Title:  In Sickness and in Health
Author:  Brandy D. Parks
Rating:  PG-13
Disclaimer:  Mulder and  Scully aren't mine.  They belong to FOX, 1013                  
                  productions, CC, DD, and GA.  If you didn't already know that please  
                   contact me  regarding some beach front property in Arizona.
Classicfication:  VR
E-mail:  Brandy.D.Parks-1@ou.edu
Spoilers:  Fallen Angel
Time Line:  Post season 4 except in this story Scully's cure included a cure for
	       all side effects
Archive:  Anywhere, just e-mail me and let me know where.
Thanks:  Thanks to those who beta read for me and offered the editing advice,           
            support and comments:  Jodi, Helen Forest, JJ, Kate, Michelle, Tiff, and    
             Jenn.  You guys at XPFC are awesome.  There is no way I'd of ever          
             posted this without your encouragement.  Thanks everybody! 
Summary:  Scully isn't feeling well in the early weeks of their marrage.  



	Mulder woke up slowly. The first thing he was aware of was a soft , slightly 
floral scent.  He took a deep breath, unsure if the scent was a part of reality and or 
the dream he had been having.  
	He blinked his eyes and found his face buried in a woman's red hair.  He smiled 
to himself and tightened his arms around her.
	His mind wandered back over the last few weeks.  He had heard that most 
newly-weds quickly estalished a routine of cuddling awhile and then moving to seperate 
sides of the bed to sleep.  It hadn't worked that way for Scully and him.  He couldn't 
get enough of touching her.  Maybe it was all those years he had had to confine himself 
to a hand on her back.  
	It surprised him that Scully tolerated it.  Sometimes he suspected she wished 
he'd give her a little more space.  She had never been a tactile person.  In fact, she 
usually maintained a fairly large area of personal space.  She had never objected to his 
constant close proximity and frequent caresses, and he knew Scully was the type of 
person who would tell him if it bothered her.
	He felt her squirm in his arms, drawing her legs up toward her chest.  Feeling 
her move against him, instantly aroused him.  He shook his head marveling at the power 
she held over him.  Of course, last night, much to his delight, she had shown him he 
held the same power to intice and delight her.
	Scully's sensual stretching was usually  a sign that she was about to awaken, 
and Mulder began to place soft kisses along the back of her neck. He moved from her neck 
to her jaw line, intent on reaching her mouth.  It was a method of bringing her to full 
alertness that she had declared, "Just might permantly eliminate my need for morning 
coffee."  Gently easing her into a postion where he could reach her lips, he noticed the 
tension around her mouth and the deep crease in her forehead from squeezing her eyes 
closed so tightly.
	Mulder froze. Something was obviously wrong.  His first thought was that she was 
having a nightmare.  He hated the idea that her sleep might me troubled as his so often 
was.
	It was something he had often wondered about before their marriage.  Were her 
dreams distrubed, as his were, by the nightmarish things they had endured during  their 
partnership?.  Did she wake up screaming after seeing Pfaster's face, or Duane Barry's 
or one of the dozens of other predators they had encountered?  He had hoped, even 
prayed, that at least at night she was free from the demons they chased during the day.
	Thus far, he had seen no evidence of her sleep being disturbed.  If  anything, 
she slept too soundly.  It was no wonder she had always seemed distant when he had 
called her with one excuse or another in the middle of the night.  At the time he had 
thought she was angry at him for bothering her.  Now he knew, she simply hadn't been 
fully awake.  She had seemed distant because she was caught somewhere between sleep and 
awake, trying to process his message and find out what he needed.  
	No, Scully didn't seem given to nightmares, still there were always exceptions. 
 He continued to study her as he considered waking her. Sometimes, he knew from too many 
experiences,  it was easier just to let the dream play its self out, come to its natural 
conclusion. 
	As he watched her, she pulled her legs even closer to her chest and rolled her 
head and shoulders forward, curling herself into a tight ball.  It dawned on him that it 
wasn't a dream causing her distress but physical pain.
	"Oh," she groaned, opening her eyes a quarter of the way and then snapping them 
shut.  "The light, turn it off."
	His stomach tightened, "It isn't on.  It's just the sunlight.'
	"Sun.. Ugh.  Did we oversleep?"
	"Oversleep? Oh, no, it's Saturday"
	"Saturday. Okay, whatever." she mumbled pulling a pillow over her head.
	"Angel?" he questioned tugging on the pillow.
	"Leave it.  The light hurts."
	"The light hurts? Why? What's wrong?"  
	"My head,  and my stomach and.. oh great, " she grumbled as her  hand went over 
mouth. She jumped out of bed and ran for the bathroom.
	"Scully... " Mulder called from behind her.
	She practically slammed the bathroom door in his face, and he could hear the 
sounds of her being sick.  The toliet flushed, and water started running in the sink.
	He knocked gently, "Can I come in now?" he aked.
	"Yeah, just DON'T turn on the light."
	"NO light, okay, got it."
	He came in and saw her splashing her face with water.  Her eyes were barely 
opened to slits, and even so was practically glaring at him.
	He reached to put his arms around her and she said,  "Don't.  My skin hurts."
	"Your skin hurts?" he repeated.  The light sensitivity he could understand but 
what on Earth could make her skin hurt?  
	She raised her head just enough to see his face, and her expression softened in 
response to his obvious worry.
	Sorry... it's just cramps and migraine,"  she started to explain, but then 
stopped and yanked up the lid on the toilet seat again instead.
	Thirty minues later she was back in bed with a damp wash cloth over her face.  
	Mulder was trying to hang a blanket over the window using thumb tacks. Everytime 
he would get one side up, the other side would fall.  "Ah, shoot! "  he hollered after 
punching a tack into his thumb."
	Scully flinched in response to the noise, and he was instantly contrite.
	"Sorry, Angel," he whispered.  "What did you do in your old apartment?" he 
asked.
	"I had thicker drapes on my bedroom window."
	Mulder nooded-- Well, he caught mutants and serial killers for a living.  He 
refused to be beaten by one lousy blanket. "Wait, I have an idea." he told her.
	"I'm not going anywhere,"' she smiled wryly.
	He came over to the bed and gently kissed her forehead.  "You go through this 
every month?" he asked.
	She nodded.
	A few moments later he came back with several clothes pins.  He took the clothes 
pins and used them to hang the blanket on the blinds.
	"Mulder, you'll ruin the blinds." she complained.  
	"So?  Look, we'll buy new ones tomorrow when we go get heavier drapes."
	Scully didn't looked conviced, but she didn't feel like arguing either.
	By the time the blanket was hung, Scully was asleep.  Mulder tiptoed out of the 
room and walked to the spare bedroom they used as study.  
	He sat down at the desk determined to complete some paperwork.  He pulled an 
expense report from his brief case and started rumaging though reciepts.  After about 
five minutes he tossed the reciepts and forms to the side.  
	Realizing he wasn't going to accomplish anything related to work, with his mind 
on Scully being sick, he turned to the computer.  He pulled up a search engine and typed 
in migraine.  Logically, he knew, that, as a doctor, Scully probably knew the best 
treatments available; but maybe there was something new out there she hadn't heard about 
yet.  
	After a few clicks he found hmself on the home page of an organization 
"dedicated to the education of the public regarding alternative migraine treatments".  
Skimming down the list, he saw links to pages on acupuncture, dietary treatment, and 
herbal therapies.  It sounded interesting, but  Mulder realized the chances of getting 
his wife to try any treament not advocatd by the AMA was't worth the time it took to 
click on the icon.
	"Alright, then," he directed himself,  " Find something she will try." 
	Two hours later, Mulder had read about the effects of hormone flucuations on 
migraine sufferers, why cheese causes migraines, what foods contained MSG.  He also had 
information on about 500 million medications, all supposedly "the miracle" cure for 
migraine sufferers.
	Only a couple of ideas sounded plausible even to him and he decided to share 
those with Scully when she was feeling better.
	It dawned on him that she hadn't had anything to eat all day and so he decided 
to bring her some soup.  Walking out into the living room he saw her curled  up on the 
couch with a blanket.  She had the lights turned down low, and was nibbling on some 
crackers.  She looked a bit pale; but she seemed significantly better.
	"Hey, Angel,"  he said softly remembering how the noise hurt her head earlier.  
"Would you like some soup to go with those?"
	She looked up at him with a soft smile on her lips, " That would be nice. Could 
you bring me a glass of water, too?"
	After warming a can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle, Mulder brought it to her with 
her water and said, "Mulder's original recipe, homemade from scratch." 
	"Homemade from scratch, huh?  Then why did I hear the can opener running?"
	"That well, that was, umh,  that was.. "
	Scully was giggling at his attempt to explain it away, and soon he joined her.
	It was so good just to sit and laugh with her.  He knew it meant she was feeling 
better.
	He started thinking back over the morning and wondered how, if she went through 
that kind of pain every month he had never known it before.
	"Scully," he started.
	"When are you gonna stop calling me that?" she intrupted.
	"What, Scully, I don't know. Probably never, why?"
	"Well, it isn't even my name anymore, at least not socially."
	"Yeah, but it would get too confusing if I called you Mulder."
	"You could call me Dana, you know, like everyone else does."
	"But I don't want to call you the same thing everyone else does.  I like having 
my own name for you."
	"You do have your own name for me,.  You call me Angel."
	Mulder smiled,.  He remembered how often he had thought of her as an angel 
before he ever felt free to call her that.  Lots of people thought of angels as those 
cute little cherubs for sale at craft shows; but when he thought about Scully, he 
pictured the Biblical angels.  Biblical angels, were beautiful and strong.  They were 
God's messengers, and the first words they usually said, when they appeared to people 
were, "Be not afraid."  
	He remember how she had looked the day she came to get him released after he had 
snuck onto a military clean up site, back when he had first met Max Fenig.  That was 
when he had first seen her as an angel, his strong, beautiful guardian angel.  One look 
at her expression and he had needed her to say, "Don't be afraid."  He had hidden all 
those feelings though and made some joke about not ordering room service.
	Yes, she would always be his angel.  Still he couldn't see him starting to call 
her Dana anytime soon.  Not after all this time.  
	"Just habit, I guess." he finally told her.  "Besides if I call you Dana, you 
get to call me Fox, and we can't have that, can we?"
	She nodded but looked a little wistful.  Seeing her disappointment, he almost 
told her she could call him anything she wanted.  Truthfully, he knew that if she  
started calling him Fox he'd probably adjust and maybe hearing the despised name on her 
lips, he could even learn to like it.  "Someday I'll tell her it's okay," he thought.  
They were getting better at letting each other in, letting each other see their 
vulnerable parts.  They weren't perfect at it, yet; but they were trying, and someday 
he'd be ready to let her soothe the scars he associated with his first name.
	Thinking about sharing vulnerabilities reminded him of his orginal question.  "If 
this happens to you every month, how come I never knew about it before?" he asked, his 
tone faintly accusatory.
	She looked away a moment, hesitating, "I didn't want you to know." she finally 
answered looking away.
	"But how did you hide it? What I saw this morning, it was pretty obvious you 
were ill.  " 
	She just looked at him with raised eyebrows.  He nodded, that was Scully, if she 
didn't want him to know she'd of found away to keep it a secret.  He thought about her 
sitting in the car beside him, feeling awful pain, and asking to stop at a rest stop or 
gas station pretending to need a bathroom break when in reality she was about to throw 
up.  It hurt that she had felt she couldn't share the truth with him.
	He wondered what he had done to make her willing to suffer silently, rather than 
confide in him.  Did he really come off as so self- centered that she believed he would not 
be compassionate?  And how could he have been so self-absorbed that he hadn't noticed her 
pain? 
	"Why couldn't you just tell me?"
	"I didn't want you to see me as weak, to not trust me to watch your back."
	"Oh, Scully, I could never see you as weak.  You are the strongest person I 
know, and the ONLY one I want watching my back."
	"I believe that now Mulder.  I do, but before I just, well, it was important to 
me to have your respect."
	"You have always had it." he stated emphatically.  
	They sat quietly while why Scully sipped her water.  
	Mulder was trying to think of a way to bring up the treatment ideas he had read 
about.  Finally, he asked.  "What do you do to help with these headaches?"
	She shrugged, "There isn't much I can do. I make sure I drink a lot of water, 
avoid caffeine around the time of the month I usually get them, get plenty of 
excersise."
	"You don't take any medication or anything?  I just read about all sorts of 
drugs that are used to treat migraines.  There is this new one, Imitrex.  They even have 
it in a nasal spray, and its suppose to be..."
	"Mulder, I know about the medications.  I'm a doctor, remember.  Most of them 
make you really drowsy or..."
	"This new one doesn't.  I read that its suppose to give relief in 15 minutes." 
he told her.
	"Yes, Mulder, I know," she said cutting him off.  "But I can't take it, since 
I'm allergic to aspirin.  Most of the migraine medicines either have aspirin or another 
NSAID them, and I can't take them."
	"Okay, but your migraines are mostly around your menstrual cycle, right?"
	"Yeah,  why, " she looked at him suspicously.
	"Well, I read about this other, uh, treatment, that usually elimanates migraines 
for women with menstrual related migraine; and it would cure your cramps too."
	"Alright, Mulder, give.  What have you got planned now?"
	"You could get pregnant," he finally spit out.
	Scully choked on her water.  "What!" she exclaimed coughing, "You want me to 
get pregnant as a cure for my headaches! Mulder thats crazy."
	"That isn't the first time you've said that to me.  Think about it Scully, you 
wouldn't have any headaches, or cramps for months."
	"It's kind of a temporary cure don't you think?   After the baby is born I go 
back to the way it was before ."
	"Well, you could have another. "
	"And then what, another and another.  No way.  Not to mention that labor pains 
are hardly a fair trade to avoid migraines."  
	"Umm, well, " Mulder was beginning to see the holes in his plan. Actually, he 
had seen the holes in the plan all along, he just didn't want to admit it because he 
hated seeing her in any kind of  pain and was willing to try anything to avoid it.
	She looked at him strangely.  "Is this your roundabout  way of telling me you 
want children?  I that what this is about?"
	Mulder thought about it.  He hadn't really seen it as such when  he was coming 
up with the plan, but maybe on some level he was. "I don't know.  I wasn't thinking 
about children actually when I came up with the idea but.."
	Scully took a deep breath.  "Do you want children, Mulder?"
	"I had always thougth that eventually we'd have them, yeah.  Do you not want 
them?"
	He was suddenly scared. Why hadn't they talked about this before getting married 
not that it would have kept him from marrying her.  Still, what if she didn't want 
children?.  He had always expected that someday they'd have them.  He wanted to watch 
her stomach swell with their child.  He wanted to hear the word "Daddy" directed at him. 
 If she didn't want that, he'd have to accept it; but it would hurt to give up that 
dream.
	"Yes, I do want them." she answered.  He let out a breath.  "Not necessarily 
right now, I mean we've been married barely a month and I want you all to myself for 
awhile."
	He grinned at her.  "I like that sentiment.  I want you all to myself, too, and 
I don't mind waiting awhile"  He tilted his head and gave her a leer, "How are you 
feeling? You up to practicing this baby making thing? We could go to the bedroom and... 
" he trailed off.
	"Hmmm," she answered.  We COULD. Or we could take advantage of this living alone 
and not go anywhere at all."
	"I could deal with that," he said as he leaned over and kissed her.

END