Title: Work of Breathing
By: Philiater
Sk/Sc romance
No spoilers. Occurs before season 8. Vaguely reminiscent
of One Breath. 
Rating: R
Archive-I would prefer it stay at SIS for now
Disclaimer-All characters are not mine-they belong to
Carter and friends Scully's POV 
Feedback: philiater1@yahoo.com 
Work of breathing---The amount of energy expenditure
required to facilitate respiration.

 

Work of Breathing
by Philiater


Community General Hospital
12 midnight

 

"I'm dying." I thought. 

It was a statement, a fact. No sudden flash of insight. 

I was a doctor. I had seen this before and knew only too
well the signs of a body struggling to keep itself alive.
And mine was losing.

Just breath, I say to myself . Breath. 

From my position against the back wall of the morgue I
can't see my attacker. This is Skinner's doing. 

We were reviewing the autopsy notes of a local coroner,
and waiting to view the body. Routine stuff. A mundane
case. When I heard the shot, I crumpled like a doll next to
him. With lightening reflexes Skinner drew his gun, fired
in the direction of the gunshot, and dropped to the floor
next to me. On instinct he moved backward pulling me with
him out of sight to the far wall.

He propped me up against a corner and sandwiched me
between it and his left side using his body to shield mine.
Cold tile and warm muscle.

It all happened so fast, in just a few seconds really. No
time to even think.

I felt curiously lightheaded and breathless. Then we both
saw the blood spreading across the left side of my scrub
top. 

Alarmed, I looked for the bullet hole and found one under
my collar bone near my left shoulder. My eyes flew up to
Skinner's and I see a grim hardness in his.

With one eye on the room he fished out a handkerchief and
very gently pressed it to my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut
at the pressure. "Scully?" I hear gruff emotion in his
voice.

"I'm fine." I say. I always say that whether I'm fine or
not.

We have a bigger problem. There's only one entrance to the
morgue. 

Worst of all, there is no way to call for help.

My cellphone is upstairs in the locker room with my
clothes and purse. I gather from the frantic patting down
of his coat pockets that Skinner's phone is missing too.
Without looking I already know the morgue's only phone is
near the door.

Minutes tick by with occasional exchanges of gun fire,
neither man giving an inch.

We are pinned down.

And I am breathing too fast and too hard. My lungs are
filling with blood. I am drowning.

Suddenly I have a memory of a time in medical school
working with the trauma team. An elderly woman involved in
a terrible car accident arrived late at night causing us to
scurry out of bed. She was in shock, bleeding internally,
but conscious.

"Am I going to die?" she asks us.

No one answers her as we busy ourselves with the task of
saving her life. As quickly as possible we remove her
clothing to ascertain the extent of her injuries. I was
standing next to her removing a row of large turquoise and
silver rings when she grabbed my hand. Startled, I freeze
for a moment, unsure of what to do. Her grip was surprising
strong for someone so
gravely injured.

"Am I going to die?" she persists, her voice was desperate
looking to me for an answer. I feel her rings dig painfully
into my hand. 

"No, of course not." I said gently. " We won't let you die."

She seemed a little reassured, but wouldn't let go of my
hand. She held it all the way to the OR, only relinquishing
it when the anesthesia took effect. She stared wide eyed to
the last, her eyes remaining open as awareness passed out
of them.

She was in surgery for hours, the internal injuries
requiring a great deal of work.

She went to the ICU with stable vital signs and was
expected to make a full recovery.

Of course she died any way.

She had known and so had I. I never forgot that my eyes
were the last she ever looked into. She haunts me still. 

Am I going to die? I will not ask Skinner this question. I
don't want to make him lie to me. I will spare him that
memory.

I look up at him now and what I see there causes my
breathing to pause for a split second. Unguarded, he wears
a mask of pain mixed with guilt and, (can it be?) fear as
he considers our situation . If it had been Mulder here
instead, his mind would be fractured into countless
directions and I would be an accessory to his feelings.
With Skinner I knew his expression was, as always, about
nothing but me. About saving me, protecting me, and feeling
as much emotional pain as I feel physical pain. 

That was the reason I chose him. His steadfast
selflessness where I was concerned made me see him for who
he was.
Made me fall in love with him. 

Touched by his concern, I want to reach up and smooth the
expression away with my hand. I want to murmur words of
comfort to him. The patient comforting the doctor.

When I do reach out, my hand only makes it as far as his
chest coming to rest near his heart. I inadvertently smear
blood on his starched white shirt. I feel the deep regular
beat of his heart under my hand.

Look at me Walter I'm dying.

I'm supposed to call him Walter now, that was the agreement.

Was it only yesterday that we made love for the first time?

"If you call me sir in bed one more time I will take
disciplinary action.," he said in mock military sternest.

"Oh, yes sir. I will do that sir. Right away sir." I
giggled like a teenager at his expression.

"WHAT did you call Me?" he whispered harshly, rolling me
over on my back and pinning me down.

I softened. "Walter." I crooned in his ear "Walter,
Walter, Walter…." He melted into me and kissed me until I
was breathless under him.

Well, I'm breathless next to you now I think. 

It's such an absurd thought I want to laugh, but I can't.
I can almost hear Mulder say "It only hurts when you laugh
Scully, only when you laugh."

No Mulder it hurts all the time.

A warm hand closes over mine. Heart and hands. 

And then he is looking at me. Our eyes meet and I realize
that time really can stand still. My pain is forgotten as I
try to convey everything I am feeling to him through my
eyes.

Don't worry I want to say. Tell Mulder goodbye for me.
Thank you for loving me.

"I…I…" The words won't come out. 

I love you, I want to say. I love you. I never had the
chance to say the words before.

But I'm so very tired now. So tired. 

Grayness closes in on my peripheral vision.

"Scullyyyyyy……" Skinner's words trail off as a curtain of
darkness descends.


XxxxxxxX


There is nothing but blackness for a long time. I am in a
peaceful, quiet, and painless state, and I want to stay
there. No work to interfere, no rows of countless victims
waiting for me to dissect their truths. No aliens or secret
government officials to harry me. But as is true of my
situation on most occasions I rarely get what I want.

The blackness becomes punctuated by moments of awareness.
Short bursts of light, sound, and vision occur. I hear the
beeps of intensive care monitors, the soft murmur of
voices, some of which I recognize. For brief periods I see
hands touching me, holding my hand, blurred faces and
disembodied words. These moments are not uncomfortable,
just disorienting.

But there is something else that overrides these moments:
pain. Terrible, soul crushing pain.

Pain from a tube in my throat, and my chest. Burning pain
from my oxygen starved lungs. Pain from the various
catheters in my arms. I can't manage this pain, it is too
much. My mind scurries back to the blackness as fast as it
can.

I would have stayed there in the blackness for good except
for the dream.

Not a dream really, more of collection of images. It
wasn't the 'my life flashing before my eyes' kind of thing,
but one that showed me the wonder and joy in my life. Joy.
Something I never knew I had.

It started out innocently enough. I saw Mulder and myself
in the basement doing what we do best; arguing.

Mulder was of the opinion that some cattle mutilations in
Texas were alien in origin. I, of course, was playing
devil's advocate and disagreeing with him. This was an
familiar dance to an old tune. We were the Fred Astair and
Ginger Rogers of debate.

"Scully this just can't be coincidence" he was saying.
"There are no tire marks near the carcasses, no blood
stains on the ground even though most of the blood was
drained from them after death. There's no rational human
explanation for what was done. "

I stood there with my best skeptical look applied to my
face, my arms crossed over my chest. I gave him the arched
eyebrow treatment.

"Mulder have you considered that there is a rational human
explanation?" I said. "That humans are behind this and have
specifically designed these mutilations to look like alien
activity? Besides, I remove pints of blood from humans all
the time and you won't find blood stains in my morgue."

Mulder smiles, leans forward and says the very thing he
knows will make me laugh and blow my argument to pieces.

"Scully, do you know how sexy you look when you talk about
draining blood out of people?"

Of course I laugh, I always laugh. I'm supposed to laugh,
that is our relationship.

As I let the images wash over me I feel happy. Working
with Mulder all this time was fun and exciting. Dangerous
and foolhardy, but exciting. Was I unhappy before? I can't
remember.

The scene changes to my apartment. Skinner and I are
sitting on my sofa watching T.V. We'd been playing at this
for weeks now. Skinner finding an excuse to drop by with
'papers' for me that could have been mailed. Me finding an
excuse to invite him in to have dinner. It was a very
chaste relationship. I was happy to have him take the lead,
finding his chivalry
charming.

This night my patience ran out.

His nearness was driving me crazy. I can smell his clean
scent, almost feel the warmth of his skin. Too much wine
and too little control make me slide across the sofa and
climb into his lap facing him.

He is clearly startled, but doesn't resist as I remove his
glasses and lay them on the coffee table.

"Tell me what you want." I demand in a whisper. My eyes
bore into his "Tell me."

Perhaps this was what he was waiting for: a signal from me.

He makes no sound, and kisses me for an answer. 

And his kiss is soft, so soft for such a rough edged man.
It deepens, our tongues meet, and I sigh longingly, hungry
for more. 

He obliges by pulling me against him, his hands running up
my arms to cup my breasts. I gasp against his mouth and
realize I was wet before he even touched me. 

He rubs his thumbs over my nipples which harden instantly. 

Too many clothes. There are too many clothes between us. 

Hastily I jerk his shirt free of his trousers, and he
assists me with mine. We become a tangle of moving body
parts and clothing. Quickly discarded, it's as if these
scraps of material have become foreign objects,
unrecognized as belonging to us.

I dimly recalled my neurology instructor talking about the
three layers that comprise the brain: human, mammalian, and
reptilian. The human brain was intellect and calculation.
The mammalian was more basic, and about need. The need for
food , shelter, sex. The reptilian brain was the basest of
all: sheer survival. Skinner and I were operating in the
mammalian
brain; the layers of civilization stripped away with our
clothing.

He picks me up and somehow we make it to the bedroom. He
lays me gently, almost reverently on the bed. Standing over
me, he breathes heavily and I examine him with greedy eyes.

I travel down his well muscled chest and belly to his
groin. His erection stands out from between his hips. Huge
and just for me. I blush in the dark.

Beautiful. He is so beautiful.

But there is a hesitation in him as if he is making up his
mind about something. 

Wantonly I spread my legs helping him make the decision.

A low, lustful groan escapes his lips, and he lowers
himself to me. 

We kiss again, stealing breaths from each other.

Moving lower, he nuzzles my neck, traces a path to my
breasts with his tongue.

My nipples are sensitive, so sensitive. He latches on and
sucks hungrily. The feeling is incredible, traveling down
between my legs causing me to become even wetter. I
whimper, wrapping my legs around him, urge him closer.

"Now." I whisper, the only word to pass between us.

Slowly, he fits himself to me sliding forward opening me,
becoming part of me. 

I suck air in as he thrusts forward. In two strokes I'm
coming, with Walter close behind. Pure sensation floods my
brain and body. So good it is painful, but it doesn't last
long. 

We'd take it slower next time. Next time. I want that very
much.

As he withdrawals, he rolls onto his back and tucks me
into his side, my head resting on his shoulder. It is
eerily similar to our positions in the morgue.

Silence stretches between us in the after glow. Suddenly
my confidence flags. I need comfort, reassurance that he
doesn't think we've made a mistake. My mind hasn't quite
returned from the mammalian just yet.

"Stay with me tonight." I say, almost making it a
question. I try not to sound desperate, he'd hate that.

And then he chases all my fears away with two words: 

"Of course."

He says it solidly, as if there was no other choice he
could possibly make.

With that I know I'm a goner. I love him plain and simple.

He didn't get a chance to stay all night. The case at the
morgue interrupting our interlude.

And I never told him I loved him. Why did I think we had
so much time?

This image bleeds into another one. To a hospital room. My
hospital room. Skinner is standing stiffly at the window in
what the military would call 'at ease.' Back straight, head
up, hands clasped behind his back. Judging by his posture
the position seems to have very little to do with comfort.

He is dressed in black; suit , shoes and coat. I haven't
died I think. Why so somber?

And then I see his face. 

There is so much anguish etched there it almost frightens
me. Despite his best effort to hide it, there are tears
pooled in his eyes. 

Though I never hear him speak, I clearly hear his voice.
"Everyone I try to love dies. You should never have known
me Scully."

No. This is wrong. That is not true.

I feel panicked. Wake up. I've got to wake up and tell
him. Tell him now. Wake up NOW.

Suddenly I find myself sitting up in bed coughing,
sputtering, taking long harsh breaths. I notice I've
dislodged my breathing tube, and quite a number of EKG
leads as well. A bedlam of monitors alarm shrilly in the
background.

Within seconds my room fills with nurses, interns,
residents, and doctors. They move as one unit, dragging a
crash cart with them. When they see me upright in bed they
come to a unified halt. I am not the comatose patient they
expected to see.

As for myself, I was still trying to make sense of the
situation; the images of the past and present crashing
together in a kaleidoscope of confusion.

For a few beats we simply stare at one another unsure of
what to do.

"Am I late for rounds?" I ask breaking the silence.

There is a collective laughter, spurring movement. They
file out apparently relieved that there is no true
emergency.

A nurse moves forward, and I allow him to lay me back,
place an oxygen mask over my face, and take my vital signs.
Another shuts off the offending alarms leaving only the
mechanical beeping sound of my heart beat. In the
background I see a pleasant faced woman whom I take to be
my doctor. She speaks softly with the nurses as she
analyzes the information on the machines before her. They
are a product of modern medicine; medical personnel
conferring with machines instead of the patient.

Satisfied at last she moves forward and introduces
herself. "I'm Dr. Mary Adeline, and you are Dr. Scully." A
statement. I nod my agreement. She is detached and
professional, establishing the doctor-patient relationship.

" You are a very fortunate woman." She says smiling. "The
bullet passed through your shoulder cleanly with no boney
damage and …"

I tune her out as she launches into the details of my
injuries. I should be interested, but I'm not. What draws
my attention is the plastic chest tube sticking out of my
left side. I look under my gown and see a 5 inch incision
sutured around the tube.  The cut is too big. Someone was
in an awfully big hurry to get this put in. The umbilical
like tubing snakes away from me and attaches to a wall
suction unit. It is designed to create a vacuum around my
lung to re-inflate it while the hole the bullet left behind
heals properly.

I am joined to the hospital quite literally.

"Dr. Scully.?'

Embarrassed, I shift my attention back to the doctor. She
has a quizzical look on her face.

With a soft rustle of lab coat she moves forward and sits
next to me on the bed.

"You know quite a number of interesting people have been
more than casually concerned about your condition." she
says almost laughing.

I think of my family, coworkers, and The Lone Gunmen.
Interesting people indeed.

"Two of them," she continues "have been very concerned."
She sounds irritated now.

"One was sure you were being kept in a coma because of a
conspiracy of some kind." Her voice carries a tone that
suggests she is discussing a naughty child.

Mulder.

"The other….." She trails off, her face contorting as
various emotions cross her face.

Skinner. Walter. I hold my breath waiting for her to
continue.

Finally she sighs, giving up trying to describe him with
words. 

"The other must love you very much."

She says it with such quiet sincerity that I feel tears
well up in my eyes. A warm moment passes between us, but it
is fleeting.

As she starts to go I grab her hand. "Tell him that I love
him." I say allowing desperation to creep in. Afraid I was
dreaming.; afraid I was not.

She pats my hand in a distracted manner. "It's 2:00 a.m.
You can tell him yourself in a few hours." The cool facade
drops back into place. 

As she rises she says "Get some rest, I know I need some.
You wouldn't want to me to be late for rounds too would
you?"

Her back is to me so I don't know if she's joking or not.
The lights go off and the door is shut.

Silence envelops the room except for the heart monitor. In
spite of my resolve to stay awake, my eyelids stray
downward lulled to sleepiness by the repetitive rhythm. 

Beep……beep…….. beep …. I…..love…..you…….

I breath as I am loved: slowly and deeply. 

Xxxx   End   xxxX