Ghost
By:  Maraschino
Feedback to:  maraschino@ibm.net

Summary:  An apple a day keeps the doctors away?  Not in this universe.  
Amor Fati post-ep.  Be warned:  little Mulder, no Scully.  All third
person.

Disclaimer:  Not mine.  Belongs to CC and 1013.

Classification:  V

Rating:  PG

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	A scalpel is silent.  It stealthily cuts through skin and 
muscle, organ and vessel. It’s nearly unstoppable, until you hear the 
chink of metal colliding with bone - a sound equivalent to nails on 
chalkboard, of a record needle protesting against cheap vinyl.

	I have opened many skulls.  I have sliced through skin 
coloured white, yellow, black, and gray.  My scalpel has played with 
the butter soft skin of newborns, with the weathered bark of 
extraterrestrial epidermis.  I have held dura matter in my fingers, 
have excised tumors with a flick of my wrist.  I can come within 
nanometers of severing someone’s spinal cord.

	Another mass of neurons on the table and I resist the urge 
to yawn.  

	"The patient’s come out.  Mulder’s awake!"

	Unfocused hazel eyes, the colour mystery, of cheap Harlequin 
romances, of the split pea soup I ate at lunch, still my movements 
momentarily.  My hand hovers over the drill, and a blink later, my 
hesitance seems like a distant memory. 

	Someone pushes a syringe of clear fluid into the IV port 
nearby.  Thiopental?  Etomidate?  Propozol?  Some ether-induced brain 
damage never hurt anyone who left this facility.

	I reach over blindly, closing his eyes with my gloved hand, 
feeling warm flesh, the resistance of two eyeballs, and the soft brush 
of eyelashes.  Someone’s eyes pierce into the back of my neck, and I 
shrug.  "So he’s going to wake up missing part of his brain 
and blind?"

	As if on cue, his eyes spring open again, focusing on something 
beyond us all.  Diana leaves abruptly, and everyone pretends not to 
notice.  I pretend not to care.  

	With a flick of my thumb, the drill comes to life, the tiny 
details of the bit disappearing into a blur.  There’s a resistance as 
the drill meets the skull, but calcium hydroxyapatite is no match for 
stainless steel.  White dust plays with the overhead lights, and I 
resist the urge to blow it away like cigarette smoke.

	If I pushed too hard, would his face register the pain?

	If I pierced the brain here, would those eyes bleed red?

	Mengele has nothing on the sadistic thoughts 
that swirl through this operating bay.

	Oops... 

	Not really a popular phrase with the College of American 
Physicians, but I’m afraid the patient will be at least one blood 
vessel short for awhile.  

	A hematoma is the least of his worries anyway.

	Does he beckon women with those eyes?  Bat those eyelashes with 
a come hither look?  Do they watch carefully over young ones, 
blissfully ignorant?  Stare endlessly at a computer monitor, playing 
Minesweeper despite the boss next door?  Smile thanks to customers 
when they’ve made a particularly pricey purchase? 

	Finding anything that fits the definition of domesticity here 
is as likely as finding an abductee without an implant.   

	Mulder sounds too much like murder.  There’s too many scars on 
this body.  In my office is a medical file almost a foot thick.  Diana 
and Spender have invested more resources than usual. 

	He is Grade A, top of the line, a blue ribbon at the county fair.  
I don’t need to see his arms splayed out in a T to get the message.  
Him and his old man bearing the burden of the coming apocalypse - it’s 
has the makings of a great TV movie of the week. 

	I’m almost tempted to excise more of the frontal lobe than is 
really necessary.  Curious George meets Gray’s anatomy - I’ve always 
how much of the medulla oblongata I could destroy before the patient 
ceases to breathe.
	
	Someone finally tapes the eyes closed and I hear some of my 
colleagues breathing easier.  I soon lose myself in the reassuring sound 
of metal against metal.

	Hours later, when I’ve finished washing the smell of 
antiseptic and latex from my hands, I walk aimlessly through the 
hallways.  Various moments and phrases from the week pass by, like 
cars on a busy highway, and I try to ignore everything.  

	I nearly collide into Diana, and my annoyance grows as I 
realize she’s not going to walk away, but engage in conversation which 
requires effort and energy.

	She’s holding a slim brown envelope and her indifferent façade 
is failing miserably.  

	"How’s Mulder?"

	Her voice is two tones too deep to be casual, and like all 
other observations my mind decides it’s not worth deciphering. I think 
back, remembering nothing but hazel eyes and the knowledge that we 
hadn’t severed anything too important.  "He’s recovering."

	"Where is he?"

	I shrug my shoulder and sigh unnecessarily.  Diana recognizes 
the silent show of antagonism and her frown lines deepen.  "Topped up 
with sedatives and still REM-ing in recovery."

	She nods slightly.  "What about... him," she asks almost as an 
afterthought.

	I shrug again, this time out of tedium.  "Sleeping."

	She nods, already pulling away.  "I won’t be available for a 
few hours.  I have an errand to run."

	I glance at the envelope in her hand, seeing a slim outline 
that’s equivalent to the shape of a credit card.

	I nod and walk away, the conversation already forgotten.

LE FIN