TITLE: Happiness AUTHOR: Robby Keofe FEEDBACK: Feed me!! Please!! skeeter@bcinet.net CLASSIFICATION: SRAH CATEGORY: MSR RATING: PG SPOILERS: Post- "Redux II" AUTHOR'S NOTES: There are some references to a few "cases" - I made them up, so don't go looking for them. THANKS & DEDICATION: To Lorri, my personal Kathie Lee - God forbid I don't get 15 stories posted a day!! Just kidding. This one's for you, Rugrat. ;-) DISCLAIMER: They're not mine. That about covers it. I don't own the International House of Pancakes, either. SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully cry a little, go to an IHOP. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ HAPPINESS by robby keofe The sun is shining, the leaves glow in shades of burnt orange and red, and the autumn air is so clear and fresh I've almost forgotten that this is, in fact, a major city. I barely notice as I floor the gas pedal, the car flying down the highway to the hospital. For the first time on such a drive, I don't feel anguish, or fear. I'm happy. It's a feeling so rare I can barely recognize it, but it's there, resonating in my heart. Scully checks out this morning, my beloved Scully, granted a reprieve by the same men that sought to destroy her. I'm afraid to question whatever miracle allows me to make this trip today, and even if I wanted to sheer joy at seeing her alive, the knowledge that her life stretches before her, would prevent any negative analyzation. At this moment, I don't care what's in her neck. I want to hug her. I'm not sure where the feeling came from, but my hands twitch around the steering wheel with the urge to touch her back, her shoulders, her arms. Her beautiful hair, thinning from the rigors of chemo. She isn't going to let me anywhere near her hair. The other morning, when she told me she was in remission, I wrapped my arms around her, one burying itself in the red mass. She jerked away, and I was left with a handful of the carmine strands. She looked so embarrassed, and I could've cried, the need to tell her that she's the most gorgeous creature on the planet overwhelming me. I would've told her if her family hadn't appeared at the door, and God knows I'm not going to hang around in a room with Bill Scully longer than absolutely necessary. I park illegally, but I should be able to get away with it - that little FBI sticker on my windshield is more valuable than gold. I run through the lobby, ignoring the glares of the staff. The slowest elevator on the face of the planet takes me to the oncology floor, and I leap down the hall to her room. I stop at the door; her back is to me, and she's putting the cards and flowers that have accumulated on her bedside tables into plastic shopping bags. She's so thin. She's wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and sweatpants; both hang off her. I haven't seen her in anything but a hospital gown for weeks, and I'm floored. I'm sad again; I feel the familiar emotion depleting my happiness. She turns, sensing me behind her; a smile breaks out upon her gaunt, pale face. "Hey!" she exclaims. How can she grin like that after what's happened? Before I can stop myself I walk over to her, pulling her into my arms. I hold her there, my arms clasped around her like a vice, the sterile smells of the hospital hiding the glorious scent of Scully, her hair drier and thinner than it ever was before, feeling her bony form where there used to be flesh. I can't believe how much hatred is inside of me now, hatred for the people who did this to her. I can't believe how much this hurts. A few tears slip from my eyes and I pull her closer, making a conscious effort to suck her into my body so I can protect her and never let this happen again. I don't care if it's impossible. I'm going to try anyway. Oh, God, Scully, let me help you. "Mulder," she murmurs. "What's wrong?" "What happened to you?" I whisper, beginning to cry harder. Where was I all these months? Why couldn't I see how sick she was? "Do you want a milkshake or anything?" I whimper. "What?" she laughs. "A milkshake. I don't know. It has lots of calories," I sob. I can feel her laughter reverberating against my chest. I felt this way a few nights ago, crying as she slept, but it was never so penetrating as it is now. She's up, she's moving around, and she's still alive, though she looks like she's not going to be able to walk down to the car. "I'm okay, Mulder," she says, and I can feel the curve of her smile through my shirt. "Mulder, I lost a lot of weight. You know that." Her voice is gentle. I did notice the weight loss. I just tried so hard to block it out, to pretend it wasn't happening. Scully will never know how grateful I am to her for coming into work every day regardless of how horrible she felt, for not stopping her life because she was sick. I couldn't have watched her submit to the illness all these months. It would've killed me. If I could see her everyday in the same environment, nothing changed, I could pretend it wasn't happening. That's why I'm crying now - I expected to drive her home today, drive her back to February, to a place where I'd never heard of a nasopharyngeal mass. And I can't. I regret every day of the past ten months, every day that she had to wage the battle alone, because I was too much of a selfish bastard to help her. I wonder if she ever needed me all this time, needed someone to hold her hand or tell her that she was going to be alright. I wonder if she ever needed me, and I wonder how many times I wasn't there. "I'm sorry, Scully," I choke, my hands clenching around her back. "It's not your fault," she whispers, stroking my back with the hands that were always so strong. Now it's her comforting me. I am so fucking worthless. I have to get out of here. I hate this smell. I hate being here, in the room where Scully almost died. I want to run away from it, the way I always do when I'm so close to her, when all the love I feel for her bubbles millimeters from the surface. I can't lose her. I could never say goodbye to her, abandon everything I feel for her. I love her. I pull away from her, my blurry, teary eyes meeting her glassy blue ones. "It's not your fault," she repeats forcefully. Oh, Scully, it is my fault, but that's not what hurts the most. "C'mon, Mulder. I want to go home," she says, a small smile on her lips. ~*~ I carry her things down to the car; it's the least I can do. We must be quite a sight; me, with my tearstained cheeks and puffy eyes, and my poor emaciated Scully beside me. She's walking slowly, probably dizzy from her lack of real physical activity, and I'm careful to match my strides to hers. I feel like a sloth, but I don't care. The nursing staff insisted on putting her in a wheelchair, standard policy for leaving a hospital, but, at her insistence, we left it the second we were off the oncology floor. I wish I would've made her stay in it. She looks ready to collapse. We walk out the front doors, and Scully immediately seems to come back to life. She throws her arms out and leans back, and I can only stare at this sudden manifestation of energy. "You look like Julie Andrews in 'The Sound of Music.'" I manage to tease. Beats bursting into tears again. "Shut up, Mulder, do you know how long it's been since I've been in the sun?" she chides. "Do you want my jacket? It's kind of chilly out." It is November, after all, and she only threw on a sweater as we left the room. "Shut up, Mulder," she repeats. I walk a few feet to my car, smiling, and open the trunk. I get everything packed in there rather nicely, careful not to smush any of her plants. I turn, and she's still got her back arched, staring at the sky. "See any UFO's?" I call to her, and I hear her laugh. She skips over, and for a moment I almost have a heart attack, thinking she's going to pass out, then I notice that she *skipped.* I've never seen Scully skip anywhere. Maybe she doesn't hate me. But how could she not be angry, after everything she's been through? She gets in the passenger side and buckles her seatbelt, then flips down the mirror. "Yikes," she mutters. "What?" I ask. "I look gross," she announces. "No, you don't," I tell her, even though I know she won't believe me. She's pale, yes. Her hair is thin, lacking its typical luster. She's absolutely skeletal. And yet I think she's beautiful. I don't know how it's possible, but she's beautiful. I wish she were healthier, but seeing her like this hasn't touched how I feel about her. "Yeah, I do. My breasts were bigger when I was 12." The last comment seemed to be directed more to herself than me, but I swallow hard as she says it, fighting the urge to take a look myself. I guess she notices my internal struggle not to be a pervert, and she laughs lightly. "C'mon, Mulder. Let's get out of here." I pull into traffic, and she smiles shyly. "What?" I ask. "Take me to lunch?" she asks sweetly, and I grin. ~*~ Scully wanted to go to IHOP. After months of being unable to keep food in her stomach, she celebrates with a waffle. I didn't say anything, though; she needs to eat. "Hey, you know what this reminds me of?" she says, around a mouthful of waffle. "What?" I ask. "Remember that time, when we first started working together, we were on that frog-people case in Utah somewhere?" "Uh, vaguely," I tell her, taking a bite out of my cheeseburger. "Do you remember how we were eating at one of these places at, like, four in the morning, and you agreed to let me drive back to the hotel? And I accidentally backed into that old woman, and her piece-of-crap car just sort of crumbled, right in the middle of the parking lot?? And it was us, the old woman, and this greasy truck driver guy, and other than that it was completely deserted??" she says, a huge grin on her face. I laugh. I'd forgotten that story, but it was elemental in my decision never to let Scully drive, ever. "It was really dramatic," she adds, and cracks up. I laugh, too. She's so cute sometimes. "Remember the case with the killer bunnies? That one tried to bite your nose off, and I hit it, trying to get it away from you, and it bit my hand instead??" I ask, grinning. "Remember the time you fell down the stairs of that crime lab in Milwaukee or somewhere, and I told everyone you had an inner ear imbalance so you wouldn't look like some discombobulated goof?" she shoots back. "Or the time you hit your head on that rock in Wyoming? You were really out of it and you mumbled incessantly *for six hours* about the time you saw Billy Idol in concert??" "I did *not*!" she says firmly. "You did, Scully. And you were intermittently singing "White Wedding!" And you were singing *really loud.*" I tease, chuckling. That was completely hysterical, that case. Scully knows the words to "White Wedding." "Shut up, Mulder. What about that time we discovered your little allergy to pineapples??" Ugh, I don't like to think about that. I don't know what I was thinking - we were in Kansas, in a pizza place, and I figured we should try pineapple pizza. I'd never eaten it before; I'd never even eaten pineapples before. Worst idea I've ever had, and that's saying a lot. "Scully, please don't bring that up," I say, groaning. "I wasn't the one throwing up out the window of a rented Taurus, Mulder!" she exclaimed happily. The entire waitressing staff is staring at us like we're total freaks right now, but I don't care. "Shut up, Scully," I growl, and she laughs. "Remember the time we were in the FBI cafeteria and you started choking on a piece of lettuce -" "-and you didn't even help me, you just stared while I gagged on that thing, and *Pendrell* had to come and smack me on the back a few times??" she yelps, finishing the story for me. "That was horrible, Mulder! I thought you were gonna let me choke to death!!" "I was just trying to figure out what to do!" "Yeah, while I was *choking*!!" she shrieks, and playfully throws a packet of Sweet&Low at me. I tossed it back at her. "I'm sorry!" I yelp. She sighs, tapping the Sweet&Low against the table. "You know, Mulder, these are the things I think about when I think about us. Not anger. Not pain. Not cancer." She takes my hand across the table. "Just you barfing up pineapple pizza," she says, trying hard, and failing, to repress laughter. She's hysterical now, but she's squeezing my hand to let me know it's okay. She regains control of herself, and I reach for her other hand. Four sets of fingers are now laced together, clasped over a half-eaten waffle and the few remaining bites of my cheeseburger. "I don't blame you, Mulder, and I know it's not in your nature to believe that . . . but I want you to try. Try, for me, because I want you to believe that I could never hold you responsible for anything. And even when you do something to piss me off, like ditch me, it doesn't matter, because all I have to do is replay that image of you falling down that flight of stairs and it makes all the frustration go away." She pauses, smiling wide, and I laugh. "I just can't understand how you couldn't hate me . . . not even a little bit," I admit. "I don't. You, Fox Mulder, are the greatest man I've ever known. You're funny, and you're smart, and you're weird . . ." She releases one of my hands to ruffle my hair. "And I love you." Whoa. Wasn't expecting that one. "I love you, too, Scully," I murmur, pulling her hand to my mouth so I can kiss it. I run my lips along her knuckles and wrist, dropping light kisses everywhere, whispering, 'I love you,' over and over and I almost forget that I'm in the middle of an IHOP. When I finally glance up from Scully's hand, a makeup caked beastwoman/waitress is staring at me. We really can't catch a break, Scully and I. I look at Scully, who has the widest, brightest smile I've ever seen. Her skin is pink again, her eyes shining. She is so beautiful. I tell her so, rubbing her hand against my cheek. "Mulder," she whispers, a sly smile on her face as she leans closer to me. "Let's go home." "Are you done eating?" I ask. She rolls her eyes. "If you take me home now . . . We can go inside, and we can go sit down on my couch, and we can kiss." She waggles her eyebrows suggestively. "CHECK, NOW!!" I shriek, grabbing for my wallet. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ What did you think?? Let me know at skeeter@bcinet.net!! Please please please??