Dream a Little Dream
 By Vickie Moseley 

I wrote this a couple of weeks after I first saw
 "Colony/Endgame". But recently, watching my nice
 commercial free copy of "The Pilot" for the X-Files, I
 remembered that this story deals with that episode a lot. So
 here you have it. It's the first of three. This one is totally
 platonic (non romance). No violence, just some speculation
 on how their relationship/friendship was formed.

No third season spoilers.

Standard Disclaimer: CC, you are the MAAAN! You own it
 all. I bow to your ownership and ask only that you allow me
 the joy of playing with your toys for a few moments. I won't
 bend, fold, staple or mutilate them, nor will I reap any
 monetary rewards. But Thea Mosley is my name for the
 unnamed nurse in the last scene, since you didn't give her
 much depth.

Comments are always appreciated. 
 I'm at vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com

Dream a Little Dream
 By Vickie Moseley

Eisenhower Field Hospital
 Dead Horse, Alaska

Dana Scully pushed the door open that led from the
 emergency room to the main part of the hospital. She held it
 in place as the medics rolled the gurney past toward a room
 just down the hall. The figure on the gurney was lying very
 still, almost hidden beneath the oxygen mask and the dozen or
 so tubes and wires connecting him to the machines that were
 being pushed behind the gurney by other medics. Dana
 searched the read-outs, hoping that the words she had spoken
 just moments before in the ER would not prove to be lies. He
 would be all right. She had to believe that. She closed her
 eyes for a moment and unconsciously reached up and touched
 the small gold cross hanging around her neck.  right> she thought. 

She glanced at her watch. It was still on DC time. 4:57. 
 But was that AM or PM?  understand.> She headed to the nurses station to ask
 directions for the nearest phone. As she picked up the receiver
 she dug through the back pocket of her jeans. At least she had
 kept the presence of mind to scribble his home number down
 on a piece of paper before she left Mulder's apartment. She
 dialed the number and held her breath.

A woman's voice answered, sounding rather sleepy. "May
 I speak to Director Skinner, please. This is Dana Scully." She
 waited and heard the woman call out his name, Walt. It was
 the first time Dana had ever considered that the Assistant
 Director might actually have a life. She tried to picture him as
 a family man, in the backyard next to a barbeque grill, kids in
 the background. It didn't quite fit. And it convinced her of
 how tired she really was.

"Scully, did they find Mulder? Did you make it in time?"
 Skinner asked, breaking into her thoughts.

"Yes, sir, I did. I got here just about 10 minutes after the
 navy chopper arrived."

"And what is his condition?" asked the Assistant Director. 
 Dana heard a good deal more in his tone. He was really
 concerned about Mulder. This was weird, after all the shit he
 had put Mulder through just months ago. Dana's head began
 to swim as she tried to sort out the implications.

"His condition is critical, sir," she finally answered. "He
 has been exposed to the same retrovirus that killed Agent
 Weiss in New York. The virus was held in check by the cold. 
 We've done a complete transfusion and will continue to treat
 with antiviral medication. Although the hypothermia was a
 positive factor at first, it will cause complications in the long
 run." She stopped, she was getting too technical. "It's going
 to be a long road, sir, but we have every reason to be hopeful." 
 Was that too personal?  she
 chided herself. "Sir, I would like to request a leave of absense. 
 I feel my knowledge of the retrovirus puts me in a position to
 be of great service to the physicians here in Alaska. I'd like to
 stay with him, if I may."

"Don't worry about it Scully. Just stay there and do what
 you can. You can keep track of Mulder's recovery and we'll
 call it even. We may run into this 'retrovirus' again before
 we're through."

There seemed to be nothing left to say. Except, "Sir, I
 want to thank you for all your help. I would never have been
 able to get here without. . ."

"Scully, I did what any supervisor should do. I was
 protecting my agents. Enough said. Now, go get some rest. 
 And Scully, good work." He hung up.

Dana replaced the receiver and sighed in relief. She had the
 OK to stay. Not that it would have mattered. Even if Skinner
 had ordered her back immediately, she would have quit and
 stayed anyway. She was just glad that she didn't have to go
 that far. She had a new respect for Skinner.

She wandered down the hall until she came to the room
 where Mulder was lying. She pushed open the door.  
 There was a single straightbacked wooden chair in a corner 
 of the room. She dragged it over and sat down. Her eyes 
 flicked to the monitors on the other side of the bed. His 
 vitals were weak, but he was stable. 

She listened to the gentle beep, beep, beep of the heart
 monitor. His breathing was being controlled by a respirator
 and it hissed with each exhale. She shuddered when she
 thought how close she had come to losing him. If the doctor
 in the ER had been just a little more stubborn. . .  match for 
vyour own stubborness, Starbuck,> she thought. The
 sound of the heart monitor screaming as his heart stopped still
 echoed in her ears. The adrenaline rush that pushed her to
 such heights to save his life was draining from her body. She
 was so tired. She closed her eyes for just a moment, and
 drifted off to sleep.

<< shelves surrounded her. The few ceiling lights only had half
 the bulbs necessary to light the hall. Saving taxpayers money,
 obviously. Her mind was still working on the meeting she had
 just attended. It was the first time she had met Director
 Blevins and she was a bit taken back. The Director had asked
 her to team up with one of the most brilliant minds in the
 Bureau, and *spy* on him! She thought that was something
 limited to cheap novels and blockbuster movies staring Kevin
 Costner, not real life.

But then, she had heard the stories. Special Agent Fox
 Mulder was strange. That was the scuttlebutt. And to have an
 agent suddenly write his own ticket, basically create his own
 division, was evidence of just how strange this character was. 
 Maybe Blevins was only trying to protect the Bureau from
 undue influence from *outside*. Congressmen could get
 pretty pushy at times and almost always ended up being a
 detriment. Blevins had a right to protect the integrity of the
 Bureau, after all.

Most of the doors in the basement were unmarked. She
 had counted the doors from the elevator and found the one she
 wanted. It was partly open, but she knocked anyway.

"Nobody here but the FBI's most unwanted," came the
 response from inside.  Just what she
 always wanted: her chance to be a real agent, and not just
 *teach*, and she pulled this kind of assignment.  it, I could 
 do this! Nobody is going to send me packing without a fight! 
 She steeled herself, put on her best *killer*
 smile and walked through the door.

 She had never seen so many
 posters with flying saucers. now what the hell does that mean? 
 she wondered. There were piles of file folders lying everywhere 
 and she heard a distinct 'crunch' on the floor under her foot. 
 A quick glance down, and she saw. . .sunflower seeds?  Tweety 
 Bird? Buck up, Starbuck, you can do this, she convinced herself.

She extended her hand. "Agent Mulder, I'm Dana Scully. 
 I've been assigned to work with you." More killer smile. It
 had always worked at Quantico.

He took her hand and eyed her suspiciously. "Well, isn't it
 nice to be so highly regarded? And I was under the impression
 that you were sent to *spy* on me."


 He was prattling on about her credentials. He pulled her thesis
 out of a tall pile and held it up for her to see.  know what 
 brand of toothpaste I use? Keep calm, Starbuck. 
 He doesn't look homicidal, yet.>

The dream continued, like watching a film running fast
 forward. It stopped and she recognized the room as the motel
 in Oregon, their first case together. The lights went out, and
 her computer blinked off. She walked into the bathroom,
 intent on taking a shower. When she had removed her
 bathrobe, she felt the marks. Three little marks on the small of
 her back, just like the ones on the teenagers who had been
 killed in the woods. Terror filled her to the core and she ran.

She was standing in front of Mulder's room. It took a
 minute to find the courage to knock, or maybe it was fear. 
 Whatever, he opened the door and let her in. She had to show
 him the marks. That was her only thought. At that moment,
 he was not a man, a single man, in a motel room. She was not
 a single woman in that same motel room wearing little else but
 a bathrobe. When she later thought about what she did next,
 she almost died of embarrassment. She dropped the robe and
 made him look at her back.

He could have done anything. He could have scooped her
 in his arms and there would have been no way to fight him off. 
 But he didn't. He stooped down and looked at the marks by
 the light of the candle he held in his hand. When he stood up,
 it seemed like an eternity before he spoke. "It's just mosquito
 bites, Scully. I got eaten alive out there myself." His eyes
 twinkled merrily in the light of his candle but the tone in his
 voice was more reassuring than amused. And next she was the
 one holding on to him as if for dear life. She had been scared
 beyond her wildest imagination and he had been there to catch
 her.>>>

Dana's head had fallen forward and jerked her awake. She
 looked over at Mulder. His face was burned around the eyes
 and nose. Antibiotic oinment glistened on the burns. There
 had been some discussion of lightly covering the burns with
 guaze, but the final decision had been to leave them
 uncovered. It hurt her to look at the burns. She shifted her
 gaze and watched the balloon of the respirator fill and empty
 with each breath. She jumped a foot when a nurse entered the
 room and changed one of the bags hanging from the bar above
 his bed. The nurse found a joint in the IV tube and injected a
 syringe into it. More antiviral. Dana glanced at her watch and
 was shocked when she realized she had been sitting there for
 three hours.

"Dr. Scully, there's a spare cot in the lounge. Why don't
 you go down and get some sleep?" the nurse said gently.

Dana looked up at her. She was not one of the nurses from
 the emergency room. She must be the floor nurse. "What's
 your name?" Dana asked.

"Mosely. My name is Thea Mosely. I'm the head nurse on
 the floor."

"My name's Dana. I'll be hanging around for a while. It's
 nice to meet you," Dana said and offered her hand. Thea took
 it and smiled.

"Is he a friend of yours?" Thea asked. Probably the whole
 place was already talking about the incident. It was probably
 big news, finding a Washington based FBI agent half frozen on
 an ice flow in the middle of theArctic. And then, she had been
 pretty forceful in the ER, but Mulder's life was on the line,
 damn it. 

"Yes, he is," she said, in answer to the question. "We're
 partners. We work for the FBI in Washington." Might as well
 squelch the rumors while she had the chance. She hated
 having to deal with the stares and whispers that were part of
 the routine in a hospital, military or not.

Thea looked at her and nodded. She started to ask
 something else, but thought better of it. Dana could almost
 hear the unasked question  of the Arctic, *by himself*?> She 
 was grateful that Thea had the good manners not to ask. Dana 
 didn't think she could answer it, anyway.

"I think I'll take you up on that offer of sleep. Thanks,
 Thea," Dana said as she took one more quick look at Mulder's
 unconscious form. Thea caught the look and put her hand on
 Dana's shoulder.

"I'll wake you at the first sign of anything. Promise."

*******

Dark. Dark and cold. But the cold couldn't penetrate
 the numbness in his body. A sound. No, more of a vibration. 
 It got louder. A tiny corner of his mind recognized the
 sound/vibration, but it couldn't reach out and tell him what it
 was. Cold. Dark.

Mulder was standing. All around him was white. But it
 was light, not like the total darkness he had walked through on
 his way to the submarine. He looked down and he wasn't
 wearing the parka. He was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. 
 But he wasn't cold.

There was nothing around him. He started walking. 
 Maybe he would find something, anything. Maybe Scully was
 somewhere near. He thought he could feel her, somewhere
 close. He could smell her shampoo, it was herbal or
 something. But he couldn't see her.

Then, he was looking down. He saw her. She was arguing
 with some guy in scrubs. Poor bastard. He had probably
 never encountered a wildcat like Scully when she was mad. 
 Mulder thought back to the times she had directed that kind of
 fury at him and he shuddered. It was a frightening thought,
 indeed.

As he watched, he realized that she won the fight. Big
 surprise. Mulder wondered how long they had argued. Most
 times Scully could *floor* an opponent in under 10 minutes. 
 They were rushing over to a table with a body laying on it. 
 Was this some kind of autopsy, he wondered? No. Too many
 nurses. Scully never needed nurses to do an autopsy.

There was a man on the table.  Mulder thought,
 But Mulder couldn't make out the face, it was covered by an 
 oxygen mask. They were using those paddle things, whatever 
 they were called. He saw Scully place the paddles on the guy's 
 chest and say something to the nurses. Everyone stepped back 
 and the guy's body jerked. A little discussion and she placed 
 the paddles again. The guy jerked again. 

Mulder felt a sudden, sharp pain in his chest. He gasped
 for breath. Suddenly he was cold, very cold. He couldn't see. 
 His eyes were closed and he tried but he couldn't open them. 
 He heard Scully's voice now, there had been no sound before. 
 He felt her hand on his forehead, almost a caress.  the guy 
 on the table!

Mulder's mind went black. There was nothing for a long
 time. At least, he thought it was a long time. When he
 blinked his eyes open he was standing in a hallway. He was
 wearing the jeans and tee shirt again. Maybe he had been
 mistaken. Maybe he wasn't sick after all. But the feel of
 Scully's hand, brushing the hair back, caressing his forehead--
 that had been real. It was confusing. Very weird.

He started walking down the hall. He had to find Scully. 
 She would know what was going on. She'd tell him what they
 were doing there, who that guy was, if it had been him. He
 knew she was here somewhere. He didn't know how he knew,
 he just did. His next thought found him in a room. Scully was
 lying on a cot against one wall. She looked so tiny, lying there
 under a light green blanket. So tiny and so innocent. Not the
 wildcat from earlier. Just a little girl.

He wanted to wake her up. He moved closer and crouched
 down, so close that he was just inches from her face. He
 touched her shoulder, very lightly. A faint smile played on her
 lips. Her eyelids were moving rapidly, she was deep in REM
 sleep. He sighed. He didn't have the heart to wake her. 
 Obviously her dream was a happy one, her face was glowing. 
 Probably dreaming of some white sandy beach, some guy and
 a big bottle of sunblock. He had no doubt that the Scully he
 knew would be practical even in the dream world. 

He sat cross legged on the floor and watched her sleep. 
 "How did we get here, Scully?" he whispered, still not wanting
 to wake her, but wanting to talk to her nonetheless. "Not
 *here*, but where we are, our friendship, our partnership?"

"I remember the first day you walked in that door in the
 basement. I knew you were coming. I knew why they sent
 you. I even knew about the little *incident* between you and
 the head pathologist that led you to Blevins desk in the first
 place. I bet you don't even realize what brought you there. I
 should tell you sometime. Hell, I might as well tell you now."

"Apparently the Bureau's head pathologist had been
 watching you for some time. You were, in the venacular, 'a
 gutsy broad', and those kind always get watched, even when
 they aren't 'drop dead gorgeous.' Anyway, he had asked your
 opinion on an autopsy finding and you disagreed with his
 conclusion. He told you that you were full of shit and you
 stood in the middle of the cafeteria at Quantico and read him
 the riot act. You had all the facts and he was blowing air out
 the top of his head. You were just a few seconds from
 decking the guy when you realized who you were talking to
 and where you were. Of course, you later apologized--for
 getting angry in public. But the impression had been made. 
 Do not, under any circumstances, mess with Dana Scully!"

"Blevins was looking for somebody to spy on me. You
 were 'by the book', you took nothing for granted and you
 didn't take shit from anybody. So you got the assignment. 
 And, well, how do I tell you? I hated your guts. You were
 jeopardizing my agenda and I wanted to be rid of you as
 quickly as I could."

"Then, you were standing there in the office. Oh, I caught
 that quick glance around the place. You were horrified! 
 Admit it, Dana, a big voice inside you probably said 'run, run
 for your life!', but you didn't. And you smiled at me. God, I
 almost lost it. That smile could melt rock! It was a damn
 good thing I was sitting down or I would have collapsed in a
 shivering heap on the floor. I had to start talking or I would
 have been whimpering and clinging to your legs."

"So I put on my smart ass act. 'Rewriting Einstein, now
 that's a credential.' Isn't that what I said? I forgot to tell you
 that I got halfway through your thesis and had to go running
 to my copy of _A Brief History of Time_ to assure myself that
 I had any knowledge of physics at all. Anyway, before I knew
 it, I was trying to convince you of the logic of my search. And
 you gave me a look that froze my heart. You were going to
 be tough. I should have just ditched you and gone to Oregon
 alone, but suddenly I wanted very much to convince you of the
 reality of my cause. I really wanted you to believe me."

"I gained a lot of respect for you in Oregon. When that
 coffin broke open, I thought I was going to toss my cookies
 right there on my shoes. I looked over at you and there was
 nothing but curiosity in your eyes. Wow! It gave me the
 strength to think about more than my stomach. Later, when
 we lost time and the power in the car went out and we were
 standing on that road and I found the 'x'--. . . I gotta tell you,
 Scully. I've heard of grown men go all ablubber over that kind
 of experience. But you, you stood there and argued with me! 
 The rain was hitting us so hard I thought it was going knock
 us flat, water was streaming down your face and off your
 ponytail and you were arguing with me! I was impressed, but
 I still couldn't tell you about it."

We went back to our rooms at the motel and I sat there for
 an hour and thought about you. You were such an enigma to
 me. You didn't have to argue with me. You had my balls in a
 wringer, Scully--all you had to do was write in your report
 that I *was* the lunatic the rest of the office thought I was,
 and I would have been history. But I sensed in you the desire
 to get to the bottom of the case. I sensed a curiosity there that
 I had not seen in a long time. Except, maybe when I shave. 
 Anyway, the lights went out and I figured it was time to try
 and sleep anyway."

"You knocked on the door. You were standing in your
 bath robe! God, Scully do you have any idea what that does
 to a guy? Then, you dropped the robe and I thought 'this is
 NOT happening!', and I was right, *it* wasn't happening. But
 something even better was happening. Not sex. That would
 have been nice, I have to admit, but something else took place
 that I have come to treasure more than any 'one night stand'. 
 Trust. Trust happened, Scully. You trusted me. You were as
 naked as I have EVER seen you and you trusted me. I felt like
 goddamn Lancelot standing there, holding you as you
 shivered. You bring out the best in me, just when the worst in
 me is trying to get out."

"I had never told anyone in the Bureau what I told you that
 night. I couldn't help myself. The really funny thing about it
 is, I guess your trust was contagious. You had trusted me not
 to rape you and I trusted you to do the same. Because,
 believe me, all you would have had to do was giggle, grin,
 laugh, snicker, any sign of amusement at my expense and it
 would have been tantamont to rape. But you didn't. You
 were lying on the bed and I was sitting on the floor in the dark
 and I hadn't felt so safe in years. I didn't even mind that I was
 crying. I had no shields left, no walls to hide behind. I didn't
 need them, I was with you."

Mulder fell silent. He was feeling very tired. He looked at
 Scully's face, still smiling in her dreamstate. He leaned
 forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. "Get some rest,
 Sleeping Beauty." Everything around him went black.

It had been weeks. The recovery was steady, but so s-l-o-
 w. No one had encountered a virus like the one that had
 attempted to gain a stronghold in Mulder's body, so treatment
 was trial and error. There wasn't much room for error. The
 drugs they were using were still in clinical trials and the doses
 were way beyond the recommended levels. Every day, Scully
 watched his vitals, praying that they would kill the virus before
 the drugs or the virus killed him. Tiny little steps at a time,
 progress was made. She dared not hope for too much, but
 hope was all she had.

He was taken off the respirator and was breathing on his
 own. They had removed the feeding tube, on the off chance
 that he would be waking up soon and would be able to eat for
 himself. But that had been three days ago and the other
 doctors were threatening to put the tube back in. Dana was
 fighting it. She would never risk his recovery. At the first
 indication that he was not progressing on just fluids, she would
 agree to the feeding tube. She was secretly hoping that his
 stomach growling would be enough to wake him up. Good
 grief, they hadn't come this far for her to starve him to death. 
 But she felt reinserting the tube would only be a step
 backward and she did not want to go in that direction. It was
 the wrong direction, a slippery slope that ended in a grave. No
 way. Not after all of this.

She had been sitting in the cafeteria, eating *lunch*. She
 used the word loosely. If hospital food was bad, 'military'
 hospital food was the very bottom of the barrel. She was
 pretty certain she had ordered a salad, but the brown substance
 on the plate was unrecognizable.

Thea came into the room. She glanced around the tables
 and spotted Scully, then came directly over to her.

"His EEG is showing activity," she said, without
 introduction.

Dana dropped her fork. "Are you sure? It could just be a
 glitch," she said. Her heart was screaming at her to shut up,
 run down the hall and be with him as he awoke, but she had
 been fooled before.

"I watched it for 15 minutes before I came looking for you. 
 I'm sure, Dana. He's about ready to wake up." She reached
 down and pulled Dana to her feet. "You sure don't want to
 miss that, now, do you?"

She tried very hard not to run. It didn't work. Thea,
 caught up in the moment, was just a step ahead of her. Thea
 pushed the door open and let Dana step into the room, then
 left. They didn't need an audience. This should be just the
 two of them.

Scully sat down and immediately reached out and held his
 arm. The burns around his eyes were gone, no scarring, thank
 God. Thea must have shaved him and given him a bath. He
 looked almost 'GQ', if you didn't look at the blue hospital
 gown. His face was turned away from her. She waited.

He coughed. His throat would be raw, from the feeding
 tube and the respirator. His voice would be a mess for a
 couple of days, his vocal cords had been through their own
 special hell. She saw his eyelids flutter.

"Hey," she said. "How are you feeling?" It was all she
 could think to say, she was almost in tears. But she managed
 the *killer* smile.

He turned and was greeted by that smile. It was the same
 one she had on her face that first day, but this time it wasn't
 strained. It was genuine. She was Helen of Troy when she
 smiled like that. He struggled to swallow. He tried to speak,
 but it took some time. Finally, in a raspy voice that she almost
 didn't recognize he said "Like I got a bad case of freezer
 burn." He couldn't believe that the smile could get brighter,
 but it did.

He asked how he had gotten there, and she told him. Then,
 all the worry, all the frustration, all the anger that she had kept
 bottled up inside slipped to the surface just for an instant.

"Thanks for ditching me," she said. The smile was still
 there, but she knew he could sense her emotions.

"I'm sorry about that," he said, still raspy. "But I couldn't
 let you risk your life on this."

She had just spent every waking hour for close to a
 month keeping him alive and in one sentence he made her mad
 enough to kill him herself!  she warned herself.  he's feeling 
 better. Change the subject. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"No," he replied his voice sad. Her heart broke as the
 words forced their meaning into her mind. "But I found
 something I thought I had lost."

She looked at him. Her eyes asked the question she
 couldn't trust to her lips. If she spoke now, she would be
 sobbing and he didn't need that, not now.

It was almost as if he had read her mind, which, in all
 reality he had. "The faith to keep on looking," he replied, out
 loud.

They sat in silence, her holding onto his arm. He felt very
 safe, very secure, just knowing she was there. He drifted off
 to sleep. Once his eyes were closed and she could see his
 steady breathing, she finally allowed herself the luxury of her
 tears. Silently, she cried, but the tears were sweet and gave
 her a calmness she had never known possible.

The end