Title: Floating Free (1/1)
Author: Lisby (lisby@earthlink.net)
Category: MSR
Rating: PG ("Huh? Lisby wrote this and it's PG? Wuh the
fuh??")
Summary: This one defies summation, really. Christmas
Eve 2003. Leave it at that.
Disclaimer: No cash involved.
Archive: Freely
Lisby's homepage:
http://home.earthlink.net/~iwonder/lisby.htm
Feedback: Charter member of Feedback Whores 'R Us.
Dedication: For Marley and all the groovy folk of X-OK, a
Phile list that is not only bucolic, it's paradise on the Web.
Join us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/X-OK.
Written for the 3rd X-OK Fic Challenge. Elements at end
of story.
******
On Monday afternoon, a glimpse of her new therapist's
open notebook had showed Scully a diagnosis of "free-
floating" anxiety. Later, she'd asked Mulder about the
disorder, expecting as a preface some smart-ass dig like
"So, you think I didn't buy that Oxford psych degree after
all, huh, Scully?" But Mulder hadn't joked. He'd seemed
sweaty and distracted and had answered by rote, "Free-
floating anxiety: Continual anxiety not attributable to any
specific situation or reasonable danger; or severe,
generalized, persistent anxiety not specifically ascribed to a
particular object or event and often a precursor of panic.
See generalized anxiety disorder."
"'See generalized anxiety disorder'? What book are you
reading in your head?"
"Ummm...I don't know--uhh..." Mulder had looked off into
space and his pupils tracked from left to right, left to right.
"American Psychiatric Glossary, 7th Edition."
Twenty minutes later, Mr. Magic Memory had been puking
in the bathroom. By midnight, he'd developed a high fever
and had been shivering, glassy-eyed, and pale. By Tuesday
afternoon, with a thready pulse and shortness of breath,
Mulder had been lying on a gurney parked in the corridor
of a crowded emergency department while Scully fought
for a doctor's attention.
Wednesday, Christmas Eve.
The television light flickered light on Mulder's face, letting
it serve as Scully's Rorschach scrim. The changing colors
cast by the screen played over the contours of his features,
until for a second Scully saw a skull with dark cheek
undercuts and black recessed orbitals. She bit on her lip and
dragged her eyes back to the television, where the reformed
Grinch and his overloaded sleigh were sweeping down the
face of Mount Crumpit.
'Stop it,' Scully chided herself. 'Fight the adrenal cascade.
He's not in the ICU where all you can do is watch his IV
drip. He's not shot; they're not sucking tobacco-beetle
larvae out of his lungs; and Skinner didn't just pry him out
of an ice-cold grave. He has influenza type A-H3N2 that
has led to severe dehydration and respiratory infection. He's
responding to medication and may go home tomorrow if
the hospital needs the bed. Mulder is going to be fine. He's
fine. I'm fine. We're fine... Please God, let everything just
*stay* fine.'
Scully gripped Mulder's hand more tightly and he
answered her by squeezing back and lifting his eyebrows
to ask what she wanted. Scully smiled in camouflage
("Dana thought up a lie and she thought it up quick...").
"Mulder, all the Whos down in Who-ville are going to eat
roast beast. You wanna try some of that chicken lo mien?"
She nodded toward the neglected carryout box on his bed
stand.
"It's not chicken lo mien. It's soy-chicken lo mien," Mulder
answered, stressing the offending word. "It takes like sea
sponge. Just gimme my damned fortune cookie."
"Will you please eat the noodles?"
"I'd rather hang myself with them."
Scully warmed to his petulance, her grin genuine now. The
crankier he was, the better he felt-- a truism gleaned from
many hospital stays. She fished the fortune cookie out of
the paper sack, broke the plastic wrapper, snapped the shell,
and unrolled the slip inside. "It says, 'Those who hang
themselves with noodles will fall on their asses.'"
Mulder blinked then he broke out in the smile she'd aimed
to create. "Give me the chopsticks, woman."
He tucked into his food, and her anxiety floated further
afield as the Grinch redistributed stolen goods and Boris
Karloff proclaimed, "He himself-- The Grinch-- carved the
Whos' roast beast!" Afterward, a circle of hand-holding
Whos swayed around the village Christmas tree with its
primary red and yellow decorations, singing, "Welcome
Christmas, while we stand, heart to heart, and hand in
hand..."
And there it was-- the lump in her throat. The first time
she'd felt it, Dana Scully, like Cindy-Lou, was surely not
more than two. "This ending always makes me cry."
"Yeah," Mulder agreed, sounding tight. "Maximum warm
fuzzies." After a pause, he said softly, "Scully, I'm so
sorry."
The credits were rolling as she glanced back at him. "For
what?"
"For this-- this Christmas Eve, Mulder-style." He gestured
with his chopsticks to the IV pole then to the greater
hospital room. "I wanted to make our first Christmas worth
remembering."
"Well, I *will* remember it. And this really isn't our first."
He frowned. "It's our first *married* Christmas. Not to
mention our first Yuletide as normal tax-paying citizens
with meaningful employment as opposed to, say, hunted
criminals."
Scully squirmed as she fought the impulse to look behind
her. "I know, Mulder. I-- I *know*. But it's fine. You
couldn't help getting sick."
"There are lots of things I couldn't help."
"No. Now way." She shook her head. "We're not going there. We're
not. Listen to me." Scully took a calming breath, leaned
forward, and spoke gently, "That part of our lives is over.
Terrible things have happened to us-- things no one would
ever believe. But. It. Is. Over. Because of what you did.
When you start to get hard on yourself, do what your
therapist suggested and focus on your achievement, which
she can't even begin to comprehend, which *I* barely
comprehend and I was there." Scully felt the hot desert
wind again, saw the swirling dust. The open portal to the
saucer was a black triangular slit. Mulder was mounting
the ramp to where the Grays were waiting, their attenuated
hands already grasping for him. Mulder's body jumped and
his spine arched when they touched him, his arms lifting
up, hands open, palms exposed...
Mulder was talking. "...Shrink thinks I have PTED."
"W-what?" she stuttered. "I thought it was PTSD?"
"It is." He sniffed. "I have that, too. But this is PTED. Post-
traumatic *Embitterment* Disorder. It's only been recently
identified. The core criteria are exceptional negative life
events that precipitate the onset of a state of emotional
embitterment and feelings of injustice, repeated intrusive
memories of the events, impaired emotional modulation,
feelings of helplessness, self-blame, rejection of help,
suicidal ideation, dysphoria, aggression, down-heartedness,
seemingly melancholic depression, unspecific somatic
complaints, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, pain,
phobic symptoms in respect to the place or to persons
related to the event, and reduced drive."
She cocked her head. "So I'm anxiety stew and you're
alphabet soup?"
"Scully?"
"Huh?
"Go fish."
"Nope. Our fishing days are over, Mulder." She leaned
back in the big padded chair and adjusted the blanket that
covered her legs. "We trolled for the truth and we found it.
And we've paid too much for it. But now we're cut loose. If
we stick to our therapy, we'll get better. We'll live the life
together that we talked about."
His eyes softened and he reached out to stroke her cheek,
remembering, as she was, cheap motel rooms all around the
Pacific Northwest or their camp in the desert, while waiting
for the Grays to come. They'd talked long into those nights,
holding each other, whispering into each other's ears,
speaking of a burden lifted, of floating free.
And after the Grays had drunk all the words and pictures
that Mulder could offer, they had floated his body back to her
like a windborne feather. She'd been able to hold him while
pretending that, for once, by her physical size and strength
she could support him. She'd sank to her knees as they'd
lowered him, letting his head loll against her chest, letting
his long body settle on the ground. There had been tears on
her face tracking through the dust, and the same trails
had marked his. She'd wiped Mulder's eyes with the hem of her
shirt and had called his name above the hum of the alien
ship.
Mulder's lids had lifted a little. "Scully..." his voice was
rough and his words broken by his ongoing fight with
unconsciousness. "Crack... open ...the ... Dom Perignon."
Scully reached down beside the chair, and lifted up what
she'd hidden. Mulder's brow furrowed as she sat the tall
green bottle on the bed stand by the open carryout box.
"Sparking cider," she announced.
"What? Not even real champagne? Killjoy," Mulder
muttered as Scully dug the two plastic goblets and the
corkscrew out of her overnight bag.
The clink of their glasses was more like a click, but the kiss
that followed was passionate. He smelled of rubbing
alcohol and medical tape and soy sauce, and tasted of salt
and ginger. Scully loved him.
She loved him.
Mulder suddenly broke the seal of their lips, gutturally
whispering a vow into her still-open mouth, "We'll get
William back, I promise. I..."
"Hush. Shhhhhhh. No, Mulder. No more quests."
"But--"
Her renewed kiss silenced him, yet as he relaxed into her
embrace, Scully's hopes buoyed for a reunion with their
son. Surely something could be worked out with William's
adoptive parents. They were decent people, not the type to
deny all contact. And now there would be time for more
babies, too-- William's siblings, who would be born into a
world with no drop-dead date, with no extremis in sight.
As if reading her mind, Mulder pulled away again, asking
almost giddily, "Whoever thought the Grays would listen to
reason?"
"You did, Mulder. You believed." Scully stroked his hair.
"I was skeptical, but I followed you along."
End.
MaybeAmanda's challenge elements:
The XOK 155-310 Word (or More, or Less) *I Want to
Believe* Festive
Season Fic Challenge
------------------------------
Any Era! Any Pairing! Any Theme!
Suggested inclusions:
1) Someone/thing from the X-Files!
2) Reference to a holiday-- any holiday!
3) Reference to your favorite episode (feel free to make it
obscure!!!)
4) The word *red.* Or *white.* *Green?* Okay, some
color!
5) Mention of one (or more) of the following:
take-out food
cookie/s
flight/flying
fish
libations
soy
(
geocities.com/xmas_files)