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Notes:
Yes I know it's an old theme, but I just thought it bore
repeating. I thought it up trying to justify to myself how
MulderTorture is not MulderBashing. I have a sick mind, but it's
mine and I'm keeping it.
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I hate
this.
I hate everything about it.
But what I hate more than anything else is the utter
powerlessness, the helplessness that I feel right now.
Might as well get used to it, I'm gonna be feeling it for a
while.
One minute, I'm running down an alley, gun drawn, shoulder's
tight, listening to Scully's footsteps clicking rapidly behind
me. How that woman runs in three inch heels, I'll never figure
out. I've often wanted to tell her 'Scully, the difference
between 5 foot nothing and 5 foot three just ain't enough to mess
with those deathtraps on your feet', but I've never gotten the
nerve.
Contrary to popular belief and totally discounting what is
happening right now, I don't _like_ to be shot. Especially by my
partner but definitely not by some punk ass kid in a Houdini
outfit.
I can see her, my partner. She's standing just a few feet away,
arguing with a paramedic. The poor EMT wants to look at the
bloody patch of sleeve on her arm, and Scully is reading him the
riot act, all the while yelling orders at the two EMT's working
on me.
She is a wonder when she's riled up.
Her eyes meet mine for an instant. I'm worried about her, she's
worried about me. She won't let them look at her, but I know that
she's hurting. It's probably a flesh wound, but they still hurt
like hell. Me, I'm lucky. I'm in shock and quite frankly, unless
they bump me or jostle this gurney too much, I'm not really
feeling the pain.
Oh, it hurts to breathe. I hate that feeling, too, because it's
scary when you can't just pull air into your lungs on instinct.
When each time you draw a breath, you wonder if it's going to be
that much harder next time. And each time, it is harder. Until
finally you wonder if it's worth the bother.
The EMT with the long blond braid has figured out that I'm having
trouble breathing. She's putting the damned oxygen mask over my
face. I caught a look at my profile once in one of these things
and it makes my nose look a hundred times bigger. Just what I
need. But immediately, it's a little easier to breathe, so I'm
not complaining. I just hope the 'papparazzi' aren't anywhere
nearby. Scully doesn't need any more black mail pictures of me
than she already has.
I look over the mask, which isn't that easy, and I can't find
her. The other EMT is gone, and the two that are left are looking
at some point over my shoulder, both with worried expressions. I
can hear them talking, but it seems like they're talking through
two tin cans and a string.
"Can she wait? We really need to get him in, his B/P is
really low."
"The second unit was right behind us. They should have been
here already."
I'm not sure what they're talking about and since I can't see
Scully, I call for her. It comes out closer to
'Sc-c-c-c-al-l-l-l-e-e-e-e' but she knows her name, she'll answer
to it.
She's not answering.
Now I'm not so happy to be lying here. I call out to her again.
Damn it, Scully, answer me!
"Sc-c-c-cul-l-l-e-e-e-e!"
A hand is pressing down on my shoulder. "Easy, sir. Just
take it easy. We're helping her. She's right here, she's just,
uh, she just . . ."
She just _what_, I want to scream. I try to rise up a little, see
over the mask.
GoddamnitalltohellThatHurts!
The blond is pushing me down on to the gurney, but I'm really
just falling back. And trying to impress upon my memory that I
_never_, _ever_, do that _again_. But before I got that rather
nasty reminder that I'm on a damned gurney for a good reason, I
saw what the EMTs were all a fluster over.
My partner, where she collapsed on the ground.
Now I'm hurt _and_ scared. And I'm not having much luck at
communication. I want to call out, I want someone to listen to
me. I make sounds, but they aren't words, even I know that much.
They're moans and Scully would know what I'm asking, what I need
to know. Scully, tell me it's not bad. Tell me you just fainted
because it's late and you're in shock and when they get you warm
and get some fluids in you, you'll be fine. Tell me it's what you
always are telling me, when I get shot.
The blond is wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my right arm
again. It squeezes and she frowns as she listens to my pulse with
her stethoscope. "We need to move. _Now_!"
But I don't want to go 'now'! I'm not going anywhere without
Scully. I pull against the straps, which hurts like hell and it's
taking all the strength I have. I notice, just a second or two
too late, that the blond is drawing up a syringe and I know as
well as I know my name she's about to sedate the living shit out
of me. If I had a concussion, they wouldn't even think of that,
but with just a gunshot wound to the upper thigh (right leg this
time), it's not even a question.
I'm still struggling when the needle bites my arm, but a minute
later I can feel my fingers go numb. My lips and my tongue and
the tip of my nose. Just like when I used to get really plastered
at Oxford and try to drive us home, only to have Phoebe pour me
into a cab and then pay the cab driver to take me to our flat.
Always pissed her off . . . that I couldn't . . . get . . . it .
. . up . . . drunk . . .
Crash!
I hear the gurney hit the doors and it jars me out of my stupor.
Must be the doors to a treatment room, because most hospitals
have sliding glass doors between the driveway and the Emergency
Room. If I were really good, I could fight the drugs enough to
open my eyes. But I discovered once that pulling that trick only
gets more drugs. So now I keep my eyes shut, but my ears open.
Shouting. Not loud, not even angry. More like rapid-fire orders.
Calls for blood, calls for drugs. Order an OR. I could have
guessed that. But all I want to hear about is Scully. I wish it
was a small town hospital, with those little bitty ER cubicles
which are no more that curtains in a big room.
No such luck, we're in LA. Big hospital. Nice treatment rooms,
almost like self contained little surgical suites. But it won't
be long before I'm being taken down the hall.
I can feel the gurney moving and I know where we're heading. Soon
they're going to assess how 'out of it' I really am and start
pumping that poison in my veins. Great choice of alternatives we
have in modern medicine. Get poisoned and not feel pain or stay
awake and die from the pain anyway. I'll take 'none of the
above', quite frankly, but I've never been given the option.
I'm straining to hear her name. Scully. That should be easy
enough to pick out of all the mutterings about my blood volume
and hypovolemic shock. Finally, some beautiful sounding nurse
asks the question I've been wanting to ask.
"How's his partner doing?"
I wish I could open my eyes, look at this woman and offer to have
her baby, but Scully would probably be pissed as hell at me if I
did.
"The bullet hit the humorous, cracked it. She's gonna stay
the night. Aparently, since she woke up, she's been chomping at
the bit to . . ."
I lost the rest of the dialogue as we enter the operating room. I
can hear more voices, but as cold starts pouring into my vein
from the IV, I know I'm not going to be aware much longer.
Fingers pry open my left eye and shine a damned 1000 watt
flashlight in them. Why the hell they do that . . .
"He's semi-conscious, at least."
Damn, the game's over.
"Mr. Mulder, we're in the operating room. Now, I want you to
try and relax for me, all right. You're clenching your fist and
that won't help us right now. Just relax your right arm for me,
please."
Like hell I will.
"Shouldn't the valium be working by now?"
"Give it a minute. I'm looking at the x-ray's so he can keep
for a while."
Nice of them to discuss the plan when they already know I'm
listening. Hey, as long as we're a chatty bunch, how did the bone
setting go on the really pretty red head with the stupid three
inch shoes? It's her left arm, I'm not concerned about field
agent status here. But as her one and only partner I would sure
love to know that she's not heading into a long recovery from
this fi . . .
Where did the rest of that word go?
It's funny. I hate drugs not because they make me feel bad. They
make me feel _too_ good. Like right now. Like I could sincerely
give a flying shit about anything or anybody right now.
Hey, guys, the valium's kicked in.
"That's better, Mr. Mulder. Nice and relaxed, just like
that."
They could rape me right now and I'd laugh about it.
"We're going to change this mask over your face now."
Guys, I've done this so many times, I could be standing there
doing the surgery. Well, up to this point. Then I'd get lost real
quick. But I could fake it probably. Should give that a try
sometime.
"OK, just take a few deep breaths for me now."
Sure, no sweat.
"That's great! You're doing great!"
Yeah, I'm a world champ at breathing . . .
They're prying at my eyes again. I really don't want to be awake.
I was beginning to get real comfortable in that nice hazy place
I've been in and I really don't want to know that I'm not
reacting well to the knock out juice and they'll have to saw on
me without it.
"He'd doing fine. Let him go back to sleep."
Sounds like a plan.
There are noises all around me. My own blood is thumping in my
ears. I can hear a hissing near my nose and can feel the little
breeze of air that comes with that. A beeping near my ear, but
not too close.
All the sounds of a hospital room.
No voices now. That's a good sign. It means they must be done
with the surgery and I'm back in my room, wherever the hell they
decided to stick me. From the almost total silence, except for
the sounds of the machines, I'm guessing ICU or Intermediate
Care.
I really must have been in bad shape this time.
That pisses me off on several levels. ICU. Everyone thinks the C
stands for 'care'. HAH! That C stands for 'control' I Control U.
Everybody in the place has total control over me, from the doctor
who takes his sweet time coming to check on my progress to the
nurses who are constantly poking me, jiggling my IV, 'checking'
my catheter, to the orderlies who move the equipment around,
always making sure to pull the various lines just a touch while
they mop the floor around my bed.
And it means control of information, too.
Everyone speaks in such soft, syrupy tones here. Like I'm trapped
in a hospital on Seseme Street. If I ask a question, they pat my
arm. If I tell them something that needs to be relayed to someone
on the outside, like my partner or my boss, they smile and nod
and I know damned well they don't relay it. If I want to talk to
someone, they click their tongues and tell me that my visitors
are limited to one at a time, and only for 10 minutes at the top
of the hour.
Prisoners have more rights. I know. I've been one of those, too.
I know what Scully will say. 'Lie back, relax, and get some
rest.' But I would really like to see her, just to hear her say
that. After I see her, it won't be that hard to follow her
advice.
Scully.
Hit the bone. The bullet hit the bone in her arm. And she was
standing there, arguing with the damned paramedic over _my_ care.
That's why she passed out. That's why she collapsed.
I do it for you, Mulder. All for you.
She claims she never said that to me. Her version of the events
of that fateful, vampire-hunting night have me being a real
asshole, coming into her room, kicking her out of her bed with
her quarters in the magic fingers and consuming her dinner while
tossing my muddy clothes all over her immaculate linens.
I remember exactly what happened.
I do it for you, Mulder. All for you.
She took a bullet in the arm, for me.
She stood there and refused treatment, for me.
She collapsed from blood loss or shock or who the hell really
cares why, she just did, for me.
How the hell is that supposed to make me feel?
Can't they understand that I don't care if it's the 'top of the
hour' I just want to see her? I just want to know that I didn't
lose her because I was too stupid to yell at them to help her and
quit playing around with me.
I just want her to be OK.
I'm a selfish bastard. I know that. I'm working on it. I felt
like shit on Christmas morning, knowing that I'd kept her out,
made her go through a waking nightmare. OK, so she came over and
she forgave me and I got this really neat tie that I can almost
tolerate even though it's pretty mundane, but it's 100 percent
silk and you really can't go wrong with silk. And I got to give
her my present, a nameplate for her desk. A nice one, not like
the cheap gold painted metal ones from supply, but a wooden one
with her name engraved on it.
But basically, I'm still a selfish bastard. And right now, this
selfish bastard just wants to be reassured as to his one in five
billion partner's continued well being.
Co-dependence, my ass.
I'm totally dependent. And she could walk at any time.
Right now, I would give my right leg, especially since I'm close
to needing another dose of pain killer and it hurts like a son of
a bitch, but I'd give it anyway, along with my left leg, my right
hand, my left hand, my heart . . . Oh, forgot, I gave that to her
already. Well, my head, then. Just to hear . . .
"Mulder? Mulder, it's me. Wake up, sleepy head."
OK, it's a dream. An hallucination brought on by some great
controlled substances. I didn't just wish hard enough to make her
appear. Did I?
"C'mon, I know you're in there."
She's cute when she's coy. But better than that, she's damned
good at this 'doctor' shit. I feel a dampened cottonball slide
like satin across my eyelids. Just enough moisture to loosen them
up, not enough to get in my eyes and make them tear. Damn, how
does she do that?
I have to smile. It's reflex, everytime she does something nice
for me.
"All right, game's over. Stop playing possum, it's time to
wake up."
I open my eyes. Sure, she tried to sound pissed, but she's
smiling at me. Especially her eyes.
"How are you feeling?"
One thousand percent better. But I can't let her know that. It
would spoil the game.
"Shit." Not my usual comeback, but succinct and to the
point.
"I would think so. Well, Mulder, you now have matching scars
on both legs. No longer lop-sided, you are now perfectly
symmetrical from the hips down."
I can't help it, she walked right into that. And she knows it. I
flash her my best leer. OK, it's not that good since I'm on
morphine here, but it does the job.
She slaps my upper arm. Not hard, but a little.
"How are you?" Three words. I'm going to be up to
polysyllabic sentences in no time.
She's in a soft cast and a sling. Already I can tell she's been
fiddling with the straps on it. "Nicked the bone. Hurts like
hell. I'm fine, Mulder, really." She looks a little teary
eyed and I guess it must hurt a lot. I reach over and squeeze her
hand, the good one.
"Well, you need to get some sleep. If you're good, they'll
let you go up to a regular room tomorrow morning."
"You going to the hotel?" See, two words with more than
one syllable. I'm doing great.
"Nah. I think I'll stick around. Check the place out for a
while."
Grill the doctor who operated one me, for starters. She thinks I
don't know she does that. Gee, I'm not trained for
investigations, I guess.
"Go get some sleep." I try to use my 'Supervisory,
Senior Agent' voice, but it sounds pretty weak right now. I
couldn't order pizza with this voice.
She smiles at me and brushes my hair off my head. I do dearly
love when she does that.
"I will, in a bit. But if I have to, you have to. Close your
eyes, Mulder. I'll stay till they kick me out, but I want you to
try and go back to sleep."
With her hand stroking my forehead, I do just that.
Disclaimer:
Same as always. I didn't make them up, but I put them in this
scenario. I won't make any money, and if nobody sues me, we'll
all be happy.
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