Title: Floating Free (1/1) Author: Lisby (lisby@earthlink.net) Category: MSR Rating: PG ("Huh? Lisby wrote this and it's PG? Wuh the fuh??") Summary: This one defies summation, really. Christmas Eve 2003. Leave it at that. Disclaimer: No cash involved. Archive: Freely Lisby's homepage: http://home.earthlink.net/~iwonder/lisby.htm Feedback: Charter member of Feedback Whores 'R Us. Dedication: For Marley and all the groovy folk of X-OK, a Phile list that is not only bucolic, it's paradise on the Web. Join us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/X-OK. Written for the 3rd X-OK Fic Challenge. Elements at end of story. ****** On Monday afternoon, a glimpse of her new therapist's open notebook had showed Scully a diagnosis of "free- floating" anxiety. Later, she'd asked Mulder about the disorder, expecting as a preface some smart-ass dig like "So, you think I didn't buy that Oxford psych degree after all, huh, Scully?" But Mulder hadn't joked. He'd seemed sweaty and distracted and had answered by rote, "Free- floating anxiety: Continual anxiety not attributable to any specific situation or reasonable danger; or severe, generalized, persistent anxiety not specifically ascribed to a particular object or event and often a precursor of panic. See generalized anxiety disorder." "'See generalized anxiety disorder'? What book are you reading in your head?" "Ummm...I don't know--uhh..." Mulder had looked off into space and his pupils tracked from left to right, left to right. "American Psychiatric Glossary, 7th Edition." Twenty minutes later, Mr. Magic Memory had been puking in the bathroom. By midnight, he'd developed a high fever and had been shivering, glassy-eyed, and pale. By Tuesday afternoon, with a thready pulse and shortness of breath, Mulder had been lying on a gurney parked in the corridor of a crowded emergency department while Scully fought for a doctor's attention. Wednesday, Christmas Eve. The television light flickered light on Mulder's face, letting it serve as Scully's Rorschach scrim. The changing colors cast by the screen played over the contours of his features, until for a second Scully saw a skull with dark cheek undercuts and black recessed orbitals. She bit on her lip and dragged her eyes back to the television, where the reformed Grinch and his overloaded sleigh were sweeping down the face of Mount Crumpit. 'Stop it,' Scully chided herself. 'Fight the adrenal cascade. He's not in the ICU where all you can do is watch his IV drip. He's not shot; they're not sucking tobacco-beetle larvae out of his lungs; and Skinner didn't just pry him out of an ice-cold grave. He has influenza type A-H3N2 that has led to severe dehydration and respiratory infection. He's responding to medication and may go home tomorrow if the hospital needs the bed. Mulder is going to be fine. He's fine. I'm fine. We're fine... Please God, let everything just *stay* fine.' Scully gripped Mulder's hand more tightly and he answered her by squeezing back and lifting his eyebrows to ask what she wanted. Scully smiled in camouflage ("Dana thought up a lie and she thought it up quick..."). "Mulder, all the Whos down in Who-ville are going to eat roast beast. You wanna try some of that chicken lo mien?" She nodded toward the neglected carryout box on his bed stand. "It's not chicken lo mien. It's soy-chicken lo mien," Mulder answered, stressing the offending word. "It takes like sea sponge. Just gimme my damned fortune cookie." "Will you please eat the noodles?" "I'd rather hang myself with them." Scully warmed to his petulance, her grin genuine now. The crankier he was, the better he felt-- a truism gleaned from many hospital stays. She fished the fortune cookie out of the paper sack, broke the plastic wrapper, snapped the shell, and unrolled the slip inside. "It says, 'Those who hang themselves with noodles will fall on their asses.'" Mulder blinked then he broke out in the smile she'd aimed to create. "Give me the chopsticks, woman." He tucked into his food, and her anxiety floated further afield as the Grinch redistributed stolen goods and Boris Karloff proclaimed, "He himself-- The Grinch-- carved the Whos' roast beast!" Afterward, a circle of hand-holding Whos swayed around the village Christmas tree with its primary red and yellow decorations, singing, "Welcome Christmas, while we stand, heart to heart, and hand in hand..." And there it was-- the lump in her throat. The first time she'd felt it, Dana Scully, like Cindy-Lou, was surely not more than two. "This ending always makes me cry." "Yeah," Mulder agreed, sounding tight. "Maximum warm fuzzies." After a pause, he said softly, "Scully, I'm so sorry." The credits were rolling as she glanced back at him. "For what?" "For this-- this Christmas Eve, Mulder-style." He gestured with his chopsticks to the IV pole then to the greater hospital room. "I wanted to make our first Christmas worth remembering." "Well, I *will* remember it. And this really isn't our first." He frowned. "It's our first *married* Christmas. Not to mention our first Yuletide as normal tax-paying citizens with meaningful employment as opposed to, say, hunted criminals." Scully squirmed as she fought the impulse to look behind her. "I know, Mulder. I-- I *know*. But it's fine. You couldn't help getting sick." "There are lots of things I couldn't help." "No. Now way." She shook her head. "We're not going there. We're not. Listen to me." Scully took a calming breath, leaned forward, and spoke gently, "That part of our lives is over. Terrible things have happened to us-- things no one would ever believe. But. It. Is. Over. Because of what you did. When you start to get hard on yourself, do what your therapist suggested and focus on your achievement, which she can't even begin to comprehend, which *I* barely comprehend and I was there." Scully felt the hot desert wind again, saw the swirling dust. The open portal to the saucer was a black triangular slit. Mulder was mounting the ramp to where the Grays were waiting, their attenuated hands already grasping for him. Mulder's body jumped and his spine arched when they touched him, his arms lifting up, hands open, palms exposed... Mulder was talking. "...Shrink thinks I have PTED." "W-what?" she stuttered. "I thought it was PTSD?" "It is." He sniffed. "I have that, too. But this is PTED. Post- traumatic *Embitterment* Disorder. It's only been recently identified. The core criteria are exceptional negative life events that precipitate the onset of a state of emotional embitterment and feelings of injustice, repeated intrusive memories of the events, impaired emotional modulation, feelings of helplessness, self-blame, rejection of help, suicidal ideation, dysphoria, aggression, down-heartedness, seemingly melancholic depression, unspecific somatic complaints, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, pain, phobic symptoms in respect to the place or to persons related to the event, and reduced drive." She cocked her head. "So I'm anxiety stew and you're alphabet soup?" "Scully?" "Huh? "Go fish." "Nope. Our fishing days are over, Mulder." She leaned back in the big padded chair and adjusted the blanket that covered her legs. "We trolled for the truth and we found it. And we've paid too much for it. But now we're cut loose. If we stick to our therapy, we'll get better. We'll live the life together that we talked about." His eyes softened and he reached out to stroke her cheek, remembering, as she was, cheap motel rooms all around the Pacific Northwest or their camp in the desert, while waiting for the Grays to come. They'd talked long into those nights, holding each other, whispering into each other's ears, speaking of a burden lifted, of floating free. And after the Grays had drunk all the words and pictures that Mulder could offer, they had floated his body back to her like a windborne feather. She'd been able to hold him while pretending that, for once, by her physical size and strength she could support him. She'd sank to her knees as they'd lowered him, letting his head loll against her chest, letting his long body settle on the ground. There had been tears on her face tracking through the dust, and the same trails had marked his. She'd wiped Mulder's eyes with the hem of her shirt and had called his name above the hum of the alien ship. Mulder's lids had lifted a little. "Scully..." his voice was rough and his words broken by his ongoing fight with unconsciousness. "Crack... open ...the ... Dom Perignon." Scully reached down beside the chair, and lifted up what she'd hidden. Mulder's brow furrowed as she sat the tall green bottle on the bed stand by the open carryout box. "Sparking cider," she announced. "What? Not even real champagne? Killjoy," Mulder muttered as Scully dug the two plastic goblets and the corkscrew out of her overnight bag. The clink of their glasses was more like a click, but the kiss that followed was passionate. He smelled of rubbing alcohol and medical tape and soy sauce, and tasted of salt and ginger. Scully loved him. She loved him. Mulder suddenly broke the seal of their lips, gutturally whispering a vow into her still-open mouth, "We'll get William back, I promise. I..." "Hush. Shhhhhhh. No, Mulder. No more quests." "But--" Her renewed kiss silenced him, yet as he relaxed into her embrace, Scully's hopes buoyed for a reunion with their son. Surely something could be worked out with William's adoptive parents. They were decent people, not the type to deny all contact. And now there would be time for more babies, too-- William's siblings, who would be born into a world with no drop-dead date, with no extremis in sight. As if reading her mind, Mulder pulled away again, asking almost giddily, "Whoever thought the Grays would listen to reason?" "You did, Mulder. You believed." Scully stroked his hair. "I was skeptical, but I followed you along." End. MaybeAmanda's challenge elements: The XOK 155-310 Word (or More, or Less) *I Want to Believe* Festive Season Fic Challenge ------------------------------ Any Era! Any Pairing! Any Theme! Suggested inclusions: 1) Someone/thing from the X-Files! 2) Reference to a holiday-- any holiday! 3) Reference to your favorite episode (feel free to make it obscure!!!) 4) The word *red.* Or *white.* *Green?* Okay, some color! 5) Mention of one (or more) of the following: take-out food cookie/s flight/flying fish libations soy