Rating: PG, but barely, not much there to offend

Classification: TRHA

Spoilers: all over the place! All the way up to and including the flick

Summary: Scully's gone deaf, and her interpreter tells all. This is turning out to be a big Lone Gunmen story, so for all you fans of our favorite paranoiacs, you'll like it.    Don't know how long it's going to get, but it seems to be taking on a life of its own, so there'll be more!

Disclaimer: Not mine. Never were. Don't want the responsibility. Property of 1013 Productions and Fox. No money was exchanged on this. No toxic chemicals were inhaled. No animals were harmed.
 

Rerum Primordia

"Won't you answer me
Said the exile
Is there a message for me?
Now I feel so far away

Will you walk through the midnight shadows
Sing to a god of love
Fight someone else's battles
Lie in a shady grove?"

"Answer Me" by Jimmie O'Neill   Copyright 1988/Used without permission

November 22, 1998

Quantico is not a small place. I was grateful to have allowed plenty of time to get to my meeting with Dr. Scully, because I was going to need it. Not only that, it had begun to snow, and I was totally freaked out. Driving Miranda to school had been a nightmare made flesh; I was going to be happy to be in our new place if for no other reason than she could take the school bus and I wasn't going to be making two extra treks each day.

Once again, my hosts had provided me with detailed instructions for getting to where I needed to be, and it occurred to me that Eric's GPS unit was packed with our things. Maybe I would take it out. It would be a way of having a small sliver of him around, and it would be as if he were guiding me through my travels. I liked that thought. I had not gotten rid of any of his things, and in fact, they were all coming to Virginia. I slept with one of his shirts; it still smelled like him, and like a small kid with a blanket, I found it comforting.

And last night, I really had slept. I had gone downstairs after Miranda was in bed to help with magazine production, but after about 20 minutes, I had fallen asleep on the sofa. It was close to 3 a.m. when Langly shook me awake. Then I crawled in with Miranda, with Eric's shirt, and slept until  6.

Eric, forgive me...but I may not be dead after all.

***

I signed "hi" to Dr. Scully upon entering her office, and she signed back as well as offering a verbal greeting. I wondered how long she was going to be able to hold her consonants intact. It is a very difficult thing to maintain articulated speech when you have no auditory feedback. She thanked me for coming, and we got down to business.

She was in charge of teaching physical and forensic pathology classes to new recruits, and she explained that my presence would be expected at autopsies. I assured her that dead bodies normally did not make me nervous unless I had to identify one. I choked on that.

I showed her my setup for realtime captioning, and we did a mock autopsy so that she could see how the system worked. While she seemed mildly impressed, my most overwhelming impression was that of palpable discomfort on her part.

I knew that she had been only recently deafened. This was going to be a very different experience from working with kids who had been deaf for the better part of their lives. I needed her to feel some comfort level with having another human basically following her around all the time.

"Dr. Scully," I typed in, "I know you have only been deaf for a few months. I hope you are not uncomfortable with the word 'deaf.' To me, it just says what it is. I will do all I can not to invade your privacy, and I will do what I can to make certain you have the very best service."

She was silent for several minutes. Shit. I offended her. Great, Allison.

So I was very surprised when she asked me to join her for lunch.

"And you can call me Dana," she added.

***

Talia's Restaurant

She spoke slowly, carefully. "I want to thank you for not skirting the issue of my deafness. Everyone else acts as if they don't say anything about it, it will somehow be miraculously cured."

I signed something to the effect that in my line of work, it was hard to avoid it. She understood enough to smile ever so slightly.

"And I'm getting really tired of everyone's pity."

"I suspect they have no idea how to deal with it. I've been around deaf people all of my working life, and I've felt many different things for them, but pity wasn't one of those things."

"Probably. Everyone acts as if there is going to be another miracle cure-you are aware that I had cancer not that long ago?"

"I read that. And yeah, I learned to say cancer, too. My best friend Robyn had breast cancer two years ago." I never did learn to say it without flinching some, but say it I did.

"Is she well now?"

"She is."

"Well, in that regard, I have been fortunate as well." She was really trying at speech. I could hear hints of her consonants slipping into the pudding-like mixture that happens when auditory feedback disappears.

"But this...I have almost no functioning cochlear hair cells. I have read about experimentation taking place, but so far, the only research that's been done has been with chickens, and even there, success has been very limited. We're talking light years from clinical trials in humans." She took a sip of her tea. "I am considering a cochlear implant. I do understand that it will not restore normal hearing."

"Would give you some environmental noise, and you could probably orient yourself better. But if your speech discrimination is affected, then you're probably going to have to rely on modes of communication other than oral."

"I've pretty much lost that. I have considerable damage to the eighth cranial nerve." The nerve that controls hearing and balance.

"You don't seem to have balance problems," I commented. "That's because I take 50 milligrams of Antivert twice a day. Otherwise, I'm dizzy much of the time."

"How about tinnitus?" Tinnitus is a common problem among those with hearing problems.

"I have some, but it's intermittent. I've heard of people voluntarily having their eighth nerve severed because their tinnitus was so persistent." And I'd heard of people committing suicide because of the intractibility and irritation of the condition; it can truly destroy the quality of life in a hurry, but this didn't seem like the time to mention it. Besides, if she had been surveying the literature to the degree I believed she had, she was aware of this.

Our Caesar salads, which looked delicious, were served to us. We spent the next few moments just noshing and relaxing. She was a reserved, precise woman to be sure. I got the sense that she was also feeling very isolated, and the chance to talk to someone openly about her deafness had thus far eluded her. While I certainly did not possess her medical expertise, I did
have some practical experience with deafness.

"I do think sign language is the most practical way to go," I threw my opinion out.

"I would have to agree, but as you can see, I'm not well versed." More salad. "I've been told that you would be willing to work with us privately.

"You and Mulder, you mean."

"Yes. Mulder and me." She grew pensive and silent again.

"Dana, you know I'm staying with Langly, Frohike and Byers..."

"Mulder's idea."

"Whatever. They have alluded that you and he are...well, partners beyond the law enforcement definition of the word."

"Allison, if the Gunmen told you that, I doubt that they phrased it so delicately."

I had to laugh. "No, I have to say, they were considerably cruder. But they care about both of you a lot, that much is obvious. They certainly go to great lengths to insult Mulder."

Now she smiled. "They're such guys." Serious again. "Allison, I know you just lost your husband recently, and I am deeply sorry for your loss. How are you doing?"

How was I going to answer that one? "I'm not sure I can even start on that one. Let's just say that most of the time, I feel like I died myself." I sipped my iced tea.

She sat in silence, waiting for me to go on.

"The day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I can't say I'm much in the mood to celebrate."

She nodded. "Me neither."

"So Dana? How did you lose your hearing?" I had read a brief synopsis, but I wanted to hear it from her.

She set her utensils down and blotted her lips. "It's complicated."

"Okay, complicate my life." Shit, it was already.

"To make a long story short, I was stung by a bee."

New etiology to me. "Stung by a bee."

"Well, Mulder and I were investigating...we were working in antiterrorism last year, after the X-files had been closed down. A building was destroyed in Dallas, and the Bureau was looking to pin it on us. I told you, it was a long story. The Cliffs Notes version is this: we started to look into the incident, and we discovered that a lot of things that...weren't what the  seemed to be. During the investigation, I had gotten stung by a genetically altered bee, which was carrying a synthesized virus. I nearly died in the process. Mulder managed to get the antidote-to this day, I don't know what happened, and he's not saying-and I did recover.

"After I had been stung, I had been kidnapped and taken to Antarctica, which is where Mulder found me and injected me with the antidote. After finally making it back to the States, which took approximately four weeks, I noticed a ringing in my ears. I began to notice that I couldn't hear things on the telephone. Then I couldn't tell what people were saying unless they were directly in front of me. And then, I could hear virtually nothing. This took place over about a two-month period."

By now her speech was thickening and softening, and forming sounds was getting to be a real effort.

"Do you think it was the virus or the antidote?"

"That's a good question. And I do intend to answer it. However, in view of my present condition, I am no longer able to function as a field agent..." She turned her coppery head away. I sensed tears forming, but she turned back, and she had shaken them away. "I feel like something died. The work I love-I love teaching, Allison, but it's not the same. And not working with Mulder...this is killing me."

"Isn't he still working the X-files?"

"Right now, the X-files are temporarily shut down, and he's working at BSU. He was-is-perhaps the most stellar profiler the Bureau has ever had. He's hating every moment of it, too." She lifted her head, her cheeks blazing, her freckles standing out, her blue eyes bright. "And my being deaf...he was always overprotective, but now, it's getting ridiculous. Let's just say that things are strained right now. I mean, you're the first person I could sit and talk openly about being deaf with. And I HATE it. I HATE what it's done to my life. To my work. To my relationship with the person I love." Her eyes clouded up.

"Hey, Dana, nobody said you had to like being deaf. It's not a lifestyle choice I've known anyone to voluntarily make." I sipped more tea.

"And I don't do advice, Dana, but here's one for you, anyway. I loved Eric-that's my husband-with all of my being. And I am glad for that. As much pain as it causes me right now, not to have him here, I'm glad I loved him and I was loved by him. It's a cliché, but life is too fucking short for the stupid stuff. So he's overprotective! He'll get past that. I'd just love him like mad and fuck everything else."

"Sometimes it's just...why can't anything ever be easy for us?"

"Because it's never easy for any of us. Eric and I had tough times. We had the usual money and in-laws stuff that every married couple has. We had disagreements on raising Miranda sometimes. And I will assure you that as much as I loved him and I want him back, he was not an easy man to live with.   Eric was very moody and he'd get into his dark periods, and sometimes he'd just whine for no apparent reason. He could be calm and content and then start sulking in a matter of a moment." I couldn't believe I was saying this, but I was. "But I'd do anything to have him come back and sulk in front of me. Because at least then I'd have the chance to try and make him laugh." I choked. Focus, Allison, focus. No tears right now.
Save it.

A tiny hint of a smile crept over her lips. "You weren't married to Mulder's twin, were you?"

"Doubt it."

"Your husband was Jewish, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, we both are. Not Orthodox, though."

"Mulder was raised in the religion, but doesn't believe or practice."

"You're not, though, right?"

"With these looks? I'm Irish Catholic. Does it bother me that he does not practice Judaism? No. Does it bother me that he doesn't find solace in spirituality? Yes, somewhat."

"For Eric and me, it's not much of a matter of spirituality, but a way of honoring tradition, of knowing where we came from, and having some sort of identity in that realm for Miranda." I finished my tea. "I think my spiritual life was in Eric, and Miranda. They're love and truth and goodness to me. I find the tangible evidence of their lives to have a deeper meaning for me than love in the abstract." I swallowed. "And right now, I'm having a bit of a hard time with a God that takes beloved spouses and needed senses away from people who are certainly frail and flawed, but at least want to do the right thing. That's all I ever wanted to do, Dana. I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to help. I wanted to do my part to set the world right. If that's corny, sue me."

"Not to me," she said softly. "It's what I wanted, too."
 

After a brief argument over the check, I let her pay, and we left Talia's.

"Allison, don't take this the wrong way," she said softly before we parted.

"Sure."

"Allison, I really don't want to have to work having technical support for the rest of my life. This is not what I had planned for myself. But you have a unique...attitude, and I think I will be more comfortable now."

"Can't ask for better than that."

"You don't pity me for being deaf. That's important to me. And you could be wallowing in self-pity over your situation right now, but you're not."

"Actually, Dana, the first thing I do when I wake up is feel sorry for myself that Eric is not there."

"And then you seem to move on from it. You just say how horrible you feel, and then you move on."

"Still have to take care of Miranda, still have to work."

She thought for a moment as she opened her car door. "Yes, I suppose I have things to take care of as well."
 

Back at the Lone Gunmen's Lair

"So you met the lovely Dana Scully," Frohike gushed.

"I met her the other night, Frohike."

"She didn't say anything about me, did she?"

I smiled just a little. "No, she didn't. Sorry." He actually looked disappointed.

"Ah, well, there is no accounting for taste," he lamented as he dissected a small electronic device.

"Hey, Allison, you're not getting your stuff until Friday." Langly looked up.

"What do you mean?"

"Snowstorms in the Midwest. Your moving van won't be here until Friday."

Shit. I figured being able to keep busy moving in would keep my mind off Thanksgiving, and any celebrations would be induced by Miranda-I figured we would go out if she felt like it.

"You're more than welcome to stay," Byers offered gently.

"Thank you. It looks like we're going to have to."
 

After informing Miranda of our circumstances, I crept into Langly's room and threw myself on the bed. Miranda and I were strangers in a strange land, to be sure, and I wept soundly.

What do you mean, I don't feel sorry for myself?

END OF PART 4