Ah, Perchance to Dream (1/1 short)
Date: 1 Nov 1995

All the legal stuff: No copyright infringement intended. Mulder,
Scully, the guys in black and Cancerman belong to 10-13
Productions. Title comes from Shakespeare, Hamlet, don't know
what act, scene or line, but I know it's in there somewhere.
Warnings: none (though a possible tissue alert). No sex, no
violence, no mention of the third season. Just a little something
that wouldn't let me sleep after reading Entertainment Weekly for
9/29/95.

Ah, Perchance to Dream. . .*
By vmoseley@fgi.net Vickie Moseley

Dana Scully sat on the edge of the hospital bed and forced
herself not to feel. Not at that moment. Maybe not for a long time.
If she allowed herself that luxury, she would surely break down and
sob and that is not how she wanted to remember these moments.
That would be an insult to their friendship, however deep that
friendship was.
She decided to concentrate on his comfort. The doctor had
already been in and given him a fairly large dose of morphine. That
had allowed him to relax, settle his ragged breathing. His eyes
looked at her now, not with pain, but with sorrow and a tinge of
regret.
"I never wanted to do this, you know?" he gasped. She bit her
lip and nodded. "No, I mean I never wanted to put you through
this, Scully. I'm not upset for me. I just didn't want you to be hurt.
I really hate to say it, though, but I know I could not have done the
reverse, if it had been you. Guess I'm selfish that way."
"Don't talk like that, Mulder! You're going to be fine. You just
need some time to rest. . ." her voice trailed off and he smiled and
shook his head.
"Don't lie to me now, Scully. After all this time, don't make our
last words a lie. Please," he begged and she clutched his hand
tighter and nodded in agreement.
She reached over and brushed some hair from his forehead. He
reached up and held her cheek until gravity forced his hand down to
her shoulder and finally it fell limply on the bed. She couldn't hold
back the tears anymore. She had to feel, but it was killing her, too.
He saw the pain in her eyes.
"I love you, Scully," he sighed.
"I love you, too, Mulder," she said, and the tears broke into the
sobs that she wanted so desperately to avoid. She forced herself to
take a deep breath and then, leaning over, kissed him gently on the
lips. He didn't respond. There was no soft whiff of breath from
him. His eyes no longer held the spark of life. He was gone from
her. The sobs returned as she closed his eyes with her hand and
then hugged the lifeless body as she had on too precious few
occasions when he was full of life.
She held him for only a moment when the door burst open and
several men in the standard black uniform color of their profession
scrambled into the room. Two of them grabbed her by the arms,
tearing her away from her friend's lifeless body and four others
grabbed that body and threw it hastily onto a gurney.
"What the hell do you think you are doing?" she screamed at
them.
"Their jobs, Agent Scully. They are doing their jobs," a husky
voice said behind her. She turned her head and glared at him, the
man she hated more than any other she had ever met. He smiled at
the hatred in her eyes, and took another drag on his ever present
cigarette. "You know what to do with the body," he ordered and
the four pushed the gurney out of the door. Scully broke free at
that moment and lunged at the man responsible, the one who had
seen to Mulder's execution, the one man on earth she would literally
kill with her own hands. . .

. . .and she woke up to hear herself screaming "I'll kill you, you
Son of a Bitch!" It was dark in her apartment. Her heart was still
pounding in her chest, the tears were still streaming down her face.
It took her several big gasps of air to even begin to think clearly.
When her thoughts finally returned to her, she grabbed the phone
and hit the 1 and the pound symbol. Then she waited for the
answer.
On the fourth ring, the phone was picked up. ". . .Yeah. . ." a
sleep heavy male voice said into the phone on the other side of the
city. She smiled, Mulder sounded so funny when he was asleep.
"It's me," she said, by way of identification. "Were you asleep?"
"Actually, I think so. My eyes are still closed, so maybe this is
just a dream," he joked. "Another nightmare?" he asked, but it was
a rhetorical question. He knew the only reason she would be
calling was if she had a nightmare. If it were something more
important, she would be banging on his door and using her spare
key to get in.
"Yeah. Another one. I shouldn't have called, you need your
sleep. . ."
"None of that!" he scolded, cutting her off. "You know the
arrangement! I call you, you call me. That way we keep the rumor
mill at the office going full speed because both of us show up to
work looking like hell," he added. She could hear the merriment in
his voice, even as sleepy as it was. "So, want to talk about it?"
"No," she said a bit hastily.
"OK, who dies," he asked gently. She didn't answer, just sighed.
"Oh, guess I'm the lucky victim this time," he said, yawning loudly.
"Mulder, this is not funny! Why do I keep having these
dreams?" she wailed into the phone.
"Oh, so now this is an official office call, huh," he teased, then
got serious. "Scully, we work out our problems in our dreams.
You know that from medical school, or at least I hope they
_mentioned_ it. It's sort of a basic precept! And it doesn't mean
you want me to die, or your mom or Skinner or anybody else. It
just means you've been under a lot of stress and this is your mind's
way of working that out, sorting through it all."
"Oh, so by scaring the living bejeebees out of me and making
sure I don't sleep for 4 or so hours a night, my mind is 'helping' me
work through my stress? Mulder, that's quite frankly the worst
explanation I have ever heard!" she countered.
"So now you know why I didn't go into private practice," he
chuckled into the phone. "You know, Scully, what the biggest part
of the problem is?"
She could hear the mischief in his voice, but decided to walk
into the trap anyway. "No, oh great psychologist, tell me what the
biggest part of the problem is," she answered in fake reverence.
"We spend too much time worrying about each other, and not
enough time 'fantasizing' about each other," he said and she could
see his eyes twinkle as he said it.
"I'm hanging up on you now, Mulder," she warned.
"You gonna be able to go back to sleep?" he asked, serious in
his concern.
"Probably. Maybe I'll read for a while," she answered.
"There's an AlienNation marathon on SciFi Channel tonight.
They're probably up to the episodes where George is pregnant by
now. You women always loved that idea, I know," he teased again.
"Pass. See you in," she looked at her clock and groaned, "three
hours."
"Make it three and a half, if you get back to sleep. Don't push
it, OK?" he scolded.
"I won't, Dr. Mulder," she assured him. "Good night."
"Night, Scully. Sweet dreams," he said and hung up the phone.

She lay there for a few minutes, smiling. He always had a way
of sweeping the monsters out from under the bed. In many ways,
she could easily blame him for having the nightmares to begin with,
but he was also the only person who helped her survive them. She
could picture him, the TV still on, snuggling down into the
comforter he kept on the couch, hoping to catch a few more
minutes of sleep. Slowly drifting off. . .
She buried her head further into her pillow. Closing her eyes,
she let her mind roam. She thought of a stretch of beach she had
found one spring break in college. Just north of Cape Canaveral, in
Florida. It was quiet, surprisingly and she was the only one on the
beach. She lay on a straw pallet in the sand, a big floppy hat
keeping the sun out of her eyes. Shifting a little, she raised herself
up on her elbows and regarded the surf, crashing endlessly just a
few feet from where she lay. Then, she smiled, as she took in the
sight before her. There was her partner, her best friend, the one
who made the bogey man leave her dreams. He was coming
toward her after a swim, the water still coursing off his body. And
all he was wearing was a tiny red speedo swimsuit, and a smile.

The end.

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