Date sent: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 23:17:23 -0500 (EST) From: Lyle Bontrager Subject: Get Better (1/1) Title: Get Better (1/1) Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringment or offense is intended. Rating: Spoiler for US5. PG-13. Get Better I shiver again and feel the pavement pound into my aching feet, the heels wobbling and causing my ankles to twist unnaturally. But I will not stop running. Mulder is ahead, his long legs reaching the suspect faster, quicker, speedier than my limping gate. My ankles hurt and my lungs are about to collapse, but that's what you get when you're miserably sick with the flu for a week and insist on coming anyway. Mulder looks behind him once, looking for me and I wave him on ahead. But he frowns and his eyes dart to the suspect, our UnSub, and he makes a judgment call. He stops and trots back to me, even as I slow. "He's a mole, Scully. I'd never find him once he got to the tunnels. And besides, this is New York City . . . I'm not leaving you here." I scowl and suck in deep breaths, hoping my lungs won't collapse just yet - I still need to go off on Mulder. "Mulder, we almost had him . . . almost had him and you - you stopped - you shouldn't-" "Scully . . . " He grabs my shoulder and manages to catch me as I fall, reeling with lack of oxygen, lack of balance, really. "You're sick." he says and tries pulling me up. I hang onto him, shutting my eyes very tightly and feeling as if he is pulling me along at a hundred miles per hour. "Scully? You're scaring me . . ." "I'm scaring myself." I slither out of his grasp to the ground and shake, letting the coughing overtake me for awhile and the sickness catch up. "Jeez, Scully. I told you not to come..." "I'll make sure to tell - to tell my mother not to sue you if - if I die here, then." I say, wheezing and glaring up at him. "Oh...sh-" He trails off and I see him look around as if embarassed and then he yanks me up. "It's okay.....don't - don't put yourself out for me, Mulder." "Shut up, Scully." I shut up and let him propel me to our car. ~~~~ "You're temp is now . . . ta-dah . . . a miraculous 103!" I groan and struggle to sit up, but as I do the world becomes a merry-go-round and I'm once again flat on my back. "Scully, need anything before I leave?" he says, tucking the sheets back around me and smoothing the hair that had fallen out of my hasty ponytail. I shake my head and he sighs, softly touching my cheek before standing to go. "Expect me to bounce things off of you when I get back, all right?" he says, and I can tell it is just to appease me. I hate that I'm staying in the motel while we have work to do. "Not too hard," I say, wrinkling my nose. "I still have a murderous headache." He gives me a smile and leaves. Another sick day. I'm so *sick* of sick days. Next year, I'm taking the stupid flut shot. ~~~~ "Scully!" I jerk awake, crying out as his voice explodes through my head and into my dream, my nightmare. "Sorry. Did I wake you?" He sticks his head in the door and gives me a small smile. I take a deep breath, cough it out, wince as my head throbs, and then nod. He smiles at me like I'm some pitiful creature from the Humane Society. "I brought you ice cream, Scully." he says. My eyes light up and I sit up, forcing away the dizziness to focus on the immediate reward. "Here." He produces a bowl of chocolate and vanilla swirl, with a fudge stripe going through it and I take it gratefully. "Thanks," I murmur hoarsely, and my fevered eyes tell him how much this thought meant. "I like playing doctor." I smile and take a bite. Oh.......beautiful icy cold slithering down my throat, coating the raw angry red with freezing melting bliss. I close my eyes and hear his small laugh. He leans forward in the bed and I can feel it quiver. "Scully?" I open my eyes, find his staring straight into me. "Having a good time?" he says, the eyebrow and the glint telling me he is making this perverted. Oh well. I *am.* I nod. "Good." I go back to the ice cream and he feels my forehead, pushing aside the hair. "You feel pretty hot to me. You don't look so hot, though." Ho..ho...Mulder's the wonderful master of puns tonight. "What's your temp?" "Um.....104.. I think." "Scully...." He sounds reproachful. "What? Did you want me to call?" "Yes." "Say, Mulder, my fever is 104, just thought you'd want to drop everything and come over so that you can do absolutely nothing about it.... you wanted me to do that?" His jaw tenses. "Yes." I raise my eyebrow. "You're a devil when you're sick, you know that?" I grin evilly at him and he groans. "Go back to bed, Scully. Stop teasing me." I try to laugh but it ends up a cough instead. He frowns and places the thermometer in my mouth. "You're acting like my mother." "Keep your mouth closed, Scully. . . Someone has to act like your mother when she's not here, though, huh?" "You?" "Me." I stick out my tongue, carefully keeping the thermometer under my tongue and he shakes his head, as if I am a truant child. He pushes me back down and then takes away my empty ice cream bowl, placing it simply on the floor. After five minutes he reads it. "104.2, Scully." He frowns and I sigh, exhausted again. His hand reaches out and starts caressing my cheek, cold and cool and blue like my mother's hand when I'm sick. I capture his hand in between my shoulder and cheek and close my eyes. "Good-night, Scully. Get better." I nod and fall asleep. End adios RM