"do you know? or maybe did
something go away
ever so quietly
when we weren't looking"

 --e.e. cummings
 
 

AWAY EVER SO QUIETLY
by: Jennifer Maurer
 

Jesus Christ.

Jesus *fucking* Christ.

Everything hurts.  Fucking everything.  I think my entire body imploded or something.  What the hell happened?

I don't remember very much.  Scully was there...

Blood, lots of blood.

I was freezing, I couldn't get warm.

I saw Samantha...

Slowly, it starts to leak back in, and my heart sinks further with every recollection.  That doctor, giving me animal tranquilizers.  Screaming.  Choking.   Straining to recall more and more even as I wanted to hide the memories again.  Scully's urgent voice, telling me I needed medical attention.  She tells me that a lot.

Apparently this time she was right.

Well, I'll wake up soon and she'll fill me in on the story.  With many arches of her eyebrow and long silences, I'm sure.  I probably deserve it.  I usually do.

Maybe not as often as she thinks I do...but often enough, anyway.

I groan softly, knowing the sound will get her attention.  I wait patiently, drifting between layers of consciousness, for her voice to slip through the fog and reassure me.  It doesn't come.  I can't seem to feel her hand holding mine or resting on my forearm, either.  Maybe Scully has fallen asleep in the chair next to my hospital bed.  She does that sometimes.

I open my eyes a crack, testing the brightness of the light.  Not too bad.  It must be evening by now.  I blink.  Lick my lips.  This is usually when Scully gets up and gives me water.  I could use some right about now.  I feel like my mouth is lined with sandpaper.  They must have had a tube down my throat again.

Did the seizures get that bad?  I'd been able to function, with the occasional blackout, after my first round of "treatment" with the mad doctor.  What kind of damage was done the second time around?  It must have been pretty gruesome if Scully brought me to the hospital.  I probably didn't want to come.  I never do.  If I'm feeling bad enough I don't put up much of a fight, though.

I must have felt pretty bad.

I groan again and open my eyes the rest of the way, assuring myself that *now* Scully will hear me and come to comfort me.  Silence greets my return to the land of the living.  With great effort, I turn my head to the right, struggling to focus.

There is a chair.  It's empty.

The flare of panic dies down as quickly as it rose up.  Okay, there is a chair, so Scully was here.  Maybe she's talking to my doctor.  Giving him an earful about how much trouble I am.  I manage a weak smile at the thought.  Sadly, it is true.  I am a terrible patient.

If I wait, she'll be back.  She could be getting coffee.  I imagine it's been a long vigil for her.  She's been going non-stop since I called her at 5 this morning.

It is still Sunday, isn't it?  I'm not sure.  Not knowing makes me uneasy.

I wish Scully would hurry up and get back.

After what seems an endless amount of time trying to swallow, get comfortable, and otherwise orient myself, I give up waiting and grope for the call button.  Someone's got to be around.

Another long wait, then a young nurse enters.  The sight of her startles me; I was still half-expecting Scully to come walking in.  The nurse regards me with a serious expression, and fear suddenly lances my heart.

Scully.  The nurse knows where Scully is, why she isn't here.  I open my mouth to ask and the memory hits me like another seizure.

<Get away!>

[Are you going to shoot me, Mulder? Is that how much this means to you?  Mulder, listen to me. You have been given a powerful hallucinogen. You don't know that these memories are yours.  This is not the way to the truth, Mulder.  You've got to trust me.]

<Shut up!>

[Put down the gun. Let it go.]

Gunshots.

I shot my gun.

At Scully.

Fuck.

I gasp, try to sit up in bed, and find my progress abruptly halted by restraints.  My growing fear becomes full-fledged panic in an instant.  I want Scully, I don't know where she is, I can't get to her.

The nurse won't answer my one question: Scully?

I scream her name over and over; as much as I can scream, anyway.  It comes out more of a raspy wail.  I don't regain my composure until a doctor walks in the room.  I see the needle and immediately fall still.

"No, no more needles," I beg, "Please, don't give me anything else."

The doctor, to my surprise, stops and considers this.  I must be making some sense.  Usually they just shoot me up anyway.

"Mr. Mulder, I don't want to have to sedate you, but if you don't calm down..." the threat brings a burst of panic, but I stifle it.

"I-I'm okay," I wheeze, licking my dry lips.  "I just need to know where my partner is."

The doctor and nurse exchange looks.

God, no, tell me I didn't shoot her...

"Scully.  Dana Scully.  She has red hair, and..."

"Oh!" the nurse says, "Yes, she left one of her cards with us at the desk on her way out."

Way out?  I blink stupidly.  Way out to where?

"She told us to call her if you needed her."

If I need her?  I barely manage to swallow a burst of hysterical laughter.  Of course I need her, what kind of a question is that?

"She looked really tired."

Guilt.  It's always like slamming into a brick wall at top speed.  I never get used to it, for all the practice I get.

"Mr. Mulder?  Would you like us to call Ms. Scully for you?"

She left.  Scully left.  Me.  Alone.

"No," I choke out, around a horrible imitation of a smile.  "No, I'll be fine.  I was just worried about her."

After further promises of good behavior, the doctor agrees to take the restraints off.  I haven't had a seizure in several hours, so he decides it's safe.  He urges me to get some sleep.

I roll over on my side, curl up small the way I used to when I heard angry voices coming from downstairs.

<"No!  You bastard!">

Only this time, it is Scully screaming in my head instead of my mother.

I don't sleep the whole night.  I can't get warm.

It gives me lots of time to think.  About a great many things.

By morning, I'm ready.

A new nurse is on duty in the morning, and I turn on the charm the minute she walks in.  FBI agent, in the middle of a big case---who isn't impressed by something like that?  Oh, my ailment?  A thing of the past, just an adverse reaction.  Nothing at all to worry about.  So can I go home now?

It is to my credit, in a way, that I actually convince her to consult the doctor.  A credit, indeed---to my ability to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate.

I ignore the irony for now.

A new day, a new doctor on rounds.  Another male doctor, so the old Mulder charm won't be of much use to me now.  I stress the importance of what I'm missing in the outside world.  And to me it is important---far more than any case ever could be.  I have to see Scully.  I *have* to, or I'm not going to be able to hold it together much longer.

The panic I feel at Scully's absence is disturbing in its intensity.  She has never *not* been with me when I'm hospitalized.  She may go out for awhile if we’re on a case, yes, but she always comes back.  And she's *always* there when I first wake up.

I never thought I could push her too far.  Oh, the thought crosses my mind, but then I once again take it for granted that she will be beside me every step of the way.  Just as she always has been.

Logically, I know she has limits, of course; everyone does.  I have approached them, danced away from them, sometimes even stretched them a bit.  I've never breached them, though.

Yet.

The idea is impossible and all too likely at the same time.  I have pointed a gun at her before.  I have shouted at her to leave me alone before.  I have ignored her advice and run from her before.

Just never all at once.  Have I found the lethal combination that will blow apart my bond with Dana Scully?

Or has it been disintegrating, little by little, because of the quirks in both our personalities that so often clash?

I refuse to accept the slow corrosion theory.  I would surely have noticed that before now.  No, I decide, Scully has distanced herself from me because of my recent actions.

It hurts.  I need her now more than ever before and she's not here.  I resent her for that even as I know I pushed her to it.

I have to see her.  I have to try and show her how important she is to me.  She may not trust me on this; the history of occasional clashes over the past four years will probably speak louder than words of regret spoken the morning after a violent confrontation.  I have to hope that the good times (and there have been some, I comfort myself by remembering) between us will reinforce my words, instead of the bad times tarnishing their sincerity.

It seems to take forever, but in what is probably record time I am free to go, having signed every kind of legal waiver known to man.  I understand the risks, I promise not to sue---yes, yes, anything you say, just let me go.

Finally, they do.  And I realize that I have no way to get home.  Scully is not here to drive me.  I'm afraid to call her for a ride.  What if she hangs up?  What if she won't answer at all?  I decide to stall, put off the possibility of rejection until I am better equipped to deal with it.  I call the Lone Gunmen and Byers comes to get me.  He takes one look at my face and knows not to ask me any questions.

I get home without incident, trembling only a little as I insert my key into the lock.  Byers wants to stay and help me, but I ask him to leave.  I'll be fine, I assure him.  The real reason I don't want him, or anyone else, around is that I am afraid of what I will find when I open the door.

There is a chance, however small, that Scully is here...but common sense prevails and I find myself alone.  Dust fills the early morning sun coming in my window.  My apartment has never felt so lonely.

I shower slowly, pausing to grab the walls when I get dizzy.  By the time I'm done my headache has receded.  I dress carefully in old clothes and sink down onto the couch with a weary sigh.

My body feels like it's been tossed into a blender. I suspect I could sleep for days if only my mind would slow down.  But hasn't that always been my problem?  My mind goes so fast, so far ahead of everyone else's, that I miss a lot of things.

Sleep, for one.  The normal, everyday encounters that everyone seems to have except me.  The ability to reach out for the help that somewhere inside I know I desperately need.  Scully's help.

This is worse than all the cases that reminded me of Samantha.  This hurts more than all the times I thought I'd found my sister, only to be proven wrong.  These memories were real.  Scully had her doubts, but I *know*.  That's the way it really happened.  If only I could have seen more, learned more...

But at what price?  A chill sweeps through me at the thought.  I put my life on the line, and Scully's.  I ran off on my own, with the noble intention of sparing her danger.  Then I called her, asked her for help, left again and ended up almost shooting her.

It seems redundant to wonder why she left, yet I do.  What was it about this that pushed the final button in her?

It's only the final button because you've already pushed all the others, I chastise myself.

Impossible, I argue.  There’s no way Scully would ever leave me.

Right?

I am startled to find I don’t have an automatic answer to that question anymore.

Truth is, I don’t know.

And like so many other mysteries in my life, I know I won't be able to rest until I can solve this one.

I only entertain the thought of driving for a minute, until I try to stand up.  The room swims and I know I'm not going to be able to get the key into the ignition, let alone drive anywhere.  I don't want to call Byers again, and have to face his worried sympathy at the absence of my partner in my life at this moment.  Instead I call a taxi, not caring what it's going to cost.  I have never been this terrified of being separated from Scully before, not even when she was taken.  I would pay any price to discover my fears are false.

I fidget during the entire ride, bite my tongue to keep from urging the driver to go faster.  The guy looks at me askance when I say I want to go to FBI headquarters (I have to show him the money to prove I can pay the fare all the way from Alexandria), and he keeps shooting me strange looks in the rearview mirror during the ride.  I suppose at this point I do look more like a suspect than an agent.  Part of my anxiety stems from wanting to see Scully so very badly, but another part of me knows she's going to kill me for coming into the office today, and I want to get the ass-kicking over with so we can get to the part where I fall to my knees and apologize.

I take the back stairs down into the basement, holding the banister in a death grip so I won't plunge down the stairs and crack my head open.  The elevator would be much easier, of course, but I don't want to run into anyone, especially not Skinner.  I think at this point he'd take me into federal custody to get me out of here, and I can't leave without seeing her, even if it's just for a few minutes.

The office is dark and empty when I get there.  Everything looks the same as it did when I left on Friday; what I can remember of it, anyway.  Scully could be at lunch, I suppose, but there isn't any sign that she's been in here at all today.  I check the bottom right drawer of her desk; unlocked, so I know her purse isn't in there.  Even if she were in a meeting with Skinner, that would still be down here.  She must not have come into work at all today.  That scares me more than anything else has up until this point.  I can count on one hand the number of times Scully has called out sick in all our years of working together.

Again, I think about calling her, and again I decide to just show up and meet her face-to-face.  I'm not in any shape to fight her if she absolutely refuses to see me, but I think I stand a better chance if I'm right in front of her, rather than over the phone.  I use the office phone to call another cab and laboriously make my way back up the stairs and out of the building.

Eventually we wind our way through Georgetown traffic to Scully's apartment.  I hastily shove some crumpled bills into the cabby's hand, but my idea of dashing up to Scully's is ruined somewhat by the fact that I can barely hold myself upright.  Usually I take the stairs to her apartment, two at a time when I'm feeling especially chipper.  Today I am deeply grateful for the elevator.  I push the STOP button right before her floor to give myself a chance to pull myself together.

My hands are trembling, and I know it's not just an after-effect of my ordeal.  I am terrified of losing her, it's that simple.  I live with the specter of her cancer every day, but her relative good health so far allows me to bury that particular fear as deep as I can.  This is much more immediate.  I am walking down the hallway to see Scully for what could be the last time, and this time it is all my doing.

I pause once more directly outside her apartment door, breathe deeply, and raise my hand to knock.
 

~End~

"Woke up in my clothes again this morning
Don’t know exactly where I am
I should heed my doctor’s warning
[She] does the best with me [she] can
[She] claims I suffer from delusions
I’m so confident I’m sane
Can’t be no optical illusion
How can you explain
Shadows in the rain?"
 --Sting, "Shadows in the Rain"
 

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