Waiting for the Thaw

by Dean Warner
xangst@frii.com

Date: Sat Oct 19 07:27:59 1996
Note: Here's a quickie about last night's episode. I felt the need to add a few
minutes onto Carter's story. Any medical inaccuracies are just because I
haven't a clue what I'm talking about.

Standard XA disclaimer is in place.

RATING: TA (I think)
SUMMARY: Hey, where *was* Mulder at the end of Teliko, anyway?

********************
Waiting for the Thaw
by Dean Warner
xangst@frii.com

"Mulder?"

He could hear her... He could see her... The loudest sound he could make
was a tiny groan in the back of his throat...

He wanted to reassure her--wanted to reassure *himself*...

But all he could do was lie there, frozen.

"Mulder," she said, looking straight into his eyes, searching for some sort
of response from him. "The ambulance is on its way... You'll be okay."

God, he hoped so. Scully was the one person in the world he could count on
not to lie to him--but her assurance didn't sound so convincing.

No. She'd said that the seeds couldn't contain enough... whatever-it-was...
to kill a man. It was the Teliko that killed them, with a swift stab,
straight into the pituitary gland. Still, the idea of being frozen here, of
lying helpless as Aboah had leapt down to attack her...

He heard sirens...

********

Mulder decided very early on in the EMT's process of moving him that there
could be nothing worse than being frozen. Sometime between being moved onto
the gurney and being rolled into the ambulance, he closed his eyes, vowing
not to open them until he was safe again, released from this strange,
instant hell.

That was the thing that he knew he'd remember for the rest of his life. The
immediacy of the poison. One minute he'd been hunting, searching for yet
another killer, and the next...

He'd barely felt himself hit the grated floor, hadn't been able to realise
the bruises that he must have acquired being pulled through those ducts.
All he'd been able to focus on was the strange feeling of no-feeling. The
lack of input.

"Mulder, we're almost there."

Scully had been keeping up a running commentary since she'd found him.
"It's okay, Mulder," "I'm here," "You'll be all right." But he'd heard the
supressed fear in her voice when she'd turned to the arriving EMTs.

"It's some kind of cortical depressant... We have to make sure we can keep
him stabilised until..."

Until he came out of it on his own. Until he was finally able to move, to
speak, to turn his head and smile at the partner he knew would be waiting
at his bedside when he woke.

*If* he ever slept.

He had an irrational fear that if he stayed like this, with his eyes
closed, for long enough, he'd simply stop feeling anything. He'd just drift
away...

"We've got a poison case." The sharp, clear voice of the ambulance driver
made him snap his eyes open again, looking around in controlled panic until
they lit on his partner. "We need a full toxicology run as soon as we get
in... Partner says there's one index case on this--a Marcus Duff?... No...
We have him stabilised..."

Mulder was stunned to realise, suddenly, that Scully had been running a
hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as his
condition allowed.

He hadn't felt a thing.

********

The sounds of the emergency room--structured chaos--were more than he could
bear at the moment, and he would have clapped his hands to his ears if he
could have.

"It's okay, Mulder." She must have seen his fear reflected in his eyes.
"You'll be all right."

She smiled down at him, no more reassuring than she had been the last time,
and turned suddenly to meet the shift nurse. At least, she sounded like she
must have been the shift nurse--Mulder couldn't turn his head to see.

A tall, dark-haired woman loomed over him suddenly, brandishing a penlight,
flashing it into his eyes with painful intensity. The ER crew scurried
around him, moving his body to another table, probing, questing...

And all the time, he tried to scream at them, to make himself heard. I'm
here! I'm not some dead body! I'm awake! I'm *here*!

Finally, the doctor turned to Scully, who had been standing silently by,
staying just within Mulder's line of sight.

"There doesn't seem to be any immediate threat, Agent Scully. He's
breathing on his own, and his vitals are strong." She turned back, staring
at Mulder, looking through him, as if a body at rest meant a mind departed.
"We'll admit him, keep tabs on his condition... Do you have any idea how
long the drug takes to wear off?"

Mulder watched his partner as she shook her head in frustration. "No. We
might get a idea from the Duff case--though, with the damage to that man's
system overall..." She trailed off uncertainly, meeting Mulder's eyes with
something like guilt in her own.

The doctor nodded dispassionately, and Mulder wished he could speak--if
only to compliment her on her sterling bedside manner. "We'll take him up
to his room after we run a couple more tests."

Mulder was suddenly glad of his frozen state, as the doctor brought out a
needle. He closed his eyes, able, for once, to pretend that the needle
hadn't pierced *his* flesh, that they weren't taking blood from *his* body.
His eyes blinked open again as he heard the telltale squeak of the gurney's
wheels.

Again, when the doctor spoke, it wasn't to him. "We need to take him down
for a  couple of scans, Agent Scully." Mulder watched Scully nod, her eyes
still locked with his. "I'll have a nurse show you up to his room. You can
wait for him there."

**********

"Hey, partner."

Scully's voice was a comfort--moreso because she was actually talking to
*him*. He looked up at her, only now noticing the soot that covered her
face--that probably covered his own face, too. Her smile now was more
relaxed, as she watched a pair of nurses hooking him up to the monitors
that would record his condition.

"Your toxicological is a mess," Scully said playfully, standing by the
bedside, well in view. "But, once again, you'll live."

He wanted to throw out a wisecrack at that one. "Once more, Fox Mulder has
cheated death" would have been nice, if delivered with just the right
sarcastic tone. Maybe "Disappointed?" would have worked as well...

Mulder closed his eyes again, trying to feel somthing, to move something...

Waiting for the thaw.

"Why don't you get some sleep?" Scully suggested, in that tone of quiet
support that Mulder was certain could keep him from death at any time, so
long as she was there to use it.

He wondered idly if she was running a hand through his hair again. Like his
mom used to do when he was sick. He remembered the discussion he and Scully
had had on their last case; Scully's maternal feelings, and his own
surprise at seeing her in that light for the first time. "I never saw you
as a mother before."

Well, she didn't really need any kids of her own--not with Fox Mulder
around. He laughed at himself mentally. One more bedside vigil for
Scully...

**********

Perhaps he dozed off, perhaps it was just sensory deprivation, curbing his
ability to gauge the passage of time, but when Mulder opened his eyes
again, sunlight streamed through the window beside him. With a defeated
air, he tried to move his head, shocked when it rotated--a bit stiffly--to
allow him a view of Scully sitting quietly beside the bed, engrossed in a
file before her.

Heartened, he tried using his voice as well. It was soft, but he reveled in
the feeling of it.

"Hey."

Scully flashed a smile, standing, allowing him the joy of moving his head
again so that he could look up into her face. He was sore, he realised
suddenly. It felt like he had run a marathon--and he'd never be as
appreciative of pain again.

"How are you feeling?"

He shrugged, loving the feel of his aching muscles as they whined in
protest. "Sore... It's a definite improvement on last night."

Her smile widened, turning slightly sarcastic. "Night before last."

He just looked at her for a moment, begging an explanation with his eyes.

"You've been asleep for more than thirty hours," she replied simply. "It
probably has something to do with the way the drug interfered with your
system."

Mulder digested that quietly. "Aboah?"

At that, Scully sighed, resuming her seat. "Gunshot wound was superficial."
She shrugged. "But he's losing ground quickly. They're trying to introduce
a synthetic hormone series... I don't know how much longer he'll last."

He grinned winningly at her, lightening the mood. "What about me?"

Scully smirked. "Oh, you'll be around to plague the Great Conspiracy for
years yet."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he stated blithely, groaning as he
tried to sit up.

"Take it easy," Scully warned, standing again to grab for the bed controls,
raising the head to a comfortable level. "You'll probably be sore for a
while. That dart really did a number on your system."

"It's okay," he whispered, closing his eyes for a moment, feeling the bliss
of a pain he had always found confining. "I'd take pain over..."

Scully watched him carefully for a moment as he trailed off, his eyes
darkening in memory. "Are you okay?"

He reached out a hand, grasping the one that she offered, and squeezing it
gently.

"I am now."

********
THE END



M&S---EP---GLWG---Smoker for Scully--------------------Queen of Angst

XAngst Anonymous         "'Thin air'? Why is it always 'thin' air?
and Myth Patrol           Why isn't it 'fat' air, or 'chunky' air,
Construction Site         or 'basically fit, but could stand
                          to lose a few pounds' air?"
                                                  ---Garbaldi, B5

xangst@frii.com------------Die-Hard Skinner Chick---------Dean Warner

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