FIC: By The End of the Day (XF, Gen, Scully-centric)
Title: By the End of the Day
Author:
amalnahurriyeh/amalnahurriyeh
Fandom: The X-Files
Pairing: Gen; entirely noromo compatible (as much as the series can be)
Rating: Teen (references to sex, adult language)
Warnings: None
Angst Level: references canon angst, does not dwell
Timeline: Pre-series through S9.
Summary: Five times Dana's med school friends helped her out.
Author's Note:
Written for
wendelah1's donation to fandomaid for Hurricane Sandy relief.
The original idea for this was for Scully to have her own "Lone Gunwomen," a group of friends she could turn to for support and ideas just like Mulder has. Originally, it was going to be called "The Lady Pathologists' Poker Club," but I decided it was unlikely that all of Scully's med school friends would choose pathology as a specialization. So, I mixed it up a bit. I hope it still satisfies.
1.
"I'm going to kill her!" Dana yelled from her bathroom.
"This is pretty dire, Danes," Jessie said. She held her breath while she dropped more beer-and-vomit soaked papers into a trash bag.
"She's a law student! I thought she'd be responsible! This is worse than Berkeley!" Dana stomped out of the bathroom, snapped off her yellow cleaning gloves, and collapsed on the couch. "All of my notes, Jessie. My entire semester's worth of work, and she just destroys it on the first night of reading period."
"Ugh, the smell." Jessie forced the stuck window up.
"It's fine," Dana said, pulling a pillow over her head. "I'll just fail out of med school. Move back in with my parents. Who needs to go to school? My mother keeps trying to set me up with every bachelor under the age of forty she meets on the base. I'll take up crochet. I think I'd be good at crochet."
"You'd be terrible at crochet," Jessie said. She surveyed the room, and then strode purposefully over to Dana's phone.
Thirty minutes later, Pam, Brenda, and Patty were there, along with three sausage and onion pizzas and everybody's notes.
When Dana's roommate came home six hours later in the clothes she had gone out in the night before, she found that all her stuff had been crammed into her bedroom, and that the five med students in the living room were not speaking to her. Or letting her have any pizza.
2.
Dana showed up at the door forty-five minutes late, still in her suit, but with a six-pack of Dog's Head IPA, so Brenda gave her a huge hug and forgave her. "I just got back from a week in Tacoma," Dana said, kicking off her heels and stripping off her blazer. "I think I'm sweating caffeine and pine sap at this point."
"Sure, rub your exciting jet-setter lifestyle in our faces," Pamela said as she reshuffled the cards. Pamela had a four year old and a six year old, and had a family practice in Bethesda. She complained, loudly, every time they got together about how little of a life she had. "OK, ante up, y'all."
"That's so cute how you still say y'all," Pat said, dropping her chips in the center and passing Dana the bottle opener.
"You can take the girl outta Athens," Pamela said, and began dealing.
The first two hands ran through with Brenda and Pamela telling dramatic stories about their kids, and Dana bragging about her godsons. Pat forebear to tell them all to shut up until it had been twenty solid minutes about kindergarden applications. As per usual, Dana got cleaned out and Brenda got distracted and forgot to bet half the time.
When they paused to put the pizzas in the oven, Dana leaned back and cracked open another beer. "So I've got this case."
"Oooooh," Pamela cooed dramatically. "Tell us more, Agent Scully."
Scully flipped her off while taking a long sip from her beer.
"Is this like the guy whose body couldn't develop adipose depots? Because that was kind of cool, in a terrifying way." Brenda dropped the potholders back on the counter and set the timer.
"Well, this one doesn't involve cannibalism," Dana said, and set down her bottle. "No, it's like this. Three deaths, all of which were attributed to animal attacks. But the only animals who were found were cats and rats."
"Deaths? Like human deaths?" Pamela said. "Cats and rats?"
Dana made an expansive gesture with her hands. "That's it. How did cats and rats kill three people?"
"Big, pointy teeth?" Brenda said, making a Monty Python-type gesture.
"That was a rabbit," Pamela said, rolling her eyes.
"Whatever, same shit, different rodent," Brenda said. "Cause of death?"
Dana set her beer down. "Unclear. Lots of bite marks, lots of defensive wounds, but it's not exsanguination--there's blood loss, maybe enough to have passed out, but mostly not. But it wasn't a single animal. These people were swarmed; I've measured the wounds, and there are at least ten different animals accounted for in each attack, not to mention occasionally members of multiple species."
"Bites pre or post-mortem?" Pamela asked, idly reorganizing the cards in her hands.
Dana shook her head. "Hard to say. In some places the bites overlap, have different timings. Not to mention we didn't find any of the bodies until they'd been in the sewer a while."
"Well, this is gross," Brenda said.
"Anaphylaxis?" Pat said, crossing her arms. "Animals could be carrying some sort of substance that's transmitted into the human bloodstream in a bite, and causes an allergic reaction. Cat or rat bites the person, person dies, predation occurs peri-mortem to screw up the wound timings, boom, you got your cat-slash-rat murder."
"It's possible," Dana said. "We didn't run IgE on the victims' blood, and I don't know if we have enough left over to run it. The question is, could we isolate what the allergen was, and document the reaction?"
"Gotta be a pathogen. Sewer rats? Sewer cats who eat sewer rats? Could even be a new reaction to toxoplasmosis. That bastard's got all kinds of side effects."
"I should take samples," Dana said, looking unfocused, her mind clearly back on the bodies in her morgue.
The timer rang. "And on that pleasant note, let's eat some damn pizza," Brenda said, and got up to go get it out of the oven. Behind her, the cards began thwacking down on the table.
3.
There was a sticky note at Pat's desk when she got back from two hours at the IRB, arguing about whether some undergrad's research actually required approval or not. (They had finally decided it did, just because they hated his research design so much.) It read "Dana Scully called - call back at home." She picked it up and sighed. She'd driven Dana home from chemo once, a month ago, because Dana's work friend who normally did it was out of town; she looked awful. She should go over there, but--well, this was terrible for a doctor to say, but it was just so horrible to watch someone you love be that sick. And this, Patricia, she thought as she dialed, this is why you're a pathologist.
Dana picked up on the third ring. Her voice was as strong and steady as ever. "Hello?"
"Dana, it's Pat," she said, and began clicking through her email, seeing if anything new had come in. The APC diversity committee listserv had been exploding into massive drama the last time she checked, and she was vaguely hopeful there might be more flouncing posts from people who didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
"Thanks for calling me back," Dana said, and there was a sort of calm to her than began pricking at Pat's attention. "Sorry I wasn't able to make poker night last week."
"It's OK," Pat said, deleting three messages from undergrads who didn't understand what she did, and forwarding four others to her post-doc. "We know you're busy right now." Ugh, as if Dana had an extra hobby, and not a massive tumor. No patient work, not ever, that was her motto.
"A little," Dana said, and there was a smile in it. Dana worked with dead bits too. "I have something I wanted to ask you."
"Hit me." Oh, god, that asshole at SUNY Upstate was weighing in again. This was going to be epic.
"I have some research I've been compiling, on a certain set of genetic abnormalities that Mulder and I have been tracking in some of our cases. I've been planning to write it up for AFP."
"You want me to give it a look? I mean, it's not my field, but I'm more than happy--"
"I want to give you the data."
Pat stopped. "Dana."
"I want to--" There was a pause, and she could hear papers rustling. "I want to make sure the data doesn't get lost."
Pat closed her eyes. No. She took a deep breath. "Oh, honey."
"It's fine," Dana said, and cleared her throat. "I'm just--I'm being prepared," and Pat heard I'm making preparations. "Will you take it?"
"Of course," she said. "Anything, Dana."
"Good. I'll put it in the mail. Your mailbox at work is still the same, right?"
"Um, yeah. They, uh." Shit. She should say something. She should say the right thing. "They keep meaning to change the mail system, but it never actually happens."
"Yeah. OK."
"Dana, if there's anything--"
"I'm fine. Really." Dana took a deep breath. "When is the next poker night? I'd like to see everybody."
"We, uh, we hadn't scheduled it. I'll call the girls, OK? I'll call them."
"Thanks. Let me know, OK?"
"Yes," she said, "yes." And when she'd said goodbye to Dana, she went to the bathroom and cried off all her mascara.
4.
Jessica was just sorting through the last files on her desk when her receptionist rang her. "Sorry, Dr. McAllen, but there's a woman on the phone for you, a personal call? She says her name is Dana Scully."
"Of course," Jessica says, and pulls up the call. "Dana?"
Dana's voice over the line sounds tight and tense. "Hi, Jess. I hope I'm not bothering you."
"No, not at all. You caught me right before I left. How are you?"
"Fine. I was actually calling for a favor."
A favor? Jessica tried to keep her surprise out of her voice. She couldn't think of anything she could offer an FBI agent professionally, and if Dana were calling for a consult she would have eased into it better. "Name it."
"Could we use your office for a few minutes? We're here in Vegas, and could use an off-the-record trip to a doctor's office. Nothing major--stitches, that's all--but we'd rather not have a paper trail."
We? Jessica mouthed to herself. "Um, sure." She wasn't quite sure why she was violating her license for Dana, but, man, girlfriend did not sound happy.
"Great. We should be there in about fifteen."
Jessica sent her receptionist home, put her files away, and waited in the front. Exactly sixteen minutes later, Dana opened the front door, her lips set in a line and her forehead furrowed. She was closely followed by a tall man in a suit, who was pressing a bloody handkerchief to his forehead and grimacing. "Aha," Jessica said. "We have a situation."
"Hi, Jess," Dana said, with a slight smile.
"Long time, no see, Danes," Jessica said, coming around the desk to give Dana a hug. "What trouble are you in now?"
"Allow me to introduce you to my partner," Dana said, with an exasperated gesture.
"Special Agent Fox Mulder," the bloody dude said. "I'd shake your hand, but."
"Yeah, I think we can skip that. What the hell did you guys get into?"
"Long story," the guy said. "Mostly illegal."
"We aren't precisely here on official FBI business," Dana said, and Jessica could just feel the waves of pissed off radiating through the words.
"So you don't want to run your insurance cards at the ER." Jessica nodded. "Come back to the exam room, I've got supplies. Any chance of internal injuries, brain swelling, anything?"
"It's a blunt force injury, low velocity," Dana said, and Jessica smiled to herself; it must be Dana's autopsy voice, because it's the more confident version of the one she used during dissections in school. "No signs of concussion or other head trauma."
"I have a hard head," Mulder said.
"Yes, you do," Dana said. In the exam room, she walked over and started going through the drawers, pulling out suturing supplies and disinfectant. "The wound's going to be dirty. Do you have anything for me to irrigate it with?"
"I'll do it, Dana," Jessica said, nudging Dana aside to grab more supplies.
"It's fine," Dana said. "I don't want to bother you--"
"Dana Katherine Scully," Jessica said, going over to the sink to wash her hands. "I am one of the most successful plastic surgeons in the state of Nevada, and let me tell you, the number of plastic surgeons in this state is not small. You, on the other hand, hack dead people to pieces for a living. Unless you want your little friend over there to end up looking like Frankenstein, back off."
Dana narrowed her eyes for a second, and then sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine. You're the expert."
"Damn right," Jessica said, sliding on the gloves. "Now, Mr. Mulder. Take off your jacket and lay down on the table so I can clean out your wound."
He complied, although she guessed from how he was moving his arm it had recently been dislocated and relocated. Being an FBI agent was apparently a dangerous business. "You know, I'm not particularly feeling relieved you're doing this," he said. "It gives Scully two hands free while she yells at me."
"I'm not yelling," Dana said, in that tone of voice that implied she really, really could be.
Jessica pulled up a stool and placed a towel under Mulder's face. He closed his eyes, and she peeled off the handkerchief. The gash was long, and wider than she would have liked to see, but, yes, superficial enough. Funny, she hadn't done much with wounds since her fellowship; mostly these days she made the cuts before she sewed them. Slowly, she poured water over the cut to clean it, and grabbed a pair of tweezers to extract a bit of gravel. "See, she's not yelling."
"Although if I were going to yell--"
Mulder huffed. "Scully--"
"I would point out that I thought this was a bad idea from the beginning." Dana had clearly been working up a head of steam over this. "What have I been saying this entire time? We shouldn't go until we do more research, Mulder. This might be dangerous, Mulder. The federal government has no jurisdiction in this area, Mulder. Mulder, I'm fairly sure that if we go down there you are going to end up getting thrown off a cliff."
"You never actually said that last one," he said, wincing. Jessica, pinching her lips together so she wouldn't smile, reached for the lidocaine injection and focused on numbing the area.
"It was a terrible idea, Mulder!" Dana said, and, out of the corner of her eye, Jessica could see that she had started to wave her arms around. Mulder clearly knew what a mad Dana looked like. "We are no closer to figuring out what is happening at that base, we lost what little evidence we have, and you got your skull bashed in like an idiot in the process! So, yes, Mulder, if I were going to yell, I would have plenty to say."
Mulder's eyes were still closed, but he looked annoyed. He must be used to getting stitches, because now that the lidocaine had kicked in, he wasn't tense at all. It took a lot of practice to not get freaked out when a needle was right up against your face. She focused on getting the cut lined up as she worked. He had nice skin; good elasticity for someone his age. Desert sun was a bitch. "Well," Mulder said, "when you decide you're going to start yelling, let me know."
The silence between them bristled while Jessica sewed. When she was finished, she sent Mulder off to the bathroom down the hall to wash off the last of the blood, and began the process of cleaning up. Dana was leaning against the wall; the fight had gone out of her over the past thirty minutes, and now exhaustion seemed to be outweighing pissed off. Once her hands were clean, Jessica went over and leaned against the wall next to her. "So. This is exciting."
Dana laughed. "Well, you know. I work for the government, so in between the facial wounds there's a lot of paperwork and meetings."
"You should have called when you knew you were coming to town. I would have organized something."
"It was supposed to be quick. I didn't think I'd have time." Dana said, and rolled her neck. "I miss you, though, Jessie."
Jessica nudged her shoulder. "Hey, it's two-for-one martinis at my favorite strip club tonight. Let's go get wasted and forget our troubles."
Dana grinned, and thought for a minute. "I'm trying to decide which is the more appalling life choice: taking Mulder to a strip club, or leaving Mulder alone for more than ten minutes in Las Vegas."
Jessica sighed. "Well, I can probably think of somewhere to go where nobody's naked. I mean, it's a stretch in this city, but."
When Mulder came back into the room, the two women were leaning against the wall, laughing hysterically. He got very, very worried.
5.
Pam had thought it was Brenda when the doorbell rang, but when she opened the door, Dana was standing there, car seat in one hand. "Danes!" she said in excitement. "We weren't sure if you'd be able to make it."
"I know, things have been insane," she said, and stepped in to give her a kiss. "I hope it's OK? I didn't have a chance to pick anything up--"
"You have a three month old, you get a prize for leaving the house." She leaned over. "Hi there, sweetie." She cast a glance up at Dana again. "Billy? Willy?"
"Just William," Dana said. "Can you take him?"
"Absolutely." She grabbed the car seat by the handle. "Pat! Dana brought the baby!"
"Because that's what this house was missing, kids," Pat said, but when Pam set the car seat on the table in front her her she leaned over to tickle him. "Hi, little dude."
"Where are the boys?" Dana asked, falling in an exhausted pile onto the couch.
"Chris took them out camping for the weekend with the Boy Scout troop, thank God." She handed Dana a beer and sat down next to Pat. "It's the only way I could host. And we can't keep taking advantage of Pat."
"You say that now," Pat said, unbuckling William from his seat and picking him up carefully. "Are you back at work yet, Danes?"
"Just last week. I'm at Quantico again." She shrugged. "Lecturing a bunch of new recruits about forensic procedure is as painful as you could imagine."
"They've got me teaching NSS to the first-years now," Pat said, making a face. She bounced William on her knees.
"At least yours have taken orgo. And believe in science," Dana said, rolling her eyes. "Mine all just want to play cops and robbers."
"Quit hogging the baby," Pam said, and took him as Pat passed him over. "Are you pumping?"
Dana made a disgruntled noise from behind her beer.
"Yeah, exactly," Pam said. The doorbell rang. "William, you want to go let Brenda in? Let's go let Brenda in." She stood, cradling his head, and walked out to the front hall."
"You OK?" Pat asked, quietly. She didn't really understand what was up with Dana's life right now, but she got that it was something bigger than they knew.
Dana sighed. "It's a lot."
"You know we've got your back. You know that, right?" Pat felt herself blushing--she was crap at this.
Dana smiled, and grabbed Pat's hand. "I know." She perked up. "Oh, hey, do you have any free time this week? I've got something in my lab you might want to poke at."
"Is it terrifying to behold?" Pat said, grinning.
"It's a man-bat," Dana said.
"Hell yeah," Pat said, and the two of them dissolved into giggles.
This entry was originally posted at http://amalnahurriyeh.dreamwidth.org/71545.html. You can comment in either location. There are currently
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Author:
amalnahurriyeh/amalnahurriyeh
Fandom: The X-Files
Pairing: Gen; entirely noromo compatible (as much as the series can be)
Rating: Teen (references to sex, adult language)
Warnings: None
Angst Level: references canon angst, does not dwell
Timeline: Pre-series through S9.
Summary: Five times Dana's med school friends helped her out.
Author's Note:
Written for
wendelah1's donation to fandomaid for Hurricane Sandy relief.
The original idea for this was for Scully to have her own "Lone Gunwomen," a group of friends she could turn to for support and ideas just like Mulder has. Originally, it was going to be called "The Lady Pathologists' Poker Club," but I decided it was unlikely that all of Scully's med school friends would choose pathology as a specialization. So, I mixed it up a bit. I hope it still satisfies.
1.
"I'm going to kill her!" Dana yelled from her bathroom.
"This is pretty dire, Danes," Jessie said. She held her breath while she dropped more beer-and-vomit soaked papers into a trash bag.
"She's a law student! I thought she'd be responsible! This is worse than Berkeley!" Dana stomped out of the bathroom, snapped off her yellow cleaning gloves, and collapsed on the couch. "All of my notes, Jessie. My entire semester's worth of work, and she just destroys it on the first night of reading period."
"Ugh, the smell." Jessie forced the stuck window up.
"It's fine," Dana said, pulling a pillow over her head. "I'll just fail out of med school. Move back in with my parents. Who needs to go to school? My mother keeps trying to set me up with every bachelor under the age of forty she meets on the base. I'll take up crochet. I think I'd be good at crochet."
"You'd be terrible at crochet," Jessie said. She surveyed the room, and then strode purposefully over to Dana's phone.
Thirty minutes later, Pam, Brenda, and Patty were there, along with three sausage and onion pizzas and everybody's notes.
When Dana's roommate came home six hours later in the clothes she had gone out in the night before, she found that all her stuff had been crammed into her bedroom, and that the five med students in the living room were not speaking to her. Or letting her have any pizza.
2.
Dana showed up at the door forty-five minutes late, still in her suit, but with a six-pack of Dog's Head IPA, so Brenda gave her a huge hug and forgave her. "I just got back from a week in Tacoma," Dana said, kicking off her heels and stripping off her blazer. "I think I'm sweating caffeine and pine sap at this point."
"Sure, rub your exciting jet-setter lifestyle in our faces," Pamela said as she reshuffled the cards. Pamela had a four year old and a six year old, and had a family practice in Bethesda. She complained, loudly, every time they got together about how little of a life she had. "OK, ante up, y'all."
"That's so cute how you still say y'all," Pat said, dropping her chips in the center and passing Dana the bottle opener.
"You can take the girl outta Athens," Pamela said, and began dealing.
The first two hands ran through with Brenda and Pamela telling dramatic stories about their kids, and Dana bragging about her godsons. Pat forebear to tell them all to shut up until it had been twenty solid minutes about kindergarden applications. As per usual, Dana got cleaned out and Brenda got distracted and forgot to bet half the time.
When they paused to put the pizzas in the oven, Dana leaned back and cracked open another beer. "So I've got this case."
"Oooooh," Pamela cooed dramatically. "Tell us more, Agent Scully."
Scully flipped her off while taking a long sip from her beer.
"Is this like the guy whose body couldn't develop adipose depots? Because that was kind of cool, in a terrifying way." Brenda dropped the potholders back on the counter and set the timer.
"Well, this one doesn't involve cannibalism," Dana said, and set down her bottle. "No, it's like this. Three deaths, all of which were attributed to animal attacks. But the only animals who were found were cats and rats."
"Deaths? Like human deaths?" Pamela said. "Cats and rats?"
Dana made an expansive gesture with her hands. "That's it. How did cats and rats kill three people?"
"Big, pointy teeth?" Brenda said, making a Monty Python-type gesture.
"That was a rabbit," Pamela said, rolling her eyes.
"Whatever, same shit, different rodent," Brenda said. "Cause of death?"
Dana set her beer down. "Unclear. Lots of bite marks, lots of defensive wounds, but it's not exsanguination--there's blood loss, maybe enough to have passed out, but mostly not. But it wasn't a single animal. These people were swarmed; I've measured the wounds, and there are at least ten different animals accounted for in each attack, not to mention occasionally members of multiple species."
"Bites pre or post-mortem?" Pamela asked, idly reorganizing the cards in her hands.
Dana shook her head. "Hard to say. In some places the bites overlap, have different timings. Not to mention we didn't find any of the bodies until they'd been in the sewer a while."
"Well, this is gross," Brenda said.
"Anaphylaxis?" Pat said, crossing her arms. "Animals could be carrying some sort of substance that's transmitted into the human bloodstream in a bite, and causes an allergic reaction. Cat or rat bites the person, person dies, predation occurs peri-mortem to screw up the wound timings, boom, you got your cat-slash-rat murder."
"It's possible," Dana said. "We didn't run IgE on the victims' blood, and I don't know if we have enough left over to run it. The question is, could we isolate what the allergen was, and document the reaction?"
"Gotta be a pathogen. Sewer rats? Sewer cats who eat sewer rats? Could even be a new reaction to toxoplasmosis. That bastard's got all kinds of side effects."
"I should take samples," Dana said, looking unfocused, her mind clearly back on the bodies in her morgue.
The timer rang. "And on that pleasant note, let's eat some damn pizza," Brenda said, and got up to go get it out of the oven. Behind her, the cards began thwacking down on the table.
3.
There was a sticky note at Pat's desk when she got back from two hours at the IRB, arguing about whether some undergrad's research actually required approval or not. (They had finally decided it did, just because they hated his research design so much.) It read "Dana Scully called - call back at home." She picked it up and sighed. She'd driven Dana home from chemo once, a month ago, because Dana's work friend who normally did it was out of town; she looked awful. She should go over there, but--well, this was terrible for a doctor to say, but it was just so horrible to watch someone you love be that sick. And this, Patricia, she thought as she dialed, this is why you're a pathologist.
Dana picked up on the third ring. Her voice was as strong and steady as ever. "Hello?"
"Dana, it's Pat," she said, and began clicking through her email, seeing if anything new had come in. The APC diversity committee listserv had been exploding into massive drama the last time she checked, and she was vaguely hopeful there might be more flouncing posts from people who didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
"Thanks for calling me back," Dana said, and there was a sort of calm to her than began pricking at Pat's attention. "Sorry I wasn't able to make poker night last week."
"It's OK," Pat said, deleting three messages from undergrads who didn't understand what she did, and forwarding four others to her post-doc. "We know you're busy right now." Ugh, as if Dana had an extra hobby, and not a massive tumor. No patient work, not ever, that was her motto.
"A little," Dana said, and there was a smile in it. Dana worked with dead bits too. "I have something I wanted to ask you."
"Hit me." Oh, god, that asshole at SUNY Upstate was weighing in again. This was going to be epic.
"I have some research I've been compiling, on a certain set of genetic abnormalities that Mulder and I have been tracking in some of our cases. I've been planning to write it up for AFP."
"You want me to give it a look? I mean, it's not my field, but I'm more than happy--"
"I want to give you the data."
Pat stopped. "Dana."
"I want to--" There was a pause, and she could hear papers rustling. "I want to make sure the data doesn't get lost."
Pat closed her eyes. No. She took a deep breath. "Oh, honey."
"It's fine," Dana said, and cleared her throat. "I'm just--I'm being prepared," and Pat heard I'm making preparations. "Will you take it?"
"Of course," she said. "Anything, Dana."
"Good. I'll put it in the mail. Your mailbox at work is still the same, right?"
"Um, yeah. They, uh." Shit. She should say something. She should say the right thing. "They keep meaning to change the mail system, but it never actually happens."
"Yeah. OK."
"Dana, if there's anything--"
"I'm fine. Really." Dana took a deep breath. "When is the next poker night? I'd like to see everybody."
"We, uh, we hadn't scheduled it. I'll call the girls, OK? I'll call them."
"Thanks. Let me know, OK?"
"Yes," she said, "yes." And when she'd said goodbye to Dana, she went to the bathroom and cried off all her mascara.
4.
Jessica was just sorting through the last files on her desk when her receptionist rang her. "Sorry, Dr. McAllen, but there's a woman on the phone for you, a personal call? She says her name is Dana Scully."
"Of course," Jessica says, and pulls up the call. "Dana?"
Dana's voice over the line sounds tight and tense. "Hi, Jess. I hope I'm not bothering you."
"No, not at all. You caught me right before I left. How are you?"
"Fine. I was actually calling for a favor."
A favor? Jessica tried to keep her surprise out of her voice. She couldn't think of anything she could offer an FBI agent professionally, and if Dana were calling for a consult she would have eased into it better. "Name it."
"Could we use your office for a few minutes? We're here in Vegas, and could use an off-the-record trip to a doctor's office. Nothing major--stitches, that's all--but we'd rather not have a paper trail."
We? Jessica mouthed to herself. "Um, sure." She wasn't quite sure why she was violating her license for Dana, but, man, girlfriend did not sound happy.
"Great. We should be there in about fifteen."
Jessica sent her receptionist home, put her files away, and waited in the front. Exactly sixteen minutes later, Dana opened the front door, her lips set in a line and her forehead furrowed. She was closely followed by a tall man in a suit, who was pressing a bloody handkerchief to his forehead and grimacing. "Aha," Jessica said. "We have a situation."
"Hi, Jess," Dana said, with a slight smile.
"Long time, no see, Danes," Jessica said, coming around the desk to give Dana a hug. "What trouble are you in now?"
"Allow me to introduce you to my partner," Dana said, with an exasperated gesture.
"Special Agent Fox Mulder," the bloody dude said. "I'd shake your hand, but."
"Yeah, I think we can skip that. What the hell did you guys get into?"
"Long story," the guy said. "Mostly illegal."
"We aren't precisely here on official FBI business," Dana said, and Jessica could just feel the waves of pissed off radiating through the words.
"So you don't want to run your insurance cards at the ER." Jessica nodded. "Come back to the exam room, I've got supplies. Any chance of internal injuries, brain swelling, anything?"
"It's a blunt force injury, low velocity," Dana said, and Jessica smiled to herself; it must be Dana's autopsy voice, because it's the more confident version of the one she used during dissections in school. "No signs of concussion or other head trauma."
"I have a hard head," Mulder said.
"Yes, you do," Dana said. In the exam room, she walked over and started going through the drawers, pulling out suturing supplies and disinfectant. "The wound's going to be dirty. Do you have anything for me to irrigate it with?"
"I'll do it, Dana," Jessica said, nudging Dana aside to grab more supplies.
"It's fine," Dana said. "I don't want to bother you--"
"Dana Katherine Scully," Jessica said, going over to the sink to wash her hands. "I am one of the most successful plastic surgeons in the state of Nevada, and let me tell you, the number of plastic surgeons in this state is not small. You, on the other hand, hack dead people to pieces for a living. Unless you want your little friend over there to end up looking like Frankenstein, back off."
Dana narrowed her eyes for a second, and then sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine. You're the expert."
"Damn right," Jessica said, sliding on the gloves. "Now, Mr. Mulder. Take off your jacket and lay down on the table so I can clean out your wound."
He complied, although she guessed from how he was moving his arm it had recently been dislocated and relocated. Being an FBI agent was apparently a dangerous business. "You know, I'm not particularly feeling relieved you're doing this," he said. "It gives Scully two hands free while she yells at me."
"I'm not yelling," Dana said, in that tone of voice that implied she really, really could be.
Jessica pulled up a stool and placed a towel under Mulder's face. He closed his eyes, and she peeled off the handkerchief. The gash was long, and wider than she would have liked to see, but, yes, superficial enough. Funny, she hadn't done much with wounds since her fellowship; mostly these days she made the cuts before she sewed them. Slowly, she poured water over the cut to clean it, and grabbed a pair of tweezers to extract a bit of gravel. "See, she's not yelling."
"Although if I were going to yell--"
Mulder huffed. "Scully--"
"I would point out that I thought this was a bad idea from the beginning." Dana had clearly been working up a head of steam over this. "What have I been saying this entire time? We shouldn't go until we do more research, Mulder. This might be dangerous, Mulder. The federal government has no jurisdiction in this area, Mulder. Mulder, I'm fairly sure that if we go down there you are going to end up getting thrown off a cliff."
"You never actually said that last one," he said, wincing. Jessica, pinching her lips together so she wouldn't smile, reached for the lidocaine injection and focused on numbing the area.
"It was a terrible idea, Mulder!" Dana said, and, out of the corner of her eye, Jessica could see that she had started to wave her arms around. Mulder clearly knew what a mad Dana looked like. "We are no closer to figuring out what is happening at that base, we lost what little evidence we have, and you got your skull bashed in like an idiot in the process! So, yes, Mulder, if I were going to yell, I would have plenty to say."
Mulder's eyes were still closed, but he looked annoyed. He must be used to getting stitches, because now that the lidocaine had kicked in, he wasn't tense at all. It took a lot of practice to not get freaked out when a needle was right up against your face. She focused on getting the cut lined up as she worked. He had nice skin; good elasticity for someone his age. Desert sun was a bitch. "Well," Mulder said, "when you decide you're going to start yelling, let me know."
The silence between them bristled while Jessica sewed. When she was finished, she sent Mulder off to the bathroom down the hall to wash off the last of the blood, and began the process of cleaning up. Dana was leaning against the wall; the fight had gone out of her over the past thirty minutes, and now exhaustion seemed to be outweighing pissed off. Once her hands were clean, Jessica went over and leaned against the wall next to her. "So. This is exciting."
Dana laughed. "Well, you know. I work for the government, so in between the facial wounds there's a lot of paperwork and meetings."
"You should have called when you knew you were coming to town. I would have organized something."
"It was supposed to be quick. I didn't think I'd have time." Dana said, and rolled her neck. "I miss you, though, Jessie."
Jessica nudged her shoulder. "Hey, it's two-for-one martinis at my favorite strip club tonight. Let's go get wasted and forget our troubles."
Dana grinned, and thought for a minute. "I'm trying to decide which is the more appalling life choice: taking Mulder to a strip club, or leaving Mulder alone for more than ten minutes in Las Vegas."
Jessica sighed. "Well, I can probably think of somewhere to go where nobody's naked. I mean, it's a stretch in this city, but."
When Mulder came back into the room, the two women were leaning against the wall, laughing hysterically. He got very, very worried.
5.
Pam had thought it was Brenda when the doorbell rang, but when she opened the door, Dana was standing there, car seat in one hand. "Danes!" she said in excitement. "We weren't sure if you'd be able to make it."
"I know, things have been insane," she said, and stepped in to give her a kiss. "I hope it's OK? I didn't have a chance to pick anything up--"
"You have a three month old, you get a prize for leaving the house." She leaned over. "Hi there, sweetie." She cast a glance up at Dana again. "Billy? Willy?"
"Just William," Dana said. "Can you take him?"
"Absolutely." She grabbed the car seat by the handle. "Pat! Dana brought the baby!"
"Because that's what this house was missing, kids," Pat said, but when Pam set the car seat on the table in front her her she leaned over to tickle him. "Hi, little dude."
"Where are the boys?" Dana asked, falling in an exhausted pile onto the couch.
"Chris took them out camping for the weekend with the Boy Scout troop, thank God." She handed Dana a beer and sat down next to Pat. "It's the only way I could host. And we can't keep taking advantage of Pat."
"You say that now," Pat said, unbuckling William from his seat and picking him up carefully. "Are you back at work yet, Danes?"
"Just last week. I'm at Quantico again." She shrugged. "Lecturing a bunch of new recruits about forensic procedure is as painful as you could imagine."
"They've got me teaching NSS to the first-years now," Pat said, making a face. She bounced William on her knees.
"At least yours have taken orgo. And believe in science," Dana said, rolling her eyes. "Mine all just want to play cops and robbers."
"Quit hogging the baby," Pam said, and took him as Pat passed him over. "Are you pumping?"
Dana made a disgruntled noise from behind her beer.
"Yeah, exactly," Pam said. The doorbell rang. "William, you want to go let Brenda in? Let's go let Brenda in." She stood, cradling his head, and walked out to the front hall."
"You OK?" Pat asked, quietly. She didn't really understand what was up with Dana's life right now, but she got that it was something bigger than they knew.
Dana sighed. "It's a lot."
"You know we've got your back. You know that, right?" Pat felt herself blushing--she was crap at this.
Dana smiled, and grabbed Pat's hand. "I know." She perked up. "Oh, hey, do you have any free time this week? I've got something in my lab you might want to poke at."
"Is it terrifying to behold?" Pat said, grinning.
"It's a man-bat," Dana said.
"Hell yeah," Pat said, and the two of them dissolved into giggles.
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