Thu May 15 1997
Demons in the Light of Day
--------

Summary: What happened between Mulder collapsing and Scully
typing at the end of 'Demons'.

Category: VA

Rated PG with one really bad word.

Disclaimer: Well, we all know where they're getting their ideas
from now, don't we? But they have the law on their side, so I
won't infringe on their copyright. Everything belongs to 10-13
Productions.

Please archive anywhere as long as my name is attached.

Comments to me--vmoseley@fgi.net

Demons In the Light of Day (1/1)
By Vickie Moseley

His head was pounding. Some evil person or entity had poured
what tasted like Elmer's glue and sour milk in his mouth and he had
no moisture there to swallow. He was laying on his back, flat on
his back. He tried to turn over, curl around his pillow, but his arm
kept getting caught on something and he couldn't get all the way on
his side.

"Don't try rolling over, Mulder. The restraints won't let you," his
partner's tired voice told him firmly.

He opened his eyes and then slammed them shut against the bright
sunlight pouring through the hospital room window. When he
opened them a second time, he knew enough not to look directly in
the light. He noticed briefly that he'd managed to escape being sent
to ICU, but the Velcro straps that held his wrists to the bed rails
were not all that comforting. He tugged at his left hand.

"Why am I restrained?" he asked hoarsely and immediately
regretted saying anything. His throat had been rubbed raw with
sandpaper. He saw the water pitcher sitting on the bedside table
and would have given anything for the ability to levitate some of
that into his mouth.

Once again, her uncanny ability to read his mind worked in his
favor. Scully reached over and poured a half a glass of water and
then held the straw for him to take a drink. He couldn't help but
notice that she made no effort to remove the straps on his arms,
however.

"You were seizing last night," she said tersely. She was quiet for a
minute and he almost thought he'd have to actually ask her what
she was talking about. But she was just waiting for him, waiting to
see if he was really awake or just in some 'never never' land of
waking unconsciousness. "You had 14 separate seizures last night.
Not including the ones at the summer house and in the ambulance
on the way to the hospital." Her voice was too flat. He knew she
was keeping it that way so she didn't break the windows when she
started yelling at him.

The water had soothed his throat a little, but he wasn't real sure
how he could respond to his partner. Somehow, the tinny "I'm
sorry" he managed just seemed completely inadequate.

Scully looked at him hard and long. Slowly, she shook her head.
"I'd feel better if I thought you meant that," she said finally. She
then got up and moved over to fiddle with the blinds on the
window, lessening the brightness of the room. The silence was
more pounding to his soul than the pain in his head.

"Do you remember anything of last night?" she asked. He was
pretty sure that she wanted to say more, but again was keeping a
tight lid on her anger.

"No," he said with a shrug.

"You don't remember going to Dr. Goldstein's office?"

He shook his head in the negative, then winced because it was a
really lousy idea. The pounding threatened to explode and he was
pretty certain Scully wouldn't bother cleaning up the mess when it
did.

"Would you like to know what you did?" she asked.

It was inevitable. At this point, all his training told him that unless
she unleashed some of that tension, one of two things was going to
happen. Either she would die of a stroke, or she'd walk out the
door and he'd never see her again. Neither was acceptable to him.
He had to face the music, no matter how much he wanted to avoid
this. Better now than never.

"What did I do?" he whispered.

She nodded. The way she always did when she was gearing up.
He often got the impression that she was a pitcher on the mound
when she did that. 'Here's the warm up--and the pitch . . .STRIKE
ONE!'

"You left your mother's, took my car, and ran off to the good
doctor's, where he proceeded to pump you full of hallucinogenic
drugs and drill a hole in your head," she said, starting low and
building as she continued.

"Then, still driving MY car, you took off for your family's summer
home. Thank you for have the good grace not to wrap my car
around a tree, by the way. My insurance company will send you a
bundt cake. But once in the house, you took your service weapon
and spent the next several minutes, now here I'm speculating, but
what the hell, spent the next several minutes contemplating what
pattern to spray your brains on the closest wall! I came in and you
held the gun on me while I tried to talk you down. You seized
again and then started shooting. I should be grateful that in the
course of the seizure you managed to turn away from me and you
shot out only windows, but see, Mulder, I'm pretty certain it was
muscle reflex and not you trying to avoid hitting me."

There were tears in her eyes and she wiped at them angrily. "Then
you had another seizure, more severe and collapsed on the floor.
Since there was a SWAT team and about fifty cops outside,
somebody thought to call an ambulance and they took their sweet
time arriving. I lost track of how many smaller seizures you
experienced until we got you to the hospital. They started you on
sodium pentathol immediately. You were so far under by that
point, we could have used a small nuclear device in your frontal
lobe and I don't think it would have made a tinker's dam bit of
difference."

For whatever reason, she stopped for a minute. The anger in her
eyes faded and was replaced by a great sadness. "Mulder, I won't
even ask if it was worth it. I'm going to tell you. It wasn't. You
almost lost it all last night. If it weren't for the drug and the hole in
your forehead, you would be on permanent disability this morning.
The doctor wanted to put down a diagnosis of temporary epilepsy,
but I got him to revise that. I was afraid that if the Bureau saw
that, if it ever got back to them . . . Don't you see it doesn't matter
if anybody else shuts us down, Mulder? Don't you see you're
doing it for them, now?"

"I wanted to remember. I did remember," he said weakly. It
sounded lame even to his own ears. "I'm sorry, Scully. I'm really
sorry."

"You know, Mulder, our parish priest, when I was a kid, used to
tell us that 'sorry' was only half the apology. The other half was
trying to make sure you don't ever do the sin again. And I can't
believe you're ready to do that, Mulder. I can't believe that you
won't run off and do something this . . . this damned STUPID . . ."
She stopped and he could see she was physically biting her tongue
to keep from saying more on the subject. When she could finally
look at him again, she took a deep breath. "It doesn't matter.
You're on so much shit right now, you'll wake up in the morning
and think you had a conversation with a big purple dinosaur."

"When can I leave?" he asked, not really expecting the answer he
was hoping for.

"The neurologist brought in a cardiologist last night after you went
arrhythmic about 4 am. He wants you here for another 48 hours
and then they'll do a stress test on your heart. That should take a
couple of hours. If it goes well, they'll release you. If there was
damage, they'll want to do surgery." She was glaring hard at him
but she softened when he realized exactly what she was saying.

"My heart?"

"Yes, Mulder, your heart. What, you think you can do this shit and
just walk away?! Everytime you had a seizure your heartrate shot
up into the 150's. After last night, it's a wonder you didn't have a
full blown attack. Instead you settled for little 'burps'. They gave
you nitro last night. And then, toward morning, the seizures started
lessening and getting further apart. That helped. You haven't had
one in about an hour and a half. You're probably due," she added,
a sarcastic note coloring her words.

"One more thing, Mulder. What did you say to your mother?"

He bit his lip but didn't answer.

"The reason I ask is because I called her last night, to let her know
that you were in the hospital and since she was close I offered to go
get her. She informed me that she would be available if
'arrangements had to be made', but otherwise, I wasn't to bother
her again. She wants nothing to do with you. Now, what the
hell--"

"It's nothing Scully. It's how it's always been. Situation normal,
all fucked up," he said casually, but she could see the pain in his
eyes. This whole thing was getting to both of them and she realized
it wasn't going to get any better by rubbing salt in old wounds.

"I'm going down to get something to eat. Since you're awake, I'll
have them bring you a tray. Do you want anything--besides the
standard order of sunflower seeds?" she asked, her voice finally
sounding like Scully, his partner, and not Scully, his keeper.

"A big glass of iced tea would do wonders right now," he said,
giving her a half-smile.

"If I can find some decaf, I'll bring it back. And I'll see about
getting you cut loose from the Velcro, if you promise not to try and
get out of bed. You'd get tangled in the tubes and end up in the
orthopedic ward anyway, if you tried."

"Scouts honor," he vowed, holding up the three fingered salute.

"Right," she said and it was clear she just barely believed him. She
turned to leave.

"Scully," he called to her. She stopped at the door and turned
toward him, waiting.

"I really am sorry. Don't worry, OK. I have to do this." He
wanted to tell her more, to tell her he wasn't worth all the effort,
but the words just stuck in his throat.

"Too late, Mulder. Worry is in my job description. And there are
other ways of finding the truth. We both know that. Don't go into
the darkness without me, OK?"

He swallowed, but said nothing. She closed the door softly behind
her and let the tears fall.

the end.
Vickie
Stand up for what you think is right,
Even if you stand alone.
--a poster