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OFFICE OF ASSISTANT
DIRECTOR KERSH
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C.
10:00 a.m.
Kersh folded his hands and stared Mulder straight in the face.
"You have some extensive explaining to do, Agent
Mulder." He then addressed Scully with the same shrewd look,
" And Agent Scully, your actions are less than commendable,
may I add."
"Yes. Sir, I can't say when exactly this whole mess began,
but I can tell you... ASSURE you, we will address the subject
before it mushrooms into something we can't undo."
Mulder was furious. "Mushrooms' Scully? I don't think this
is just a case of anything we, or I, have done becoming that
disastrous. With all due respect, Sir, I believe we acted in
accordance with the law as well as Bureau policy."
After attending the orientation with Scully, Mulder had food
poisoning after eating a portion of two year old applesauce.
"It was botulism," Scully explained. "When the
orientation was complete, Agent Mulder and I went to a
convenience store for a quick snack. I told him not to pick up
any item that had dust on it, or a very old expiry date. But
instead of listening to me, he selected a two-year-old jar of
applesauce and managed to keep me from reading the lid. Five
hours after he had eaten it, he was VIOLENTLY ILL," she said
loudly, staring Mulder down, "and that's when I took him to
the hospital."
"Still, the hospital bill was enormous," Kersh stated
blandly. "Agent Mulder, you manage to take a simple thing
like a snack, after an orientation, and have it mushroom into a
full-fledged catastrophe!"
"I... I had no idea... I'm not good with expiry dates,
Sir."
Kersh stood, taking a dominant stance. "Perhaps after
another orientation, you'll consider a diner or take-out, Agents.
Mulder, no more exorbitant hospital expenses. You may go,
Agents."
When Mulder and Scully were fifteen feet down the hall, Scully
snarled, "Everything you seem to do lately mushrooms into
something that one day you may not be able to handle. Even in a
hospital."
They continued ion their way down the hallway when she saw him
run into a bookcase. "Mulder!"
"Ow!" he yelled as he held his leg and jumped up and
down. "I think it's broken!"
"I think you fractured it, Mulder. Kersh is going to kill us
for your next huge hospital bill."
Mulder grimaced, still holding his leg. He bit his lip, trying to
hold back the tears. "Scully, I never noticed that bookcase
before. Someone dumb just left it in the hallway..."
As the Emergency Room was packed, the wait was excruciatingly
long for Mulder. To top it off, he heard a dreaded word several
times over the hospital address system.
"Dr. Foley. Dr. Eamon Foley to obstetrics." Repeat Ad
Nauseum.
Scully saw that her partner was perturbed. "Mulder, don't
put the cart before the horse. I can see you're already thinking
they'll catheterize you. They don't use Foleys for a fracture,
generally. That is, unless you have to have a general anesthesia
and need emergency surgery."
The agent was well calmed down, when Dr. Thompson examined his
left leg. "Well Agent Mulder, I'm afraid I'll have to put
you into a full-sized cast. I'd better get the plaster out."
"Full-sized!?" He had resorted to whining. Scully
scowled.
"Full-sized," the doctor echoed cheerfully."
"Well, Mulder looks like you've really done it this
time!" Scully snickered. "Look on the bright side:
maybe Kersh will take pity on you when we have to explain this
later on."
"But before we do that," the doctors face turned
serious. " I'd like to get you into surgery right away to
re-attach that severed tendon. It was ripped right off of the
patella."
""General anesthetic?" Mulder whimpered still in
abject pain..
"Yup," the doctor said as he wrote out some details.
"Oh, when you wake up, don't worry about the tubing. It's
just to empty out your bladder..."
"With a Foley catheter," Mulder moaned. He'd had it
with Foley catheters.
"Sorry 'bout your luck." Scully patted his hand,
looking consolingly into his eyes. "There is a pattern in
all this, I think."
Mulder moaned. His leg was itching from the plaster.
"Scully, I think I'm allergic..."
"What?"
Mulder frowned. His eyes welled with tears. This just hasn't been
his week. "I'm allergic to the plaster."
"Are you sure?"
Mulder moaned again. "Scullee.... Get the doctor. I'm
seriously itching here."
"OK, Mulder. I will see what I can do."
Fifteen irritating minutes later, Dr. Thompson was out of the
cardiac cubicle and back to Mulder. "What's this about a
supposed allergy to plaster?" Thompson was grinning, daring
not to break into a full laugh.
"It itches like a son-of-a-..."
"I get the idea, Mr. Mulder. Well, there has never been a
history of allergic reaction to plaster casts. It's never been
reported or studied. So, I think you may have that syndrome that
goes with wearing a cast."
"Do tell us what that is," Scully said wearily, as if
she already knew.
"Mr. Mulder has the idea that since he can't get under the
cast, he won't be able to scratch if he does itch, so by thinking
about it itching, he itches."
Scully nodded in agreement. "I had that myself once."
"It's imaginary? ME? Imagine it's itching?" Scully, I
will admit to having a very active imagination, but I am not
imagining this damn irritating feeling under this... this damn
prison."
Thompson thought over Mulder's words. "You see the cast as a
type of confinement in more ways than one, I think. Symbolic of
not having your world under control?"
"What are you? A psychiatric resident?"
"You're psychic, too." Get a good book. Keep your mind
off of itching. You should thank me for recommending the local
anesthetic. You got out of the operation without a Foley."
Scully frowned at the doctor's explanation. "I understand
that giving him some codeine for the pain would relieve some
discomfort. I know him, Doctor, you don't. Mulder doesn't lie
when something is bothering him." She paused. "I'm
going to be his personal doctor."
"Have it your way."
Mulder gave her a bright smile. Finally, she was taking action.
"Thanks, Scully."
"No problem."
Four days into Scully's stay with Mulder in his own home, there
seemed to be something different in the suffering he was going
through.
"Scully, Could you please give me another couple of
pills?"
"Mulder, two tablets every six hours. That's what the
orthopedic surgeon ordered, and that's what I recommend."
"But Scull-eeee, it's starting to hurt so much... I can't
even get comfortable and... "
"But nothing. You have two hours before the next dose and
two hours is how long you will wait. Mulder, these aren't
candies! These are serious narcotics, and besides the
constipation, sleepiness and confusion ... "
"To hell with all that, Scully!" His tone was loud,
bordering on abusive.
Scully stared at him, mouth agape.
"I'm sorry, Scully. It's just that..."
"I know, Mulder. If you could just relax and sleep, you
wouldn't feel the pain. And the boredom."
"Yeah. One tablet? Please?" His best puppy face was
ruined with the wince he had permanently adopted since yesterday.
"No. Close your eyes and think of... I don't know. One of
your favorite videos?"
"Won't work. I just have to think of the positions and I
hurt more. One more pill and I'll buy you a blotter for that desk
kind old me got you!"
Scully laughed, shaking her head. "You are impossible. Don't
hobble around to find them, either. I put them where you will not
get at them."
Mulder's head sunk back onto his pillow. "Nuts! Well, can
you at least get me a beer?"
"That would interact with the painkiller. I'll get you a
coffee."
After another week of recuperating at Scully's apartment, Scully
noticed that Mulder was having an allergic reaction to the
plaster cast again. It was getting so bad that she took him to
the hospital. Apparently, the doctor who had given him the cast
was a total quack. It wasn't applied correctly and was cutting
into his flesh. The leg's stitches has become infected so much
that gangrene set in...but it wasn't quite bad enough for Mulder
to lose his leg.
"Scullee, they have to put the cast on again..."
"This time, no. They want to give you another medication to
reduce the gangrene."
For Fox Mulder, usually very physically active and not used to
confinement, the days dragged on and on. "All things
considered," he shouted to Scully, who was tidying the
kitchen, "I'd rather be in Cleveland!"
"You'll like what I have here, Mulder." She presented
Mulder with a slice of coffee cake and a latte. "While
you're at it, it's time for your medication." She twisted
the vial open and gave Mulder a capsule. "If they hadn't
scraped away the necrotic tissue and given you this med, you
might have faced amputation, you know."
"Little Mary Sunshine," he said, popping the capsule
into his mouth, and washing it down with the coffee. "I am
bored as hell."
"I know." Scully put her hand on his. "I wish I
could carry all the pain for you. Things are improving
though."
There was a knock at the door. Scully went to open it to find The
Lone Gunmen, with a very large cardboard box in tow.
"How's our patient?" Frohike asked cheerfully.
"Improving. What's this, guys?"
"A recliner. Nothing but the best for our Mulder!"
Langly grinned.
"Let's get started," said Byers. "We have a
deadline to meet tonight on the paper."
The chair was ready for occupancy, and as Scully eased Mulder
onto the seat, there was a loud rudely familiar noise. Mulder was
not impressed, but everyone else was laughing the asses off.
"Well, I know you're trying to cheer me up, guys. And I
really do appreciate it. A whoopie cushion? Shades of the
seventies."
"Aw come on, Mulder, you've been feeling really sick. I
wanted to cheer you up. The guys just helped me to pick it
out," Scully said.
"Can you blame me? I hate being laid up...wearing that
stupid leg brace," Mulder said, frowning. "I can't
believe I am actually going to say this: I really do miss
work."
"It's unfortunate that you have to miss all those riveting
cases," Scully said.
"We just really wanted you to cheer up. It was a really long
hospital stay," said Byers.
"At least, Scully found out that the doctor was a quack...
You are really, really lucky," said Frohike.
"If your gangrene was serious, we'd be mourning the loss of
your leg," Langly said.
Three weeks later, Mulder was back at his desk in the office of
"The F.B.I.'s Most Unwanted", a phrase he had coined
the day he met Scully.
"Recuperation from a massive fracture is a long, slow
process," he noted. The Journal was his way of sorting out
his thoughts from time to time. Well, some times. "I now
realize that without the help of good friends and especially my
partner, Special Agent Dana Scully, I would have been worse off
than I am. One thing I never do is confide my emotions even to my
dearest friends. I whine over injuries and illness, and I am the
world's worst patient. This I was told directly.
"I have the best friend I could ever wish for in Agent
Scully. Not only have we been through some very tense cases, and
more often than not, come up with little or no progress for the
truth I so desperately want, but we have been a rock for each
other when the times were fearfully hopeless. If I have learned
one thing, it is that there is a complete professional respect
and a personal trust that I could never hope to have with anyone
else.
"Recuperation from this latest fracture, not to mention the
bout with gangrene, has left me feeling total gratitude toward my
friends as well as Agent Scully. She is more than a partner or a
friend, and I will leave it at that. Suffice it to say, she acts
as my shield and buckler. There is no necessity at this time to
reveal anything else to this Journal. That is personal business
and between me and whoever I decide to share it with."
From outside the office came a familiar voice. "Hey, am I
interrupting anything?" Scully was beaming as she stuck her
head past the door, happy to see her partner where he belonged.
"No, Scully. C'mon in. I was just doing some house-cleaning,
if you know what I mean."
"Hey, nice to know you're sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Ready to swing into action again?"
Mulder smiled. The thought of himself as Spiderman briefly
entered his mind. "Well, I think the rest of my recuperation
depends on avoiding all that rough, tough, superhero stuff, don't
you?"
"I couldn't agree with you more. Kersh seems to think
interstate insurance fraud would be just what the doctor says you
can handle."
Mulder sighed deeply, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"I'd rather he put us on fertilizer detail. But then, you
can't always get what you want."
"That's the old Mulder I know and admire. Dry humor and
all." She was smiling rather more warmly than usual.
"You admire me?"
"Don't push it, Mulder."
--
THE END
Disclaimer:
Mulder, Scully Kersh and The X-Flies are property of Chris
Carter, Ten Thirteen and Fox Studios. We do not earn money
writing fanfic and we do not intend to break copyright laws.
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