TITLE: Absence of a Heartbeat (1/1) AUTHOR: KatyBlue CLASSIFICATION: UST, SA RATING: PG-13 CONTENT WARNING: No smut here. Sorry, maybe next time :) SPOILERS: None that I know of... DISTRIBUTION Archive this on any list but STATEMENT: please let me know where it goes! DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters. It would be way too much responsibility. The true creators are Chris Carter, 1013 productions and just as equally, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. I hope all who read enjoy my first piece of fanfic. Let me know if you liked it at katy2blue@aol.com or kbxf@aol.com or katyblue2@hotmail.com. SUMMARY: Scully's struggle to save an important life. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This piece would have never been posted without the help of my wonderful editor, Meredith, whose own talent I am humbled by and deeply grateful for. ****************************************************** PART I There were arms around her neck in a grip that punished. She smelled the sweat of the man holding her. The discomfort of her kevlar vest pushing sharply into the side of her that was wedged up against the man's broad torso. She still struggled against him, even though she felt the cold steel of his weapon bruise her temple with each jabbing thrust of movement. He wouldn't shoot her now. She was his body armor. He needed her. Now, more than ever. Had she ever imagined what it would feel like to be a human shield while her fellow officers stood watching in stunned silence? She remembered the training exercise at Quantico. She'd been in the audience then and hadn't experienced this mesmerizing sight of onlookers, frozen in action. At least a dozen agents were there today, in that brightly lit, sunny square. Dressed in their finest swat team uniforms. Kevlar central. A dozen weapons aimed directly at her. The sight was daunting. They had her dead to rights. Twelve officers with itching trigger fingers. Beyond that, she could see the colorful clothing of the general public with the local p.d. trying to keep them back. Idiotic gawkers who never thought anything like a stray bullet could head their way. She grunted in her struggles and felt the answering twists of the man's body to keep her fully in front of him. "If you don't stop struggling, I'm going to start shooting into the crowd," he murmured in her ear. Scully's fight slowed. She stood, locked in his deadly embrace, searching for the one face in the crowd that she knew was there. Hoping that she wouldn't see him. "Where's Agent Mulder?" the voice behind her bellowed loudly, jabbing the gun against her temple in emphasis. "I want Agent Mulder out here now or I'll kill her. I swear to god I will..." "I'm right here, Lucas." And there he was, moving forward from the protection of a united front. Isolating himself. Hands up in the air. He'd discarded his helmet, Scully saw with some dismay. Laid down his weapon. He was helpless. A moving target. An easy shot. "Go back, Mulder!" she shouted, renewing her struggles so that Lucas would have to deal with her. Delaying the inevitable for a moment longer. Mulder didn't realize. Lucas McCray was going to kill him. Mulder hadn't spent the past hour locked in a room with this lunatic ranting and raving at him. He hadn't endured a tirade of all the reasons why Mulder had ruined Lucas McCray's life. He hadn't slowly realized the full extent of the mental instability attributable to this man holding her hostage. And he hadn't come to the final conclusion that this man's sole intent, his one burning desire, was to kill Mulder. That knowledge belonged to her alone. Along with the fact that Lucas McCray's capture of her had not been a random event, a chance occurrence, but rather a carefully planned and executed move. She was inconsequential. Mulder was his opponent. Checkmate. Lucas McCray was a giant of a man. Literally. Her feet were almost off the ground and he bore her weight hanging from one arm with ease. He squeezed harder on her throat. Hard enough so that she gasped for breath. Mulder inched forward, arms still raised. "Let her go, Lucas." He was squinting against the sun. "End this now and we might cut you a break. Right now, you've only spent a few tax dollars." "Funny man, Mulder," Lucas shouted. "I don't think you'll be laughing when your partner loses her brains on the pavement here." If he'd known what it would do to Mulder, he'd have pulled the trigger right then and there. The irony of it struck her later. It never crossed her mind to worry about her own life at that point. Despite the fact that killing her without harming a hair on Mulder's head would have been far more debilitating and destructive to Mulder than any bullet Lucas could ever put in him. Any death that Mulder could die. Her captor seemed to have gleaned no inkling of this effect. Besides the restraint, he took no more notice of her than a fly buzzing ineffectually in his ear. He had one goal. Every ounce of his considerable attention was on Mulder. Mulder continued to inch forward. She tried to call out to stop him but the meaty weight on her throat allowed only an unrecognizable croak to escape. McCray shoved the gun up into one of her nostrils. Great. How modesty played any part in this scenario was incomprehensible to her, but she still felt a flush of embarrassment that every gaze in the crowd was currently fixated on her right nostril. Did Mulder realize, as he made each careful step forward, that he was moving toward his own death? What exactly did he think that he was going to do, unarmed and up close? It infuriated her. Later, she would look back on this anger with a consuming guilt. That she could have been angry with him for this most selfless of trades was inexcusable. "Take me, Lucas. Let her go." He said hoarsely. "We'll go talk somewhere. You can tell me what's troubling you." Great. Facing a madman with a gun, Mulder chose a tact of sarcastic goading. Scully renewed her struggles. "Stop right there, Mulder. That's perfect." Lucas growled. His gun left her nostril and tracked on Mulder. She felt the utter stillness of the man's body as he braced against the wall behind them. The rock steadiness of his arm next to her face as the gun moved into her field of vision, a dark and impossibly steady extension of it. This man had absolutely nothing left to lose. He'd been awaiting death row before this escape. He was surrounded by the F.B.I.'s finest. He knew that he was going nowhere except down or back to the lethal injection that waited for him. And she knew that, wherever he was going, he meant to take Mulder with him. In the final moment, before it happened, her renewed and desperate struggles seemed to be of no more trouble to him than restraining a leaf twisting in the wind. This was another thing that haunted her later. If only she'd been able to hit his gun hand. Distract him. If only the terror that she'd felt had resulted in some successful course of action. Something decidedly more effective than clawing desperately at the arm around her throat that was threatening to asphyxiate her. Kicking wildly at the legs behind her. If only, if only, if only... The adrenaline must have been coursing so high through his body that he felt nothing from her. His focus was on one thing. And it was not on her. Nor on the officers drawing aim on him. His focus was on Mulder. She felt the jerk of his arm as he fired three shots in quick succession. The concussion of the blast close to her face. The roar of the gun deafened her right ear. She wouldn't hear out of that ear for close to a week. She saw Mulder slam back against the pavement with a force that could mean only one thing. He'd been hit. She heard herself screaming his name as the pressure on her neck released suddenly, pitching her forward. Her body plummeted from Lucas' loosened hold to the ground. And all this occurred in one fraction of one second. Knowing what was about to happen, she stayed crouched where she was for precious seconds, clapping her hands over her already deafened ears as the volley of gunfire split the air around her. The sting of chips off the brick wall behind her flecked her skin. A roar like thunder echoed in her ears. The amount of ammunition that was used to take down that one man was excessive, to say the least. Too many officers, too keyed up for this type of release. It took precious more seconds for the body to drop behind her. Lucas McCray did not go down easily. As soon as she felt the heavy weight thud near her feet, she was up and sprinting. Heading for the body of another man, stretched out on the hot pavement. She threw herself down at Mulder's side, shoving away the hands that reached for her. Someone shouted the 'officer down' call. Several radios began to call for the paramedics. He should be fine. He was wearing a kevlar vest, for Christ's sake. But he lay pale and still. It must have just knocked him out, she thought. The impact of a bullet against a vest was still a substantial force. Enough to knock you unconscious. Please, let it just be that. Frantically, she checked for a head wound. Oh god, if a bullet had entered that fragile, unprotected area....but there was no blood. No wound. He looked peaceful lying there. His features unmarred. But so still. Not right. Something definitely not right. She leaned forward, putting her good ear against his mouth, watching his chest for movement. At the same time, her fingers sought and found the pressure point on his wrist, pressing against his skin in a vain attempt to find a pulse. There were no sounds of breath. No indication of breathing. No gentle throbbing beneath her fingers. Maybe the impact had knocked the wind out of him. Broke some ribs. She checked his airway, sticking a finger into his mouth to press his tongue down and look carefully for blockages. All clear. She lifted an eyelid. His pupils weren't dilated. The damn body armor was in the way. She needed to listen to his heart. Her hands traveled down the vest. Stopped. She stared in horror. Three small, perfectly circular holes were punched through the kevlar. As she watched, blood welled up out of one of them and sent a dark rivulet down toward the pavement. "Help me get his vest off," she shouted to anyone. She ripped frantically at the closures at the sides, lifting it away from his chest. Hands reached in to help her. "Don't move him too much," she snapped. She held his head still, packing a jacket someone handed her under his neck to protect the cervical spine. The vest dropped back onto the pavement above his head, the back shell still cradled underneath him. He was wearing one of his good suits, she noted distractedly. And that stupid red paisley tie she hated. Her head dropped to his chest, listening for heart sounds. Realizing that there were none, even while her own heart hammered against her chest as if it were trying to break free of her ribcage. Time seemed to stop for a moment. She felt herself lean back and begin a coldly clinical appraisal, her brain shifting into automatic. There were three bullet entries. One into his thoracic cavity, close to where her hand rested over his heart. Oh god. Heart or lungs. And so many blood vessels there. The huge aorta, with it's arching megaplex of branches to brains and body. Superior and inferior vena cava. Left lung. It couldn't have missed. It must have hit at least one of those structures. If it hit the heart, aorta, or carotid, he could aready be dead. Her own heart continued to hammer against her chest so hard that it hurt. But the bullet hole looked lower than the heart. A little farther to the left of dead center. She prayed for a lung. The blood flow out was increasing. Her hand slid over the hole to press down and apply pressure. Her eyes traveled down to another shot to his abdomen. That could have hit anything. Too low for the liver but plenty else to damage. Kidney, stomach, intestines, spleen. Blood was starting to trickle from that one now. Plenty of arteries there too. Abdominal aorta, renal artery, iliolumber arteries, why go on? How about the spine and the central nervous system? So much possible damage. Russian roulette of the torso. But if the bullet hadn't hit anything too vital, he could live for hours 'gutshot', which was the police slang for it. Potentially not as serious as the thoracic entry wound. The third bullet hole was in his side, close to her. The least worrisome, if you could use that term for a gunshot wound. Possibly that one had nicked the liver but not much else there. Intercostal arteries. Ribs. Maybe it had perforated the diaphragm. Hopefully not the lung again. This wound was also bleeding, adding to the loss of precious oxygen and nutrients meant for the tissues, not the pavement. Only seconds passed for all this to run through her brain. She leaned over, yanking at the knot in his tie so it was loose around his neck. Trust Mulder to have done a poor job tying it today. She wished that she had fixed it when he walked into the office this morning like she found herself doing sometimes. Her fingers felt one more time for a pulse. Nothing. His skin was warm to the touch. When you were a woman, and worked with a man like Mulder, you couldn't help but notice his attractiveness. Unless you were dead or didn't go that way. And even then you might notice. Scully was neither of these. And she'd definitely noticed. In an abstract, curious kind of way, she'd sometimes imagined what it might feel like the first time her lips touched his. In her imaginings, it was a clandestine type of moment. Maybe in the office. Maybe on the road. One of those moments when urges got carried too far. The kind of moment that was born of too many shared moments. Born of the constant, playful innuendoes he threw in her direction and the way he innocently invaded her personal space. Of the way his backside looked walking away from her in a pair of jeans. And of the way he sometimes sprawled on a bed in some nameless motel room, discussing the seriousness of a case with her while his arms and legs were stretched out in the most casual, yet infuriatingly tempting posture. There were no two ways about it. Mulder was a very sexual man. She on the other hand, gave off an aura of untouchableness. Of cold professionalism. She knew that she did. Everyone said so, even if they put it nicely or said it behind her back. They didn't call her the ice queen for nothing. It was not a title that she aspired to, but somehow, it had defined her to many of her coworkers. She had no doubt that it was perhaps this very exterior that had held Mulder in check for so long. Despite the fact that he was probably the only person who didn't make her feel that way. Who maybe didn't actually see her that way, either. With a casual comment about one of her more feminine attributes or a hand briefly touching her, Fox Mulder had the singular, endearing ability to make her feel desirable as opposed to androgynous. Connected to something as opposed to detached. Dana Scully knew that she had perfectly normal urges. Urges denied in favor of her career. Urges that couldn't help but be centered every once in a while around her attentive and aesthetically pleasing specimen of a partner. Oh yes, she'd certainly thought about what it might be like between them. And never, in her wildest imaging, had she expected an audience to be watching the first time her lips touched Mulder's. She leaned over him. His own lips were slack. He looked like he was sleeping. He looked like it might be a hell of a lot more than sleep. She tilted his head back gently. Pinched his nose shut. Then closed her mouth over his own and breathed down into his lungs, checking to make sure his chest rose. Praying there was lung tissue left to hold air. There was more blood now. His white shirt was turning red. She could barely distinguish the shirt from the red of his tie. Bright, scarlet, arterial blood. The chest didn't rise. No vacuum. Intraplueral pressure must be equal to atmospheric. Please, let him have some lung tissue still functional. The right lobe should still be okay. His clothing was in the way. She took a hold of his shirt and, in one violent motion, ripped it open. The buttons popped and scattered on the pavement around them. She pushed it to the sides, exposing his chest. The entry wound was a small angry hole, flesh puckered and burned black at the edges. "Somebody put pressure on this," she yelled, clapping a hand over the wound. An officer knelt down on Mulder's other side. She didn't know him. He looked young and scared. He had a towel that he placed over the wound. Scully shoved his hands into a good position and pushed down on them to show him the correct amount of pressure. "Press down and don't let up," she ordered. Only seconds more had passed. Maybe a minute at most. Where were the god damned paramedics? Lacing her fingers together, she placed them over Mulder's sternum, holding her arms stiff as she pumped on his chest. Moved back to his mouth. A breath into his lungs. Then another. All the way to his lungs. Count to three. Breathe. Count. Pump. There was a rhythm to it. She fell into it easily. Again, on automatic pilot while her brain rushed in a million different directions all at once. She should have let someone help her. She didn't. She paused to check for any indication of a pulse. A heartbeat. A breath. Oh, God. There was nothing. A lifeless silence against her ear. She felt the wet of his tie against the side of her face. She realized that the blood welling from the tiny holes was leaking slowly out of the vessels. His heart was certainly not moving it out. For the moment, that might be a good thing. He would bleed to death in minutes with the help of that normally life-sustaining pumping action. But it meant that the internal bleeding was substantial. The blood pressure plummeting. The brain and tissues screaming for oxygen. Had his heart stopped because a bullet had passed through one of the bigger blood vessels? She should have at least heard the thready, weak sounds of tachychardia. It shouldn't have stopped unless the blood volume was already too low for it to continue. Maybe the bullet had gone through the lung and caused a pneumothorax. Pulmonary arrest. Lack of oxygen leading to heart failure... For one fraction of a second, she paused and allowed herself to be overwhelmed with a deep sense of hopelessness. Her rational brain screamed the statistical futility of her actions at her straight out of the pages of a medical textbook. She ignored that voice and reassessed. Listened again for a heartbeat. Nothing. ******************************************************** PART II Then anger flushed through her. Of all people to be angry at right now, she found that her anger was aimed directly at Mulder. She slammed her fist against his chest, where his heart lay immobile, trying to shock it back into action. "Damn you, Mulder. Don't do this," The words fell from her mouth, provoking no response, as inconsequential as her fist had been. Start again, Dana. Place your lips over his. Not really a kiss at all. None of the languid, sensual response she'd always imagined Mulder capable of. He was most assuredly a good kisser. But this meeting of lips was almost devoid of sensation. A deep breath forced into his lungs. She worried that they were filling with fluid. That her breath was too much or too little. Mulder was a good sized man. She sent a full breath each time. Her hands levered over his chest. Pumped vainly for his heart. Once, they slipped on the blood that made his chest slick and treacherous. She winced when she heard a rib crack under her palm. Had she broken it or had the bullet? She imagined it's splintered ends, ripping into him. Poking into the already traumatized cavity. Lacerating more vessels. Don't think about it, she thought. Keep going. Please, God, she thought desperately. I'm a doctor. Please, God, if you let me save only one more person in my life, let it be this man. Time was like a heartbeat. She'd written that once. Believed it. For that particular moment, it had been true. Not anymore. Now, she wanted to find where she'd written that and erase the words from the page. For now, time was like the lack of a heartbeat. And for each beat's absence, she was counting. With sudden clarity, she realized that this was the difference between a slow wasting and an abrupt end. This screaming feeling of blind panic that she attempted to shove into the background where it couldn't interfere with her actions. There was no time to assimilate the grief. No long, drawn out process during which you could come to terms with death. This type of death had all the subtlety of a hard blow to the solar plexus. And there was absolutely nothing that you could do to change the course of events. Time was meaningless. Time was milliseconds. Time had already occurred. You could only react to what had, in a few quick moments, been written in stone. "Come'on, Mulder," she heard the plea pass her lips out loud, almost echoing in the silence around her. She felt the pressure of several held breaths while she worked over him. She glanced up only once. There was a large, extended circle of officers around her. It struck her as a surreal scene. They stood in hushed and reverent silence, holding vigil to her efforts. Strangely unconnected from the line of life traveling from her lungs and hands into Mulder. Standing testament, rendered as witnesses only. To life or death. She felt lightheaded. Insubstantial. As if Mulder were a rock and she were a butterfly, fluttering ineffectually around him. In the distance, there was someone laughing. Her brain registered the intrusion into the profundity of her silence with a sense of indignation. That anyone could be enjoying a lighthearted moment while her breath labored in and out of this man's lungs, making no more impact than her hands, shoving at where his heart rested in prolonged inactivity, was unforgivable. If she'd had a scalpel and a set of rib crackers she'd have split open Mulder's chest and started open heart massage right then and there. She wanted to reach in and suture the vessel that was releasing so much life-sustaining fluid. She blinked once, praying that when she opened her eyes, they would be magically transported to a hospital operating room. She could save Mulder. Slam a couple of hundred volts through his heart and shock it back to life. Sew up any tears in the blood vessels. Drain the cavities of excess fluid. Give him back his blood volume. Where were hell were the fucking paramedics? She suddenly noticed that there was another man beside the first, pressing his hands over Mulder's abdominal wound, though she didn't know if he'd been there all along. This man was older. Seasoned. His eyes were wise. They held a bleak message when Scully's met them. She looked away angrily. Down at their paired hands, diligent to their tasks. The blood was dribbling now. A steady flow despite the pressure from the two men. It trickled out from the towels they held in earnest effort. She swallowed and thought she might pass out. Bent over and placed her lips against Mulder's again. His were growing cool. She checked his color. He was getting cyanotic. Tissues starved for oxygen, beginning to take on a bluish cast. His lips were lifeless under her own. She sent a breath in anyway. "Breathe, Mulder," she urged. Shocked to hear the anger increase in her voice. "Goddamn you, breathe!" Someone had the nerve to lay a hand on her shoulder and try to move her out of the way. There was no thought at all connected to her action. Only the adrenaline surging through her body as she reached back and hit the arm and the person connected to it away. She hit him hard. Heard the grunt. It never interrupted her rhythm. After that, they had the good sense to leave her alone. God, where the hell were the paramedics? It had been all of about three minutes. Maybe up to five. Minutes too long. Minutes of eternity, beginning to stretch out before her, the picture of a bleak and desolate future. A lifetime without the soul of this man before her. The loss of Mulder's exasperating yet endearing presence would surely have a lasting impact on her. For some odd reason, her brain picked that moment to ponder the differences between her own and Mulder's approaches to life. Was she somehow experiencing Mulder's life flashing before her eyes? Was this some strange sort of vicarious connection to his own inner struggle? Or was this guilt? She thought of times she'd amused herself with Mulder's theories. Even laughed at him sometimes. But he'd never seemed to take offense. He'd just taken it in all in stride. Allowed her to make fun of him. Smiled in good natured humor with her, showing all his 'boyish charm', as he put it, to let her know that her seriousness and skepticism were okay. Despite everything that she did to tear his theories apart, he forgave her. Appreciated her. She thought of the hundreds of cases they'd sweated and labored over together. Setting things to right. Struggling for answers. Struggling for acceptance. Struggling for truth. Felled by an inconsequential madman. This was not Mulder, lying here outstretched on this hot pavement, his arms splayed out at his sides in some unfortunate facsimile of a crucifixion. The palms of his hands lay facing up, fingers curled halfway inwards as if in some minor attempt at self defense. She noticed his pallor. His skin looked so pale. Bloodless. She felt as if the collective crowd were a gathering of thirsty vampires, bent over him, waiting expectantly for exsanguination... No! She renewed her efforts. Precious more seconds passed while her hands and mouth moved over Mulder in this one-sided dance. The paramedics descended on them all at once and in a flurry. Like a flock of vultures, she thought. The siren wailing like some forlorn bird. Her resentment at their intrusion surprised her. She forced herself to let them into her solitary, anguished fight. She hoped it was an advanced life support team. She hoped they had a portable defibrillation unit. It was an unspoken understanding that of course no less would have been called for with an officer down with gunshot wounds. But she felt the need to hope. It seemed all she had left in her reserve. A small surge of energy came back to her as soon as they alighted on the ground beside herself and Mulder. She began barking orders, unable to surrender her control over the scene. They were used to the arrogance of the medical profession and must have recognized her as one. Certainly, they listened. They wasted little time at the scene. Carefully stabilizing his spine. Quickly intubating him. Injecting an ampule of epinephrine directly into his heart. She saw their facial expressions and was angry. The least they could do was hide their own personal grim prognoses from showing on their faces. She stood as one unit with the paramedics and Mulder's prone body. She needed no help up, despite the stiffness in her legs. She grasped a handle of the gurney and helped snap the legs into place. There would be time later for her own aches. A hand took her arm. At first, she thought it was some misguided attempt to aid her. It took a few steps for her to realize that the person was actually attempting to restrain her. It was incomprehensible to her. Sheer idiocy that someone would try to prevent her from doing her utmost to maintain Mulder's fragile grip on this world. She whirled on her captor. It was Skinner. She stared at him incredulously. "Let go," she said coldly. "Agent Scully..." his voice held a warning. He had no idea what he was doing. He didn't know what a warning was. "I said," she punctuated each word. "Let...Go." When he didn't, she twisted quickly in his grasp. Her arms came out and her palms struck A.D. Skinner full in the chest with some force. Enough force to knock him backwards. Luckily for her, he didn't fall on his ass. Instead, somehow he managed to keep his feet under him in front of his officers. But he certainly let her go. She stared back as she got into the ambulance. For days afterward, the sight stayed with her. The silent circle of officers and A.D. Skinner standing solemnly amongst them, watching her go with a grimace. His white shirt marred with the vivid scarlet of her handprints on his chest, etched in Mulder's blood. And, in one last glance she could have done without, the horrifying amount of blood that Mulder had left behind him, congealing in a pool on his kevlar vest and slowly seeping into the pavement around it. Later, Skinner apologized for his actions, excusing them by admitting that he hadn't wanted her to witness her partner's death. The devastation of the final D.O.A. pronouncement at the hospital. He'd hoped to spare her. He didn't know her. He didn't know Mulder. The ride was like a nightmare or another surreal scene from a Salvador Dali painting of arms and limbs and unexplainable distortions, splashed with red on a canvas, the siren wailing in her good ear like some creature even stranger than a bird. The paramedics did their thing, opening an airway, checking his blood pressure, stimulating his heart. Through it all, Mulder gave no response. On the Glasgow coma scale, he was one step away from dead. Her extra hands were useful. She helped hook up I.V.s. and started a line of blood in. Mulder needed all the fluids he could get. She monitored his breathing, or rather, performed his breathing, squeezing rhythmically on the bag. "How much longer to the hospital?" she asked, the impatience evident in her voice. "ETA three minutes," one of them said tightly. Three minutes, plus the previous five plus about another one or two more. Grade school math ran through her head. Mulder would have been in cardiac arrest for approximately eleven minutes by that point. It wasn't okay. It was too long. She felt the first fingers of panic, pulling at her. Imagined the tissues of Mulder's incredible brain screaming for oxygen. Cells beginning to die. "Come'on, Mulder," she urged. She lifted an eyelid to check his pupils. His eye stared eerily forward at nothing. "Don't do this to me..." she muttered the age old words of every person who has ever been left behind through no choice of their own. "Fight this, Mulder." "I think I've got a weak pulse!" One of the medics proclaimed. Her eyes locked on the man, afraid to hope. "It's pretty weak," he murmured. "No BP reading yet." She checked Mulder's respirations. Nothing. "I lost it," the paramedic swore a few seconds later. It took them two minutes, not three. Before Scully could even dare to hope that he'd come back a little, the back doors of the ambulance flew open and a huge group of people stood waiting impatiently to lift Mulder out. Later on, she wondered if other patients got this kind of response. She and Mulder, the victims of a huge, newsworthy scene in a central square, were apparently the celebrities of the day and got the full measure. Scully kept up all the way to the operating room, making sure the fluid line stayed in. Hovering over the process. But mostly, watching Mulder's very still, pale form, a study in unresponsiveness. A study in death, her brain whispered cruelly. She was holding his hand when they pulled them apart. She didn't know it until it was extracted forcefully out of her grasp. Cool and inert, his long fingers slid from hers, still curled in what was hopefully not a postural indication of neurological damage. And he was gone, just like that. She stood looking around her, wondering why she had stopped. Wondering what to do. A nurse was standing near her, a hand on her arm. The reason behind her cessation of forward motion. Scully waved in the direction of the door, indicating the operating room. "I'm a doctor," she insisted. "I need to go in..." The nurse shook her head firmly. "I'm afraid that's not a good idea. Regulations," she announced, as if the one word were enough explanation. Scully noticed the clipboard of papers that the nurse was pushing into her empty hand, using it to physically bar her from entry. "Why don't you fill these out, Miss....?" "It's Doctor," she said in annoyance, resenting the woman's hand on her arm, which was now guiding her firmly toward some chairs against the wall. A waiting room. She noticed the big sign on the door Mulder had disappeared through as she was being led away from it. 'NO ADMITTANCE. HOSPITAL PERSONNEL ONLY', it proclaimed. "Dr. Scully," she offered a little less harshly, realizing she was taking out her frustration on the nurse, who had no control over the situation and was merely passing out hard and fast rules, well honed by practice on resistant friends and family. When she reflected back on the entire experience, the waiting room was almost painfully anticlimactic to the preceding events. She sat there, helpless. Useless. Stripped of any small power to change events. Reduced to one of the silent witnesses, like the men who had been surrounding her. Merely marking time. No longer a participant but a spectator, and to what was a decided lack of events. Not even allowed to know what action was going on behind closed doors, though she could well imagine a grim version of it. Herself sitting idly by in the hushed waiting room while Mulder lay dying on some cold steel table nearby. She sat down numbly in an uncomfortable vinyl chair, the plastic of the seat cracked and worn. When she remembered the waiting room at all, she remembered most vividly the peculiar numbness that visited her throughout her time there. She picked up the pen to fill out the pages and dropped it with shaking hands when she realized she was covered in blood. Mulder's blood. She'd pushed up the sleeves of her F.B.I. jacket at some point. Her hands and arms were stained red. She dropped the clipboard onto the floor, along with the pen, feeling a curious rush of blood to her own head. Knowing that she was about to pass out, she leaned over and put her head between her knees, noticing for the first time, that she still wore the stiff kevlar vest. Mulder would love this. The normally unshakable, definitely not squeamish Dana Scully was about to pass out at the sight of his blood. She felt a hand on her back. "Are you okay, dear?" She closed her eyes and fought the wave of dizziness. "I'm fine," she mumbled into her knees. Her rote response. Her trademark. Her armor. She sat up, still staring at the blood. The nurse noticed her attention. "Why don't you come with me, dear. We'll get you cleaned up." She felt like a child, surrendering to this woman's suggestion. "I've got to get this off first," she insisted, tugging at the vest. The nurse helped her undo the fastenings and pull it over her head, exclaiming over it's weight. Scully let it drop to the floor. Hateful, useless armor. She'd been aware of the grim reality of kevlar piercing bullets but she hadn't seen them in action until now. She would never feel safe wearing one of those things again. Might as well stretch tissue paper over your chest. The nurse helped her up and to a little bathroom, where she pressed a towel into Scully's hands and turned the water on to a comfortable temperature. She left Scully to wash the blood off by herself. Unfortunately, the room boasted a mirror over the sink. The first glimpse that she caught, her brain did not recognize as self. Certainly, it was someone in a similar position. She was wearing a black jacket with the words F.B.I. stenciled in yellow on the back. Black, army-type pants. Black boots below. Her hair hung limply in her face and she brushed it back impatiently. It hung limply because it was stiff with blood. She must have brushed it back impatiently, as she'd just done, numerous times while she worked over Mulder. Her face was streaked with red, like warpaint. Like a child dressed up, playing cowboys and Indians. All she needed was a headdress. Her arms were bloody all the way up to the elbows. She felt as if she were going to be sick. Her head was pounding fiercely in a headache she finally noticed. Her mouth watered in warning. She tasted acid at the back of her throat. And then, leaning over the toilet, she was sick. Violently retching in a decidedly unclinical response to the events that had unfolded. Standing finally, she washed her face, drying it with the towel. She stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were wide and scared in a pale face. Oh, God, what if Mulder died? Alarmed, she remembered that she didn't have time for this type of introspection. What if the doctor were out there right now, waiting to deliver news to her? She scrubbed ineffectively at the blood on her arms and hands, managing to remove most of it, and smear the rest. Making it's presence fainter but still a visible reminder. A physical link to Mulder. ***************************************************** PART III She threw down the towel and rushed from the room. The waiting room was empty. The nurse gave her a sympathetic glance when she stopped at the counter. "Why don't you sit down and fill out that paperwork, dear? It'll give you something to do." "Have you heard anything?" Her voice came out breathlessly. She realized that she was hyperventilating slightly. "They took him into surgery, dear." She reached out and patted Scully's hand. Unconscious of it, Scully pulled hers away. "That's a good sign, dear," the nurse promised. "You should try to relax." Yeah, right. Scully translated the message from nurse-speak'. At least he wasn't D.O.A., honey. Now go sit down and get out of my face so I can get my work done. Scully crossed back to 'her' chair, settling down with a direct line of sight to the doors that Mulder had disappeared through. She picked up the clipboard and started to fill out the information mindlessly. At some point, she realized that she wasn't even thinking about what she was writing. Mulder's personal history was as familiar to her as her own. Why shouldn't it be? After all, she was his personal physician of a sort. She'd worked on him enough, she should be able to fill out the medical history on him. Their insurance was the same. Next of kin. Oh, God, she should call his mother. The thought was unwelcome. If she called Teena Mulder, it made it all seem so real. So final. It needed to be done. She stood and crossed to the nurse. "Is there a phone nearby that I could use?" The nurse pointed down the hall a little ways, near the bathroom she'd been in. "Right there, dear." There was a phone sitting idle to the left of the woman's elbow, unoffered. Scully scowled and went to the payphone. She realized that she didn't know Mrs. Mulder's phone number. She called information and got the house in Quonochontaug. That was the right one, wasn't it? She dialed it and let the phone ring. And ring. And ring. No answer. She hung up. As she walked back down the hallway, she heard the increase in the volume of noise in the area she'd just abandoned. The waiting room was filling up with law enforcement personnel, filing in one by one to offer support. They stopped talking as she approached, once again her silent group of admirers. Skinner moved out of the crowd to face her. She stopped and looked up at him. He'd taken off his shirt, standing before her with the official F.B.I. jacket draped over the underlayer of a t-shirt, Mulder's handprints erased. There was nothing to say. She said something anyway. "He's in surgery." Skinner nodded. "How are you doing?" She shook her head. There was no answer to that question. Not one that she wanted to voice aloud anyway. She shrugged. He reached out to offer the strength of a touch but she moved out of his reach, crossing back to her vacated spot. Another officer was sitting there but he jumped up as she approached. She saw that it was the young man who'd knelt at Mulder's side. Her eyes warmed briefly. "Thanks," she said. He nodded. "No problem." He looked at her as if she were a deity. As if she possessed some secret to life and death. Right. She turned away. Picked up the clipboard on the table and crossed back to the nurse's station. "Here." It fell from her shaking hands, bouncing behind the counter to be caught quickly by the nurse. She watched the woman glance through it. Wondered if the smudges of Mulder's blood all over the paper from her hand bothered the woman. She watched her nod an affirmation that it was complete. Full insurance coverage. No HMO do-as- little-as-possible to worry about. She smiled at Scully. "Thank you, dear." For a second, Scully thought about asking the woman not to call her dear. For another second, she searched the woman's face to make sure that she was not a zombie. Get a hold of yourself, Dana, she admonished. If only this were a 'folie a deux' shared by herself and Mulder. An imaginary shooting. A figment of their collective imagination, supplied graciously by herself with the full complement of medical details. It was Scully who first recognized the newest entry into the scene as one of her own ilk. She rushed over to the woman in the spotless scrubs that everyone else had passed over as another nurse. Obviously called in from some relaxed day off. She caught her just before she disappeared from sight through the door that had swallowed Mulder. "Please," Scully managed. "I'm his partner," Sensing the woman was unmoved, she added. "Doctor Dana Scully. Can you tell me anything?" The woman's look changed from one of annoyance to sympathy. Or was it empathy? "Dr. Scully, I need to get in there." She said firmly. Something in her face hesitated. "I'm a cardiovascular specialist," she said by some small way of explanation. "I'm sure someone will be out soon to talk to you..." Bleakly, Scully let her go. Time passed. Hours. The police officers and F.B.I. personnel gradually relaxed into an almost casual waiting group. The air was not festive but it still disturbed her. She found their muted talk disruptive. They went for coffee and refreshments in pairs. Bringing back offerings to her. She refused all but one cup of coffee from the earnest young man. And that tasted like ashes to her. They left her alone, sensing the shell around her. That damnable touch-me-not air about her that allowed people to believe that she was strong enough to stand on her own. The problem was, right now, she couldn't even seem to stand. She remembered she hadn't gotten a hold of Mulder's mother and called Skinner over. He left to perform the unpleasant task. She thought about the few times that she'd met Fox Mulder's mother. Teena Mulder had never struck her as a very demonstrative woman. Even less so than herself, she thought with some irony. There was almost no feeling on her part connected to the woman. A small bit of sympathy for what she must have gone through, losing her daughter. The stroke that she was struggling back from. And other, less kind feelings toward her for what she'd put her son through. Mulder was decidedly taciturn when he had the opportunity to expound on his childhood, but he'd let a few things slip. She knew, after the disappearance of his sister, that it had not been easy for him. Definitely not easy. She'd read between the lines. Blatant abuse on his father's part. Shameful neglect on his mother's. No, she held no great affection for Mulder's mother. She imagined the older woman, walking into this room full of officers. Mostly men, filling the room with their impatient, expectant air. As if their presence would change the outcome. Their supremely egocentric self-confidence in their own ability to change their world, something that most men were spoon-fed throughout their lives, and which was magnified in the law enforcement field. Teena Mulder would stick out like a sore thumb, a seemingly shy and withdrawn, victimized woman. Hell, who was she kidding? She probably wouldn't even come. A small voice from her conscience berated her. Mulder's mother at least deserved the same amount of respect that Mulder himself would give her. Scully promised herself she'd offer that. How could she resent the woman who had given birth to Mulder? She needn't have worried about how to act when Mulder's mother came. Because she didn't. It was now late evening, though Scully had barely been aware of the passage of time. Mulder had been in surgery for tenuous hours. Mrs. Mulder would need someone to drive her so she had to wait until morning to receive assistance. Scully grimaced. She should have known. Mulder was, once more, a victim of circumstances. Hours more passed. Hours that held no promises. No assurances. "He's still in surgery, dear...No, I don't know what they're doing...I'm sure that the doctors are doing all that's possible." Empty words of empty meaning. Even Skinner's cross examination of the woman produced no results. It seemed that there were no doctors to be spared in talking to them. That fact alone frightened Scully. Were they that short staffed? If they needed an extra pair of hands, then for god's sake, let her in there. She sat numbly in the chair. Skinner sat beside her but sensed her withdrawal. He didn't try to speak to her. No one did. She put her head in her hands helplessly. At some point, fatigue slammed into her like a brick wall. It seemed like the worst of personal affronts. Mulder could be dying in there and her body wanted to go to sleep. It was an unthinkable betrayal. It was an inescapable fact. The toll that the events of the day had taken on her. Her eyes closed for brief moments of unconsciousness, only to snap open at the smallest noise, reality blending with nightmare. But the truth was, her body's betrayal was symptomatic of her feelings about that wait. The truth was, her time in the waiting room made absolutely no significant contribution to Mulder's struggle. The end of this time was also anticlimactic. Not a resolution but rather a prelude to another extended period of waiting. A man exited the offending door. A doctor. His scrubs were not clean. They spoke of twelve long hours of surgery. She stood and moved toward him and the crowd of officers parted before her like the Red Sea, then followed. He held out a hand to shake her blood stained one. His were scrubbed clean of any trace of Mulder. His expression was sober but careful. Not giving anything away. This was an experienced doctor. "Dr. Gray," he said quietly, glancing around his audience, and then lowering his voice to address Scully. Realizing somehow that she was the 'next of kin' in this group. "I'm the Chief Neurologist here." She shook his hand with a sinking feeling. "Doctor Dana Scully," she said weakly. Wanting him to know she was a doctor. To give her the real picture. Not some idiot's version, dummied down for the comprehension of the masses. "Oh..." He paused. "You're his partner, right?" She nodded. "I'm a forensic pathologist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation," she explained impatiently, annoyed at the delay. "Please...is he...?" The doctor took her arm and led her away from the others. Her heart slammed against her chest. Oh god, please no! The rush of adrenaline chased away any thought of ever sleeping again. He stopped by the door to the operating room, a few yards from the others. She noticed that A.D. Skinner had also followed and the doctor acknowledged his presence with a nod that took far too long. She waited for him to speak another interminably long moment, her knees threatening to give out. "Agent Mulder is in very critical condition," he began quietly. Thank God! The first small tendrils of hope crept through her numbed nerve endings. He was alive. Thank God, he was still alive. She'd expected the doctor to start this conversation with words of apology. The cool, 'I'm very sorry but...' Now, she stood shaking, and assimilated that there was a least a chance, however slim. "Are you the one who worked on him at the scene?" he asked. She was able to force a nod. "You did a good job," he admitted. But his eyes said something else. Like maybe he knew that she'd gone beyond some unspoken do-not-resuscitate rule. She grew angry. "What damage did the bullets do?" she asked tightly. "The most critical injury was obviously the chest wound, as I'm sure you know. The bullet nicked the left subclavian artery, passed through the left brachiocephalic vein and also through the left lobe of the lung. The massive internal hemorrhaging was what caused the cardiac arrest. He responded to open heart massage and we managed to get the hemorrhaging under control. We've given him six units of blood so far, drained the thoracic cavity and repaired the damage...." He stopped. So did her own heart momentarily. It started with a worrisome flutter of it's own irregular palpitations when he spoke again. "The abdominal wound ruptured his spleen and perforated his intestines. There was also substantial internal hemorrhaging there. We removed the spleen and repaired the intestine." He cleared his throat. "The third bullet passed through the diaphragm, compromising its integrity. There was some bleeding from small arteries there. We did the best we could to repair all the damage while replacing enough fluids so that we could restore his blood pressure and circulation..." He stopped and sighed. "It's up to him, now, Dr. Scully. He's by no means out of the woods. The combination of circulatory shock, cardiac and pulmonary arrest, well..." His eyes said he shouldn't need to tell her the odds of recovery for that combination. They were there but they were small. Infinitessimal. "On a more hopeful note, your response was quick and it's possible that we hit that golden hour." He was referring to the window where response made a difference in the ultimate outcome of life or death. "The bullets could have done a lot more damage," he offered almost insincerely. She hesitated before asking the question that she knew she had to. Eleven minutes, a little voice whispered to her. "What about neurological function?" She couldn't even say the words 'brain damage'. "He's still with us, Dr. Scully. "There's no cessation of brain activity." She heaved a short lived sigh of relief. "However, his tissues were deprived of oxygen for the maximum window on that one. There's decreased response to stimuli but I'd expect that at this point. We'll have to wait until he regains consciousness...and evaluate it then..." She could tell that he stopped himself from saying 'if he regains consciousness'. "I want to see him." she stated. It wasn't a question. She expected it. Let them try and stop her. He nodded. "Briefly," he warned. "I'll bring you up to ICU." She walked away from Skinner and the others without a backward glance. The ICU area was closely guarded and monitored by a group of nurses. Scully walked among them numbly, letting the neurosurgeon lead her to Mulder's side. And there he was. Alive and yet not. Hooked to a respirator, a heart monitor, oxygen, I.V.s, catheter...every orifice sported a tube of some sort. Every bodily function appeared to be supported or performed by some type of machine. He had a tubes trailing from his chest and abdominal cavity, draining out the last of the internal bleeding. Tubes everywhere. His eyes had protective tape over them. Little discs of white. Only his ears were unobstructed. He was barely recognizable as a human being, let alone Mulder. The sight could not have been more welcome to her. She sat in a chair provided by one of the nurses and tentatively touched his hand. Maybe he could hear her, if nothing else. "I'm here, Mulder. You've got to fight this. Maybe more than you've fought for anything, yet." The machine blipped reassuringly behind her, measuring each beat that he was miraculously sustaining himself. It sounded like a strong, steady rhythm. In direct contrast to the respirator that forcibly breathed for him with an unnaturally even, hissing pump. "I know you can hear me, Mulder." Unconsciously, her fingers played over his, caressing each one. "Please fight this..." The nurses asked her to leave at some point a few minutes later and she quietly refused. It might have gotten ugly but at about that time, the cardiovascular surgeon she'd questioned outside the operating room came in to see her patient. After a short discussion with Scully and then the nurses, she allowed Scully to stay. She had straight blond hair and warm eyes. She was young and Scully was shocked when she pressed her hand on Scully's arm and said, "I know what it feels like. My husband died of a heart attack when he was thirty and I couldn't do a thing, despite all my training. At the very least, you want to be here." They had a long conversation about Mulder's prognosis. She held back no punches. Warned Scully of the dangers ahead that she already knew about. And lastly, gave her a message of hope. "It's uncanny, but he came back like I've never seen in a patient that far gone. A good strong rhythm." She was the one who'd held Mulder's heart and massaged it back to life. Scully felt an irrational twinge of jealousy but it could not quell her growing respect for this likable woman. "Stay here and talk to him. It helps, Dana. Bring him back." It took days for him to regain consciousness. But each day that he made it through promised more. Looking back on those days was pointless. They were full of monotonous, unrewarded bedside vigils. Of ceaseless worry that what she'd brought back was only the shell of Mulder. When he finally did wake up, she was the first thing he saw. Asleep in the chair beside his bed, she dozed in the early hours of the morning, with the sun peeking low through the blinds. Something woke her. A slight pressure on her hand. When she opened her eyes, his head was turned to the side, his eyes open and watching her. She was silent, gripping his hand tightly. Afraid that his tired looking eyes held secrets that she didn't want to discover. That she could be there the first time he opened his eyes was a memory she held close to her for a long time. His first words, spoken from cracked, unused vocal chords, were, like the old cliche said, music to her ears. "Hey, Scully," he rasped. "You look like hell..." She felt the grin spreading across her face unchecked. "Thanks." Gradually, the painful reality of his wounds would become known to him and the sequence of events that had transpired would return in vivid detail. He would be complaining to the nurses, begging for more morphine and eventually becoming a surly and taciturn patient. She would fight many battles with him over what he could and could not attempt and spend countless hours trying to distract him from his discomforts. This would be a long, boring and extremely painful healing process for Fox Mulder and Dana Scully both. But that first awakening, in a pleasant, drug induced absence of sensation, he could afford to participate in an exchange of infuriatingly wonderful, teasing banter between them. And she knew, and was thankful, that his keen intellect had not been destroyed by a madman's bullets. She had, indeed, brought Mulder back whole and sound. So she smiled and squeezed his hand gently, enjoying his endearing attempt to make light of the situation, and braced herself for the eventual return of her most difficult patient. "Welcome back, Mulder," she whispered. To life. There was one last thing that she had to do to erase the nightmare memory of his still and lifeless form that had haunted her throughout the long days and nights of waiting. She leaned in close to him and touched her lips briefly against his own, enjoying the sensation of warmth and life. If not quite sensual, you had to cut him a break. He was only moments out of a coma and lying prone in a hospital bed. "What was that for?" he asked with evident confusion and some trepidation. But his fingers played slightly against hers and she thought she heard a small sigh of content. "That's a pretty long story, Mulder." Seconds long. Minutes long. A lifetime long. His first tentative smile into a new day was solely for her benefit. The first glimmers of pain showed in the wrinkling of his brow. "Did you have something to do with this, Scully?" he asked suspiciously. She nodded. "Yes, Mulder. I did." THE END **************************************************** feedback will be duly acknowledged and greatly appreciated at katy2blue@aol.com or kbxf@aol.com or katyblue2@hotmail.com. This is my first story, so go gently, fellow philes... :)