Work Text:
“Mulder?!”
She fights the adrenaline that wants to make her fingers shake, breathes into it until the world sharpens around her. She will save him.
She looks up at O’Connor, bloody and slumped against the door frame. It’s a wonder he hasn’t gone into shock yet, but with Mulder bitten and bleeding on the floor in front of her, concern for O’Connor is not exactly at the forefront of her mind.
“Call for an ambulance. Now.” Turning her attention back to her partner, she finishes unbuttoning his shirt and surveys the bite marks marring his chest and abdomen, plus the nasty one on his jaw. Jesus, there must be eight or ten, at least. His dark pants make it impossible to tell if there are more on his legs that she can’t see yet. “Hold on, Mulder. Help is coming.”
“M-Mackey…”
“Gracie told me. It’s okay. She’s safe at the hospital, and we’ll catch Mackey. But right now we need to take care of you. Just try and stay calm, okay?”
His gaze wanders, eyes unfocused, and she hurries to remove his watch so it can’t cut off circulation to his hand once the wounds start to swell. She takes a minute to check his vitals; he’s slightly tachycardic already, and his breathing is becoming ragged. As she watches, tremors begin to develop in the muscles of his hands, mild for now, but they’ll get worse. He needs antivenin, and soon.
“Scully--” The pain in his hoarse whisper is evident, and her chest constricts.
“Shh, don’t try to talk, Mulder. The paramedics are on their way.”
“No… something I need to… to tell you…”
“Whatever it is, it can wait. You’re going to be okay. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Med… medication…”
She runs a hand through his hair, noting with concern that it’s already damp with sweat. “We’ll get you something for the pain, and I’ll make sure you get antivenin started as soon as possible. Don’t worry.”
He shakes his head, becoming more agitated, and if she can’t calm him down, he’s going to make himself worse.
“Possible c-conflict…” His eyes roll back in his head, and she mentally adds delirium to the list of symptoms she’ll have to give the EMTs when they get here. He must really be out of it if he thinks it might be a conflict of interest for her to take a role in his medical care, given how many times she’s done it before.
The knot of worry in her stomach releases only fractionally when she hears the whine of sirens in the distance. Mulder’s still conscious, but barely. She leans down and presses a quick kiss to his forehead.
“Hold on, Mulder. Please just hold on.”
***
It’s touch and go in the ambulance. The bite on his jaw begins to swell and threaten his airway, but the rural EMTs haven’t been trained on intubation, and Scully hasn’t performed one since med school. She’s nearly ready to attempt it anyway, but between Mulder’s increasing muscle tremors and the fact that they’re in a moving vehicle, there is a not insignificant chance that she would do more harm than good. Instead, all she can do is watch as his oxygen levels slowly drop, mentally calculating how long it will take before they become critically low.
By the time they arrive at the hospital, he is in severe respiratory distress, and the first doctor who tries to keep her out of the ER gets a badge in the face and a sharp, “I am a medical doctor, and I am not leaving him.”
She does stay out of the way, though -- close enough to observe without being underfoot. She sees O’Connor come in as well; he arrived in a second ambulance right behind them. She glances over toward him every now and again, but for the most part, her focus is trained on her partner, now intubated and receiving the first of who knows how many vials of antivenin.
Finally, he’s stable enough for transfer to the ICU, though nowhere near out of the woods. Scully is about to follow his team upstairs, when O’Connor’s doctor walks over.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Are you the partner of the FBI agent who shot Mr. O’Connor?”
Scully raises her eyebrows. “Mulder shot Enoch O’Connor?”
“That’s what the patient says, yes ma’am. We’re supposed to inform the police whenever we treat a gunshot wound, but if Mr. O’Connor was shot by a federal officer, that changes the protocol a little bit.”
“No kidding,” she mutters under her breath, watching as the elevator doors close on Mulder’s gurney. Then she sighs, nodding to the doctor in front of her. “O’Connor was already wounded when I arrived on scene, so I cannot confirm or deny his version of events, but I’ll help as much as I can. I do know that Agent Mulder would not have pulled the trigger without just cause.”
The doctor gestures with her clipboard toward a closed office door off to the right. “Well, if you don’t mind coming with me, we can at least get a head start on the necessary paperwork.”
If I don’t mind… Scully glances toward the elevator again. The pull to be with him, to stay by his side until she’s sure he is going to be all right, is almost overwhelming. Logically, though, she accepts there isn’t anything more she can do for Mulder right now. In fact, if he did shoot Enoch O’Connor, the best thing she can do for him would be to handle as much of the fallout from that as possible, at least until he’s recovered enough to add his own statement to the report.
With another nod, she follows the doctor to her office.
***
I don’t know how I got out of that one without you finding out. I thought for sure something would show up in a blood test and you’d read it in my chart, or you’d see that I had asked the doctor about continuing my medication while undergoing the antivenin treatment. Hell, I even tried to tell you myself, when we were waiting for the ambulance, but I guess you just thought I was out of my mind.
And I should’ve said something afterward, I know. I mean, I did try. Just not hard enough. When the damned EKG gave away how nervous I was… well, it’s no excuse. I should have owned up to it instead of letting you think I was just overtaxed and needed to rest.
The plane ride home wasn’t the time or the place. Maybe that’s no excuse either, I don’t know.
Next week I have another set of scans. It’s probably too much to hope for, that there will be a noticeable difference. I’ve only been on the medication a few weeks. At the least, I can hope they don’t show I’m getting worse. If I am… if the meds aren’t helping at all and I’m continuing to decline, I’ll quit stalling. No more excuses.