Title: Closing Throats
Author: Snow'sLuckyCat (or *Shar Stancil)
Keywords: Post-Epi Vignette from the POV of Scully. (Slight MT thrown in for good measure.)
Timeline: Takes place right after events in the mid 4th season episode: "Kaddish."
Spoilers: Memento Mori (Major), Kaddish (Semi-Major), & Leonard Betts (Mild).
Rating: A Heavy PG-13 or Mild R (for a whole lot of hells, a few damns, and one use of the f-word) OurLittleSailor!Scully return-ed!!!! ; )
Disclaimer: Well, folks: Things could end 1 of 2 ways. Either we get a sucky ninth season, complete with no Mulder, which in itself sucks monkey butt... OR we could have a SERIOUS problem on our hands...No Chris Carter. I mean, let's face it, people; we don't have that much to look forward to later this year...And if there's a year after that, but with no Mulder OR Scully, then we all shall know that Fox Networks has just indeed literally hung themselves in the bathroom. Now, we don't want that, do we? HELL NO!
(BTW: I was talking about the series without even Scully, NOT the fact of Fox Networks hanging itself in a stall. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing that load of mamma-jamma, would you??? I thought so.) ; )
In any case, until such time that we get a straight answer as to Everybody's question: "When are They going to finally let it go?" all character names used within, belong to Carter and his now-cursed 1013 Skeleton Crew...Only one show that should have been stopped years ago has survived, yet you guys have made 3 others...a spinoff (which was good), and two totally non-related shows (both all right, but nothing truely spectacular).
The thoughts however in this fic belong to me, since no one knew what your characters said or thought in the car drive back to the motel in the episode Kaddish, or after. You didn't show it at any rate. So, in essence, it's your fault that I wrote this. You left a large spot open for debate, and I took it, so there! ; )
Don't sue though, because I'm just a harmless pussy cat. *snort* Yeah....RIGHT...
Summary: Post-case drive back to the motel...and after. Emotions are revealed, secrets are kept, and a promise is made. Really though, it's just a bit of car fluff. ; )
NOW---HERE'S THE STORY!!!
***
Closing Throats
****
My eyes are closing ...
As my windpipe crushes too.
I think I'm dying,
Dying from seeing you.
*
"Mulder?" I spoke softly, my voice parting the silence within our rental Ford Taurus, like Moses did with his staff to the Red Sea.
"Yeah?" he hoarsely mutters back to me, across the seat.
"You ok?" I continue, questioning his state of being.
"If anyone else asks me that, I'll..."
"Sorry," I apologize quickly, before realizing that he was just joking.
Taking my eyes off the road for a second, I spare a short glance at him, smiling slightly. His eyes are closed, however, and he is quiet, still. Then, he opens them, as if sensing my gaze, and grins in my direction. I see this out of the corner of my eye as I turn back to the road ahead of us once more. Finally, I can relax.
He'll be fine, I tell myself. But, man, was that a close one or what...
I remember it like it was only seconds ago. Actually though, it's been two hours since...then. Two hours since I'd been thinking the exact opposite. I had heard multiple gunshots being fired from the familiar-sounding Smith & Wesson 1076, which my partner'd been issued. And I just KNEW that Mulder again caught our man, for the shots halted momentarily. However, almost immediately thereafter, I heard the sound of someone else getting thrown against a wall, along with the metallic clattering of aa gun as it skittered across the ground.
Awww shit...
Those noises could only mean one thing: yet another 'Agent Down'. Scully to the rescue...
By the time I got showed up on the scene this time though, there was actually blessedly little I needed to do. I didn't have to revive him from an unnatural sleep, forced on him by a knock on the head or drugs. Nor did I even have to staunch any free-flowing blood, nor set a dislocated or broken bone, at least one of which I would be doing by now. I did, however, feel for his then-racing pulse at the wrist, taking stock of it between first finding him dazed, half-lying, upon the church's celler floor and aiding him to stand upright... Really all he seemed to need was a couple Advil or Tylenol and an ice pack for a slight, though painful, bruise and knot combo that the medics found later, on a place just above the nape of his neck. And that's precisely why we're going back to the motel.
Speaking of a motel room, my partner's still remaining as quiet as a mouse, but I assume he's not asleep, since he definitely isn't known for catnapping like I am, even if it IS during the process of going home to D.C for a day or two of rest before our next case comes knocking on the basement office door. Knowing him for all these years, if I ever caught him dozing he'd try to cover it up, explaining that he only was resting his eyes, all the while with a tell-all sheepish grin of apology plastered to his face...
I bring my mind forward from the past, in order to ask the figure next to me the same one that'd gone unanswered earlier.
"So, Mulder...You never told me what happened. I mean, I heard shots, but far too many to have used on just one man. Or golem as you said..." I say, delivering a small dig to his wayward theory.
Of course, by this stage in our relationship, I should know that most, if not all, of my comments would not matter to him one single iota. I could think any way I liked and he would never so much lift a finger to really change my mind. That's the great thing about him. Nothing I say can truely hurt him, or at least not at this point. Maybe it might've affected him before, and it might revert back to that sometime later on, but today is neither the time nor the place for this to occur...
In any case, he doesn't really respond verbally, just really nods his head.
Now, and the more, I think about it though, the motion looked most like an unaware bob. Sparing a second glance at him, I receive confirmation to my suspicion. I see it in the unusually lax and unlined tone of his face, the peaceful down-turn of his pouty lips, and the slow, steady whistle emitting from his mouth alert me that my partner is, in fact, sleeping.
Luckily, no nightmares nor bad dreams invade him in the subconscious world now. I know it might seem lame to you, but, for some sappy or maybe self-absorbed reason, I think the prescence which is keeping Mulder calm, and not restless or sweating, is me. It's that I'm here with him, sitting next to him, beside him for the duration of the drive back. And, deep inside, he feels I won't let anything bad happen to him while he sleeps. And he's right, because nothing will...I'll make extremely sure of that. Although all this is true, I'd rather keep it just between you, my conscience, and me, all right?
Why?
Because he doesn't need to know right now, or anytime soon for that matter either, about the way I REALLY feel about him. After all, I AM dying, and I can damn well assure you that just the death part will kill him alone at this juncture. He's actually still in a sort of intense state of denial over the whole cancer thing. So, I would never want to hurt him more than I have to through my death. Honestly though, when comparing himself with me, on the subject of my disease, he cares more now than I probably ever will. I suppose I've accepted it as fate, and he still can't come to grips with our soon-to-be eternal seperation.
In any case, I do envy him for that much.
I look elsewhere: back to the road, for me to gauge how close we are to this po-dunk city's one of a thousand and two cheap motels, the sleazy type of which my partner and I always manage to 'indirectly' find and frequent every time we travel together. Here, in the Big NYC, it's called The Mermaid's Lagoon. The Lagoon though is probably one of the most done-up ones I've ever been privileged to crash in. Not done-up in a good way, mind you... Within any of their ten rooms, a person could find two ultra-guady, mermaid-shaped laterns and an over-sized waterbed. For Mulder that was good enough to live with as long as he'd need to, content with every oddity in the place. To him, everything, especially the beds themselves, was an experience to milk for all its worth....Perhaps, this fascination stemmed from him finding whenever I call any bed, of that sort, a death trap amusing? Me: On the other hand, I'd taken a more sane, mundane route, opting to get a cot, which, thankfully, was NOT filled with water...
Well, I guess whatever rocks his boat is just peachy keen with me too. But, I will flatly refuse to help him onto or into that bedroom trap, injured or no. That's right! Not a finger nor toe, nor foot, nor hand of mine is so much as touching that thing. I mean...Come on! I'm not that stupid. One false move on that thing, and I'll be liable to get sucked onto it too. And that WOULD be a damn shame.
Mulder and I: We'd be stuck there, side-by-side like that, for hours, ages probably. That's simply because there's no way that me, as small and short as I am, and you, as out of it as you are, can combine our handicapped energies enough to get me up, off, & out...not without one or both of us falling off and potentially cracking our skulls on the hardwood floor....
And when he wakes up and sees me there, possibly asleep, probably ultra-cranky and still awake though, laying next to him he'll be thinking: 'Oh my God! What did we do?' Or else he'd be congratulating himself like a typical male, on his latest conquest....Blah. Blah. Blah. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.
Sure. Fine. Whatever you say, Mulder. I will tell him this, trying hard not to burst out laughing, since it didn't happen, or crying, because it did. Or maybe those reactions should've been vice-versa??? Ha-ha-ha. Not very funny, is it? My cancer's already taken away most of my future, so, now, it's beaten and robbed me of what little humor I've attained by having prolonged contact with my friend and sole co-worker of nearly four years...
Well, I guess, life has, unfortunately, gotten less and less funny and light ever since I've known Fox W. Mulder. First, it was my own abduction, at the hands of Duane Barry. Then, it was the murder of my sister, Melissa, committed by a renegade agent, Alex Krycek. And now, just when I thought couldn't get much worse, the true mother-lode strikes home. I've developed inoperable brain cancer and have only 6 months to a year more to live.
I AM, IN EFFECT, DYING...In fact, I'm really already dead.
***
I've kinda actually liked this quiet, little ride, watching my beloved partner-in-crime, Mulder, sleep peacefully, while also finally be able to drive during a case. It's given me a chance to think about the past and look on to the near future as well...
All too soon though, we reach the motel. And I know that the time has come to do the dastardly deed of the day. No, it's not chasing after some bad guy down, while waving a gun about my head. Of course, who in their right mind, excepting the crook, thinks doing that is insane or bad anyhow. I do know that, if a bad guy did snatch my purse, I'd be running my butt off after him, for sure, brandishing a pen to knock him out silly with, because that would be all that I would have left after they'd taken my purse. HA! My prodigal humor returns!...
Nor would it be dropping my intelligence act to become a 'little sailor,' as a person with little or no social graces, and who curses a lot, is called...
No...What I was about to do was far worse. I was going to wake Special Agent Fox William Mulder up from his cute, little catnap.
I park as close as I dare, stopping the car longways across two spots, Mulder's side to the room doors.
Then, I get out, make my way around to the passenger's side in the semi-darkness of the witching hour, and open the door. Silently, I unbuckle his figure, which once freed from the seatbelt lists slightly, his head lolling toward me.
A few strands of Mulder's thick, chesnut-colored hair, just over his eyebrows, stir in the breeze, waving at me happily.
Gosh, I think, peering at him as he sleeps on, totally unaware. I must admit he is one damn fine-looking man. Oops, the so-called 'little sailor' strikes again. Grinning, I wonder if all men are cuter asleep than they are awake, or is it just true with my partner... That is, truthful when they're not getting themselves hurt or beaten up, being macho, screwing up, or going off half-cocked, or being a smart-ass, or having an attitude to match their natural-born cockiness. Oh, wait...Did I mention them being so damned sure about...well...EVERYTHING? No? Well, I did now.
Asleep, however, they're all angels. Supposedly.
Ok. Now, for the hard part...
"Mulder?" I whisper in his ear softly, opting for the kinder, gentler approach, bading him to respond.
He rewards me with a sigh. A tiny sound compared with what he usually illicits, but I pay that fact no mind. It's there at least.
Next, from the realm of the subconsciously half-awake, he starts mumbling disjointedly. "Scully...My voice hurts...windpipe half-crushed...Almost didn't make it...Didn't think...Didn't think...I'd see you again...Wanted...Needed to tell you that I loved you...Love you..." His voice fades again, but I know why that is now. Because he was practically strangled to death tonight by a golem! No wonder he's so hoarse...
Still, that didn't prevent me from hearing his last words.
Right now, I ignore them with extreme caution. But, inwardly, all those old buzzers are meanwhile going off in my head. I know they've gone off, because they've done this before, but NEVER like this. Quick-fire questions crash through my skull, all having to do with three teeny words: Does he really mean them? Is he serious? Or delirious? And what if he's NOT delirious? What then? Do I feel the same way about him? What should I say to him? What should I do?
"Mulder," I say, choosing to ignore his words altogether for right now, although for how much longer shall I be able to do so is anyone's guess. "We're back at the motel. Come on, I want to make sure you get some Advil, ok?"
"Yeah. But did you hear what I said, Scully? I DO love you."
I said it even before I knew what I was saying, before I could stop myself: "I love you too."
I'll tell you one thing; he doesn't miss a beat: "Ya mean it?" I knew it...He won't let me get away that easily. Damn it...
Meanwhile, Mulder hopefully looked up at me as he stood.
"Yes, I do." I found it so hard to lie to him when he is as vulnerable as he is now.
Together, his arm draped loosely over my shoulders, we shuffle indoors. Once inside, I flip the light switch, after which Mulder shifted his weight off of me and slumped in a chair.
"All right," I say, "Wait here and don't go to sleep yet ok? I want to check you out one more time..."
"Check me out, Scully? Pardon me, but isn't that supposed to be MY line?" he slurred, already half-asleep, despite my warnings not to do so.
"The knot on your head..." I call from the bathroom, where I'd stashed some pain meds, just in case.
"What knot?"
I come back from the cabinet to find him standing, looking goofily in the mirror at himself.
"You know...the bump on your head that I guess you got from your fight...You don't remember?"
"Remember what, Scully?"
"The golem that nearly killed you, that's what."
"Oh??? When was this?"
"Sit down," I instruct him instead, my fear about possible amnesia rising. Besides, I'm really not liking that look he's been giving me for the past few minutes: It's like he's been drugged or something.
He does, and after giving him the two pills, I check the place right where his skull begins to slope downwards in back. The chick pea-sized bump is still there of course, only now, it seems the area surrounding it is turning a shade of black. Right now, even though it probably isn't hurting, I'm almost sure it'll feel like hell in the morning. The throat thing, on the other hand, isn't nearly as bad. Just a few light, yellow tender spots. Whatever had been 'almost crushed' was simply inflating again, so that the only symptoms were a slight ache and a shorter lasting time before becoming short of breath. The only thing that those would affect will be his ability to give tiring, long-winded speeches for a while, which actually is sort of a good thing for me, ususally since I'm the only one in the room with him when the urge hits...
Back at the synagogue, or whatever, the medics who'd shown up for the attempted hanging victim, checked Mulder out also, though only after my ordering them to do so. They'd said that he might have a mild concussion, along with multiple cousions around his neck. For both, he was given an ice pack. And then, for nearly 30 minutes, we stayed, wrapping up a neat end to the little case that could, but didn't, measure up to all the time and expenses we'd wasted on it. Hell, I mean the only suspect we had turned out to be a golem...a dead guy, who, after an incantation from the woman he loved and had been married to, had gone the way of the graveyard...
"Does this hurt when I touch it, Mulder," I ask, trying to practice my rusty, living-person medical skills. I put a small amount of pressure on the damp cloth I'm holding to the knot on his head. You see, I call my skills rusty, since all I do is cut up dead bodies in autopsy bays, not tend to live ones on motel water beds...
"Damn it, Scully," he mutters under his breath, closing and covering his eyes with one hand, while using the other to extract mine from the painful place. "Yes, it does."
"How much?"
"Just a bit. Can I go to sleep now, please???"
I know he's lying about it. You don't get as far as I have with him and not know these things, like when he's trying to hide something.
"Hold on, Mulder..."
"What now?!"
"If your head doesn't hurt that much, then recite the alphabet-"
"A---B-C---"
"Not forwards. Backwards, Mulder."
"What the hell for!"
Annoyance had sounded clearly in his voice, a rather thick layer of it, by this point, his tone taking on a 'leave me the fuck alone, so I can brood by myself' attitude. Of course, at the time, I was ignoring all the warning signs, as lately, I've been doing.
Plainly, he's exhausted and bothered by the whole 'losing to a dead guy' thing, and now, on top of that humiliation, I was keeping him from retaining one shred of dignity, by not allowing him to bounce back on his own...
"Ok. Never mind. Sleep. I'll call ya in the morning before our shuttle flight leaves... But, don't come crawling to me, if you wake up...say...speaking German or what-not, all right?" I turn away from him to the door, embaressment and anger reddening my face two shades brighter.
"...Hey Scully?" He sounds almost apologetic...almost.
I slowly spin back to face the man, who's still sitting where I left him, on the edge of that death trap of a bed. He beckons me, desiring me to come closer. But, I can't...can't move...am paralyzed to the carpet, mind in turmoil, racing in order to decide on whether or not I should oblige. I feel a single, hot tear begin to roll dowm my left cheek, tracing its way gravity-ward to drop from my chin.
Deep within my heart and soul, I know he can't help being biting and kinda rude, or maybe that's just the machismo-complex shining through. Regardless, however, of what really caused his momentary lapse of controlling a bad mood, it has completely succeeded in making me feel like I'd caused it by myself, with the grand overprotective streak that I've been nursing to maturity, ever since first meeting Mulder and his natural propensity for getting injured in the line of duty so frequently...
"I'm tired, Mulder...You get some rest, ok..." I manage to whisper over my shoulder.
That is, what I WOULD'VE whispered had not two fingers gently pressed against my lips my in a signal to be quiet. They were Mulder's.
"Sorry," he breathes, his voice so close and husky that it tickles my ear.
That word alone, spoken so near to me, completes my torture, and I am brought, kicking and screaming, to my breaking-down point.
To think, in only a few more mere months, this bloody tumor of mine will accomplish what liver-eating mutants, little green men, or gray for that matter, and shadowy conspirators have never been able to do. The tumor will kill me once and for all. Though I hate this fact even more than you do, I've learned to accept and live with it, but I still don't think you have...I wish you'd would, if not for my sake, then at least for your own. Worse than even that finality though, remains to be one which begins and ends with you, Mulder. The thought of never being able to hear your downy, velvety voice again makes my heart skip a beat and almost drives me crazy. Not only that, but if I'm dead, nor will I ever get to touch your semi-sweet-smelling face, fine stubble, or long, light brown hair ever again. Nor will you be close enough to me to touch mine...
And all which seperates us from being apart for eternity, stuck dealing with an endless list of 'nevers' and 'didn't get around to doings,' is time...Not a whole helluva lot of time either...
I turn around fully to face him entirely, nose almost immediately gravitating to bury deep in his shirted chest. I feel his arms wrap around me slowly, like I'm a fragile flower that'll break if he gets to close, but he's wrong. He doesn't have to do that, because I've already been broken. The day I was told of my inoperable brain cancer had and will always be the first hit, when I'd broken down in front of my mother at the crooked doctor's clinic. I'm now officially downcast at this nasty turn of events, wishing to hell that everyone, alien or no, would pay dearly for what they'd done to me 2 years ago. I wish they'd all die horribly painful deaths...I can't help myself. I do wish that very same thing each and every morning, when I wake up...
The tears are beyond holding in now, coming up through my eyes in a brief torrent of emotion.
Mulder sees them running and reaches down to touch my cheek. With a careful thumb, the offending droplets are brushed away.
"Don't cry," he murmers, "Please, don't cry."
He kisses my forehead and hugs me tightly, my false fragility apparently either forgotten or just pushed aside.
I thoroughly welcome and enjoy this sensation and his show of support, even if both are purely physical at the moment.
In my mind, I remember a similar scene, one within an independent hospital hallway, after my first, really rigorous, chemo treatment. He was smiling that same teary smile that he is now. I try to say something, something to break the mood, anything to break the heavy aura that permeates the room, but end up not doing so. Alas, it seems as if I'm too choked up in sadness for myself, yet also with feelings of relief for him. So, I sigh instead, contented, intent on living these moments in Mulder's arms, WITHOUT thinking about my uncertain future...our uncertain future. I'm not the only one at a loss for words. Above me, Mulder sighs in my hair, but no words follow behind.
'Closing throats.'
That's what my father would have say anyway. It's an old saying that he used to use when I was a child. It basically descibed a time where emotions were so high that no words could express them, almost rendering the person or persons overcome muteness...
Aye, that they are. Both mine and his...
***
The END
Good? Bad? Really, Really Weird??? You decide by slapping your john hancock and maybe a few words of wisdom on the jolly-good space beneath here. Thanks a bunch. ; )
Author: Snow'sLuckyCat (or *Shar Stancil)
Keywords: Post-Epi Vignette from the POV of Scully. (Slight MT thrown in for good measure.)
Timeline: Takes place right after events in the mid 4th season episode: "Kaddish."
Spoilers: Memento Mori (Major), Kaddish (Semi-Major), & Leonard Betts (Mild).
Rating: A Heavy PG-13 or Mild R (for a whole lot of hells, a few damns, and one use of the f-word) OurLittleSailor!Scully return-ed!!!! ; )
Disclaimer: Well, folks: Things could end 1 of 2 ways. Either we get a sucky ninth season, complete with no Mulder, which in itself sucks monkey butt... OR we could have a SERIOUS problem on our hands...No Chris Carter. I mean, let's face it, people; we don't have that much to look forward to later this year...And if there's a year after that, but with no Mulder OR Scully, then we all shall know that Fox Networks has just indeed literally hung themselves in the bathroom. Now, we don't want that, do we? HELL NO!
(BTW: I was talking about the series without even Scully, NOT the fact of Fox Networks hanging itself in a stall. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing that load of mamma-jamma, would you??? I thought so.) ; )
In any case, until such time that we get a straight answer as to Everybody's question: "When are They going to finally let it go?" all character names used within, belong to Carter and his now-cursed 1013 Skeleton Crew...Only one show that should have been stopped years ago has survived, yet you guys have made 3 others...a spinoff (which was good), and two totally non-related shows (both all right, but nothing truely spectacular).
The thoughts however in this fic belong to me, since no one knew what your characters said or thought in the car drive back to the motel in the episode Kaddish, or after. You didn't show it at any rate. So, in essence, it's your fault that I wrote this. You left a large spot open for debate, and I took it, so there! ; )
Don't sue though, because I'm just a harmless pussy cat. *snort* Yeah....RIGHT...
Summary: Post-case drive back to the motel...and after. Emotions are revealed, secrets are kept, and a promise is made. Really though, it's just a bit of car fluff. ; )
NOW---HERE'S THE STORY!!!
***
Closing Throats
****
My eyes are closing ...
As my windpipe crushes too.
I think I'm dying,
Dying from seeing you.
*
"Mulder?" I spoke softly, my voice parting the silence within our rental Ford Taurus, like Moses did with his staff to the Red Sea.
"Yeah?" he hoarsely mutters back to me, across the seat.
"You ok?" I continue, questioning his state of being.
"If anyone else asks me that, I'll..."
"Sorry," I apologize quickly, before realizing that he was just joking.
Taking my eyes off the road for a second, I spare a short glance at him, smiling slightly. His eyes are closed, however, and he is quiet, still. Then, he opens them, as if sensing my gaze, and grins in my direction. I see this out of the corner of my eye as I turn back to the road ahead of us once more. Finally, I can relax.
He'll be fine, I tell myself. But, man, was that a close one or what...
I remember it like it was only seconds ago. Actually though, it's been two hours since...then. Two hours since I'd been thinking the exact opposite. I had heard multiple gunshots being fired from the familiar-sounding Smith & Wesson 1076, which my partner'd been issued. And I just KNEW that Mulder again caught our man, for the shots halted momentarily. However, almost immediately thereafter, I heard the sound of someone else getting thrown against a wall, along with the metallic clattering of aa gun as it skittered across the ground.
Awww shit...
Those noises could only mean one thing: yet another 'Agent Down'. Scully to the rescue...
By the time I got showed up on the scene this time though, there was actually blessedly little I needed to do. I didn't have to revive him from an unnatural sleep, forced on him by a knock on the head or drugs. Nor did I even have to staunch any free-flowing blood, nor set a dislocated or broken bone, at least one of which I would be doing by now. I did, however, feel for his then-racing pulse at the wrist, taking stock of it between first finding him dazed, half-lying, upon the church's celler floor and aiding him to stand upright... Really all he seemed to need was a couple Advil or Tylenol and an ice pack for a slight, though painful, bruise and knot combo that the medics found later, on a place just above the nape of his neck. And that's precisely why we're going back to the motel.
Speaking of a motel room, my partner's still remaining as quiet as a mouse, but I assume he's not asleep, since he definitely isn't known for catnapping like I am, even if it IS during the process of going home to D.C for a day or two of rest before our next case comes knocking on the basement office door. Knowing him for all these years, if I ever caught him dozing he'd try to cover it up, explaining that he only was resting his eyes, all the while with a tell-all sheepish grin of apology plastered to his face...
I bring my mind forward from the past, in order to ask the figure next to me the same one that'd gone unanswered earlier.
"So, Mulder...You never told me what happened. I mean, I heard shots, but far too many to have used on just one man. Or golem as you said..." I say, delivering a small dig to his wayward theory.
Of course, by this stage in our relationship, I should know that most, if not all, of my comments would not matter to him one single iota. I could think any way I liked and he would never so much lift a finger to really change my mind. That's the great thing about him. Nothing I say can truely hurt him, or at least not at this point. Maybe it might've affected him before, and it might revert back to that sometime later on, but today is neither the time nor the place for this to occur...
In any case, he doesn't really respond verbally, just really nods his head.
Now, and the more, I think about it though, the motion looked most like an unaware bob. Sparing a second glance at him, I receive confirmation to my suspicion. I see it in the unusually lax and unlined tone of his face, the peaceful down-turn of his pouty lips, and the slow, steady whistle emitting from his mouth alert me that my partner is, in fact, sleeping.
Luckily, no nightmares nor bad dreams invade him in the subconscious world now. I know it might seem lame to you, but, for some sappy or maybe self-absorbed reason, I think the prescence which is keeping Mulder calm, and not restless or sweating, is me. It's that I'm here with him, sitting next to him, beside him for the duration of the drive back. And, deep inside, he feels I won't let anything bad happen to him while he sleeps. And he's right, because nothing will...I'll make extremely sure of that. Although all this is true, I'd rather keep it just between you, my conscience, and me, all right?
Why?
Because he doesn't need to know right now, or anytime soon for that matter either, about the way I REALLY feel about him. After all, I AM dying, and I can damn well assure you that just the death part will kill him alone at this juncture. He's actually still in a sort of intense state of denial over the whole cancer thing. So, I would never want to hurt him more than I have to through my death. Honestly though, when comparing himself with me, on the subject of my disease, he cares more now than I probably ever will. I suppose I've accepted it as fate, and he still can't come to grips with our soon-to-be eternal seperation.
In any case, I do envy him for that much.
I look elsewhere: back to the road, for me to gauge how close we are to this po-dunk city's one of a thousand and two cheap motels, the sleazy type of which my partner and I always manage to 'indirectly' find and frequent every time we travel together. Here, in the Big NYC, it's called The Mermaid's Lagoon. The Lagoon though is probably one of the most done-up ones I've ever been privileged to crash in. Not done-up in a good way, mind you... Within any of their ten rooms, a person could find two ultra-guady, mermaid-shaped laterns and an over-sized waterbed. For Mulder that was good enough to live with as long as he'd need to, content with every oddity in the place. To him, everything, especially the beds themselves, was an experience to milk for all its worth....Perhaps, this fascination stemmed from him finding whenever I call any bed, of that sort, a death trap amusing? Me: On the other hand, I'd taken a more sane, mundane route, opting to get a cot, which, thankfully, was NOT filled with water...
Well, I guess whatever rocks his boat is just peachy keen with me too. But, I will flatly refuse to help him onto or into that bedroom trap, injured or no. That's right! Not a finger nor toe, nor foot, nor hand of mine is so much as touching that thing. I mean...Come on! I'm not that stupid. One false move on that thing, and I'll be liable to get sucked onto it too. And that WOULD be a damn shame.
Mulder and I: We'd be stuck there, side-by-side like that, for hours, ages probably. That's simply because there's no way that me, as small and short as I am, and you, as out of it as you are, can combine our handicapped energies enough to get me up, off, & out...not without one or both of us falling off and potentially cracking our skulls on the hardwood floor....
And when he wakes up and sees me there, possibly asleep, probably ultra-cranky and still awake though, laying next to him he'll be thinking: 'Oh my God! What did we do?' Or else he'd be congratulating himself like a typical male, on his latest conquest....Blah. Blah. Blah. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.
Sure. Fine. Whatever you say, Mulder. I will tell him this, trying hard not to burst out laughing, since it didn't happen, or crying, because it did. Or maybe those reactions should've been vice-versa??? Ha-ha-ha. Not very funny, is it? My cancer's already taken away most of my future, so, now, it's beaten and robbed me of what little humor I've attained by having prolonged contact with my friend and sole co-worker of nearly four years...
Well, I guess, life has, unfortunately, gotten less and less funny and light ever since I've known Fox W. Mulder. First, it was my own abduction, at the hands of Duane Barry. Then, it was the murder of my sister, Melissa, committed by a renegade agent, Alex Krycek. And now, just when I thought couldn't get much worse, the true mother-lode strikes home. I've developed inoperable brain cancer and have only 6 months to a year more to live.
I AM, IN EFFECT, DYING...In fact, I'm really already dead.
***
I've kinda actually liked this quiet, little ride, watching my beloved partner-in-crime, Mulder, sleep peacefully, while also finally be able to drive during a case. It's given me a chance to think about the past and look on to the near future as well...
All too soon though, we reach the motel. And I know that the time has come to do the dastardly deed of the day. No, it's not chasing after some bad guy down, while waving a gun about my head. Of course, who in their right mind, excepting the crook, thinks doing that is insane or bad anyhow. I do know that, if a bad guy did snatch my purse, I'd be running my butt off after him, for sure, brandishing a pen to knock him out silly with, because that would be all that I would have left after they'd taken my purse. HA! My prodigal humor returns!...
Nor would it be dropping my intelligence act to become a 'little sailor,' as a person with little or no social graces, and who curses a lot, is called...
No...What I was about to do was far worse. I was going to wake Special Agent Fox William Mulder up from his cute, little catnap.
I park as close as I dare, stopping the car longways across two spots, Mulder's side to the room doors.
Then, I get out, make my way around to the passenger's side in the semi-darkness of the witching hour, and open the door. Silently, I unbuckle his figure, which once freed from the seatbelt lists slightly, his head lolling toward me.
A few strands of Mulder's thick, chesnut-colored hair, just over his eyebrows, stir in the breeze, waving at me happily.
Gosh, I think, peering at him as he sleeps on, totally unaware. I must admit he is one damn fine-looking man. Oops, the so-called 'little sailor' strikes again. Grinning, I wonder if all men are cuter asleep than they are awake, or is it just true with my partner... That is, truthful when they're not getting themselves hurt or beaten up, being macho, screwing up, or going off half-cocked, or being a smart-ass, or having an attitude to match their natural-born cockiness. Oh, wait...Did I mention them being so damned sure about...well...EVERYTHING? No? Well, I did now.
Asleep, however, they're all angels. Supposedly.
Ok. Now, for the hard part...
"Mulder?" I whisper in his ear softly, opting for the kinder, gentler approach, bading him to respond.
He rewards me with a sigh. A tiny sound compared with what he usually illicits, but I pay that fact no mind. It's there at least.
Next, from the realm of the subconsciously half-awake, he starts mumbling disjointedly. "Scully...My voice hurts...windpipe half-crushed...Almost didn't make it...Didn't think...Didn't think...I'd see you again...Wanted...Needed to tell you that I loved you...Love you..." His voice fades again, but I know why that is now. Because he was practically strangled to death tonight by a golem! No wonder he's so hoarse...
Still, that didn't prevent me from hearing his last words.
Right now, I ignore them with extreme caution. But, inwardly, all those old buzzers are meanwhile going off in my head. I know they've gone off, because they've done this before, but NEVER like this. Quick-fire questions crash through my skull, all having to do with three teeny words: Does he really mean them? Is he serious? Or delirious? And what if he's NOT delirious? What then? Do I feel the same way about him? What should I say to him? What should I do?
"Mulder," I say, choosing to ignore his words altogether for right now, although for how much longer shall I be able to do so is anyone's guess. "We're back at the motel. Come on, I want to make sure you get some Advil, ok?"
"Yeah. But did you hear what I said, Scully? I DO love you."
I said it even before I knew what I was saying, before I could stop myself: "I love you too."
I'll tell you one thing; he doesn't miss a beat: "Ya mean it?" I knew it...He won't let me get away that easily. Damn it...
Meanwhile, Mulder hopefully looked up at me as he stood.
"Yes, I do." I found it so hard to lie to him when he is as vulnerable as he is now.
Together, his arm draped loosely over my shoulders, we shuffle indoors. Once inside, I flip the light switch, after which Mulder shifted his weight off of me and slumped in a chair.
"All right," I say, "Wait here and don't go to sleep yet ok? I want to check you out one more time..."
"Check me out, Scully? Pardon me, but isn't that supposed to be MY line?" he slurred, already half-asleep, despite my warnings not to do so.
"The knot on your head..." I call from the bathroom, where I'd stashed some pain meds, just in case.
"What knot?"
I come back from the cabinet to find him standing, looking goofily in the mirror at himself.
"You know...the bump on your head that I guess you got from your fight...You don't remember?"
"Remember what, Scully?"
"The golem that nearly killed you, that's what."
"Oh??? When was this?"
"Sit down," I instruct him instead, my fear about possible amnesia rising. Besides, I'm really not liking that look he's been giving me for the past few minutes: It's like he's been drugged or something.
He does, and after giving him the two pills, I check the place right where his skull begins to slope downwards in back. The chick pea-sized bump is still there of course, only now, it seems the area surrounding it is turning a shade of black. Right now, even though it probably isn't hurting, I'm almost sure it'll feel like hell in the morning. The throat thing, on the other hand, isn't nearly as bad. Just a few light, yellow tender spots. Whatever had been 'almost crushed' was simply inflating again, so that the only symptoms were a slight ache and a shorter lasting time before becoming short of breath. The only thing that those would affect will be his ability to give tiring, long-winded speeches for a while, which actually is sort of a good thing for me, ususally since I'm the only one in the room with him when the urge hits...
Back at the synagogue, or whatever, the medics who'd shown up for the attempted hanging victim, checked Mulder out also, though only after my ordering them to do so. They'd said that he might have a mild concussion, along with multiple cousions around his neck. For both, he was given an ice pack. And then, for nearly 30 minutes, we stayed, wrapping up a neat end to the little case that could, but didn't, measure up to all the time and expenses we'd wasted on it. Hell, I mean the only suspect we had turned out to be a golem...a dead guy, who, after an incantation from the woman he loved and had been married to, had gone the way of the graveyard...
"Does this hurt when I touch it, Mulder," I ask, trying to practice my rusty, living-person medical skills. I put a small amount of pressure on the damp cloth I'm holding to the knot on his head. You see, I call my skills rusty, since all I do is cut up dead bodies in autopsy bays, not tend to live ones on motel water beds...
"Damn it, Scully," he mutters under his breath, closing and covering his eyes with one hand, while using the other to extract mine from the painful place. "Yes, it does."
"How much?"
"Just a bit. Can I go to sleep now, please???"
I know he's lying about it. You don't get as far as I have with him and not know these things, like when he's trying to hide something.
"Hold on, Mulder..."
"What now?!"
"If your head doesn't hurt that much, then recite the alphabet-"
"A---B-C---"
"Not forwards. Backwards, Mulder."
"What the hell for!"
Annoyance had sounded clearly in his voice, a rather thick layer of it, by this point, his tone taking on a 'leave me the fuck alone, so I can brood by myself' attitude. Of course, at the time, I was ignoring all the warning signs, as lately, I've been doing.
Plainly, he's exhausted and bothered by the whole 'losing to a dead guy' thing, and now, on top of that humiliation, I was keeping him from retaining one shred of dignity, by not allowing him to bounce back on his own...
"Ok. Never mind. Sleep. I'll call ya in the morning before our shuttle flight leaves... But, don't come crawling to me, if you wake up...say...speaking German or what-not, all right?" I turn away from him to the door, embaressment and anger reddening my face two shades brighter.
"...Hey Scully?" He sounds almost apologetic...almost.
I slowly spin back to face the man, who's still sitting where I left him, on the edge of that death trap of a bed. He beckons me, desiring me to come closer. But, I can't...can't move...am paralyzed to the carpet, mind in turmoil, racing in order to decide on whether or not I should oblige. I feel a single, hot tear begin to roll dowm my left cheek, tracing its way gravity-ward to drop from my chin.
Deep within my heart and soul, I know he can't help being biting and kinda rude, or maybe that's just the machismo-complex shining through. Regardless, however, of what really caused his momentary lapse of controlling a bad mood, it has completely succeeded in making me feel like I'd caused it by myself, with the grand overprotective streak that I've been nursing to maturity, ever since first meeting Mulder and his natural propensity for getting injured in the line of duty so frequently...
"I'm tired, Mulder...You get some rest, ok..." I manage to whisper over my shoulder.
That is, what I WOULD'VE whispered had not two fingers gently pressed against my lips my in a signal to be quiet. They were Mulder's.
"Sorry," he breathes, his voice so close and husky that it tickles my ear.
That word alone, spoken so near to me, completes my torture, and I am brought, kicking and screaming, to my breaking-down point.
To think, in only a few more mere months, this bloody tumor of mine will accomplish what liver-eating mutants, little green men, or gray for that matter, and shadowy conspirators have never been able to do. The tumor will kill me once and for all. Though I hate this fact even more than you do, I've learned to accept and live with it, but I still don't think you have...I wish you'd would, if not for my sake, then at least for your own. Worse than even that finality though, remains to be one which begins and ends with you, Mulder. The thought of never being able to hear your downy, velvety voice again makes my heart skip a beat and almost drives me crazy. Not only that, but if I'm dead, nor will I ever get to touch your semi-sweet-smelling face, fine stubble, or long, light brown hair ever again. Nor will you be close enough to me to touch mine...
And all which seperates us from being apart for eternity, stuck dealing with an endless list of 'nevers' and 'didn't get around to doings,' is time...Not a whole helluva lot of time either...
I turn around fully to face him entirely, nose almost immediately gravitating to bury deep in his shirted chest. I feel his arms wrap around me slowly, like I'm a fragile flower that'll break if he gets to close, but he's wrong. He doesn't have to do that, because I've already been broken. The day I was told of my inoperable brain cancer had and will always be the first hit, when I'd broken down in front of my mother at the crooked doctor's clinic. I'm now officially downcast at this nasty turn of events, wishing to hell that everyone, alien or no, would pay dearly for what they'd done to me 2 years ago. I wish they'd all die horribly painful deaths...I can't help myself. I do wish that very same thing each and every morning, when I wake up...
The tears are beyond holding in now, coming up through my eyes in a brief torrent of emotion.
Mulder sees them running and reaches down to touch my cheek. With a careful thumb, the offending droplets are brushed away.
"Don't cry," he murmers, "Please, don't cry."
He kisses my forehead and hugs me tightly, my false fragility apparently either forgotten or just pushed aside.
I thoroughly welcome and enjoy this sensation and his show of support, even if both are purely physical at the moment.
In my mind, I remember a similar scene, one within an independent hospital hallway, after my first, really rigorous, chemo treatment. He was smiling that same teary smile that he is now. I try to say something, something to break the mood, anything to break the heavy aura that permeates the room, but end up not doing so. Alas, it seems as if I'm too choked up in sadness for myself, yet also with feelings of relief for him. So, I sigh instead, contented, intent on living these moments in Mulder's arms, WITHOUT thinking about my uncertain future...our uncertain future. I'm not the only one at a loss for words. Above me, Mulder sighs in my hair, but no words follow behind.
'Closing throats.'
That's what my father would have say anyway. It's an old saying that he used to use when I was a child. It basically descibed a time where emotions were so high that no words could express them, almost rendering the person or persons overcome muteness...
Aye, that they are. Both mine and his...
***
The END
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