"Two nights, two days, in the solid deep-sea swell
he drifted, many times awaiting death..."

"The Odyssey," Fitzgerald Translation. Book 5, Lines 405-406.
Used without permission.
 

MICHAEL:

August 24, 2001

I must've fallen asleep...I'm surprised I did. I didn't think with my dad like this I could go to sleep. But I open my eyes, or rather, I try to...

Did it again! Went to sleep with my lenses in!

I'm gonna have to get some of those ones you can wear 24/7 for a week and then toss out. That way I don't have to worry about if I put 'em in, did I take 'em out to swim, am I gonna get too tired, remember to enzyme 'em...Christ. They're like small children. I like them a lot, and I think (well, I'm not sure, but I think) I look better in them than I do in my glasses, but I need something I don't have to think about.

Course, knowing me, I'd leave them in for a month, forget about them until I went blind, and then go screaming for my dad to make it all better...

God, he's so white. I'd check all the readouts, but I got no clue what's good and what's not, so it's not like it's gonna help me to see the numbers. Numbers out of context are useless.

I'm sitting in this godawful chair, and my back hurts like hell, you'd think they could get decent furniture around here, but I think the big consideration is can you clean it easily, not is it comfy for the guests.

The lady I think is Jo's bud Cecilia comes in with another nurse (smaller). She says she's going off shift, she'll be back on tonight at 11, says my dad is doing okay. He's gonna probably get moved out of here in a few hours, soon as they can get a bed for him. This is worse than a hotel, for Christ's sake. And at least in hotels, you get HBO and room service.

"He looks so bad," this sort of slips out of my mouth.

"Put it like this. He's doing well for what he's been through. Not to be mistaken with doing well in absolute terms." Cecilia is as plain-talking as Jo, without the nice soft manners.

The new nurse calls him. "Mr. Frohike?"

"He's sleeping," I remind her, more rudely than I should, but fuck it. Let the dude sleep.

"I need to wake him up," she says to me, and her voice is quiet, she's not bad looking, either. Big tits. Dad will appreciate that. Course, unless they give him back his glasses, he's not gonna be able to tell. I didn't get blind out of nowhere. Once again, on my DNA, courtesy his side of the family. Mom wears glasses, but she's like nowhere near as blind as Dad or me.

Dad kind of blinks his eyes. Man, he looks tired.

"Hi," I say to him.

He blinks again. "Michael."   The word comes out in this voice I don't even know, but it's not Dad's voice like I know it. It's real rough, like when he's got a bad cold.

"What happened to him?" I look up at the new nurse, she's taking notes.

"Endotracheal tube. During the surgery."

"Oh."

I come over and I want to give him a big hug, but he looks like it would hurt, and I bet he hurts bad enough now. So I just come and take his hand. I think he appreciates it a little, because he squeezes it back.

"How ya doing?" I ask him.

His eyes are closed again. "Like I got run over by a train."

Cecilia must've told the party he was alive, because Kelly, Jo and Mulder pile in, there's barely room for them here it's so small and there's so much stuff.

"Frohike, I give you custody of my video collection, and you go and do this on me?" Mulder's being Mulder.

"Fuck you, Mulder." Yeah, it's Dad, showing Mulder how he really feels about him.

In guy speak, that means, thanks for caring. Just in case you didn't know.

"Melvin." Jo goes to the other side and just sort of touches his hand. That's as physical as it ever gets with them. I think they touch when they dance, I can't imagine my dad not, but they're not that way with each other.

Which is good.

Kelly comes over to me first and wraps her cute little body around me. She's yawning. I wonder if she slept at all.

"Are you all right?" She runs her fingers in my hair, which seriously needs to be washed. 24 hours, I'm a human oil slick. And I bet my face is a mess. Things like this do that to it.

"Guess so." I just kind of bury my face in her.

"I checked on you a couple times, you were sleeping. That's good."

"Then how come my back is killing me?" I groan.

Jo says she'll come back later and steps out. She doesn't want to be in the way.

Mulder sticks around, however, and I'm wondering if he's going home anytime soon. I wonder what Dr. Scully thinks of all this.

Knowing Dr. Scully, she's probably like, you need to be there, so be there. I don't know her that well, but well enough to know, the doc ain't no clinging vine.

I pull Kelly in my lap. I need her near me now. What is it about people that when they're stressed they need touch?

Mulder, as a shrink, might have a good explanation, but I doubt I'd want to hear it now.

Kelly and me go back over to Dad. He's still pretty sleepy. His breath sounds like mine did last night. This scares me.

"Dad, you gonna be all right?" I sound about five when I say it. Pathetic.

Tough.

He blinks at me again. "Michael. Go home. Sleep."

"Nope, not now."

"Michael. Don't make me swat you." He's having a hard time talking, but he manages to threaten me anyway.

"Go on, Junior. I'll stick around."

Dad gasps for some air, then croaks again. "Mulder. Get the fuck out of here."

"Don't think so, Frohike." Mulder looks pretty worried, even when he's goofing off.

"Mulder. I'll swat you, too." I think Dad's said about all he can say.

"Well, in that case, Scully would probably get jealous..." he waggles his eyebrows.

"Just. Let me. Sleep."

Kelly looks at me, her tired blue eyes boring into mine. "I think you should sleep a little, Michael."

I am tired. It was a hard, hard night. I slept, but I know I woke up lots of times, just to make sure he was breathing...

How many times did he do this for me when I was little? And even now? When I had pneumonia, he was with me almost the whole time. When I had surgery, he was almost always there.

I really should stay with him.

"Michael. Come on. We're going to get some sleep, and then some breakfast." Kelly takes my hand, and leads me out.

I'm so tired, she has to drive back.
 

She takes me back to Chateau Langly, where she has to wake me up when we get there. Seven miles, and I can't keep my frigging eyes open.

She leads me to the shower and helps me get everything off. And then she does the same.

I must really be tired. I can appreciate how gorgeous she is, but last thing I want to do right now is anything to do with sex. That's how beat I am.

Having her wash my hair is nice. She's also good at the soaping up part.

Which I was in better shape to appreciate all this. I just hold on to her. I feel like I'm sleeping with my eyes sort of open.

After she dries me off, next step is to try and work my lenses out. Lucky Ally has lots of stuff for that. Lots of saline and artificial tears and stuff. She's been known to do this on occasion, too. Bad part is, Kelly can't do this for me. I have to do it myself. You can put your own fingers near your eyes, but other people can't do it.

Finally, I get them out, Kelly has to find them in the saline because I can't see them at all.

"My glasses. Shit. They're at home." I really don't feel like going over there right now.

"I'll get them," Kelly offers, and that alone could make me love her forever. I dig in my pockets for my keys, hand her the ring of five that work the front door.

"Could you like maybe check the phone messages, just in case like Ms. Russell called him, 'cause I need to tell her what's up, and whoever else might call." Dad doesn't get lots of calls at home, but he does get some from Ms. Russell, and he'd wanna know, when he's feeling better, and I should tell her.

"Sure. Why don't you lie down and I'll be back in a little while?"

"I can go if you want."

"Michael, go to sleep. We have to go back and see your dad in a couple of hours. Take it where you can get it. It's not going to be better come Monday."

Oh Christ, that's right. School starts.

Fuck! School and work and Dad's in the hospital and I got no idea how long he's gonna be there...oh Christ...

I'm too tired to deal with this shit right now.

I think I crashed before I even hit the pillow.
 

Kelly shakes me awake what seems like five minutes later, but she says I slept for three hours. Guess I feel a little more human, but my eyes still burn. Glad she went for my glasses.

I slip them on my nose.

God, she's so pretty. She kisses me soft on the mouth, then on the cheeks and nose and forehead.

"Y'know, Kel, some things look better when I got my glasses off, but you're not one of them."

She smiles a little. "I think that was a compliment."

"It was." So I got no style. Shoot me.

She lowers her body on mine. She's not trying to get me hot right now, she just wants to make me feel better. And she does.

I need touch so bad, it's not funny. And not just sex. I seem to need a lot of hugs and pats and all that stuff.

She's a goddess. She's brought me clean clothes. I was just sleeping in my shorts, I was just gonna put the same stuff on I had, but she's like so awesome, she brought me new stuff.

"I brought some things for your dad, too," she says, holding up a Safeway bag.

She's brought the blue bunny jammies...oh Christ.

"Dr. Scully says...people feel better when they can wear their own things," she offers as an explanation.

"Yeah, but these?"

She shrugs. "They're his favorite, aren't they?"

"Yeah." I notice there's more in the bag.

Oh God. The alpaca vest. She didn't.

She did.

"I thought it would keep him warm...sometimes people are cold after surgery, and he seems to wear it a lot in winter."

"Hope you didn't bring the yellow hat."

She laughs. "No, but I was tempted to throw it out."

"This might be our only chance."

We both laugh. "Nah. We'll wait till he's better."
 

She offers to drive, and I let her. Kelly's not too scary. She drives a little fast, but not like Dr. Scully or Langly do it. How they manage to avoid speeding tickets, I have not a clue.

"Your dad had some messages."

"Who called?" We're headed out to Fairfax, and luckily, Saturday traffic is light.

"One from Ms. Russell."

"I'll call her."

"One from Byers. He and Juliet decided to spend the weekend out of town at a bed and breakfast and won't be back till Sunday night."

Christ, everybody else had the right idea, what the hell was my problem?

"And one more. This lady named Martha. She left a number and wants your dad to call him."

I feel my blood run cold.

Shit.

That's the lady he's hot for.

I'm sure of it. Ally was, too.

What the hell is she doing bugging him? I mean, she's married, for Christ's sake. She should just leave my dad alone, and quit torturing him.

She should mind her own damn business.

"That was it," she says as we drive into the parking lot at the VA. Can you believe, four bucks to park?

"Hey, it's eleven if you're a visitor at Georgetown," she reminds me.

Eleven bucks?! Well, must keep the number of visitors down.

"We have to find out his room number," I tell her.

"That's easy enough, patient information."

Uh-huh. Yeah, they have patient information. Nice if they had somebody competent working it. All they have to do is put in the person's name in the computer, supposed to bring up their room number...Jesus.

Maybe they didn't tell the system yet he got moved.

We try ICU. We have to ask about five people where he got moved.

I hate hospitals. If I was working in one, I wouldn't be such an asshole.

We find his room. I'm hoping no one's come by.

Well, no luck. But at least it's Dr. Scully and no one else. She looks like she just got there. She's got a bundle of flowers in her hands, she's looking for a vase, and she smiles at us when we come in.

"Hey, thanks for coming," I tell her.

"It's no problem." At least I think that's what she said. "He isn't doing too badly, all things considered. He lost a lot of blood."

Dad's sound asleep. Dr. Scully squeezes his hand, and he wakes up a little.

"Hi, Frohike." She gives him a little sweet smile. "How do you feel?"

He just shakes his head. "Not so good." He's still got this croaky voice, but not so bad like it was earlier. "Tired."

"Well, get some rest." She goes over and pulls his chart. "Bleeding duodenal ulcer." She looks at me. "You're going to need to take good care of him, Michael."

"I know. And we start school on Monday," I say, forgetting she can't hear me.

She pulls out some paper from her purse. I think she always carries it.

Kelly can sign some now. She's telling her what I said. Somehow, we have to piece this all together...it's hard.

But I know that Dr. Scully is like a special friend to my dad, I bet he's glad she came.

"Do you...know of anyone that can help him out?" Dr. Scully asks me.

I shake my head. "Jo would. But she can't right now." I can sign Jo's name, but Kelly has to do the rest.

"Hmm. Maybe I can check and see if I can arrange something." Dr. Scully's thinking out loud, but I stop her.

"Dad doesn't like strangers," I say, and Kelly fills in the blanks again. I know how to say Dad and doesn't like, but I forget strangers.

Dr. Scully sighs. "I know. I'd help him myself, but there's no way."

Well, duh! Lady only has a full-time job and two kids and Mulder...which would be a full-time job by itself.

But Dad's gonna be in rough shape for a while.

Maybe I should take this semester off.

He'd kill me.

Nope. Won't work. He wouldn't let me do it...and we'd probably kill each other, anyway.

Dad sleeps through all this. I go over and touch his face again. It's warm. I look up at his monitor and it says he's got a temp of 100.1.

Dr. Scully must know what I think, she says it's normal after major surgery to have this, and he's getting antibiotics, so not to worry.

Not to worry. All I do at this point is worry.

Must be visiting hours. Jo's here.

"Michael, did you check your dad's phone messages?" she asks me, which seems sort of weird.

"Yeah, why?"

"I got a phone call from a client of mine, Martha Small...she said she was trying to get hold of your dad."

"Why?" She should get lost is what she should do.

"Well, her husband passed away last Tuesday night, and she wanted to let him know."

"And that's it."

"That's it."

"Jo," Dr. Scully asks, "do you know anyone that could help Frohike out when he's released? He's not going to be on his feet for a while, and Michael has to go back to school-"

"Which he will," Jo says firmly. And gives me this look like, don't even think about it.

Okay, okay. Jesus. I get the message.

Jo cocks her head. Thinking. Then she smiles. "Actually, I just might. I'll get back to you on that one."

What's she thinking...

Oh, no way!

END OF PART 14