...The last in a while (at least two weeks). I must make my holiday sojourn to see Mother, and computer access will be whenever I can kick my laptop hard enough to make it work. Enjoy, and I bid you a brief adieu, and have a great holiday, whatever your holiday is!!!! Chana PS, Rad, you were right, I did want to post this. A very public THANK YOOOOUUU!!!! ************* Believer Part III Address feedback (hint hint hint) to Chana... janegrey18@hotmail.com Archive: Yes. Crosspost: Please do not. Rating:PG-13 at least. Slash. Thanks: To Radclyffe, and “ Meine lieb und leben immer” to Tess, for prodding me until I wrote about something I have the dark privilege of knowing personally. Disclaimer: I own Elisabeth Shaugnessy. I do not own Scully. She is borrowed without permission or profit. ***** November 24, 1996 9 AM ***** "Stay... very... still." Elisabeth slid one gloved hand into Scully’s hair. She was so close that Scully could feel the heat emanating from beneath her lab coat and thick sweater, and could just catch a wisp of scent that was too flawlessly fitting to be perfume. The half-familiar, vanilla-y note of clean perspiration ... With the other hand Elisabeth perfected a tiny, precise circle of red marking pen above Scully’s left brow. "Ah! Lovely. It brings out your eyes." Scully’s stomach fluttered. "So," she said breezily. "What are you doing for the holiday?" "Putting in a trunk call to Ireland, I expect. Reading something without the words ‘journal of’ in the title. You know, exciting stuff." "Alone?" The question slipped past before Scully could contain it. Elisabeth nodded, briefly. "And you?" "Actually, I was thinking of just staying home." Scully smiled wryly. "Usually I spend the holiday with family, but lately -- it’s stifling. Everyone’s so concerned about my health, what I’m eating, how I’m sleeping..." "I’d say they care about you." "Yes. Yes, they do." Scully sighed. She studied the oncologist’s expression for a moment, and felt a twinge of pain at what she saw. Distance and desolation filled Elisabeth's eyes, making them seem the cold color of the sea in winter. It was a look far too old for her years. "Look, if you -- if you don’t have plans or anything, you’re welcome --" Shut up, Dana, shutupshutupshutup --* "Doctor Shaugnessy," the receptionist called from the doorway, "They’re ready in Radiology." Elisabeth drew in an audible breath. "Well. Are you ready, then, Doctor Scully?" She rose, a bit too quickly. "I -- I don’t want to keep anyone waiting." "No," Elisabeth said tenderly. "That’s not what I asked you." She put a hand on Scully’s arm, levelled her eyes with her patient’s. "I can’t be in there with you, but that doesn’t mean you’re alone. And -- say the word, and I’ll pull you out of there in half a second. Okay?" Scully nodded, breaking the eye contact. The slight tremor in Dr. Shaugnessy’s voice made something twist deep in her chest. ****** 12 PM ****** She took her time in the corridor. Her only prospect for lunch was the medical center caf’s “traditional” turkey dinner. *Ah, turkey’s full of neurotoxins,* Elisabeth grumbled mentally, well aware of how cynical it was. In truth she didn’t feel like eating. The image of Dana Scully, laid bare for attack, gripping hard at the edges of the table as her blue eyes grew steadily wider and wider with pain and fear, was still graven on Elisabeth’s mind’s eye as if the rays had touched her, too. *A walk. A walk’ll help me. Maybe I’ll go for lunch, after all.* She shrugged out of her lab coat and pulled the elastic from the knot of her hair. It came down in an unruly cloud, wisps and tendrils springing to life around her temples where the threads of silver were starting. *And thirty’s still a year off. This is what’s called doing it gracefully?* she wondered. When running a hand through the mass of her hair only made it spiral outward like blown circuits, she muttered a curse and ducked into the public restroom. She nearly stumbled over the woman hunched at the sink. "Dana?! Dana, my God!" ***** *She called me Dana.* Scully stirred her cup thoughtfully, watching stray leaves whirlpool in the liquid’s amber center. She barely remembered what had happened to her the day before; everything seemed to spin in her mind, a blurred and bloody waltz. Shock. Pain. No coherent sense of time or place. And at the core of everything, the voice coaxing her down from wherever she was. Now she was sprawled on her own couch, a dull, leaden headache the only remnant of yesterday. She’d have to take the weekend easy, but with a decent amount of rest she could make it in to work on Monday. Have a look at those ice core samples Mulder had come up with. Shoot them full of -- A knock, too light and discreet to be her mother’s, startled her out of the sluggish reverie. She got to her feet without too much dizziness and fumbled for a moment with the police bolt on the door. "Doctor Shaugnessy?" She gasped. "What are you --" "You are completely mad," Elisabeth said incredulously. "What the hell are you doing here?" Scully’s brow lurched toward her hairline. "I think I’m the one entitled to that question," she said, filling her voice with the level fury she saved for difficult Bureau personnel. "How did you find my apartment?!" "Rather easier than you did, considering the state you were in when I saw you last!" Elisabeth’s eyes turned to chips of deep ice, but when Scully swayed on her feet, she shot out a steadying hand. "Sit down, Doctor Scully, at once." "Doctor Shaugnessy, I object to being treated this way in my own home." "And I object to my patients taking matters into their own hands!" Elisabeth clenched her teeth for a moment. A screaming match in a chilly doorway was not what she’d had in mind. Then again, expecting Dana Scully to come quietly along to the hospital was perhaps not the most realistic of thoughts to begin with. Wordlessly, Scully stepped back from the door, and Elisabeth eased past her into the main room. As soon as the lock had clicked behind her, Scully spoke again. "Would you mind telling me exactly what it is you’re doing here?" Elisabeth did not flinch from the veiled hostility. "I got a call this morning saying you’d discharged yourself from the hospital. *That* is exactly why I’m here." She fought her tone into something clipped, professional, neutral. "When I admit a patient to a facility, you’ll find I usually have a strong reason for doing so." Scully was silent. Tension hummed along the muscles of her neck, and rage still simmered just beneath the surface, but she could not make herself feel resentment. "I don’t mind having my reasoning challenged. But if you intend to ignore every decision I make, Doctor Scully, then I think this alliance will not be a successful one." Elisabeth’s breath hitched. She had lived, in her mind, all her patient's worst consequences, and now they flashed through her thoughts again, dark and mocking. "You are an intelligent woman and a physician and you *know*," she blurted, "You know it was stupid -- and reckless -- and I was afraid for you." Her voice soared and wavered and cracked. "I was worried out of my mind!" The tears, sliding bright and unheeded down her flushed cheeks, were what struck Scully in the chest. Without thinking she reached out, her fingertips just brushing over the wild filaments of Elisabeth’s hair. "Don’t," she half pleaded, a rush of tenderness sweeping aside anger. She slid the pad of her thumb across the plane of a wet jawbone, meaning only to comfort, and suddenly, half accidentally, the thumb was tracing the damp velvet curve of Elisabeth’s lower lip. She had no clear sense of who bridged the last distance, but Elisabeth’s arms slipped around her shoulders, and her mouth was soft and pliant against Scully’s. With her tongue, Scully traced the slick inner surfaces of Elisabeth’s mouth, tasting the faint saline of tears. She flicked for a moment at the delicate ridges of teeth and palate, and Elisabeth responded, twisting her hands desperately into Scully’s thin sweater. They stood motionless on the rug, each learning the other, and neither tiring of it. Beneath the salt, Elisabeth tasted faintly of cinnamon... Scully jumped, startled, when Elisabeth pulled swiftly away. *Jesus, no, don’t let her be afraid of this.* But as soon as she looked up, she saw it. The blood like some sinister paint across Elisabeth’s cheek -- bright, fresh, startling arterial blood. "Elisabeth!" Heartbroken horror masked Elisabeth’s features, the last embers of desire flickering out of her eyes. "Be still, Dana, just be still." End part III