Classification: TRHA

Rating: PG. Actually rated A for Angst.

Summary: More Byers torture...it's just too much fun.

Spoilers: Don't have any here.

Disclaimer: Not ours, but getting closer. Property of 1013 Productions and Fox Television.
 

"When you can't give no more
They want it all but you gotta say no
I'm turning off that noise that makes me crazy
Lookin' back with no regrets
To forgive is to forget
I want a little peace of mind to turn to..."

"Be Good to Yourself" by S. Perry, J. Cain and N. Schon. Copyright 1986 Street Talk Tunes/Rock Dog/Frisco Kid Music. Used without permission.
 

Euperistatos
 

January 31, 2000

I never thought I'd be happy to be inside a hospital again. I was this time.

"Whoa. Cheesesteaks." Langly grabbed at the bag. "Make Frohike here a happy man."

"Where is Frohike?" I scanned around; Frohike and Kat were not in sight.

"Went to get some drinks. They'll be back. Have a seat. NC State's about to go head to head with Florida State."

"I hate basketball."

"Don't let Mulder hear you say that."

"He's not here."

"Nope, he's pulling the papa thing today. Scully came by. She's got some lab results."

"Where'd she go?"

"I guess she's privileged company here. She went through the tube."

"I thought Dr. Ying told her no way."

"You ever known that to stop Scully? Some ways she's worse than that husband of hers." He grabbed a cheesesteak from the bag. "Sorry. I'm not waiting for Frohike."

"Must be the red hair."

"Must be." He winked at me. "Not bad." He licked some cheese off his fingers in a gesture I found strangely seductive. "What? What are you staring at?"

I blushed slightly. "You. I was watching you lick your fingers and...never mind." I giggled.

"Hmm. Maybe I can lick your fingers and then we'll see what crosses your mind," he leered.

"So any word from the other side?" I asked him.

"Uh-uh," he muttered through a full mouth. "Haven't seem 'em in a while. Usually they come out sooner."

"How's Kat maintaining?"

"Kat? Hey, she's Byers's sister. She's cool. I think she's pretty scared, though."

"Well, duh!"

"Yeah. Like the rest of us aren't." He finished swallowing his sandwich. "You gonna finish that?" He pointed to mine.

"Let me see how far I get before you move in for the kill." At least nowadays he asked first, instead of just grabbing whatever I hadn't eaten away from me, assuming I was done.

Frohike and Kat walked back in, bearing beverages. "Here, plain iced tea for you, my dear, Classic Coke for you, Blonde Boy, and you have yours and mine, right, Katherine?"

"Here's your 7-up." Kat passed him a container. "This one says diet Coke, I think it's mine." She took a sip, then made a face. "This would go down a lot smoother if it had some rum in it."

"Too sweet. Give me tequila," I offered up.

"The queen of Margaritaville," Langly explained.

"Have they been out?" Frohike asked. "Oh, my. Cheesesteaks. I'm not supposed to be having these, but..." he smiled broadly. "That's just too bad today, isn't it? Thank you, my dear."

"I got one for you, Kat. Just in case you got hungry."

"Thank you, I might as well." She obtained the last one. "They smell pretty good, actually."

"They're not the old neighborhood, but they were decent," Langly decided. "Ally? You done yet?"

"Here." I had a few bites left, but I was stuffed, and he was probably going to hassle me until I handed it over. Although just on principle alone, the temptation to torture him was overwhelming.

"Where did the lovely Dana Scully leave to?" Frohike inquired.

"Went through the portal," Langly explained. "I guess whatever Dr. Ying told her yesterday didn't register."

"Mulder's going to have a fit." Frohike assessed, probably correctly.

"Never stopped her before," Langly pointed out.

"And won't." Frohike confirmed. "Hey, what's going on? There's a bunch of people coming down here-"

"And they're going in! Shit! What the fuck is going on here!" Langly looked upset. Really upset.

"Let me see if I can catch one of them," Kat got up from her seat and ran over to where they were about to enter the restricted area. "Excuse me? Sir? What's going on? Can you tell me-"

"Lady, we got a cardiac arrest in quarantine, I don't have time to waste." The man vanished through the locked door.

"What?! No!" Kat almost screamed.

"Oh, shit." Frohike closed his eyes, then opened them and got up to go over to Kat. "Katherine, please, come sit down." He was trying to gently guide the young woman back to the sofa, but the look of sheer terror in his face was unmistakeable.

Langly's face froze in terror. He moved his mouth, but no sound escaped. I wrapped my arm around his waist to steady him.

"They gotta be wrong," he finally whispered.

"I hope so," I whispered back.
 

"Christ, when are they gonna come out?!" Langly's voice reached a near shriek. He was jumping up and down constantly. I'd try rubbing his shoulders, and he'd relax a bit, then knot up again with a manic burst of energy. I felt myself nearing sensory overload; I could tell because everything in the room was taking on an unreal quality, almost like watching a movie.

Kat was on the sofa, curled up in the corner, trying hard not to break down. Every now and then a silent Frohike would place his hand on her knee, not in the tradition of the dirty old man he could be, but like a friend, trying hopelessly to comfort one who probably couldn't be.

We wanted Dr. Ying to come out, and we didn't. We all feared what she'd tell us.
 

Langly had gotten nearly unmanageable. Frohike finally led him outside, taking my cigarettes with him. Apparently Frohike knew his stress responses, and heart attack or no, he would not deny his younger friend the opportunity for some release.

"He's looking like he's ready to snap," Kat commented.

"He's had a lot of this lately." I briefly recounted the tale of him becoming severely ill, then Frohike having a heart attack, then my auto accident, then Shelby's sad saga, then my becoming ill, and now this. "And he's been carrying most of it." I'd left out the part about my failed pregnancy and subsequent sterilization. I had no idea how he was doing with it. We didn't talk about it. Mourning over a loss that was not meant to be seemed rather useless right now.

"Maybe you should take him home," Kat suggested.

"I don't think that's going to do much for his stress levels right now." Or mine, for that matter.

"He needs to step away from this for a while."

"I know, but he won't."

"Make him."

"Easier said than done, Kat. When he enters the stubborn zone, it's pretty hard to get him to move out."

"Make him anyway." Kat spoke with the knowledge of one who'd had practice in this area. "Is there anyplace you two go just to get your heads together and relax?"

"Yeah. But it's gonna be pretty damn cold there today."
 

Langly was quiet when when he and Frohike returned. "What's the word?" Frohike asked us as they walked in.

"Nothing." The word hung heavy in my throat.

"What's the score?" Referring to the basketball game on TV. I hadn't even been aware of it.

"No idea. Sorry. I wasn't paying attention," Kat apologized, and for no good reason. It wasn't her job to keep the sports statistics up to the minute right now, I thought sourly.

Langly parked himself next to me. He said nothing, but leaned his blonde head on my shoulder. His eyes were red and his cheeks were flushed. He sniffed a little. I wondered what had gone on with Frohike. I silently drew a tissue out of my purse and handed it to him without looking at him. He blew his nose into it and stuffed it into his pocket.

Shit, he'd been crying.

And that wasn't him. Langly was not a sensitive type 90's guy. He was afraid of showing emotions nakedly.

Proof positive that this was pushing him over the edge.

"We need to talk." The soft, high pitched voice of Dr. Ying startled us all to attention.

"How is he?" Frohike demanded.

"He's alive. He suffered a cardiac arrest. We've been able to resuscitate him successfully."

Kat closed her eyes and gave a look of, thank God.

"We're still having problems controlling the fever, and we think the high doses of steroids we gave him for the CNS swelling may have triggered the cardiac arrest. So I'll have to reduce the dosage on those. It's risky, but I've got to get the CNS swelling under control. I've got a neurologist coming in." She smiled shyly. "He's the most capable neurologist I know. And he's my husband."

"Where's Dr. Scully?" Frohike asked her. He seemed to be taking the lead in this.

"She'll be out momentarily, and then we're going to go over the lab work." At that moment, the redheaded figure of Dana Scully-Mulder, clad in scrubs and a ponytail, entered the room. "Here she is now. Allison, would you interpret?"

"Okay. Hope I do better than yesterday."

"Dana, the bloodwork on the children." Dr. Ying had her start there.

"The children's bloodwork shows no abnormalities. Shelby has a slight elevation in white count, but she also has a cold, and that's a finding perfectly consistent in that. None of them are showing any abnormal quantities of any material, including viral material. In fact, they give no evidence of exposure to this virus whatsoever.

"I did a comparison with the results that Dr. Ying obtained from Allison and Langly when they first became ill, and I'm satisfied that the children are safe."

I let out a hard sigh. "Then I compared the results obtained from you two with the results from Byers's testing. There are similarities there. But it looks as though Byers's has either mutated, or he was exposed to a more virulent strain.

"I did a test sample of my daughter's blood, and I'm happy to report that she is healthy and probably being spoiled rotten by her father as we speak. I will have to get a sample from Mulder." She rolled her eyes, and we actually chuckled a bit. The idea of little Dana chasing the much-larger Mulder around, syringe in hand, and scoring a winning tackle was an amusing
image.

"What I need now is a sample again from Allison, Langly, and Frohike. I'm sorry, Frohike. I have to make sure that you aren't carrying this. I'll also need a listing of Byers's students, and at least have a sample population of them tested. Can you get me a class roster?"

"Yeah, no problem," Frohike informed her.

"I don't know what kind of public health problem this is. Or even if it is one. I need more data." She rose again and turned to Dr. Ying. "I'll be right back. I need to get some materials." Meaning she was getting ready to stab all of us.

"Does this mean we can see him?" demanded Langly.

"No, it doesn't. I'm not ready to pull him from quarantine until I have more data, which Dana will be in charge of coordinating. This will take several days, and until that time, he'll remain," explained Dr. Ying. "He's in very critical condition, and I want to minimize his exposure as well. We'll evaluate our findings both on people he's been in contact with, and his progress.

"Now, why don't you people find something to do? We know how to reach you," Dr. Ying said as she excused herself from the room.

"I'm not leaving," Kat said stubbornly. "They can throw me out of here when they can pry my cold, dead body off this sofa."

"Me neither," Langly pushed his heels into the ground.

"Yes, we are," I told him sharply.

"Forget it." His tone was neither friendly nor gentle.

"Langly, you need to get out of here for a while," Frohike said softly.

"Don't everybody jump up and say hi all at once." The voice of Michael Frohike poured loudly into the room. He was carrying several cases of gear. "Here's what you wanted, Dad. I had a bitch of a time getting through security with it. You'd think we were gonna blow the place up or something with these." He began to unpack the laptops, network cards, token rings,
and cabling.

"Thank you, Michael. This should do fine." Frohike began to help his son sort everything.

"How'd you get here?" Langly demanded.

"Took your car."

"Hey, you could ask, you know!"

"I did, last night, and you said yes!"

"That was last night."

"Well, I never did use it last night. And anyway, my dad needed this stuff. How the fuck was I gonna get it here?" Michael had turned surly.

"What'd you do, hotwire it? You better fucking not have!"

"I used Al'son's keys."

"That was a miracle, that you even found them," I quipped.

"Langly, he needed them to get in and out of the office," I explained.

"So get him his own fucking set!"

"Right now, I haven't exactly had the time!" I felt my own volume elevating.

"Kids, please. Whoa." Frohike held up his hand in 'stop there' gesture. "Allison. Get him out of here. Now."

"'Scuse me, Frohike, but I'm getting a little tired of you telling me what I'm supposed to and not supposed to do!" Langly was on his feet, and he was actually screaming. "I mean, who the fuck do you think you are?"

"Allison. Langly. Now. Out." Frohike's voice was hard.

"I'm not going!"

"You're going." Frohike walked over to where he was; he looked angry enough to deck him. But instead he wrapped his arms around my guy, who didn't return the gesture, but didn't push him off.

"And what're you gonna do down here?" Langly whined loudly.

"If you don't mind, I have a wedding to plan. Kat, would you be willing to help me?"

"Sure. Whose wedding are we planning?" This seemed to snap her back to life; something, anything, to get her mind off her near-dead brother.

"These two." He pointed at us. "Of course, if they don't get their butts out of here, they won't live long enough to make it to the wedding!"
 

Langly undid the passenger lock on the Neon, then undid the driver's side. I was a passenger in my own car again. At least I'd driven it a few times now.

He just sat with his eyes closed, taking off his glasses. His breathing had gotten labored, and he seemed to be pulled into a tight knot of tension. I let him be for a few minutes, then took his hand.

"This sucks, Ally," he moaned softly.

"This really sucks." Beavis and Butthead, back in business, but he wasn't laughing.

He drew in a hard breath. "Why is this happening?"

"If I knew that, we'd never have to work again."

"Ally, it's like, we can't get away from it, can we? I mean, everywhere we go, we've got a problem. It's just one fucking crisis after another. I've had it." He winced and rubbed his temples as though he felt a headache coming on.

I leaned over and gathered him in my arms. He's a big guy, but at that moment, he felt very small and vulnerable, just burying his head in my shoulder. I pulled him as close as I could and just rocked him gently.

And both of us wept. For everything.
 

"Sorry," he mumbled, when we'd both quieted.

"Hey, you've seen me do this plenty."

"Yeah, but it's different..." when you're a guy. Right. "I need something to drink, Ally."

"I could use something."

"You wanna walk?"

"No," I said slowly. "Langly. Take me to Chesapeake Bay."

END OF PART 57