Secrets 2 
Ally112038@aol.com 

Georgetown Memorial Hospital. 4:05a.m.

Hospitals are strange places. I should know. It sometimes feels like I've spent half my adult life in them. they are probably one of the few places on Earth where, regardless of time or circumstance, any number of people can be relied upon to come running should you call for help. And Hospitals never really sleep because although corridor lights are muted and voices become softer in deference to the hour, there is never true silence.

Usually I find that thought comforting, especially at night. Listening to the sounds that filter up through the corridors, reminding me I am not alone. That people *are* out there watching over me.

But not this time.

This time it wouldn't matter if there were a thousand people crammed in to this tiny cubicle of a room all talking to me at once. Because there is only one person I really want to see and he's not here.

I haven't seen him since this morning when he gently smoothed my hair off my forehead and held my hand tightly when the jolting of the ambulance caused me to cry out in pain from behind the oxygen mask covering my face. I managed to stay conscious throughout that hellish journey to the ER and as the morphine had kicked in had even managed to determine just what had happened to me out there on the street.

Of course, I hadn't exactly been capable of coherent conversation at that point, but I had at least understood what the harried young Doctor was telling me.

Gunshot wound to the upper thigh. Bone trauma.

*Just peachy*.

Bad enough that they had to dig yet another bullet out of me, without complicating the issue with a broken leg. The bone it seems, had stopped the bullet in it's tracks - literally - and whilst I am told that the damage isn't severe, it was deemed severe enough to warrant a trip down to the operating theatre for a quick patch repair job.

For some reason, which I still can't quite fathom, hearing those words had reduced me to a gibbering wreck. I've never been in the least bit afraid of general anaesthetics and God knows I've been on the receiving end of enough over the years, but this time I was gripped with the morbid fear that I would never wake up again.

The morphine hadn't exactly helped. It had dulled the pain admirably, but that, combined with the adrenaline still coursing through my body meant I hadn't exactly been firing on all cylinders. So I had done the only thing that had made sense at the time. I cried. *Hard*.

I think Mulder was more than a little concerned to see his usually stoic partner bawling like a baby when faced with the prospect of a little routine surgery, but to his credit he had not batted one perfect eyelash. Instead he quietly asked for a little time alone with me, perching carefully on the edge of the gurney, ever aware of jarring my injured leg and took my hand in his.

I can still feel the way he traced circles in my palm with his thumb while he had concentrated his other hand on the task of gently wiping the tears from my face. Just that simple gesture calmed me, reminded me for the thousandth time just how much I rely on him to make everything *right* again. In much the same way as he relies on me to do the same for him.

And right alongside that though came a stark realization that this time, nothing I do will ever make things right again.

But there is no one on this Earth who can do what Mulder can do, and even as I began to cry again, his touch began to calm me. It's a skill born out of years of painful practice and as my sobs had quieted he began to speak. Soft words. Calming words. *Protective* words. Nothing really specific, just gentle nonsense that stole away my fear and I had grown so sleepy as I listened to him soothing me as a parent might soothe a fretting child, feeling his hands on my skin, tracing patterns only he understood.

I'm not entirely sure whether I fell asleep or whether the morphine finally kicked in fully, but the last thing I remember are his lips soft against my forehead as he whispered an assurance that he would be waiting for me when I woke up.

Stupidly, senses dulled by pain, I allowed myself to believe him. I had forgotten what I had done.

Forgotten that soon nothing between us would ever be the same again.

Maybe I should have told him right there and then. I should have struggled against the pain and the fatigue and just *told* him. But it was easier to just float away, to ignore it yet again. So once again I took the coward's way out and did just that.

I wasn't surprised to wake up alone.

I'm not surprised that I have stayed that way.

It wasn't so bad initially. My battered system was still fighting the anesthetic and it was easy to just close my eyes against the hurt and drift back to sleep. But each time I awoke it was a little bit later in the day and I was a little more aware of what was going on around me.

Until, about an hour ago I eventually reached the point where I am now. There is a deep throbbing pain inside me that runs from my right shoulder all the way to my toes and whilst the intravenous pain relief is tempering it slightly, it's still sickening enough to keep my eyes open and fixed on the ceiling above my bed.

Moving is currently out of the question because the slightest twitch from the waist down causes the throb to escalate rapidly in to an all out exercise in torture.

I am tempted to ask for stronger pain relief but I need to stay alert for when Mulder comes back. I need to be able to look deep in to his eyes and make him understand why I didn't tell him about the Cancer.

I don't expect him to forgive me though. All I'm hoping at this point is that he at least understands my motivation. Beyond that I have no idea where we'll go.

In my wildest dreams I find myself hoping that he'll simply take me in his arms and hold me. That he'll forgive me in every way he needs to so we can move past this.

But deep down I know that it's not going to happen. I know, because if our roles were reversed I would be mortified he hadn't trusted me enough to confide in me. Sure, Mulder has ditched me in the past. He's ditched me more times than I can recall. But that has always been a physical action. Not so much out of a question of trust but more born from the need he has inside of him to keep me safe. It's misguided and impractical and it annoys the hell out of me, but at least I can understand it.

What I've done is different somehow.

What I've done is *worse* and if I could take back the past six weeks and do them over I would. I know now how wrong I was not to tell him immediately. I ignored the voice of reason inside of me and listened instead to my heart. A heart that has never wanted to hurt him.

Ironic really because I've managed to achieve exactly the opposite. And in doing so I'm terribly afraid that I've lost him forever.

I close my eyes once again as I feel them begin to burn with unshed tears. I can't keep crying like this. It won't solve anything. I need to stay strong enough to see this thing through. Until that happens I'll be the Dana Scully I have so carefully constructed over the years.

Hard. Cold. Unfeeling.

But not with him. *Never* with him. Because if he'll allow me too, I'm finally going to tell him everything.

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