Beyond the Blue by JHJ Armstrong

Beyond the Blue
by JHJ Armstrong (December 2000)

RATING: PG-13

SUMMARY: "I do love nothing in the world so well as you." -- Benedick to Beatrice, "Much Ado About Nothing." A simple tale of life, loss and love.

URL: index.html

CONTENT: Angst. MSM. Angst!!! Did I mention ANGST? Someone pushed the Big Serious Button.

SPOILERS: Through Requiem. I wrote babyfic. *gasp* It's Doggett-free, FYI.

DISCLAIMER: Still not mine.

DISTRIBUTION: I've heard Courier makes a nice wallpaper pattern ... Seriously, anywhere's fine, but either link here, or copy this text for your site, as I do go back and edit my stories from time to time. Thanks.

FEEDBACK: Send it on over to [email protected]
DEDICATION: For Brenda, who never had a Dave. RIP, love.

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Beyond the Blue
by JHJ Armstrong (December 2000)
index.html
[email protected]

June 2005
St. Paul, Minnesota

I was 15 when I ran away from the Bay Street Home for Girls in Farmington, New Mexico. Three floors of "Annie" on LSD. Sixty hard-knock lives, but most couldn't carry a tune in a tin pail. No broken locket, no Daddy Warbucks -- hell, not even an Auntie Pennypincher -- in our futures.

Hope died there at least once a day. I got out while I still had some.

I hitchhiked for a few years. Got my own ride eventually, a Honda crotch rocket that has outrun cops in 13 states. I've still got it, and it still could.

Fifteen years later, I'm in the Land of 10,000 Lakes and 10 million mosquitoes. The state of two seasons -- winter and road construction. We're 9 months of cold toes, 12 weeks of bad sledding.

I know all the jokes. Don't get me started on the food. One word: Lutefisk.

There isn't any specific reason I chose to stick around; after a while, I just knew this was a place where I could be content. I'd never seen seasons change the way they do here, either, green to gold to silver and back again.

I make furniture for a living. Good furniture. The solid, dependable heirloom stuff that requires either a tempered steel axe or a three-alarm fire to destroy. The kind of thing you bring with you no matter what, even though it weighs a couple hundred friggin' pounds, you decided to move in mid-July, and your new place is on the fourth floor. Of a walk-up.

I learned how to make wood sing over a couple years spent in New Orleans. My landlady was better with a lathe than a monkey wrench. It was fun, I was good at it, and it satisfied me. Plus, it kept me sober and out of jail.

It's a decent life. I make enough to pay the rent on a studio loft in Lowertown, a "historic" district of old buildings and parking garages, with enough left over for good food and the occasional movie or concert. Best of all, I'm responsible for my own success.

Today, I'm taking up some floor space at a regional arts fair downtown, just up Kellogg Avenue from the science museum. That's a fascinating place, but you have to get there early, before the youngsters take "hands-on" to heart and break everything for the day.

Jerry, the oil painter who lives across the hall and never smells of anything but patchouli, has the area next to mine. We shoot the breeze as he prepares a new canvas and I sand the arms of a white pine rocking chair. I am cursing the fate of small-market baseball teams held back by old, backward-thinking owners when he interrupts.

"Here comes trouble," he says, tipping his brush at a trio of sixtyish women approaching a cushioned bench with scrollwork along the top and sides.

"Oh, Ruth, look at this. Pretty, isn't it?" Her hands caress the cutout on the back panel; the appreciation in her voice warms my heart.

Ruth, a thin thing with thinner hair, gives me the once-over and condescends to say, "I don't know, Jean. What do you think, Mary, a bit ostentatious?"

"Ruth, you wouldn't know style if it danced on your plastic purse."

I snort. Mary, a pleasant-faced woman with peach-tinted curls and half-glasses, winks at me. "What's this made out of, dear?"

"Cherry," I say, wiping dusty palms on a tattered flannel rag.

"It's lovely," Mary continues. "How much?"

"Six-fifty." Ruth's eyebrows raise, implying that any hunk of wood touched by my grubby little hands couldn't possibly be worth that much.

I want to say, 'Sure, Ruth, head on down to Kmapart or Tarzhay or even Wally World and save a few nickels on some factory-produced, paint-by-numbers crap that won't stand up to fat, sweaty, alcoholic uncles or one pissed-off teenager. You get what you pay for -- this bench will still be around when you've long since started pushing up the posies, and I bet your family won't spring for the deluxe casket.'

I want to tell Ruth where she can put her eyebrows. Another day, I would have. But I'm working on subtlety this week.

"Well, I cut, sanded and put it together by hand. Every one of these pieces is made with love, and I don't think it's a crime to charge for what that's worth."

Mary smiles. "Of course it isn't." Ruth's sneer lessens, barely. Jean pretends to be spellbound by an oak footstool.

A silver-haired gentleman arrives and kisses Mary on the cheek. "What are we looking at?"

"This bench. Look at the scrollwork, George. She did it all by hand."

"Did she now?" George asks, dimpling a grin at me. I nod. He turns to his wife. "Were you thinking that we needed a little something in that alcove under the stairs?"

They share a smile born of decades together. "That's exactly what I was thinking."

Ruth purses her lips. "You two," she says, but I hear more envy in her tone than spite. "Let's go, Jean, I want to see about that lefse grill."

Jean stiffens. "*I* am going to look at Amish dolls. You can come with me if you want," she declares, and marches off. Ruth looks a bit stunned, then mumbles, "Well, those quilts aren't half bad," and hurries after Jean.

Mary shakes her head as she watches them go. "You'd never guess those two were sisters."

She opens her checkbook, and even though it's the first and maybe only sale of the day I ask, "Are you sure, ma'am? Because it's a lot to spend on ... on a whim."

George settles it. "We don't buy anything on a whim."

"Okay, then." I swaddle my creation in 3M's best bubble wrap and clear tape before loading it on a dolly, then ask Jerry to keep an eye on things.

"Yep. De nada," he says, and goes back to creating happy little trees.

I wave off George's attempts to steer his new acquisition out the door. Mary suggests that he go get the car, and after he complies I thank her.

"Men," she says with a shrug. "Mmm," I agree.

When we get outside, I discover that the greyish-pink sunrise I saw the beginnings of at 5:30 a.m. has become a perfect June day, warm and bright with a slight breeze. We wait under the overhang for George, who snugs a minivan of multiple blues up to the curb.

Just as he opens the rear door, a familiar voice shouts "Lainey-lou!" and I'm lifted about a foot off the ground. When I'm put back down, I turn around to smile at Dave, the paramedic who enjoys playing doctor with me.

"Morning, McClane." We saw yet another rerun of "Die Hard" on HBO last summer, and Dave earned his nickname the next day when he and a couple others were featured on the local news for saving several lives after a construction accident near the Minnesota Mutual building. "Sleep well?"

He smooches me before going to help George hoist the bench into the van. "Just fine. Your bed does wonders for my back." His green eyes tease me.

"Too bad you were sleeping alone." It's true; he got home just as I was heading out.

Mary laughs at both of us as George closes the doors. He shakes my hand and Dave's, and they drive off.

I sigh. It's almost like an adoption when I sell something. I'm so happy when they get nice homes.

We sit on the curb, and for now it's just Dave and me and the sounds of Saturday afternoon traffic. Dave puts an arm around me and buries his face in my hair. "We cheated God again last night, Lainey."

Tears sting my eyes. I've been with Dave for almost six years, and I'm still amazed at how close to the surface he keeps his emotions. I feel so privileged when he trusts me with the things that scare him. "What happened?"

"Five-car pile-up on 94 and 280. Somebody was hauling something they shouldn't have, and it spilled. The cops figure one car spun out and the others couldn't avoid it, something like that.

"Anyway, too many cars in too little space going too fast combined with whatever spilled ... it was nasty. We got there too late for one, but there were six others who needed critical care and a few more walking wounded." I rub his thigh with my palm, and he takes my hand.

"We took one of the bad ones, a girl, couldn't have been more than 12, had to shock her twice on the way to Regions, and I didn't think she'd make it to this morning.

"She was so little, and frail ... I couldn't get her out of my mind. So I called when I woke up, and she's ... multiple lacs, concussion, busted just about everything on the left side, but she's still fighting. I was thinking about going down there later, just to ... just to see."

"I'll go with you, if you want."

"I'd like that."

We stand, and as we turn around I jostle a pregnant woman, about my height, holding a canvas bag with a wooden truck peeking out the top. We smile and say pardon me, and she continues on to the edge of the asphalt.

I hear a small voice squeal "Mommy!" and I turn my head to see a little boy squirt away from the tall, dark-haired man holding his hand and rush across four lanes toward the woman I just bumped into.

I also see a car going faster than it should be, and the world slides into slow motion as I realize that the boy is about to get hit.

The man screams "Jacob!" and lunges into the street, but a car going the opposite direction spoils his intentions, and the mother is in no shape to move as fast as she needs to.

So I do the only thing I can. I dive into the path of the oncoming car, shoving the boy out of the way.

Two-ton car vs. 145-pound woman. I lose. I feel my left upper arm and shoulder crunch and collapse, then I'm airborne for an agonizing second and I thud to the ground and realize that hey, people bounce, too ...

-- screeching tires yelling people Lainey! Lainey! oh my God Jesus Lainey call an ambulance don't move her I'm a doctor I'm a paramedic why Jacob where is Jacob --

-- pain pain Dave I'm in pain help Dave head hurts chest hurts everything hurts I'm sorry please oh please is the boy ok let the boy be okay --

-- he's okay he's okay just scratches --

Thank you, God. And so I sleep.

---------------

The four-year-old on the exam table squirms as a young doctor in magenta scrubs tries to clean and bandage his hands. A bruise and scrape on his forehead have already been attended to, white gauze wrapped around his head and over one eye in a game of pirate.

"Jacob, you have to sit still so the doctor can make it better."

"Mommy, it hurts. You make it better. It doesn't hurt when you do it."

Mulder, sitting in the corner chair, closes his eyes as he hears Jacob ask for his mother's magic touch. He wishes the reason was anything but an emergency. Images from earlier today -- a broken heroine lying on a bloody street, Jacob crying in his arms -- haunt him, and he opens his eyes to see his wife making her way over to their son, intent on distracting him so the other doctor in the room can finish his ministrations.

"Hey, Jakey," she whispers. "Tell me about the science museum." She smells his little-boy scent, and it reminds her to be thankful he is still there to tell her anything at all. He is safe; there will be time to scold him later.

Jacob senses that his parents are not exactly happy at the moment, but the mention of the museum has him too excited to care. He goes off like a cannon. "There was a big dinosaurus, and crayons, and I ran the robot and we talked in the dish and I saw Bigfoot and a heart and a lot of rocks and then I moved the handle and Daddy yelled."

Scully catches her husband's eye at this last comment, and he offers her a small grin.

"I had my hand on this hand-operated generator and wasn't watching what Jacob was doing. He decided to use his innate curiosity and see what happened if he turned the crank really fast. I think he got a bigger shock than me."

They chuckle, relieving some tension as the doctor tapes down the end of a bandage and pats Jacob on the leg. "There you are, little man, good as new." He scribbles on a pad and tears off the top sheet, handing it to Scully. "This is an antibiotic, just to be safe. If he's in pain, some Children's Tylenol is fine. Change the gauze twice a day, more often if he starts to bleed."

"Usual head injury precautions?" she asks, and he nods after a moment, wary. "I'm a doctor," she informs him.

"Ah. Yes, don't let him nap longer than an hour or so for the rest of today, and wake him every few hours tonight."

The doctor turns to Jacob. "You were a very lucky boy today," he says. "Be good, okay?" Another pat on the leg, and he is gone.

Scully tucks the prescription in her purse, then turns to the boys in her life to see that now both of them have mummy hands, the tall one having found his own roll of gauze to play with. She sighs.

"Well, Mulder, looks like our son has you beat for first head injury. He lasted four years before we had to bandage his brain." She unravels the pirate's patch and kisses a spot next to the bump on Jacob's forehead, getting a hug in return.

Mulder frees his fingers, dropping the handful of ruined gauze in a messy heap on a suture tray. "Like father, like son." He shrugs. "It was only a matter of time, Scully."

"Isn't that the truth." She looks through the window in the door, and her eyes darken. He follows her gaze to the paramedic who frantically worked to save the woman who saved their son.

"Mulder, we should ..."

"Yeah." He moves to scoop up their son, settling Jacob on his left hip.

As a family, they approach the solitary man. He is staring at a trauma room with no one in it. A few discarded syringe caps and bloodied bits of cloth litter the floor; hollow plastic tubes dangle like severed marionette strings.

"Dave, wasn't it?" The younger man jumps at Mulder's query.

"What? Oh. Hi ... yeah, it's Dave ... Dave Nelson."

"Hi. I'm Fox Mulder." They shake hands. "This is my wife, Dana Scully, and our son Jacob." A pause. "Is she ... ?"

"No, they just took her up to surgery. But it'll be a while before they're sure there's no brain damage or loss ... loss of ..." He just stops talking.

Mulder's questioning glance at Scully is answered with her nod. "Listen, Dave, we'll stay until we know one way or the other, okay?"

"You don't have to, I'll ... she's ..." He trails off again, clears his throat. "I was about to head up to the surgical waiting room." He starts down the hallway to the elevators, not really caring whether they follow.

The four emerge on the sixth floor and arrange themselves for the long wait. Dave manages a small smile for the boy who sits in his father's lap. "Hi, Jacob. How are you?"

With the pure empathy small children seem to possess, Jacob moves from his father's arms to embrace the man who is so obviously hurting. The boy doesn't mind when the man starts to cry.

----------------

Less than thirty yards away, ten people fight for one life and know that, right or wrong, they will work doubly hard to save her because she is loved by one of their own.

MVA, car vs. pedestrian, is why she is here, red and bruised in all sorts of places she shouldn't be -- the horrible aftermath of incredible bravery.

As they work, images of fishing trips and football games, motorcycle rides and wedding gifts swirl in the heads of doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists, memories of happier days.

Then she arrests, and they must focus on nothing other than medicine as a chest is cracked and a heart massaged, then jolted.

A beat. Then another.

They all breathe again, but not very deeply.

----------------

Jacob tucks cotton-wrapped hands under his chin and settles into his father's lap. Mulder supports him with one arm and puts the other around Scully's shoulders.

Scully strokes Jacob's hair, a few shades lighter than her own, with hints of his father's brown. The other hand rests on her belly, nicely rounded, about 6 months along. She is contemplating fate, and sending up several prayers for the angel who stepped in when she and Mulder couldn't get there in time.

The boy sighs, and his father's chest constricts. They have averted disaster, again. Mulder has crossed more than a street to get to Jacob's mommy, but he and his son will have a serious talk about the dangers of this sort of behavior as soon as possible.

Dave can't sit still, stalking back and forth across mauve carpet and mangling brown coffee stirrers with his teeth.

The cell phone on Dave's hip startles them all.

"What?" he barks into the phone. "Jerry. Hi." He rubs his forehead, softens his tone. "No. Lainey ... she got ... hit by a car and it's ... bad. She's in surgery now ... Oh. I didn't even think of that. Thanks ... Call me later if you don't hear from me, okay?" He hangs up, announcing "Jerry's going to take care of Lainey's stuff" to no one in particular. He plucks a Styrofoam coffee cup from a stack next to the decanter and digs a fingernail into the side, then begins to tear chunks out of the rim.

"Who's Jerry?" Scully asks, to see if talking will help.

"What? Oh, he's a painter, part-time fireman. Introduced Lainey and me, actually."

"How long have you been together?"

"Going on ... six years now. Wow. Six great years. She makes furniture, really cool stuff. Beautiful. She's beautiful."

He looks at Scully, a little abashed, but she simply smiles, inviting him to continue.

"She's an orphan ... ran away from a bad place when she was just a kid. I met her at an auto parts shop. Jerry and I were looking at refurbished engines, and she was rebuilding her cycle ... I'd never known a woman who could do that before." His wry smile turns tender.

"She's got this long, curly hair that always smells great. I see a lot of bad stuff in my job, and I know it scares her, too, but she makes me feel proud to be scared, you know what I mean?"

Mulder nods his head slowly, twice. "I do."

"Lainey loves what she does. She's got all these plans, all these projects ... What will she do if she .. if she can't ..." More tears come, and he throws himself into a chair. Scully hands him a box of Kleenex. He blows his nose, takes a few deep breaths, then clears his throat. Time to change the subject.

"So, are you from around here?"

"No," Mulder replies, "we live in Baltimore. I teach, and she's a doctor. We're here on vacation."

"You live on the Eastern Seaboard and you came to *Minnesota* for a vacation?"

Mulder grins. "Well, it seemed rather benign. Besides, we heard the science museum was a must-see. By the way, Scully, you've gotta go check out the fog in a box. Very cool."

"Sounds like fun. Sorry I missed it, Mulder ... it just got too crowded in there." Her husband glances at her, protective but not wanting her to notice. She seems very talented at not letting him see that she does.

Dave looks from one to the other, sensing the undercurrent and wanting to think about something else for a while. "How long have you been married?"

"It'll be four years in December." Scully twists the ring on her left hand as she speaks. "We were together for a little more than seven years before that."

Dave considers something, then says, "If you don't mind me asking, how did you know it was time to tie the knot?"

Mulder answers, and he is slow, deliberate, as if he's editing himself as he goes. "Well, to make a long story short, we used to have somewhat dangerous jobs. But, we were doing something that needed to be done. Then Scully got pregnant ... we had to rethink a few things."

" 'Things' is an understatement, Mulder," his wife says. More undercurrents.

Time to change the subject again. "How about you?" Mulder asks. "Thought about taking the plunge?" Scully's warning glance at his choice of topic goes unheeded.

"You don't have to answer that, Dave, it's really none of our business," she says. "We've caused you enough trouble today."

Dave shakes his head. "No, it's all right ... " His chin trembles, stiffens, trembles again as he thinks of a future he's only just begun to dream about. "Right now, I just want to see her smile at me. I don't know if I'll ever get to kiss her again, much less ask her to marry me. I just ... I just don't know." He hangs his head.

Scully offers what comfort she can. "Dave, I ... um, Mulder was missing once. He came back, but I still thought I was going to ... lose him." She falters, but squares her shoulders after a brief pause, and Dave thinks this woman would go anywhere, do anything for the people she loves. "All I knew was that I had to keep the faith that we would go on together, because we still had so much to finish. I had to believe that my love and his spirit were enough to ... to pull us through. And they were." Her husband is watching her, and she takes his hand without looking.

"Dave, I am so sorry that Lainey is hurt. You need to believe that she knows how much you love her. We can get a long way on simple faith."

----------------

This time, it takes three jolts before her body responds, green spikes returning to a black screen.

The doctors hurry to piece her back together as well as they know how, but they shake their heads with each slice and stitch.

They have done all they can. Now, it is up to her.

----------------

The on-call trauma surgeon slips into the room, a familiar face in pale green scrubs and a white coat. Dave bolts out of his chair before she is completely through the door.

"Hi, Dave," she says grimly.

He braces himself, gives a harsh nod. "Rachel."

"Lainey got through surgery. They're putting her in ICU now." She puts a hand on his arm; it shakes a little, and so does her voice. "She arrested twice on the table. She has a compound fracture of her left humerus and a grade four concussion. Between the car and the road, her brain got bumped around pretty good. Her collarbone's shattered, and there was some major internal bleeding ... a broken rib punctured her lung and tore up an artery."

He hardly dares to speak. "But she's still alive."

Rachel sighs. "Yes. But I don't have to tell you how crucial the next few hours are."

"No," he replies, "you don't."

----------------------

Lainey's Room
ICU, Regions Hospital

Somewhere more than teal but not quite navy is the exact blue that makes me happy. A contradiction, I'm told.

But this blue, this perfect hue, darkish and teasing like just before dusk, has been my favorite color for as long as I can remember.

It's a damned hard color to find. I tried Rit dye on linen, looked at carpet and tile remnants, even had Dave's sister Julianna time-elapse a hundred pictures of day becoming night, but nothing worked. I was beginning to think it was only going to be found in nature or my imagination when I came across the rubber ball.

It was in a grocery store, of all places. A towering white wire bin stuffed with balls of all sizes and colors stood at the end of the coffee aisle. Half-hidden, about halfway up, there it was, hemmed in by a neon pink and a dull grey: My blue.

I rooted it out without serious injury to either myself or the display bin, and I left the store with my head held high and the ball riding proudly in the shopping cart's kiddie seat.

It sits on a shelf in my studio, and I smile whenever I see it. We plopped a Santa hat on it during the holidays last year; when spring came, it wore braided tulips.

Now, somehow, I have gotten inside that rubber ball. I sit cross-legged on the smooth, concave bottom, looking out at the world through an azure lens. I turn around in a circle, trying to get some perspective. Behind me, there's a blank wall on my right and a window with blinds drawn to the far left; looks like I'm in the corner of the room, diagonal to the door. Things don't look any bigger or smaller than usual, so I haven't become a leprechaun or anything, but the blue throws me off a bit.

I wiggle, wondering if I'll pay for it with a wild ride. Some wobbling, but I don't go anywhere. Dang.

I settle back down in the gentle curve. It feels like I'm waiting, but for what I have no idea.

I try to sit still, be patient ... the silence in my blue bubble soon becomes unbearable. Where is this, and why am I here? As I'm pondering, I become aware of a soft, rhythmic beeping.

Moving slowly toward the sound, I peer through the hazy barrier. I see machines, which might explain the beeping, and lots and lots of tubes and wires leading to a pale figure in a bed, head and shoulder bandaged, arm in a cast. I squint, trying to see who it is ...

What? That's me!

I am trying not to panic when a shadowy form at the window moves, and my heart catches in my throat as I see sandy brown hair, a faded blue T-shirt and khaki shorts.

It's Dave.

Dave, whose stubble would never pass the credit card test, who hates waiting room coffee, who makes fun of TV shows when they get the medicine wrong, who wears his heart on his sleeve and then gives me the shirt.

McClane, barefoot in Reebok sandals, runs a hand through his unruly, floppy hair and moves to the side of my bed, silent and solemn. He stands watch for half a minute, then lowers the rail so he can sit on my left. He's holding something in his right hand, and his left one caresses my face before he leans down to tell me something.

"Lainey? Lainey, can you hear me? It's me, honey ... it's Dave ..." His voice wears that ragged coat it gets only when he's very tired. Or very sad.

"I brought your ball, Lainey ... I thought it might make you feel a little better." He lifts the blanket, sets the ball between my left arm and my body, then tucks the blanket back underneath my arm. "There you go, babe."

He strokes my face with a feather's touch, then leans down to talk to me again. "Lainey-lou, that little boy you saved ... his parents want to see you, to say thank you, but I told them I had first dibs." He tries to smile, but his quivering lips don't quite let him.

"Jerry took care of your stuff from the show, and Julianna is going to come stay with you when I have to go to work later. Okay?"

Good, I like Julianna. Better than your mother, who tries and fails to hide her Virginia Slims habit behind White Diamonds and wintergreen gum.

"Lainey ..." He breaks. "Oh, Lainey, why did you do that? I can't ... I need you, Lainey-lou. Stay, *please* ... I love you." He ends on an aching whisper, and the sight tears me in two.

I remember now: The squeal of the tires before impact and the merciful surrender to unconsciousness. All these machines, though ... I can't be doing very well.

I reach out a hand, stroking the blue wall where his face appears. Oh, McClane. Is this the time you won't be able to cheat God?

---------------------

A few minutes later, Mulder, Scully and Jacob watch through the floor-to-ceiling window as Dave fusses with Lainey's blankets. "Mommy, who's that?"

Scully bends down carefully and puts an arm around her son's shoulders. "Her name is Lainey, sweetie. She's the nice lady who got you out of the way of that car."

"Oh. Okay." The blue catches Jacob's eye. "Daddy, whose ball is that?"

"I think that's Lainey's ball, Jacob."

"Can I play with it?"

Mulder's eyes flick toward the other man, whose shoulders slump as he watches the heart monitor. "Maybe later," Mulder tells his son, and turns to his wife. "We should go, I think," he says. They turn to leave, then pause as a chubby, sweet-faced blonde rushes past them and into the room.

She goes straight to Dave, dropping her backpack on the floor and enfolding him in a tight hug. Releasing him, she moves to Lainey's bedside, picking up the pale woman's hand and stroking her brown curls. The caress is gentle and loving, and Dave discovers that shared pain hurts a little less.

"How is she?" asks the blonde.

"Not good, Jules."

She closes her eyes for a moment, and brown eyes glisten when she opens them again. "Is that the boy?" she asks, looking out the window, noting Jacob's bandaged forehead and hands as he leaves fingerprints on the glass.

"Yeah." He follows her out the door, and she crouches so she's at Jacob's eye level. "Hi there. What's your name?"

"Jacob," the boy says, subdued.

"Hi, Jacob. I'm Julianna." She smiles up at Mulder and Scully. "Is that your mom and dad?" The boy nods, and she angles her head in Dave's direction. "That's Dave. He's my big brother," she says. "Looks like you're going to be a big brother, too."

Jacob grins. "Uh-huh. Mommy said we're bubbly breast."

"What?" Mulder sputters, and Scully steps in. "Jacob's version is far more entertaining, but I believe 'doubly blessed' is what I actually said." She holds out a hand to Julianna and says, "I'm Dana. This is my husband, Fox Mulder."

"Julianna Murphy. Dave's sister," says the other woman, standing up as she takes Scully's hand. "Lainey's like a sister," she adds solemnly.

"She saved Jacob's life today," Scully says, laying a hand on the other woman's upper arm. "We hope she wakes up soon so we can thank her in person."

Julianna bites her lip. "Me, too."

A huge yawn stretches the boy's face, and he rubs his eyes, heedless of the gauze on his wrists. "I think somebody's had enough excitement for one afternoon. Time for a nap," Mulder says, picking him up, and the trio departs after eliciting a promise from Dave to call them later at their hotel.

When they are gone, the siblings go back inside the room to stand side by side and hope. They don't speak, but eventually Julianna's right hand sneaks over to cover Dave's left one, all three of them just hanging on.

---------------------

Rachel comes back an hour later, checking charts and tubes and vital signs. On her heels, two aides arrive and start to prepare Lainey for a move.

"PET scan," Rachel says.

"We'll be in the cafeteria," Dave replies, and he and Julianna trail Lainey's gurney out the door.

If it were a weekday, the after-work visitor rush would just be starting. But it's the weekend, so the lunchroom teems with hushed, miserable people hunched over mediocre food and hours-old coffee. Dave and Julianna grab salads and sandwiches under plastic film, add too-fizzy soda in waxy cups and manage to snag a window table.

"When do you go to work?" Julianna dumps ranch dressing on top of limp greenery and tries to stab a tomato with a plastic fork. The tomato's so hard it breaks a tine. She absentmindedly picks it up with her fingers and eats the woody wedge anyway.

"What time is it now? Five?" Dave excavates tuna salad on wheat and takes a bite. "I'm supposed to work eight to six," he says, mouth half-full. "But Leslie said she'd come in early if I wanted her to."

"Mmm. Okay. I'll be here, page you if anything happens." She takes a long draw of Sprite. "God willing, nothing will." Dave is silent, food forgotten, and Julianna wonders if he even heard her.

"She's the one, Jules. Lainey's the one." He leans his head on his left hand and stares out the window, looking lost and frightened and a little bit angry.

Julianna's voice is gentle, and her words try to fill the cracks in his foundation. "Oh, honey. I know. And you know she feels that way, too."

Dave wipes his eyes with the heels of his hands. "But I never told her. How could I not have told her?"

Julianna can't think of an answer for that.

----------------------

6 p.m.
Neurology Department

"See this, and this?" Tom Proulx, M.D., points to areas on a computer screen.

Dave nods, and Proulx continues. "This is Lainey's cerebral cortex," he says, pen tapping two-thirds of the way up the right side of the monitor. Dave entertains a random thought about public service announcements and drugs, then forces himself to focus. "And this is the blood flow to her brain. Right now, it looks normal, which is good. Means there's still brain activity, and the vessels haven't been compromised."

"How often will you do the scan?"

"Every four hours." The doctor looks hard at Dave, but the other man doesn't meet his eyes, just keeps staring at the monitor's offer of proof that Lainey lives.

Tom plunges into the silence. "Dave. I'll be blunt. Even though everything looks normal now, things could go to hell pretty fast. We're sitting in the calm before the storm, so to speak."

Time stretches out like melted glass, hairline connection snapping when Dave jerks his head around to growl, "Yeah, Tom. I know."

The brilliant brain doctor doesn't have a clue what to do with a breaking heart. He swallows, clears his throat. An awkward clasp of his friend's shoulder and he leaves, a little guilty because he's thankful the pain isn't his.

--------------------

6:30 p.m.
Radisson Hotel Riverfront, St. Paul
Suite 1209

"Don't hover, Scully." Mulder, lolling on the sofa in their suite's living room, doesn't look away from the television as he calls out to his wife.

"I happen to think nearly losing a child is a damn good reason to hover," she snaps from the bedroom, but she steps away from Jacob, who is sleeping soundly on the king-size bed.

Mulder sighs and shuts his eyes. Shit. More than a decade together, and still he can find a way to say exactly the wrong thing. When he was returned from wherever -- and truth be told, it chafes him that he wasn't there to see her succeed where he had failed, believing for the both of them -- he awoke to an instant family, Scully and newborn Jacob both needy and stubborn.

He remembers those days of big discovery and little sleep, immediate joy assuaging the pain of lost time. He was able to bury his fears about the changes in his life in silent communions with his son, letting Scully think the 3 a.m. feedings were never anything more than that.

Unprepared, he was thrust into the roles of father and husband, ending up too busy to do much more than cope as Jacob grew into a mischievous scamp and he and Scully adjusted to married life. He thought he was doing pretty well, but the accident today has him jittery and on edge, and very insecure.

Certainly, such insecurities are what led him to suggest they step away from the FBI. Work and aliens and a global conspiracy were enough to deal with, but the addition of a family shot everything straight to hell. He had thought the quiet life was the answer, what they needed to make it work, but Scully (as always) knew him better than that, and made sure unofficial channels were open for them when he realized that walking away was never an answer. They're no longer with the Bureau -- the X-Files were closed soon after they left -- but their reputation still exists, and the work is much the same.

The partnership hums along, but the relationship can be fractious. It's a fine line he and Scully straddle; after all, they never had a chance to develop as two before they were three. Yes, her mother takes Jacob as often as they want her to, but at the end of the day there are still trucks on the floor and a booster seat at the table.

Now, with another baby on the way, even though he'll have been there from conception to birth, Mulder feels like things are slipping away again -- one step forward, two steps back all the time. He never expected to have any children, much less two, and his fears about fucking up as a father are becoming harder to hide.

He drops the remote on the sofa, gets up and crosses to his wife, who is twisting one of Jacob's T-shirts in her hands under the pretense of tidying up. She jumps a little when his hands settle on her shoulders, and her body stays rigid. Fight or flight, he thinks, and is glad that Scully always shot before she ran.

"I just meant, Scully, that Jacob's okay, we're all okay. No need to panic ... " He trails off, running his hands up and down her arms, but her posture doesn't relax. He sighs and drops his hands. "I'm sorry," he says, and moves to the door. "I -- I'm going to go out for a while."

He, on the other hand, has found he likes to run before the shooting starts.

---------------------

About an hour later, Jacob and Scully are making excellent fire engine noises, and she is trying not to wonder where her husband might be, when the phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Oh, hi there, is this Dana?" The voice is homely, and its flat, nasal twang reminds Scully of a college friend from Wisconsin. Only he called it "Wis-cahn-sin."

"Yes, this is she."

"Oh, good. This is Sheila Nelson, Dave's mom?" The caller phrases her statement as a question, a peculiarity Scully's noticed a lot on this trip. "He said I should call you to say Lainey's okay for now, and they just did a P-E-T scan that was normal." The door opens, and Mulder whispers, "Lainey?" as Jacob runs over for a leg hug.

Nodding at Mulder, distracted, the correction is out of her mouth before she thinks about it. "You mean 'pet' scan?"

"Oh, yah, is that how you say it? I don't know much about this medicine stuff, I'm just relaying the message." Sheila doesn't seem fazed at all, and Scully can't help but smile at her mental picture of a busybody housewife.

"Of course. Thank you for calling, Sheila."

"You bet, and I'm sure glad your little guy's okay. Take care now, okay?" Sheila says, and disconnects.

Scully hangs up slowly, then sits in the chair at the end of the table. Mulder is at the far end of the sofa, idly watching Jacob save the world with Fisher-Price.

She clears her throat. "Have a good walk?"

Mulder picks up a shiny, red Matchbox convertible. "Yeah. Yeah, it was good." He wheels the car back and forth across his palm a few times, then sends it racing down a mahogany road to his wife. "River's pretty."

She is just quick enough to catch it in cupped hands as it flies off the edge. "Mmm."

He gets up and sits on the arm of her chair, taking the car from her fingers and trying to balance it on her stomach. She looks up at him, wondering what he's up to, but his focus is on the car. It rolls off twice before he gets it to stay, and when it does he looks outrageously proud of himself.

She laughs, and he leans down for a kiss.

"Scully," he says, his forehead against hers, "when does it get easier?"

She lays a hand on his cheek. "Probably about the time we die." They both smile.

Jacob breaks in, wanting his share of love, and his parents oblige. Mom and Dad share a look; this topic isn't closed, just tabled.

Jacob squeals happily as he's swung high overhead, then slung over his father's shoulder.

"C'mon, kiddo, I saw a Mickey D's down the road. Let's go throw french fries at the wall."

---------------------

Lainey's room
3 a.m.

I've never been good at waiting, and having to sit in this blue-walled limbo much longer just might be the death of me. Pun intended.

I heard Rachel talking about my last PET scan, about how it shows a decline in blood flow, but I'm not sure what that means. Doesn't sound good, anyway.

After a quick mental inventory, I decide I don't feel any worse -- but I don't feel much better, either.

I hope Dave comes back soon. I think time's running out.

---------------------

5:30 a.m.

Dave stands outside Lainey's door, calming himself with a few deep breaths, then tiptoes into the room. It's early, and he's not really supposed to be here, but it's good to have friends in high places. Or the floor nursing staff.

Once at her bedside, he just watches her for a moment. She's always going a million miles a minute, and it unnerves him now to see her so still, so quiet.

In the room, the two of them are their own microcosm. He pulls a chair up to the bed and takes her hand, wishing her brown eyes would open and look at him with their usual irreverent sparkle.

But they don't, and so he talks to her instead.

"Lainey? It's Dave, I'm here." He rubs the backs of her fingers against his cheek, and sighs.

"I just got off work, Lainey-lou ... I hope you don't mind, but I went to see that little girl I told you about before I came to see you. She'll be okay. I thought you'd want to know how she's doing."

He puts her hand back on the bed, tracing her stained fingertips as he collects his thoughts.

"It was quiet tonight, at work ... I had a lot of time to think. I talked to Julianna, too, and she doesn't think I'm nuts, so I'm gonna go ahead and do something."

He looks out the window, where knives of pink and gold are just beginning to slice through the grey.

"I wanted to tell you how much I love you, Lainey. I know I've said it before, but I've never mentioned that when I think of my future, it always has you in it.

"I ... I'm so proud to know you, and you've brightened up my life, and other people's, since you came along. I think you know that.

"I don't know if you'll ever be awake to hear this, but on the off chance you can now, well ...

"I adore you, Lainey Elizabeth Brooks, and someday I hope you'll be my wife."

Mechanical heartbeats are the only response to his true confession. He gives the room a rueful smile, but he has to admit he feels better for having poured out his heart's secrets. Exhausted, he lays his head on his arms and falls asleep with Lainey's hand in his.

He is jolted awake fifteen minutes later by blaring alarms and running feet. Frantic hands shove him out of the way before he realizes what's going on.

"Code blue, room 724 ... code blue, room 724 ... "

---------------------

Ah, McClane. Of course I'd marry you.

But right now, I ... I'm so tired. No pain, really, but the urge to sleep is just too hard to resist.

The clock has struck midnight on this Cinderella, and my blue-walled pumpkin is slowly, ever so slowly fading to black.

I love you, too. See you in your dreams ...

---------------------

"Time of death, 6:14 a.m."

---------------------

Three days later
Lainey's funeral

Dave waits at a stoplight on the way to the cemetery, watching a tiny, ancient Korean couple make their pruny way across Sibley Street. Their skin, the color of weak tea, glows with health, and he is irrationally jealous of them and their happiness with each other.

"Pull yourself together, Nelson," he mutters as the light turns. "Where's that stoic Norwegian facade?"

He tells himself he's shed enough tears the past few days, but the whole morning's been overcast and gloomy, and by the time the graveside service starts, both the skies and he are weeping.

There is quite a crowd; Lainey might not have had any family, but she didn't lack for friends. Several people give glowing reports of her open heart, her willingness to help no matter what.

Dave is the last to speak.

"The day I met Lainey, she nearly ran Jerry and me over with her motorcycle." He laughs along with everybody else. "I thought she was a madwoman, but as I got to know her I realized she was one of the few people I'd ever met who was really getting everything possible out of life.

"She was everything to me, and I just want to thank you all for letting me know how much she meant to you."

---------------------

Afterward, Dave stands among the crush of people, letting his mother and sister run interference for him with the onslaught of well-wishers. Movement near the gravesite catches his eye, and he watches as Mulder and Scully tuck a small spray of pink rosebuds into the bouquet atop the casket, lingering for a silent moment. Slowly, they walk toward the parking lot, arms swinging in time as they each hold one of Jacob's hands.

---------------------

That evening
Flight 833, en route to Baltimore

"Hey, Scully?" Mulder's voice is soft and inquisitive.

"Yes?" She sounds tense, not surprising for a pregnant woman stuffed into in an airline seat.

"How did Lainey die?"

"Pulmonary embolism. Happens a lot in cases like hers, where there's been major trauma followed by immobility. Unpredictable, usually fatal." She's clinical, aloof, her way of distancing herself when the facts edge too close to home.

"Dave seemed to be handling it well."

"Yes, I thought so, too."

He goes back to reading reports of strange lights near New Orleans, and Scully turns to the window seat and tucks a blanket around her slumbering son, smoothing two fingertips over the fading bruise on his forehead.

"Mulder, what would you do if that happened to us? If I died in an accident like that, no warning?"

Quips about sackcloth and ashes die on his lips as he meets her solemn gaze. "I don't know, Scully. I ... it's something I try not to think about." He lifts up the armrest between them, and she willingly settles into the crook of his shoulder.

"I've thought about it," she says.

"Really. So I should worry if I see a new life insurance policy arrive in the mail?"

"Ha." She pokes him lightly in the ribs, then sobers. "I worked so hard when you were missing, Mulder ... it was exhausting.

"Sometimes, when I'd had one too many false leads or I was throwing up saltines and water for what seemed like the hundredth time in a day, I wondered how long I could keep up the pace, search so thoroughly. Whether or not it wouldn't just be easier to let somebody else ... " She trails off, her eyes dark. "Then another call would come in and I'd be off again, trying to leave no stone unturned.

"When you were back and Jacob was born, well, it was so easy to say, 'Oh, now everything will be okay' and ease up a little bit. I thought we could just go back to the way things had been." She sighs. "But we couldn't."

He remembers one day when he came back from a run to find Scully trying to type up some field notes, scowling at the keyboard as Jacob screamed in his wind-up swing. He wasn't sure who needed comfort more, and even less sure if he was the right man for either job.

He picked Jacob up, trying not to feel completely helpless as the ear-splitting cries continued. He walked and walked around the apartment, bouncing his son gently and waving toys and then a bottle, feeling a lot like crying himself when nothing seemed to work.

Finally, the noise subsided to teary hiccups and sniffles, and Scully entered the bedroom just as he was laying Jacob in his crib. Before he could turn around, there were two arms wrapped fiercely around his waist.

He returned the embrace, and they must have stood like that for ten minutes, silent and still. Then she went back to her report, and he started some laundry, thinking that she'd gotten pretty good at saying "I love you" without any words at all.

"Scully?"

"Mmm?" She burrows into him, nose nudging his collarbone. He senses a nap is imminent, so he makes it quick.

"I'd be lost without you. In every way. Thanks for finding me."

"No problem, Mulder." A yawn. "You're worth looking for."

---------------------

Ten days later
Lainey's studio

Julianna, worried because nobody's seen her sibling for a few days, finds him curled up on the mattress Lainey kept in the corner for the times she worked late and exhaustion overcame inspiration.

"Dave?" Julianna shakes his shoulder until he wakes, groggy and disoriented. He rubs his hands over half a week's worth of beard, then looks around confusedly before he realizes she's standing there.

"Jules ... What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you," she chides. "Nobody'd heard from you in a while. We just wanted to make sure you were all right."

"Well, far too many people were making sure of that lately. I didn't know the sympathy wagon made house calls." He sends her a dirty look; Julianna throws it right back.

"Dave, you weren't answering your phone. We got worried."

He sees pity on her face. He hates being pitied. He shouts, wanting her to hurt like he does. "Don't patronize me, Julianna! You have *no* idea --"

She steps forward and hugs him tightly, accepting his outburst, and as quickly as it arrived, the anger is gone.

"I miss her so much," he chokes out. "She's gone, Jules, she's gone ..." Her shoulder absorbs his grief.

When the tide ebbs, she politely suggests he needs to bathe. She makes lunch while he showers and shaves, and they eat sitting cross-legged on the studio floor, dust motes swirling in the late-afternoon sunbeams.

"You know, Dave, other people miss her, too. It wouldn't kill you to let us in."

He shrugs listlessly, a good chunk of him buried about six feet under, and she decides not to press the issue for now. At this point, even baby steps mean progress.

The next day, he trips over the half-done rocking chair in the corner, and an idea leaps into his mind. Hours later, fingers aching from clenching a sanding block, he hopes Lainey would have been proud of his work, then crawls over to the mattress in the corner, her ball at his feet.

Before sleep claims him, he decides he'll paint the rocker blue.

---------------------

Epilogue
September 12, 2005

Dave sits at the kitchen table, opening the mail. Phone, cable, junk, ISP ...

He pauses at a cream envelope, addressed in a firm, bold scrawl. The return address says Baltimore.

He turns it over in his hands a few times, then opens it to find tasteful stationery and a picture.

"Dave,

"Thanks for the unexpected gift. We just wanted to let you know it was being put to good use.

"Hope you're doing okay. Keep in touch.

"Mulder, Dana, Jacob and Hannah"

In the photo, Dana sits in the rocking chair, holding a baby girl, and Mulder stands behind them with Jacob in his arms.

He spends a few moments thinking of what might have been, then hangs the picture on the refrigerator with a green letter "J" and starts to get ready for work.

-- 30 --
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Oy. Who *didn't* look at this? It's a surprise anyone is left to read it. ;P First and foremost, this is for EPur, my Partner in the Bad Crack (tm). For everything, from late-night esoterica to shameless poking fun (MANBAT!), and especially for the missing scene. Thanks for keeping a (mostly) straight face while telling me that no, there's absolutely nothing wrong with 300 billion trillion gazillion drafts. And for telling me that for the love of Christ and sweet black Jebuslug, I was DONE. ;P

To Punk, who showed me what needed to be there, and to marasmus, who showed me what didn't. To Shannono, for the medicine. To Livia, who liked, and M. Sebasky, who poked. And of course, I love the weather in Virginia.

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