#and i wanted to leave ya guys something

[mangokiwitropicalswirl]

Paging Dr. Scully, chp 5: Ice

Paging Dr. Scully 1: Squeeze / 2: Jersey Devil / 3: Shadows / 4. Ghost in the Machine

“Dad, do you think I’m becoming detached?” Scully leans back in the dining room chair, fingering the stem of her wineglass. “Emotionally stunted? Immune to feeling?”

“Oh Dana, what would make you say that?” William Sr. replies in a soothing tone. “You were always my soft-hearted girl.”

“I don’t know, Dad.” Scully looks to the distance, then down into her glass. “I saw a friend lose somebody close to him in the ER this week. And I barely cried. It all seemed so rote, so normal. And then I saw him tear up, and I realized I’m giving more attention to all the notations in my charts than the people in the rooms.”

William Sr. nods and places an arm on her shoulder. “You are a good doctor, Dana. You always want to fix people, to make everything better.” He pauses until she looks up at him. “But you can’t fix everything. Some things are out of your control.”

Scully swallows, a lump forming in her throat. Her response is a choked whisper. “I just worry I’m becoming so cold. I don’t want to close off my heart from my work, you know.”

Maggie has stopped clearing away the dishes away and is listening in. “You just sound burned out, dear,” she offers.

“That’s such a cliche, mom,” Scully rolls her eyes and sits up a bit straighter, taking a sip of wine to help steady her voice. “If I’m burned out, then all doctors everywhere are always burned out.”

“I mean it,” Maggie presses further. “When was the last time you stopped working and took a vacation? First, you graduate college early and you start straight into med school. Then you choose emergency medicine as your speciality and dive into your residency without so much as a week off between getting your coat and your first clinical rotation. You’ve been going non-stop since you were 17, dear. I’d say you might be dealing with burnout.”

“Now now, Maggie,” William Sr. chides her lightly, “You know Dana thrives on achievement.”

“It’s true, dad,” Scully adds with a sigh. “I do.”

Even so, hearing her mother give the details of the last 12 years of her life like that, she is suddenly exhausted. “But… but mom might be right.”

She looks back and forth at her mother and father and the remnants of the first after-church dinner they’ve managed to schedule in months. She has never felt like she had more stress than the average person, but when looked at objectively, it’s a wonder she hasn’t collapsed from the pressure.

“What do you think I should do?” She looks at her father, the stalwart Navy captain, as if he should be the one to chart a course for her. The idea that any kind of stress would be too much for her is vaguely embarrassing in light of his rigorous standards. But he is, after all, her dad.

“I can’t answer that for you,” he shakes his head. “But in my opinion, it’s nothing a little more sleep can’t cure.”

“Mom?” Scully knows her mother will see things a bit differently.

“I think you might want to ask about a brief leave of absence, a sabbatical,” Maggie suggests, “I mean, when was the last time you even had time to go out on a date?”

Scully sighs. So often with her mother, it always comes back to her love life. Or lack thereof. Now doesn’t seem to be the time to get into that subject, even if for once, Scully thinks she might have something to share. But now’s not the time to delve into that.

“Honestly mom, dating is the least of my concerns right now…” she trails off wearily, too tired to mount her usual defenses.

“I’m just saying,” Maggie interjects. “These things don’t just happen. It’s not like the right guy is just going to stumble into your ER.”

Scully does her best to hide a smile as she stands up from the table and begins gathering her things to go. In fact, back at home there’s a message on her answering machine from a guy that she met in her ER. A message she’s probably played a half dozen times over the course of the last few days.

She had finally listened to it the night Mulder’s friend Jerry had died, once she made her way back to her apartment for the first time in days. She had stumbled her way to the couch and barely pulled off her shoes before passing out. When she woke in a puddle of drool, the blinking red light on the console table was the first thing she saw. She had leaned up on her elbows and slapped “play,” trying not to hold her breath as the machine ticked through a couple robo-sales calls and a reminder from her mother that they were due to have lunch after church the next Sunday. Then, his voice filled her apartment, on a message dated from Monday night.

“What’s up Doc? I’m guessing you’re probably on shift at the hospital now. I’ve been thinking about ways to get myself injured so I’d have a reason to see you, but I got a weird case this morning. I’ll have to tell ya about it – what do you know about artificial intelligence? Because it looks like our robot overlords might be arriving sooner than scheduled. Anyway, I’ll be kinda busy this week with this case, but I wanted to call and say thanks for making the drive up to Philly. You were right about the bell – it’s a big bell with a big crack, but at least we didn’t have to wait in any long lines. I don’t think I’d mind waiting in a long line with you anyway though. I know you have my number. Call me when you get a chance.”

The smile that had started when she heard the first words of his message only brightens the longer it goes on. She can hear the grin in his own voice as he pauses at the end of the message before hanging up.

She hasn’t known how to call back, though, after their interchange at the hospital. She has wanted to give him space, and she knows that he’s probably confused that she hasn’t responded. It’s just all kinds of awkward, so what exactly is she going to tell her parents? Nothing, yet.

“Thank you for dinner, mom. It was wonderful as usual.” Scully hugs her mother and clears away a side dish and some glasses on her way through the kitchen.

“Things will be alright, Dana,” William Sr. stands and places an arm on her hand as they stall by the door. “You have a good head on your shoulders.”

“Thanks Dad.” Scully squeezes his forearm, smiling faintly. “Thanks for the advice.”

In the car on the way home, she decides she has two things to do. First, she needs to call Mulder back, awkwardness be damned. And second, she needs to schedule a meeting with hospital HR and find out about leaves of absence.

Her stomach lurches wildly as the little plane dips and dives through a cloudbank. She hates small planes. She’s not much of a fan of big ones either, but small ones are infinitely worse. She pulls the white fur hood of her puffy jacket closer around her face to try and block the view of the towering peaks looming a little too close through the windows.

She glances at Mulder in the seat beside her. He’s looking at her with an expression somewhere between “I’m so sorry,” and “please don’t kill me.” He reaches over and laces his fingers overtop her right hand that is gripping the armrest. He squeezes.  “Almost there.” He tries to make it sound like a promise, but she hears the hesitation in his voice.

It’s moments like this that it hits her that she barely knows this man, but here she is, quivering in a tiny prop plane, on their way to God-knows-where for who-knows-why. But she is on a sabbatical and she’s going to Alaska with a man she just met. Her face and her fingers are freezing, but this is the warmest she’s felt in years.