George Hale (5/17)
by invisiblefriends

Feedback: bettyteddyandray@gmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After IWTB, life goes on.


Chapter 5

From the couch, Mulder can see her bolt out of the car and fly up
the steps. Her feet only touch two of them. He wishes to God he
could be darting around on his own two feet instead of lying here.
He wants to make an effort to look as frantic as she does. In fact,
he has already skidded past *Frantic* and has landed at *Just
Sick.*

She plows through the doorway. "Did he come back?" She stops
mid panic when she sees him. "What the hell happened to you?"

Mulder's bare ankle is bruised blue from the toes to the ankle.

"Doesn't matter, just go look for him"

Scully turns and flies outside again. Mulder closes his eyes and
listens to her calling for George Hale out there, in the dark. The
further she strays from the house, the further away her voice
becomes. He won't think of how cold it is, or that George Hale
didn't have his collar on when he bolted. Or that another helpless
creature, this one with four legs, has slipped from his responsibility
into God knows what abyss.

Ten minutes later, the front door bursts open again. Scully returns
with George Hale following close behind.

Mulder won't react the way most of him wants to; he beg for
forgiveness, to apologize to Scully and George Hale for putting
them through this. Instead, he tries to sit up against the cushion and
sound fine. "Where was he?"

"In the shed."

Scully watches the dog dart out of the room and into his safe place
between the stove and the fridge.

"Move," she says gently and waits for Mulder to shift his good leg a
few inches over. She sits down and tries not to sound shaken. "He's
okay, Mulder. He didn't run far. Just to where it was safe. That
says a lot."

Mulder lies with one arm behind his head, the other is covering his
eyes. He doesn't want her pity right now; he should be offering his
solace.

"What happened?" she asks.

"I fell."

"No kidding." She leans over and carefully touches the swollen and
blue ankle. "Mulder, don't be a baby." Dr. Scully holds his leg
down at the knee and peers at the foot carefully. "It doesn't look
broken," she decides. "I don't suppose you'd let me take you into
town for an x-ray." She reads the look on his face correctly. "Fine.
Wiggle your toes."

He wiggles his toes.

"That's good. I'm going to get a tenser bandage and you need to
keep it on for at least a day. Are you getting that Mulder? If it gets
any worse, we're getting it x-rayed."

She doesn't like the idea of climbing back into that car and making
the long drive back to the hospital, so please ankle, please get
better. She goes into their bedroom to look for the first aid kit she
bought in a small town in some state. Names of places don't
register with her as much as they used to. Another casualty of being
on the run, on highways with the same names, none of which ever
seemed to end.

"How did you fall?" Scully asks, gently tying the bandage around his
foot.

"I tripped over him going down the front stairs. He got spooked
and ran - Ow!" He yanks his foot away in pain.

Scully pats his good leg sympathetically and goes in search of an ice
pack in the kitchen. She has found the one she wants when she
hears a strange noise from the living room.

It is a low, distinct growl and it isn't coming from Mulder.

"Scully," she hears him say in a steady, careful voice.

He is still on the couch. George Hale, a good ten feet away, has
just seen him and stopped in his tracks. His body is low and tense.

"What the hell's he doing?"

"He's fine, Mulder. Just ... stay where you are."

With absolute fear banging away inside, Scully keeps her calm and
slowly stands between Mulder and the dog. She moves her hand
towards the dog. "It's okay, Sweetie."

"Out of the way, Scully," Mulder orders sharply. The dog twitches
at the sound of his voice.

Scully glances quickly over her shoulder. "He's just scared." At the
same time, she maneuvers herself closer between the dog and
Mulder. She holds her hand out again.

George Hale makes the final decision between growling again and
giving in and he takes a step towards Scully and bangs the side of
his head against her knuckles.

"Good dog," she tells him.

Mulder breathes again.

The dog finds his eyes. There is not a great deal of trust in this room
right now.

"I don't want you alone with him," Mulder says.

"He's not dangerous," Scully quietly tells him. "He reacted out of
fear when he heard your voice. Besides, a growl isn't an attack, it's
a warning. The books says that growling is a dogs way of warning
you that they are not comfortable with something."

She hears Mulder grumble, *'Christ'* out of frustration.

"What?

"Nothing."

"That wasn't a *nothing* sigh."

"Fine, it was a..." He is about to do it. He almost asks the question.
*What Is the Real Reason* is all but bumbling out of his mouth but
he chickens out. "It was a *why the hell are we doing this* sigh.
What just happened here could have been a lot worse and I don't
want our safety compromised for a ..." He can barely spit the word
out. *"Dog."*

"You can speak for yourself. I'm perfectly safe with him, Mulder.
Statistically, as a woman, I'm safer with him than without him."

"You don't know that. These things are like time bombs."

"This *thing* is a living, breathing, feeling being, Mulder. I would
send you out the door a hell of a lot sooner than I would him."

With that, Scully pats her leg. "Let's go," she says to George Hale.
And to her amazement, the dog follows her. He does a complete
circle to avoid Mulder.

That was shitty thing she did, hissing at him like that and storming
out. She has always suspected he harbours abandonment issues
about her, but giving away this dog? No way. And maybe Mulder
*would* be the first one out the door but he would have to do a lot
worse than be the occasional asshole.

But it was an equally stupid thing *he* said. Stupid because - and
he will realize this to his horror one of these days - he suggested
that she give away another creature who was important to her.

When she returns with George Hale ten minutes later, Mulder is in
his office, leaning over trying to adjust the ice pack on his foot.

"Hi," she says quietly from the doorway. "We're back."

He wraps a sock around the ice pack and gently tugs. "Okay."

"Do you need some more ice?"

"I'm good."

One more try. "Mulder?"

He is turning back to the laptop he has been trying to work on.
"Yeah?"

She hasn't planned a reply to the reply. "Nothing. Sorry."

She can't tell if he is upset with her, with himself or life in general but
she doesn't have the heart to give him a *'Its Not Your Fault'*
speech. He would play proud and ask, *Fault for what?* and she
would be forced to rhyme off a list of things, starting with the fact
that the dog is so scared of him;

"How is your foot?"

"Fine. I'm fine. My foot is fine. I'm fine. You're fine. We're all fine."

She lets the sarcasm go. He is wrong. Neither of them are
particularly fine right now. In a frightened dog's mind, Mulder is a
threat to him and to the only human being either he or Mulder trust.

She wishes he would update the message his poster from *"Trust
No One"* to *"Trust, Scully, Skinner, Scully's Mother, and
maybe This Dog."* If he had to, she would let him add, *"and no
one else."*

Right now, preoccupied and restless and aching to be anywhere but
here, she can't focus on her dog book or the report she needs to
read. George Hale's bolt has taken her for a loop; he could have
been lost, hit by a car and a thousand other scenarios that keep
skittering through her head.

Scully spends the remainder of the evening in the living room,
suffering an unexpected pang of melancholy. She just wants things
to be the way they were; when she lived in DC and had her
apartment, her mother, her safe, cluttered world. Before William,
even. Or Mulder. She especially longs for her home, the nest, the
sanctuary. If she were there, she would be on her couch, reading -
maybe not a dog book, but something else she chose to spend her
free time with. There would only be a few lights on, the soft ones.
Would have showered and been in white bathroom, maybe listening
to something on the stereo. That longing has crept back now big
time.

Instead she sits in a drafty house she hates. There are no carpets;
the only couch is old and uncomfortable. The windows are covered
in curtains that should have been burned years ago. Except for the
fish tank there are no personal ties to this building, nothing to say
that this is their home. Mulder's office might as well be his home. It
has become his refuge from life - from her. He nests in here and
doesn't even know it.

There are no photographs of William, of themselves, of their
families. In Georgetown, Scully had a few of family sprinkled
around the apartment. Not many but enough to remind her that she
belong to other people. Scully had kept the FBI M&S photograph
in a desk drawer in her apartment. Occasionally, she would find it
and wonder who those two people were and how their lives ever
crossed and how they ever became so indispensable to the other.
She has never been one of those women who kept photographs of
their boyfriends, husbands, lovers in their purses, or on their desks
in sweet little frames. But when Mulder disappeared all those years
ago, she found this photograph of them - one of the few she had -
and gently slipped it into her purse, behind her driver's license.
When she found out she was pregnant, it was the first thing she
reached for.

Now the lack of photographs in this house is merely a suggestion
that maybe neither of them know anybody anymore, including each
other.

She had never thought of him as a collector of things until they
settled down here; his apartment was full (another word -
decorated) with mementos, things that told you who he was, what
was important to him. She realized this yesterday day when her
mind drifted away from a meeting and she tried to remember what
their apartments looked like. She can still remember every detail of
both their homes. She waits for the day when the details won't
come and she will no longer feel so homesick.

Desperate for a laugh, Mulder Googles, *'Writers Block'.* Amid
pages of links is a small one from a site named
*dumbeststudentever.* Mulder goes there and sees the first
suggestion in big, orange colours.

*Clear screen; type in a word; the first word that comes to
mind.* 

Mulder leans forward and pounds out four letters

*Fuck.*

"*And then,*" the site continues, "*type a second word.*"

*Fuck this.*

*Then expound on your words*

*Fuck this shit.* 

Mulder shrugs and begins stabbing at more letters which begin to
turn into sentences.

*Fuck trying to recreate case files from a memory that is
selective at best. Trying to keep up my front. Trying not to be
bothered by a frightened dog who still considers me the enemy.
Blurting out things I've wanted to say only to wish dearly that I
hadn't. She doesn't want to talk about William or the past to
me. I don't want to talk to Scully about what happened with
the dog or why I've taken on the responsibility of being The
Asshole lately; I don't want to ask if she is all right because if
she is not, I truly doubt I would be able to help. I can barely
help myself these days, let alone my partner in life, let alone
her damn dog. I don't know who or what I am about anymore,
what I believe in. She believes in me, in this dog, in us moving
forward, in the present and the future. I can't seem to get
beyond the safe, terrifying confines of the past, which I can
neither put into words, nor escape from entirely.
Draft_1fm_v.12

By the time he hobbles into bed, he thinks he can get away with his
plan of silence. Scully is already in bed, reading a medical journal.
Mulder leans forward to kiss her but she blocks the move with her
hand. "You haven't said a word all night."

"Neither have you."

Scully picks up the alarm clock. "I'm going to work from home
tomorrow."

"I can manage," he promises as he stretches to the left and turns out
his light. He knows damn well why she wants to stay home - to
make sure George Hale suffers no further trauma at the hands of
her intimidating partner; she is just too polite to say so.

She ignores his sigh because she isn't up to making her point that
yes, he does need someone.

Scully turns out her light but she remains sitting against the pillows.
These pillows were the first things she bought when they moved
into this strange house. Linen; it was all she wanted. Linen was
home and she missed home like she never thought was possible.
She gave Mulder free reign over the rest of the house but the
bedroom and bathroom were hers.

Scully can see George Hale's collar reflecting off the bedroom
mirror from where he is hunched in the living room corner. His tail is
curled under his body.

"Mulder..."

"mmmmm what."

"What happened with George Hale ... it was an accident. You
didn't mean to fall over him or to have him run off. It's just bad
timing."

He rolls onto his back. "Bet you've have been keeping that in all
night. Pity Patrol on duty?"

"I'm not wrong, pity patrol or not."

"Damnit"

"What?"

There is a heavy sigh. "I have to go to the bathroom." He loads
himself out of bed and hops clumsily into the bathroom. He hates
this, being barely able to make it from one room to another and
knowing Scully is watching his every move.

After a moment of listening to nothing, she hears a quieter
admission in shammed defeat. "I can't do this."

"Can't do what?"

She is interrupted by the sound of pee attacking the toilet bowl.
Then there is the flush. And then more silence.

"Just think about it," his doubting voice continues. "Maybe he would
be better off somewhere else."

"Where, Mulder? Another shelter where he can be scheduled for
*another* euthanization? Would *that* be better off?"

"Scully - "

"Do you honestly think he wouldn't want to feel as safe as we do?"

"And how is living here going to change that, Scully?"

"Living here or living with *you?*"

Nailed it.

"I don't know what to do for this dog - He's - he's too much for
me." Mulder finally says with more defeat that he thought was
possible. "I don't know what I'm doing except that I'm scaring the
hell out of him."

"It was only this one time."

"There have been other times, too. You saw him tonight, Scully. He
was afraid of me and he was afraid for you. He deserves better
than to be hiding for the rest of his life in a place that is supposed to
be his home, his safe haven. I just don't think this is a good idea.
I'm not saying take him back-"

"Good because that is not going to happen."

"I know, I just said that."

Silence.

"You need to give it more time," Scully continues, plugging away at
this brick wall because she is the only one who will ever succeed.
"He has only been here a little over a month. Let him learn to trust
you. You know how. You're already doing it."

"And if I'm not? You think I want to be the one who loses him
when he runs away again or maybe just disappears out a window
one night?"

Silence drops on the house with a thud.

He can't believe this gem *didn't* come soaring out of his mouth
when William was born. The fear was there in full force, both of its
probability and that he could let this secret fear out. Losing another
one on his watch. Now this four legged one who, despite the fact
he was not previously on Mulder's emotional radar, is turning into
something more precious than he knew.

In the mirror, Mulder can see her heading towards him. He
shouldn't have said what he just said. It gave away too much.

Scully slips up to him from behind and wraps her arms around his
waist. His skin is cold. In the mirror, she can see his face and the
disappointment in himself. It is a look she has seen too many times.
"You haven't done anything wrong, Mulder. And you won't let
anything happen to him. You just need to trust yourself more, then
he will."

He could argue her conviction, but he knows better.

"You know what's funny?" she asks him with a lift in her voice.

"No," he says in a voice that suggests he needs to hear *anything*
funny.

"Two humans with chronic trust issues trying to push blind faith onto
a fearful dog."

This gets a nod and half a smile from him. For a second, he thinks
this could be a good title for his book: *"Two Humans with
Chronic Trust Issues Trying to Push Blink Faith onto a Fearful
Dog"* by Spooky Fox Mulder. The jacket could be a sketch of a
broken X left on the side of a road. Inside, on the first page, only
one sentence: *"What the fuck were we thinking."* The rest of
the book would be filled with little thought bubbles like the comic
books do - his thoughts, her thoughts which she thinks he doesn't
know;

*I don't know what to do - What the do I tell my mother about
her grandson? If he were here, would we be whole? I wonder
what my father say if he had lived to see me arrive at this point
in time. Do we take our lead from a frightened dog with no
past? Food. Now.*

Her quiet voice interrupts the many floating bubbles. "You okay
these days?"

"I'm good."

"Yeah?"

"No," he slowly admits. "But I'm trying."

Scully just smiles at him because she loves him. She tugs his elbow.
"Come on."

They both stop at the doorway.

George Hale is sitting in the hallway. He is watching them watching
him.

"Maybe he's never seen a naked man with a slightly fractured foot
before," is all Scully can think as she helps Mulder back into bed.

"Tell him the bad, naked man is too tired to fall over him again,"
Mulder says, dragging the blankets back over his shoulder. He
bangs his foot against the footboard and it hurts like hell but he
keeps it to himself.

She walks towards the doorway and, crouching, holds her hand
out. "Come here, George Hale."

The dog stays where he is. His ears are forward, a good sign Scully
has read. But he isn't going to come any nearer than he has to.

"I'm going to take him out for a quick pee," Scully says, and heads
out into the dark living room

*"Now?"* she hears Mulder whine from their bed.

"Go to sleep," she calls back from the front door. "I won't be long."

Mulder lies in the dark, listening to the sound of her placid,
straightforward voice talking to George Hale, telling him he is a
good dog as she works the leash onto his collar. He will wait until
she is safely beside him in bed before he'll go to sleep; but he is out
cold by the time George Hale even lifts a leg.