Title:  Tears Like Raindrops Fall

Author:  Fox’s Chickadee

E-Mail: FoxyFoxChickadee@yahoo.com

Summary:  Thunder and lightening bring back bad memories  for poor Mulder.

Spoilers:  None

Rating:  PG-13

Category:  MSR, MT

Disclaimer:   I wish I owned these two beautiful characters.  But  they belong only to each other.

Archives:  I’d be so thrilled!  Let me know so I can come and visit!

Feedback:  Please!  It feeds my muse.  And without food, my muse can’t work.

Thanks: To my very best friend and beta, Jen, who gave me the courage to  actually go ahead and write.

Jenjen, you do so rock!

Disclaimer:  Fox William Mulder and Dana Katherine Scully are the creations and property of Mr. Chris

Cater, esq, AKA Surfer Dude.  This story is just for fun, and no infingement is intended.

Mulder flinched at the loud boom of thunder, his arms cradling his  aching midsection.  Mulder could feel the layers of bandage wrapped  tightly around his ribs.  The window suddenly lit up with a flash of

lightening, it’s light highlighting more bandages on Mulder’s hand as  he held the curtains back to look at

the driving rain outside.

Thunder always made him think of his father.  Not only because of the  many times his father derided him for his childish fear of the claps  and clatters, but also for the few words of comfort:

“The thunder can’t hurt you, Fox.  It’s the lightning that strikes you  dead.”

But that wasn’t true with his father.  The pain of the slaps and blows  was great, but the sting of the cruel words hurt as well.

The furious storm called up many memories from his childhood, but the  pain in his hand was linked to one particular event.   His eidetic  memory played the scene out before him as if it were yesterday. Dad was  burning some documents in the fireplace, and he asked Fox to tend the  fire.

Fooolishly, the boy had added an oversized chunk of wood.

“Get that out NOW,” Dad had snarled at him.  Without thinking, Fox had  reached in to pull off the log, burning his hand in the process.

“What a dope.”  Dad was right, too.  He was a dope.  Too stupid to use  the poker, and afraid of thunder to boot.

Mulder counted the seconds between the electrical flashes and the  booming noise that followed, and the number should have reassured him.

It should have, except he was a feeble little sissy boy.  He squeezed his eyes shut to hold back the

tears.

“Mulder, is something wrong?” Scully asked, looking up from her notebook.  She’d come over to his place so they could catch up on their paperwork.   He’d warned her about the predicted thunderstorm, but she’d smiled and  told him she wasn’t afraid of a little rain.

“No,” he managed to answer in a choked whisper.

“When I was a little girl, I used to be afraid of the thunder,” Scully  said.

Mulder shuddered.  Suddenly, he felt cold.  He let go of the curtains,  turning to face Scully.  He shivered, holding his arms protectively  around him.

“My dad explained that we were safe inside the house.  He taught me how  the lightning rod worked,” she continued.

“And you were a girl,” Mulder added, almost beneath his breath.

“Oh, I suppose boys aren’t afraid of anything,” Scully answered lightly.

“They shouldn’t be,” Mulder said, turning his face away.

“Mulder, what’s wrong?  Do you need more pain medicine?” Scully asked.

“I’m fine.  My hand hardly hurts at all,” Mulder said.

“But what about your ribs?”

Mulder blushed.  The injury to his ribs embarrassed him, because it  proved what a wimp he was.  He should have been able to subdue their  suspect yesterday without getting himself hurt.  Weak sissy boys let  bad guys overcome them, breaking their ribs in the process.  Mulder had  fought the man as he tried to burn evidence in a woodburning stove,  burning his hand badly trying to pull the vital pages out of the

fire.   Maybe if his fire phobia hadn’t made him hesitate, Mulder might have been  able to overpower the big man.

The suspect had other ideas though, as Mulder howled in pain at his burned fingers.  The man had jumped on him, his whole weight at one point pressing on Mulder’s ribs.  Mulder squeezed his eyes shut as he remembered the awful sound of his ribs cracking loudly.

“Oh they’re okay,” he answered carefully, wincing in pain as he tried to  take a deep breath.

“Mulder…” Scully said, frowning at him.  “You’re in pain.  Do you need the bandages to be tighter?”

“No, I think they’re tight enough.”  Mulder coughed, yelping at the  stabbing pain in his chest.   Suddenly, he remembered another case of  broken ribs when he was a kid.  His father had become so angry with  him that he had pushed him aside roughly, throwing Fox into a heavy wooden cabinet.

“Fox, you stupid idiot!” Bill Mulder had shouted as his big hands  grasped Fox’s arms, shaking him hard

before tossing his son aside  like a rag doll.  “I told you not to leave your basketball in the living room.”

Mulder squeezed his eyes shut, yet again, as he fought tears.  If he hadn’t been so clumsy, he wouldn’t have broken his ribs, not then and not now.

“Mulder, you need to eat something,” Scully said, bringing him back to the present with her soft, gentle

voice.  “I’m going to get you  some soup.”

“I’m not hungry, Scully.” he said.  The idea of eating anything  nauseated him.

“You have to keep up your strength.”  Scully walked away, going into the kitchen where Mulder could here her banging pots and pans.  The whirr of the can opener entered his ears.

“All ready,” she said, carrying a bowl, spoon and napkin back into the living room.  “Come on, Mulder, eat up.”

He sat at the table and Scully placed the steaming bowl of soup in front of him.  Mulder looked down at

the thick yellow broth, swimming with chicken pieces and noodles.

Mulder reached for the spoon with his bandaged right hand, grimacing in pain as he tried to hold the utensil.  It slipped from his clumsy fingers, splashing soup on the table.  Scully watched him, her eyes filled with pensive emotion.

Mulder tried picking the spoon up with his left hand, but it felt awkward.  He brought a spoonful of soup up to his mouth, but it spilled down his shirt.  -Damn it.  I can’t even eat soup without screwing it up.- he

thought.

“Oh, Mulder,” Scully said.  “Let me help you.”  She dabbed at the soup dripping off his chin with the napkin.  “I should have realized you’d have trouble eating with your bandage.”

Scully raised a spoonful of soup to Mulder’s mouth.  He closed his eyes as he swallowed, humiliated at

being fed like a baby.  Spoonful after spoonful trickled down his throat until he felt like choking.

He turned his face, before she could put another spoonful into his lips. “No more, Scully.  Please.  I

can’t eat any more.”

“Do you feel sick?” she asked, concern painting her beautiful face with sadness.

“No, I’m fine.  Really,” he lied as he pushed away from the table.  His ribs ached terribly.  He paused

for a moment, afraid that he might pass out.  How humiliating would that be? he wondered.  He made his way to the couch, carefully lowering himself onto the cushions.  Grateful that he hadn’t fainted, he leaned back and watched as a flash of lightening lit up the sky beyond the window.

He couldn’t let Scully know what was really bothering him.  If she knew what a screw up he was, she wouldn’t love him anymore.  Why would a woman as beautiful and perfect as Dana Katherine Scully want a pathetic looser like him?  No, he had to keep those terrible memories of his father to himself.

“Mulder, why don’t you lie down?”  Scully’s voice was soft and gentle, and the touch of her hands on his

shoulders filled the cold void inside him with warmth.

He leaned against her as she lowered him back onto the couch, but then a stab of  white-hot pain from his ribs brought him back to the harsh but undeniable fact that he couldn’t even lie down and take a nap without screwing up.

The pain made him grown, and the grown started him coughing and coughing, which made the pain even worse.  But even worse than the cough and the pain were the look he saw in Scully’s eyes.

“Fox William Mulder, I expect you to tell me the truth,” she said sternly but not angrily.  “I am your doctor and I need to know when you are in pain.”

Mulder could only nod weakly he didn’t have the heart to lie to her.

“You must take your pills for pain and the medicine to stop your cough or you will not get well and heal,”

Scully chided him.

He squeezed his eyes shut, as he always did when he had to hold back his tears.  He could only hope that

Scully understood how sorry he was that he had lied to her.

Scully gave him two big pills to swallow, and then two spoonfuls of thick, bitter cough syrup, but he didn’t complain.

“Now I want you to rest,” she said.  This time when she helped him lie down, it did not hurt as much and

he did not cough.

“I think I’m all better,” Mulder said confidently.

“I’m glad, but still you should rest,” Scully said.

The medicines were making Mulder’s head feel funny, but most of all he felt good.  The storm seemed to be dying down too.

“The thunder isn’t scary any more.”  When Mulder realized what he had just said, his face turned red.

He covered his face with his hands, so Scully couldn’t see how embarrassed he was, and so that he wouldn’t have to see the look of pity and disgust that she would surely be wearing.

Gentle hands peeled his hands from his face, and Scully’s gentle voice was without pity or disgust.

“Thunder and lightning can’t hurt you here.  But it is okay to feel afraid,” she said.

“For a girl, maybe,” he whispered.  He could not hold back his tears.  The hurt of his shame was more than the hurt of his hand or his midsection, and the shame of showing his shame before Scully made it hurt even more.

“Who told you that, Mulder?  Who made you feel that you were wrong to feel afraid?”  Scully’s voice was angry, but Mulder sensed that the anger was not aimed at him.

“He was just trying to make me grow up strong,” Mulder tried to explain.

“You were just a little boy.  He should have comforted you and made you feel safe, the way my father did,” Scully said.

Somehow the strong medicines had unlocked Mulder’s lips and his heart.

“I’m a clumsy wuss.  No wonder he was ashamed of me.”

“Fox William Mulder, I wouldn’t stand for that from anyone else, and I certainly won’t stand for it from

you.”  Scully was even angrier than before.  “You are a strong brave man, the bravest man I’ve ever known.  I can’t stand the way he hurt you, because…. because I love you.”

Mulder felt warm tears on his cheek, but this time they were Scully’s tears.  She hugged him hard, but

somehow it didn’t hurt, even where his ribs were sore.  Mulder felt secure in the warm circle of her arms in a way he’d never felt before.

She loved him.  She had even said it out loud.  Although he was happy, he still couldn’t quite believe

his good fortune.

“I hope you never change your mind about me, Scully,” he said.  “There are things about me that you don’t know yet.  He sighed, thinking again about all the times he’d failed, all the people he’d disappointed.

“I’ll never change my mind,” Scully said, smiling a warm smile.  And to his surprise, she began to sing.

“That’s beautiful, Scully,” Mulder said.  He’d heard the song before, but it had never meant more to him

than it did right now.

I don’t care who you are Where you’re from What you did As long as you love me.

The End

Author’s note:  I’m not a big Backstreet Boys fan, but I borrowed  “As Long As You Love Me” because the

opening line of this song  could have been written for Mulder and Scully:

Although loneliness has always been a friend of mine

I’m leavin’ my life in your hands