Ah, Perchance to Dream
 Date: 1 Nov 1995

All the legal stuff: No copyright infringement intended. Mulder,
 Scully, the guys in black and Cancerman belong to 10-13
 Productions. Title comes from Shakespeare, Hamlet, don't know
 what act, scene or line, but I know it's in there somewhere.
 Warnings: none (though a possible tissue alert). No sex, no
 violence, no mention of the third season. Just a little something
 that wouldn't let me sleep after reading Entertainment Weekly for
 9/29/95. 

Ah, Perchance to Dream. . .*
 By vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com Vickie Moseley 

Dana Scully sat on the edge of the hospital bed and forced
 herself not to feel. Not at that moment. Maybe not for a long time. 
 If she allowed herself that luxury, she would surely break down and
 sob and that is not how she wanted to remember these moments. 
 That would be an insult to their friendship, however deep that
 friendship was.
 She decided to concentrate on his comfort. The doctor had
 already been in and given him a fairly large dose of morphine. That
 had allowed him to relax, settle his ragged breathing. His eyes
 looked at her now, not with pain, but with sorrow and a tinge of
 regret.
 "I never wanted to do this, you know?" he gasped. She bit her
 lip and nodded. "No, I mean I never wanted to put you through
 this, Scully. I'm not upset for me. I just didn't want you to be hurt. 
 I really hate to say it, though, but I know I could not have done the
 reverse, if it had been you. Guess I'm selfish that way."
 "Don't talk like that, Mulder! You're going to be fine. You just
 need some time to rest. . ." her voice trailed off and he smiled and
 shook his head.
 "Don't lie to me now, Scully. After all this time, don't make our
 last words a lie. Please," he begged and she clutched his hand
 tighter and nodded in agreement. 
 She reached over and brushed some hair from his forehead. He
 reached up and held her cheek until gravity forced his hand down to
 her shoulder and finally it fell limply on the bed. She couldn't hold
 back the tears anymore. She had to feel, but it was killing her, too. 
 He saw the pain in her eyes.
 "I love you, Scully," he sighed.
 "I love you, too, Mulder," she said, and the tears broke into the
 sobs that she wanted so desperately to avoid. She forced herself to
 take a deep breath and then, leaning over, kissed him gently on the
 lips. He didn't respond. There was no soft whiff of breath from
 him. His eyes no longer held the spark of life. He was gone from
 her. The sobs returned as she closed his eyes with her hand and
 then hugged the lifeless body as she had on too precious few
 occasions when he was full of life.
 She held him for only a moment when the door burst open and
 several men in the standard black uniform color of their profession
 scrambled into the room. Two of them grabbed her by the arms,
 tearing her away from her friend's lifeless body and four others
 grabbed that body and threw it hastily onto a gurney.
 "What the hell do you think you are doing?" she screamed at
 them. 
 "Their jobs, Agent Scully. They are doing their jobs," a husky
 voice said behind her. She turned her head and glared at him, the
 man she hated more than any other she had ever met. He smiled at
 the hatred in her eyes, and took another drag on his ever present
 cigarette. "You know what to do with the body," he ordered and
 the four pushed the gurney out of the door. Scully broke free at
 that moment and lunged at the man responsible, the one who had
 seen to Mulder's execution, the one man on earth she would literally
 kill with her own hands. . . 

. . .and she woke up to hear herself screaming "I'll kill you, you
 Son of a Bitch!" It was dark in her apartment. Her heart was still
 pounding in her chest, the tears were still streaming down her face. 
 It took her several big gasps of air to even begin to think clearly. 
 When her thoughts finally returned to her, she grabbed the phone
 and hit the 1 and the pound symbol. Then she waited for the
 answer.
 On the fourth ring, the phone was picked up. ". . .Yeah. . ." a
 sleep heavy male voice said into the phone on the other side of the
 city. She smiled, Mulder sounded so funny when he was asleep.
 "It's me," she said, by way of identification. "Were you asleep?"
 "Actually, I think so. My eyes are still closed, so maybe this is
 just a dream," he joked. "Another nightmare?" he asked, but it was
 a rhetorical question. He knew the only reason she would be
 calling was if she had a nightmare. If it were something more
 important, she would be banging on his door and using her spare
 key to get in.
 "Yeah. Another one. I shouldn't have called, you need your
 sleep. . ."
 "None of that!" he scolded, cutting her off. "You know the
 arrangement! I call you, you call me. That way we keep the rumor
 mill at the office going full speed because both of us show up to
 work looking like hell," he added. She could hear the merriment in
 his voice, even as sleepy as it was. "So, want to talk about it?"
 "No," she said a bit hastily.
 "OK, who dies," he asked gently. She didn't answer, just sighed. 
 "Oh, guess I'm the lucky victim this time," he said, yawning loudly.
 "Mulder, this is not funny! Why do I keep having these
 dreams?" she wailed into the phone.
 "Oh, so now this is an official office call, huh," he teased, then
 got serious. "Scully, we work out our problems in our dreams. 
 You know that from medical school, or at least I hope they
 _mentioned_ it. It's sort of a basic precept! And it doesn't mean
 you want me to die, or your mom or Skinner or anybody else. It
 just means you've been under a lot of stress and this is your mind's
 way of working that out, sorting through it all."
 "Oh, so by scaring the living bejeebees out of me and making
 sure I don't sleep for 4 or so hours a night, my mind is 'helping' me
 work through my stress? Mulder, that's quite frankly the worst
 explanation I have ever heard!" she countered.
 "So now you know why I didn't go into private practice," he
 chuckled into the phone. "You know, Scully, what the biggest part
 of the problem is?"
 She could hear the mischief in his voice, but decided to walk
 into the trap anyway. "No, oh great psychologist, tell me what the
 biggest part of the problem is," she answered in fake reverence.
 "We spend too much time worrying about each other, and not
 enough time 'fantasizing' about each other," he said and she could
 see his eyes twinkle as he said it.
 "I'm hanging up on you now, Mulder," she warned. 
 "You gonna be able to go back to sleep?" he asked, serious in
 his concern.
 "Probably. Maybe I'll read for a while," she answered.
 "There's an AlienNation marathon on SciFi Channel tonight. 
 They're probably up to the episodes where George is pregnant by
 now. You women always loved that idea, I know," he teased again.
 "Pass. See you in," she looked at her clock and groaned, "three
 hours."
 "Make it three and a half, if you get back to sleep. Don't push
 it, OK?" he scolded.
 "I won't, Dr. Mulder," she assured him. "Good night."
 "Night, Scully. Sweet dreams," he said and hung up the phone. 

She lay there for a few minutes, smiling. He always had a way
 of sweeping the monsters out from under the bed. In many ways,
 she could easily blame him for having the nightmares to begin with,
 but he was also the only person who helped her survive them. She
 could picture him, the TV still on, snuggling down into the
 comforter he kept on the couch, hoping to catch a few more
 minutes of sleep. Slowly drifting off. . .
 She buried her head further into her pillow. Closing her eyes,
 she let her mind roam. She thought of a stretch of beach she had
 found one spring break in college. Just north of Cape Canaveral, in
 Florida. It was quiet, surprisingly and she was the only one on the
 beach. She lay on a straw pallet in the sand, a big floppy hat
 keeping the sun out of her eyes. Shifting a little, she raised herself
 up on her elbows and regarded the surf, crashing endlessly just a
 few feet from where she lay. Then, she smiled, as she took in the
 sight before her. There was her partner, her best friend, the one
 who made the bogey man leave her dreams. He was coming
 toward her after a swim, the water still coursing off his body. And
 all he was wearing was a tiny red speedo swimsuit, and a smile. 

The end. 

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