Note: This is the very first piece of fanfic I ever wrote....I /never/
would have
believed that it would lead me where it did.


*All the While*
January 1997

Rating: G
Spoilers: US4 - Leonard Betts
Category: V, A

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the X-Files are the
property of 1013 Productions and Fox Broadcasting. No infringement is
intended.

Many thanks to Madeleine Partous for her support, insight and superb
editing.




I didn't tell him. I couldn't tell him. I could barely tell myself what
I'd heard in that shadowed ambulance.

"I'm sorry. But you have something that I need."

And in that moment, paralyzed by the implied horror of that
statement, I wondered if it had come to this: a choice between
dying from cancer and being killed by Leonard Betts. Then
basic animal survival instincts and years of FBI training kicked in
and I reacted. The rest was a blur--until I was sitting on the floor
of the ambulance watching Betts as he lay on the pavement by the
doors of the ER.

I saw his lips twitch and was nearly overcome by an irrational
impulse to go ask him exactly what part of me would have filled
his need, but then the ER doors opened and life resumed its normal pace.

There were statements to give and reports to make, but as it seemed a
clear-cut case of self defense, they passed in a quick, meaningless blur.

Finally I was alone, sitting in the car, waiting for...for what? Silence?
Solitude? A second opinion?

It scarcely mattered what I was waiting for. My thoughts kept screaming,
"You too! You have cancer like all those women! You'll die just like
they did!
Just like they are dying!"

Mulder appeared to let me know that Betts was dead, although his mother
would most probably live, "for the time being," confirming the cancerous
link between Betts's victims.

I must have retreated back to the bedlam of my thoughts. From a great
distance I heard Mulder telling me that I'd done a good job. His direct
flattery was incongruous. It's something he does so rarely. It warned me
that I wasn't reacting to him in a way that he could understand. I
managed to
bring him back into focus in time to hear him say, "You should be proud,"
although his eyes reflected less pride than a deep worry and not a little
confusion over my reactions. I couldn't respond to any of it. (What
should I be proud of, Mulder? I just killed a man.) So I said the only
thing I could.

"I want to go home."

On the drive back, my thoughts scattered and wheeled, wild geese circling
a frozen lake looking for a place to alight. I stared out the window and
fought the chaos in my mind. I'm a doctor, I know that we've come so
far in our ability to treat, even eradicate cancer. Yes, my mind
replied, but
you're also a pathologist; you know how these deaths go...you know how
many places in the body cancer can lurk--undetectable until it's too late.
And then there are all those decision to make: radiation, chemotherapy,
which hospice to die in, where to be buried...

Stop. Stop this train of thought. Get yourself under control.

So I fell into the support of my safety net. My "rationality." (There's
a laugh--
how rational can you be in the face of a cancer diagnosis from a man who is
himself inexplicable in terms of the science that you think you know?) I
began mentally preparing a list of all the diagnostic procedures I would
need to
undergo: a pap smear, a mammogram, blood work, MRIs...all the while working
on plausible excuses to give my doctors as to why I suddenly need all
these tests
in the apparent absence of symptoms.

All the while working on plausible excuses to give Mulder as to why I
would need
the time off.

All the while wondering how I am going to explain this to Mom.

All the while waiting to wake up from the nightmare.

* * *

Now, at 2:08 in the morning, staring at the blood on my pillow, the blood
on my hand, I know the nightmare is real.

I know that Betts was right and that all the dangers I've encountered and
overcome in my time with the X-Files: liver-eating mutants, shadow
government conspiracies, even alien viruses have been overtaken by this
simple fact. I may yet die--I will probably die--from cancer. Something
so ordinary and mundane, but nonetheless so real.

I want to call Mulder. I have the phone in my hand and have dialed
the first 3 digits of his number before I stop myself. What would I say?
How would I tell him? There's no point in telling him until you /know/
something. (But you do know this, don't you?)

It's strange that Mulder, for all his intuition, his ability to see into the
minds of psychopaths and serial murderers, didn't pick up on the fact that
Betts was coming after me with a scalpel, not my gun which he'd
managed to take. Maybe Mulder just chalked it up to the fact that the
scalpel was a more familiar and comfortable tool for Betts. Maybe Mulder
didn't want to think too hard about it either. He knows about those women,
too, for all that he never talks about it.

So I get up, knowing that there will be no more sleep for me this night.

At this hour of the night/morning there is no rationality, no reality, just
a kaleidoscope of emotions, memories and half-remembered thoughts
and gestures.

Missy...God, it still hurts, and what will Mom do if /both/ her girls are
taken from her? Mulder...can't think about him yet. Duane Barry...did
this all start from him, or is it all just horrible coincidence? We know
that
so much cancer is genetically "programmed." Have I always been a statistic
waiting to happen? Skinner....I almost feel like I'm letting him down,
dying from something so /ordinary/, after all he's been through to protect
us, protect the Files. Mulder...still can't think about him, what this
will do
to him. He'll find some way of convincing himself that this is all his
fault.
Mom. Oh Mom, I'm sorry.

I have to move, to do something. I go to the kitchen to make myself some
tea, more for something to do with my hands--a vain attempt at stilling the
clamor in my mind--than for the actual tea. As I wait for the kettle to
boil,
I stare out my window at the darkened street, wondering what other
frightened, tired, dying souls are up at this hour.

Mulder. Mulder is probably up now. I could call him but I keep asking
myself what I'd say. Anyway, he'd seemed so happy, so confident on this
last case. A man who could fully regenerate his body, exactly the sort of
mutant weirdness that just makes Mulder's day. He'd been so delighted to
tease me about the head being "alive." He was probably disappointed that
Betts was dead, just because the secret of his extraordinary abilities would
die with him. I don't for minute doubt that Mulder's happy that I'm alive,
even if the price this time was Betts's death.

And what does that matter, Dana Katherine? It would seem that it's only a
temporary reprieve.

God. Why does this have to happen now? Things are going so well.
Mulder and I are working together better than ever. Skinner has nearly
gotten over his anger and disappointment at both of us on the Roche case.
We're slowly making progress on unraveling the web of conspiracy.
Why now? Right, Dana, like there would ever be a good time.
For you, or for Mulder.

I don't know for a moment why I'm so much more worried about
how Mulder will take the news, than about even how Mom will react.
But of course, I do know. Mulder almost lost it when I was gone those
three months--the uncertainty of my disappearance and survival both
easier and harder to bear than this news is going to be. I've got good
news and bad news, Mulder. The good news it that this time I can
warn you when I'm about to vanish.

Right. Enough, Starbuck. You know better than to sink into this sort
of emotional mire. I can almost hear Ahab's voice. And he's right.
This gets me nowhere. Plans. I need to make plans. It's time for
Special Agent Dr. Dana K. Scully to re-emerge. The only way you're
going to get through this is step-by-step,
test-by-test...treatment-by-treatment.
Sipping my cooling tea, I begin drawing up lists of specialists to contact,
appointments to be made, all the while reminding myself that I don't
really know anything yet.

But I think I will soon.

END