FF: The Rusted Wheel of Things (3/6)
Title: The Rusted Wheel of Things (Chapter 3)
Author: Ellie elliestories
Rating: R
Category: SRA
Timeline: Post-"Requiem", AU
Further headers and information in Chapter 1
****
Chapter 3
Celebrations
****
"No, Mulder, you cannot go to the ballet! You can barely sit up in bed, and you don't have any clothing." Identical pairs of hazel eyes stared back at her, pleading.
Scully wasn't sure how this had happened. She'd only stepped out of the room two minutes ago, to chat with the physical therapist about Mulder's first session. He'd been sleeping, and Hannah had been quietly reading.
"Please, Mommy? I want him to come see!"
She looked back and forth between the two of them before answering. "I understand how much you both want this to happen. Don't think for a moment that I wouldn't love for you to be able to come watch, Mulder, but you can't just wheel a hospital bed into the Kennedy Center for an evening performance. You can't just leave the hospital for a couple of hours."
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she sighed in frustration at their twin looks of disappointment. If it had been possible, she would have happily taken him, sat beside him for every performance of the ballet, but he'd only been awake from his coma for two days and could barely shake hands without trembling from effort. "Let me make a few calls, okay? Maybe we can get permission to record a performance, just for him. Would that be all right?"
Hannah frowned, looking ready to complain further, but Mulder nodded slightly, as if aware that he really wasn't up to the task. Scully wondered how badly he must be feeling to acknowledge that. "At least then I'll have something to watch in here."
Then she did smile, and started to rummage in her bag for her BlackBerry. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Hannah, maybe you should put your book away and get ready for tonight's performance. You can at least show off your costume."
The girl bounced off the chair, never seeming to move without a spring in her step, scooping up her colorful duffle bag, and headed for the bathroom. Scully watched Mulder watch her, saw the awe and tears sparkling in his eyes. She'd find a way for him to see the ballet, even if she did have to sneak him out of the hospital for the night. A smile broke across her own face, realizing that this was what she'd been hoping to be witness to for these many years.
"I'll figure it out, Mulder," she said, slipping out the door.
*
In the week that he'd been conscious in the hospital, Scully and Hannah had visited every day. They came as the weak winter sun was setting, after work and school, before dance and dinner and homework, staying with him longer now that it was holiday break. Sometimes he and Scully helped with the homework, science questions so much simpler than the riddles imposed on his body. It would have felt normal, familial, if he had any expectation of a second-grader, if he weren't confined to a hospital bed from muscle atrophy, if he didn't spend all day waiting for them to arrive and touch his hand, kiss his cheek, stroke the shorn remnants of his hair. He'd always been tactile, but now he craved physical human contact, a warm connection with life and not the empty void that burned so cold in his mind.
But he wasn't sure what to expect from the day. It was Christmas, and they'd promised to be there. He had no idea when, had no idea what sort of holiday cheer he could be expected to share in this sterile white room. Two days prior, Hannah had brought him a tiny plastic tree, decorated with a carefully made paper-chain in red and gold, which sat on the bedside table as the lone splash of color and joy.
When the door opened, it was not his family, but the unlikeliest of elves. They came bearing not a red velvet sack of toys, but a tangle wires and cables and a plastic crate of electronic gadgetry. The only overt sign of the holiday was the ratty Santa hat whose worn tassel swung with Frohike's every step.
"Hey man, you sure took your time getting back to see us!" Langly waved a handful of wires at him, and upon closer inspection, Mulder noticed that his t-shirt featured a cartoon of a little old lady in a Cadillac running over a reindeer.
"Yeah, I hit a few unexpected delays. You know how those layovers in Chicago go."
"How are you doing? Scully told us you were chomping at the bit to be out of this hospital bed." Byers, wearing a subtle holly-print tie, rested the crate against the foot of the bed and mustered a smile.
"I've had enough laying around, being poked and prodded, for several lifetimes now."
An awkward silence descended, and Mulder looked down, noticing the disc in Frohike's gloved hand. "You know they frown on that kind of thing in hospitals," he said, attempting to lighten the abruptly somber atmosphere.
"If that's what you're expecting, you're in for a real disappointment, my friend," said Frohike. "Only for a kid of you and the delectable Dr. Scully would I have agreed to sit through this. Twice."
Suddenly they were a dervish of motion and wires, yanking and plugging and cursing. Finally, the awkwardly mounted room television sprung to life, as did the DVD player they'd balanced precariously on the rolling tray table, held slightly off-kilter by a too short cable.
"Aren't we supposed to wait for them?" Langly asked, looking between his companions and an increasingly curious Mulder.
"Right. She said ten, and it's..." Byers paused and consulted his watch. "Five after. We could--"
He was interrupted by the arrival of Scully and Hannah, toting several brightly-wrapped packages. The room instantly felt more festive as they settled a small mountain of boxes and bags at the foot of the bed, and Hannah bounced up onto the bed next to him.
"Is that my movie?" She asked, pointing at the DVD Frohike once more had in hand.
"Yes it is young lady! Would you like to do the honors?" He offered her the disc, then opened the tray on the DVD player. The girl slid off the bed and neatly inserted the disc before climbing back up at Mulder's side.
"Wait til you see! Mommy, turn off the lights, so it's like we're there!"
He didn't need any other gifts to celebrate, just this girl at his side and Scully, rolling her eyes but laughing as she switched off half the lights and came to sit on his other side.
"Now presenting the Washington Ballet's special holiday performance of 'The Nutcracker,' starring Miss Hannah Mulder," she whispered, taking his hand as the curtain went up.
Watching his daughter bound across the stage, bright green and gold gift in hand, was a marvel, even on the grainy old hospital television screen. He didn't want to cry in front of the guys, had done enough of that this week anyway, but it was difficult not to when it seemed as if he had more emotions than his body could contain. He'd spent so long wishing not to feel anything at all.
Hannah sat on the bed at his left, narrating half to Mulder, half to the Gunmen, who seemed to have a synchronized nod of politeness going on. They'd seen this once already, live, but Hannah didn't notice their distraction.
Scully noticed Mulder's, though, and tightened her grip on his right hand, meeting his eyes with barely contained tears of her own. She didn't say a word to him, merely nodded once and ran her thumb across the flesh of his palm. Things had changed, but some things had not. For the first time, together, they were watching their daughter dance, and knew just what the other was thinking.
The viewing was livened up a bit during the Sugarplum Fairy's dance, when Hannah took the opportunity to demonstrate a few of the maneuvers that the prima ballerina had taught the children's ensemble during a special class. She was met with as much applause from the hospital room audience as the ballerina on-screen met with from the live audience.
When the Gunmen departed after the ballet ended, with holiday wishes, they left behind their jury-rigged entertainment center as their Christmas present. The pile of bright paper and bags on the bed promised further gifts, and Hannah lost no time in presenting them to him.
"Open this one first! I picked out myself!" she said, placing on the bed a box wrapped in paper suspiciously similar to that she'd carried across the stage in her ballet.
"Should I guess?" He held up the shirt box sized parcel and shook it lightly, which took all the strength he could muster.
"No! Open it, open it!"
With Hannah's assistance, the present was quickly opened, revealing thick fleecy pajama bottoms, brightly printed with cartwheeling sock monkeys. For the first time in recent memory, he actually laughed. "These are great!"
*
Scully rarely came to visit Mulder alone. Logistics and necessity meant that she came in the evenings, after work, and brought Hannah with her. She told herself it was important that father and daughter got to know one another. If it provided a bit of a buffer for her tumultuous feelings, she preferred not to think about it. Today, however, she'd come alone, without mentioning to Mulder that she might be by. The quarterly meeting she'd had to attend at the Hoover building had finished earlier than anticipated, and she'd decided to stop.
He hadn't been in his room when she went up, and the duty nurse informed her that he was at physical therapy on the third floor. She knew he'd been going daily, sometimes twice daily, but he'd been reluctant to talk about it, saying little beyond "it's exhausting." So she stood on the other side of the door to the PT room, watching through the glass as Mulder trembled and sweated through stretches and weights.
Even from a hundred feet away, she could see the furrows of concentration on his brow as he painstakingly walked his way the length of the parallel bars. She slipped quietly in the door while he was focused on the task at hand, listening to the therapist's encouragement and Mulder's ragged breathing. Only when he reached the end of the bars and allowed himself to collapse into the waiting wheelchair did she cross the room, the staccato of her heels immediately drawing his attention.
"Scully! What are you doing here?"
"I had a meeting downtown, and decided to stop by early. I'm glad I did, it's wonderful to see you up and walking." She placed one hand on his shoulder, still rising and falling hard with his respirations, muscles still tremoring slightly.
He chuffed out a breath and shook his head, giving her no other answer.
"Mulder," she said, crouching down to eye level with him and putting a hand on his bony knee, "I know you hate hospitals. Especially now. But you're doing well for a month's recovery. You're starting to eat real food again, and for the time you've been without any kind of muscle use, you really are regaining function exceptionally quickly. And the sooner you build that strength up, the sooner you can come home, because you have to be able to manage a flight of stairs first, all right?"
He nodded, eyes brightening a bit at the suggestion of coming home. "Yeah, I think we're a ways from stairs yet."
"You'll be doing it before you know it. C'mon, let me buy you a smoothie." She knew he'd been delighted when the doctors had cleared him to start eating simple soft foods again. Hannah had been sneaking him in one Hershey's Kiss a day, in the leftover emerald and ruby of Christmas.
"Sounds like a plan, G-woman." He relaxed back into the wheelchair, smiling up at her. For a moment, she couldn't see the gauntness, the scars, or the grayed hair, just the old familiar smile and twinkling eyes. Deep in her soul, something that had been long-chilled glowed warm, and she met his smile with her own.
****
Chapter 4
Author: Ellie elliestories
Rating: R
Category: SRA
Timeline: Post-"Requiem", AU
Further headers and information in Chapter 1
****
Chapter 3
Celebrations
****
"No, Mulder, you cannot go to the ballet! You can barely sit up in bed, and you don't have any clothing." Identical pairs of hazel eyes stared back at her, pleading.
Scully wasn't sure how this had happened. She'd only stepped out of the room two minutes ago, to chat with the physical therapist about Mulder's first session. He'd been sleeping, and Hannah had been quietly reading.
"Please, Mommy? I want him to come see!"
She looked back and forth between the two of them before answering. "I understand how much you both want this to happen. Don't think for a moment that I wouldn't love for you to be able to come watch, Mulder, but you can't just wheel a hospital bed into the Kennedy Center for an evening performance. You can't just leave the hospital for a couple of hours."
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she sighed in frustration at their twin looks of disappointment. If it had been possible, she would have happily taken him, sat beside him for every performance of the ballet, but he'd only been awake from his coma for two days and could barely shake hands without trembling from effort. "Let me make a few calls, okay? Maybe we can get permission to record a performance, just for him. Would that be all right?"
Hannah frowned, looking ready to complain further, but Mulder nodded slightly, as if aware that he really wasn't up to the task. Scully wondered how badly he must be feeling to acknowledge that. "At least then I'll have something to watch in here."
Then she did smile, and started to rummage in her bag for her BlackBerry. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Hannah, maybe you should put your book away and get ready for tonight's performance. You can at least show off your costume."
The girl bounced off the chair, never seeming to move without a spring in her step, scooping up her colorful duffle bag, and headed for the bathroom. Scully watched Mulder watch her, saw the awe and tears sparkling in his eyes. She'd find a way for him to see the ballet, even if she did have to sneak him out of the hospital for the night. A smile broke across her own face, realizing that this was what she'd been hoping to be witness to for these many years.
"I'll figure it out, Mulder," she said, slipping out the door.
*
In the week that he'd been conscious in the hospital, Scully and Hannah had visited every day. They came as the weak winter sun was setting, after work and school, before dance and dinner and homework, staying with him longer now that it was holiday break. Sometimes he and Scully helped with the homework, science questions so much simpler than the riddles imposed on his body. It would have felt normal, familial, if he had any expectation of a second-grader, if he weren't confined to a hospital bed from muscle atrophy, if he didn't spend all day waiting for them to arrive and touch his hand, kiss his cheek, stroke the shorn remnants of his hair. He'd always been tactile, but now he craved physical human contact, a warm connection with life and not the empty void that burned so cold in his mind.
But he wasn't sure what to expect from the day. It was Christmas, and they'd promised to be there. He had no idea when, had no idea what sort of holiday cheer he could be expected to share in this sterile white room. Two days prior, Hannah had brought him a tiny plastic tree, decorated with a carefully made paper-chain in red and gold, which sat on the bedside table as the lone splash of color and joy.
When the door opened, it was not his family, but the unlikeliest of elves. They came bearing not a red velvet sack of toys, but a tangle wires and cables and a plastic crate of electronic gadgetry. The only overt sign of the holiday was the ratty Santa hat whose worn tassel swung with Frohike's every step.
"Hey man, you sure took your time getting back to see us!" Langly waved a handful of wires at him, and upon closer inspection, Mulder noticed that his t-shirt featured a cartoon of a little old lady in a Cadillac running over a reindeer.
"Yeah, I hit a few unexpected delays. You know how those layovers in Chicago go."
"How are you doing? Scully told us you were chomping at the bit to be out of this hospital bed." Byers, wearing a subtle holly-print tie, rested the crate against the foot of the bed and mustered a smile.
"I've had enough laying around, being poked and prodded, for several lifetimes now."
An awkward silence descended, and Mulder looked down, noticing the disc in Frohike's gloved hand. "You know they frown on that kind of thing in hospitals," he said, attempting to lighten the abruptly somber atmosphere.
"If that's what you're expecting, you're in for a real disappointment, my friend," said Frohike. "Only for a kid of you and the delectable Dr. Scully would I have agreed to sit through this. Twice."
Suddenly they were a dervish of motion and wires, yanking and plugging and cursing. Finally, the awkwardly mounted room television sprung to life, as did the DVD player they'd balanced precariously on the rolling tray table, held slightly off-kilter by a too short cable.
"Aren't we supposed to wait for them?" Langly asked, looking between his companions and an increasingly curious Mulder.
"Right. She said ten, and it's..." Byers paused and consulted his watch. "Five after. We could--"
He was interrupted by the arrival of Scully and Hannah, toting several brightly-wrapped packages. The room instantly felt more festive as they settled a small mountain of boxes and bags at the foot of the bed, and Hannah bounced up onto the bed next to him.
"Is that my movie?" She asked, pointing at the DVD Frohike once more had in hand.
"Yes it is young lady! Would you like to do the honors?" He offered her the disc, then opened the tray on the DVD player. The girl slid off the bed and neatly inserted the disc before climbing back up at Mulder's side.
"Wait til you see! Mommy, turn off the lights, so it's like we're there!"
He didn't need any other gifts to celebrate, just this girl at his side and Scully, rolling her eyes but laughing as she switched off half the lights and came to sit on his other side.
"Now presenting the Washington Ballet's special holiday performance of 'The Nutcracker,' starring Miss Hannah Mulder," she whispered, taking his hand as the curtain went up.
Watching his daughter bound across the stage, bright green and gold gift in hand, was a marvel, even on the grainy old hospital television screen. He didn't want to cry in front of the guys, had done enough of that this week anyway, but it was difficult not to when it seemed as if he had more emotions than his body could contain. He'd spent so long wishing not to feel anything at all.
Hannah sat on the bed at his left, narrating half to Mulder, half to the Gunmen, who seemed to have a synchronized nod of politeness going on. They'd seen this once already, live, but Hannah didn't notice their distraction.
Scully noticed Mulder's, though, and tightened her grip on his right hand, meeting his eyes with barely contained tears of her own. She didn't say a word to him, merely nodded once and ran her thumb across the flesh of his palm. Things had changed, but some things had not. For the first time, together, they were watching their daughter dance, and knew just what the other was thinking.
The viewing was livened up a bit during the Sugarplum Fairy's dance, when Hannah took the opportunity to demonstrate a few of the maneuvers that the prima ballerina had taught the children's ensemble during a special class. She was met with as much applause from the hospital room audience as the ballerina on-screen met with from the live audience.
When the Gunmen departed after the ballet ended, with holiday wishes, they left behind their jury-rigged entertainment center as their Christmas present. The pile of bright paper and bags on the bed promised further gifts, and Hannah lost no time in presenting them to him.
"Open this one first! I picked out myself!" she said, placing on the bed a box wrapped in paper suspiciously similar to that she'd carried across the stage in her ballet.
"Should I guess?" He held up the shirt box sized parcel and shook it lightly, which took all the strength he could muster.
"No! Open it, open it!"
With Hannah's assistance, the present was quickly opened, revealing thick fleecy pajama bottoms, brightly printed with cartwheeling sock monkeys. For the first time in recent memory, he actually laughed. "These are great!"
*
Scully rarely came to visit Mulder alone. Logistics and necessity meant that she came in the evenings, after work, and brought Hannah with her. She told herself it was important that father and daughter got to know one another. If it provided a bit of a buffer for her tumultuous feelings, she preferred not to think about it. Today, however, she'd come alone, without mentioning to Mulder that she might be by. The quarterly meeting she'd had to attend at the Hoover building had finished earlier than anticipated, and she'd decided to stop.
He hadn't been in his room when she went up, and the duty nurse informed her that he was at physical therapy on the third floor. She knew he'd been going daily, sometimes twice daily, but he'd been reluctant to talk about it, saying little beyond "it's exhausting." So she stood on the other side of the door to the PT room, watching through the glass as Mulder trembled and sweated through stretches and weights.
Even from a hundred feet away, she could see the furrows of concentration on his brow as he painstakingly walked his way the length of the parallel bars. She slipped quietly in the door while he was focused on the task at hand, listening to the therapist's encouragement and Mulder's ragged breathing. Only when he reached the end of the bars and allowed himself to collapse into the waiting wheelchair did she cross the room, the staccato of her heels immediately drawing his attention.
"Scully! What are you doing here?"
"I had a meeting downtown, and decided to stop by early. I'm glad I did, it's wonderful to see you up and walking." She placed one hand on his shoulder, still rising and falling hard with his respirations, muscles still tremoring slightly.
He chuffed out a breath and shook his head, giving her no other answer.
"Mulder," she said, crouching down to eye level with him and putting a hand on his bony knee, "I know you hate hospitals. Especially now. But you're doing well for a month's recovery. You're starting to eat real food again, and for the time you've been without any kind of muscle use, you really are regaining function exceptionally quickly. And the sooner you build that strength up, the sooner you can come home, because you have to be able to manage a flight of stairs first, all right?"
He nodded, eyes brightening a bit at the suggestion of coming home. "Yeah, I think we're a ways from stairs yet."
"You'll be doing it before you know it. C'mon, let me buy you a smoothie." She knew he'd been delighted when the doctors had cleared him to start eating simple soft foods again. Hannah had been sneaking him in one Hershey's Kiss a day, in the leftover emerald and ruby of Christmas.
"Sounds like a plan, G-woman." He relaxed back into the wheelchair, smiling up at her. For a moment, she couldn't see the gauntness, the scars, or the grayed hair, just the old familiar smile and twinkling eyes. Deep in her soul, something that had been long-chilled glowed warm, and she met his smile with her own.
****
Chapter 4