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Scully was truly glad it was a cloudy morning. The sun, at this moment in her life, would have killed her … instantaneous eyeball burning and brain bursting … dead in the hammock …
How the hell did they get to the hammock?
And her tongue still felt numb.
Screw it, she was going back to sleep.
&&&&&&&&&
Then the neighbor fired up his lawn mower.
Mr. Delphine was a lovely man 99.9% of the time but right now, she was going to mulch him to death with his own machinery.
At least after a minute, he moved to his front yard, reducing Scully’s unqualified hatred to functional levels, “Mulder?”
“I’m going to kill whoever the hell that is.”
Before more conversation could occur, the mower was back and being the good boy he was, Mulder shifted hands to cover her ears, holding them mercifully closed until the mower disappeared again, “true love means holding your woman’s ears closed to deafening sounds while your own head throbs like the Rockettes are dancing on your brain.”
Not wanting to deal with noise again, she pushed him towards the side of the hammock, “go inside before he comes back and I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”
They stumbled into the house, managing the back door with difficulty, clumsy fingers smacking screen several times before making it to the kitchen, the quiet pushing down stuffily on their ears. Feeling the need to whisper, “I think your tongue is blue.”
Nodding, then groaning, “will be until at least Sunday. Can you get some water?”
“Sshh, why are you yelling?”
Scully ignored him, remembering where the bathroom was after a moment but still taking out a chair in the process of getting there. Mulder stumbled in before she could flush and peed standing beside her while she washed her hands, both too whatever to care. Immediately shutting the lid, he sat down, pulling her onto his lap, burying his face in her neck, “I feel terrible.”
As they both tipped off the toilet and onto the floor, “it only gets worse, believe me.”
Maggie found them a few minutes later, leaned on the wall, wedged between toilet and sink, “everything all right in here?”
“That stuff should be banned, Mom. Every watch list in the world should contain Ruth’s punch.”
Not approaching, knowing it might be best just to shut the door and leave them be, “I should have cut you off earlier or watered it down a little.”
Mulder squinted up at Maggie, “how are you not dying like we are?”
“Decades of practice. I’ve been drinking that punch for the last 30 years. I know precisely how much I can drink and how long to stretch it out for. You, my innocent darlings, need time and aspirin.” Throwing it out there and seeing if it stuck, “would you like me to make you some breakfast? Maybe some toast to go with your aspirin?”
Mulder turned green but Scully nodded, “yes, please. You wouldn’t happen to have tacos hidden somewhere in the fridge, would you?”
“No, but I do have bacon, pancake mix and ham.”
“Ham slabs?”
“Half inch thick if you’d like.”
Mulder pushed Scully from his lap, depositing her on her side on the rug while he hovered over the now open toilet, waiting to lose his stomach contents in front of two pairs of sympathetic blue eyes. When it didn’t happen, however and the feeling passed, Mulder glanced up at them, “ham slabs?”
&&&&&&&&&
Maggie made them breakfast, burning the bacon to extra carcinogenic and slapping more butter on the pancakes than Heart Healthy Diet approved. Letting them eat in peace, she sat down across the table, beginning her grocery list. As Maggie turned the sheet of paper over, Scully’s curiosity got the better of her, “is that your shopping list? Are you packing in for the apocalypse?”
Chuckling, “remember I have most of the kids for the next ten days so they’re going to want to eat.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot that was next week.”
Mulder, his head not quite so angry with him, managed to work up a semblance of inquiry, “what?”
“Charlie and Dave and the girls are going on a 10-day cruise to the Mediterranean for their anniversaries and asked if I would be able to watch the kids while they were gone. I’m getting them Sunday afternoon.”
Raising an eyebrow at Maggie, “either you are very brave or they drugged you into compliance.”
Maggie slid the list across to Scully, “see if I missed anything and yes, Fox, I am very brave indeed. Where do you think Dana gets it from?”
Doing her best to focus on her mother’s handwriting, she gave up in a minute, “I can’t focus, Mom, I’m sorry. Just make sure to have an industrial jar of peanut butter and boxes of pasta and they’ll be just fine.” Fingers crossed under the table, “do you need any help shopping? I can go if you’d like.”
As she moved to stand, Maggie patted her shoulder gently, “it’s Friday, honey. I think Mr. Skinner would like to have you come in to work today.”
“Damn it.”
Mulder managed to do the hard math and figured out, through squinting and judicious use of his fingers, “we have about an hour until we have to leave. We’ll be late because of showers and changing but not late enough for him to scream at us for more than five minutes.”
“Sold.” Looking up at her mom, “can we go take a nap while you’re gone?”
She waved towards the stairs, “make sure to take another aspirin and drink a glass of water with it.”
&&&&&&&&&&
They made it as far as the living room couch, Mulder on his back, one foot still on the floor, while Scully scooted in beside him on her side, her four inches of real estate enough to have her in dreamland not 30 seconds later.
Maggie took a few pictures before she left, for posterity sake and the fact that she adored them both.
22 minutes later, he had to pee. He fought it valiantly but in the end, he had to extricate himself and find a toilet. While occupied, he heard a cell phone ring and he was not pleased. Grumbling while he washed his hands and headed back to Scully, cursing quietly the whole way, he saw her already off the phone, “if that was Skinner, just tell him we quit. We can live on tuna and city water and have the dental school at GW clean out teeth for free.”
Scully found her voice, thickly coated in fear and shock, “It wasn’t Skinner. It’s Mom. She was in an accident and I need to go to DC General.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.” Hurrying over, “is she okay? What happened?” Already heading towards the stairs to get his shoes on, “let’s go.”
Standing still another moment, she managed to get her legs moving, jamming her bare feet into sneakers as Mulder dug around for the keys he’d set somewhere the previous night. As she locked the door behind them, Scully continued her narrative, “they found my number in her phone. She was in a car accident and she’s not awake but they said she was stable.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s been maybe 15 minutes since it happened.”
Rolling his eyes and opening the car door for her, “that’s 12 minutes more than you’d need to figure out what was wrong and fix it.”
Even through her mounting panic, she slipped a half-second smile, “I’m not magic, Mulder, and neither are they.”
“Yes, you are and they should be.”
Not pulling away from the curb yet, Scully looked at him, his eyes closed, his skin pale, “do you want me to drive?”
Really wanting to be the guy who took care of his girl in time of need, he nodded, his head dizzy still from the liquor, “I think I might still be a little drunk.”
Having sobered up when she heard the word ‘accident’, she got back out, switching spots with him, “I wouldn’t doubt it.”
&&&&&&&&&&&
Her hands began shaking of their own volition the closer they got to the emergency room and taking one as they walked into the building, Mulder found it freezing, skin rough, fingers small, bones protruding. Her voice, however, was steady as she asked where Maggie was and then followed the nurse to the curtained off area. He vaguely listened to the scientific jargon, registering a few words at a time, namely: broken ankles (plural, holy shit!), broken wrist (singular, workable), dislocated shoulder on same arm (been there, done that, doable), glass cuts to face and neck (need to get her a better car with that tempered glass crap), bruised ribs (totally need a few days rest but that’s it), and slight concussion from knocking the door frame (if it’s anything like a gun hilt to the temple, she’ll need several Tylenol ever four hours) …
Then, gloriously, he heard Maggie’s voice drift to his ears, “honey, I’m okay but I think the car is dead.”
Scully pulled him along as she maneuvered her way towards her mother, “don’t worry about it. We’ll get you a new car.
Mulder, overjoyed that Maggie was talking clearly, piped up from behind his partner, “what happened?”
Between wincing as the nurse cleaned her cuts and the doctor injected her with something to put her out so he could re-locate her shoulder, she managed to tell them of the red light runner that hit her just in front of the driver’s door, crushing the metal and capturing her ankles between pedal and pedal and pedal and engine block housing, the door folding in on her hand, bending it back and snapping bones and her head going through the side window. Mulder wanted to throw up a little and Scully looked positively livid, Mulder firmly believing she would kill the other driver if she ever got her freezing little fingers around his throat.
Once Maggie, mid-word, drifted out of consciousness due to drug induction, the doctor politely dismissed them while they re-socketed her arm. Mulder left immediately, taking Scully with him by the elbow. Now in the hall and behind the pulled curtain, Scully turned to him, dropping her forehead to his chest, deep breath rattling a contained sob the likes of which made him want to cry himself. Sliding arms around back, he moved her to the side, out of traffic and rested his cheek atop her head, “she’s going to be fine. She was talking and she’s going to be fine. You saw her. She’s fine.”
Pressing firmly into his shirt, her voice cracked an octave, absorbed mostly by cotton and flesh, “for 15 minutes in my head, she wasn’t and I can’t … I …”
The sentence stopped there and he didn’t push, knowing exactly how she felt, his fear different but the sentiment the same.
&&&&&&&&&&&
It took almost two hours for them to finish Maggie’s arm, get better x-rays, cast her feet up, then settle her in a room. By then, Scully had returned to her natural resting state of smart, sassy and emotionally-controlled. Mulder had returned to sober.
Safely enclosed in the room, door closed to hospital sounds, Mulder moved a chair over beside the bed, “why don’t you sit down and I’ll go see if I can find something to snack on? I can hear your stomach growling from here.”
Scully moved to the end of the bed instead, giving her mother a thoroughly medical stare, sizing up injuries, competency of repair and aftercare, “Mulder?”
“Yeah?”
“Remember that time that you broke just one leg?”
Without difficulty, he recalled the boot wrapped around his appendage for six weeks, “yeah, I recall something about it.”
“Imagine that on a 60-year-old woman but triple the difficulty and surrounded by five kids under the age of 10”
Dawning hit him like a freight train, “I totally forgot about the kids. Did you call Charlie?”
Mind already churning out a plan, “yeah. He’s on his way but they can’t cancel the trip, I mean, they can but Mom would kill them.”
“I can see the hamster wheel spinning. What are you thinking?”
Moving to his side, she stared at her sleeping mother, “I’m thinking I need to move it to take care of her and since I’ll be there, the kids can stay, too.”
“We may need more of Ruth’s punch for that.”