Agent?"
She hates this look. Mulder occasionally uses it. It means she is letting something show. "Yes. Fine. What can I do for you?"
"Oh. I'm on my way home - thought you should know Doctor Goldstein is on suicide watch at the prison."
Good, she wants to say. It will save the rest of the poor, lost souls out there. "I take it he will be pleading guilty."
"If he's smart. We'll need you and your partner back here in a couple of months when it comes to trial. I can reach you both at the FBI?"
The immediate future - this is what scares her. Will she even be here for it?
Of course, she tells him convincingly. We'll be available.
He clears his throat and looks down for a second. "I hope there are no hard feelings about today. Bringing in your partner."
"No. Mulder would be the first to understand."
"Good." He nods towards the hallway. "He really didn't have a clue, did he?"
"None of them did. That's the tragedy."
"There are a few other suicides we'll be following up. Former patients of Goldstein. Your partner was lucky you were there today."
"He's just stronger than most, that's all." She knows this is a humble piece of crap. They are always lucky that one of them is there when the other needs them.
Scully glances at the clock over the couch. She has been asleep for two hours and it feels like ten minutes. Time has been playing tricks on her since she was diagnosed. Weeks seem like days, night times seem like months. Waiting for test results seems like years.
A week ago, she and Mulder had barely been speaking. Her own demons came out to play and she wasn't up to sharing them with Mulder or herself. He admitted that he was as scared for her as she was but neither of them had been able to get past that fear. Instead, short, angry words were said in that corridor and bouts of uncomfortable silences had been hovering ever since.
Five days later, Scully's illness and Mulder's helplessness have all but been forgotten.
She absently brushes her finger against an invisible speck under her nose. Her finger is covered in blood.
Damnit, she growls under her breath as she goes through every empty pocket in her coat with one hand and tries to stop the blood with the other. She knows never to be without Kleenex every time she leaves the house but this morning she flew out at five fifty-eight and grabbed the first jacket she found; the one with no pockets.
"Are you all right?"
A passing intern pulls out a handful of tissues from a box and stuffs them into her hand.
"I'm fine," comes the muffled answer "Thank you."
This one doesn't seem like it will be as big as the recent nose bleeds. She has become expert in quietly excusing herself and waiting for the gush to end without Mulder suspecting anything. Just cleaning up, she will tell him when she returns to the office, or strolls out of a bathroom.
The intern is still standing in front of her. She wishes he would go; there is too much stress to have to convince a concerned stranger that she is not about to keel over and die. Not yet, she thinks distastefully.
She hears whispers – the intern is talking to someone.
"Agent Scully?"
It is the Dr. Addison, the neurologist. She is standing with her arms folded, looking down at Scully as if she is a puzzling trig problem.
"I'm fine," Scully repeats, fumbling with her Kleenexes as she tries to stand up at the same time.
"Sit," the doctor says and gently pushes her shoulder back down. She takes the seat next to her. "Air in here is very dry; keeps the tissue company in business."
Scully sits up straight. Most of the bleeding is stopping. Her pride is slipping away just as fast. "How is Agent Mulder?"
"Tests came out negative except for some expected activity; We need to see what happens in the next couple of hours to know what kind of damage we're looking at. Given how the other folks people ended up, I'd say he is doing pretty well. He is lucky you were there."
This is not what she wants to hear, especially for the second time.
A voice barks over the loudspeaker for Dr. Addison in emergency. She gets up quickly and takes a long look at Scully from above. "Are you sure you're all right, Agent? You look a little pale."
"I always look like this," she offers but that is all she is going to give away. All that anyone needs to know is that she is in a dry building. "Can I see him?"
The voice from the intercom calls again. Dr. Addison looks at the intern. "Have Dr. Callum look at her," she orders as he disappears from view.
"I'm fine," Scully tells the man waiting in front of her. She hopes she sounds firm about this. Too much attention is on her right now.
"If you come this way, Ma'am," the intern says helpfully
"No – I don't need to …. I just need to see my partner," she whispers because that's all the fight she has left right now.
The intern seems to understand this plea because he takes her by the arm and directs her into room 3A and softly closes the door behind her.
Scully draws the chair as close to the bed as she can. Despite the machinery he is hooked up to, Mulder is sleeping soundly. This might be due to medication or maybe something inside him that has told him enough is enough.
A week ago, she walked away from him in the corridor of the New Horizon Psychiatric Center and he hadn't followed. She thought her life couldn't have become more complicated at that moment and now, she's just proven herself wrong. It can and it has.
Scully draws her knees up and rests her head on them. She closes her eyes and, lulled by the steady beep of the heart monitor, drifts quickly to sleep.
END OF CHAPTER 1