My Mulder

TITLE: My Mulder
AUTHOR: Donna Hartnett
EMAIL: IDanaKScullyI@aol.com
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Scully has a conversation.
KEYWORD: MSR-lite
TITLE: My Mulder
ARCHIVE: I'd be thrilled if anyone wanted it.
Thrilled and confused, but thrilled nonetheless.
SPOILERS: None
AUTHORS NOTES: This is dedicated to Randy. I miss
you so damned much! (more notes at the end)
ARCHIVE: I'd be thrilled if anyone wanted it. Thrilled 
and confused, but thrilled, nonetheless.
FEEDBACK: Yes please!!!
DISCLAIMER: (This is the thing my therapist and I work 
on three times a week. ::Sigh::)I don't own the X-Files, 
the surfer dude from hell  (Chris Carter), Fox, 1013, 
and probably a million other people have a stake in the 
X-Files, but not me ::sob::.	

    
    "You're going to be fine, Mulder," Scully said,
brushing the hair off of his forehead.
    "You know, I had a Mulder of my own, once upon a time."
The statment was so odd that it took a moment for it to 
penetrate the post-adrenaline fog.    
    Scully stood from the uncomfortable chair and turned
to see a middle-aged nurse standing in the doorway.
"Excuse me? Do you..ah...do we know each other?"    
    "My name is Lisa, and I'll be Agent Mulder's nurse this
evening. Mr. Muder is a member of the 'Frequent Flyer's
Club,' so are you, for that matter. You two are in here
almost more than I am." The nurse held out her hand and
Scully took it in her own.
    "I'm Dana Scully. I'm Agent Mulder's partner. What did
you meanb by 'a Mulder of my own'?" Scully hoped she hadn't
misheard the woman's statement.
    "I mean I was once in love the way you and Agent Mulder
are." The woman gave her a strange smile and began checking
Mulder's IV line.
    "I'm sorry, but Agent Mulder and I are just partners...
well, and friends." Scully bit back an irrational desire
to tell this Lisa person to mind her own business. If she 
alienated teh nurse, she could make Scully leave.
    Visiting hours were supposed to be only 15 minutes at the 
beginning of every hour from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm. It was
after midnight now, and if they threw her out, she wouldn't
be able to get back in for hours.
    "Agent Scully, I've seen the two of you in here too many 
times to believe that. Coworkers and friends don't hold bedside
vigils like you two do." Lisa said with an enigmatic smile.
    "I don't know what you mean. Mulder's just my..um..Mulder 
and I are, well, it's complicated." Why was she trying to 
justify her relationship with Mulder to this woman?
    "If yous ay so, Agent Scully." The little knowing smile 
on the nurse's face was getting more irritating by the second; 
a subject change was in order.
    "How are his vitals?" She could read the monitors as well as
the nurse could, but Scully wanted to steer the conversation in
a bit less personal direction.
    He's doing very well. Blood pressure, pulse, respirations,
and breath sounds are all good." Scully nodded. The nurse's
assessment matched her own.
    Scully returned to her seat at Mulder's bedside. She barely
managed to curb her desire to take his hand in her own. She 
affected what she thought was a proper level of professional 
concern for a fallen agent, and waited for the nurse to leave.
    "I guess it wouldn't do any good to tell you to go home and 
get some rest, would it," Lisa asked, with a smile.
    "No, it wouldn't." Scully mentally winced at the sharp tone 
she'd used.    
    "In that case, can I get you anything?" Lisa was so solicitous;
Scully couldn't help but warm to the nurse.   
    "No thank you, Lisa. I'm sorry I snapped at you. It's been a 
long day." Scully sighed and rubbed the back of her neck.
    "Well, Agent Scully, by some miracle, Agent Mulder is the
only patient in the ICU this evening, so if you need anything,
let me know. I'll be the one at the nurse's station bored to
tears." With that, the nurse turned and left the room.
    Scully felt a knot loosen in her stomach as she finally took
Mulder's hand in her own and sat back down to continue her vigil.
    Two hours later, Scully stood and stretched. her back was
killing her, and her head was pounding. She decided coffee was
in order.   
    She found Lisa right where the nurse had predicted earlier.
She was sitting at the nurse's station, keeping one eye on 
Mulder's monitor, and the other on a paperback novel.
    "Excuse me," Scully began. "I'm sorry to bother you, but
I'm going to the coffee shop. If Mulder wakes up, could you 
have me paged?"   
    "Trust me, it's not bother. This is the most horrible book!"
Lisa gave a little cuckle and tossed the book lightly on the 
counter. "I can do even better, Agent Scully. You don't have to
look any farther. I just made a fresh pot of coffee. It's in 
the nurse's loungs. Do you take anything in your coffee?"
    "Just a littel sweetener, please." Scully was pleased she
wouldn't have to trek across the hospital just to get some
caffeine.
    Lisa slipped back through a door marked "Employees Only" and
came back a minute later with two steaming styrofoam cups of
coffee. "Here you go, Agent Scully. If you'd like you can sit
here with me for a while" Lisa motioned to an empty chair that
was a twin of her own.
    "I think I will. Looking at the same four walls gets old after 
a few hours." Scully walked around the counter and sat next to
Lisa. Both women sat, enjoying their coffee, lost in their own
thoughts.
    "A Mulder of your own," Scully asked after a few minutes.
    A meloncholy smile crossed Lisa's face, and she nodded.
"Yep. My Mulder wasn't named Mulder, of course," she stated with
a quiet laugh.

    "What was his name?" Scully had no idea why she'd resurrected
this subject, but she suddenly felt very comfortable with Lisa.

    "His name was Julian. We worked together, downstairs in this
emergency room, as a matter of fact." Lisa smiled again, and
once again, it was melancholy.
    "You said you 'HAD' a Mulder. Can I ask what happened?"
    "Well, it's a long story, Agent Scully." Lisa seemed
more concerned with wasting Scully's time than revealing
her own intimate details, and Scully briefly envied the nurse
her open nature.
    "I don't have a hot date or anything, Lisa." Scully found it
hard to believe anyone else had ever had a relationsyhip like
hers and Mulder's and found herself honestly interested.
    "Like you said earlier, Agent Scully, it's complicated. For 
one thing, when Julian and I met, I was married, and Julian was
engaged to a woman named Deanne. We were masters at bad timing,
it seemed." Lisa took a sip of her coffee and checked the monitor
again before continuing.
    "An emergency room in a very stressful environment. People 
who've never worked in the medical field have no idea how stress-
ful. My husband, David, was an accountant, and Deanne was in 
computer sales. Neither of them really understood the need to vent 
after a particularly trying shift, so we vented to each other.
We worked the night shift, and if it was a particularly hairy
shift, we'd go for breakfast and talk, sometimes for hours."
    Scully glanced at Mulder's monitor, and satisfied with the
readings turned her attention back to the nurse. "So, you were 
just friends?"
    "For six years, yes, but again...it's complicated. I loved 
my husband very much, Agent Scully, and I didn't want to hurt him.
    "Julian loved his fiance, too. They never got married, but that
was her choice not Julian's. Deanne left him for another man, and
after that things changed." Lisa paused for another sip of coffee.
    "We never meant fo fall in love, Agent Scully, I swear it,
but sometimes, love has ideas of its own." Lisa sighed and Scully
thought she detected the glint of tears in the nurse's eyes.   
    "As much as I cared for David, something about Julian
had always attracted me. I knew he felt the same way, but with
both of us in committed relationships, it was easy for us both
to deal with it. I dealt with it by denial, and Julian used
humor. He was a master of the double entendre." Lisa gave an
affectionate smile and shook her head.
    Scully chuckled and said, "I know just what you mean."
    "I'll bet you do, Agent Scully." That knowing look was back
on Lisa's face, but this time it wasn't irritating at all.
    "After Deanna left," Lisa continued, "I was the only real 
friend Julian had. My husband was very understanding. David
is on of the best men I've ever known. He liked Julian, and
was as worried about him as I was. Julian and I spent even
more time together, and one night, he admitted to me that he
loved me.
    "I love dhim too, but I was so afraid. I had david to con-
sider, after all, and I did consider him...right up to the 
moment Julian kissed me."
    Lisa started and looked at the clock. "Oh my goodness! I
need to check Agent Mulder's vitals again."
    Scully followed the nurse into Mulder's room and waited 
until the nurse was finished before stepping to the side of 
the bed and planting a kiss on his forehead. Mulder showed 
no signs of waking, so Scully followed Lisa back to the nurse's
station for the rest of the story.
    "Where was I?" Scully had a feeling Lisa knew full well where
she'd been, so she kept quiet.
    "Oh yes, he kissed me. When Julian kissed me, my brain seemed
to cease functioning. When my higher mental functions returned, we
were in bed together. I'd done the one thing I never thought I'd 
do. I cheated on my husband.
    "I'm not a devious person, Agent Scully. I felt I owed it to
David to tell him the truth, and Julian agreed. David was deeply
hurt, of course."
    "David had been a wonderful friend to Julian, and Julian felt
he'd betrayed that friendship. Julian couldn't handle the guilt, 
and a month to the day after we'd made love, Julian took another
job. he stayed in DC, but he moved, changed his phone number, and
refused to talk to me when I tried to call him at work.
    "Julian was a very severe diabetic, but he'd had great doctors
and kept it under some semblance of control. After he left, he 
quit caring. His mother and I were close, and seh told me what he
was doing. He quit watching his diet, forgot to take his insulin.
It was a form of slow suicide.
    "A little over six months after we'd made love, Julian died
of kidney failure." Tears were now flowing freely down Lisa's 
face. Scully took a tissue from a box on the counter and handed
it to the nurse.
    "Don't let him go, Agent Scully," Lisa whispered huskily. 
"I've seen it. He looks at you like Julian used to look at me."
    Scully nodded and rose to go to Mulder's room. She stopped 
and asked, "What happened to David?"
    "We worked things out. I have no idea why he wanted to, but
like I said, David's a good man. He didn't deserve the pain I 
caused him, but I think he understood my relationship with Julian
better than I did.
    "I will never comprehend why he wanted to stay with me, but I 
thank my lucky stars for him every day."
    "Lisa, I don't know how to thank you." Scully suddenly wondered
why she and Mulder had kept themselves from happiness for so long.
Bureau policy be damned, things were going to change.
    "Just love him, Agent Scully. He's your Mulder, don't let him
self-destruct like my Mulder did." Lisa got up and went back into
the employee's lounge, and Scully went to her Mulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~
End

Everyone should have a Mulder in their lives. I don't know what I've 
done to deserve them, but I've been lucky enough to have two. My 
husband, Allan and my late friend, Randy are the two best men it's 
ever been my privilege to know.