Title: COLD COMFORT Author: Jean Robinson (jeanrobinson@yahoo.com) Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property of Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Television Network. All others are the property of the author. No infringement is intended. Rating: PG-13 Classification: S Archive: Please ask permission. Spoilers: Up through "Tithonus" Summary: There's more than one cure for what ails you. Feedback: Gratefully appreciated at jeanrobinson@yahoo.com Author's notes at the end ***************************** COLD COMFORT By Jean Robinson The tingling sensation swelled from deep within her core, radiating out to ignite nerve endings all the way to the very ends of her fingertips, making her toes curl in reaction. It started as a mere tickle, then exploded up her spine, surging through her entire being and setting off starflashes of color behind her closed eyelids. "AH-CHOO!!" The perky-looking nurse at the admitting desk favored Scully with a sympathetic smile. "Bless you." That made four "Bless yous" to add to the count of eight "God bless yous" and two "Gesundheits" she'd received since starting out from the motel this morning. Not to mention the four scowls from assorted strangers who all shared the same opinion about individuals with colds; namely that they should be safely locked away from the otherwise healthy public. The nurse's expression slowly shifted from "May I help you, poor unfortunate soul?" to "Begone from my hospital, foul plague carrier" as Scully explained the purpose of her visit involved visiting a patient rather than admitting herself for voluntary quarantine. "Ms. Scully, if you're sick, you really shouldn't be here. . ." the woman began. Scully cut her off. "It's =Doctor= Scully," she said firmly, well aware that the authoritarian tone she was striving for was considerably diluted by the foggy, nasal quality of her voice. She'd been blowing her nose until it was the same shade as her hair with no noticeable improvement. Mucus prevailed. "Or Agent Scully. I'm here to see Agent Mulder, my partner. He was admitted last evening with a head injury. Where is he?" The nurse finally relented in the face of government intervention. She typed a few commands into her computer and answered, "Room 421. Elevators are to your left." "Thank you." In the elevator she drew more scathing looks from two interns as she fished out a fresh tissue for yet another futile attempt to clear her clogged sinuses enough to breathe normally. They edged as far away from her as possible, tossing uneasy glances at the lighted numbers on the display, clearly hoping she was getting off before them. It's not my fault! she wanted to yell at them. I'm a doctor; I KNOW I shouldn't be here endangering patients whose immune systems are already compromised. If I had my way I would be home in bed, or at least confining my bacteria to the one building in Washington DC where I contracted them in the first place! The "cold and flu season" had struck the Hoover building with a vengeance after her return and recovery from New York. A.D. Kersh had, for two glorious days, lost his voice completely. Outside Skinner's office, Kimberly snuffled and coughed in a most unladylike fashion while inside the A.D.'s Marine-sized sneezes were powerful enough to shake not only his broad shoulders but the plaques on his wall as well. In Communications, Holly's pleasant alto was reduced to a froggy croak over her headset, punctuated by frequent liquid sniffles. A roll of toilet paper filched from the men's restroom decorated the desk of one of the other agents in their bullpen space; a standard box of tissues couldn't keep up with the streaming discharge from the poor man's nose. Scully tried her damnedest. She washed her hands every time she passed the ladies' room. She wiped down her desk, computer and telephone handset with Lysol in her own nightly ritual of witchcraft to ward off the evil germ spirits. She drank orange juice and sucked on zinc tablets until her tongue protested. All her preventative ministrations were in vain. On the flight out she'd felt the first onset of symptoms with a mild headache; by the time they landed she'd needed to stop at the airport gift shop to replenish her supply of travel-size tissue packs to staunch the flow caused by her newly-hatched rhinovirus. Thanks to Mulder's impulsiveness, they'd come out here in a rush, and the only available seats on the big 747 had been in the middle of five-person rows. Sandwiched between a coughing, watery-eyed businessman and his aspirin-dispensing wife on one side and two pre- adolescent brothers on the other, Scully didn't have any sympathy to spare for her long-legged partner, squashed in his own center seat from hell some eight rows behind her. Dodging the misty sprays of virus-laden droplets from the hacking Xerox representative at her left elbow would have been annoying but tolerable except for the color commentary going on between the boys on her right. "You're such a snothead, Joey." "I am not! You're the snothead." "You're the biggest snothead in the world." "MOM!!! MIKE IS CALLING ME A SNOTHEAD!!!" A weary female voice drifted faintly across the aisle in response. "Mike, stop calling your brother a snothead." Five minutes of silence. Then, a crafty whisper: "You're a snothead =and= a tattletale, Joey." And so it had gone for the entire six hours of the non- stop journey to Seattle. The pretense of their trip was shaky to begin with; chasing cases assigned to other agents was not Scully's idea of a profitable work day when she was healthy. Doing so while fighting a losing battle against overcompensating mucus membranes was more than enough to stretch her patience beyond the breaking point. The elevator clanked to a stop at the third floor and the interns fled, leaving her alone for the final chug to the fourth floor. Mulder's room was empty. Sighing, Scully took in the rumpled bedclothes and decided that her errant partner had done what he usually did when bored – gone wandering. Which meant he was probably about five minutes away from getting into trouble, so she'd better be on her way to find him. Mulder hadn't gone far, and the reason he'd stayed close to home base was obvious the second she spotted him in the small lounge area at the end of the hallway. Adept at detecting potential troublemakers among their patients, the hospital staff had employed their usual tactic to keep the wounded in bed where they belonged instead of roaming the hallways disrupting the medical routine. They'd swapped his clothes for a thin cotton gown and "forgotten" to issue him a paper robe. He stood facing away from her, looking out the window, seemingly unaware of his starring role in a one-man peep show. She thought he would have noticed the breeze wafting up the backs of his thighs and caressing his buttocks, but the heat in the hospital =was= cranked up to the point of nuclear meltdown. Or maybe she was starting to run a fever to go along with the cold. Mulder appeared to be chatting with someone, although from her vantage point Scully couldn't see just who had captured his attention. She doubted it was the small, gray-haired lady in the wheelchair who also occupied the lounge. The elderly patient was enjoying his company even if she wasn't included in the dialogue; the lascivious expression on her wrinkled face indicated that Mulder's backview presented the most entertaining vista she'd seen in ages. Then Mulder stepped slightly sideways, revealing his conversation companion. Diana Fowley. Scully grimaced, feeling her headache ratchet up a notch beyond what Tylenol Cold and Flu formula could pacify. She stepped into the little room. "Mulder." He turned around. "Scully! What are you doing here?" "I came to see how you were doing." She nodded civilly to Diana. "Agent Fowley." "Agent Scully." All nice and polite. But like it or not, Mulder wasn't the only one who needed to rest. "Agent Fowley, I thought the ER staff told you to go back to the motel and get off your feet." She put on her doctor face, again all too aware that someone whose vocal resonance now matched that of the departure horn on the Bainbridge Island ferry was in a bad bargaining position to dictate medical advice to others. Please, God, don't let me sneeze again now. If I do, it's all over. God was kind for once. Diana looked chagrined and acquiesced without protest. The past day had been hard on her, too. "I'm leaving now. I just wanted to explain to Fox about the case." She squeezed his hand in farewell and said, "Take care of yourself, Fox. I'll see you tomorrow." "Thanks, Diana." She slipped out of the room, her arms now wrapped around her waist, her gait measured and careful. The slow, deliberate click of her heels echoed down the hallway, and then she was gone. The elderly lady, who had been following the entire exchange with avid interest, suddenly snorted with laughter. "Mittelschmerz!" she exclaimed in delight, pointing down the hallway in the direction Diana had taken. Scully had to smile. "I don't think so, ma'am." Mulder looked from his partner to the wheelchair patient in such utter confusion that they both started laughing anew. "What?" he demanded. "Mrs. Kravitz, are you making fun of me again?" "Hardly, Agent Mulder." Her sharp brown eyes twinkled merrily. The woman might be old and infirm, but Scully decided there was nothing wrong with her mind. "I was just making an observation about your other lady friend." "THERE you are!" All three of them jumped slightly at the new voice and turned to see a nurse standing in the doorway, legs spread, hands planted firmly on her hips. "Agent Mulder, if you don't get back into bed THIS MINUTE. . ." she trailed off, glaring at him, radiating anger and the promise of dire consequences from the soles of her soft white shoes to the roots of her short sandy-blond hair. "I'll see him back to his room," Scully promised. She laid a hand on her partner's arm. "Come on, Mulder. Let's go." "All right," he grumbled. "But I feel fine." "You have a serious head injury. You shouldn't be walking around." As they moved out into the hallway, Mrs. Kravitz called after them, "Agent Mulder, you might want to fix those ties. You've got a very cute backside, but I'm afraid you'll catch a chill with it hanging out like that!" Mulder snatched the edges of the gown closed behind him. "Scully, how long were you peeking?" he accused. "I've seen it all before, Mulder." She coughed into her cupped palm, feeling a dull ache in her chest as thick sluggish gobs of phlegm rose up and then settled back in her throat. So far she'd been unsuccessful at expelling any of it no matter what combination of cold remedy she poured into her system. "You don't sound so good yourself. Maybe you should go back to the motel, too." They'd reached his room and he obediently climbed back into bed. "I'm fine. It's just a cold. I'm more worried about you. Has the doctor been in to see you since you were admitted?" Mulder gingerly rubbed the visible lump above his right ear. "Yeah. Concussion. Nothing more, nothing less. They won't let me out until tomorrow; they want me to stay here for observation to make sure I don't keel over or forget to wake up or something." "There's no reason for the sarcasm. It's a sensible pre. . ." her nose tickled again, and the word evaporated into a sneeze. "AH-CHOO!" "God bless you." "Nine," she muttered to herself. "What?" "Nothing. I mean it's just a sensible precaution. You hit a marble floor. You lost consciousness." He glowered at her. "I didn't start it." "Am I accusing you of anything?" Silence. Scully took the opportunity to disinfect her hands yet again in his bathroom. When she returned to perch in the visitor's chair, Mulder's hostility had dissipated in favor of his curiosity. "What was Mrs. Kravitz talking about? 'Mittelschmerz?' What's that?" "It's German. It loosely translates to 'middle pain.'" He blinked. "I don't get it." Scully sighed. "It means I think the rational explanation for Diana's discomfort can be traced back to the fact that she was kicked forcibly in the stomach by one of the Mummenschantz troupe while trying to extricate you from the fray. Mrs. Kravitz was trying to attribute her slightly hunched posture to the occasional abdominal pain felt by some women during ovulation." He winced. "I'm sorry I asked." "I thought you would be." "Scully, you're mad I brought you out here, aren't you?" "What do you think, Mulder? We are not on the X-Files anymore, yet you persist in following Diana Fowley and Jeffrey Spender on cases that you have no jurisdiction over. Yesterday afternoon you incited a minor riot in the main lobby of the Seattle Convention Center during the opening ceremonies of the Mimes, International conference by arguing with Agent Spender about how such organizations were the perfect place for extraterrestrials to secrete themselves. The mimes in attendance took offense at being called aliens. Much as I abhor their particular form of entertainment, I can't say I blame them this time." "Agent Spender was being an idiot. He doesn't care about the X-Files." She stood up, suddenly overwhelmed by anger. "And you think your behavior was any more honorable? That this is the way to win back the department? Mulder, they had to call the police to quell the disturbance! You're here with a concussion, Diana's got a bruise the size and shape of a size twelve Reebok sneaker sole across her stomach, and someone wielding a bottle of Manischevitz from the wine and cheese buffet clubbed Spender hard enough to crack two of his ribs!" "He should be thankful it wasn't a jug of Ernst and Julio Gallo." She stared at him in disbelief. "Is that all you can say? They arrested sixteen people for assault, and some of those charges are going to be federal because WE were the ones being assaulted! A bunch of pantomime artists will be saddled with criminal records because you and Spender can't stop playing these ridiculous macho territorial games, and all you can do is make stupid jokes? What the hell's wrong with you??" She'd initially dismissed the high, buzzing whine in her ears as simply another odd radiator noise from the old unit on the far side of his room. That same heater had provided a convenient explanation for the sweat beading along her hairline. Now as her hoarse voice cracked into yet another register and the ache in her chest intensified into a sharp, lancing pain, she suddenly realized the symptoms could not be blamed on the ancient machinery warming the hospital room. At the same instant, her nose and throat sealed themselves off completely, all airways solidly blocked. She couldn't breathe. "Scully?" His voice sounded panicked but faint, as though he were calling to her from across a vast distance. An ocean, perhaps. The same ocean she could hear roaring in her ears, crashing through her head. "SCULLY?!?" The same one washing over her vision with soothing waves of silvered whiteness, whispering that it didn't matter, don't worry about not being able to inhale, there's no need to breathe at the bottom of the ocean. No need at all. "SCULLY!! NURSE!! SOMEONE!! I NEED SOME HELP IN HERE!!!" She'd been leaning over the foot of his bed, bracing her arms on the mattress as she unleashed her frustrations at him. Elbows and knees now buckled simultaneously; she felt herself falling but never saw him lunge off the bed to grab her. She knew only that she'd been spared the hard kiss of the blue and white tiled floor. Mulder was suddenly behind her, one arm locked about her waist, allowing her torso to slump forward over that supporting arm to enable gravity to assist him with his next unorthodox maneuver. He slammed her in the back between her shoulder blades with the heel of his free hand. Once, twice, three times, and then some minute particle of the heavy mass wedged in her throat shifted, allowing a tiny trickle of oxygen to filter down to her lungs. Her entire respiratory apparatus heaved in a body- wrenching cough, dislodging a mouthful of mucus. Air. Oh, thank God, air. Scully began breathing in great, ragged gasps, still hanging over Mulder's arm. The pounding roar of the ocean receded to the gentle whisper of the mildest surf. And abruptly, the room was filled with the thud of running feet and a cacophony of concerned voices, all registering only vaguely on the extreme outer edge of her consciousness. ". . . a stretcher!" "Christ, she's burning up." "Call downstairs!" "Dr. Scully? . . . hear me?" Hands on her face, prying her bleary eyes open. More hands pulling at her blouse, the sudden chill of a stethoscope on her chest. Then they were tugging her away from Mulder, lifting her onto something soft and solid. His strident voice cut through the chaos in her head. "Is she all right? Where are you taking her?" A sharp, heated argument, with his voice rising above the others in finality. "No, I'm not staying here! I don't care what the rules are, I'm going with my partner!" Whatever she was lying on began to move, rolling swiftly out of his room and toward some unknown destination. If she focused hard enough, she could just make out the fluorescent lights scrolling by overhead. But it was much more comforting to focus on the familiar hand that gripped hers throughout the journey. ________________________ Walking pneumonia, they told her when she woke up a day later, a steady cocktail of antibiotics, antihistamines and decongestants dripping down the IV line embedded in her left arm. Lucky you were here when it happened. She endured a brief, awkward visit from Diana and Spender, on their way back to DC to nurse their bruises and their grudges. Another reprimand would no doubt be waiting when she and Mulder returned for butting in again where they had no business being. Scully wanted to tell the hospital staff they were deluded if they thought they could rid themselves of Fox Mulder by discharging him once she'd been admitted. He merely insinuated himself in the ICU, intent on becoming as permanent a fixture as the heart monitors, respirators and crash carts. Eventually they gave up trying to chase him away. She couldn't speak comfortably for three days; any attempt at polysyllabic words triggered alarmingly painful coughing spasms. By day four, she was recovered enough to be moved to a regular room and carry on a short conversation. That was a quick role reversal, she thought wearily, observing him in a visitor's chair similar to the one she had occupied in his room not so many days ago. Usually we have a few weeks between hospital duty. He looked tired. No, actually he looked exhausted. He probably hadn't closed his eyes since her collapse. "Feeling better?" She nodded. "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" She smiled slightly. "Good." "Mimes, International has dropped their charges against us. So has the Seattle Convention Center, and the city of Seattle. In exchange, the Justice Department has agreed to drop the federal assault charges for the mimes involved in the. . . um, incident." "And the bad?" He stared at the floor for a second, then met her eyes. "Kersh is over his laryngitis. He was quite vocal on the phone with me this morning, in fact. You'd never know he was sick." "Oh. That bad?" "You could say that." He was quiet for a moment, staring moodily at the floor again. Scully reached out and took his hand. "Mulder," she said softly. "What?" "We can get the files back. But this isn't the way. I know what you think of procedure and protocol. But. . ." she paused to inhale carefully, fighting back the urge to cough, "antagonizing Kersh and harassing Fowley and Spender will just make matters that much worse in the long run." He remained silent, his thumb rubbing gently over her knuckles, reminding her of countless other times he'd held her hand in countless other hospitals. Amazing how wonderfully soothing it felt. If they could capture the sensation of that simple touch and seal it in an IV bag, it would put the pharmaceutical companies out of business in a heartbeat. "Okay, Mulder?" she persisted, knowing neither her voice nor her energy were going to hold out much longer. He finally looked at her again, finally produced that small, wry smile that spoke of shared trials and tribulations past and those still to come. "Okay, Scully," he agreed, wrapping his fingers more securely around her hand. And she allowed herself to fall asleep, knowing he wouldn't let her go. End Author's notes: Thanks to my friends. . . and I use the term loosely . . . at Scullyfic, the Improv elements I received to use in this story were: 1. Snot, and lots of it; 2. Mulder in a hospital gown that really does gap open in the back, with Scully getting a full view; 3. Mummenschantz; 4. Manischevitz; and 5. mittelschmerz, graciously defined for me as the pain experienced during ovulation. I love you all for doing this to me. Really. Many thanks to Shari, who agreed to beta-read this without realizing she was about to be drenched in goo. ;-) And yes, the Bainbridge Island ferry in Washington State really does have quite a departure horn; please take a page from my personal experience and do not stand next to it when it blows. My brother almost had to fish me out of Puget Sound. ;-) Feedback to jeanrobinson@yahoo.com