TITLE: Half an Hour AUTHOR: Forte E-MAIL: Bjm1352@aol.com or Forte1354@aol.com URL: http://www.thebasementoffice.com/ RATING: PG-13 CATEGORY: VA KEYWORDS: MSR (implied) SPOILERS: Requiem SUMMARY: What if...? ARCHIVE: Gossamer/Ephemeral/M&S/Spooky awards site OK; anywhere else please ask first. DISCLAIMER: They belong to CC, 1013, and FOX; *definitely* not me. Bummer. FEEDBACK: Yes, please. :) **** Half an Hour **** From the moment he got the call I haven't been able to keep up with him. Even as we sit side by side on this plane back to Washington there's no way I can keep pace with his mind, turning over every possibility and its myriad solutions. I'm sure a number of those solutions include cold-blooded murder. Although he won't have to do it if I do it first. He's downed at least five cups of black coffee on this flight. For each cup he makes at least three calls on the Airphone, always striking out. "No news," they tell him every time. "She's still asleep. The doctors won't tell us anything because we're not family, and we can't reach her mother." After each call, he slams the phone back into its slot in the (thankfully empty) seat in front of him, yanks himself off his ass, and stalks up and down the aisles for at least five minutes. After the first few times, the flight attendants know to stay out of his way. I don't blame them. I don't blame *him.* I know what he's thinking, because I'm thinking the same thing. She's sick again. **** The morning rush hour cab ride from National to the hospital seems to take almost as long as the flight. Mulder alternates between more useless cell phone calls -- no news yet, still asleep -- and drumming his knuckles on the back of the driver's seat in a frantic rhythm. When traffic slows to a crawl four blocks away, Mulder spits out a curse, throws open his door, and takes off at a full run. I toss several bills at the cabbie and follow. By the time I catch up with him at the hospital he is pushing his way into an elevator, waving his badge to get its exclusive use. Someone has to keep him from running amuck once he gets up to Scully's floor, so I wave my own ID and slide in just as he pounds his fist on the floor button. I gulp down air -- Christ, when did I get so out of shape? -- as we ascend, keeping one eye on him as he stares at the floor indicator above the door. He is breathing heavily himself, probably more from panic than from the four-block run, and slaps his palm against the wall as though that will make the elevator rise faster. He is too manic, even for him, and I remember all the caffeine he's ingested in the last several hours. I wonder if I should take his weapon away from him. Before I can decide, the elevator delivers us to her floor ("deliver us from evil" I hear in my head). He squeezes through the doors as they open and nearly tramples a wide-eyed orderly. "I need to find a patient named Dana Scully," he demands. "What room is she in?" The woman blinks in shock. "Sir, it's too early for vis-- " "WHAT FUCKING ROOM?" Before I have a chance to defuse the powder keg that is about to explode, John Byers appears from around a corner thirty feet away. "Mulder!" he hisses. As Mulder takes off I pull out my ID again, hoping that my guttural "Federal Agents" and apologetic grimace will be enough to keep us from getting asked to leave before he can see her. That scenario is too ugly to consider. I find him outside a closed door -- hers, I assume -- conferring with Byers, Frohike, and Langly. I don't know how they've managed to stay here all night without being thrown out, and I'm not going to ask. "... and they're saying the doctor won't be back to see her until eight," Frohike finishes. "What's her chart say?" Mulder demands, oblivious to any need for quiet. Langly gestures toward the nurse's station and scowls. "They've got her chart back there practically under lock and key," he whispers. "We haven't been able to get a look at it. I hacked into their computer system about an hour ago and there was nothing there for her yet except that she was admitted." "You're sure there was no blood? No nosebleed at all?" "None," Byers replies. "And the nurses say that her condition is listed as satisfactory." Mulder drags a hand down his haggard face, looking ready to shoot out another round of questions, when a quiet but plaintive, "Mulder?" drifts from Scully's room. He is through her door, calling her name, before the rest of us have time to react. I am the first to follow, catching the door before it can smack me in the face. The Gunmen trail, hovering in the open doorway. In the dim light I can see them in profile, Mulder sitting on the edge of her bed. Her arms circle his waist; one of his cups her head and the other is at her back. Her head rests on his shoulder; his rests on the top of her head, both have their eyes shut tightly. They hold each other in a tenacious embrace that seems both perfectly natural and shockingly surreal. Scully's watery voice floats across the room. "Are you all right?" He pulls back to look at her, smoothing the hair on one side of her head as he studies her face. "Scully, I'm fine. You're the one in the hospital." The look she gives him in return is so charged that I take an involuntary step backwards. As much as I want to know how she is, it isn't right for me to witness their exchange. I turn and point toward the hall; the Gunmen back away until we all stand in the bright hallway. A nurse glares at us and I glare right back. Does she think that's an ordinary patient in that room? "I'm going to work on getting into the hospital's computers again," Langly whispers. "Morning shift's in full swing so there should be something on her condition loaded to the system by now." "Whatever it is, the faster we get to work on it the better," Frohike agrees. "There's no telling what the hell they've done to her now." "I'll try to reach her mother again," Byers states. "Fine." I feel my adrenaline rush start to wear off -- no, it's more like a sudden crash and burn. I lean back against the wall behind me. "Frohike, go downstairs and get us all some coffee, would you?" He glares at me, eyes narrowed. "I'm not your fucking waterboy, Skinner." I force myself to stand up straight again and open my jacket enough to give them a glimpse of my holster. "I have the authority to give those two some privacy." I glower at the short man as I tip my head toward Scully's room. "Do you?" After a momentary standoff, the three take off for their respective assignments. I stand my ground near Scully's door, knowing damn well that I don't have much authority to keep anyone out of her room, but it is all I can give her. I should close the door, but convince myself that they need the light filtering in from the hallway to see each other. If I overhear some details of her condition, it will be by accident. I'm not trying to pry. Bullshit. I want to know, maybe not as much as he does, but I still want -- need -- to know how she is. "Scully, stop, stop," I hear him say. "I'm here, I'm all right, they didn't take me. Please, just tell me what's wrong with you. What wouldn't the nurses tell us?" A strangled sound comes from the room and I am shocked to realize that it came from Scully. I don't think I've ever heard anything close to that sound from her before. "Mulder," she rasps, her voice so faint I have to strain -- God forgive me -- to hear her, "Mulder, we never talked about this, we never thought it could happen, we never discussed it, we...." Her voice falls off into a weep, and I feel like someone has sucker-punched me. What the hell have they done to her now that she is so distraught? Which son of a bitch is going to have to die for what they have done to her? "Scully," Mulder pleads, his voice shaking, grief-stricken. "Scully, tell me, please, what is it?" He sounds as though he is struggling to breathe and I squeeze my eyes shut. "It's the... it's... you're sick again, aren't you?" My fists tighten until my fingernails dig into my palms. I wait for the guillotine blade to fall, its swift, severing blow slicing through my hopes. "Tell me," his muffled voice begs. The next moments pass in slow motion, as though I'm in a speeding car as it crashes into a wall. Scully sucks in a long staccato breath. At the nurse's station, a phone trills one stretched ring, then another. A shadow passes before my closed eyes as a nurse's shoes thump-thump-thump on the worn linoleum. A far-off "hello" answers the phone. Scully breathes again. "I'm pregnant," she whispers, somehow unnaturally loud and echoing to my ears. Whatever they say after that is drowned out by my pounding heart and the blood rushing in my ears and screaming thoughts of hows and whys and gratitude and disbelief and sheisn'tsick and PREGNANT? "Sir? Are you all right?" My eyes fly open at the touch of the nurse's hand on my arm, and I realize that I'm shaking. "Yeah, fine, thanks" I lie, although I'm not certain my rubbery legs can hold me up much longer unless I start moving, get some momentum. I remember this feeling from when Mulder told me she'd gone into remission. "I'm fine," I repeat, and the nurse backs away, giving me a suspicious look. I push away from the wall, start to catapult myself down the hall, but stop and turn back to their door. I pull it shut, with the quietest *click* possible, and go off to find their friends. I have to stop Langly's hacking, and Byers' phone calls, and then we're going to join Frohike for some coffee for at least half an hour. END **** Feedback makes my day: Bjm1352@aol.com or Forte1354@aol.com Author's Notes: This is my idea of what might have happened if the Gunmen had been able to reach Mulder by cell phone after Scully collapsed at the end of "Requiem." It was written in response to the Haven's "You're Having My Baby" 500 word challenge (although I went a bit over the 500 word limit *cough*). Big mondo thanks to Musea, especially mountainphile, Audrey Roget, Diana Battis, and Mish, for the encouragement and beta. :)