Classification: Vignette
Summary: A night in a laundromat.
***
Rain splattered the windows, turning weeks-old dust into dim silver
streaks. An
occasional passing car splashed gritty mud up onto the sidewalks but
otherwise
the city was calm and still. After all, what kind of nutcase
would be out at
this ridiculous hour of the night in the middle of a thunderstorm,
especially at
a dingy laundromat?
Mulder shifted uncomfortably in a hard plastic chair that seemed to
have been
designed for the express purpose of bruising his ass. Adding
to his discomfort
were the scratchy hospital-issue scrubs that served in place of his
well-loved
jeans and sweater. Those were currently making sudsy rounds along with
Scully's
clothing, all for the bargain price of seventy-five cents. Plus a dollar
for the
little packet of laundry detergent.
He had put the coins into the slots without a word of complaint. It
was all his
fault, anyway, so why argue over splitting the cost of getting their
clothing
freed of mud? Oh, and blood, some his, some hers, that was all over
everything.
What a mess. In more ways than one.
Scully's slight sigh was almost drowned out by the swishing noises of
the
washing machine. The armless chairs allowed her to place her head on
Mulder's
shoulder, and once in a while he would shrug, twist, or make some other
movement
to keep her from falling asleep. God, he hated to do that. The
doctor had been
adamant that Scully be made to stay awake because of the concussion
she had
sustained.
He sneaked a look at his partner. She was frowning at his latest attempt
to keep
her from dozing off. Typical of Scully, she had hidden from him the
fact that
she'd taken a nasty hit on the back of the head until she was certain
that he
was not seriously injured. "I'm fine," she had assured him. The fact
that he
hadn't realized she was lying about that, again, was something he chalked
up to
the pain of the four-inch-long gashes running down each of his shins.
He had
only realized that she'd been hurt when the emergency room physician
declared
that he'd seen worse wounds than Mulder's and he'd get them cleaned
and stitched
up. Scully had taken that as her cue to sink to her knees, grabbing
a very
surprised paramedic in a rather personal location in an attempt to
break her
fall.
In the ensuing pandemonium, Mulder discovered that losing a lot of blood
could
make him light-headed. He knew this because when he tried to get up
he managed
only to pitch forward and whack his forehead on the IV stand. For some
odd
reason it made him happy to hear Scully laughing at him from her vantage
point
on the floor.
She hadn't laughed earlier, while they were chasing their suspect through
a
rain-slicked alleyway. The boy may not have had supernatural strength
but it
certainly felt like it when he rolled the trash can toward them. Mulder
was hit
in the shins and had lurched forward like a trained seal, or perhaps
a badly
trained one. Scully had leaned over to try to catch him, and that was
when the
trash can bounced off a dumpster, flew up into the air, and fell back
to earth -
after hitting Scully squarely on the back of the head.
The kid got away.
Because of the chase, they had just spent two hours in the emergency
room in
this decrepit backwater town in Oklahoma. Ordinarily they could have
just gone
back to their motel and changed clothes, but this trip had been doomed
from the
start. Their luggage, clearly marked for travel from Washington, D.C.
to Norman,
Oklahoma, had become an X File of its own and were, inexplicably, en
route to
Rio de Janeiro.
"Do we get their frequent flyer miles?" Scully had asked the toothy
blonde at
the customer service desk.
That was the last time that they had both laughed. After an hour-long
drive and
a grueling interview with an unusually uncooperative witness, they
found
themselves running through the alley in pursuit of a kid who claimed
to be able
to alter government websites using psychic powers. Twenty minutes after
that,
they were in the hospital. And now, a mere four hours since their arrival,
they
were sore, stitched up, and sitting in a laundromat wearing borrowed
scrubs. At
this point their objective seemed to be getting clean enough to head
back to the
FBI with nothing to show for their trip but another workers' comp claim.
The word "screwed" kept ricocheting around in Mulder's head.
Scully shifted around again and he took the liberty of putting one arm
around
her shoulders. Mulder had always enjoyed the warm, compact feel of
her body
against his on those rare occasions when she would allow such
contact. "How's
your head, Scully?" he asked.
"Exploding. And I'm sleepy, but you keep waking me up."
"You know what the doctor..."
She opened one blue eye. "I AM the doctor."
"The doctor who didn't look cute in maroon scrubs, then. HE said to
keep you
awake for twelve hours." He ran the back of his knuckles across Scully's
warm
temple. "Maybe I should tell you a story."
Scully snorted. "I'm supposed to be staying awake, Mulder."
She was alert, then. Good. Mulder stretched his legs as far out as he
could,
wincing at the sharp pull of sixteen stitches across each shin.
"You should keep them elevated," Scully commented with a languid hand gesture.
"I'd be happy to, but the fine furniture in this excellent establishment
seems
to be bolted to the floor."
"Adapt and improve, Mulder." Scully tugged at Mulder's legs. "Put 'em
up here,"
she said as she stood up to allow him access to all four of the connected
chairs.
Mulder twisted around and lay flat, groaning in pleasure as blood flowed
upward
from his legs and rejoined the rest of his circulatory system. Scully
surprised
him by sitting tailor-fashion on the floor and putting her head at
the curve of
his waist, her folded arms cushioning her cheek.
So near and yet so far.
"About that story, Mulder," Scully murmured drowsily.
"Story. Yeah." Pleased, he tightened his grip around her and found that
the ache
in his back was lessening. "When we first got the house on Quonochontaug
we
didn't have a washer or dryer, much less a housekeeper, so Mom made
us go with
her to the laundromat."
"How exciting."
"Nah, Scully, I've always liked laundromats."
"Great place to pick up women?"
He winced at the sarcasm in her tone. "No. I just like the warmth. The
clean
smell." His voice changed to a rough whisper. "Remembering my mom and
my sister,
warm and laughing."
Scully nestled against him, her lips grazing the his forearm. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." He let his nerve endings register the feel of her mouth
on his
flesh before continuing. "Anyway, when I was eight and Samantha was
four, I
taught her to read. She picked it up incredibly fast and started devoured
everything, Scully ? wasn't ever happy unless
she had a book in her hand and was
reading out loud to someone, usually me. One day we'd gotten filthy
playing on
the beach so Mom hauled us to the laundromat to show us how much trouble
we
were. Samantha was running around, reading the names and ingredients
of all the
detergents, and the other moms thought that was the cutest thing they'd
ever
seen. I was laughing my ass off because Sam had been reading things
like Grimm's
Fairy Tales for a year, but she always loved to work a crowd."
"I can see that happening," Scully said in a soft, soothing voice.
"The women thought it was a lot less cute when Samantha ran out of labels
and
started announcing the sizes of their clothes."
They both laughed.
"So Mom told me to keep my sister with me and out of trouble. I was
looking for
something else for her to read and I turned my back for a second, and
when I
looked again she was gone."
"Did she run out of the laundromat?"
"That's what I figured, so I went out the door and called her name.
No sign of
her. Mom was talking to one of our neighbors and didn't notice, so
I started
looking behind the washers, under the seats, everywhere, and I was
just starting
to panic when I heard someone calling my name from inside one of the
dryers.
"It was Samantha. She was just sitting there, waving at me and smiling.
I
checked to make sure Mom didn't see and then I hauled her out and asked
her what
she was doing."
"Trying to do somersaults?"
"Nothing that simple. Turns out she'd read the sign by the coin slot
and wanted
to check it out for herself." He pointed to the old dryer in front
of them and
waited for Scully to turn around and read the tattered sticker.
"Opening door does not alter time." She snorted. "Mulder, are you suggesting
that your sister actually thought…"
"…that dryers were cleverly disguised time machines? That's exactly
what she
thought. She was madder than hell when I pulled her out because she
was
convinced she could go back in time. She told me she wanted to visit
Snow White
and warn her about the apple."
"That's adorable," Scully murmured, pressing her lips against Mulder's
arm in
what he was fairly sure was an actual kiss. "And I bet you never let
her forget
it, either."
"Not for the next four years, anyway. After that…" He let the words
trail off,
feeling a heaviness in his chest and throat that told him to stop talking
before
he embarrassed himself.
"I'm sorry, Mulder."
"It's okay. I'm the one who brought it up, remember?"
"Mmm." She snuggled down beside him, her slow breaths warming his skin.
"Scully, you're not falling asleep, are you?"
"Just keep talking to me, Mulder. I'm fine."
"Yeah, that's what you said to the ER clerk when you signed yourself
out against
medical advice."
"It wasn't AMA. I'm a doctor."
"You're a doctor who signed the blank marked 'patient' as 'Dana K. Patient,
M.D.,'" Mulder reminded her, trying not to let himself sound smug.
"Ow!" he
added when Scully's knuckles rapped against his ribs.
"Okay, I wasn't fine then but I'm fine now." She turned her head to
smile at
him.
Of course, the washer chose that moment to finish its cycle. Mulder,
groaning in
disappointment and pain, got up and put their clothes in the dryer.
"Don't forget the Bounce," Scully slurred from her seat on the floor.
He put more coins in the vending machine and extracted a packet of fabric
softener. The single sheet went in with their clothes and Mulder
started the
dryer, then sat down, finding his reward in having Scully curl up beside
him and
put her head in his lap.
"Just don't take our stuff out, ever," she said, her voice muffled against
his
thigh.
"How come?"
"Because I don't want to alter time just now." With that, she yawned
and fell
asleep as he stroked her hair. He thought about waking her but decided
to let
her rest for a while as he watched the whirling of their clothes against
the
glass, blues and greens and blacks leaving their own silvery trails
against the
window.
Please, he half-prayed, if there's someone up there, could You just
let it go on
like this for a little while longer? I'll put up with aliens and conspiracies
and whatever else gets thrown at me, just for a few more moments like
this one.
Don't alter this time.
***
End
***
Author's note: JadedCat actually signed herself out of an ER as "Jaded
Patient."
She didn't believe it until I showed her the form. She gave me permission
to use
the incident in a story as long as I didn't mention her name…uh oh…
Feedback? You betcha! - [email protected].
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