Chapter 7: Worries at Home
Mulder/Scully Farmhouse
Eastern Virginia
The Next Day
9:00 AM
Charlie Scully was in the process of preparing breakfast in the kitchen when his sister stumbled out of the bedroom and entered the room. Having just awoken for the day, she was dressed in her emerald green silk pajamas as well as Mulder's ragged bathrobe and her slippers.
"Good morning, sis!" Charlie warmly greeted.
"Morning", Scully very groggily replied as she took a seat at the table, "What are you whipping up today?"
"Buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup and fresh strawberries", Charlie said as he began plating the aforementioned food and drizzling syrup on her pancakes, "Would you like some orange juice?"
Scully grinned and nodded. "Sure", she replied, "I didn't think we had any strawberries left in the fridge."
Charlie set the very scrumptious-looking plate of food down in front of his sister before crossing to the cupboard to retrieve a glass for her orange juice. "Actually", he explained, "We didn't. I went to that nice farmer's market stand that's a few miles down the road. The lady who runs it had just picked about a dozen or so strawberries from her field, so I got a whole bunch for just seventy-five cents."
Scully began eating the very well-prepared breakfast as she nodded affirmatively. "Much appreciated, little brother" she said, "Thank you so much. These pancakes are delicious."
Charlie set his sister's glass of OJ down beside her plate before crossing to the opposite side of the table and taking his own seat that faced his sister. "You're so welcome, Dana" he very kindheartedly replied, "As always, I'm just glad to be of help. Did you sleep okay?"
Scully momentarily put her fork down and shrugged her shoulders before resuming eating. "Kind of", she sat as she patted her pregnant belly with her free hand, "Our little girl here spent part of last night kicking me. I thought she was playing for the World Cup or something."
Charlie chuckled and gave his sister a smile in response. "Ah", he replied, "She's probably just a little too eager to come out and meet all of us."
"Probably", Scully said, "I meant to ask you. Are you thinking of staying with us for a while after the baby's born?"
Charlie pondered her question before nodding. "I'm considering it", he replied, "I spoke to Achara and her father on Skype last night before I went to bed. They've hired some of the nearby villagers to work as farmhands while I'm here, so they're not short-staffed."
"That's good", Scully said before sipping the orange juice. "So, they're getting along okay without you for now, I take it" she continued.
"Yeah", Charlie replied, "I guess so."
Scully finished her breakfast in a matter of minutes, while Charlie crossed back into the kitchen to prepare a bagel and a cup of green tea for his own breakfast. He happened to momentarily turn back toward the direction of the table to notice his sister suddenly struggling to stand up from her chair. Her face had abruptly gone ashen and she had begun to sweat profusely.
"Dana?" A now very concerned Charlie inquired as he hurried to his sister's side and tried to steady her, "Are you okay, sis?"
Scully, now becoming disoriented by the sudden onset of these symptoms, shook her head. "I don't know. I…I think it's vertigo or something…I don't know…I…" With that, the pregnant woman's eyes rolled backward into her head and she slumped back into her worried sibling's arms.
"Shit!" Charlie exclaimed as he put two fingers to his sister's neck to feel for a pulse, at which point he thankfully found one, though it appeared to be hazardously low. "DANA?" he hollered out of near panic, "DANA!"
Charlie then grabbed his cell phone out of his back pocket with his free hand and quickly dialed 911.
"Nine-One-One", a female dispatcher's voice answered, "What is your emergency?"
Emergency Room
Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital
Washington, DC
15 Minutes Later
Once she was given adequate intravenous fluids, Scully regained consciousness in the back of the ambulance, at which point she very insistently requested that the responding Richmond paramedics take her to Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital in Washington, a request that they readily obliged.
Dr. Julia Cornwell, Scully's OB/GYN, met her as the duo of female paramedics rolled her into the Emergency Room on a gurney. Charlie hurried in right behind them.
Dr. Cornwell was a tall redheaded British white woman in her mid-50's who was dressed in a white lab coat with a dark green scrub outfit and white sneakers underneath. "What do we have here, ladies?" she asked the paramedics in her very regal-sounding British accent.
"This is Dana Scully", the brunette paramedic began explaining, "She's fifty years old, approximately thirty-four weeks pregnant, second pregnancy. Past history of cancer and vertigo-related syncopal episodes. No known allergies to any meds. She apparently passed out at home after eating breakfast." She then motioned to Charlie with her eyes. "This gentleman here with us is her brother, Charlie" she continued, "He apparently saw her pass out and called it in."
"She's a patient of mine", Dr. Cornwell replied after a nod, "Let's get her into Bed Three and then I'll take over from there."
As the paramedics wheeled Scully on the gurney toward a small treatment room in the corner of the ER, Dr. Cornwell looked to her patient. "Hello Dana", she sweetly said, "Rough morning, yeah?"
Though she was still considerably sweaty, ashen, and generally exasperated by the morning's jarring ordeal, Scully still managed to chuckle and give her obstetrician a smile in response. "You have no idea, Julia" she said groggily, "Sorry to see you under these circumstances."
Dr. Cornwell chuckled. "No worries, love" she kindly replied, "Just doing my job."
They soon reached Bed Three, at which point the two paramedics carefully transferred their patient from their gurney to the treatment bed. As they did so, Scully locked eyes with her still-worried brother who was now sitting down in a small chair across from her. "Are you okay, Charlie?" she asked.
Charlie nodded. "I'm okay, sis" he said, "But you don't need to be worrying about me at the moment."
"Good luck, Miss Scully" the brunette paramedic said, "Get well soon."
Scully tiredly nodded in response. "Thank you", she said as the two of them took their gurney and left the exam room. She then gestured to Charlie with another nod. "Doctor Julia Cornwell", she said, "This is my younger brother, Charlie. He's staying with me for a while."
"Lovely to meet you, Charlie" Dr. Cornwell compassionately said, "Even despite the circumstances. I understand you were with your sister when this episode occurred?"
"I was", Charlie said, "Yes ma'am. I saw Dana trying to get up from her chair at the kitchen table. She went sweaty and pale, and by the time I got over to help her, she was speaking kind of incoherently and her eyes rolled back in her head."
"I see", Dr. Cornwell said as she eyed the EMS report that the paramedics had left for her. "I see here that your blood pressure was one-forty-one over ninety-one and your heartrate was one-eighty-eight", she continued, "You know as well as I do, Dana, that those readings can indicate some sort of hypertensive process. There's some cardiac history in your family. Is that right?"
"Our father died of a massive coronary in Nineteen-Ninety-Three", Charlie chimed in, "Our mom just died of relatively the same type of condition eight months ago."
Dr. Cornwell's face fell into a sympathetically saddened frown. "Oh my", she said, "I had no idea that your mum had passed. I'm so sorry for both of you."
"Thank you", Scully said while Charlie gave an appreciative nod in reply. "How's the baby?"
Dr. Cornwell was already in the process of preparing the fetal doppler device while they conversed.
The kindhearted obstetrician then wheeled the machine over to Scully's bedside and squirted some of the biological gel over her corpulently pregnant stomach before carefully rolling the probe over it. A comforted smile crossed her face a few minutes later. "Ladies and gentlemen", Dr. Cornwell finally said, "We have a healthy heartrate for a healthy baby."
Scully chuckled before releasing her internalized anxiety with a wide smile. "Okay", she said, "That's good. Thank God."
Dr. Cornwell wheeled the doppler back into the corner before sitting down on a wheeled stool and propelling it with her feet back to Scully's bedside. "Your own heartrate and blood pressure are very worrying to me, Dana" she very unequivocally said, "With what happened today and given your past history of vertigo and fainting, it's very possible that you've developed some sort of supraventricular tachycardia."
"SVT?" A now worried Scully said, "Julia, I know I'm eight months pregnant and on maternity leave, but normally, I work in a very high-stress and constantly busy occupation. I can't see myself working in the field if my heartrate starts climbing upward without warning. I mean, especially if it can potentially cause me to faint like I did this morning."
"First things first", Dr. Cornwell reassuringly replied, "I'm going to have one of the nurses come in and draw blood. We'll see if your cardiac enzymes have been affected. If the results are in any way concerning, however, I may have to refer you to Cardiology. If that happens, I'll work alongside your cardiologist until you give birth."
Scully sighed as her physician's brain seemed to spell out what came next. "You want to keep me here at the hospital, don't you?" she asked.
Dr. Cornwell nodded. "Just for tonight, love" she replied, "Unfortunately, the lab's a bit backed up at the moment and we may not get the results back until tomorrow, so we might as well keep you here."
Charlie then came up and held his sister's hand. "It could be for the best, sis", he interjected, "I'll stay here with you until you get situated, and then I'll either stay the night here with you or go stay back at the house and come get you in the morning."
Scully finally nodded in agreement. "Okay", she said to Dr. Cornwell.
The doctor nodded as well. "Right, then" she replied, "I'll go make the arrangements to get you a room upstairs. The nurse will be here in a little bit."
"Thank you again, Julia" Scully said.
"Yes", Charlie added, "Thank you, Doctor. It was nice meeting you."
"Nice to meet you as well", Dr. Cornwell replied, "I'll be on call until midnight tonight if you need anything." She then left the room.
With the Scully siblings now left alone for a moment, Charlie scooted his chair over closer beside his ailing sister's bed and tenderly held her hand. "This sucks, huh?" he said before grinning sardonically.
Scully chuckled in response. "Yeah", she replied, "But I have to say, though. This is better than my last pregnancy was."
Charlie took that as his unofficial cue to bring up a subject that he knew would be a pretty tricky one for her to address. "Has there been any luck finding out what happened to William?" he asked.
Scully, thrown for a loop for a second by the question, gave her brother a somewhat stumped look before replying. "Wait", she said, "How did you…"
"I read about what happened to your old boss and that female agent in the Washington Herald", Charlie cut in, "That made me remember that phone conversation we had just after Mom died. You said that you and Mulder had a lead on where William had been all that time, but you didn't go into a whole lot of detail on the phone that day."
"We discovered that William had been living under the name Jackson Van De Kamp", Scully explained, "To make this long part of the story relatively short, Mulder and I tailed him to a factory near the Potomac River. That's where AD Skinner and Monica Reyes were both killed. It turned out that Monica had switched sides at some point and began working for the people who've been out to get Mulder, William, and I. Skinner had to shoot and kill her in self-defense as she attempted to run him over with a car, but he ended up getting crushed between two cars and unfortunately died himself."
"And William was there with you?" Charlie asked.
Scully's eyes welled up with tears. "Yes", she replied in a breaking voice, "We had initially thought that he had been shot and killed as well, but then I got a call from the police chief in Bel Air, Maryland a few weeks later. He explained that a young man matching William's description was caught on camera stealing a pickup truck from a gas station there. He contacted me after he saw that their suspect matched the physical description of the young man described in an FBI inquiry that I posted online."
Charlie nodded as he processed all the information. "And I take it they weren't able to find him or the truck", he said.
"No", Scully replied after wiping her tearful eyes with a tissue, "He was captured on a toll booth camera behind the wheel of that same truck two days after that. The Virginia State Police ended up finding the truck just outside Fredericksburg after it had apparently run out of gas. William was nowhere to be found."
Charlie then leaned in and kissed his sister's forehead. "I'm very sorry about that, Dana. But the important thing right now is for you to concentrate on you and the baby. I'll be right here for as long as you need me.
Scully smiled and kissed Charlie's forehead back just as a young blonde nurse finally came into the room to draw her blood.