All the usual disclaimers still apply, the ones about X-Files belonging to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen, Fox etc. Still borrowing. Still broke. In fact I'm beginning to wonder if my Macputer will ever be paid for! I don't care who posts it where so long as my name is attached. Story Summary: This is a post "Demons" story. Scully takes Mulder home from the hospital and deals with the after affects of Dr. Goldstein's treatment and her own anger at him for ditching her yet again. Not a romance, but a bit "shippy." Lot's of caring. Mild flirting. Rated R for some language and innuendo. I finished this story on May 18, 1997. All feedback can be sent to macspooky@erols.com. I do have a webpage addy http://aol.members.com/Macspooky/index.html but alas one must go to Gossamer to download any of my stories anyway. "Back from Hell" by Macspooky "Are you going to shoot me, Mulder?" Dana Scully asked her partner softly. "Is that how much this means to you?" Having entered the Mulder's summer home alone and seeing him in the condition he was, she forgot her own exhaustion. Adrenaline was pumping into her system at a fantastic rate. She had talked him into turning the gun away from himself only to have him turn it on her. She offered up a prayer that the SWAT team outside wouldn't come blundering in while she was trying to talk him down. He was extremely volatile just now. In his drug induced state, Fox Mulder started to squeeze the trigger and she closed her eyes bracing herself for the inevitable. What did it matter? She was dying anyway despite what she kept trying to tell herself. It did though. It mattered for him. If he killed her....... She heard gun fire but miraculously felt no pain. Her eyes opened and she saw that somehow he had found the strength to turn away from her as he pulled the trigger. Fox Mulder set the gun down on the floor and collapsed to his knees in utter defeat. She moved toward him quickly pushing the gun away. Then Dana lay her hands and her head head against her partner's back. His tee shirt was soaked in perspiration and he needed a shower desperately, but that was okay. She needed to touch him. He needed her touch. With the weapon out of reach, it was still possible that things would be okay. "When," she asked herself, "was this ever going to end?" She wanted to just lay down beside him and hold him in her arms, hold him and make everything alright, but in their lives nothing was alright. It was becoming harder and harder to remember when anything had been. She wanted to throttle him for what he had just done to himself. She wanted to tell herself she didn't understand, but she did. She wanted to embrace him and to sleep for hours beside him and awake to living a normal life. It was all part of her schizophrenic existance with Fox Mulder. "It's okay, Mulder," she said softly, gently. The impulse to nurture prevailed. "We'll get you to a hospital and everything will be alright." The door burst open suddenly and they were surrounded by police officers with guns drawn. Her prayer had been answered. They had come in at the right moment. "Are you alright Agent Scully?" "Yes....I'm fine. He...he wouldn't hurt me. He's my partner. We need the paramedics in here now." She sat up, uncomfortable at having been found embracing him as she had. Mulder had sunk to the floor completely and his body was shaking. He cried out again and grabbed his head. turning on his side. She knew he was having another seizure, and there was nothing else she could do until it was over. At least now he would go to the hospital. At least now he would get the tests he needed. She repressed the anger that rose in her throat....again. As they strapped him to the gurney he looked up at his partner and whispered, "You should have let me do it, Scully......You should have let me shoot myself." There was such pain in his eyes. It was a good thing he was restrained. He had another seizure. "You have poison in your system, Mulder. Tomorrow you'll be glad I stopped you," she said softly when it ended. She felt helpless. She squeezed his hand. Then she turned to the paramedics and issued some further orders. "I'll meet you at the hospital, Mulder. It's going to be okay. You are going to be okay." She wished that she was sure she believed it. Finally, wearily, she climbed behind the wheel of her car and followed the ambulance. Two long days passed. She had stayed with Mulder during much of that time sleeping when she could catch a nap, discussing his prognosis with the neurologist and a cardiologist. She had also spent time on the phone with Skinner and his mother. Skinner had been the far easier of the two to deal with. She had had an uncomfortable time with Mrs. Mulder, however. Whatever had transpired between mother and son at the house had not been nice. Exhausted as she had been, she had offered to go and pick up the older woman so that she could visit her son at the hospital, but the woman had refused the offer. She hadn't come. It had broken Scully's heart to see the way he kept looking at the door when he had awakened hoping that his mom would appear. Mulder didn't feel good about whatever had happened, and he had needed the visit. She was his mother and mothers were supposed to love you no matter what. They were especially supposed to love you when you were sick. They were supposed to understand. It had become obvious to Dana during her talk with Mrs. Mulder, that his mom did not view it this way, however, and she felt helpless to offer him any consolation. Dana wondered if she could bear the pain if her own mother were to turn her back on her. She also found herself wondering about the older woman. She knew that her partner treated Mrs. Mulder as though she were some sort of fragile spun glass, however, it seemed to her that the woman had survived in far better shape than her son had. Worse yet though, he wouldn't talk to her, wouldn't discuss his dreams or what had possessed him to go back to Dr. Goldstein knowing that the treatment that the man rendered had already killed three people. When she tried to ask, he would shut his eyes and murmer that he was tired or that he didn't remember. She didn't push him...not then, but she knew he was lying. She always knew when he wasn't telling her the truth. His body had been through too much, and although the interval between seizures lengthened, no one knew just what permanent damage had been done to him. Still, she knew they would have to talk about it. The real trouble didn't start, however, until she got him home to DC. He insisted on checking himself out of the hospital at least a day before the doctors thought he was ready, before she thought he was ready, before the goddamed medical insurance even thought it was time. She was angry with him for defying the physicians once again, including her. They had been silent in the car all the way down from Rhode Island. All attempts to get him to open up to her had failed as dismally has her arguments to get him to stay put, as dismally as all her arguments always failed with him. Dana Scully pulled up in front of his building. "Thanks for the ride," he said hopping out. It was a dismissal. She knew the confrontation that she had dreaded was at hand. "Oh, no you don't, Mulder," she announced getting out with him. "You aren't getting rid of me that easily." She followed him into the building and the elevator. He wasn't going to make things easy, but then he never did. "And just what is that supposed to mean?" he inquired digging out his key and sliding it into the lock of his apartment door. He wanted time alone.....time to think. She had been there almost the entire time at the hospital and there had been doctors and nurses poking and prodding at him constantly. He didn't want company just then. They stepped inside. "It means, Mulder, that you can't be alone yet. The full effects of the medicine haven't worn off. You heard the doctors. You heard me. You need to pack a bag. You are coming to stay with me for a few days until we are sure you are finished having flashbacks and seizures. It was foolish of you to insist on leaving the hospital today." "No," he informed her. "Then I'm staying here with you and that is going to be very crowded and uncomfortable." She desperately wanted to go home, get him settled in and sleep but she would stay here if she had to even if it meant sleeping on the floor. He didn't have anyone else, not even a mother any more. "No," he replied once again. "Look, Scully...I'm grateful....I....." "God damn you, Fox Mulder....." she roared her temper suddenly snapping. under the strain of all she had been through. If she had had something in her hand, she would have thrown it. "I don't want your goddam gratitude. I've had just about enough. I get a call in the middle of the first good night's sleep I've had in a week. I drive to Rhode Island to find you in shock.....This whole week you have been questioning me, my medical judgement...I'm sick of it. Do you hear me? I'm goddam sick of it." She moved toward him and he took a step back. "Look, Scully I......" His partner was normally so controlled. They had had their arguments over the years, but he had never seen her angry like this before. "Don't you dare me you sorry son of a bitch. You ditched me again. You broke your promise. You goddamed mother f**king bastard, you pocketed my car keys and you ran off to go and let some nutcase psychiatrist drug you with horse medicine and drill holes in your head....Now you either pack a bag and come with me until we are sure you are okay, or I am walking out this door and getting on the phone with Skinner asking for a transfer as of yesterday." She felt her heart break as she said it, but she knew she would not be able to back down. She stared up at him defiantly with her fists clenched. No, her heart hadn't broken....it had already been broken time after time, each time he ditched her. The rift inside had just grown wider again. That was all. One day, she knew it would crack apart completely. She'd just been hiding the break even from herself. "It will be granted, Agent Scully," said a tough sounding voice from behind them. Walter Skinner stood in the door. He had heard the entire conversation. They were so angry at each other they hadn't bothered to close it. "I heard you were coming home. I stopped by to see if you were alright." Skinner was pissed at Mulder. Although there had been a lot that Scully hadn't said in her reports to him, he had gotten damned good at reading between the lines with these two. Mulder had gone off and done something stupid and landed in the hospital again. Of course, he had called his partner to come and bail him out...again...and, knowing Mulder, was probably not following doctor's orders either. "I'm fine," snapped Mulder. "He is not fine," replied Dana, still very angry but sighing in relief that the cavalry had arrived even if it was in the form of Walter Skinner. "He needs to be monitored for a few days. He should have stayed in the hospital. I know it might be against regulations, Sir, but I want him to stay at my place in my spare room for the next 48 to 72 hours until we are sure the drug he was given has left his system. If he won't go, then he needs a private nurse and that will take some time to arrange and I'm just....I'm just too goddamed tired to deal with it right now." She immediately wished she hadn't said it. She didn't like to appear weak or vulnerable, especially not know, not knowing the doubts Skinner was having about keeping her in the field anyway. Skinner nodded almost imperceptibly. In his state, whatever state that might be, Mulder had lost sight of something. Scully still had cancer. She was pushing herself beyond human endurance for him and he hadn't even noticed. In reality, Skinner had doubts about her ability to continue to do fieldwork, but he was afraid that if he put her behind a desk, she would give up and the end for them both would come all the more quickly. Mulder would fall apart without his partner. "By all accounts, Agent Mulder," said Skinner in a quiet tone but one that brooked no nonsense, "you've had a difficult time. You don't want to lose your partner. I know you better than that. I've seen what you were like without her before. I suggest you comply with Agent Scully's wishes in this matter, because you are not coming back to work until I get the go ahead from her." "I don't need either of you," he said sullenly, but it was half hearted. He had known he was defeated the moment Scully had threatened to walk. He could take almost anything, but not the loss of his partner. When she wasn't with him, he pined for her as he had never been able to imagine anyone pining for another person. "I'll pack a bag," he conceded finally, "But for the record, this is not necessary." "This conversation is not on the record, Mulder," snapped Skinner "because if it were, you'd be out of a job. I should do you a favor and get you booted out on disability, but you are very good at what you do when you aren't going off on a crusade to get yourself killed. Now go pack, and don't let me hear you gave your partner any more trouble or you'll have a new one so fast you won't know what hit you and I assure you it will not be another Dana Scully. In fact, I might just boot your ass back to VCS and turn the X-Files over to someone else. You are really tempting me, Agent Mulder." As Mulder went to get some clothes, Skinner turned to Dana Scully. "The local police spoke very highly of you Agent Scully, both your investigative skills and your professionalism under fire." "Thank you, Sir." "If you need anything, call." "I will, Sir. Thank you for your support." "Good luck," he said with a twitch of amusement. "I think you may need it over the next few days." With that, he turned and left. Mulder and Scully had one of the strongest partnerships he had ever come across. He envied them. They loved each other and had yet somehow managed to remain professional above all else. He did not believe the rumors that they were sleeping together. He suspected that Agent Scully might have liked to but that Mulder was oblivious to everything but his work. Whatever he did for sex, it wasn't sleeping with his partner. Dana Scully's Apartment An Hour Later His dignity in shreds after a silence filled ride, Mulder slammed his way into her spare room and closed the door with a bang. Scully sighed. Skinner was right. It was going to be long 72 hours or whatever. Thank God Skinner had appeared when he had. She hadn't been coping well. She was so tired. She needed to sleep. With a sigh, she went to the linen closet and got some sheets. When she entered her spare room he had already stripped to his boxers and was laying on the couch staring at the ceiling with a royal case of the sulks. "Up," she ordered sounding rather like her dad on a Saturday morning when the kids hadn't done their Friday chores. "I thought you wanted me to rest." "I do. I'm going to open the bed, put on some clean sheets and you are going to rest properly. Now, up." He sighed and got up. She sounded like a goddam drill sergeant or something. "You know something, Scully, women are a real pain in the ass." "Yeah....well, fine, whatever.....I'll buy you a large box of Preperation H to keep things under control," she snapped. She glared up at him suddenly not caring that his system still had God only knew what in it. She was sick of the attitude. Just then, her nose began to drip blood. Wiping at it with her sleeve, she ordered him to get some sleep. This time he didn't argue. His entire expression and demeanor changed. A drop of blood had fallen on the pillow, her blood. He would sleep with it. The sight had been a reality check. It seemed as though she had just barely stopped the nosebleed and fallen asleep when she heard his cries through the wall. She leapt into instant wakefulness and ran to the spare room. He was covered in sweat once again. It looked as though he might have had a seizure but she couldn't tell for certain. "Mulder....." she shook him. "Mulder, wake up. Mulder....you're dreaming....." It was as she had feared. The effects of Dr. Goldstein's treatment were not going to disappear immediately. "Why did you wake me up? You keep waking me up. I want to know. I need to know. The dreams are leaving me and you keep waking me up." He turned his back to her and curled into a fetal position. "Go away, Scully. Go away and leave me alone." He didn't want to think about the drop of blood on the pillow. He didn't want to think about his partner having cancer. He just wanted to remember his past. "Is that what you really want, Mulder?" she asked gently taking his pulse by laying her fingers against his neck. It was racing. She smoothed his hair. Her temper was back under control now and she sensed he needed gentleness not anger. "I just want to know the truth about my family," he turned over on his back and looked at her. "And these dreams, Mulder, what truth are they telling you?" "I don't want to talk about it now. I'm tired. I want to go back to sleep." "Okay," she said softly, "but when you wake up again, you are going to have something to eat and we are going to talk about this. Make no mistake about it." "Okay boss lady......" his eyelids were growing heavy once again. He'd put it off somehow when the time came. "Um....thanks...Scully....." he managed to add even though he wasn't feeling particularly thankful. Why couldn't they...she...understand that he was so close...if only he could finish the dream....With a sigh, she lay down next to him on the sofa bed. It wasn't her nice warm comfortable queen sized bed, but if he had another seizure, she wanted to be nearby. Damn him, she knew that if Dr. Goldstein was not in jail, he would go right back for more "treatment." Sleep overtook her quickly. When she finally awakened several hours later, he was deeply and peacefully asleep. Relieved, she thought it safe to leave him and go to her kitchen. Mulder woke slowly, his mouth feeling like an army had marched through it and his bladder ready to burst. He staggered to her bathroom and then into her kitchen. He smelled coffee. It wasn't really coffee that he was looking for though, it was something to drink. He felt horribly thirsty. He had been having nightmares through most the night, not the sort that caused him to wake up, but horrible scary dreams about being a little boy and powerlessness....dreams of yelling and shouting and Samantha saying over and over "Fox I'm afraid. I'm afraid Fox." Somewhere in the background blood had been dripping, Scully's blood. It had been a long time before he had finally drifted into any sort of restful sleep. Wordlessly he went to her refrigerator and was glad to see a large pitcher of orange juice sitting there. He grabbed a glass from the dish drainer and poured. "Morning," she said quietly entering the room. "Hi, Scully I......" "It's okay. Think your stomach would tolerate some scrambled eggs and toast?" She hoped he had had an apology formed, but somehow didn't want to test that possibility out. "Yeah.....I mean I guess....that...yeah...that would be good." He was aware that he had treated her like a piece of shit and supposed that the smart move for her would have been to walk yesterday. He nodded thanks when she put the plate in front of him, but he didn't say anything. It was going to be a rough day, she knew. Until and unless he opened up to her, their partnership was never going to be the same. As she looked at him, she knew it in a sudden flash of insight. Then she quietly picked up the morning paper and began to read leaving him to his own thoughts. As he finished the eggs and toast, he glanced across the table at her. She was beautiful even in the morning before her hair was even fully combed. What would other people think of this scene? It looked so normal...a man and a woman sitting across from one another at a breakfast table. If things had been different, perhaps they could be married and this an every day occurence, but things weren't different. He thought about the flash of insight he had had in Home when he had first seen his partner as a mother with a baby in her arms. No, things weren't different. She had cancer and he had a vial of her ova tucked away in his office. Everyone was out to get them and he was a mess, a horrible neurotic mess. The words in his dreams suddenly started to repeat themselves....you're a spy....your just a little spy.....Suddenly, he felt dirty. He got up and walked away. He had finished breakfast anyway. Dana finished the article she was reading and rinsed the dishes placing them neatly in the dishwasher. Then she decided that it was time to check on Mulder. She heard water running in her bathtub and cursed silently. That was not a good place for him to be right now. She knocked and when she got no answer she entered quickly. He was lying back, the steam rising around him. His head rested against her bath pillow. She saw immediately that he was breathing normally and went over and turned off the water. Pulling up a step stool that she kept nearby she sat down beside him. "Mulder," she said gently, "if you had another seizure in the tub, you could drown. You shouldn't be in here alone. You should have told me you were going to take a bath." "You aren't my goddam mother," he snapped his eyes opening. He was immediately sorry because he knew she was right. She looked so stricken and he had promised himself he would not become irritable with her. "I didn't think of it," he said softly. "I'm sorry, Scully. I'm sorry about a lot of things." He supposed he should have been embarressed to have her here, but couldn't quite muster the energy. "That's your biggest problem, Mulder. You don't think," she said somewhat mollified. She slipped off her terry robe so the sleeves wouldn't get wet and reaching across him picked up her bathsponge. Wetting it, she put some soap on it and switching positions pushed his shoulders forward. Gently she began rubbing his back with the sponge. "You just go and do whatever you want to do without giving a thought to anyone else. How do you think it made me feel when you were laying on the ground having seizures and you wouldn't listen to me? How do you think it made me feel when you held that gun on me?" "Okay, I know I'm a bastard," he sighed. "But knowing how I feel isn't going to stop you...ever...is it, Mulder?" The question was rhetorical. "Hey, Scully, I'm going to smell like you," he said changing the subject. "Well, that is far better than the way you've been smelling of late," she couldn't help but smile. That was classic Mulder. Change the subject....make a crass remark. Put on that little boy grin. "People will say we're in love," he croaked trying to imitate a singer in a Broadway musical. Which one had it been? "People already say that, Mulder," she laughed. When had Mulder gotten into musical? Was it "Showboat" or "Carousel?" Her mom and dad would have known. "Get out of the tub and dry yourself off. I want you back in bed." "Are you coming on to me, Scully?" He waggled his eyes at her. "With all the crap you've had in your system, Mulder, it wouldn't do me any good if I were. Which, I might add, is the story of my life." She stood up and reached down and ruffled his hair. "Don't ask me why I stick around, Mulder. God only knows, it isn't for the sex. I guess you are just more interesting than any other guy I've ever known." Once he had stepped out of the tub, she left him briefly to bring him clean clothes. After he had become settled on the sofa bed again, she pulled the blanket up over him and handed him the remote to the small TV she kept in there. "I do not have the Playboy Channel, Mulder," she informed him. "Aw..shucks..." Suddenly he took her forearm. "Scully," he said softly, "In these dreams....these memories....I think....I think my father really wasn't my father....I think...my mom had an affair and that Cancerman is my father...." "Oh, Mulder," she said softly. Suddenly she understood what had happened between Mulder and his mother. He had confronted her with this in his usual diplomatic fashion. The thing is though, that it wasn't implausible. It would explain certain things. It would explain why the daughter was taken at the last minute and the son left behind. "It doesn't matter who your father is, Mulder," she said softly stroking his hair briefly. "No matter what, you are still always going to be you, and as much of a pain as you are, that is a very special person." "I need to know, Scully," he said quietly although he appreciated her kind words and gentle touch. His eyelids felt heavy again. "I really need to know." "I know, but it won't matter, at least not to me," she said softly. "Get some sleep." One Week Later Dana Scully saw HIM walking....no slinking...down the corridor. She couldn't think of what he did as walking. He was a slinker...always would be. Quickly she moved around the opposite corridor. She had a pile of files in her hand and a cup of coffee . It was just the opportunity she had been hoping for. She turned and came around the corner "accidently" bumping into him and spilling the coffee all over him. "Oh, my goodness...I'm so sorry," she said brushing at this suit, not even looking up. "Oh...do forgive me....." Then she looked up. "Oh....," she swallowed hoping her acting skills were up to snuff, "Sorry, Sir.....Um....send the dry cleaning bill to me and I'll take care of it." "Quite alright, Agent Scully," said the man suavely holding a Morley at his side, looking into her eyes which held his firmly, something he wasn't used to. Usually people couldn't look him in the eye for very long. This woman was one goddamed cool customer, a far cry from the little twerp they had sent to spy on Mulder four years ago. Who could have foretold that she would lose her innocence so quickly and become Mulder's strongest ally? This woman could have been a real player except she had decided to play on the wrong side. A pity. Well, what the hell did she have to lose now anyway? The woman had cancer...untreatable...was dead and she knew it. She could afford to be cool. She bent down and picked up the scattered files. He turned and walked away wondering why he felt he might have just been bested in some fashion. She wasn't that cool. Scully looked at her hand and grinned. There sat a single hair that had fallen on to his suit jacket. "Yesssss...." she hissed. She went back to their office and got an evidence bag. "What are you up to, Scully?" inquired her partner without looking up. He had been on his best behavior all week catching up on paper work and avoiding Walter Skinner like the plague. "Oh, nothing, Mulder," she said softly realizing that she'd gotten coffee on herself too. "I just accidently bumped into someone in the hallway and spilled coffee. Hmm..better go see if I can get the stain off my skirt." "Anyone important?" he inquired idly. It was always kind of cool to spill coffee on someone important or those who thought they were. I mean if you had to make an ass of yourself, do it right. That was the Mulder motto. He did it all the time. He had always thought it might be sort o neat to spill scalding hot coffee all over C-man....right around the groin area would do nicely.... "Nah," she replied. Slipping the bag into her jacket pocket slyly, she left him. The End