Ball Four

By Jean Robinson
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com


Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property
of Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Television
Network. Stratego and Monopoly are the property of
Parker Brothers, Inc. No infringement is intended.
Rating: PG
Classification: S
Archive: Please ask permission.
Spoilers: Up through FTF, pre-season 6
Summary: Playing by the rules doesn't always mean you
win.
Feedback: Gratefully appreciated at
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com
Author's notes at the end
*****************************


BALL FOUR (1/4)
By Jean Robinson


"Scully? Are you doing anything on Sunday afternoon?"
Mulder asked.

She didn't look up from the case file spread out in front
of her. "Laundry and dinner with my mother."

"Sounds exciting."

"It'll do. I like to give my cardiovascular system a rest
every now and then, unlike some people I know."

Mulder ignored the jibe and persisted. "Can you make it
a late dinner and laundry afterward?"

Scully sighed and put down her pen, closing her eyes
briefly. His dogged, aggressive and tireless style was one
of his stellar qualities when assessing his value to the
Bureau, but God help him, more often than not it made
him a colossal pain in the neck on an individual level.
She knew exactly where he was going with this, and she
could now forget about getting anything done on this
report until he had his say. "Mulder, give it a rest. They
did not cheat, and you know it."

"How can you say that? Agent Stannis has to be the
biggest ringer in the Bureau. A score of seventeen to one?
How can you even think of that as fair?"

She crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow at him. "So
Agent Stannis pitched varsity baseball at Duke. The
opposing team is not required to provide you with
resumes of their players. You're the only one who is
crying about this. No one else cares."

Mulder stopped tossing his baseball from hand to hand
and glared at her. "That's because no one else respects
the rules, Scully. Seventeen to one? Come on!"

"Mulder, you are the biggest sore loser I have ever met,
have I ever told you that? You've been sulking for three
weeks about that game. Since then two other teams have
played the VCS and no one, I repeat, no one has raised
any question of impropriety regarding Agent Stannis'
being part of the lineup. Get over it."

"We need another player for Sunday. We need a secret
weapon. We need you, Scully," he cajoled.

"I have plans. Sorry."

"It's the national pastime, Scully. Do it in the name of
patriotism."

"Forget it, Mulder."

"Your mother said she'd hold the pasta for you," he said,
smiling triumphantly as he played this unexpected and
totally underhanded trump card.

"You =called my mother=?!" Scully jumped to her feet,
oblivious to the files that scattered in front of her,
conscious only of her shock at how far he would go to get
his own way. "Jesus, Mulder, I don't believe this!"

He continued to grin wickedly. "She said she thought it
would be a fine idea for you to be out getting some
exercise in the fresh air. She said she's sure she can find
an old baseball glove for you."

Mulder alone she could handle, but the combined
onslaught of her mother and her partner was beyond her
power. Defeated, she slumped back into her chair and
glowered at him. "You're not going to let this go, are
you?"

"Nope."

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Nope. You never did. Here." He reached into his desk
drawer, pulled out a small, soft bundle and tossed it over
to her.

She caught what turned out to be a baseball shirt, white
with blue sleeves. Emblazoned on the front in blue
capital letters were the words LAB RATS. Twisting the
shirt around, she discovered Mulder had been
distressingly thorough. SCULLY was printed boldly
across the back. She lowered the shirt and scowled
harder, refusing to be placated by his cheerful grin. "I
know you're bored, Mulder. . ." she winced at her own
careless choice of words and there was a tense,
uncomfortable silence as they both recalled the events
that had stemmed from their last conversation involving
that particular phrase. Scully mentally swore at herself
and plunged on. ". . . but I didn't think you'd stoop so
low for anything other than the Redskins or the Knicks.
For God's sake, it's only a baseball game."

Mulder managed to look both appalled and mortally
offended at the same time. "Scully, Scully, there is no
such thing as 'only a baseball game.' Have I taught you
nothing in the last five years?"

"Sometimes I wonder, Mulder," she muttered, bending
over to pick up her fallen paperwork. "Sometimes I really
wonder."
**************

By Sunday afternoon, she felt somewhat better about
being there with the rest of the Lab team, although she
was still inwardly fuming about how humiliating it was
that he could manipulate her with such ease. She wasn't
going to admit it to Mulder, but it did feel good to be part
of the camaraderie, to see these people outside of the
Hoover building, to know that they owned clothes other
than power suits and lab coats, and to see hands covered
in oversize brown leather gloves instead of thin white
latex ones.

It felt good to do something so blessedly normal.

Mulder greeted her genially; now that the battle had been
fought and won and she was here he was prepared to be
generous. "Hey, Scully, glad you could make it. We won
the coin toss for first ups."

She surveyed the group, nodding to friends and co-
workers from both sections. The VCS shirts were bright
red with white letters announcing their team name,
DEATH SQUAD. That was as far as the official uniform
went; below their shirts everyone sported a motley
collection of jeans or sweatpants in various stages of
disintegration. A few wore cleats, but the majority were in
sneakers. Baseball caps of all colors and team affiliations
abounded. Scully toted her childhood glove, one of the
many pieces of sports equipment her brothers had
bestowed upon her for her birthday or Christmas, and
wore one of Bill's ancient Little League hats as well. Both
had been enthusiastically dug out of an attic trunk by
her mother.

The glove had been dry and cracked; she'd spent an hour
the previous evening rubbing neat's foot oil into the worn
cowhide to soften it. While it was never going to be the
supple toy of her youth, at least she could now open it
wide enough to accommodate a ball.

A long, deep scuff mark marred the glove's thumb. Scully
had stared at the gouge for quite some time,
remembering how it had happened. It might have been
the last time she used the glove, in fact. Before anyone
went to college; she couldn't have been older than twelve.
A neighborhood pick-up game. An argument with Bill
about a ball she should have chased but hadn't,
believing it to be foul. Her mistake allowed three runs
and cost them the game. Bill had vented his anger on his
present. Strange how she could still hear and see it all so
clearly in her mind.

By the third inning of today's game, it was clear that
Mulder's grudge match was not going to leave him in a
better mood than the original game. The score was 8-0,
and the Lab Rats were trying desperately to get someone,
anyone, on base. Agent Stannis pitched with the grace of
natural ability and the ease of long practice, striking out
one after another as his teammates cheered him on from
the field.

Watching batter after batter expire under the Stannis
curveball, the Stannis fastball, and the Stannis sinker,
Scully suddenly realized something. Everyone on her
team was right-handed. Stannis was left-handed.

Statistically, it was not very unusual. But from a game
standpoint, it raised an interesting question. How well
can a left-handed pitcher throw to a left-handed batter?
From her memories of games both watched and played
as a child, she knew it mattered. Maybe not in the major
leagues, where the truly talented dominated, but it
certainly did in the world of amateur ball she had grown
up with. Her brothers had spent a patient week to show
her just how important it was one summer, and she felt a
sudden malevolent glee that that long-ago, almost
forgotten lesson might just give everyone a huge surprise
now.

An excited yell from her team drew her attention back to
the game. Mulder had managed to smack a line drive
that took a quirky little hop when it landed, and he beat
the outfielder's off-balance throw to second base. All the
Lab Rats were on their feet, screaming happily about
comebacks and jumping up and down as if he'd hit a
home run.

"You're up, Dana," Danny beckoned her to the plate.

Scully hefted a couple of the bats and chose one. As she
stepped up to the plate, Danny pulled off her fabric cap
and pushed one of the hard plastic batting helmets onto
her head.

It promptly flopped over her ears to rest on the end of her
nose, obscuring her sight completely, along with three-
quarters of her face. The catcher burst out laughing. She
pushed the brim up and regarded Danny wryly. "This
isn't going to work. Are the others any smaller?"

They weren't. In fact, they were bigger. Both teams were
laughing at her now. Go ahead, laugh it up, she thought.
You'll be laughing out of the other side of your face in a
minute.

It took almost ten minutes to jury-rig the interior straps
in the first helmet so that it would sit precariously on her
head. Even then she had to tilt it so that the brim nearly
pointed at the sky to keep it from falling down over her
eyes again.

"Come on!" Stannis yelled impatiently from the mound.
"Put someone up who can at least see over the plate!"

Scully froze. She'd trained Mulder long ago to eliminate
the short jokes from his repertoire of childish taunts. A
quick glance in his direction told her he didn't want to
know what she had planned for Stannis, regardless of
the outcome of the game. It was another legacy from her
brothers. If you didn't fight back, they didn't respect you.
Few people in the Bureau, however, had reason to
suspect that Dana Scully not only got mad, she got even,
too.

She took a deep breath and forced herself back under
control. She'd deal with Stannis the jerk later. Right now
she had a date with Stannis the pitcher, and it would be
a pleasure to make him squirm in front of everyone. She
snatched the bat back from Danny, who was holding it
while she fiddled with the headgear, and stepped into the
batter's box. . . to hit lefty.

Stannis, who had started to go into his windup, paused,
momentarily disconcerted. He'd watched her in the
outfield; during the first inning she'd caught a pop fly
and had tried unsuccessfully to throw out a Death Squad
runner sliding for third. "What do you think you're
doing?" he called. "You aren't left-handed!"

Scully smirked. "I have brothers, Agent Stannis," she
shouted back. "They taught me a lot of things, such as
how to fight dirty." Those tactics had included an
arduous education in switch hitting at the hands of the
family Little League stars. It wasn't a talent she'd ever
really had occasion to use, although it impressed a
boyfriend or two in high school.

"Go, Scully!" Mulder yelled from second, delighted at this
sudden turn of events. "Bring me home!" The other Lab
Rats were on their feet again, bellowing out
encouragement, sensing Stannis' impending downfall.

"You asked for it!" Stannis reared back and fired.

Ball one.

Ball two.

Ball three.

By this time, the Lab Rats were nearly hysterical, ecstatic
that they were about to have two people on base with no
outs, and Agent Cox, whose hitting power was legendary
throughout the Bureau intramural rotation, next up.
"Come on, Dana!" "You can do it, Scully!" "Make him pay,
Scully!" "All right, Dana!" Even though she probably
wasn't even going to touch the ball, she was poised to be
the savior of the game.

On the mound, Stannis was desperate and seething.
Only a few minutes ago his team had been singing his
praises, now they were screaming for his blood. Spooky's
sidekick looked like an easy out; she should =be= an
easy out. But she had destroyed his rhythm; he couldn't
find the strike zone. It wasn't so much that she was
batting lefty, either. He hadn't pitched a 22-3 season his
senior year at Duke by letting southpaws get on base and
score.

But Scully was short and batting lefty, and despite all his
ability he couldn't compensate for the two. He'd faced all
kinds of hitters during his reign of terror at college, but it
had been nearly twenty years since he'd stared down the
plate at someone this small. His body had grown over a
foot since then, and either it didn't remember the moves
he needed to pitch to her, or it was simply physically
impossible for him to execute them properly now from
his adult height.

Yet to walk her would be unthinkable. He set his glove in
front of his face, narrowed his eyes, and adjusted his
stance slightly. This was going to be the first big strike on
her way to the Lab Rats' first out of this inning. No way
was she getting on base.

In a way, he was absolutely right.

Scully dug her the toe of her right sneaker into the dirt,
watching to see how his arm would come around, just as
her brothers had instructed her. Watch the arm, a voice
belonging to an adolescent Bill said in her ear. Will he
come over the top or sideways? Don't watch his face,
watch the arm.

Stannis came over the top, hurling a scorching fastball,
like the ones he had thrown years ago in dozens of NCAA
games against other similarly young, fit and trained
athletes, the ones he had thrown to gain the attention of
two major league scouts before deciding to embark on a
career in law enforcement.

Except that those blazing, blinding pitches hadn't been
flung with the additional force of angry, macho
frustration, and hadn't ever hit anyone whose protective
equipment was not properly secured.

The ball smashed into Scully's right temple, catching the
edge of the helmet and sending it flying, driving her back
into the catcher. Bright white light exploded inside her
head, followed by a thunderclap of excruciating pain. She
felt the second concussive shock as her body and head
connected with the hard, dusty ground after colliding
with the catcher, and everything went black.

The bat rolled lazily from one lax hand.

End part 1/4
________________________

BALL FOUR (2/4)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


"SCULLY!!" Mulder bolted from second base across the
playing field along with everyone else, all of them running
as if the inning was over and the teams were swapping
sides. All except Stannis, who stood rooted to the mound,
apparently unable to believe what he'd just done. The
Lab Rats scrambled around the chain-link fence behind
home plate. The catcher, shaken but unhurt, was still
picking himself up.

Danny got to her first. "Oh, my God," he whispered.
"Dana? Can you hear me?"

Obviously not. The site of impact had already started to
swell and bruise; within minutes her right eye was going
to be swollen shut.

Mulder shouldered his way through the crowd. "Get
back! Give her some air, get back!" He dropped to his
knees across from Danny and echoed his words. "Oh, my
God." He looked up frantically. "Ice! Does anyone have a
cooler? We need some ice!" Several people split off from
the huddled collection of both teams and ran to retrieve
thermal picnic coolers from the shady spot under the
trees edging the dugout bench. God bless the FBI,
Mulder thought irrelevantly; someone always brought
beer.

Danny looked at Mulder. "Now what? An ambulance? We
can't move her; he might have fractured her skull."

Mulder nodded. "Get my cell phone. It's over there, in the
blue duffel bag." He pointed to where he'd left his
belongings, and Danny jumped up to retrieve it.

Feeling utterly helpless, Mulder stared at his
unconscious partner. An all-too-familiar pang of guilt
lanced through him. She looked so small, so pale, except
for the right side of her face, which was rapidly turning
an extremely nasty reddish purple. How many times had
he ended up standing over her battered body, knowing
that if he'd left well enough alone, this wouldn't have
happened? He'd lost count. It didn't bear thinking about
anymore. By all accounts, she should not have survived
his association to this point.

Not to mention all those wonderfully pleasant late night
or early morning phone calls he'd made to her mother
bearing bad tidings about her daughter. It's a wonder the
woman still spoke to him at all.

But Scully seemed to be breathing normally, and that
had to be a good sign. Didn't it?

Someone thrust a plastic bag filled with ice into his
hand, and Mulder gently pressed it against the swelling.
Danny had found his phone and was a few paces away
talking with a 911 operator.

"Come on, Scully," Mulder murmured quietly, shifting his
stance so that he knelt behind her head. He held the
makeshift ice bag on her face with his right hand and
stabilized her head on the other side with his left. "Come
on, wake up. You know your brother will kill me if he
finds out about this, don't you? Do you want that?"

It was, unfortunately, nothing less than the truth. Not
everyone in Scully's family was as graciously forgiving as
her mother. He had no doubt both her Navy brothers
would pound him into a bloody pulp if they learned he
had put their sister in the hospital again.

Danny came back over. In the distance, the thin wail of
an emergency siren pierced the air. "How's she doing?"

Mulder shook his head. "She's out cold. We'll be lucky if
the bastard didn't break her head." He glanced up at
Agent Stannis, who was now sitting on the mound with
his head in his hands, looking for all the world like a
small boy who had allowed a grand slam home run to
ruin a championship season. He couldn't bring himself to
come over and see what he'd done to Scully, but neither
could he drag himself away from the scene of his crime.
Mulder unbent a little; if he felt guilty at maneuvering
Scully into playing in the first place, Stannis must feel
ten times worse. "Go talk to him before he does
something foolish like try to drive home," Mulder said,
and Danny nodded and went over to the mound.

The siren was very close now; Mulder could see the
ambulance's flashing lights at the opposite end of the
park. Four other agents had run off to flag it down and
direct it to the ballfield. The vehicle pulled up and the
paramedics jumped out.

"Whoa, got beaned a good one, didn't she?" the first one
said almost admiringly.

"Yes," Mulder said tersely. Don't lose your temper, don't
lose your temper. These guys do this all day, and it's
natural for them to joke a little about it. If she was
bleeding all over the place, they wouldn't do it. She's
going to live, she's going to be fine, and they know it.

But it was hard to stomach their cavalier attitude when
his partner and friend of five years was lying motionless
in the dirt, when even her auburn hair seemed colorless,
when he could actually feel her face puffing up to an
unnatural size under his chilled and cramped hand.

He answered their rapid questions. No, they hadn't
moved her. No, she hadn't woken up since she'd been
hit. No, she wasn't allergic to anything and she wasn't on
any medication and she hadn't been drinking, she didn't
smoke and she didn't take drugs. Yes, it was possible she
might have hurt her neck as well. Yes, they'd been using
a standard baseball and yes, the throw had been very
hard, and yes, she had worn the batting helmet but the
damn thing didn't fit. Yes, Mulder said finally, it had
definitely been an accident; everyone at the game could
verify that the pitcher had not meant to hit her.

"Good." The first paramedic had been checking her vital
signs during the questions, spouting out numbers and
medical phrases seemingly at random to his partner to
relay to the hospital. Mulder had spent enough time in
Scully's company to understand that everything
appeared within normal parameters. They fastened a stiff
cervical collar around her neck to stabilize her, lifted her
onto the gurney and proceeded to strap her down firmly,
adding additional padding and restraints around her
head to keep her immobile. Mulder's bag of melting beer
cooler ice was replaced with a futuristic-looking cold gel
pack, wedged securely in place under the foam blocks
surrounding her head.

"Anything unusual about her medical condition we need
to know about?" the first paramedic asked as they raised
the gurney, preparing to roll it to the ambulance.

Well, she was abducted and subjected to unknown
surgical procedures, some of which left her barren. She
lives with a piece of technology in her neck that may or
may not be a government tracking device, and may or
may not be responsible for her being alive today instead
of dead from a brain tumor. To top it off, she just
returned from a vacation under the southern polar ice
cap during which her insides were partially hybridized
into alien slime. Is that unusual enough for you? Mulder
bit back the words, knowing from personal experience
what would happen if he explained Scully's admittedly
peculiar medical history from his own point of view.
Instead he simply replied, "No. Nothing else. Can I ride
with you?" as they walked to the vehicle.

The second paramedic shook his head. "No, it's against
the rules. We're going to Washington Memorial. You can
meet us there."

Mulder merely looked at him. "We're with the FBI. I'm
riding with her."

Both men turned to stare at him. Amazing what effect
those magic initials had on people. Everyone
automatically suspected they were in trouble once you
identified yourself, even if their closest connection to a
crime was an overdue library book. "Okay," the first
consented slowly. "Get in."

Mulder turned back to Danny, who was waiting with the
silent knot of players, including Stannis. The pitcher,
Mulder noted with relief, looked upset but calm, as if he
was finally understanding that accidents did happen and
no one was threatening to blame him. "I'll call her mother
when I get there, and I'll let you know what's going on."
He stepped up into the ambulance and hauled the doors
shut behind him.

He could have easily driven to the hospital; it was going
to be a hassle to come back for his car and he was
risking his fourth parking violation by abandoning it on
the park grounds. But he could not put aside the
irrational fear of leaving Scully alone with the
paramedics, not after the drastic consequences of her
last ambulance ride.

His head kept telling him that the circumstances had
been entirely different; then her injury and the
emergency team's response had been choreographed,
and a random accident during a ball game between
colleagues was nothing to worry about. His gut screamed
at him not to take his eyes off her this time, that as long
as he had her in direct view she would come to no
further harm.

Of course, he knew exactly what scathing remarks she'd
be making if she was conscious about his pigheaded
presumption that he was somehow solely responsible for
her safety and well-being, but he couldn't help himself.

Since their return and recovery from Antarctica, he'd
noticed a subtle change in her behavior. She'd enlarged
her requisite bubble of personal space by a fractional
amount. Not with her family or him, but with others,
especially strangers. If a room was crowded, she found a
reason to remain near the door. She stayed half a step
further away when meeting new people. She backed her
chair up another inch during meetings in Skinner's
office. He characterized it as mild claustrophobia, no
doubt triggered by her time encapsulated in the ice
coffin. Nothing overt, nothing blatant; she probably
wasn't even aware of it herself. Nothing that caused him
to think she wasn't fully recovered and fully capable of
holding her own.

Mulder had no intention of mentioning it to her, either.
He was sure he had come home with his own set of new
and improved mannerisms, things that he was equally
unaware of doing but which were probably glaringly
obvious to his partner. But he had noticed this tiny
adjustment of hers, mainly because he was having
difficulty doing anything =but= watch everything she did
since he'd resuscitated her under the ice.

When he saw the paramedics looping all those straps
around her body, he'd immediately wondered what Scully
would do in her concussed state if she were to wake up
and find herself so firmly restrained. That, more than
anything else, was what caused him to pull rank on the
EMTs with his Bureau credentials.

End part 2/4
________________________

BALL FOUR (3/4)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


Dana. Dana, I know you hear me.

She did hear the voice, but it was faint. Who are you?
she answered. Why is it dark in here? Where am I?

Don't worry. You're safe. It won't be dark for very much
longer, I promise. I need your help, Dana.

There were no visual or tactile stimuli for her four other
senses to seize upon and analyze for further clues, so she
focused on the voice. It was somehow familiar, yet its
identity eluded her, teasing her from the extreme outer
edges of her memory.

Who are you? she repeated.

You know who I am, Dana. I need your help.

Young, it was someone young and female. Oh, no, not. . .
she tried desperately to halt the continuation of the
thought and was unable to do so. Not Emily. Please not
Emily. I can't bear that.

No, not Emily. It's Sam.

The name didn't process for a second, and then
recognition hit. Samantha? Mulder's sister? On the heels
of that came the first stirrings of real fear at the
situation. She was somewhere that wasn't anywhere,
having an unspoken conversation with her partner's
missing sister, and no science she knew of would permit
or explain this kind of activity. Where am I? she
demanded. What's going on?

Dana, you're safe. Nothing will happen to you here, and
nobody is going to hurt you. But I need you to give Fox a
message.

Are you dead?

No.

Am I?

No. Can you concentrate, Dana? Concentrate and you'll
see me, and then you'll realize there is nothing to be
afraid of here.

She tried. And suddenly, the colorless, nowhere
nothingness around her did brighten a bit. There in front
of her was Samantha Mulder, age eight, looking very
much like all the pictures Scully had ever seen of her as
little girl in Mulder's apartment or in the tattered X-File
folder bearing her name on the worn tab.

He's been looking for you his entire life. Where are you?
Where are we?

I know he has. I wish I could tell you, but I can't. I can't
stay here very long, either. I have to go back soon, before
I'm missed. But you have to give him a message for me.
Can you do that?

I don't know.

Please, Dana. It's important.

All right. I'll try.

Tell him the game didn't matter. It would have happened
anyway. It had already been planned, and the game
didn't matter.

The game?

We were playing a game. Stratego. Our parents were out
visiting neighbors. Earlier in the day we'd been building a
puppet theater in the basement and had left all the tools
out. Dad was furious. He'd told us to clean up the
basement before we did anything else. No TV. No games.
Not until we'd cleaned up. But Fox disobeyed. He put the
television on and took out the game. He'd gotten it for his
birthday the year before and loved it. But every time I
played him, I won. He was four years older than me, and
I could beat him at Stratego. I was too young to know I
should have let him win sometimes, but it was the only
thing that I could really do better than he did. Does that
make sense to you, Dana?

Oddly, it did. She wasn't familiar with Stratego itself,
because activities in the rambunctious Scully household
had centered around her brother's BB guns and
whatever woods could be found near their current
residence, rather than on sedate board games. On the
rare instances when inclement weather kept them all
inside, they were more likely to play their own version of
hide and seek, otherwise referred to by their mother as
hide and shriek, than to sit down for a friendly afternoon
of Monopoly. With four of them, patented games with set
rules too often led to arguments, tears and the occasional
fistfight.

Apparently things were different when there were only
two siblings.

But she was intimately acquainted with the competitive
concept of good, better, best. Once you got to best, you
would do anything to stay there, and too bad for anyone
else's ego. Scully couldn't outrun her brothers or become
more appealingly feminine than her sister, so she'd
swamped them all in scholarly achievements. They were
close enough in age that the comparisons were inevitable
and painful for the other three, and she hadn't cared a
bit.

The Samantha apparition continued its explanation. We
were playing Stratego when it happened. When I was
taken. Fox thought he was winning, but he wasn't. I
knew where his flag was, and I knew where his bombs
were. He always hid the flag behind four bombs arranged
in a diamond. It was so easy to beat him because he was
predictable.

Not much has changed.

I know. But deep down Fox thinks that if we'd just been
downstairs, in the basement, we might have been safe.
That maybe Dad was trying to warn us, to outwit them
and save me somehow. That if he'd just done what he
was told instead of trying to win, I might still be there to
play Stratego with him again. Tell him it's not true. Tell
him they would have found me no matter where we'd
been in the house. Can you do that, Dana?

I. . .

Please. He needs to know.

The young, earnest voice was fading. The small, solemn
image of Samantha Mulder was fading, slowly displaced
by the blank void. Apprehension flooded back, bringing
sudden alarm. Wait! Scully called frantically. Don't go!
Don't leave me here!

I have to go back, Dana. The girl had vanished entirely,
and the voice issued one final barely audible plea. Tell
him.

NO! Wait!
**************

Scully's eyes shot open; the left one fully, the right one
barely moving. Piercingly bright light overhead made her
gasp and squint. She tried to bring one hand up to block
the illumination, but couldn't move. She was completely
paralyzed. Her head felt like it was encased in some kind
of vice. Panic erupted and she opened her mouth to
scream.

"Scully!" Someone grabbed her hand. "Scully, it's all
right!"

The scream turned into a short, choked cry in her throat.
Her partner's face loomed over her, blotting out the
offending light at last. "Mulder?" she asked weakly.

"Welcome back. You like to scare the daylights out of
people, don't you?"

She tried to move her head and was rewarded with a
reminder of the restraints as well as a huge bolt of pain
through her skull. She clutched his hand harder.
"Mulder, wh. . . what's going on? Where am I?"

"It's okay. Relax," he soothed.  "You're in an ambulance.
We're about two minutes from Washington Memorial."

A strange young man in a blue uniform joined Mulder in
her field of vision. "You have a head injury, Agent Scully.
You've been unconscious for almost thirty minutes.
Please try not to move, we'll be at the hospital very soon
and they'll take care of you."

Her good eye flicked back to Mulder. "What?"

"You got clobbered by a baseball at the park. Do you
remember the game?"

Game? "Baseball? I thought it was Stratego. . .?" she
trailed off, confused.

Mulder snapped to attention. "=What= did you say?" he
demanded, staring down at her with frightening
intensity.

Thankfully the paramedic's annoyed interruption spared
Scully the need to formulate a sensible response. "Agent
Mulder, I'm going to ask you to refrain from questioning
her any further until she's been examined at the
hospital. Agent Scully, don't talk. Head injuries are
funny, and I don't want you to crash on me as we pull
up. Things like that are bad for my reputation."

They were pulling in at that moment; the vehicle slowed
to a smooth stop and the back doors banged open. The
next fifty minutes were a bewildering cacophony of
different people rushing in and out of her curtained
cubicle in the emergency room, a hurried trip to the X-
ray department and then a long wait for the results.

They let Mulder in as the examining doctor was going
over his initial findings. "Dr. Scully, although I won't
know for sure until we see the X-ray, you seem
concussed but otherwise fine. You say you don't
remember much about today, and that's very normal for
someone with this kind of injury. Your memory may
come back, it may not. Don't worry about it. You are
going to have one of the most magnificent black eyes I've
seen in a long time, though." He paused, clearly
expecting one of them to smile, and when they didn't, he
shrugged and continued. "You may have double vision
for a while, you may be dizzy or drowsy for several days,
and you may have bad headaches. All normal. I'll be
back after I've gotten the films." He gave them a
professional smile and walked off.

Mulder stepped over to take the doctor's place next to
her. Scully was lying on an examination bed with her
head and shoulders elevated, holding another blue gel
cold pack to her face. She gave him a lopsided smile. "So,
tell me about the game. I'm dressed for it, so I must have
been there. Did we win?"

His relief that she was awake and talking coherently was
so enormous it was almost palpable, as if a third
presence had joined them in the cramped cubicle. "We
didn't finish. You might say you were the final out for the
day. What's the last thing you do remember?"

"Last night, before I went to bed. I was watching the news
and trying to recondition my glove for the game." She
lowered her hand, and he sucked in his breath at the
sight of her face. Swollen to twice the normal size on the
right, the skin around her temple was deepening to an
exceptional mixture of red, black and blue. Her right
eyelid was a puffy bulge. She caught him staring and
shot him an irritated look from her one visible blue eye.
"Don't. I know what it looks like, and I'm not thrilled,
either. Let's just pretend I don't resemble something out
of one of your case files, okay?"

"Okay." He pulled up the regulation spine-numbing
plastic hospital chair and sat down. "How do you feel?"

It was clear he was asking for form's sake, and obviously
expected to receive her standard response of "I'm fine."
Mulder had dubbed it the f-word; it was one of his more
tactless inside jokes. Both of them now understood that
it meant the direct opposite when they spoke it to each
other, yet they continued to use it and act as if
everything was indeed fine. So we're both a couple of
sadomasochists who deserve each other's company,
Scully thought.

He could discern the lie at the best of times; sporting a
facial injury of this magnitude was hardly the best of
times, and she didn't even bother trying. "Dizzy.
Nauseated. Not the best day off I've had, Mulder."

Her partner's face registered his shock at her admission
and she could almost hear the thoughts flying behind his
concerned eyes. When the person who'd come to work
the same day she'd buried her father, the one who had
worked on cases for thirty-six hours straight without
sleep or food, the one who stared down mutants and
monsters without flinching surrendered to a mere
physical ailment, it had to be serious. She'd given him
good reason to think of her in any number of colorfully
descriptive terms over the past five years, but a whiner
she was not.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked. "Water?"

She shook her head, and instantly wished she hadn't.
"Oh. . . I'll have to remember not to do that just yet." The
little cubicle tilted along the edges of her vision, sliding
into a slow spin that made her gag. "Mulder!" She flung
out her hand, unable to vocalize the sudden urgent need,
but the expression on her face was clear enough.

He snatched up the basin on the small instrument table
and thrust it under her jaw, just in time. When the bout
of vomiting subsided, he went in search of someone to
help her clean up.

She felt worse than ever now, as if she'd suddenly been
pressed into service as the demonstration model for the
textbook definition of "wan." Mulder was watching her
with an increasing amount of worry, muttering dire
predictions regarding the future fate of the X-ray
department staff for taking so long. Almost as if he'd
heard the thought, the doctor chose that moment to
return with the news.

"You're lucky," he said. "No fractures, not your skull, not
your eyesocket. But you do have a granddaddy of a
concussion, so we're going to admit you overnight for
observation."

"No," Scully protested half-heartedly.

"Yes," Mulder overruled her.

"Mulder, I'm not staying here. I want to go home."

"Too bad."

"If I could have your attention, Dr. Scully?" the doctor
interrupted politely. "Perhaps you misunderstood me. I'm
not giving you a choice. You're our guest for the next
twenty-four hours. The orderlies will be along when there
is a bed free. It may be a long wait; Sunday afternoons
can be bad times. Until then, I'd advise you not to move
around too much. You'll only regret it." He patted her
knee, gave them one last brief smile, and departed.

Scully sighed and rested her head back against the
pillow. The room was still spinning, but she could handle
it now. Her head thudded in great, painful beats, setting
a counter rhythm to her pulse. "The next time I say I'm
not playing, Mulder, I mean it."

"Still think Stannis plays fair?" he inquired innocently.

"Shut up." She closed her eye. "What time is it?"

" About four-thirty."

"I have this feeling that I'm supposed to be somewhere,
but I can't for the life of me remember where." She lifted
the cold pack back to her face. "I don't suppose you have
any paranormal insight on my itinerary that you'd care to
share with me?"
**************

The instant the words left his partner's mouth, Mulder
gave himself a mental slap in the forehead. If she's the
one with the concussion, how come you're the one who's
forgetting things? he berated himself. Margaret Scully.
She was supposed to go to dinner with her mother and
he was supposed to have called Maggie when they
reached the hospital. He'd certainly had enough time
while they fussed over her.

"Uh, Scully? You feel that way because you =are=
supposed to be somewhere. You were going to your
mother's after the game. I'll call her and tell her you've
been detained." He reached for his cell phone.

"Mulder?"

"What?" He paused and glanced over at her, one finger
on the phone's power button.

Scully smiled at him sweetly. "I can't wait to hear how
you explain this one."

"I'll blame it on El Chupacabra. I haven't used that
excuse yet this week. I see Stannis didn't knock out your
sense of humor, even though I asked him to try." He
finished dialing and waited for the other end to ring
through.

"Hello?" The familiar female voice floated through the tiny
handset, bringing on that guilty feeling again. Here we
go, he thought.

"Mrs. Scully? This is Agent Mulder."

"Fox? How's the game? Did you win?"

Margaret Scully might be one of the few people who could
get away with calling him Fox, but Mulder's sensitive ear
picked out a teasing note in her voice that had nothing to
do with the way she addressed him. He turned a
suspicious eye on his partner, wondering just how much
she had told her mother about the grudge match. He
certainly hadn't emphasized his desire to see Stannis
dethroned when he'd enlisted her help to coax Scully
onto the ballfield. Now Maggie sounded like she was one
notch away from laughing at him.

"No, we had to stop the game early."

"Why? Fox, what's wrong?"

Right. First the charm, then the alarm. You're doing
great, you jerk. Why don't you just give her heart failure
and be done with it?

"Dana got hit by the ball, Mrs. Scully, and we're at the
hospital having her head examined." Oops. =That=
certainly didn't come out right. Behind him he could hear
Scully attempting to suppress a laugh, but her mother
wasn't amused.

"What? What happened to Dana?" she demanded.

"Here, you can talk to her, Mrs. Scully." Mulder shoved
the phone into Scully's hand in desperation.

"Hi, Mom."

Pause.

"No, I'm all right, Mom, really. Nothing's broken. I just
look a little gruesome. They're going to keep me here
overnight, just as a precaution."

Pause.

"Well, remember when I was ten and Bill ran through the
swinging door in the kitchen without realizing I was on
the other side? Like that, only more so."

Pause.

"I'll tell him. I love you too, Mom. I'll see you later." She
disconnected and handed the phone back to Mulder. "My
mother told me to tell you that I've had enough fresh air
and exercise. I have to admit I agree."

End part 3/4
________________________

BALL FOUR (4/4)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


There has to be a better way to spend a Sunday night
than stuck in a lumpy hospital bed with a killer
headache, Scully thought dismally. Her level of
discomfort had escalated to a point where even a UFO
stakeout in the middle of Idaho with Mulder would be
paradise in comparison. A UFO stakeout in the middle of
Idaho with Mulder in the dead of winter, even.

She could ignore the pain, but the concussion still played
sneaky tricks on her eyes and ears. Every shadow, every
small sound was magnified and transformed into
something else, until she was no longer sure what was
real and what was her imagination. Plus, every time she
did close her eyes, it seemed a nurse was waking her up
again, checking to be sure she wasn't lapsing into a
coma.

She finally drifted off as the first light of dawn filtered
through the window. The morning routine of the hospital
roused her barely two hours later, but she felt much
better despite the disjointed sleep. Her head still hurt,
but it no longer felt as if it was disconnected from her
body. The sickening spinning sensation had dissipated.
And she could now remember the previous morning, if
only up to a point. She'd gotten up, gone to an early
Mass, come home and had breakfast, and. . .  and
nothing.

You can fill in the blanks, Scully, you're a deductive
investigator. You changed, went to the park, and played
ball until you got clocked. End of story. You're missing
about five unimportant and meaningless hours of your
day, most of which will probably come back. Stop
obsessing about it. It's not like. . .  like that other time.
You could talk to twenty people who were with you and
can tell you every word you said and every move you
made. Nothing happened.

Except the uneasy night and the remains of the
headache made her think something else had happened,
and it was disturbing not to know what that was. She
could listen to Mulder reiterate every step she'd taken on
the ballfield, and it still wouldn't be the same as
possessing the actual visceral memory of participating in
the events.

Her mother took her home after she was discharged in
the afternoon, and stayed to fix dinner. Not that it took
much fixing; Scully decided she couldn't manage more
than toast and soup. The nausea was gone, but that
didn't mean it would stay gone. The paramedic was right.
Head injuries were funny things. She noted with relief
that someone had retrieved her car; since she couldn't
remember driving it to the park, she wasn't relishing the
task of locating it from the vast unknown of the place's
many lots. Not that she would be driving for a few days,
anyway.

She shooed her mother out after dinner. "I'll be fine,
Mom. I just want to lie down." She'd discovered
something else - it was terribly tiring to have the use of
only one eye. To compensate for the exaggerated blind
spot, she'd been holding her head angled awkwardly to
the right. They'd told her at the hospital that she could
expect to be this way for three or four days, maybe more.
Great.

Despite their still questionable status at the Bureau, or
maybe even because of it, there was no problem with sick
leave even considering the time off she'd needed for
recovery from Antarctica. When Scully had talked to
Skinner that morning he'd told her not to worry about it.
Implying, she thought wryly, that if she came back too
soon, fell asleep behind the wheel of a rental car on an
assignment in some nowhere town and crashed, he
would not forgive her very quickly. She wondered what, if
anything, he might have said to Stannis. Perhaps
something like, "Agent Stannis, the next time you decide
to incapacitate someone, I would appreciate it if you were
to limit your selection to criminals. We have enough
problems keeping agents alive and well without your
help, thank you."

She did lie down, and actually fell asleep for some forty
minutes. When she woke up, her bedside clock read
8:26. And the memory was suddenly there, as if someone
had pressed an internal rewind/recall switch while she
dozed.

I talked with Samantha Mulder.

Don't be ridiculous, Dana. God knows what happened to
Samantha.

She gave me a message for Mulder.

You're being an idiot. You were hit in the head by a
fastball, remember?

No, I don't actually. But I remember talking to
Samantha.

Don't go there, Dana.

We were talking about Stratego.

And the moon is made of green cheese, produced by all of
Mulder's little gray men. If anyone is talking to his sister,
it would be him, not you.

She told me about the night she was taken. The night
Mulder tried one last time to beat her at a silly board
game that Parker Brothers probably doesn't even make
anymore. The night he thought he should have been able
to save her by being good.

You're delusional. You ought to call the doctor and tell
him you're having hallucinations. Maybe they missed the
hairline fracture on the X-ray after all.

I'm not imagining this. I'm not. How could I invent
something this detailed?

Dana, how many times has Mulder told you the story of
The Night My Sister Was Abducted? Ten? A hundred and
ten? Maybe you don't have his photographic memory,
but for heaven's sake, you could probably recite it better
than you can say the Apostles' Creed nowadays.

She gave me a message for Mulder.

I can't believe you're thinking of calling him to tell him
this. I really can't. You're going to be on sick leave a lot
longer than Skinner thinks you are, Agent Scully. They
will put you in a padded room and give you crayons to
write home with if you keep up like this.

She wants him to know it wasn't his fault.

I give up. Call him. Go ahead. I dare you. I really want to
see how far you're going to take this.

She was reaching numbly for the bedside phone when
there was a knock at the front door. She jumped and
yanked her hand back.

"Scully? You there?"

Mulder. Of course it would be Mulder, dropping by after
work to make sure she was still breathing, all under the
guise of just looking in to welcome her home and see how
she felt. She hadn't yet broached the subject of his
newfound paranoid interest in her every waking move,
but she intended to do so soon. Maybe even tonight.

After she gave him the message.

There is no message, Dana! You had a dream while you
were unconscious from a concussion; you did not
commune with the beyond!

"Scully?"

In a minute he would just open the door himself with his
key, convinced she was lying on the floor in dire need of
help. "Coming!" she called, sliding off the bed,
remembering this time to move slowly.

"Hi, Mulder." She stepped aside to let him in, looking his
familiar slightly rumpled self. It was probably a long day
of busy work at the office without her.

"Brought you something to keep you occupied, since I
know you can't read yet." She'd tried, and as the doctor
had predicted, all she got was a case of double vision and
a stunning sense of vertigo. "Here." He handed her a
small wrapped package, and she didn't trust the
expression on his face or the gleeful note of expectation
in his voice.

It was the books-on-tape version of  "The Boys of
Summer."  "Oh, very funny, Mulder. Very funny."

He looked at her strangely. "Are you all right, Scully? You
look a little pale. Except for that, of course." He gestured
to the contusion, which now had some lovely lemon
tones swirling through it for contrast.

Tell him.

Don't do it, Dana. Don't give in to the fantastic creation
of an impaired cranium.

Tell him.

"Scully?" Now he looked truly worried, as if she was
having some sort of brain seizure. His next move would
be to reach for his cell phone and summon an emergency
squad if she didn't do or say something to reassure him.

"I'm fine." Good one, Dana! Very original, very creative.
How'd you ever think of it on the spot like that? And for
your next trick, can you make him believe it?

"You're fine," he repeated doubtfully.

"Yes. . . no." Jesus, you sound schizophrenic. Make up
your mind! "Mulder, something. . . something happened
to me yesterday. After the accident." She moved away
and sat down on the couch.

He sat down next to her, waiting.

"It was while I was still unconscious. I remember talking
to someone, having a conversation."

He raised his eyebrows, which used to be her trademark
gesture. It was odd the things they picked up from each
other. "You didn't make a sound until you woke up in the
ambulance. Do you remember who it was?"

She couldn't look at him and fixed her attention on her
hands, which were gripping each other in her lap.
"Mulder, I think it was Samantha." Then, unable to help
herself, she glanced up to see his reaction.

He simply stared at her, eyes wide. He seemed to have
stopped breathing. "Mulder?" she asked softly, putting a
hand on his arm.

He shook his head slightly and blinked. "You said
something in the ambulance. Something about Stratego.
I was going to ask you what you meant, but I forgot
about it until just now. Samantha and I were playing
Stratego the night she was abducted."

"I know."

"What did she say?"

Reluctantly, Scully recounted the salient points of the
bizarre little talk. How Samantha wanted him to know he
could not have helped her by minding his father, that his
willful disobedience had nothing to do with her removal.
And the critical, rational side of her still refused to be
silenced, even at the cost of denying him some peace of
mind. "But Mulder, you've told me all of this before. I've
seen dozens of pictures of your sister at that age. I've
read all the reports. You've seen Samantha, and she's
not a child anymore. I'd just incurred serious head
trauma. This is nothing except a dream I had while I was
unconscious."

"Then why did you tell me?" he asked quietly.

She broke his steady gaze and looked away, across the
room at the cold fireplace. "I don't know. For some
reason it just seemed important."

"I never told you we were making a puppet theater. I
never told you how I placed my game pieces on the
board. I never told you that she always used to beat me
and that it always bothered me when she did." His voice
was still low and mild, but Scully felt her temper rise to
the occasion at the relentless recitation of alleged facts
supporting his point of view.

"Mulder, I've listened to you talk about this for five years!
I've heard you rant about it in your sleep! How can you
possibly remember every little scrap of information you've
ever mentioned to me in connection with it?" she
snapped

He fell back on the interrogation standby, answering her
question with another question. "Why don't you believe it
really was Samantha, Scully?"

She swung back to him, angry at his gentle tone, his
inability to at least consider her arguments and reasons.
All this time and he still thought she was an easy
convert.

And who says you aren't, Scully? the evil little voice that
had been arguing with her all evening piped up once
more for a final vicious poke at her conscience. You were
the one who believed it enough to bring it up in the first
place.

She twisted away and rose to her feet, as if distancing
herself from her partner would somehow distance her
from that internal imp and silence it once and for all.
"Because I can't, Mulder! I don't know why I told you, but
I do know that everything I've said has a rational
explanation. This does not have to be one of your
extreme possibilities. It does not have to be an X-File, a
visitation, a spiritual possession, a Vulcan mind meld or
whatever else you want to call it! That's what I believe,
okay? That's what I was taught to believe. That's why
they stuck me with you in the first place, remember?"

God, her head really hurt now.

She thought he might recoil, that he might get mad and
just walk out. But he didn't. Apparently he was willing to
forgive her a lot on account of what she'd told him, the
story she claimed to be nothing more than a by-product
of her close encounter with Agent Stannis' less-than-
accurate aim. Or he was just humoring her because of
the bump on her head. Either way, Scully was relieved he
hadn't gotten upset. Everyone else trampled on his
convictions; he expected more from her. He deserved
more from her. No matter what she really thought about
the unsettling little episode.

Especially since the jury was still out on that subject,
despite what she'd just yelled at him.

There was a rustle behind her as Mulder stood up, and
then warmth on her shoulder as he rested a tentative
hand there.

"Scully, we've seen lots of things that science can't yet
explain. You know that. And maybe you're right and
science will someday explain them, maybe I'm right and
there are other forces out there, and maybe it's a
combination of both. It doesn't matter right now." He
paused. "Thank you for telling me, anyway. For whatever
reason."

She took a deep breath and let it out again, trying to
ignore the sudden rolling sensation under her feet, as if
the floor had been replaced by a lazy ocean wave. Oh,
how I hate head injuries, she thought wearily. Turning to
face him again, she said, "You're welcome. You know you
couldn't have stopped them, Mulder. You know that
whoever took your sister was not going to be fooled by
having you hiding in the basement."

He sighed and dropped his hand. "I know."

"Are you going to leave me alone now?"

"Huh?" He tried to look innocently puzzled at this abrupt
change of topic, but didn't quite make it.

"Don't 'huh' me, Mulder. All the staring. All the phone
calls. All the last minute visits to my apartment with
idiotic and unnecessary bits of information, when all you
really want is to be sure I'm locked safely in my room. I'm
not Samantha, and I can take care of myself. By the time
I get back, you better have gotten it all out of your
system. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he mumbled guiltily. "I wondered if you'd
noticed."

"How blind do you think I am? Don't answer that. Of
course I noticed. And from Frohike, I'd expect it. Not from
you. Not anymore. Deal?"

"Deal." He stood up to leave. "I'll be glad when you are
back. The paperwork is driving me crazy."

"A few days," she promised. "I know you're having a
wonderful time ruining the filing system and if I leave
you alone too long our new space will look exactly like
the old one. But I have to wait until I can see straight, or
I won't even find where they stuck us and you'll have to
lead me around like a guide dog all day. Although, maybe
I'll make an exception and pay an early visit to Agent
Stannis."

That made him smile. "Gonna glue his computer
trackball in place, or leave the fingerprint dust on his
monitor screen?"

"I haven't decided yet. Maybe I'll just hang around his
office and frighten his visitors."

"I'll call you tomor. . ." he saw her eyebrow go up and
hastily amended his words. "Okay, I won't call you
tomorrow. At least not more than once. Scout's honor."
He held up one hand and pressed the other against his
chest, over his heart.

"Mulder, you were an Indian Guide, not a Boy Scout,"
she laughed.

"True, but I still have my honor. Bye, Scully. Get some
sleep."

He halfway down the hall when she called out, "Mulder?"

He turned around. "What?"

"Did you really always set your pieces up the same way,
with the bombs in a diamond shape in front of the flag?"

"Yeah," he replied slowly, "as a matter of fact, I did.
Why?"

"Nothing. I just wondered. Thanks for coming over,
Mulder." Scully hesitated. "Thank you for the gift."

He smiled at her. "No, thank you, Scully. By the way, are
you free =next= Sunday?"

End


Author's notes: For my father, who taught his right-
handed children to bat lefty to make us terrors behind
the plate, never realizing how much this innocent action
would confuse and confound our gym teachers from first
grade onward. A grateful thank you to Meg, who beta-
read and provided subtle and not-so-subtle
encouragement. For anyone who is wondering, yes,
Parker Brothers still makes Stratego. Unfortunately, I
was never able to beat my older brother at it no matter
how I many bombs I put around my poor little flag. And
don't even get me started on Monopoly. <g>

Feedback gratefully appreciated at
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com