TITLE:   "Since Thursday"

AUTHOR:  Lucy Garner

E-MAIL ADDRESS:  lucygg@hotmail.com

WEBSITE:  http://members.nbci.com/lucygarner

DISTRIBUTION:  Gossamer, anybody else just holler.

RATING:  G

CLASSIFICATION:  V/A/DAL

SUMMARY:  At the end of a few trying days.

DISCLAIMER:  Claiming them as my own would mean I have about as much
class as the network that aired "Battle of the Child Geniuses."

FEEDBACK:  Love it.  lucygg@hotmail.com

Author's note at the end.

*****************
"Since Thursday"
by
Lucy Garner
*****************

But for the gentle rustle of her cotton scrubs and the occasional
squeak of a sneaker on tile, it had been silent in the autopsy bay for
the better part of an hour.  It was a good silence.  A welcome reward
after days of doctors and technicians harried for answers, working
around the clock to give the most considerate end possible to the
suffering of waiting families.  Three other doctors came, one from as
far away as Tallahassee, volunteering their time to the people of a
small Nebraska farm town that barely had a hospital, much less a full-
time coroner.

Scully was left to wrap up, complete the write-ups and supervise the
return of the victims' remains to their loved ones.  She reviewed and
initialed reports containing graphic details no family member should
ever see.  The ad hoc morgue staff instructed the sheriff's department
to tell family members that the explosion was so great it would have
killed their loved ones in an instant, that they had felt no pain.  It
was the truth as far as they were willing to tell it, the only comfort
they could offer.  These few days had reinforced her long-held
suspicion that there might be such a thing as a good lie.

The weather stripping at the bottom of the double doors groaned against
the tile floor.  Open, close, open, close.  Over the last few days
she'd almost stopped hearing it as the flood of workers passed in and
out of the transitory graveyard.

Even after volunteers from other cities went home, a county hospital
tech named Conway remained.  He ferried paperwork and coffee and
whatever else back and forth between the morgue and topside.  Topside,
where there was warmth and decaf and natural lighting that did not cast
a purple-blue glow on every flat surface.

On a couple of occasions in the last few days, she'd considered
claiming a vacant autopsy table and a few moments rest.  But under the
unforgiving glare, the living and the dead did not look very
different.  So, tired though she was, she opted not to take a nap on an
empty slab.

All day Conway had given away his approach, for from the far end of the
corridor he could be heard whistling.  He was a man with a thing for
classic rock bands, and his repertoire played like a "Greatest Hits"
compilation.  It was exhaustive, and his habit of sharing it
exhausting.  Who whistles Pink Floyd?

The noise of door-on-tile, accompanied by a tuneless rendering of "The
Wall," interrupted her contemplation of a folder marked "Bradshaw,
Colin T."  The footfalls and the whistling fell silent.  At least she
could be grateful for that one thing - in the presence of the dead,
Conway knew to shut up.  For a while the room was noiseless but for the
scratch of her fountain pen.

"When are the guys from funeral home coming back?" she asked without
looking over her shoulder.

"*You* haven't been eating right."

Scully wheeled round, and with a barely audible sigh, closed her tired
eyes against the sight of Mulder.  The businesslike posture of a
pathologist at work fell away and she bent her head a little to pinch
the bridge of her nose.  Her partner fiddled with the car keys in his
hand, while she bypassed his gaze to stretch her shoulders and neck.
When she finally met his eyes, she knew he would see hers were red-
rimmed and weary.

"Says who, Mulder?"

"Says my little eye that spies what's left of --", Mulder said dryly,
inspecting a nearby trash can full of Styrofoam cups and takeout
containers, " -- what normally wouldn't qualify as breakfast and lunch
for you".

"What's normal?" she asked with a little more bite than she intended.

"Point taken."

"You know, Mulder, I found it unnerving that you called to check in
four times a day for four days and didn't call at all today.  It made
me think you'd done something stupid.  Like catch a plane to Manitoba
to investigate claims that the Mounties are actually a secret society
of bloodthirsty werewolves."

"Well, I *was* on a plane."  He smiled, hoping she would manage to do
the same.

"I know that *now*."  Her lips quirked a little, but the amusement did
not show in her eyes like he hoped it would.  "Do we have a new case?"

"Nothing that won't keep a few days, Scully."

"I don't want a few days.  I don't want to go home for a few days and
do nothing but sit and think about this."

"There's a case in Montana.  Does anybody in Montana hate us or think
we're nuts?"

Scully looked far away, off to the right in consideration, and after a
while answered in a surprised tone, "Noooo, not that I can recall,
actually."

"Big sky country it is, then."

"Fine."  She looked at her watch and thumped it in disgust.  "Mulder,
what time is it?"

"About two-thirty."

"What *day*?" she yawned between her fingers.

"Tuesday.  It's been almost five days, and if you tell me the last time
you ate you had this Big Mac and it was some time Sunday, so help me,
I'm gonna --"

"Buy me lunch, Mulder."  She shrugged out of a scrub coat and headed to
the locker room to change into street clothes.

"Actual hot food.  Steak.  A baked potato."

"And a salad."

"Right," he laughed.  "There's a steak place about a block in from the
interstate.  They should have a perfectly respectable salad bar.  I saw
the sign...Bogarth's, I think."

She turned back just short of the locker room door, just looking at
him, through him, before pointing at the bank of stainless steel doors
behind him.  "Drawer five," she said, and pitched the garment into a
trash can by the locker room door.

Mulder knelt, scanning the doors in the bottom row.

<Bogarth Jr., Trey>

Scully closed her eyes and began to recite: "Twenty-three years old.
Hypovolemia secondary to a mid..."  Shaking her head, she began
again.  "He wasn't even on shift when the grain silo blew.  You hear
that the phenomenon can happen, but it's like a...a farm fable.  The
muffler on this old pickup was throwing sparks.  All of that grain
dust, *lots* of it...and this kid was across the street just talking to
his girlfriend on a pay phone."

Mulder nodded from his position kneeling on the floor, his head
drifting down to bump against the cold steel door.  Scully navigated
between a couple of unoccupied tables and came to a stop standing next
to her partner.  He looked up from re-reading the tag on the door and
snagged the hem of her scrub top between two fingers.

"Scully," he said tugging a little on the blue material, "I'm sorry
you're here.  I'm sorry you have to deal with all of this."

She kicked lightly at an invisible object on the floor, wincing when
her tennis shoe squeaked against the bleached white tile.  As she
spoke, her voice trailed off to almost nothing.  "There are people in
this town who have a lot more to deal with than me.  I get to go home."

Mulder stood, placing a palm flat on either side of her as she leaned
heavily against the cooler.  "Scully..."

"I'm just really tired," she whispered, "so how about you buy me that
meal and talk to me about anything other than this for a while?"

Mulder nodded, and by degrees his solemn expression gave way to a
twinkle of mischief.  "Brought you the new Magic Bullet.  They guys
have done an eight-page Sasquatch retrospective you won't believe."

Scully smiled again, a little more this time, even though there were
tears shining in her eyes.  "How can you do a retrospective on a
creature that doesn't exist?"

"Oh, Scully, how can you *say* that?" he teased.

"We are *not* going to Montana to find Bigfoot."

"No.  Absolutely not."  He stepped out of the way and she let her
partner shove her gently in the direction of the locker room.  As she
finally disappeared around the door, she heard him call after
her, "We'll have to go to Saskatchewan to do that."

She laughed in spite of herself and her surroundings, didn't even
cringe as her voice bounced back in a tinny alto off the metal locker
doors and walls.  She hadn't had cause to smile, to find much joy in
her work for several days.  Then again, she hadn't seen Mulder since
Thursday.

###

Beta - don't leave home without it.  Especially the much sought-after
services of CazQ and EPurSeMouve, two smart and gracious ladies who
helped me dust off the keyboard and get back to work.  Y'all made this
much, *much* better.

Thanks also to Butta for an honest opinion.

I'd love to hear from you at lucygg@hotmail.com.  Thanks for reading.

-l