TITLE: Scratches Soothe Me

AUTHOR: Triton

Email: triton-x@yahoo.com

or visit my little library at: http://geocities.datacellar.net/triton-x/Fanfic

DATE: May 29th, 2000

CATEGORY: Story MSF

RATING: PG-13

SUMMARY: Scully POV. Will barriers to communication define their relationship?

SPOILERS: None, but I do assume you have seen up to Season Six.

ARCHIVE: Ask first, but I doubt I’ll refuse.

DISCLAIMER: X-Files, Mulder, Scully and all related characters belong to that amazing person called Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and the Fox Network. I mean no infringement. I am just borrowing the characters briefly to have a play, to see what I can do with them while CC isn’t watching. He can have them back anytime he likes.

NOTES and ACKNOWLEDGMENTS at end.

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I see the brightest of lights seconds before I feel the heat. The light explodes around me, enveloping me, momentarily waylaying the intense pain that removes all cognition of my senses and my world turns black.

*************

I become aware slowly, a confused cloudy feeling of both floating and heaviness. I’m here but I’m not and I am confused. My heart is beating faster and I can feel the blood pumping through my head; this leads to a momentary panic attack. I want to scream out but there is no noise, no light.

Just as I have the urge to lose it all, a comforting aura settles over me. I recognise a familiar scent and it is all around me. I feel the warmth of his fingers on my arms and his breath brushing past my lips. There are no other sensations, but it is enough that I know he is here. With this knowledge I calm and drift off into the nothingness again.

*************

I’m now aware of a slight odour of disinfectant and an unbalance of hot and cold against my body. I’ve only just thought this to myself, and now there is a covering of some kind moving along my lower body and an accompanying warmth is settling over me. I welcome this and try to smile, but something is wrong. My lips are immobile. My skin feels heavy and tight; my limbs too heavy to move. I try to focus on my fingers, but the effort proves strenuous and achieves nothing but lethargy. I feel myself drift off to sleep again.

*************

I know I’m awake, because I’m thinking. It is still dark and it is still silent, although I can hear the echo of my breathing within my head. I wonder why I’m left alone in such a dark place. I try moving my eyeballs, but there is pressure against them and it hurts to try too hard. The nothingness becomes oppressive.

Focusing on my toes is an easier task. My toes are obstructed and as I wiggle them, they brush against the smooth surface of what I imagine is a tightly tucked sheet of fabric.

I take note again of the limited information I have about my surroundings, and am sure I am lying on a bed. It is not as firm as my own mattress, so I know I’m not at home. I move my legs around and the sheet loosens up around me. My upper body still refuses to react to my simple requests to move. I still feel an overwhelming heaviness across my head and chest. I focus on my fingers and they move. For some reason this gives me a great sense of joy and I try to smile again, but I can’t. My skin is too tight. Now I want to cry, but I can’t do that either.

I tell myself to focus, I can feel the telltale signs of panic rising again. My heart rate has increased. I can feel a rush of blood pumping through my brain and there is a muffled ringing in my ears. Noticing this, I focus on that sensation. If the sound is muffled, then I’m not in a silent room, because then I’d still be hearing the sounds of silence. So it is possible that I am in a very small enclosed space.

I am buried alive.

My breathing quickens as I feel panic rising, and I can feel my heart fluttering wildly within my chest. Frantically I reach out my hands, expecting to touch a hard surface in front of me. There is nothing there and I begin waving my arms about, searching for something, for anything, to give me information. String-like things become tangled around my wrists. I have an instant vision of being bound and gagged, and I have to take a deep breath to prevent anxiety.

Something touches my hands and I pull back in fright, but as his fingers wrap around mine I calm again. Familiar fingers, their length and width recalled from my memory, the soft skin, the downy hair upon his knuckles. I know they are his; I know his hands very well. We may not touch often, but I know his touch.

Mulder is here and I am not lost. I curl my fingers around his and squeeze tightly. He squeezes back and begins stroking my palms and wrists, the warmth upon my skin is comforting.

I ask him where I am, but he doesn’t respond. I hear myself ask the question, but it is more of an enclosed echo, muffled and bouncing around in my head, so I now think my ears must be covered.

I wonder why?

My eyes still won’t open and I try very hard to do so. There is something preventing me from doing this. I try to shake my head but something feels wrong and I am sluggish.

The reassuring pressure from Mulder’s grasp has loosened and I reach to reclaim that security; instead his fingers rest across my wrist. I feel my arm being raised. I don’t fight him, I let him lead me. He knows what I need to know. My fingers suddenly touch a mesh fabric, course and uneven. As I press, I can feel the pressure move simultaneously across my face.

My face is bandaged. I know that now. I explore the covered surface and follow it around and over and beyond. My face, my head, my skull, are all sheathed in bandages. My eyes are covered. My ears are covered. My nose is not, nor is my mouth, but only barely. I run my fingertips along the small strips of exposed skin and sigh.

I wonder what happened?

I sense a change in the aura of the room. A movement of air and a mingling of different smells. I realise that I can still detect aromas and I take in a large breath, finally lessening the numbness of my mood. I can smell Mulder, he’s so close and I am calm.

A cold hand touches my left wrist and instinctively I pull away, but Mulder is still stroking my right wrist, up and down, up and down. I focus on it, focus on Mulder’s gentle touch; as a pinprick touches my left arm I’m still focusing on Mulder. I drift away into nothingness again.

*************

I’m dreaming of something nice, but since I feel an awareness of myself inside my head I begin to wonder if I really am dreaming. It is still dark and I now know why, but not how. I can feel more of my body too. I can follow the course of blood through the intricate veins and arteries underneath my skin. I check, through a mental relaxation technique, that all my body parts are present. All ten toes are accounted for, as is all parts of my legs. My torso aches, but I accept its presence. All ten fingers have movement, although five of them are intertwined amongst another larger set. These appendages are loosely wound through mine, and they feel like a part of me, as though they belong there.

As I wiggle each individual finger, I sense a change in their hold on mine, a tightness, and I wonder if maybe Mulder had been sleeping beside me. A warmth moves away from beside my hip and I imagine it may have been his tousled head. I want to reach out and touch his hair, so I untangle my fingers from his and reach towards him, but I’m constrained by the bandages and IV tubes. Instead, he moves closer to me. He gently wraps himself around me, soothing me, caressing me gently, lulling me back to sleep.

***********

I’m developing a pattern. I wake and know his hold will be soft, and I assume he is also napping. So I lay quietly, feeling his presence, sensing the light pulse in his wrist beneath my own. If I move my hand, he wakes and increases the pressure, reassuring me of his comforting presence. I try hard to give him some freedom, but the one time I woke and there was no one holding my hand, I was overcome with a rush of panic. I screamed, instigating lots of flurry and activity around me, many strange and unfamiliar hands touching me. I searched and waved my arms around, catching up all manner of tubes and wirings in my disorientation. When I finally felt his warm fingers touch mine, I settled instantly. I wanted to apologise to him for this; he does deserve a break away from holding my hand. But at that moment I needed him too much. I chanted ‘sorry sorry sorry’ over and over to myself, planning the speech for when I could communicate with him, but his gentle strokes over my palm and wrist seem to be an acceptance.

I wonder how long I’ve been here. I do know that he has been here beside me, continually, since I arrived here. I will always love him for that.

*************

I’ve been lying here for a while now, just thinking and trying to attune myself to the environment. I can sense when someone else is the room, and I can also sense the lack of Mulder - he leaves briefly when he thinks I’m asleep, but is back quickly. Probably a toilet break, or making quick phonecalls, whatever. I do know that he always comes back, and he takes my hand immediately.

I don’t panic anymore about his absence, and I feel a bit embarrassed that I did freak out so much the first few times. I admit that I’m scared, I don’t know where I am or why I am like this.

I also know he sleeps briefly with his head nestled into my hip and his free arm slung across my waist. He doesn’t let go of my hand. It’s a pleasurable experience, comforting. He won’t leave me. He won’t leave me ever. Not willingly, anyway.

I’m sleeping less now, but I still cannot reconciliate the passage of time.

I’m trapped in my own thoughts and with no new stimuli I get bored. This is worse than solitary confinement, as I am bereft of all my senses. I’m left with only the capacity of thought and to keep myself sane, I utilise the time to think.

At first I sort out all the loose threads from our last case and submit the report to memory, to be written out at a later date. Once I exhaust this train of thought, I plan my Christmas shopping, mentally sort out my wardrobe, then lovingly recall excerpts from my favourite novels.

As quiet and still as I’ve been, I think Mulder knows I’m not sleeping. He has begun the hand stroking again, a calming sensation that sends delicate shivers up my arm and radiates calmness through my whole body. I wish I could tell him how beneficial this sensation is to me.

Mulder is scratching against my palm again, he has been doing this often. It is usually a precursor to an invasion of my body by the others. I’m content to assume these others are nurses and doctors, so I willingly let them touch me, insert tubes, remove tubes and pinprick me over and over. If Mulder is letting them do this to me, then I’ll accept this. I trust him.

I think he is warning me with these scratches, letting me know that something is about to happen, to prepare me unsurprised.

I suddenly wonder if the scratches themselves have a pattern, so I focus intently on the shapes he’s forming.

I laugh, because now it’s tickling me, and I muse to myself that he’s talking to me this way. I jump with surprise as he suddenly grasps my hand tighter and lays my hand open purposely over one of his, palm up. He taps of couple of times on the open area of skin, and I focus completely on this. A scratch one way, then another in the opposite direction.

The sudden awareness of what he is doing overwhelms me and I think I burst out laughing. Mulder is signing letters on my palm. Relief overwhelms me - he amazes me with his constant ability to solve problems. Focusing hard, I try and picture the shape of the letter in my mind as he transcribes it into my palm. The first letter could be an ‘X’, and I say this letter out loud. He scrubs my hand, like wiping chalk marks from a blackboard. I assume this means no. I try again, this time clearly seeing the letter ‘Y’, and I say this out loud. I suddenly feel a warm moist movement on my wrist; I can picture his lips touching my skin, smiling with satisfaction.

Relief is the major sensation that I feel now - my feelings of isolation have abated and I can receive information deprived from me before. I want to draw this precious man into my arms and hug him tight, but the logistics overwhelm me. As I think this, his warmth gravitates towards me and his presence envelopes mine. He’s hugging me; his breath is on my neck and his arms against my back.

I return the embrace with as much energy as I can muster, trying to relay to him my utmost gratitude for his dedication to me.

He moves away and I feel lonely without the contact. He takes my hand again and rubs it against his cheek; I feel wetness there. My fingers seek answers and find tears have made a pathway down his face. Again, I want to cry also, but my eyes are sealed shut.

I reflect on how long Mulder has been scratching at my palms, willing me to hear him through this medium.

"Can you hear me, Mulder?"

He scratches a "Y". I sigh, content with this knowledge. Our communication will not be dogged down by my feeble attempts at scratch language.

"Talk to me, Mulder." My voice still echoes within my skull. I focus carefully on the connection between our hands and repeat the letters until I get them right. It takes a while, my palm tingling with the constant barrage of strokes, circles, lines and rubs. I’m excited and weary; the influx of stimuli has tired me out. I hold his hand tightly within mine as I whisper my thanks, then I fall asleep.

*************

I’ve discovered that I’ve been recuperating for only five days, which surprises me. I was certain it had been longer than that.

Mulder and I practise our scratch language over and over, until I can read him fluently.

"Mulder, when can I go home?"

‘DON’T KNOW’ he signs.

"What happened to me?"

‘BOMB. IN AUTOPSY BODY’

I try to recall performing the autopsy, but I can’t remember much.

"Will I be able to see again?"

There is a pause, which momentarily frightens me as I imagine the worst.

‘Y. DOC SAYS SOON’

"Mulder, thank you for staying with me..."

‘IS OK. WANT TO’

"But you didn’t have to stay with me. You could’ve sought help."

‘WANT YOU WITH ME ALWAYS. LOVE YOU’

And then I cried.

END.

AUTHOR’S NOTES:

Firstly, and most importantly, thank you muchly to my wonderful friends Cryst and DianaB for their beta work, (which means slapping me around a bit for wrongful placement of commas and contractions.) Their insightful advice and eye for detail has prevented a lot of finger pointing and sneering in my general direction.

Secondly, this story was the result of a fic challenge set up by DD4me, who asked for the following plotline.

"Write a story where Scully gets sick or hurt and Mulder is the one taking care of her."

I was in the middle of arguing with my muse over two other stories that I am currently working on, and didn’t think I would have time to meet the deadline for this one. But, as fate would have it, I was sitting here very late one night, typing merrily away, when I had a power outage and lost all lighting and music. For a brief moment, my world went black, and in the short time it took for the power to resume, I had an inkling of a story - and this is the result.

Thirdly, I am aware that somewhere out there, in the immense fanfic world, this is a story that has a similar premise. I have never read that story, nor do I know the author or where it is archived. I apologise in advance if this story carries any similarities apart from the sense-deprivation theme, and if anyone knows the story I am referring to, I would love to read it.

Thanks for reading,

T.