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Title: A Ring Around The Rosy... Summary: Scully attempts to deal with Mulder's return after a crisis.
March 6, 2002 My eyes open slowly and the distinct, painful realization of exactly where I am washes over me like a cold wave of sorrow. My heart sinks, for it was not a dream, not just some subconscious fear of a new mother playing itself out in the shadow lands of nightmares. I am not waking up in my bed; these are not my cool, crisp linen sheets under me. Instead, I can hear the crinkle of vinyl beneath me as I move and the blanket over me is clearly stamped over and over with PROPERTY OF G.W.U.M.C. Rather than waking to the scent of fresh paint, new carpet and early morning Mulder, I'm greeted by the smell of what can only be described as hospital: antiseptic to the core. The sound of my son's heartbeat fills the room, and the crisp staccato of children's laughter invades from down the hall. It brings back a memory of my pre-med days, when I would volunteer in the pedes unit. No matter how horrible the ailment, the children could always laugh. They are a resilient lot. Christopher will be equally as resilient, I promise myself, as I view his small body. He's still not conscious. His injured brain needs time to heal, but it will heal. I stand up to check on him and I notice Mulder sleeping in the chair opposite of me, just on the other side of our baby. I let out a sigh. My heart will need time to heal from this one. I look at my watch, amazed at how such a small amount of sleep could feel like so much after not sleeping for twenty-four hours. I wonder when Mulder deemed us worthy of his presence. No, Dana, stop that. I said it over and over to myself all night. I will hear what he has to say first. I will be fair. I will be an impartial jury listening to all the facts before branding him guilty of abandonment. Damn. So much for impartiality. I sit back down on my stiff, crinkling chair and gaze over the two people in life I care for most. The one, totally helpless without me. Christopher. The other is like a moth driven to a flame, always on a quest for something and never quite reaching it. Or reaching it without realizing the consequences: moths on quests almost always get burned. Those who do return often face the realization that the nice, warm moth left behind waiting for them is an equal foe as that flame. He doesn't need me for his quest anymore. Sometimes I'm not sure he ever needed me at all. The word 'trust' has been tossed around so many times in this relationship that it must be getting dizzy by now. Trust no one, Scully. You're the only one I trust, Scully. I can think of a million different cliché ways to illustrate trust. Trust is the keystone in an arch: take it away and it all falls. Trust is the foundation of a house: take it away and it all falls. Trust is this and trust is that. The only word I've heard more is 'truth.' I would love to tell Mulder a few things about the truth behind trust right now. He should have been here yesterday. I trusted him to come through, and he didn't. Instead, he was off on some spree for the truth. Trust me, Scully. The truth will save us. Those two damn words keep butting heads. "Hello, Dr. Scully, did you get some rest?" Christopher's nurse asks quietly as she comes through the door. "Yes, thank you. Are you still here? What kind of shifts do they have you working?" I ask, amazed that I have seen this woman since after midnight and she still looks happy. "I pull three twelve hour shifts a week. I will be going home soon but I just wanted to stop by and see how Christopher was doing before I left," she says, picking up his chart and glancing over it, "I never asked, Dr. Scully, but what hospital do you work at?" "I don't. I'm a forensic pathologist for the FBI. I'm teaching at Quantico right now," I say to her, barely even able to remember the conversation in which my being a doctor came up. Perhaps my mother told her. "Well, at least your patients don't bite or wiggle away," she says. "You'd be surprised," I mutter under my breath. She walks to the other side of the bed and nearly trips over Mulder's feet. "Your husband?" she asks, lowering the level of her voice to accommodate the sleeping form she just walked by. "No," is all I answer. "Well, I'm guessing by looking at these two that dad finally showed up." "He usually does. Sooner or later," I say, and she starts writing something on Chris' chart. "Ok, Dr. Scully. The neurologist said he'd be in here in a few minutes, but you know how doctors are. At least with your patients, time is no longer important, right?" I want to say something about the need to gather evidence promptly and that time is of the essence in solving gruesome murders, but I let it go. "I usually don't get many complaints that I'm dallying around too much," I say instead. "Like I said, Dr. Bartlett will be here in a few minutes to give you a better assessment. I will be back in the middle of the night. I hope not to see you here..." she says with a wink and a smile, fully knowing that we will probably be right where she is leaving us. My child is an innocent in all of this. He is paying for the sins of his parents. I pray to God that he does not have to pay for the rest of his life. I love Christopher with what I can only define as mother love. Nothing in the heavens could stop my love for him. Nothing would keep me from going to the ends of the earth for him. If he died, they would have to pry my body away from his grave site. My arms would ache from the loss of him. My heart would stop beating. I am sure of it. A new respect for my mother's loss has formed since I became a mother myself. Tears begin to fall from my eyes just thinking of it. One tear drop falls off of my cheek and lands on his small hand. I wipe it off, wanting desperately to be strong for him. Is there another love like this? Can anything compare? There is Mulder. He has gone to the ends of the earth for me. He has given up everything for me. Yet, he wasn't here yesterday. I want to have faith that he will be there always, not just when it suits him. I can feel someone watching me and I look up from my child. My eyes meet Mulder's eyes, still groggy with sleep. "Mulder, you look like hell," is all that comes out of my mouth. "So I've been told." I look back down upon Christopher. I don't know what to say to Mulder next, how to define for him the loss of trust I experienced yesterday. I place my hand on my son's arm and gently stroke his soft, baby skin. Mulder stands up, stretches and places his hand over mine. "Dana...I'm sorry," he says, using my given name for the first time in months. He must mean it, but it is not enough right now. "Sorry for what, Fox..." I say, his name buzzing off of my lips and stinging his ears. I am sorry for this as soon as it leaves my mouth. I don't want to argue in front of Christopher. He needs his parents to be strong. Mulder turns his eyes downward, away from my stare. When he looks back up at me, his eyes are filled with sorrow. His hand has not moved from mine, but is instead holding mine tighter. "Scully, this wasn't an accident." "Nothing in our life has ever been an accident, Mulder. Right down to how we had this baby. Why would this be the first accident in..." I look down at my watch for effect, then am shocked by the date that nearly passed by unnoticed. "Ten years," he finishes for me. We are both silent for a minute, as if this anniversary was deserving of some special reverence. As if we are both remembering all that has been lost due to this partnering. "I was hoping it was an accident, Scully. I was hoping cancer man was lying to me," Mulder says, "Cancer man?" I ask, for this is the first I've heard of him being involved in all of this. When I called Skinner early this morning to see if he had heard from Mulder, he didn't mention cancer man. "He met me in the parking lot the first time I arrived here. That is why I had to go where I did. I had to know. I would never leave you two unless I had to." I say nothing. The unspoken tension between us is pure electric, ready to spark into something fiery any minute now. "Dr. and Mr. Scully? How are you this afternoon?" a man asks, causing our contact to break. Mulder and I turn to look at the source of the question. The neurologist. "We're tired. Dr. Bartlett, this is Christopher's father, Fox Mulder," I say, introducing the two men. "I'm glad you could both be here. I have some good news from the tests we ran at 6:00 a.m. They indicate that there shouldn't be any permanent damage to Christopher's brain or to his spinal column. Actually, I believe that he should regain consciousness in the next twenty-four hours," the doctor says confidently. I hear Mulder sigh with relief, and some of the stress washes from my body. "We will just have to wait and see from this point," the doctor continues. He then goes on to tell us about his further treatment plans, but even my medically trained mind has turned into a parent's mind. I can't stop focusing on the fact that there will be no permanent damage. He finishes his exam of Christopher and them picks up the binder containing our son's charts. "I'll be back in a few hours," Dr. Bartlett says as he walks out the door. The second that he is gone, my facade of the always-together mother, doctor, and FBI agent crumbles and I begin to sob with relief. Mulder puts his arms around me and pulls me close. "Mulder, you smell like..." I start to say, my nose wrinkling up. "I've been told that, too." We stand together holding on to each other for several minutes. We are always the last person left in the world for the other. The only one who truly understands this life we lead. He pushes away from me slightly and lifts the last tear drop off of my cheek with his thumb. "Scully, I did find out something last night. A name I need to contact. We might get to the bottom of this sooner than I thought," he says. "What if there is no bottom?" I ask, "What if they keep you jumping through hoops for the rest of your life?" "I have always been a firm believer that I will eventually jump through the hoop with all the answers, Scully." I smile for the first time in over twenty-four hours and he pulls me close again. "I am so sorry. I had to find out. It was the only way I could think to save him." he whispers to me. He and I both sit down again in our chairs opposite each other and wait. March 6, 2002 Mulder is on the phone with his mother while I cradle my son close to my chest. He regained consciousness late in the afternoon. Except for the leg splint, one could swear nothing happened to him. The doctor even said he'd never seen anything like it. "No, Mom. You don't have to come down right away... next week will be fine," Mulder tells his mother. I called her yesterday to let her know about her grandson, and she was upset that she couldn't get down here. She and Mulder have always had a rocky relationship, to say the least. She does love Christopher, though. Maybe she wants to make up for something she lost. "Yes, she's fine...Uh, I don't know...ok...I will pick you up next week...you, too, Mom. Bye," he says, putting the phone back down. "Is she less worried now that she has spoken to you?" I ask him. "No. She still thinks she should be here. I wish she had been that devoted to me when..." "Mulder, that is the difference between grandchildren and children. You don't play out the same mistakes twice," I say to him. "And here I always thought it was you got to feed grandchildren a lot of sugary foods and send them home," he adds. "That, too. Mulder, can you hold Christopher for a few minutes. I want to run down to the cafeteria and get something to drink. Do you want anything?" I ask him, as I gently hand Chris over to him. "Something sweet and loaded with caffeine," he says to me and I leave the room. I walk down the hall and a few doors down I see a mother holding her child and rocking him. I can tell by the look on the people's faces standing outside the door that she lost her baby. She is singing "Ring around the Rosy" to him in a voice that could only belong to an angel. "A pocket full of posies... ashes, ashes...we all fall down..." She just keeps singing it over and over. No one dares move to take the baby from her. I wonder if she knows the true meaning behind this children's rhyme? That could have been me. So easily, I could be the one singing to my son's body. I feel as if I'm an intruder to her last precious moments with her child and I move on, even if my thoughts don't. Eventually, I realize I am being followed around the maze of hospital corridors. I look back to see a man I swear I saw in the ER yesterday. I pick up the pace, but the footsteps are still there. My heartbeat is quickening and my mind, which is already dizzy from a lack of sleep, begins spinning. The only thing I can think of is making it back up to Mulder. I do not have my weapon, but Mulder has his. The elevator is crowded with people trying to make it here for the last few minutes of visiting hours. I see the strange man enter the stairwell. I make it back to the pedes unit and rush back to the room. "Scully, what's wrong?" Mulder asks, as I step through the door. I can feel that my face is flushed and my respiration rate is stepped up. "I was being followed. I saw the same man yesterday, in the ER. He followed me down to the cafeteria. Mulder, how deep does this all go?" I ask. "I don't know," he says, standing and handing me Christopher, "but I'm going to find out." His attempts to leave the room are blocked by a nurse. "Did Dr. Bartlett leave Christopher's chart in here?" she asks us. "No, he took it with him." Mulder answers. "That's strange. It seems that everything relating to Christopher, right down to the X-rays, is missing," she says, looking at the two of us. "Damn it!" Mulder says, "Can't they just let us have something." "For now, Mulder, they let us have Christopher. That is enough," I say to him. The end
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