From: scoopsue Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2004 22:20:33 GMT Subject: NEW FIC: Serial Mishaps. H. A. Source: atxc Title: Serial Mishaps Authors: Mulder's Refugees. This time, Erin Blair and Pattie. Rated: PG-13. Category: Angst, Humor. Spoilers: Every injury he Mulder ever had in the series. Summary: Mulder just can't seem to avoid a series of unfortunate medical problems, and a very high F.B.I. Hospital Insurance bill. Feedback:? Archive: Mulder's Refuge. Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully Kersh and The X-Flies are property of Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen and Fox Studios. We do not earn money writing fanfic and we do not intend to break copyright laws. J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING WASHINGTON, D.C. OFFICE OF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR KERSH 10:00 a.m. Kersh folded his hands and stared Mulder straight in the face. "You have some extensive explaining to do, Agent Mulder." He then addressed Scully with the same shrewd look, " And Agent Scully, your actions are less than commendable, may I add." "Yes. Sir, I can't say when exactly this whole mess began, but I can tell you... ASSURE you, we will address the subject before it mushrooms into something we can't undo." Mulder was furious. "Mushrooms' Scully? I don't think this is just a case of anything we, or I, have done becoming that disastrous. With all due respect, Sir, I believe we acted in accordance with the law as well as Bureau policy." After attending the orientation with Scully, Mulder had food poisoning after eating a portion of two year old applesauce. "It was botulism," Scully explained. "When the orientation was complete, Agent Mulder and I went to a convenience store for a quick snack. I told him not to pick up any item that had dust on it, or a very old expiry date. But instead of listening to me, he selected a two-year-old jar of applesauce and managed to keep me from reading the lid. Five hours after he had eaten it, he was VIOLENTLY ILL," she said loudly, staring Mulder down, "and that's when I took him to the hospital." "Still, the hospital bill was enormous," Kersh stated blandly. "Agent Mulder, you manage to take a simple thing like a snack, after an orientation, and have it mushroom into a full-fledged catastrophe!" "I... I had no idea... I'm not good with expiry dates, Sir." Kersh stood, taking a dominant stance. "Perhaps after another orientation, you'll consider a diner or take-out, Agents. Mulder, no more exorbitant hospital expenses. You may go, Agents." When Mulder and Scully were fifteen feet down the hall, Scully snarled, "Everything you seem to do lately mushrooms into something that one day you may not be able to handle. Even in a hospital." They continued ion their way down the hallway when she saw him run into a bookcase. "Mulder!" "Ow!" he yelled as he held his leg and jumped up and down. "I think it's broken!" "I think you fractured it, Mulder. Kersh is going to kill us for your next huge hospital bill." Mulder grimaced, still holding his leg. He bit his lip, trying to hold back the tears. "Scully, I never noticed that bookcase before. Someone dumb just left it in the hallway..." As the Emergency Room was packed, the wait was excruciatingly long for Mulder. To top it off, he heard a dreaded word several times over the hospital address system. "Dr. Foley. Dr. Eamon Foley to obstetrics." Repeat Ad Nauseum. Scully saw that her partner was perturbed. "Mulder, don't put the cart before the horse. I can see you're already thinking they'll catheterize you. They don't use Foleys for a fracture, generally. That is, unless you have to have a general anesthesia and need emergency surgery." The agent was well calmed down, when Dr. Thompson examined his left leg. "Well Agent Mulder, I'm afraid I'll have to put you into a full-sized cast. I'd better get the plaster out." "Full-sized!?" He had resorted to whining. Scully scowled. "Full-sized," the doctor echoed cheerfully." "Well, Mulder looks like you've really done it this time!" Scully snickered. "Look on the bright side: maybe Kersh will take pity on you when we have to explain this later on." "But before we do that," the doctors face turned serious. " I'd like to get you into surgery right away to re-attach that severed tendon. It was ripped right off of the patella." ""General anesthetic?" Mulder whimpered still in abject pain.. "Yup," the doctor said as he wrote out some details. "Oh, when you wake up, don't worry about the tubing. It's just to empty out your bladder..." "With a Foley catheter," Mulder moaned. He'd had it with Foley catheters. "Sorry 'bout your luck." Scully patted his hand, looking consolingly into his eyes. "There is a pattern in all this, I think." Mulder moaned. His leg was itching from the plaster. "Scully, I think I'm allergic..." "What?" Mulder frowned. His eyes welled with tears. This just hasn't been his week. "I'm allergic to the plaster." "Are you sure?" Mulder moaned again. "Scullee.... Get the doctor. I'm seriously itching here." "OK, Mulder. I will see what I can do." Fifteen irritating minutes later, Dr. Thompson was out of the cardiac cubicle and back to Mulder. "What's this about a supposed allergy to plaster?" Thompson was grinning, daring not to break into a full laugh. "It itches like a son-of-a-..." "I get the idea, Mr. Mulder. Well, there has never been a history of allergic reaction to plaster casts. It's never been reported or studied. So, I think you may have that syndrome that goes with wearing a cast." "Do tell us what that is," Scully said wearily, as if she already knew. "Mr. Mulder has the idea that since he can't get under the cast, he won't be able to scratch if he does itch, so by thinking about it itching, he itches." Scully nodded in agreement. "I had that myself once." "It's imaginary? ME? Imagine it's itching?" Scully, I will admit to having a very active imagination, but I am not imagining this damn irritating feeling under this... this damn prison." Thompson thought over Mulder's words. "You see the cast as a type of confinement in more ways than one, I think. Symbolic of not having your world under control?" "What are you? A psychiatric resident?" "You're psychic, too." Get a good book. Keep your mind off of itching. You should thank me for recommending the local anesthetic. You got out of the operation without a Foley." Scully frowned at the doctor's explanation. "I understand that giving him some codeine for the pain would relieve some discomfort. I know him, Doctor, you don't. Mulder doesn't lie when something is bothering him." She paused. "I'm going to be his personal doctor." "Have it your way." Mulder gave her a bright smile. Finally, she was taking action. "Thanks, Scully." "No problem." Four days into Scully's stay with Mulder in his own home, there seemed to be something different in the suffering he was going through. "Scully, Could you please give me another couple of pills?" "Mulder, two tablets every six hours. That's what the orthopedic surgeon ordered, and that's what I recommend." "But Scull-eeee, it's starting to hurt so much... I can't even get comfortable and... " "But nothing. You have two hours before the next dose and two hours is how long you will wait. Mulder, these aren't candies! These are serious narcotics, and besides the constipation, sleepiness and confusion ... " "To hell with all that, Scully!" His tone was loud, bordering on abusive. Scully stared at him, mouth agape. "I'm sorry, Scully. It's just that..." "I know, Mulder. If you could just relax and sleep, you wouldn't feel the pain. And the boredom." "Yeah. One tablet? Please?" His best puppy face was ruined with the wince he had permanently adopted since yesterday. "No. Close your eyes and think of... I don't know. One of your favorite videos?" "Won't work. I just have to think of the positions and I hurt more. One more pill and I'll buy you a blotter for that desk kind old me got you!" Scully laughed, shaking her head. "You are impossible. Don't hobble around to find them, either. I put them where you will not get at them." Mulder's head sunk back onto his pillow. "Nuts! Well, can you at least get me a beer?" "That would interact with the painkiller. I'll get you a coffee." After another week of recuperating at Scully's apartment, Scully noticed that Mulder was having an allergic reaction to the plaster cast again. It was getting so bad that she took him to the hospital. Apparently, the doctor who had given him the cast was a total quack. It wasn't applied correctly and was cutting into his flesh. The leg's stitches has become infected so much that gangrene set in...but it wasn't quite bad enough for Mulder to lose his leg. "Scullee, they have to put the cast on again..." "This time, no. They want to give you another medication to reduce the gangrene." For Fox Mulder, usually very physically active and not used to confinement, the days dragged on and on. "All things considered," he shouted to Scully, who was tidying the kitchen, "I'd rather be in Cleveland!" "You'll like what I have here, Mulder." She presented Mulder with a slice of coffee cake and a latte. "While you're at it, it's time for your medication." She twisted the vial open and gave Mulder a capsule. "If they hadn't scraped away the necrotic tissue and given you this med, you might have faced amputation, you know." "Little Mary Sunshine," he said, popping the capsule into his mouth, and washing it down with the coffee. "I am bored as hell." "I know." Scully put her hand on his. "I wish I could carry all the pain for you. Things are improving though." There was a knock at the door. Scully went to open it to find The Lone Gunmen, with a very large cardboard box in tow. "How's our patient?" Frohike asked cheerfully. "Improving. What's this, guys?" "A recliner. Nothing but the best for our Mulder!" Langly grinned. "Let's get started," said Byers. "We have a deadline to meet tonight on the paper." The chair was ready for occupancy, and as Scully eased Mulder onto the seat, there was a loud rudely familiar noise. Mulder was not impressed, but everyone else was laughing the asses off. "Well, I know you're trying to cheer me up, guys. And I really do appreciate it. A whoopie cushion? Shades of the seventies." "Aw come on, Mulder, you've been feeling really sick. I wanted to cheer you up. The guys just helped me to pick it out," Scully said. "Can you blame me? I hate being laid up...wearing that stupid leg brace," Mulder said, frowning. "I can't believe I am actually going to say this: I really do miss work." "It's unfortunate that you have to miss all those riveting cases," Scully said. "We just really wanted you to cheer up. It was a really long hospital stay," said Byers. "At least, Scully found out that the doctor was a quack... You are really, really lucky," said Frohike. "If your gangrene was serious, we'd be mourning the loss of your leg," Langly said. Three weeks later, Mulder was back at his desk in the office of "The F.B.I.'s Most Unwanted", a phrase he had coined the day he met Scully. "Recuperation from a massive fracture is a long, slow process," he noted. The Journal was his way of sorting out his thoughts from time to time. Well, some times. "I now realize that without the help of good friends and especially my partner, Special Agent Dana Scully, I would have been worse off than I am. One thing I never do is confide my emotions even to my dearest friends. I whine over injuries and illness, and I am the world's worst patient. This I was told directly. "I have the best friend I could ever wish for in Agent Scully. Not only have we been through some very tense cases, and more often than not, come up with little or no progress for the truth I so desperately want, but we have been a rock for each other when the times were fearfully hopeless. If I have learned one thing, it is that there is a complete professional respect and a personal trust that I could never hope to have with anyone else. "Recuperation from this latest fracture, not to mention the bout with gangrene, has left me feeling total gratitude toward my friends as well as Agent Scully. She is more than a partner or a friend, and I will leave it at that. Suffice it to say, she acts as my shield and buckler. There is no necessity at this time to reveal anything else to this Journal. That is personal business and between me and whoever I decide to share it with." From outside the office came a familiar voice. "Hey, am I interrupting anything?" Scully was beaming as she stuck her head past the door, happy to see her partner where he belonged. "No, Scully. C'mon in. I was just doing some house-cleaning, if you know what I mean." "Hey, nice to know you're sorting the wheat from the chaff. Ready to swing into action again?" Mulder smiled. The thought of himself as Spiderman briefly entered his mind. "Well, I think the rest of my recuperation depends on avoiding all that rough, tough, superhero stuff, don't you?" "I couldn't agree with you more. Kersh seems to think interstate insurance fraud would be just what the doctor says you can handle." Mulder sighed deeply, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'd rather he put us on fertilizer detail. But then, you can't always get what you want." "That's the old Mulder I know and admire. Dry humor and all." She was smiling rather more warmly than usual. "You admire me?" "Don't push it, Mulder." IT ONLY SEEMS LIKE THE END -- http://p077.ezboard.com/bmuldersrefuge37620