Part 53
 
 

Classification: TRHA

Rating: PG

Summary: Things keep getting better and worse all the time, mostly worse.

Spoilers: None.

Disclaimer: Forget it, they're ours, but because we're nice, we'll agree they belong to 1013 Productions and Fox Television.
 
 

"The gods know who was the author of this sorrow."

Euripides, "The Medea," Line 1372. Translation by Rex Warner. Copyright 1955 and used without permission.
 
 

Non Nobis Solum Nati Sumus

January 10, 2000

"I guess it's a bit.obvious, isn't it?" He was blushing now. Poor guy blushed for everything. What a curse.

"Well, I mean.okay, I'm telling tales out of school now, and if you tell Julie I told you, John Byers, I will hunt you down and kill you slowly and painfully."

"Believe me, I'd be as embarrassed to admit I asked you as you would be for telling me."

"Hold that thought." I was beyond tired; I hoped my brain could keep everything in some sort of symmetry. "Okay. You know how on New Year's Eve day, Anne and Julie and I were hanging in the kitchen, getting rip-roaring wasted?"

"I did notice.there'd been some alcohol consumption." I had to laugh. That was phrasing it delicately.

"No, John, there was not some alcohol consumption. There was a LOT of alcohol consumption." This made him smile a bit, and he had a sweet one; he didn't grin a lot, and those smiles were a treat. "Anyway, we were having a bit of, you know, girl talk."

"All right."

"And after we pumped a few margaritas into Julie-which, by the way, did not take much arm-twisting on our part-she started talking about you."

"Go on." A look of dread passed over his face.

"The girl wants you big time, John."

"Oh." A wave of relief, and another small smile.

"Do you wanna know how big time?"

He looked uncertain. "No.and yes. I think the yeses have it."

"Okay, basically, I think if you proposed to her tomorrow, she'd say yes." He startled at that; I don't think that was quite what he expected.

"I see." He soaked this in, turning it over and over in his head.

"I think she's been lusting after you just the way you lusted after her." Now I got a blush. Score one for the sick kid. "You seem to be.quite taken with her."

"Guilty as charged," he confessed. "But.I'm uneasy about rushing things, Ally. I'm not an impulsive person, but with women, I seem to throw all common sense to the wind."

"You don't have to answer this, but I'm gonna ask it anyway: are you sorry you rushed into things with Susanne?"

"No," was the soft answer. "I don't regret a single moment of it."

"Okay, so what's the deal on this one?"

"I just.it was very bad, Ally.I don't know that I could go through that sort of experience again...""

"Different woman. Different circumstances. What makes you think the same thing would happen to Julie? I mean, Julie's not involved in any secret government research-"

"She is."

"Oh, fuck."

"It worries me, very much."

"Understandable. But still.it's not like any of us are getting any younger here, y'know."

"Hiya all," Langly burst into the room at that moment, carrying a white carryout container and a large paper bag. He leaned over to kiss me, and this time it was a real kiss, not a timid on-the-forehead kiss. "Hey, stranger. You're still warm. Aren't you supposed to be getting better?" He glanced at the monitor. "100.9. Okay, so maybe you're a little better. How you feeling?"

"Not as bad. Just really sleepy."

"How'd you get so lucky to get a PCA?" He glanced accusingly at my set up. "I noticed no one offered me one when I was in total agony!"

"You didn't have surgery," Byers offered up as a practical explanation.

"No, I just had somebody puncture my breastbone!" I breathed a sigh of relief; he had returned to his normal, complaining self. "Like that didn't hurt or something!"

"Oh, quitcherbitchin and come over here," I smiled at him. He sat down near my feet, which was about the only place for him on the bed. "Let's see the shoes."

"Yeah, present from Eleanor. Miranda complained about my shoes." This made me giggle in spite of my exhaustion. "Can't believe it. These retail around 150 bucks."

"Mother can afford it."

"Yeah, guess she can. So Byers? You gonna hang out here all night and act like some kind of sick voyeur or you gonna go home and get a life?"

Byers can take a hint, even one as unsubtle as Langly's. He rose, leaned over and kissed me softly on the cheek.

"Thanks, Ally."

"G'night, John. Thanks for hanging with me." I watched as he slipped his overcoat on and moved out the door.

"You mind if I eat something? I'm starved," Langly asked, picking up the take out container. "'Sides, I brought you something." He pulled a large styrofoam cup from the bag.

"A margarita?"

"It's a virgin, but at least it's cold and tangy. Here, I'll sit you up and you can join me."

The virgin rita was ambrosia. It was icy and sweet and sour and felt wonderful on my throat. He began to attack a Burrito Gigante.

"Did you see the kids?" I asked him.

"Uh-huh. For a few. Had to get some stuff typed up. Byers told me to get something to eat, so I figured, I'll get some work in and pick up some take out. El Torito screamed for me. I was powerless to resist."

"Normally, babe, I'd answer the siren song with you. Someday we got to hit LA, and I'll take you for some killer Mexican."

"No menudo."

"No, no menudo. And no birria. That's goat."

"I think I could skip that and still live a full and happy life."

"Did you get any sleep, babe?"

"Little bit while you were down for the count this afternoon. I could've slept a hell of a lot better if you weren't such a popular girl."

"You seem like you're feeling better."

"I'm okay. I'm dealing. You?"

"Like I'm stuck in middle earth, where all the hobbits live." I giggled for no reason whatsoever. "I feel fogged."

"You should. That's morphine in that there PCA."

"Byers. He's got it bad," I told him.

"Well, duh!" He polished off the remainder of the burrito.

"I think he needs to lose the wedding ring."

"Ally, he needed to lose the fucking ring ten years ago!"

"I think he's really nervous about this relationship with Julie."

"Ally," he said as he took a bite from a chile relleno he retrieved from the bag, "Byers is nervous about ALL his relationships." He licked some cheese from his fingers. "'Course, I shouldn't talk. I'm not exactly the most at-ease guy in the world."

"He's worried about Julie going the same way Susanne did."

"He's crazy. But we knew that." He polished off the chile relleno and reached for a taco.

"You weren't hungry or anything, were you, babe? He's concerned. Julie does government research."

"So? So do a lot of people. It's only when it's secret it gets to be a problem-well, okay, not really, but that's where it gets dangerous. Before that, it's just a nuisance and a drain on the taxpayers, a group that I now belong to, albeit unwillingly."

"He says she does secret stuff."

"Did he now? Did he say what?"

"To me? No way, Blonde Boy."

"Wonder what kind of stuff. She's in security. Maybe I can hack some of her files."

"Rude, Langly. Tres rude."

"Yeah.but what if she's using Byers for her own ends?"

"Babe, I think the only end she's interested in is the end of the aisle where the altar is located."

"Oh, fuck, here we go again," he groaned.

"Langly. That was then, this is now." I could feel my eyelids falling lower each second. "And now, I'd like to sleep. I'm so tired, babe."

"So go to sleep. I'm gonna watch MST3K."

"You should go home and get some real sleep. I don't need you getting sick again, babe."

"I'll sleep. But not if you're here and I'm there."
 
 

January 14, 2000

I managed more sleep once the weekend was over, mainly because people had to return to their lives. It seemed to be working its magic; I was now at 99.7 and holding for the most part. My only complaint was that someone arbitrarily determined that after two days, I didn't need my PCA anymore-hence, no more morphine, and thus no more blissful incoherence. I was actually somewhat cognizant of reality after a while, which was not necessarily something I was enjoying. Especially on this day.

Langly showed up early; normally he'd cruise by for a quickie at lunch (it's not what you're thinking) and then come by after leaving the Pent. I'd tried sending him home at night, but he balked, claiming insomnia, and my feeling was, if he could sleep better in a standard-issue hospital room chair than in our comfortable bed at home, who was I to stop him? And he was behaving well enough that he hadn't alienated the entire staff. One of the NA's actually brought him a blanket.

"You bored?" I yawned as he sat down by my feet, folding his endless legs underneath him. I am constantly amazed at how limber he is. If I was carrying that much real estate, I doubted I'd be able to get myself situated as quickly or gracefully as he manages.

"Nope." He looked really unhappy today. "I had to go home for a while, actually."

"Something happen to the kids?" The problem with monitors is that they show you in your face how badly you're doing, and I could see everything instantly beginning to elevate. "Are they okay?"

"'Randa's fine. Shelby-not so fine. Her dad was taken off life support today. He died this morning."

"Shit." I closed my eyes and tried not to envision how awful things were going to get for her, but the images wouldn't stay away. Where is morphine when you need it?

"Shelby's big sis finally made the call. Decided dad would be better off being an organ donor. Shelby's not taking this well."

"Where is she?"

"At home. Got called by her school to pick her up."

"Is Miranda still there?"

"Nope, took her, too. Figured Shelby needed her more than her algebra class did."

"Shit, Langly. Can you get me out of here? I really need to be with her."

"You're going nowhere, girl. Sit tight. She's with Frohike and Joanna right now, and even Michael's managing not to be an asshole for a change."

"Joanna's there?"

"Well, I told Frohike what's up, and he told Joanna." he shrugged. "They're doing what they can. Frohike'll do whatever she needs." This was said with the knowledge from someone who'd experienced being cared for by Frohike.

"Are you going to bring them by later?"

"Depends. Shelby might not wanna be anywhere near hospitals right now. Not that I blame her. We're spending way too much time around here. And I thought Mulder was bad."

"Did you call her therapist?"

"Joanna's got that covered." I relaxed a little.

"Funeral arrangements?"

"Mary's working on 'em. Byers found her a good price on a casket." This made me laugh for some sick reason unbeknownst to me, and probably to anyone else.

"Shit. Langly, babe." I burst into tears. "This whole thing.I thought this was gonna be a great year, and it's coming out so wrong!"

"Hey, it's not over yet."

"I know, that's the problem! Everything just.sucks!" A tsunami of self-pity was approaching now. "I don't know why. I feel so.guilty!"

"What?!" He shook his head. "C'mon, Ally. Get real here. Let's get off the Jewish thing for a moment."

"Excuse me! For your information, I just lost my last chance at having a child with you, and I'm a little upset about it! And yeah, maybe if I didn't smoke, or have so many dates with Jose, things might have been different-"

"Okay, okay. Cut it right there." He held up his hand. "I'm sorry, Ally, but right now we haven't got time to sit here feeling sorry for ourselves!"

"I can feel as sorry for myself as I want! It's not gonna happen for us, Langly! Don't you give a fuck?"

He looked down at his boots. Still wearing the Docs from my mother. "Yeah, Ally, I do. And maybe someday, I'll sit down and get all maudlin about it, and we'll get drunk and feel bad and then we'll deal with it. Unfortunately, at the moment, we've got two kids at home already who need all the help they can get, and I think right now that might be a little more important!" His speech had grown very pointed, but then he became gentle. "Look, Ally. You got to have a great kid, so get over it, okay? And besides, you said yourself that being a parent was not having the kid, but knowing the kid and growing up with the kid. And while I'm still flipping from all this, I've at least had a chance to get with Miranda and see her differently, and you know
what she calls me now?"

"This I have to hear."

"She calls me 'O Wicked Stepfather.'"

I began to laugh, hard enough that it was uncomfortable, but so what?

"Langly," I choked out between giggles, "you do realize that for Miranda, that's as close to a term of endearment as you'll ever get?"

"Well, I'll admit it beats 'c'mre, dickhead.'"

"You know, I told her she was supposed to treat you with respect!"

"Well, she probably gives me all the respect I deserve," he grinned. "Besides, I like that. Has a nice Shakespearean ring to it."

"Which part do you like, the wicked or the stepfather part?"

"Both." We both were laughing.
 
 

January 19, 2000

Ten days after I'd been admitted, I was finally free to go home. I was utterly exhausted and still rather depressed, but I was home, and that counted for a lot. Walking into our house, it seemed like a thousand years since I'd been there. And the place was actually clean. Either Langly had sprung for professionals or had somehow bribed Joanna, Frohike and Byers to do the honors.

I was asleep on the sofa when the girls came home, and Miranda gleefully came over and hugged me, harder than was comfortable, but I didn't care. She promptly launched into her tirade at that point.

"Mom, he's driving me insane!"

"He drives me insane, too, honey. What makes you think you're special?"

"No, you would not believe.he made us clean up our room!"

I hadn't been to the dungeon yet, so I couldn't verify the truth of this statement. I just smiled.

"Mom, like he has room to make us do that! That is just so bogus! I mean, he is like such a slob and he never picks up ANYTHING-"

"So who cleaned the house?"

"Everybody but him, I think! He said he was 'supervising'!"

"What other unholy things did he force you to do?" I asked, smiling.

"Okay, like, he doesn't do this to me, 'cause I get A's, but every night, he goes over Shelby's algebra homework and just takes it apart! I mean, he sits and explains every freakin' problem and makes her go through 'em till she understands it! I mean, don't you think she's got enough shit in her life right now without that?!"

"Shelby has done poorly in math. I think he'd like to see her do better."

"Okay, yeah, and then, I had this essay to do, it was on the Gulf War, and he goes into all this stuff, and he just about ripped my paper apart when he read it. I mean, he was the one who wanted to read it, I didn't ask him, and he's pretty nervy trying to tell me how I should write and all!"

"Honey, let's keep a couple things in mind. One, he's in a good position to be critical of Shelby's math work, and to correct it. He does have a PhD in math."

"Yeah, so it's his life, doesn't has to be hers!"

"Nobody says it has to be hers. She does, however, need to bring her grades up, and even you can't argue with that. Two, he does write for a living, and he probably gave you some good suggestions."

"He made me run spellcheck! I can spell, you know!"

"Did you find any mistakes?"

"Two! I mean, two mistakes! That was it! For that I had to go through the whole fucking thing again!"

"Miranda, it's not that big a deal with computers."

"Like I was gonna get marked down for a couple of lame spelling errors!"

"What did you misspell?"

"Saddam Hussein. And Hezbollah."

"That might have annoyed him, yes. Might have gotten you marked down, too."

"And then he kills me at Playstation, and he says he's not gonna give me any hints 'cause I'm a sore loser!"

I shouldn't have laughed. I did.

"He sounds pretty evil to me."

"You'd think he thinks he's like my stepfather or something!"

"I thought it was 'O Wicked Stepfather'."

"Emphasis on the wicked."
 
 

January 30, 2000

I'd recovered from the virus, at least symptomatically. The surgical discomfort was no longer an issue. And the cast was finally.GONE! I'd never considered myself accustomed to the cast, but when it was gone, the sensation was quite strange. For one thing, I'd lost several ugly pounds in one fell swoop, never a bad thing. The arm was coated with scales and rather
irritated, but nothing a few good scrubbings with some Almond & Cherry exfoliant wouldn't correct. The only thing that was disturbing was the lack of mobility that my fingers seemed to have; I was going back to work on Monday, come hell or high water, and I was going to have to spend the weekend working out the jams. I was probably going to be slow and awkward
for a few days. I hoped my students were feeling sympathetic.

To celebrate my losing the cast, Langly invited me to join him at lunchtime. Lunch together was a rare treat for us. Even more rare were cheesesteaks from the old neighborhood; Alexandria didn't have a cheesesteak place of comparable caliber, and Langly especially missed them.

"The things you gotta give up to move to the 'burbs," he'd complained when we'd tried a local place.

He designated me to meet him in one of the gardens at 12:30, and then we'd head off for lunch near the old offices. It was snowing lightly, but I'd still made decent time across town from GWU, and made it to the garden he'd specified 10 minutes early. I hoped he'd come out as soon as possible; I was not only anxious to show him I could now zip my jacket without assistance, but I was freezing as well. It was 21 degrees, not the sort of temperature a nice Jewish girl from the Bay Area is willing to put up with for very long.

I waited. 12:30. 12:40. 12:45. Finally, at 12:50, I went inside and went to one of the information desks. No, I could not use their phones to call an in-house employee. I pulled my cell out of my purse, but it wouldn't work inside the building, so I had to step outside again. I rechecked the garden, and the name matched the one he'd given me, so I was quite certain I wasn't
in the wrong place; furthermore, he'd drawn a diagram for me so that I'd find it without difficulty. I dialed his number, but of course I got the voice mail; he never picked up before he screened calls. Right now this particular habit was grating on my nerves. I cursed him silently, then a little more loudly, when I'd received no response on my cell.

By 5 past 1 I was less angry and more worried. He wouldn't have just bailed on me-at least he better not have, I hissed. I was still pissed off about being cold and having to wait, and I wasn't on any medications, so I felt quite confident about my having understood his instructions.

I would have called Sheridan had I known his last name or extension. The Pent is a monstrous place; a first name won't get you anywhere. And you can't just go wandering around; there are sections that are always accessible to the public, but cryptography isn't one of them. This was assuming I could even find the department, a mighty big if in a place that huge, but more importantly, that bureaucratic. The Pent may have some of the finest minds in the country working for them, but it was also overrun with civil servants who were illiterate and didn't give a fuck.

At 1:15, I decided to give him until 1:30 to show his sorry ass up, and if he didn't, he would have a lot of explaining to do that night.

By 1:25, I was utterly pissed, both at him and myself-him for not showing up and not notifying me, and at myself, for hanging out like a high school girl waiting for her crush to hit his locker. For his sake, I hoped he was aware that he'd better have some major damage control planned.

At 1:28, my redheaded instincts had totally taken hold, and I decided not to give him the benefit of the last two minutes. It took a tremendous amount of self-control on my part not to leave an absolutely vicious voice mail message for him. I began to make the trek towards my car.

"Hey! You!" Male voice, vaguely familiar. Heard it somewhere. Where?

I turned to see a mulatto-looking man in a green military parking coming towards me.

"Allison? That you?" He was trotting to catch up to me.

"Sheridan. Didn't recognize you."

"You're looking good. What're you doing here?"

"I was SUPPOSED to meet my lovely fiance for lunch, but he ditched me!" I was tempted to throw in a few other choice terms, but I refrained. He worked for this guy, at least nominally. No use having your boss think your wife-to-be is a major bitch, although right now, his thinking me a minor one didn't' bother me in the least.

"He didn't call you?"

"No, he did not!"

"Well, he had to leave real fast about two hours ago."

"Oh shit. What happened?" I felt cold, and not just from the weather.

"Friend of his. Byerle, Byers, something like that?"

"Byers. What happened?"

"Byers passed out, apparently he's real sick. Was being sent to GWU."

"Oh fuck." I felt slightly faint. "What else did he tell you?"

"Not much. Said he wouldn't be back the rest of the day."

"I guess he's been dipping a bit heavily into his personal time," I said ruefully. I was having a hard time not crying, but I told myself, wait till you're in the car. In your car, you can do anything you want-sing with the radio, pick your nose, and cry your eyes out.

"Hey, he gets the job done. Smart guy. Look, you need a ride over there? I'll take you."

"No, I'm finally going to get to drive with two hands. Thanks anyway, Sheridan."

"Good luck, honey. You can always use it."

We could sure as hell use some right now.

END OF PART 53