Believer, VI By Chana Summary: "Trust is the foundation of the therapeutic alliance". Rated PG13 for angst, yelling and the romance between two women. Archive: Yes Crosspost: No, please. Thanks: to Tess, and to Maire McDermod for her endless patience and the shameless use of her accent. If I could pronounce it, I'd thank her in Gaelic. Disclaimer: I own Elisabeth Shaugnessy. As for Scully, Mulder, and the events of US4/5, they are owned by 1013 Productions. Feedback and Comments: Will Drool For Feedback. Send to janegrey18@hotmail.com Cave Website Canem: If you are under your country's legal age of majority, use your better judgement. If slash offends you... you took a wrong turn at Pismo Beach. ***** December 4, 1996 10 AM ***** She had lost. Elisabeth burst into tears. Calipers, red Sharpie, charts, x-rays and MRI printouts crashed off the desk and onto the floor. They all showed her the same thing: a phenomenal increase in the neoplastic mass. Too much to attack at one time, and lodged inoperably tightly in a snug triangle of brain and bone., pressing ever more closely to the meninges of the frontal lobe. Her initial assessment had, as always, been deadly accurate. Dr. Scully was going to die. Perhaps within days. She was losing Dana. Everything in her kicked and fought and bitterly screamed. Outwardly she sat silent behind her desk, grinding an antacid tablet between her teeth. She hated the texture. She hated the image it gave people, of an overworked, harried young physician who didn't know which way was up, never mind how to grab a meal. But she'd worked through four of the awful things in the past forty minutes. It gave her something controllable to hate. When the phone rang, it nearly joined the clutter on the floor. She let it go for ten seconds, twenty, half a minute. Finally she tucked the receiver against her shoulder with a sigh. "Elisabeth Shaugnessy." "Elisabeth?" "Dana.What's wrong?" She dug her nails into her blotter. *Please God let her be all right.* "I'm fine." *She's not all right.* "I need you to come down here. As soon as you think you can get away." "I'm on my way," she answered, and let the telephone drop. ***** Georgetown University Hospital 10:40 AM ***** She had the feeling she'd walked into something. People lined the walls of the tiny private room: Mrs. Scully, a Catholic priest, the brothers Scully. And Mulder. "Mrs. Scully, Ensign Scully, Ensign Scully, Father. I'm Elisabeth Shaugnessy, Dana's oncologist. Mr. Mulder," she added, purely as an afterthought. "Doctor, what's going to happen to my daughter?" This was a woman who had seen too much happen to her daughter already. Elisabeth was sure of it. The face was worn and mournful and it hurt to look long at her. She chose her words very carefully. "Mrs. Scully, there are some quite recent developments that I'd like to discuss with Dana. Once that's out of the way, I promise I will answer any questions you have." She smiled her best tension-diffusing smile, and the Ensigns Scully led their mother from the room. The priest followed. "Mr. Mulder?" " *Agent* Mulder," he corrected. "Agent Mulder, please do us the courtesy." She was no longer smiling as she gestured to the door. "He can stay." Elisabeth rubbed her forehead. This was hard enough without an audience. And she had no idea what to say to Dana in the first place. *I'm sorry, you put your faith in me but I wasn't skilled enough or quick enough to catch this thing and kill it? I'm sorry, I'm falling in love with you and you have a week or so to do what you like with it? I'm sorry, but you touched me to the bone and I can't tell you this at all, I really can't? Or just that I'm sorry... I'm sorry...* "Dana," she began as if the word was ripped from her. "I don't know how, or why, but the tumor isn't responding to any form of treatment. If anything it -- it seems to be thriving on what ought to destroy it." "That's what I was trying to tell you," Dana's partner fumed. "This is not a cancer you can treat. You'll kill her first." She ignored it. He was venting now. Let him. "I want to send you up to the Dana Farber. Maybe they've got something I don't, some trick that I can't play on this thing. It's a long shot, but it's the only one I've got." She swallowed. "I really -- I really don't know what else to do, Dana." *Please let her forgive me, let her know I tried, God I tried ...* "You're sending her to Boston on a maybe? You run your little tests and dick around with your little charts and hope for a miracle, and you're killing her!" "Mulder." When Dana spoke, Elisabeth moved to her side. But her eyes and her mind were fixed on Mulder. Her voice was soft and low and deadly cold. "Agent Mulder, I do not *dick* *around*." She wanted to knock him down with the words. "I am young but I am not stupid, and you will not speak to me in that way again." He looked taken aback. His mouth opened but nothing came. " I don't hope for miracles, not where there are none. But I believe with all my heart in the work I do and the choices I make. And I believe I've done the best I can for Dana, and I'll continue on until she tells me to do otherwise." "Yeah? And what if what you believe is wrong? You just let her die?!" "Agent. Mulder. Enough." She wrapped each syllable in enough ice and hatred to make a saner man cringe. "Mulder... please go." Scully had turned her face against the pillow, the thin remnant of her hair falling like a mask over her face. She looked too pale. Bruised all over, bruised far beneath the surface. Her scalp beneath the fading red was the color of old paper. When he tried to speak, she only put up her hand. "Are you all right, Dana?" Elisabeth winced. *Lissie, you just blew your top. Maybe blew more than that. Are you quite pleased with yourself?* "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have --" "No," Scully cut her off. "You should have. What he said to you ..." She coughed, and there was a moment's battle just to find air and breathe. " I know how far you've gone for me. I know you'd go further, if I'd let you." She took Elisabeth's hand and slowly, idly traced the blue of a vein. "Elisabeth, look at me." She lifted her head on the pillow just enough to meet the gaze. Elisabeth's eyes were wide and earnest and too bright to be dry. "You didn't fail here." "Didn't I?" She closed her eyes tight against the tears. But Dana had laid her finger on the ancient hurt, and there was no stepping back from it. The breath crashed from her chest and she cried. The edge of the bed caught her weight; she felt Dana's arms around her. They curled together fragile as children. It was a quarter of an hour before Elisabeth could find herself again. She lifted her head, pushed the last tears from her eyes and said almost steadily, "Your family's out there. Your -- your brilliant partner." She sniffled. "Christ, they'll think we're indulging in the carnal." It worked. Scully allowed it to work. A small smile curled the corners of her mouth. "I need to make some calls. We need to set up something definite with the Dana Farber --" "I'm not going to Boston," Scully interrupted.. "I need you with me. I can't do this alone." "I can go with you to Boston, Dana." "I need you with me," Scully repeated, "not as an oncologist. As a friend. As my lover." She said it without wavering. She had said it so many times before, in her mind. "I know how much I'm asking..." "You have it. " Elisabeth laid a kiss in the center of her palm. "You have it and more already." To be continued in Chapter 7 End Believer VI