TITLE: Doctor Morris
AUTHOR: Shoshana
EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected]
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Gossamer and by request.
SPOILER WARNING: 'The Truth'
RATING: PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: VRA
KEYWORDS: MSR, Mulder, Scully
SUMMARY: Scully's first day on the job.
DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me.
NOTE: This is the sixth in a series of short vignettes. 'Big Brother
Bill,' 'Mother Maggie,' 'Sister Tara,' 'Mr. Mulder,' and 'Daughter
Dana' precede this one.
Thanks to my wonderful beta reader Sallie!

Doctor Morris
By Shoshana

The first one hurts.

It is hard to touch the velvet soft skin, to look at the ten little
fingers and toes. The baby is quiet, unlike his thirty counterparts,
bawling with differing intensity in the waiting room.

Expediency dictates that she innoculate the child and pass her back
to her grateful mother without further ado. The physician's
assistant yells out the number "two" in both English and Spanish, and
the next patient is through the exam room door within seconds.

Scully doesn't have time to think about William now, doing her best
to conduct a hasty inspection of each of her little charges, their
mothers gazing on, sometimes with curiosity, sometimes with the bored
impassivity of a veteran clinic participant. Often, little siblings
clutch the folds of their mother's skirts, twisting pieces of fabric
into substitute 'blankies' and holding on for dear life. The
doctor's office is a frightening place for all children, whether
they are getting a shot or not.

The morning passes swiftly and by eleven o'clock, not one crying
baby remains. The doctor and her staff tidy up the exam room
together, then move to the small staff lounge for coffee and pastry,
courtesy of one of the volunteers, who had appeared without a word
and left with many declarations of thanks behind her. Everyone finds
some coffee or tea and settles down with an ultra-rich goodie from
some bakery far from this part of town.

The lower middle class area the clinic is located in has no large
grocery stores with wide aisles, no patisseries or high end
delicatessens. There are convenience stores, Mexican panaderias, and
day old bakery outlets. Residents are used to planning weekly trips
to other areas of Los Angeles, just to shop in a large grocery store
with lower prices and superior selection.

Scully had been introduced to some of the staff when she toured the
facility several weeks ago, but is only now, after several hours of
furious activity all around her, catching all their names. True,
everyone wears a name tag, but she doesn't want to rely on those when
she should be directing her attention to her patients. There will be
more of those, shortly, as soon as the waiting room refills with
patients.

The innoculation clinics are always done early in the day, as tiring
as they can be to the limited staff. Everyone feels needed here; no
one sits still, except for coffee breaks and a communal lunch from
one to two, catered by a familiar face or two. The facility gets
most of its funds from the government and most of its extras from the
community. There are a lot of people who grew up in this
neighborhood and haven't forgotten to send some of their prosperity
back to it.

Scully is tired, more tired than she's been for months. Teaching at
Quantico, the occasional autopsy, never exhausted her like this.
Fortunately, she's had time to get reactivated, jogging and swimming,
relaxing with Mulder. She chides herself internally, munching on a
cheese Danish she really shouldn't have. Think of him as 'Sean,'
Katherine... you don't want to put his real name out there, anywhere.
It's not safe, maybe it never will be, maybe we'll never see William
or Mom again...

She shakes her head slightly, banishing negative thoughts from this
lively, happy place. She has to believe they will be a family again.
She has to direct her energy to the here and now, not the nebulous
future.

Scully listens as the younger staff members debate the merits of pop
stars she's never heard outside a dentist's office or grocery
store, sharing in their irreverent, trouble-free fun. She's so
grateful for this diversion, for this chance to fit in somewhere
she's needed. She knows where she fits in when she goes home, she
knows who is waiting there for her, but she needed this, a place to
serve others, a place to have value to the world they've adopted as
their own.

She loves the West Coast; she always did when they lived in San
Diego. She knows Mulder is growing fond of the Pacific sand and
surf, perhaps as much as his beloved Atlantic beaches. They begin
each day with a run by the sea, celebrate dusk with a stroll down
the shore. It's almost paradise, lacking only one thing, one
exquisite child she should never have sent away.

Scully is brought back to reality by sudden movement around her, as
all the staff prepares to return to work for an hour and a half more
until lunchtime. She smiles at the geniality of her co-workers;
they've welcomed her with open arms, never questioning her need to be
in the thick of things after many years as a medical researcher. Or
so they speculate, based upon her bogus resume.

She says a little prayer for the three men who gave her a new life
in this imperfect promised land, and heads back to work, bolstered by
her beliefs--in grace, in goodness, and the blessings of the future.

fin

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