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Jello and chicken broth. Again. Scully reaches for the jello cup, only to pick it up and nonchalantly offer it to the person sitting in the chair next to her.
“Not hungry, Scully?” Mulder asks, eagerly accepting the cup and taking the spoon from the bedside table.
Scully shakes her head. In all honesty, she was starving– but for solid foods, foods she couldn’t eat just yet because her muscles were still heavy with morphine and her stomach wouldn’t keep it down well at all. For the past two days since she’d woken up in the hospital, she’d had little options for nourishment besides broth and juice. Today she was finally allowed jello, but the thought made her stomach roll, and cause a jolt of pain to the wound in her abdomen.
For a few minutes, it’s quiet, save for the low volume of the TV (Mulder and his obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer was actually kind of endearing, but Scully would never admit it) and the scrape of the plastic spoons against the jello cup. They sit in companionable silence, both of their attention half on the TV, and half on the other.
Scully looks over as her partner rises from his seat next to her, tossing the empty cup and spoon in the trash near the door.
He looks back, “I’m gonna go see what I can find to drink in the cafeteria, you want me to sneak you some coffee?”
She smiles at the slight hint of mischief in his eyes and shakes her head. “Caffeine would probably be a bad idea,” she answers. At the subtle sag of his shoulders, she adds, “Maybe some orange juice?”
Mulder gives her a small smile. It makes her heart flutter. She wonders if it’s the morphine, or if it’s her. Probably both.
“I can do that,” he winks at her. “Be right back.”
After he slips out the door and it snips shut quietly, Scully trains her gaze back at the TV. Normally, his waiting on her and general over-protectiveness would have driven her insane; now, when she thinks of the past few days, her heart expands just a fraction. It’s the drugs, sure, but it’s something else too. Aside from Antarctica, this is the closest she’s ever come to death. Mulder told her, his voice small and hand tightening around hers that, for the first fourteen hours, nobody thought she was going to make it.
Her heart aches for the look on his face the first few times she woke. She can’t imagine what he must have gone through in those fourteen hours. The small pang of pity resurfaces for Agent Ritter– she heard about the hell Mulder put him through before Ritter had had the good sense to flee the hospital.
Scully doesn’t remember falling asleep, but her eyes open when warm fingers trail across her forearm.
“Hey,” she hears Mulder’s voice before her eyes focus on him. “I brought you something.”
He brings two small Styrofoam cups into view. Reaching into one, he retrieves two small ice cubes, and drops them lightly into the other cup before giving the contents a stir and placing a coffee lid on top.
“Mulder,” her voice is barely audible, thickened in sleep and painkillers, “I told you I can’t have coffee.”
He just smiles and places the warm cup in her hand. “Not coffee.”
Scully eyes him, and then the cup, warily, before taking a sip and giving a small, pleasure moan.
“Hot chocolate,” she says through a giddy smile. Shouldn’t have clicked the morphine button again, she thinks, and chuffs out a small laugh.
Mulder smiles along with her, enjoying the hazy, silly look on her face. He decides to play dumb. “What?”
With a shake of her head, Scully lets her smile fade to a small quirk of her lips as she sips the cooling, decadent liquid. “Nothing, Mulder,” she answers finally, and slips her hand in his. “Thank you.”