Summary:  Fill in the commercial blank from Pine Bluff Variant. 

Scully confronts Mulder and fixes his broken finger.

Category: V A UST

Rating: PG

Disclaimer:  No infringement.  This is a command performance, so

don't blame me--this time <VEG>

Archive:  MTA, Gossamer, where ever stories live on

Dedicated to Mystic.  This is the Mulder Torture I was refering to. 

Is nine pages short enough?

Comments to vmoseley@fgi.net

Broken Fingers, Mended Hearts

by Vickie Moseley

vmoseley@fgi.net

After leaving Skinner's office, she was angry.  By the time she got

all the way out to her car, Dana Scully was fuming.  All the way

over to her partner's apartment, she occupied her mind by conjuring

up mental images of how many different tortures she could perform

on Special Agent Fox William Mulder, and just how long he would

suffer.

The nerve of him!  He'd had plenty of opportunity to tell her that he

was involved in an undercover operation.  She'd all but accused him

of treason, and his only response was to hurry off to another

meeting.  Fox Mulder, the man who called her incessantly in the

middle of the night to enthrall her with the latest that the Sci-fi

channel programming geniuses had to offer, couldn't think to pick

up the phone and tell her that he was about to be thrown into an

assignment of the utmost danger and secrecy.

Secret.  Even from her.  

It wasn't until she climbed the three flights of stairs to his apartment

door that the wind started seeping out of her sails.  After pounding

for three minutes, she dug in her pocket and produced the key, then

let herself in.

The apartment was quiet.  Only the fish filter provided any noise. 

She noted that he'd managed the survival of 'Darth Vader', a black

and white striped angel fish, though she acknowledged the absense

of Princess Leia, Luke, Han and Chewbacca.  Four new fish swam

in the waters, this time large goldfish.  Probably a safer choice,

given the difficulties Mulder had keeping even guppies alive.  

After checking the bathroom and the top of the television--to see if

it had recently been turned off, she decided he hadn't come back

from his 'rendezvous' with the terrorists.  There was nothing left to

do but wait.

She was still mad, though it was starting to edge away.  Although

he had never come right out and said he was working undercover,

he had never come right out and lied to her, either.  When she

confronted him with her suspicions after the incident in the park, he

had simply changed the subject and left.  He hadn't even made eye

contact.

He'd been told not to tell her.  She thought about that for a

moment.  In many of their cases, almost all of them, she had to

admit, there were things they kept to themselves, pieces that never

made it into the offical report.  Initially, it had been her idea, trying

to keep conjecture and unsupportable theories from contaminating

their documentation of events.  As time wore on, and the

conspiracies came to light, it had become more of a defensive

mechanism.  What the Bureau didn't know couldn't hurt them.  It

never went so far as to cover up a crime, but it was enough to hide

the facts behind the actually report.  At first she'd felt guilty--a

little.  Since the overturn of Blevins, she felt justified in their

actions.

But never once had they kept something like this from each other. 

That was what was hurting, that was why she was so mad.  She

thought back to the time when she'd actually believed, thanks to a

scrambled television message, that Mulder was working for the

other side.  She'd held a gun on him, accused him of all manner of

horrible things, threatened to kill him.  And he'd stood there, taking

it all, his only defense that he knew she was sick.  And that she was

the only one he trusted.

But was she?  Mulder, in the time she'd known him, had never put

much stocking in going by 'the book'.  It was his rashness and his

unorthodox methods that often solved the cases they handled.  And

almost always got them both into oceans of hot water.  But she had

grown to accept his methods, had come to rely on the fact that they

usually made up the rules as they went.  It had worked for five

years.  What had changed?

She pulled herself up from the soft leather of the sofa and wandered

into the kitchen.  Opening the refrigerator, she couldn't stop the

chuckle she had at the contents.  Two half finished quarts of orange

juice, a half gallon of milk that was three weeks out of date and

three bottles of beer.  She refused to peek inside whatever was

encased in aluminum foil on the bottom shelf.  She grabbed one of

the orange juices, checked the date and was surprised to find it was

within the 1990's and closed the door.

Pulling out a glass from the cabinet, she stopped as her eye caught a

sheet of paper taped inside the cupboard door.  It looked like a

sheet of copy paper, and had Mulder's writing, in various colors of

pencil and pen.  There were about 15 lines, each starting with a

date, then a few scribbled words and another date at the end.  She

stood on tiptoe to examine it more closely.

Her stomach bottomed out when she realized what it was.  Each

date corresponded to her chemo treatments.  The few words were

cryptic, but many lines contained 'looks tired, threw up twice'. 

Toward the end, the lines read 'stayed home following--call to

check up'.  

All the time she'd thought he was ignoring her illness, Mulder had

been dutifully keeping track--at a distance.  The idea alternately

cheered her and upset her.  He'd almost never spoken of her

cancer, had even refused to use the word around her most of the

time.  She'd thought he was being obtuse, trying to hide his head in

the sand, trying to deny the inevitable.  But she was now presented

evidence quite contrary to that presumption.

Her hand shook slightly as she brought the juice back to the sofa

and sat down.  She drained the glass and then set it on the coffee

table.  Without thinking, her eyes roamed over the titles of the

magazines strewn haphazardly on the shelf under the table.  "Lone

Gunmen" stared up at her, as well as "Celebrity Skins".  But half

hidden, probably because of the months since it's arrival, were a

number of journals dedicated to cancer research.  

"A little light reading, Mulder," she said aloud, pulling one of the

journals toward her.  She opened it, noticing the neon yellow

highlighting on several pages.  Peptides, magic bullets, new and

experimental drugs.  Mulder had been researching--profiling

another serial killer.  One that couldn't be brought to justice, or

made to pay for it's crimes against society.

She stuck the journal back under the pile, hoping he wouldn't

notice it's dislocation.  She leaned back against the pillows of the

sofa and stared off into the distance, letting her mind wander.

What had changed, she asked herself again.  More like what hadn't

changed.  So much had happened.  Her remission, Emily, Blevins

unmasking, and too many cases to count.  They were getting more

protective of each other, more frightened for one another.  She

remembered his phone calls during her one and only vacation--and

the way she couldn't stop herself from getting involved in the

investigation of what should have been a local matter.  He hovered,

she charged on.  Definitely a role reversal.

So was Mulder now the one to go 'by the book'?  Was his

conversion to 'unbeliever' an indication that he was also more

willing to follow the conventional wisdom of the Bureau hierarchy? 

Scully didn't know whether that revelation gave her hope or

heartache.  All it really did was confuse her all the more.

She was putting her glass in the kitchen when she heard the key in

the lock and the door opened.

Not meaning to startle him, she stepped out of the lighted kitchen

and into the darkened living area.   She succeeded in making him

jump, anyway.

"Scully, get out of here," he growled.  He was holding his left hand

in his right, she could see something dark, glistening and

dripping--blood.

"You're hurt," she announced, and led him over to the sofa.

"Not till you started to pull on it," she was sure he grumbled as she

walked away.  She had to work to keep the smile off her

face--typical Mulder, whining at her as usual, as if he'd just cut his

hand in the kitchen making a sandwich.  She came back with a bag

of ice and applied it to his injured hand.  He started to protest, but

she filled him in on her newly acquired information regarding his

activities.  

He seemed relieved.  He sighed deeply and told her his own feelings

on the terrorists and their motives.  He told her everything in a few

short, terse sentences.  In a split second, she recognized what he

was doing.  He was going to confession.

"Mulder, we should get this X rayed," she told him, taking a soft

wash cloth and gently wiping away the blood.  "The bone may have

broken the skin--"

"Nah, his nail dug in when he was snapping--" Mulder's voice

trailed off and even in the darkness she could see him turn a pasty

white.

"Head down," she told him, moving him to lower his head to his

lap.  "Breath steady.  That's right," she directed.  "Better?"

He nodded weakly and she let him sit up.  "No emergency rooms,

Scully.  I don't have time.  I have to meet up with Skinner and my

favorite CIA spook and I still have to get back to the motel

sometime tonight.  Can't you just splint it or something?"

She thought about it for a minute.  It was the little finger on his left

hand.  At worst, he'd have a little trouble hitting the 'q', 'a' and 'z'

keys on the computer keyboard.  More than likely, the bone would

knit in it's former position and he'd be fine.  Besides, she didn't

really want to spend what little time they might have before his

meeting waiting it out in some ER lobby.  She wanted time to work

on some strategy.

"I'll see if I still have some lidocaine," she told him, patting his leg

softly.

Scully came back a few minutes later to find her partner with his

head thrown back against the sofa, eyes closed.  If it hadn't been

for the pronounced grimace on his face, she would have thought

he'd fallen asleep while she been gone.  When she touched his leg,

his head snapped up again.  She was holding her medical kit that

she kept at his apartment for just such emergencies.

"I can't do this in the dark, Mulder.  Kitchen table or bathroom

sink--name your poison," she requested.

He thought for a moment.  "I think the kitchen might be a better

idea.  Less likely that I'll hit my head on something hard when I

pass out," he shot back with just enough of a grin to let her know

he thought he was kidding.

They settled down at the kitchen table, after Scully had moved

aside the more than 10 Washington Posts and a five inch stack of

mail that Mulder hadn't yet opened.  She shot him a frown, he

smiled and shrugged.  She opened the kit and drew out an

unopened ampule of lidocaine and a prepackaged syringe.  He

screwed up his face and chewed on his lip a second.  "Do we really

need the invasive procedure," he said, quoting from one of his

recently read journal articles, she imagined.

"Remember the nice neighbors who almost got you kicked out of

here last spring because of the gunshots in the apartment?" she

reminded him.  "It's almost midnight, and you screaming your head

off might disturb them."

He narrowed his gaze and glared at her.  "I'm a man, I can take it,"

he hissed.  She took the opportunity to jab him in the back of his

hand with the needle.  He didn't disappoint her, he yelped like a

whipped pup.

"Then take that," she said with a smile.  "Give it a minute to take

effect."  She took the time to clean the finger and examine the cut. 

"You're right, Mulder--it's just a superficial cut.  I'll run past a

drug store and get you some antibiotics.  Till then, we'll keep some

antibiotic ointment on it."  She touched the knuckle with the tip of

her finger.  "Is it numb, yet?"

"Getting there," he told her.  

"I would like an X ray, Mulder, but it looks like a clean break," she

said, running her hand over the finger.  

"It sounded like a pencil breaking," he told her, his voice detached

and matter of fact.  She closed her own eyes and winced.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"It beat the alternative," he responded.  When she gave him a raised

eyebrow he shrugged again.  "A bullet in the back of the head."

She nodded slowly in agreement.  "OK, you know the drill.  This

might still hurt, but the lidocaine--"  While she was talking, she'd

taken hold of the finger and in one smooth motion, had popped the

broken pieces back into their proper alignment.  Mulder went sheet

white.

"Head down, head down," she murmured softly, and helped him

manuver in his chair until he was leaning over his knees again.  This

time she left him there while she gently took his hand into her lap

and bandaged the cut, then splinted the finger.  When it was

wrapped up like a Christmas present, she patted his back.  "You

need to get a few hours of sleep.  I want you to take one of these,"

she added, shaking a pill bottle near his ear.

"Just aspirin, Scully.  I have to stay awake."

She stood up, towering over him from his position over his knees. 

"Mulder, you need to rest.  Just because it's a little bone doesn't

mean that the body reacts any differently to it when it's broken. 

You're going to feel like shit for a day or so, just from the pain and

the shock.  Your body does that on purpose, so you don't keep

injuring yourself."

Mulder sat up, wavering a little, then looked her directly in the eye. 

"Scully, it's a great idea, self-preservation wise, but I don't have

time.  I need to talk to Skinner and the spook, and I have to get

back before morning--"

She looked at the clock on the microwave.  For once, it wasn't

blinking 12:00 at her.  It was a quarter to one in the morning.

"Mulder you have to sleep, if just for an hour or so."

He shook his head.  "I'm too wired."

"Then lay down on the couch.  Just for a little while.  Please?" she

pleaded.

He shook his head again, but Scully could tell she'd won this round. 

She put an arm around his waist and helped him get up.

"I broke my finger, Scully.  Not my leg," he pointed out.

"And you almost passed out from the setting," she countered and

helped him the rest of the way to the couch.  When he was settled,

she sat across from him on the armchair.  Her eyes wouldn't stay

away from the journals she knew were under the coffee table.  

"Mulder.  Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.  To be honest with

herself, she didn't know exactly what she was refering to--his

clandestine cancer research or his undercover assignment.

Mulder assumed she was talking about the latter.  He sighed deeply,

then turned his head to look at her.  "Skinner ordered me not to,"

he replied evenly.

"And out of the hundred or so direct orders that you have chosen

to ignore in the last year, you decided to obey this one?" she asked,

hating the bitchy tone her voice had taken on.

He chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment before saying

anything.  When he did speak, he rolled over on his hip, so he could

see her more plainly.  "Scully.  If I'd told you, you never would

have let me do it.'

"I don't own you, Mulder.  You do things without my approval all

the time," she countered.

"No, that's not true.  I do them without your _knowledge_.  I've

never done anything without your approval.  Or more rightly, once

you have asked me not to do it."

She started to open her mouth to protest, sure that he was

mistaken, when she thought about that statement.  Had he ever

gone off when she specifically forbidden it?  She had implied her

disapproval plenty of times, but she thought back to the most

obvious times when he'd gone off without her.  She'd never told

him not to go to Alaska after the Pilot.  She'd asked him to go to

the boxcar in New Mexico without her.  She didn't ask him not to

go after Modell.  Was he now saying that his running off on her was

a matter of semantics?

"Mulder, you mean that if I told you to stay in this apartment and

not go to meet Skinner and not to back to the terrorist camp, you'd

do that?" she asked, trying to keep her voice as even and detached

as he was.

He drew in another breath and let it out slowly.  "You'd make it

damned hard on me, Scully.  Damned hard."

"But would you do as I asked?" she said, more insistently.

"Scully, it would mean dumping the whole operation down the

toilet.  It would mean letting these bastards free to kill again, maybe

next time letting that shit loose in a crowded shopping mall or an

airport or a metro station or God knows where.  It would mean

asking me to do something that is counter to everything you hold

dear and true.  Would you really do that?"

She sat there in silence, weighing his words.  He had her over a

barrel.  He knew she would never ask that of him.  It angered her to

feel so helpless.

"I need you--on the outside, Scully.  I need you in the meetings and

following up on where the investigation is going.  As long as you're

out here, I'll be OK," he told her, reaching his right hand out to her. 

She blinked back tears and grabbed his hand tightly.  He needed

her, just as she had needed him.  She didn't like the position he was

putting himself in, but there was little she could do.  He'd been just

as unhappy, if not more so, with her cancer.  The best either of

them could do was support the other.

"Come home safely," she instructed him sternly.

"Is that a direct order, Agent Scully?" he asked, with a wry grin.

"Yes," she said, her expression still serious.  "That is a very direct

order."

"Then I have no choice but to obey it," he said, his expression now

serious enough to match hers.  

It was her turn to smile.  "Close your eyes, Mulder.  I'll wake you

at three.  That should be plenty of time to meet with Skinner and

get back to the motel to meet your contact."

He squeezed her hand and let it slip through his fingers.  He gave

her a brief smile and then closed his eyes.  

She now knew what her job was going to be tonight.  Watch and

wait.  Keep her promise to him as he would keep it to her.  Only

after she was certain he was asleep did she cry.

the end