TITLE:    Friends
AUTHOR: Wylfcynne
SPOILERS: this is a post-ep for Beyond the Sea
RATING: PG-13 
CLASSIFICATION: Story. 
SUMMARY: Mulder is still flat on his back recovering from
the gunshot wound.  We wouldn't want Scully to be bored,
would we? 
DISCLAIMER: They certainly aren't mine; if they were, they'd
be having more fun, and I wouldn't have to save up for a new
car! Mulder, Scully, Skinner and the rest belong to FOX
Networks and 1013; I'm just borrowing them for a little fun
and games...I promise I'll bring them back on time and
unharmed... and they won't remember a thing... 
FEEDBACK: The Wylf howls at the moon for feedback...
DEDICATION: Overall, all my X Files work is dedicated to
my writing partner, Ravenwald, without whom I would still be
doing all this using a ballpoint pen, who introduced me to
fandom on the 'Net, and awakened the Muse, who had been
sleeping for a VERY long time.  This piece is for the Sisters
Spooky, for mink roses and homemade candy, nifty
Christmas cards and fresh-burned CDs, for grins and
giggles and healing candlelight...for being the sisters I never
had in Real Life.

= = = = = =

"I'm afraid.  I'm afraid to believe."

Mulder moved his IV line away; the movement she had
made, to come and sit this close, thrilled him in ways that his
body was currently in no condition to notice.  Her words
stunned him; he could not imagine her being truly afraid.

"You couldn't face that fear?" he asked hesitantly.  "Even if it
meant never knowing what your father wanted to tell you?"

She smiled that amazing smile that always made his toes
curl. Right now, he couldn't even feel his toes, but he blamed
that, and his utter inability to engage her in witty repartee, on
the morphine flowing so lazily through his bloodstream from
that very IV that she had nearly pulled out of his arm.

That was his best clue that she was severely shaken.  Earlier
in the week he had seen her scold two different nurses for
sloppy technique and thoughtlessness.

She let her eyes drop.  "But I do know."

He was awestruck.  She looked so utterly serene that the
only analogy he could find was a portrait of a medieval
Madonna that he had seen in Oxford.

"How?" he had to ask, helpless before her composure.

She gave the impression of a shrug without actually moving
that much.  "He was my father."

Mulder was actually grateful to hear the ever-so-slight break
in her voice; it reassured him that she was really human and
not an angel.

Then the words she had said registered, and he could only
stare at her, touch her shoulder in rote response, speechless
before such faith.

She was so totally confident in her father's love that she did
not need his message from The Other Side.  Mulder had no
personal referent for that.  His own relationship with his father
might superficially have resembled Scully's with her father,
but qualitatively they were obviously worlds apart.  If their
roles had been reversed here, he would have declined to
hear his father's message; he would have known it would be
scathing and recriminating.

The silence between them was as comfortable as always; it
reassured him that even if she thought he had been an idiot
to get shot like this, she was probably going to forgive him
for it.

So he was dismayed when she stood up, avoiding his eyes,
and brushed at her suit, straightening it.

"I should go," she said softly.  "You need to rest."

"I've been asleep for days," he protested weakly.  "Don't go
so soon..."

She smiled at him gently.  "You need to rest, Mulder."

Then he remembered his plans.  "Can you do me a favor,
first?"

She was puzzled.  "Possibly.  What did you have in mind?"

"Sign those papers on the table?"

She moved over there and read the cover sheet swiftly.  Then
she turned to face him, frowning.  "Mulder, are you serious?
You want to grant me your Medical Power of Attorney?"

He nodded, studying her expression desperately, trying to
read her, to understand her.

"Why?  Your parents are easily reachable..."

He shuddered.  "They're on there if you're not available; I just
want you on there as the primary.  My father and I haven't
spoken civilly to one another for years, Scully.  My mom likes
to chemically deaden her personal pain.  I can't really trust
either of them.  I know I can trust you."

She was studying him as intently as he was staring at her.
Time seemed to stretch... and he had time to wonder what
would happen if it broke.  Then she picked up the pen.
Suddenly he could breathe again.  "Thanks, Scully.  Wait till I
get a witness in here."  He pushed the call button.  The shift
nurse hurried in.

"Mr Mulder?  What's wrong?"

He grinned at her weakly.  "Nuthin', Kesta.  She agreed;
would you witness it?  And then log it in my chart?"

She smiled at him.  "I certainly will.  And congratulations.  I
think you're going to be very happy together."

"I know someone who can treat you for those delusions of
yours, Kesta," he retorted.  But he watched them both
carefully as Scully signed the form and then Kesta added her
signature under Scully's.  Kesta dated it, and then moved to
the counter on the left side of his cubicle.  There she opened
a large looseleaf notebook.  She logged the incident and
tucked one copy of the form into a pocket inside the front
cover.  She gave the original back to Scully.

Mulder let himself go limp with relief, sighed and closed his
eyes.

"Mulder?"  Scully sounded worried.

"'M okay," he slurred.

"You're exhausted," she observed.  "Go to sleep.  I'll be back
in a few hours."

He could not fight it; she was correct.  He was barely aware
of it when she took the control and laid the bed out
not-quite-flat, and then tucked the blankets in snugly around
him.

He never heard her leave.

*****

Dana Scully lay in bed in her hotel, still marveling at what had
happened.  He seemed awed that she had not needed to
hear Ahab's message.  His relationship with his own father
obviously contributed to his inability to truly understand the
one she had had with Ahab.

She wished, suddenly, that she had invited Mulder to dinner
that last day.  She would have loved to have watched Ahab
and Mulder stalk stiff-legged around one another, sizing one
another up, evaluating one another's strength and worth.

"I think you would have liked Mulder, Ahab," she whispered. 
"I know he would have made it difficult, but you would have
liked him."

Satisfied, she settled back into the pillow.  She was just
dropping off to sleep when the phone rang.

It was the hospital.  She was dressed and in the car again in
seven minutes.

*****

Four days later, Dana Scully was exhausted but cautiously
pleased.

The phone call had been from Kesta, who had sworn that
Mulder had waited until she was safely away before
revealing a raging infection in his leg.  His fever had spiked
not an hour after she had left.  By the time she had arrived
they had whisked Mulder off into surgery to determine the
extent of the infection.

It was not an unanticipated complication, and the antibiotics
were adjusted to meet the challenge of the bacteria revealed
in the tests, and the dosages pushed very high.  Surgical
intervention cleaned up the worst of the infection at the site,
but cooling blankets had been necessary for more than two
days. Only now, two days after the fever had broken, was
Mulder back on the road to recovery again.

He had obviously lost ground.  The infection had drained him
of vitality and energy.  When admitted to the hospital, he had
been a healthy man with a badly damaged leg.  Now he was
significantly weakened and it  grieved Scully to see him so
reduced.

The bed was one click above absolutely flat.  Both his
forearms were tied to boards, and there was an IV in each:
one for antibiotics and one for morphine.  He had been on a
ventilator for 30 hours, and only this morning had the
high-volume oxygen mask been replaced with a high-volume
cannula.

Most frighteningly, however, he did not move.

He was not unconscious; he had blinked his eyes open and
looked around, puzzled and groggy, just after she had
finished her breakfast this morning.  He had answered a
couple of the orientation questions and then fallen asleep
again.

He had been sleeping for hours, now, and Scully found the
sight of him so still was unnerving.

"Wake up and talk to me, Mulder," she whispered.

He rolled his head toward her.  "Whattaya wanna talk
about?"

She smiled at him and scooted her chair closer to him.  She
could not really take his hand; the boards and IVs were in the
way.  But she slid her fingers under his, and was rewarded
with the weak movements of his fingers trying to return the
gesture.

"Well, the first question is, how do you feel?"

He grimaced, and looked away.  "Filthy, exhausted, an' my
leg hurts like blazes.  How 'bout you?"

She reached for the switch on the IV and gave him a jolt of
morphine.  She watched as he relaxed a little when the drug
hit, and his face tipped back toward her.

"Thanks."

"You can do that for yourself, you know."

He shook his head once.  "Can't reach it."

"I can fix that."  She did so.  "Hit it whenever you want; it's
designed to give you some when you want it, as well as the
steady trickle.  It won't let you OD."

He pushed it experimentally.  "Today," he said softly, "I
wouldn't care if it did."

"I couldn't handle another funeral this month, Mulder," she
said evenly, fighting very hard to keep her expression calm.

Startled, he tried to lift one hand to her.  "I was kidding,
Scully."

She put her hand over his, stilling his efforts to move.

"I wasn't serious; I promise."

She took a deep breath.  "You scared me."

He studied her through his eyelashes; it was hard to stay
awake.  "I didn't think anything could scare you."

"You were on Death's Doorstep for three days, pounding to
be let in.  I just got you back; don't make jokes about going
back there."

He was startled again.  "Three days?  I slept for three
days?!"

"You weren't asleep.  Your leg is infected; an hour after I said
goodbye you spiked at 104.7.  You were unconscious on a
vent for two days.  Then the antibiotics started actually
defeating the infection and the fever finally broke.  You were
extubated when you woke up this morning.  Do you
remember that?"

He frowned.  "Kinda.  I hate that part.  It was really scary?" 
He wanted to not believe her, but how could he?  She never
lied.

She nodded, biting her lip to keep back tears.

He was convinced.  "I'm sorry, Scully.  How'm I doin' now?"

She smiled, and it was such a fragile smile that he knew she
had some emotional investment in him that he had never
suspected might be real.  He had wanted it to be so... but this
was his first real confirmation.

"You're conscious and rational; that's a big step," she told
him.

"You said I was delirious?" he asked, waiting until she
nodded. "I sort of remember nightmares...  Did I make an
absolute fool of myself?"

She shook her head.  "No.  You were intubated; no
vocalizations."

He let himself relax a little.  "So, what's the plan, now?"

"Once the infection's on the run, and your temp's closer to
normal, you're graduating to step-down.  Once you're on your
feet, you graduate to a regular room until they find you a
placement in a rehab center."

"Rehab?  Why?  Why can't I go home?"

She could see the terror in his eyes.  "Mulder.  Relax.  Your
leg is healing and it will be fine.  In fact, according to the
surgeon who did the work, the femur will be stronger than
before.  You have every expectation of a full recovery and a
return to field agent status.  But it won't be right away."

"How long, then?"

"Bones take about two months for minimal healing.  Your
surgeon used some beautiful pieces of hand-carved sterile
coral screwed into place to replace the parts of your femur
that the bullet shattered.  It's nearly one-hundred percent pure
calcium, and it invites bone and blood vessel growth into
itself because of all the irregularities.  In six months, he says,
that bone will be better than new."

"Am I going to be in this rehab place for six months?!"  He
knew she could tell how scared he was; her fingers were
stroking his forearm around the IV and her voice was firm but
very gentle.

"No, you'll only be there until your wound is healed over and
doesn't need professional dressing and monitoring, and until
you can walk again."

"What?!"  His voice was a terrified gasp.

"Mulder, I'm sorry!  I'm not saying this very well, am I?  Relax."
She glanced up at the monitor.  "Calm down a little, or they're
going to throw me out of here."

He worked at it for a minute, breathing slowly.  When his
numbers had settled down, Scully faced him again.  "I'm
sorry. I'm explaining this badly.  Your leg's broken, and the
bullet did a lot of damage to the muscles and ligaments
around the break.  You understand that, right?"

He nodded warily, his eyes riveted on her.

"All right.  If you try to move, now, it's going to be extremely
painful, and you might damage the healing muscles if you
move carelessly, or if you flinch at the wrong moment, or,
God forbid, if you fall.  At the rehab center they are going to
monitor how well you're healing, gradually build up the
strength in those muscles, and get you walking safely.  That's
all I meant, Mulder. I promise."

He swallowed hard.  "You're sure?"

"I'm sure," she nodded.  "I've seen your x-rays, and I read
your chart.  I had a long talk with the surgeons who worked on
you. We had a preliminary discharge planning meeting this
morning after you fell asleep.  Consensus was that you'll be
in step- down, out of ICU, in a day or two, and in a regular
room a day after that.  We're already looking for an
appropriate rehab center."

"What're the criteria?"

She smiled.  "Close enough to home that I can come see you
after work," was her answer.  "None of this is coming out of
your sick-time bank, because you were IOD.  I wasn't."

"Thank God!" he interrupted her.

Her smile deepened a bit, and she continued.  "And I only
have three years with the Bureau.  I don't have nearly as
much sick time saved up as you."

He frowned suddenly.  "Wait a minute.  You said I was out of
it for three days?  Why are you still here?  Aren't you already
supposed to be back in DC?"

She shook her head.  "AD Skinner told me to stay here and
be his liaison to the hospital as long as you were critical. 
Once you're transferred, we can't justify it any longer, so I'll
have to report back.  So we're on waiting lists; we just have
to wait for a bed to become available."

Slowly, Mulder relaxed.  They talked about other things. 
When his meal was delivered, she elevated the head of the
bed to make it easier, and then fed him.  He actually
managed almost half the broth and Jell-O  before he fell
asleep in the middle of a sentence.

Scully smiled, lowered the bed again, and tucked him in.

*****

Mulder recovered with surprising speed.  He was moved out
of the ICU the next morning, and Scully stayed with him all
day, keeping his spirits up as best she could.  She was
reluctant to leave him that evening, but he insisted.

"I'm okay, Scully.  Really.  Go back to the hotel.  I'm just going
to try to sleep; you may as well sleep in a bed, too.  Those
chairs are not comfortable for sleeping."

She wanted to go, but she did not want to leave him alone.
There had been shadows in his eyes all day; she knew he
was afraid of what might happen in the next few days, and
she did not want him brooding about it.

"All right," she conceded.  "But I want you to call me if you
can't sleep.  We can pretend we're home and you're making
your usual 2am call after a case."

He smiled faintly at her, knowing that she was trying to
normalize the situation as much as she could.  "And you
aren't going to call the desk and send me a candy-striper
with a sedative?"

She shook her head.  "I probably will, and you know it.  But I
don't want you lying here all by yourself torturing yourself with
all the what-ifs and maybes."

His smile faded.  "I can't help some of that, Scully.  This is
deadly serious."

"Yes, it is," she nodded.  "But there's no point in borrowing
trouble.  Just follow your doctor's orders, and try not to fret
about the stuff you can't do anything about."

"I'll try..."

She smiled, and tucked him in, made sure he could reach the
remote control for the television.  "That's all I can ask.  Good
night, Mulder."

"Good night."

She heard the television click on behind her, and knew he
would be calling her.

*****

Mulder was drowsing, knowing he was floating on the
painkillers but too tired to really be concerned.  There was a
dark and nasty nightmare hovering at the edge of his
consciousness and he really did not want to free it, so he was
trying not to fall asleep.

It was a doomed effort, but he could try.

The room lights were dimmed and the television was on
mute; he knew that meant he had been asleep and one of the
nurses had visited without disturbing him.  He appreciated
that thoughtfulness, but the idea amused him when he
considered it.  He had always attracted female attention: his
physical attributes assured that and his manners and wit had
made it easy for him to get the attention of any woman he
wanted.  The problems had always come later.  He had had
hundreds of first dates, but second dates had been hard to
come by.  Third dates had been as rare as hen's teeth.

It was once he started to actually talk to them that all sane,
sensible and intelligent women   and he was interested in
dating  no other kind  fled from him with all possible speed.
He pondered doing a foggy-minded analysis of what they
saw that scared them so, but he was interrupted by a gasp of
shock from the doorway.

He rolled his head on the pillow, lacking the strength to lift it.
He grinned groggily at his visitor.  "Hey.  How'd you get
here?"

Melvin Frohike stepped gingerly into the room.  "I didn't
mean to bother you, Mulder.  I... We just got worried."

Mulder looked past him curiously, but the oldest of the Lone
Gunmen seemed to be alone.  "How did you find me?"

Frohike came to stand by the bed, taking in the machinery
and the IVs and the haggard face of his friend.  "You should
have been home the day after the execution," he answered
diffidently.  "When you didn't call we started looking for you.
We couldn't find out enough online, so I volunteered to do the
recon."

"Where're Byers and Langly?"

"Out in the van with the monitoring equipment.  Are you
okay? What happened?!"

Mulder relaxed, enervated by the warmth of real friendship.  "I
got shot.  I lost a lot of blood.  Then it got infected.  This is my
first night in a regular room."

Frohike's eyes widened.  "You'd been in ICU since the
shooting?!   'Til today?!  My God, Mulder!"

Mulder shrugged a little.  "I'm drugged to the eyeballs, Fro'.  I
just sleep.  Occasionally I wake up and eat, or talk to Scully.
Then I have to sleep again."

Frohike drifted casually around as they talked, but Mulder
knew he was memorizing the types of equipment and the
names of all the drugs, their manufacturers and the nurses
who administered them.

"Sleeping's good for you, man.  Even when you aren't shot."

"You're a nag, Fro'."

"You need someone to nag you, Mulder.  You don't take care
of yourself."

Mulder shrugged minutely.  "I've got you.  And Scully's been
here practically every minute."

Frohike grinned.  "Ah, yes, your lovely partner.  When am I
going to get to meet this paragon of the fair sex, Mulder?"

"Never, if I have my way."

"Spoilsport."

"Yep."

"So when are you coming home, Mulder?  You've missed
cheese steak night twice already."

Mulder was falling asleep.  "I dunno.  Days.  Weeks..."

"They aren't going to keep you here till springtime...?!"

"I dunno," he shrugged again.  "Scully says I'm going to a
rehab center, soon.  Home seems a long way away, right
now."

"Okay."  Frohike paused, clearly thinking hard.  "Do you want
me to send your mail here?  We can't pay your bills for you..."

Mulder eyed him.  "You want me to believe that you or one of
your partners-in-crime can't forge my name on a check?"

Frohike had the grace to look embarrassed.  "We'd rather
not tip our hand, Mulder.  It'll be clear, if anyone checks, that
someone forged your name: you're here.  We could set you
up for automatic payments; we can do that online."

Mulder sighed exhaustedly.  "No.  Send it all to me.  Scully'll
handle it.  I gave her my POA."

Frohike gaped at him, shocked.  "Mulder!  What were you
thinking?!"

Mulder blinked at him sleepily.  "I was thinking that she's an
MD and she won't let them hurt me, here."

Frohike slowly relaxed.  "Okay.  I can see that.  But you just
gave her the medical POA, right?"

Mulder shook his head.  "No.  Everything."

"Everything?!  Mulder, you could build your own wing on this
hospital!  Are you insane?!"

"There's not that much, Fro'.  And she has no idea, so she
won't look.  But if I die or disappear..."  He let his voice trail
off.

Frohike nodded slowly.  "I'll get one of the guys to messenger
the stuff to you, here, tomorrow.  I don't want to risk
connecting you or your partner to us."

"Or vice versa?" Mulder grinned.  "Thanks, Fro'.  I'm glad to
see you."

"Are you really all right?"

Mulder closed his eyes and rolled his head to indicate the
negative.  "I'm not in the same time zone as all right, Fro'. 
But Scully says I will be."

"You really trust her, don't you?"

Mulder opened his eyes to meet his friend's worried gaze.
"Yeah, Fro'.  I do.  She's honest and innocent.  It's a deadly
combination."

Frohike nodded slowly.  "Absolutely.  Well, don't let your
guard down too far..."

"'Kay.  'M sorry, Fro'   'm fallin' 'sleep..."

"It's okay, man.  I gotta get outta here, anyway: visiting hours
were over a long time ago."

"'Kay..."

"'Bye, Mulder.  Be well."

But the cottony darkness had swept over him and he could
not respond.  Mulder did not hear Frohike quietly step
outside.

*****

The next morning she was late, and he was worried.

He had called her, twice, in fact.  The first time was the
requisite call so he could say that he had done what she had
asked.  The second time he had done it almost before he
was fully awake from the nightmare that had sent him
reaching desperately for the phone.  She had calmed him
down and re- established his connection with reality, which
had been all askew because of the dream combined with his
unfamiliar surroundings and the sedative they had given him
after the first call.

He ate his breakfast alone, eager to make his first forays into
solid food.  Warm oatmeal, apple juice, and decaffeinated
instant coffee was not what he would have ordered, but it
really did taste good.  He was surprised at how good it
tasted, and he actually ate it all.

But once the food was gone, he went back to worrying about
his partner.  He refused to call her again; he did not want her
to think he could not cope with his situation without her.

The nurse who came in after the tray had been collected
smiled at him as he introduced himself.  "Hi.  I'm Jerry, and
you're mine, today, Mr Mulder."

Mulder made a face.  "Swell.  What's on the agenda for the
day?"

Jerry grinned a little wider.  "I think you'll like it."

*****

It had been the morning from hell.  Her hotel-supplied alarm
clock had failed to go off at all, so she had overslept by more
than an hour.  Then, in the middle of her shower, she had run
out of hot water.  She had managed to get dressed and out
to her car... only to find that, along with more than a dozen
others, her car had been vandalized overnight.  Her car had
a broken rear window and two flat tires.

She had called the rental company for a replacement car,
and made sure that her name and her car's registration were
included on the police report.

She was three and a half hours late getting to the hospital.
She had tried to call Mulder several times, but the number
she had was ringing at the nurse's station.  They said they
were forwarding her messages, so she settled for that; at
least he knew she was trying to get there.

When she came up to his floor, she stopped at the desk, and
was given a message that had come in for her.  When she
got to Mulder's room in the step down ward outside the ICU,
she was stunned speechless.

His bed was empty; there were voices coming from the
bathroom attached to his private room.  One of the voices
was Mulder's and he sounded cheerful.  This made very little
sense, but she did not want to barge in on her male partner
while he was being assisted in a hospital toilet.

Then he was coming out, and Scully gasped.

Mulder was walking.

Yes, he was using a walker, and he was being flanked by two
large and powerful looking orderlies, who were obviously
there to catch him if he faltered.  One of them was keeping
the IV stand behind him from tugging at the needles in his
arms.

Mulder was walking.  His head was down as he concentrated
on where to put his feet.  As he got closer to her, she could
see the tension in his face.

She must have made a sound, because two steps from the
bed he suddenly looked up and his smile was blinding.

"Hi, Scully."

She had to bite her lip to keep from tearing up; he had been
depressed and scared when she had last seen him.  Now he
was practically incandescent with happiness, all because he
had managed to walk across his room to the toilet, use it,
and get back.

"I see today is a good day," she observed gravely.

He stood up off the walker, leaving it on the floor but not
leaning on it.  "Today is a *great* day," he agreed.  "You're
late."

"My day started badly," she shrugged.  "This is wonderful."

Mulder took a step, intentionally testing his balance.  He
wavered slightly, and Jerry caught him.

"Steady."

"I'm okay, Jer'.  How do you want to do this?"

Scully stayed by the door as Jerry explained the plan for
getting Mulder back into bed without putting any undue stress
on his damaged leg.  He just watched as Mulder turned and
sat down on the bed.  From the expression on Mulder's face,
that motion had flexed muscles in his damaged thigh that
were letting him know he had gone too far.

Scully wanted to dash forward and intervene, but she saw
that Jerry had things well in hand.  She fought down a surge
of rage that two orderlies would have this kind of
responsibility.  She resolved to have the hide off the nursing
supervisor, but it never occurred to her to yell at the orderlies;
they were just doing what they had been told to do, and they
*had* made Mulder very happy...

Jerry pushed the button to give Mulder a jolt of painkiller, and
waited a minute until some of the tension melted out of
Mulder's body.  "Is that better, Mr Mulder?" he inquired as he
pushed the walker out of the way.

"Yeah."

"Okay.  Just hold still and let us do the work."

Mulder let his eyes close, and Scully, watching him like a
hawk, saw that sweat was matting his hair against his face. 
"No arguments, Jerry.  I think I just hit the wall."

"It's about time!" the big man chuckled softly.  "You're not
supposed to be able to do this, yet, you know."

Mulder grinned proudly, but he did not open his eyes.  It
seemed to be taking all the energy he had to hold himself
upright.

Jerry waited until Paul was properly situated on the far side
of the bed.  Then Paul took hold of Mulder's body, and Jerry
slid his forearm under Mulder's knees.

"Ready?"

Paul and Mulder both nodded.

"Three, two, one... lift."

They lifted Mulder high enough to turn him and get him
properly on the bed, and laid him down gently, minimizing the
stress on his wounded leg.

When they had settled him, made sure that there were no
folds of fabric under him and that his IVs were straight, Jerry
pulled the blanket up and covered him.

"There you go, Mr Mulder.  You okay?"

Slowly, Mulder let himself relax, realizing belatedly that he
had been holding his breath against excruciating pain that
had not manifested.

"Yeah," he answered.  "Thanks a lot, guys.  That was great."

Paul grinned.  "Roller coasters are great.  This was just very
good."

Mulder grinned at him.

"Just remember what Doctor Lorac said," Jerry reminded
him. "Buzz us if you feel weird, or different, or if the pain gets
worse. Don't be shy about it."

"Okay."

Scully stood aside, and noticed, as the two men left the
room, that Jerry's ID tag showed that he was a nurse.  All her
simmering anger at their behavior --how dare two orderlies
do this without approval and supervision?!-- vanished.  They
had authorization from this Dr Lorac, and any RN was
certainly capable of handling a chore like this.

She shut the door behind them and came into the room.
Mulder was motionless except for rapid respiration.  He
looked a little pale to her, too.

"Mulder?  Are you all right?"

He did not open his eyes.  "I'm okay," he panted.  "Just... "

She gave him another dose of painkiller.  "I know you are.  In
fact, I'm really impressed.  I thought they wouldn't even
consider trying to get you up for at least a few more days. 
This is excellent progress."

He was grinning, still, although she could see strain showing
around his eyes as he pushed the button on the remote and
elevated his bed until he was sitting up comfortably.  "Jerry
was telling me about rehab," he told her, opening his eyes to
watch her.  "He used to work in one.  He says I'll probably be
on parallel bars right away, walking every day.  It's like being
in training."

Scully relaxed as he chattered on.  Her mind automatically
compensated for the painkiller's effect on his mind and fine
motor control, and she could hear his happiness, his
excitement, and knew that his relief was as great as her own
at this sign of real progress.

She resolved to do something really nice for Jerry.

When she could get a word in edgewise, she interrupted
Mulder's excited plans.  "Mulder?  Promise me something?"

He stopped and studied her for a moment.  "What?"

"Don't ever try to get out of bed without help?  If you fall you
could hurt yourself very badly."

He grinned at her.  "You want me to follow orders?!" he
asked, his tone exaggeratedly incredulous.

"Yes, I do," she said, trying to keep from smiling at his
infectious happiness.  "You understand the repercussions if
you fail to do so and your luck runs out."

"Scully, I have the luck of Teela Brown."

She recognized the reference to Larry Niven's RINGWORLD.
"If you did, you wouldn't be here at all, Mulder.  The bullet
would have missed you."

He made a face at her.  "Don't give me worst-case
scenarios now, Scully.  I just walked!  I got out of this damned
bed and I walked!"

She yielded the point and smiled back at him.  "Yes, you did.
And it was great to see you up."

His eyebrows did a Groucho at her, and his grin got wider.

Scully blushed and looked away.

Mulder chuckled and let himself relax.  "So, why were you
late? You had the morning from hell?"

She settled down in the chair beside his bed, and put her
feet up on the mattress beside his.  "Yes, I had the morning
from hell."  She explained it all to him, and he was amused. 
Then she broke the news.  "Your rehab bed is ready.  You're
going to Oakwoods.  It's about halfway between my house
and my parents'."

He leaned back a little.  "I think...  I think that makes me
nervous."

"Going to rehab?  Why?"

He shivered.  "Well, I've kinda adapted to being here. 
Moving someplace else means I've got to do that all over
again, figure out a whole new system, get to know a whole
new set of people..."

Scully grinned at him as she set out her lunch on his
tray-table. He was clearly recovering well, although the
morphine was still suppressing his thinking processes to
some extent.

When she handed him a can of 7-UP  he sighed and lodged
his required complaint.  "No Pepsi?  No Coke, even?  Who
do I have to kill to get some caffeine around here?"

"You can't have any, period," she told him, as she had every
day when he whined about the available beverages.  "We
want you to sleep whenever you get tired.  Caffeine interferes
with that."

"Whatever."  He reached for the morphine switch again, and
pretended he was just adjusting the way it lay, hoping she did
not notice when he pushed the button.

She knew what he was doing, but did not comment.

"So, when am I leaving?"

"You'll be there by dinnertime, tonight."

"So soon?"  He was startled at feeling some regret at
leaving this hospital... and only then did he realize that he did
not even know the name of it.

"Don't want someone else to grab that bed."

He sighed. "So, how am I getting there?  I obviously can't
drive. Your car?"

She snorted.  "Dreamer.  Ambulance transport to a helipad a
few miles from here.  Medical helicopter to Maryland, then
another ambulance from that helipad to Oakwoods."

He frowned, puzzled.  "Why a helicopter?  I'm not that bad off,
am I?"

She heard the note of fear in his voice and smiled
reassuringly.  "No, you aren't.  But the trip is nearly three
hundred miles, Mulder; you don't have the strength to spare
to handle a road trip right now.  Besides, every time the
ambulance hits a bump or changes lanes, it's going to rock.
You're going to be heavily medicated, probably including a
sedative.  You might be able to sleep through the entire
experience; I'd recommend that."

He chewed on his lip a little.  "Do I get to sit up, at least?"

"Possibly, but you will be on a litter.  I recommend you let
them put you out."

He was frowning and she knew he was marshaling an
argument, so she changed the subject then, asking him
about his morning's activities.  She finished her lunch on
much more companionable topics.  Just as she was
finishing, they brought Mulder his; this time he got scrambled
eggs and toast, grape jelly, orange juice and more
decaffeinated coffee.  It was cold, but it was food, and he
was suddenly ravenous; Scully's vegetable sub from Subway 
had not really tempted him.

About an hour after they finished lunch, the nurse came in
with a syringe, and Mulder watched as she injected it into the
morphine IV.  She disconnected the antibiotic IV altogether,
although she did not remove the needle.  She sealed the
tubing and taped it all down to his arm.

"You can do without that for a few hours," she explained with
a smile.  "We'll leave the morphine, though."

"Thanks, Moira."  He was getting nervous again.  He had
vague memories of the ambulance ride that had brought him
here: terrible pain warring with blind panic as he fought to
breathe,  the EMTs swapping their tersely coded
instructions, and Scully's tear-filled voice urging him to hang
on, to stay with her, to not leave her alone...

He glanced up at his partner.  "Are you coming with me?"

"No."

He felt a sudden chill.  "Why not?"

"Skinner called last night.  He wants me to report in.  If I leave
now, maybe I can finish the meeting with him and join you for
dinner at Oakwoods.  Is that okay?"

"I guess it'll... have... t' be..."  The sedative hit him abruptly,
and he had to lay his head back against the pillow so he
would not lose his balance.  His eyes closed of their own
volition.

"Mulder?"

"Good drugs..."  He knew he slurred it a little; his tongue felt
thick.  Her hands were on his, then, cool and gentle, and he
tried to hold on.  But her fingers slipped through his grasp as
if she were a ghost.  "Scully...?"

"I'll meet you at Oakwoods, Mulder," she said quietly.  "I won't
be long."

He wanted to look up at her, to see her, but he could not pry
his eyelids open.  His last thought, before he drowned in the
familiar cottony darkness, was that he thought he had felt her
lips brush his.

Or had he?

***** 

"Agent Scully.  Welcome back."

AD Skinner was his usual self, punctilious but just
uncomfortable enough in her presence that she knew he
used those mannerisms to shield himself.

"It's nice to be back, sir," she gave him the correct response.

"Sit."

She did so, feeling the loneliness bite at her with unexpected
ferocity:  Mulder's chair, beside her, was so very vacant.

"How is Agent Mulder doing, Agent Scully?"

This information she had, and she could rattle it off without
thinking about it much.  She did so, summarizing his
treatment and progress since the last time she had done so
for him.

"He was transferred to rehab a few hours ago, sir," she
concluded the recitation.  "They'll start weaning him off the IV
painkillers, supervise the healing of the wounds, and get him
back into shape."

"How long will he be there?"

"Considering that earlier this week we thought he was going
to die on us, he's made remarkable progress since.  They
anticipate a month in rehab, then discharge for a monitored
convalescence at home for another month.  Then he'll be
eligible for light duty status."

"Eight weeks, " Skinner mused.  "Then a Bureau physical
and firearms qualification, and he'll be back out there."  He
leaned back, looked faintly pleased, which surprised Scully. 
"How's he taking it, Agent Scully?  The man's hyperactive
and obsessed with his work.  He can't be enjoying this
confinement.  Is he driving you crazy, yet?"

She smiled faintly.  "The morphine's keeping him down to a
dull roar.  And despite it, moving carelessly or too much
causes him a great deal of pain.  He'll start getting stir-crazy
after they wean him off the morphine.  I don't think pain will
slow him down much.  Hopefully Percocet  will."

Skinner shook his head, and surprised her by almost smiling.
"I'm sure no one's looking forward to that."

"I am," she said frankly.  "I miss my partner, sir.  That
heavily-medicated patient is a shadow of the man I know."

Skinner leaned forward, and his voice became brisk and
businesslike again.  "Well, he'll be back, soon.  In the
meantime, I have an assignment for you."

She straightened in the chair, bracing herself.  "Sir?"

He looked up and met her eyes steadily.  "I am not sending
you back to the Academy, Scully, to mark time until Mulder's
back in the basement.  I might not get you back, and neither
of us wants that.  So I'm keeping you within my command,
and lending you out to Violent Crimes.  You're a good
investigator, you've had some excellent field training.  You
did a good job in North Carolina, even before Mulder's injury
forced you to take command.  You did a very good job; better
than we would have ordinarily expected from an agent with
as little field experience as you have had."

"Thank you, sir."  She was frozen, waiting for him to ruin all
her plans for the next two months.

"So, while Mulder's incapacitated, we're going to get you a
little more variety of experience.  I'm going to assign you as a
supernumerary agent to Agent Bart Mitcham's unit.  He
specializes in kidnappings for ransom, but he does 'em all.
He's been in VCS for years; he has a huge cold case file.  I
want you to go through that cold case file and peer review
them.  I want summaries of the case with an analysis of what
was done correctly, what was wasted effort.  I'm not
interested in you second-guessing the SAC's decisions.  I
want to know what they wasted time doing because it was
standard procedure and not because they anticipated any
real profit from it.  I also want an outline of your
recommendations of how a current renewal of the
investigation should proceed, as well as recommendations
for policy and procedural changes.

"I don't want you in the field unless absolutely necessary,
Scully.  Mitcham's a good agent, but he's five  months from
retirement.  I'm doing what I can to make sure he gets there.
I'm trying to keep him inside, too."

"Does he currently have a partner, sir?"

Skinner shook his head.  "He's acting ASAC, supervising
four pairs of younger agents while they handle the actual
caseloads.  He hates riding a desk at least as much as you
and Mulder do."  He paused.  "Agent Scully, I feel it
necessary to warn you that Agent Mitcham is an old-style
gentleman, not a modern one.  I suspect you  aren't going to
like him, much. On the other hand, you can hold your own just
fine against Mulder's razorwire brain; an old fogey like
Mitcham hasn't got a chance against you.  If you want to
report him, I will handle him.  But I don't expect you'll need my
help."

Scully made a face.  "Thank you so much, sir."

Skinner sighed.  "I expect that you will be spending most of
your time on the case files, not with Mitcham.  He's been
informed of your assignment, and told that you don't have to
physically report in at VCS.  You can bring the files back
here, or work on them anywhere you like.  You will submit
your reports to Mitcham and to me; e-mail is fine.  As long as
the work gets done."

Scully blinked, and suppressed a smile.  Skinner had just
given her the blank check for which she had not dared ask
him.

"Thank you, sir.  Thank you very much!"

It was all she could do to keep from running out of his office.

*****

It took willpower to restrain herself from speeding as she
headed for Oakwoods.  She knew where it was because she
had inspected it before she had consented to send Mulder
here.  She was finding that Medical Power of Attorney
document very helpful.

She parked in the visitors lot and hurried inside.  The woman
at Reception was one she had met before, and she smiled.

"Hi, Traci.  Where've you got Fox Mulder tucked away in
here?"

But Traci shook her head.  "He hasn't arrived, yet.  We were
expecting him, but he hasn't arrived."

Scully could only stare at her for a moment.  "They started
prepping him for transport at one o'clock this afternoon.  It's
after six... he should be here by now!"

Traci spread her hands helplessly.  "He's not here, and we
haven't heard a thing."

Scully pulled out her cell and hit the speed dial for the nurses
station outside Mulder's old room.

"Nine-west."

"Vivianne?  This is Dana Scully.  Did you ship Mulder to
Oakwoods like we planned?"

"Yes, of course."

"What time did he leave?"

"Hang on..."

Scully waited, motionless, internalizing her tension.  She
could hear Vivianne flipping pages in her log book.

"He was signed out to Rural-Metro at two o'clock."

"I'm at Oakwoods, Vivianne.  He's not here."

Scully heard Vivianne gasp.  "Something must have
happened...!"

"I'm going to call Rural-Metro, Viv.  Thanks."

"Call me when you find out what happened?"

"I'll make sure you find out.  Thanks, Viv."

Scully turned to Traci, intending to ask for the number, but
Traci was dialing already.

"Bennie?  This is Traci at Oakwoods Admissions.  Where's
my new patient?"  There was a brief pause.  "Fox Mulder." 
There was a longer pause, and she looked up at Scully. 
"The ambulance was involved in a multi-car DWI wreck after
they left the heli-pad."  Her attention went back to the phone.

Scully was frozen with horror.

"Okay.  Thanks, Bennie.  Good thoughts for your guys."  She
hung up the phone and turned to face Scully.  "No fatalities."

Scully let some of the tension out of her spine.

"All four casualties from the wrecked ambulance were
airlifted to Holy Cross Hospital.  Bennie says it wasn't
because they were hurt that badly; it was because the wreck
clogged traffic so badly that there was no other way to get
them out at all."

Scully closed her eyes for a moment, breathing a prayer.
"Thanks, Traci.  I'm on my way there."

Traci waited until she was out the doors, and dialed the
phone again.  "ER, please.  Tammy?  This is Traci at
Oakwood Admissions.  Here's a heads-up for you; you got a
vic from that DWI with the Rural-Metro ambulance.  His name
is Fox Mulder; he was the patient being transported; he was
supposed to be coming here.  Listen to me, Tammy.  He's an
FBI agent recovering from a gunshot wound.  His partner is
five-two, a blue-eyed redhead named Dana Scully.  She's an
FBI agent, and a medical doctor, and she is hell-on-wheels
with no brakes, Tam.  She's on her way.  Do not get between
her and that patient.  She's got his MPOA; you can't stop her. 
Don't even try.  Just get out of her way."

*****

Mulder clawed his way up to consciousness with the total
conviction that something was very wrong.  He tried to look
around but he could not open his eyes.  So he concentrated
on his other senses.

Much to his relief, he could hear Scully's voice.  He could not
quite make out what she was saying, but from her tone,
someone had thoroughly pissed her off.  If he concentrated,
he could hear another voice, a man's, trying to expostulate,
trying to interrupt, to explain.  Scully obviously had no
intention of letting him get a word in edgewise.

After a while Mulder decided to take pity on the hapless fool.
"Scully...?"

Those two syllables, barely audible, hoarse and ragged even
to his own ears, were enough.  Her tirade stopped at once,
and he heard the distinctive rhythm of her high heels as she
came to his bedside.

"Mulder?  Are you awake?"

"Kinda," he managed.  "Wha' hap'n'd?  Somethin's wrong..."
He could hear the slur in his own voice, and it worried him.

Cool fingers brushed his forehead; a cool damp cloth wiped
across his face very gently.  When he tried again his eyes
opened.

The figure bending over him was Scully, but he could not
focus on her.  Her hair was enough; he relaxed.

"Mulder?  What's the last thing you remember?"

He had been expecting that question.  "I remember a plan for
an ambulance ride.  What happened?"

"The ambulance was in a wreck, Mulder."

His vision was slowly clearing.  He concentrated on her, and
saw the signs of tears on her face.  He tried to lift his hand to
touch her cheek, and found that he could not do it.  Startled,
he fought harder.  There seemed to be a heavy weight
holding his arm down.

Scully put her hands down on top of his.  "Mulder, stop. 
You're still recovering from the anesthetic.  Don't try to move."

He obeyed her, but his respiration rate went up.  "What
happened?" he demanded.

"You have several broken bones, you're badly battered and
bruised.  You're wearing a neck brace..."

He had not realized he was until she said it.

"...because the ambulance rolled, and the litter broke free
when the back of the ambulance was ripped apart.  You were
under the litter and most of the loose equipment from inside.
There's some swelling, here, but it looks like just some
sprained muscles.  The MRI showed no damage to your
spine. For a wonder, your wounded leg is fine."

That litany had been rattled off quickly, and he really had not
grasped most of it.  "Am I okay?" he had to ask.

"Yes, Mulder.  You're going to be fine.  Just relax.  Go back to
sleep.  We'll talk about it again when you really wake up."

She was right; he was falling asleep.  He wanted to hold her
hand, but he could only move the tips of his fingers on his left
hand.  It was enough; he suspected she put her hand where
he needed it to be, but that was all right.  "Thanks, Scully..."

*****

Mulder woke up again while Scully was eating her dinner at
his bedside.  The tantalyzing smell of lemon-broiled fish and
a ginger-and-hot-sauce vegetable stir fry was the first thing
he noticed.

Scully noticed he was waking up because his head turned
toward her.  When she realized he was sniffing for her dinner
she smiled and waved the carton of vegetables closer to his
face.

Finally he pried his eyes open and managed to focus on her.
"Hi."

"Hi, yourself, sleepyhead."

He did not like how rusty his voice sounded, but apparently
she agreed because she offered him water at once.  It
helped.  He cleared his throat several times before he tried
to speak again.  He took the time to look around the room. 
He made a face.  "Looks like a hospital to me," he grumbled.

"Got it in one," she nodded.  "Holy Cross in Silver Springs. 
Do you remember waking up a little while ago?"

He frowned.  "I remember you yelling at someone."

Much to his surprise, she blushed.  "That was me," she
confirmed, her voice faint.

"Who were you flaying?"

"An idiot in Admissions who didn't think our medical
coverage included  ambulances for transfers, or for car
crashes. Needless to say, I tore him a new one."

He could not help but smile at her, unaware of how
drug-dazed he looked.  "Chainsaw!Scully is one of my
personal favorites... What did you say to him?"

"I told him if he didn't get the paperwork done correctly I'd
sue the hospital, and when I owned it, I'd fire him."

He was exhausted, but he couldn't pass that up.  "You have
the strangest ambitions, Scully..."

She smiled, and he felt himself sliding back under the
influence of the drugs that were no doubt flooding his
bloodstream; he was having trouble focusing on her, but he
wanted details. "How did I get here?"

"Helicopter airlift."

That startled him, but not enough to fight off the weariness.
"You're kidding."

"Nope."

"And I missed that one, too."

"You were unconscious," she nodded.

"So, how long am I stuck here?"

She grinned at him.  "So, now you want to go to Oakwoods?"

"I hate hospitals."

She took a deep breath.  "All right.  You're here for at least
another day, maybe two.  Then it's on to Oakwoods."

"At least that's progress," Mulder observed, trying to sound
cheerful.

Scully bit her lip; it was entirely possible that he did not
remember the briefing she had given him when he had
awakened the first time.  "Mulder..."

His eyes met hers and he stared, as if trying to read her
mind. It did not work and he was forced to ask. "What?"

"This crash has set your timetable back a bit."

He swallowed hard.  "Tell me."

"Your left radius and ulna are broken and so is your right
radius.  There are broken carpals and metacarpals in your
right hand.  Your left clavicle is broken.  You can't really work
on walking when you can't use your hands and arms to
balance and support yourself.  Both your forearms are
heavily casted, Mulder.  You can't do anything but lie there
and complain."

He sagged back into the pillow.

She waited for him to say something, but he did not.
"Mulder...?"

He blinked back tears.  "What else could go wrong, Scully?
The Bureau's always watching for an excuse to shut us down.
It's going to be months before I'm fit for duty again...!  They're
going to re-assign you and close the X Files down... what's
the point of working to get out of here when there's nothing to
get back to?"

She moved decisively: she sat down on the mattress beside
him so she could put her hands on either side of his body
and lean down to look him squarely in the eye.

"That's not true," she said distinctly.  "Skinner specifically
stated that he was keeping me in his command while you're
out because he doesn't want to lose me or our department. 
I'm on temporary assignment to Violent Crimes, doing case
reviews of cold cases to see if we can kickstart some of
them. The X Files are in abeyance, waiting for you."

She watched him fight to process what she had said; it took
more time than usual; the painkillers were seriously impairing
his functioning.   Finally he found words.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure.  There's an old agent in VCS  a guy named Bart
Mitcham  who's got a huge cold case file.  I'm assigned as a
supernumerary to his unit.  He's supervising four pairs of
agents and hating every minute of it, but Skinner wants to
keep him inside and off the streets; he's less than five
months from retirement and Skinner wants to make sure he
makes it."

Mulder resisted for a few moments and then let himself relax.
"You're sure...?"

"I'm sure, Mulder.  You just work on getting better.  We'll be
back in the basement as soon as you're fit for duty."

He fell asleep smiling.

*****

Mulder was held overnight at Holy Cross for observation,
then shipped, as before, to Oakwoods.  This time Scully rode
with him, and he asked for lighter meds; he did not want to
sleep through it this time.

Scully did not argue.  She preferred it when he was
conscious, too.  This time there were no complications or
accidents. Scully monitored his admission and did all the
paperwork without letting him out of her sight.

He was in a semi-private room, but currently had no
roommate.  Scully was cautiously pleased with that.  She had
dinner with him, then, when he could not stay awake, took her
leave of him, promising to be back in the morning.

He frowned.  "Don't you have to be at work?"

Scully chuckled.  "Tomorrow's Saturday.  Skinner's a
martinet, not a slave driver."

He looked interested.  "What's he got you doing?" he asked.
"You're not at Quantico?"

"No."  She shook her head.  "I'm supposed to peer review a
bunch of cold cases, write up recommendations for how to
resume investigations, and suggestions for policy and
procedure changes."

"Wow.  How you rate."

"It's busy work, Mulder.  Skinner all but told me to bring the
cases here and spend my days with you."

Mulder smiled.  "We'll have to go something nice for him."

"What would you suggest?"

Mulder hid a yawn, and blinked at her tiredly.  "Maybe we can
solve a couple of those cases."

"I'm not allowed in the field without an able-bodied partner,"
she reminded him.

"My body's able; it's my arms and leg that're messed up, "he
grinned at her slyly.

She blushed and stood up hurriedly.  "Go to sleep, Mulder."

"I'll call you later."

From the doorway, she threw him a smile.  Then she was
gone.

It took him a while to fall asleep, but when he did, he slept
through the night and never tried to call her.

*****

Saturday morning brought with it a rude awakening.  He had
accepted Scully's cosseting the evening before, including
letting her feed him his dinner, because he was feeling rather
fragile and because she made him feel as if there might be
someone on the planet who genuinely cared about him
without being paid to do so.

Morning started early here; orderlies and LPNs were bustling
down the halls with sponge baths and clean gowns and linen
for everyone, like it or not.  He tolerated it because the nurse
was male and reminded him of Jerry back at the hospital. 
The orderly was not as big as Jerry or Paul, but they
managed.

Once the floor had settled down from that serial disturbance,
the breakfast carts arrived.  While the laundry detail had
started at Mulder's end of the corridor, the breakfast carts
started at the other.  He listened to them for a long time
before the cart stopped at his door.

A young woman brought in his tray, set it up on the tray table,
maneuvered it over his bed and opened the tray, all without a
word.  It was as if she could not --or would not-- see him.  He
turned his attention to the food and she vanished out the
door.

That was when Mulder came to a shocking realization.  His
hands were both in casts, and he was totally helpless.  He
had no use of his hands at all.  He could not feed himself.  He
could not do anything for himself.  He looked around for a call
button and found it lying on the bed by his left leg.

He reached for it with his left hand but misjudged the
movement, overcompensating for the weight of the cast.  The
edge of the plaster hit the control box, and before his fingers
could close on it, it had slid off the bed.

He heard the clatter of plastic hitting the floor and cursed
under his breath.  The box also had the bed controls on it;
now he could not elevate the bed, either.  He relaxed back
against the pillow for a moment, thinking about his choices,
trying to stay calm.

Alone, isolated, immobilized and helpless was a terrifying
combination.  For a moment he was swept up in memories
of his capture in Idaho, not all that long ago: he had
surrendered to overwhelming odds, been cuffed and
disarmed, taken into custody and driven into the very hanger
he had wanted to infiltrate.  Then someone had walked up to
him and sprayed him in the face with something from a small
aerosol can.

Whatever drug had been in the spray had cut his legs out
from under him at once.  Cuffed, he had been unable to
protect himself when he fell, and his skull had thumped on the
concrete floor rather hard, adding a massive headache to his
discomfort.  He had been aware but unable to move or
clearly see when the soldiers had lifted him and laid him on a
gurney. He had begun to gasp for air by then: the paralysis
was spreading.  He had been desperately relieved when
they fitted an oxygen mask over his face.  The air had tasted
odd and he had thought even then that it contained an
antidote for the sprayed drug.

He had struggled, trying to fight his way free, but he could not
move.  He could barely breathe or see.  He was strapped
down and helpless, being taken to men that he knew would
have no compunctions against killing him.

Mulder shuddered and forced his mind back to the present.
Idaho had been bad; he still did not remember it all.  He
strongly suspected that a part of him really did not want to
remember.  He had been sick for two days afterward and
had had claustrophobic dreams of torture and interrogation
for weeks afterward.

At least now he could move a little, he tried to console
himself. He could talk.  He swallowed a couple of times,
hoped he had regained enough control to trust his voice.

"Hey!" he called experimentally.  That did not sound too bad,
and his voice was not trembling.  He tried for a little more
volume.  "Hello!  Anybody there?  Hellooo...?" He fell silent,
straining to hear what was happening in the hallway.  His
door was ajar, but only a few inches.  The door moved.

"Hello?"

An older woman in a nurse's uniform stepped inside. 
"What's all the shouting about?"

Mulder relaxed.  "I lost the call button."

She sighed and shook her head.  It took her only a moment
to locate it and use the velcro strap to fasten it to the bedrail
so he would not lose it again.  "You have to be more careful
of your toys."

He grinned wryly.  "Yes, Mom."

"Muriel, actually."

"Nice to meet you, Muriel."

"I really prefer Ellie."

"I totally understand," he nodded.  "I don't use my first name
at all.  Just call me Mulder."

She glanced at the chart in the pocket on the inside of his
door, and grinned.  "I totally understand."

"I thought you might.  Can you help me with breakfast?"  He
lifted his casted hands a bit to demonstrate his need.

Ellie nodded.  "I can do that."  Then a tone sounded from her
pocket.  "But not right this minute," she sighed.  She pulled
her pager out and glanced at it.  "I'll be back as soon as I
can, Mr Mulder.  We're running a little understaffed this
morning."

"I understand that.  Not a problem."

Before he could finish the thought she was gone.

He was both relieved and apprehensive; he had developed
another problem.  He needed to get to the washroom.  He
had hesitated, feeling a bit embarrassed about asking a
woman he didn't know, who was old enough to be his
mother, to help him with that.  Unfortunately, the matter was
going to become urgent rather soon.

He could see the toilet.  The problem was that it was at least
fifteen feet away: he had been installed, at his own request,
in the bed by the window, and the washroom was by the
door. Even if he had had his crutches, he doubted he could
make it that far.

He knew that if he tried and failed and re-injured himself,
Scully would harangue him without mercy, and she might, as
she had on occasion threatened in the past, recommend a
psychological evaluation based on his demonstrated
self-destructive behaviors.

He was busy resigning himself to wetting the bed for lack of
other choices when he heard familiar footsteps approaching.
In a moment, his partner was coming into his room.

"Good morning, Mulder!"  She seemed cheerful, despite the
heavy briefcase she was carrying.

"Scully, get me a couple of orderlies, will you?  I need to get
up and I can't do it alone!"

She understood at once.  "You aren't getting up, Mulder."

He was gritting his teeth, now.  "Whatever!  I still need help,
Scully; I can't use my hands!"

She went to the doorway and gestured imperatively to
someone he could not see.  "Did you ask anyone for help
before I got here?"

"I didn't have a chance," he answered her.  "Ellie got paged
and had to leave.  She promised to come back, but couldn't
say when."

"Y'all need some he'p in heah?"

A soft Southern drawl from the doorway distracted them
both. Scully stepped out of the room to give Mulder some
privacy. She waited there patiently until the young orderly
stepped out again.

"All clear, ma'am," he grinned at her.

Scully smiled.  "Thank you."  She went back inside.

Mulder had elevated the head of the bed a little, so he could
see her more easily.  When she came into sight, he grinned
at her lazily.  "Good morning."

"Good morning?  Harried morning, it sounds like."  She
pulled up a chair so she could sit beside him, checking the
PCA pump as she fussed for a moment.  She noted that the
infusion rate was lower than yesterday, but did not see a
need to mention that to Mulder.  She checked out his 
breakfast tray. "You can eat this, or special order another
and have it delivered about lunch time..."

He sighed and decided to let her change the subject.  "I'll try.
It's not like I have a choice.  I'm hungry!"

Scully smiled and checked his hands and the bandages

there. "Your right hand was pretty badly damaged," she said
calmly as she fussed.  "You won't be using it any time soon. 
But the left has potential.  We'll discuss it with your doctor. 
He'll be here soon to discuss your recovery plan."

Mulder relaxed and let his partner feed him.

They were just finishing when there was a knock on the door
and a man who looked like Mulder might have if he had been
blond and twenty pounds heavier stuck his head into the
room.

"Mr Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

The man came the rest of the way in, and approached the
bed. He took in the details of bandaging and refrained from
offering to shake hands.  "Hi.  I'm Victor Donnainess, your
primary physician.  This," he gestured behind him as another
man followed him into the room, "is your physical therapist,
Drew Bellinger."

Bellinger grinned easily.  "Hi.  You're going to hate me."

Mulder relaxed back against the pillows.  "I already hate
you," he assured the man.

Bellinger laughed, shoved his hands into the pockets of his
well-worn jeans, and leaned against the wall.  It was Scully
who noted the long lean lines of his legs, and the worn but
nicely polished cowboy boots he was wearing.

"Now that the niceties are done..."  Dr Donnainess took over
the conversation again.  Within three sentences, his words
were just meaningless sounds to Mulder, so he just relaxed
and watched his partner as she fielded it all effortlessly.

Neither of them was pleased with the doctor's decision and
orders.

"You're not getting any PT this week, Mr Mulder.  You've
been through quite enough, I think, and you're still running a
low-grade fever, which means that the infection is still fighting
back.  I want you to rest as much as you can.  The exercise
you get getting up to go to the bathroom will be enough.  If
you like, for an hour in the morning and another in the
afternoon, you can get up, and either sit in a chair here in the
room, or use a wheelchair and get someone," he paused to
grin at Scully, who smiled faintly back, "to take you out into
the halls.  If the weather is nice, you can go outside.  But I
don't want you out of bed for more than an hour at a time."

Mulder swallowed hard, realizing that he really could not
rationally argue about this.  So he found something else. 
"Can Scully bring me food?  As hospital food goes, this
place's is... hospital food."

Dr Donnainess chuckled.  "You are free to negotiate.  I'll ask
that she not bring you anything too extravagantly unhealthy..."

Mulder grinned at his partner.  "So I'll be living on Subway?"

"Good choice, for fast food."

"Thanks, doc."

"You're welcome.  We're going to wean you off the IV
painkillers and switch you to tablets, preferably a
non-opiate."

"That scares me," Mulder admitted frankly.  "Anyone who
thinks you can't remember pain has never been shot like this. 
I remember the ambulance ride from the scene; I don't ever
want to experience anything like that ever again!"

Scully's hand, in his, tightened convulsively.  "You remember
that?!  I never suspected you were really conscious...!"

He looked over at her.  "I remember the pain, strange voices
muttering to one another, and you, talking to me, making me
stay focused.  It hurt more if I obeyed, but considering how
dark it got when I didn't concentrate on you, I think I would
have died if you hadn't been so determined."

Scully ducked her head, avoiding his eyes.  All three men
could see her blushing.

Dr Donnainess stood up.  "I'll be checking on you a couple of
times a day, Mr Mulder.  If you need to speak to me, have me
paged.  I won't be far away.  Dr Scully, if I could speak to you
for a moment?"

Mulder did not demur when his partner silently followed the
doctor out into the hall.  The physical therapist, who had said
little, followed the doctor, with just a jaunty wave for his
patient. Mulder settled back for a nap.

Out in the hall, Dr Donnainess paused for a moment.  "You've
been following his progress from the beginning.  Do you think
he can be weaned off the IV in a week?"

Scully bit her lip.  "I don't know," she admitted.  "Maybe we
could step him down from IV opiates to tabs and then to
non-opiate tabs?  I know the IV will make his PT difficult..."

Donnainess nodded, glancing at Bellinger, who was
standing a few feet away.  "I really don't like sending patients
still on high dose opiates for PT, but PT is better than supine
range-of-motion exercises."

Scully could not argue with that.  "And with Mulder's collection
of injuries, ROM would be of limited use," she pointed out.
"His thigh is an obscene mess... or it was, until Hirschfelder
and Stock in Raleigh put him back together."

"That ambulance ride was a bad one, huh?"

She shuddered.  "I don't recall ever being so scared," she
admitted.  "He was only barely conscious, if at all.  He was
unresponsive to verbal stimuli, but the tiniest movement
obviously caused him pain.  Plus, he was bleeding out and
there was nothing we could do about it.  It took thirteen units
to stabilize him."

"Damn..."

"Yeah."

"And that was eight days ago?"

"Yes."

"So the femoral artery bundle was not compromised?"

"No, but it was close."  She took a deep breath.  "Once he
starts really recovering, he's going to drive us crazy, you
know. He's not ADD, but he is hyperactive.  He has a
genius-level IQ and very little respect for authority.  He also
has very little sense of self preservation: he will gaily dive in
and risk himself if he thinks the prize might be worth it."

"Swell..."  Donnainess glanced at his watch.  "Oh, jeez.  Now
I'm behind schedule.  I'll see you later, Doctor Scully."

"All right."

*****

For that week, Mulder slept a lot.  Scully worked, reading
through the first case in her briefcase and making notes on a
yellow legal pad.  When he was awake they talked about the
cases she had brought along.  Mulder tended to sleep on the
questions, and give her the answers when he woke up, which
she found slightly unnerving.

He insisted on his twice-a-day excursions, if not outside, at
least to the front lobby, where there were large windows and
he could at least see outside.  The staff had planted bird
feeders near most of the ground floor windows, and on his
second day, Scully brought him a field guide to North
American birds so they could try to identify the ones they
were seeing.

Mulder had a voracious mind, even under the cloud of
opiates, and he read the field guide over the next few days,
and soon was slapping names on birds that Scully could only
identify as birds because they flew.

"That was a Tufted Titmouse, Scully."

"You're making that up; there's no such bird."

"Sure there is; look on page 324."

She looked, and found that he was right.  Even drugged, his
eidetic memory was working, even if he sounded as if he
was talking in slow motion.

The excursions always exhausted him and she could count
on him being solidly asleep for several hours right after they
got him back into bed.  She took advantage of those times to
make phone calls and, sometimes, to take a nap, herself.

*****

It was the fourth day at Oakwoods when Mulder realized that
he had not heard from Frohike, nor had his mail arrived.  He
still could not use his hands, so he bided his time.  When
Scully took her leave of him to go offsite for lunch, he hit his
call button.

It was Paul Knolland, his favorite nurse, who answered.  "Mr
Mulder?  What can I do for you?"

"Hi, Paul.  I need to make a phone call.  Can you give me a
hand with the details like dialing and such?"

Paul grinned.  "Sure can."  It only took him a moment to fix
the receiver to a foam neck roll with a short length of
bandage wrap and brace it for Mulder against his pillow. 
Then Mulder told him the number and he dialed it.  Paul
waited until he heard the connection and then left Mulder to
conduct his business in private.

"Hi.  It's me.  Turn off the tape."

"Mulder!"  Langly yelped.  "Where th' hell are you, man?!
We've been worried about you!"

"I got transferred out of the hospital to rehab."  Mulder spoke
slowly, trying to enunciate clearly: he knew the drugs were
affecting his speech clarity.

"So where are you, man?"

"It's called Oakwoods; it's halfway between Scully's place
and her parents' house."  He could hear Langly typing
quickly.

"Got it," Langly announced.  "We brought that package to the
hospital in Raleigh, but we couldn't get in, all they'd tell us
was that you were no longer a patient there.  It scared the hell
out of us, man.  We thought you'd been disappeared!"

"Nothing more nefarious than managed care, Lang," Mulder
sighed.  "The doctor's decided that I didn't need to be in a
hospital and they shipped me here."

"You sound funny, Mulder."

"Drugs, Langly.  Serious painkillers and an assortment of
other things.  I wouldn't be surprised if there's an
anti-depressant in there, too."

"Why?"  Langly sounded utterly confused.

"'Cause I can't do anything except lie here in bed!"

"Want us to bring you a laptop?  You can mess around..."

"No, thanks," Mulder sighed.  "I can't use my hands, Langly.
The ambulance bringing me here was in a wreck and I've got
two broken arms, a broken right hand and a wrenched back
on top of the fist-sized hole in my leg."

"Oh, my God..."

Mulder sighed again.  "Don't freak on me, Lang.  I'm okay. 
I'm just really really bored."

"Frohike said your partner was with you in Raleigh.  I guess
she had to go back to work?"

"No, she's here.  But I can't monopolize her attention 24/7.
She's got work to do... she's got a life."

"Where is she?"

"She went out for food.  She doesn't like hospital food
anymore than I do, and my doctor said I can eat off the
reservation even if I can't walk."

"So, you get to lie in bed and be waited on by the stunning
and babe-o-licious Doctor Dana Scully and you're
complaining?! Those drugs are addling your brains, Mulder."

"That's not all they're addling," Mulder observed darkly.  "I
sleep all the time!  It's unnatural!"

Langly laughed softly.  "You take it easy, Mulder.  We'll bring
your mail out tomorrow."

"Thanks, Langly.  Tell Frohike and Byers I said hi."

"Okay.  See ya tomorrow."

When they disconnected, Mulder buzzed Paul back in.  By
the time Scully got back with lunch from Taco Bell, he was
asleep.

*****

Scully was living there at Oakwoods.  She had been
showering at the nurses' locker room and she was wearing
borrowed scrubs.  Mulder did not comment on it; he just
luxuriated in her constant presence.  Since she was sleeping
when he did and eating with him, she was awake when he
was.  It was wonderful.

After they had finished the three cases she had brought with
her, Scully had called SAC Mitcham's administrative
assistant and asked her to package up a dozen more of the
cases Skinner wanted reviewed and to messenger them to
her at Oakwoods.  Antoinette Vacanti was efficient and the
package arrived the next day.

Mulder saw her bringing in two packages he knew at once
what they were.  He used the bed control to sit up.

"Two packages'- worth of case files?" he asked.

"No..."  Scully was clearly puzzled.  "The big one's the case
files from Antoinette.  This one has one of your return
address labels on it."

He grinned.  "It's my mail, Scully.  I had friends picking it up
while we were gone.  Can I impose on you a little more?"

She grinned at him.  "You aren't imposing, Mulder.  What do
you need?"

"Open that up and write the checks to pay my bills?  They
said they'd tuck my checkbook in there."

She nodded.  "I can do that, Mulder.  But what about signing
the checks?"

"Just sign my name and initial it.  If they have a problem, let
'em call."

"I'll send a note explaining your temporary disability," she
grinned.  "If I sign it with my MD and not my FBI credentials,
no one will be suspicious."

"Works for me," he grinned.  "Thanks, Scully."

"Who sent this package?" she asked as she opened it
carefully.  "It's a bit overwrapped."

"Some friends of mine.  They pick up my mail and feed my
fish when I'm out of town.  I'm not usually gone this long."

The package proved to contain a large stack of unopened
mail and a smaller manila envelope containing his
checkbook, two books of stamps, a stack of check-mailer
security envelopes, a sheet of return address labels with one
missing, and a pen.

"Your friends are very accommodating," she observed.

"They're good.  We've been hanging out since they
accidentally got involved in a manhunt up in Baltimore in '89."

She nodded thoughtfully.  "Friends are good.  How did you
meet them?"

"A fugitive led me to an electronics trade show where they
were all exhibitors.  Turned out she had been framed.  One of
the guys fell for her and I ended up in the hospital, exposed to
the toxic gas she'd designed for the government.  She'd
been trying to play whistle-blower since she'd discovered
that her supervisors were planning on testing the gas on a
random cross section of the population of Baltimore."

"That's outrageous!"

He nodded.  "She thought so.  But I never did find out what
happened to her.  The guys think she got picked up again,
but I was in the hospital and I can't be sure that they weren't
hoodwinked.  It was fairly traumatic for all concerned; the
guys and I are all a lot more cynical, now."

Scully cocked her head at him.  "Traumatic bonding?"

He grinned at her, amused at her use of the psychiatric term.
"You've been boning up," he accused her happily.

"Since this assignment I've been doing a refresher, just so I
can keep up with you."

He relaxed back into his pillow.  "You're good, Scully.  Too
good for me."

She smacked him lightly on his casted wrist.  "Stop that. 
Your self-deprecation is not amusing."

He blinked at her, startled.

Her expression calmed.  "Don't slam yourself like that,
Mulder. You don't deserve it."

He had no ready reply, but she did not seem to expect one.
She was sorting through his mail.  "Do you want me to read
this all to you?"

He shook his head.  "No.  Just pay 'em.  I don't care."

"After lunch."

He grinned.  "Yeah.  After lunch."

*****

After lunch she paid his bills, trying to avoid looking at the
itemized list of charges on his credit card bill; it was none of
her business what he bought or from whom... but she could
not help but notice several charges from area code 900
telephone companies.  She knew what that meant and
carefully did not comment.

Once the bills were all done and set aside to mail, she
opened the other package.  Mulder happily pushed the
button to elevate the head of his bed.

"Finally, something interesting to do," he sighed.  "I hate
paying bills, even when you do it."

She grinned at him as she handed him the crime scene
photos.  "So hire an accountant to handle that for you."

"Where's the fun in that?" he asked rhetorically.  "Besides, I'd
still have to verify all my charges.  I am not doing that with my
accountant."

"Why not?"

"Because she'd ask me what they all were and I am not
explaining that to an earnest young girl named Angelina who
was raised in convent schools and graduated from a private
girls' college in Switzerland."

"What good's an accountant you can't talk to?"

"I didn't say I couldn't talk to her; I can.  About money and
numbers.  Nothing else.  She's a savant, too; she's a math
savant.  She can't make a mistake if it involves numbers. 
They sing for her."

"Savant, too?" Scully prompted him.

He looked a little embarrassed.  "I'm a visual eidetic.  You
knew that."

She nodded.  "Yes.  So there's a society of sorts for people
with those unusual abilities?"

"Yes.  Of sorts.  Mostly it's a mutual support group to help
professionals who have one of us for a patient.  Angelina's
reported that many people with whom she's had ordinary
contact have assumed that she's damaged or incompetent in
other areas once they learn of her talent."

"I'll bet she doesn't look like Dustin Hoffman, either."

"No, she doesn't."

That conversation lapsed as she opened the case notes and
started reading them aloud for him.  Clumsy and slow with
both his hands still encasted, he listened intently as he
studied the photos.  Inevitably their normal work habits
surfaced, and he started bouncing theories off her.  She
rebutted them with facts from the file and the process went
on.

Scully took thorough notes, and reserved the time after
dinner for reviewing the day's efforts as she reduced their
day's-worth of brainstorming and studying into a summary. 
She did not hesitate to append both their names to it before
e-mailing it back to the Hoover building.

Skinner had been right.  Mulder's years of experience in
VCS were showing, and Scully was learning a lot about how
VCS worked and how it could do better.  The fifth case they
reviewed was a serial killer:  four high school cheerleaders
had been found, over the course of six months, on the banks
of Seven Sisters Creek in rural central NYS.  The profile
described an unpopular young man from their high schools
who had tried and failed to be a jock so he could win himself
a cheerleader.

The profile made sense, but it did not help narrow the field of
candidates down enough.  No one who fit the profile knew all
the girls, nor attended all the schools.  No arrests were ever
made and the file had been sitting here for thirteen years.

Mulder looked thoughtful as he propped the dump site
photos on his good knee.

Scully knew that look.  "Spit it out, Mulder."

He flashed her a quick grin.  "If you were one of The Popular
Girls in high school, what are the criteria for suitable
relationships?"

Scully shrugged.  "From what I observed, good looking,
well-built, smart enough but not too smart, parents with
money and prospects toward a good business or law school. 
Had to be a guy who had potential for being half a lovely
couple and enough money to live in the right neighborhoods
and belong to the right clubs... You know the deal."

Mulder grinned.  "So... pre-med is good but a pure
mathematician need not apply?"

Scully grinned back.  "Pretty much.  Why?"

"I disagree with this profile," he said quietly.  "If the nerds
aren't viable candidates how about an ex-candidate?  A
smart and athletic jock who makes himself ineligible *after*
he's been part of the group and enjoyed all the perks."

Scully looked thoughtful.  "Substance abuse.  Accidental
injury resulting in visible disfigurement or disability,
especially if the injury was incurred doing something stupid."

"Like standing out in plain sight and yelling, 'Hey, shoot
me!'?" he commented.

"Mulder, don't.  You didn't do anything wrong, or stupid, or
permanently disabling.  You're still in the running."

"Oh, goody.  I always wanted to date a cheerleader."

She shook her head.  "I never even wanted to be one.  They
annoyed me."

"So, if our guy did something inexcusable..." he mused,
refocusing on the case.  "Would a felony conviction and
prison time DQ someone?"

"Absolutely," Scully was sure.  "You can't take an ex-con into
Polite Society."

"So... a downcheck could be... a DWI wreck in which
someone else died?  He'd get... let's see.   In New York
State I think he'd be eligible for anything from vehicular
manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, to a
maximum, I would think, of Murder 2 or manslaughter.  He
could get anything up to life."

"If he's in the slam, he's not out committing these murders,"
Scully pointed out.  "What if he was charged with Murder 2
but managed to plea it down to criminally negligent
homicide?  If I recall correctly, in New York State that's an E
Felony, with a maximum sentence of four years.  He could
serve part of it, be out on parole for the rest... and be living in
the community."

"If he moved back home when he was released, everyone
knows what he did," Mulder pointed out.  "He can't hide from
it. His nose gets rubbed in it a lot.  But conditions of parole
may be keeping him there."

"I'm going to call the Pomona County Sheriff's Department
and ask a few pertinent questions.  Maybe we can get this
one re-opened for a little fact checking," Scully mused.

Mulder grinned.  "Sic 'em."  Then he yawned massively.  "I
need a nap."

Scully grinned back at him.  "Sleep fast.  Dinner's in an hour."

Mulder made a face.  "Can I bribe you to go out and get
something better than hospital food?"

"I'm getting really tired of Subway."

He made a face.  "Me, too... but even that's better than the
ersatz stuff they serve here.  Anything, Scully.  Please."

"All right," she nodded.  She put the file away and reached
for his jacket, pocketing a page of notes with the Sheriff's
investigator's phone number on it.

Mulder was asleep before she was out the door.

*****

Scully called Pomona County while she waited for her order
to be filled.  The deputy who had been the original lead
investigator had long since retired, but they had formed a
Cold Case Task Force the year before with the State Police,
involving the sheriff's departments from the contiguous
counties and the state's Department of Centralized Police
Support Services.  Her call was transferred several times but
it was eventually picked up by an officer who introduced
himself as State Police Investigator Tom Zajas.

Scully introduced herself and explained Mulder's theory of the
ex-jock as opposed to the jock wannabe as a suspect.

Zajas listened intently.  "I'll be honest, Agent Scully," he said
finally, "I'm going to have to pull the file and go through it a bit
before I'll be able to evaluate this.  Can I call you back in a
day or two?"

"Certainly," she smiled.  "I'll give you my cell.  My partner's on
medical leave and I'm on a desk till he's back on duty.  That's
how I ended up doing these cold case reviews."

"Are you a profiler?" he asked.  "I thought they worked
alone."

"I'm not; I'm a forensic pathologist.  My partner's a retired
profiler.   I'm finding it fascinating to analyze how much the
opiate IV doesn't impair his profiling abilities; it just slows
him down."

"Who's your partner?"

"Fox Mulder."

"Damn!"

"His reputation precedes him, I see," she smiled.

"Well, yeah," Zajas actually sounded a little shaken.  "I don't
think there's anyone in major crimes anywhere in the US who
hasn't heard of Fox Mulder.  What happened to him?"

"Shot by a suspect during a raid," she replied, proud of her
professionally laconic tone.  "Broken femur, lots of blood
loss. He's going to be okay but it'll take a while."

"Well, damn.  I worked with him on the Kotola murders up in
Watertown in '87.  Tell him I said hello."

"I will."

"Tell him that George Matson was murdered in the yard at
Attica last year."

Scully took a deep breath.   "I'll pass it on, Investigator Zajas.
Call me back when you decide if we've been of any help on
the Seven Sisters Murders, all right?  888-555-8367."

"All right, Agent Scully.  Thanks."

"Thank you, Investigator Zajas."

Feeling rather subdued by the deputy's glee that the
convicted murderer had himself been murdered, she
collected her food and drove back to Oakwoods.

Mulder was still asleep.  She stashed the food in the nurses'
refrigerator and began to write up her notes.  Halfway
through she relaxed back in her chair and fell asleep.

*****

They spent that first week at Oakwoods doing reviews and
eating together, sometimes napping together.  Scully only
went home three times, and Mulder had to be insistent to get
her to go.  She made sure that the nurses' station knew how
to reach her and when she was leaving so they could be
expecting Mulder to buzz for help if he needed anything.

He was still on IV painkillers at the end of the week.  The first
attempt to wean him off had not worked: he had been in too
much pain to eat or sleep.  Dr Donnainess had done a
complete re-evaluation of his patient and announced that the
infection was not yielding to the antibiotic as well as he had
expected.  He put Mulder back on IV antibiotics, choosing
one from a different family to see if it would reduce the
infection more effectively.

Mulder was unhappy; the new antibiotic cocktail made him
nauseous, and it took hours for the Compazine to take effect.
Dr Donnainess tacked two more days onto his
convalescence before he would authorize any PT, and
Mulder threw a tantrum.

"Dammit, I'm never going to get out of here if we don't start
working on it!  Scully, get me the paperwork; I'm signing
myself out of here!"

Scully calmly shook her head.  "No."

Frustrated, he threw an empty plastic coffee mug at the wall. 
It broke.

Scully grinned.  "Nice arm.  Too bad the hand is still in
pieces."

Exhausted, he wilted.  "It's not fair, Scully.  I just want to go
home!"

"I know you do, Mulder.  But you can only push things so
much. No way you can leave if you can't even go get the
papers, and you can't hold a pen with that cast on your hand."

"You could witness my X," he suggested.

"But I won't," she pointed out.  "You need to be here, Mulder.
You're a mess.  A couple of days now won't matter in the long
run; we both know that once you start the PT you'll be at the
head of the class."

*****

It was two days later and Scully was beginning to worry. 
After that one flare of anger Mulder had been very quiet.  He
had listened to her talk about the case she was reviewing,
but he had not commented on it nor made any suggestions.
She sat back to review the past two days and realized that
he had hardly said a thing since she had refused to help him
escape the center.

"Mulder, how do you feel?  Are you in pain?  What?"

He considered, seeking within himself, and sighed wearily.
"I'm tired, Scully.  I'm sticky and uncomfortable; I want a
shower.  My leg aches, my arms ache, my back and neck are
always aching... but there's no way to really get comfortable
in this bed."

She was evaluating his tone as much as his words.  "And?"
she prompted when he paused.

"I feel..." he let his voice trail off while he sought the right
words.  "I feel trapped.  As if these casts were leg-hold traps
and I'm just lying here helpless, waiting for the trapper to
come along, club me to death and skin me."

Scully was horrified.  "Mulder!"

He shrugged.  "You asked."

She stopped herself from simply reacting.  "So, what can we
do about it?"

He blinked, surprised.  "I don't know."

"Should I find a staff psychiatrist?  We could add some Elevil
or something like it to your IV without much trouble..."

He shook his head.  "No, thanks, Scully.  Been there, done
that, flunked the course.  I'm not letting any headshrinkers at
me.  That's the last thing Skinner needs from me now: a
psych downcheck."

"Mulder, it's perfectly normal to be depressed when facing a
long convalescence.  No one can hold that against you."

"You're such an innocent, Scully."

Before she could come up with an appropriate response to
that, the phone on Mulder's bedside table rang.  Scully got up
and walked around the bed to answer it.  "I had my cell calls
forwarded here," she explained.  Then she picked the
receiver up and spoke.  "Scully."

"Agent Scully?  Investigator Zajas, New York State Police."

"Hello, Investigator Zajas.  How can I help you?"

Mulder pantomimed waving hello.  Scully grinned.  "Mulder
says hi."

Zajas chuckled. "You gave me the can opener, Agent Scully,
and I opened up a can of ugly worms."

Scully sat down and grabbed a pen and a tablet of paper
from the far end of the table.  "Do tell."

"Turned out that the original chief investigator, an old guy
named Stock, didn't like new technology, especially
computers.  So he lied to his CO; this case was never
entered on VICAP."

Scully raised an eyebrow.  "What happened when you
submitted it?"

"I got 48 hits in 27 states and 3 Canadian provinces," he
replied, unable to completely disguise his enthusiasm.  "The
UNSUB only started here in Pomona County.  No one's ever
caught him and his last known victim died six months ago. 
Her body was recovered five weeks ago and identified by
jewelry and dental records."

"Hang on."  She put her hand over the receiver and told
Mulder the news.  Mulder stared at her unblinkingly for a
moment, then inhaled sharply.

"Omigod.  The Sibley County Killer?!"

Scully repeated the statement to Zajas.

"Yes!"  Zajas was excited.  "And a bunch of individual kills
that had been tentatively linked.  But when I added the Seven
Sisters Creek murders to the mix, the computer started
spitting things out faster than I could read it.

"Basically, since so many of the vics were skeletonized by
the time they were found, the only clear dates were the dates
they went missing.  The Seven Sisters Creek killings linked
to Sibley County gave a timeline and the evolution of a
pattern. He moved from picking actual cheerleaders to
picking hookers and call girls who dressed like
cheerleaders.

"That didn't satisfy him long.  There were eleven vics in
Sibley County, Illinois, spread out over most of a year. 
There's some speculation that they must have come close
enough to frighten the UNSUB because he reverted to his
original pattern and started targeting real cheerleaders
again.   He was older and cannier; he didn't stick around to
watch the cops anymore. One, sometimes two kills per
locality and he hits the road.

"The data from Seven Sisters Creek puts the starting line
down.  The progression, in developing his MO and refining
his ritual, the improved hunting skills, plus dates and times of
the girls' disappearances as well as the approximate date of
death."

Scully relayed it all to Mulder, who was nodding, getting as
excited as Zajas.  She could not help but grin as she relayed
Mulder's question.

"So, where is he now, Tom?"

"There was a cheerleader abducted from her home in
Baltimore three days ago," was the answer.  "I hate to think
of her still in his hands... but the alternative is that she's
dead."

"Baltimore?"  Scully repeated.

Mulder lit up.  "That close?!  We can catch him, Scully!"

She forestalled him with a gesture; Zajas was talking.   After
a minute she said goodbye and hung up.

"Well?"  Mulder was impatient to hear the rest.

"Tom Zajas and a couple of officers from their Cold Case
Task Force are on the way up here; they'll be here tomorrow. 
He asked me to get all the principals together for a meeting."

"Hot damn!"

She frowned.  "Mulder, you're convalescing..."

"I can do this, Scully.  If you're scheduling this meeting,
schedule it for here.  Please, Scully."

She hesitated for a moment, and then relented.  "All right,
Mulder.  I can bring them here.  I have to call the Baltimore
office and get someone from VCU..."

"Call Skinner; he'll get the personnel lined up.  Scully, I want
to be off the painkillers for the meeting."

She frowned worriedly.  "You couldn't function on the oral
painkillers, Mulder.  That's not going to work."

"I can do it if I have to."

"You don't have to."

He was exasperated.  "Scully, there's a teenage girl out there
in the hands of a monster!  Of course I have to.  So do you:
you can't fool me.  This is what we joined law enforcement to
do."

She shook her head.  "I'm not willing to go along with no
painkillers.  We can turn off the steady drip and you can go
on voluntary only in the morning."

"Tonight.  Now."

"No.  You need a good night's sleep.  The morning will be
soon enough."

"I wish I could go to Baltimore with the team..."

"Mulder !"

He lifted his heavily casted right hand to forestall her.  "Relax,
Scully.  I know I can't do that.  I just *wish* I could."

She found the strength to smile hesitantly.  "So when you
start PT next week you're going to be a good and faithful
student?"

"I'm going to work my ass off," he promised, grinning.

*****

Scully made arrangements with the staff to use a conference
room for the day; Mulder had been in meetings like this one
before, and he warned her that it would be long and probably
antagonistic.  The locals resented the FBI, the FBI presented
as arrogant know-it-alls to the locals, and the line officers
resented all of the command level personnel telling them how
to do their jobs.

She kept Mulder in bed as long as she could and did not
allow him into the wheelchair for the trip down the hall until
one of the staff aides came to tell her that the meeting had
convened.

A tall man with red hair greying at the temples stood up as
Scully pushed Mulder's wheelchair into the meeting room. 
He approached briskly, holding out his hand in greeting.

"Agent Scully.  Tom Zajas."

Scully shook his hand.  "Nice to meet you, Investigator
Zajas."

"Tom."

"Dana."

Mulder growled wordlessly under his breath, and Zajas
turned to smile down at him.

"Hi, Mulder.  You look like hell."

Mulder leaned back a little so he would not have to crane his
neck to see the taller man's face.  "Ya shoulda seen the other
guy."

Anger flashed in Zajas's eyes as he took in Mulder's injuries:
his left leg in a rigid brace held straight out resting on the
wheelchair's leg rest, both forearms in rigid fiberglass casts,
and the IV in his throat where the casts wouldn't interfere, the
button taped to the cast under his left thumb.

"I'd like to."

Mulder shook his head.  "He's dead.  Fell through a rotten
floor trying to escape from Scully."

Zajas smiled a grim smile.  "All's well that ends well..."

Mulder grimaced.  "This isn't 'well' and it's certainly not
ended."

"Let's cut the amenities short, gentlemen," Skinner's cool
tones cut through.  "Mulder's only allowed up for an hour at a
crack, so we shouldn't waste his time."

Mulder glared at him.  "So we can adjourn the meeting to my
room.  I can profile in bed."

"It's not a question of can you," Scully reminded him gently.
"It's *should* you.  And the answer is no."

Mulder sighed in exasperation.  "All right, let's get this show
on the road, then.  Where are we?"

Zajas sighed.  "Your preliminary profile was set up and the
school populations of all the schools with a Seven Sisters
Creek victim.  We got four hits.  When we expanded it to
include all the contiguous school districts, we got a grand
total of fourteen."

Scully was startled.  "That's a very small result!"

Zajas nodded.  "It's a lot better than we dared hope for; with
the old profile we'd never scored fewer than 450.  This one
does what a profile is supposed to do: narrows an
impossibly large suspect list down into a smaller, much more
manageable size."

"So what are we doing to focus on the most likely
candidates?"  That was the Baltimore Regional FBI
representative, C. Jay Rosenthal.

"First we checked with the Social Security Administration to
see if any of the suspects were dead or disabled; that filtered
out three: two dead and one a paraplegic, all from car
crashes. We ran them through the IRS data bank and
matched employment and residency information against the
constellation of the murders."

"Considering the large number of victims and their
geographical diversity, that should give you one prime
candidate," Mulder said calmly.  "The only way there could
be two is if they're partners."

Zajas nodded.  "Either that, or some of the vics aren't part of
the pattern."

"I would think that if one person lived or worked at the same
time and place as forty-eight similar murders over a fifteen
year stretch of time, there has to be a significant connection,"
Skinner remarked.  "Or he has the worst luck on the planet..."

Everyone chuckled.

"So, who's your prime candidate?"  That was Captain Martin
Jeshner of the Baltimore Major Crimes Task Force.

Zajas turned toward one of his companions.  "Tony?  You did
the work up."

Tony was an older man, steel gray hair the same color of his
suit, the New York State Trooper's purple tie dim and
subdued against the darker grey shirt.

"Tony Marrinaccio," he introduced himself.  "I was a Pomona
County deputy sheriff when this all started; I've been with the
state police for ten years.  This was my first major case and
I've followed it all the way here.  I've always had a favorite
candidate for the murders, but he didn't fit the original profile
and I couldn't get enough hard evidence to convince anyone."

He opened a manila folder that had been resting on the table
in front of him and brought out a sheaf of papers.  He passed
them out to everyone.

"The new profile and the new path it laid out for us has
nominated Scipio High School drop-out Ricky Lee Mathers,"
he began summarizing the content of the dossier.

***** 

The meeting went on for nearly two hours.  Skinner
finally realized how long they had been talking and glanced
worriedly at Mulder.

The younger man was watching Marrinaccio intensely.  It
seemed to Skinner that Mulder's eyes were the only part of
him that was alive; Mulder was utterly motionless in the
wheelchair. Skinner had known him for years and knew that
Mulder was hyperactive: he was never completely still unless
sedated.

Mulder was completely motionless, now.  He seemed to be
focusing all his limited energy into listening, assimilating...
profiling.

Skinner's decision was instantaneous.

"Gentlemen.  Ladies."  He interrupted the discussion.  The
officers around the conference table fell silent.  Mulder
blinked slowly, clearly having some trouble shifting gears.

"We've been here for nearly two hours.  We all have some
field work to do.  We'll have another meeting here in two
days.  In the meantime, you out-of- towners need to go claim
your hotel rooms and get started."

Zajas and several others glanced guiltily at Mulder, who had
relaxed back in the wheelchair.   Scully was standing behind
him; his head was pillowed against her body.  He seemed to
be asleep, except that his body was not limp.  He was rigid
in the chair, his eyes closed but his jaw locked.

Frowning, Skinner waved everyone out.

Once they were alone, Skinner turned to the partners.  "I'm
sorry.  I never intended this go on so long."

Scully was gently massaging Mulder's shoulders.  "That's all
right, sir.  He would have kicked up a fuss if we'd tried to
leave earlier."

"I would not have," Mulder rumbled, though he did not open
his eyes.  "I just wouldn't have gone."

Scully glanced at Skinner, who shrugged.  "Let's get him
back to bed, then, shall we?"

That woke Mulder up.  "I can manage, sir," he said pointedly.
"Would you authorize Kim, or someone she recommends, to
do some research for me?"

Skinner nodded.  "I can do that.   What Kim can't manage I'll
authorize her to delegate.  If she gets much busier I'm going
to have to assign her an AA of her own."

They all chuckled at that, but they all knew it was true.

*****

The task force's renewed interest in the case inevitably came
to the attention of local media, and the story broke almost at
once.  The six-o'clock local news carried the story.  Everyone
knew that one of the local cops under Captain Jeshan had
tipped them, and some people were angry.

Zajas was not.  "This was inevitable, and you know it," he
advised the people who complained.  They were eating
dinner together in the Residence Inn's dining room.  "Be
happy that Mulder's stationary and we can make him our
media liaison."

Lieutenant Raym Bentley, of the Newburgh NY police
department, looked more unhappy.  "Is that really a good
idea?" he asked.  "I've heard some awfully weird stuff about
Spooky Mulder..."

Zajas's friendly expression flattened out.  "You were at the
meeting," he growled.  "Was he a weirdo?"

Bentley stood his ground.  "You know he wasn't," he growled.
"But face it, Zajas, the man hunts down flying saucers and
aliens, werewolves and vampires for a living!"

Zajas shrugged.  "So?  He's also the best profiler BSU ever
produced, and when you're comparing him to men like
Hazelwood and Douglas and Lanning, that's damned high
praise.  He's made significant contributions to nearly five
hundred serial offender investigations, Bentley.  And if
Eugene Tooms wasn't an alien, and Howard Graves wasn't
an angry ghost, you couldn't prove it by the case files.  So
you do your job and let Mulder do his."

"Okay..."  Bentley shrugged it off.  "You're the boss."

*****

FBI AGENT REOPENS SERIAL MURDER CASE FROM
HOSPITAL BED

Mulder stared at the headline on the final edition of the paper
and then looked up at Zajas.  "You want me to what?"

"I want you and/or Scully to be our media liaison," Zajas
repeated the statement.  He had come back to Oakwoods
after dinner.  "Preferably you."

"Are you possessed?!"  Mulder demanded.

Zajas chuckled and dragged a chair closer.  Mulder was not
sitting up; he had elevated the head of the bed enough that
he and Zajas could talk comfortably, but he was clearly
exhausted.

"C'mon, Mulder; it's not that strange an idea... and with you
taking all the public flak, the rest of us, safely anonymous, can
get the job done."

"But I'm--"

"You're on restricted duty," Zajas forestalled him.  "I checked
with Assistant Director Skinner.  I know that profilers never
stop working.  So for your two hours a day that you aren't
resting your body and working on the profile, you can talk to a
reporter or two, face a camera or two.  The limitations on
your time will limit the questions and the facility's rules will
limit access.  When they get obnoxious, the staff will toss
them out for you."

"Do you want me to distract them?"  Mulder asked.  "I've
been on the X Files for quite a while, now; there's a ton of
good stories in there."

Zajas grinned.  "If you like.  Face it, Mulder, you're actually
the one best suited for providing the quotable quote for the
evening news.  If you think it's time to scare the UNSUB into
doing something stupid... who am I to second guess our
profiler?  Go for it.  Do what you can to keep the newshounds
out of our way, use 'em if the opportunity presents itself.
Amuse yourself, Mulder.  You look bored."

Mulder chuckled.  "A little.  And not looking forward to
Monday."

"What's Monday?"

"I start PT."

Zajas was shocked and showed it.  "You're kidding."

Mulder shook his head slowly, amused at Zajas's reaction.
"Nope.  I've been promised."

"Damn.  I thought you'd be on that two hours a day schedule
for a couple of weeks, at least.  Are you really ready for PT?"

"Emotionally I am.  Physically?"  Mulder shrugged.  "I don't
know.  We'll find out."

Zajas took a deep breath.  "Changes nothing," he decided.
"You're our media guy, with Scully for distracting the male
reporters."

"Don't let her hear you talking about her like that," Mulder
warned.  "She knows she's attractive and doesn't need her
self esteem artificially boosted.  Treat her like a girl and she'll
take you down, Tom.  She's tougher than I am and a better
shot."

"Short person syndrome," Zajas grinned, accentuating the
genderless word choice.

"Don't go there," Mulder warned again.  "I'm not kidding."

Zajas waved a hand dismissively.  "Don't worry about it,
Mulder.   She's too valuable as a pathologist and as your
support squad for me to waste her doing grunt work.  She'll
get copies of all forty-eight autopsies to compare.  That
should keep her busy while you're catching up on your beauty
sleep."

"Send us two copies of each." Mulder suggested.  "We'll
send one to Skinner's AA at JEH.  She's got a data base
program to enter the particulars.  If Kim gets the pool working
on that, Scully can find and concentrate on discrepancies;
commonalities and differences will be easier to ID...   You
get the picture."

Zajas nodded.  "Will do.  I want to take her along this
evening, Mulder.  We've got an appointment to talk to the
missing girl's parents and her boyfriend."

Mulder looked interested.  "The boyfriend?  He was gutshot
trying to protect Colleen.  Is he recovered enough to be
interviewed?  Last I heard he wasn't expected to live."

"Neither were you a few days ago," Zajas pointed out with a
grin.

Mulder made a face at him.

"He regained consciousness this morning calling her name.
His parents broke it to him.  He's in crappy shape, but he's
demanding to speak to us about Miss Lalka so we want to
give him his chance.  You can't go; I figured your partner
would be the next best bet."

Mulder nodded.  "She's good with the vics."

Zajas grinned.  "And she knows what you want to know."

"Has he done a photo lineup yet?"

"Nope," Zajas shook his head.  "We sent a sketch artist to
him right away.  We don't have a remotely current pic of
Mathers and I don't want to screw the kid up.  It can wait."

"How off the grid is Mathers?"

"He hasn't filed income tax forms in a dozen years, but his
employers routinely pay him on the books, so what's
happened is that their employment records, filed with the
Social Security Administration, are the only documentation
we have of where he's been or where he may be, now."

"Are they cooperating?"

"Slowly."

"What about driver's licenses...?"

"He seems to be still carrying his old New York State license.
It can be renewed by mail as long as he offers a valid NYS
address.  So he has to go back to pick it up... once every
eight years."

"That's no help..."

"Right.  The one he's carrying now is good for three more
years."

"New York only renews every eight years?  And by mail??"

Zajas nodded.  "There's talk of tightening it up; the system is
practically designed to allow fraud!  But nothing's been done.
The state's got a lot of other problems that are more
important."

*****

Mulder had intentionally not reminded anyone to switch his IV
back to steady flow after he went back to his room.  Scully
went off to meet Zajas at a hospital on the other side of town
to interview the wounded boyfriend.

He hit the button he was privately calling the "rescue" button
when he had to, but he tried to stretch it out as much as he
could.  He knew he could not get anywhere in physical
therapy until he was weaned off the IV painkillers, so he
decided to take the opportunity to work at it a little.

Scully had intentionally kept his room lights off and the
drapes across his windows open, providing tacit
encouragement to wake up with the dawn and fall asleep as
darkness fell.  He never remembered to do anything about
the drapes when he was out of his bed, so by the time he
wanted to turn on a light or shut the drapes, he was installed
in the bed and it wasn't worth the trouble to get up.  Scully's
plan had been working; he had been on a diurnal pattern
since he had come here, and he had been mildly bemused
by it.  He had always believed himself nocturnal given the
opportunity.

Scully had called and told him she had ordered him a pizza
in apology, but she was going to consult with the forensics
unit that had handled the crime scene of Colleen Lalka's
kidnapping after they talked to Jimmy Fremd.  He had
forgiven her and asked her to find out a few things for him.

The pizza was ambrosial; it was even worth the trouble it was
to eat it with his hands still practically immobilized in plaster
and tape.

By the time he had eaten half of it, it was dark in his room
and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open.  He could
not put the pizza away, so he just moved the lap table back a
little, settled back, hit the rescue button a couple of times and
let himself fall asleep.

*****

It didn't last long.  Without the steady flow of painkiller, the
rescue jolts were only good for about a half hour.  When the
painkiller wore off, the pain woke him up.  He hit the button
and let himself fade back into sleep as the pain surrendered.

After that cycle had gone around four or five times he
groggily realized that he was exhausted and that he was not
getting any rest.  These short naps were making him
miserable.  The fact that he rarely slept well during a profile
did not make this any easier; he lay in the dimly-illuminated
room staring out at the stars, thinking about Ricky Lee
Mathers and about Colleen Lalka, the currently-missing
cheerleader from Hunt Valley High School, and hoping that
the two were not together.

Even though he was reasonably sure that Colleen was
already dead.

It was a mark of his weariness and his focus on the work that
he had forgotten that Scully had promised to come back and
sleep at Oakwoods.  He never heard the door open, nor did
he hear her footsteps as she approached the bed.

"Mulder...?" she asked softly.

Startled by the unexpected voice, he jumped -- and cried out
in agony as the unguarded movement flexed the torn
muscles in his thigh.  Shocked, he tried to curl up to cradle
the pain, but that made it worse.

Scully caught him as he collapsed, sobbing, shocked out of
control and too stressed to regain it.   She stretched out one
hand and hit the panic button on the bedrail.  She was glad it
was a friendly nurse -- Marti Wendeman -- who responded.

Marti took one look at the patient and went to the PCA.  She
scowled.  "Who turned this thing off?!"  She turned it back on,
hit the override to give him a big rescue jolt, then set up the
steady flow again.

The drug hit Mulder like a truck.  He sagged against his
partner and in moments was unconscious.  Scully let Marti
help her lay him down gently, then let herself shudder.

Marti frowned.  "Dana...?"

Scully took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.  "Dr
Donnainess turned off the steady flow after breakfast; Mulder
and I had a morning meeting, and Mulder wanted to be
clear-headed for it.  We all agreed that he could spend the
morning on patient-administered dosages alone."

"But no one came to turn it back on," Marti nodded.  "Why
didn't he call one of us?  Any one of us could have turned it
back on."

Scully shook her head, and gently reached down to smooth
the hair away from his face.  "He was probably trying to wean
himself off it.  He wants to go to PT on Monday off the IV."

Marti looked sympathetic.   "I can understand that.  PT with
an IV is hard, and sometimes the IV has to be removed and
reinserted.  No one wants to put up with that twice a day for
however long..."  She studied the patient for a moment. 
"What do you think happened here?"

Scully was studying his face.  "He's an insomniac at the best
of times, and profiling rarely lets him relax.  When I came in,
he was zoned-out, staring out the window, crying.  When I
spoke he flinched -- I guess he hadn't heard me come in, so
my voice startled him.  The pain must have been terrible..."

"I'll say, if he was crying," Marti said sympathetically.

Scully shook her head.  "No, I suspect he was crying for
Colleen Lalka and her family, and the families of forty-eight
other victims of the serial killer we're hunting.  He didn't
notice the pain till I disturbed him out of his trance."

"Well, he's going to sleep till morning, now," Marti pointed
out. "Why don't you go home and get a good night's sleep,
yourself?"

Scully sighed wanly.  "Because he never does what's
expected of him.  If we count on him sleeping through the
night, something will happen."

Marti shook her head.  "Not good enough.  We're here; we'll
call you if he needs you, but I seriously don't anticipate any
likelihood of trouble, here.  He's out, and no one can fight off
opiates in doses like I gave him.  And I'm going to call the
night services doctor so he can prescribe a higher rate for
Mr Mulder during the day.  He needs more rest than he's
been getting."

"He'll fight you," Scully warned.  "He wants off the IV
altogether."

Marti shrugged.   "He's clearly not ready for that.  And if we
keep him semi- conscious for a couple of days he'll get a
headstart on really healing.  His temp is still just under 101,
you know."

Scully was startled.  "Still?  It should be dropping;
Donnainess gave him that augmentin cocktail starting
yesterday!"

Marti shook her head.  "It's not going to work if he's up and
worrying, stressing himself.  He needs to be asleep.  You're
a doctor; you know that."

"Zajas will have a fit," Scully observed.  "There's a press
conference here tomorrow just so Mulder can talk to them."

Marti grinned.  "Not going to happen," she predicted.  "You'll
have to do it yourself."

"Peachy."  Scully made a face.  "Maybe I'll call AD Skinner
and see if he'll take it off me."

Marti was tidying up, straightening the blankets and tucking
the patient in.  "Do what you have to."  Then she stopped for
a moment.  "Damn."

Scully turned to look at her and blanched.  Marti's hand, and
the sheet below Mulder's leg wound, were both bloody.

*****

Scully did go home eventually.  The staff waited until she
returned the next morning after ten o'clock before they
lightened Mulder's medication and let him wake up for
breakfast.  While she waited for him, she caught up on the
updates in his chart.  When he stirred she set it aside.

"Mulder?  Mulder, focus on me.  C'mon, wake up..."

"Ssh..."  He heard his voice slur, stopped and tried again.
"Scully?"

"Yes, me.  Who else?  C'mon... wake up."

He mumbled something unintelligible and faded off again.

Scully shook him gently.  "C'mon, Mulder.  It's breakfast
time. Aren't you hungry?"

He did not open his eyes.  "No.  Lemme sleep..."

"I never thought I'd hear those words from you!" she
chuckled. She waved her offering under his nose and
waited while he fought to wake up.

He opened his eyes and studied the greasy paper-wrapped
sandwich in her hand and then shifted his attention to her.

"That's a bribe," he stated flatly.  "What's going on?"

She took a deep breath.  "It's not exactly a bribe, Mulder.
Look, you're healing but not fast enough.  You still have that
low- grade fever.  You're over-exerting yourself.  Last night
was the last straw."

"I'm not a child, Scully.  Just say it."

"When you flinched you ripped some stitches," she
explained. "You didn't lose a lot of blood, but in your
condition, any amount is too much.  You're going to be
medicated to sleep every night for a week."  She stated it
baldly.  She had not been a party to the decision, but she
could not fault it.  "Lights out at 9pm, breakfast at 9am. 
During the day you'll be on the steady flow with the patient
administered rescue available as necessary."

He opened his mouth to protest and then shut it.  "I hate
this," he muttered, not looking at her.

"Mulder, healing is like justice: delayed means denied.  If
you don't start getting better you're going to get worse.  The
longer that infection hangs on, the stronger it'll get.  This is a
battle; if we don't win, you lose.  If you're willing to trade your
leg and your career for a few sleepless nights..."

He shuddered.

She gentled her tone.  "Mulder, I know you're not just being
stubborn.  No one likes to be in this position..."

He smiled, albeit still a little vague with the drugs, but
amused nonetheless.  "Lots of guys like being on their
backs.  Gives a good view and you can reach all the sweet
spots..."

"Mulder!"

He shrugged and let his smile fade.  "I'm not fighting you or
Donnainess over this, Scully.  I'm not an MD --I couldn't hack
the math and chemistry courses.  I'm angry at the situation
and I still feel like a chump for getting shot in the first place
and putting so many people to so much trouble..."

She laughed gently.  "Mulder, you're not inconveniencing
any of these medical professionals.  This is their job and
they enjoy their job just as much as you do.  If it wasn't for
situations like yours, they'd be out of work!"

That concept clearly startled him.  "I never thought of it like
that..."

"Just like if it wasn't for monsters, human or otherwise, you
and I would be out of work.  So don't feel guilty."

"I'll work on it," he promised.  "Now can I have that Egg
McMuffin ?"

Scully laughed and unwrapped it for him.

*****

Lunchtime brought with it a rude twist to the case.  Mulder
was just finishing the remains of his pizza from the night
before when the phone rang.  Scully answered it.

"You're kidding."

Mulder put down the pizza and turned his attention to her. 
She was listening intently to the caller, not speaking at all.

"Do you want me to do the autopsy?" she asked finally.

Mulder wilted.  Someone must have found Colleen Lalka's
body.  Suddenly the two slices of pizza he had just eaten
were as heavy as lead in his stomach.  For all that his
career choices and success depended on the continued
existence of serial killers and rapists, murder still sickened
him, and the intentional murder of the young and innocent
was often the worst.

Scully hung up the phone and turned toward him.  "You'll
never guess."

"They found Colleen Lalka's body."

Scully shook her head.  "No.  Ricky Lee Mathers' body."

That startled him.  "Mathers is dead?  How?  Where?"

"They found his body in a dumpster outside the pizza shop
where Colleen and her boyfriend Jimmy Fremd and their
pals like to hang out."

"So it's not a natural death."

Scully shook her head.  "No.  COD appears to be ligature
strangulation, but there's a lot of wounds.  It sounds like it will
take me a while to put it all into some semblance of order."

"When's the autopsy?"

"They're waiting for me."

"Go!  Go!"

Scully stopped and stared at him.  "You are going to sleep
while I'm gone."

"Scully..." he grimaced.

She shook her head.  "I'm serious.  You'll only be
speculating until I get back with the facts anyway.  Sleep
while I'm gone and I'll call when I'm a couple of miles out so
you'll be awake for the data from the autopsy."  She waited
for consent and frowned when she did not get it.  "C'mon,
Mulder.  You don't have the energy to spare to waste it with
idle speculation.  Take a nap and I'll wake you up when we
can discuss factual data."

He nodded slowly.  "All right.  I concede the logic."

She grinned at him.  "That's my job, Mulder.  Logic, science,
reason...  I'll go get Marti to put you out for a while."

"Scully...!"

"It's not that I don't trust you, Mulder, but I know you too well.
You'd change your mind before I was out of the lot and still
fret away all those hours.  Hang on a minute."

Scully went out to get the nurse and Mulder glared after her.
His irritation was in no way diminished because she was
right. He would have stayed awake.

His partner was back with the senior RN in a moment.  Marti
smiled at him.  "Unscheduled nap, Mr Mulder?"

"This counts toward my twelve hours for today," he
grumbled. "I don't usually sleep this much in a week...!"

Marti punched in the code and pushed the override on the
PCA.  Mulder felt himself wilt as the rush hit him.  He could
feel Scully's fingers on his and her voice was soft in his ear.

"Yes, we'll take it off your quota for the day, Mulder.  Now
just relax.  Breathe and release, breathe and release..."

Her voice faded into the darkness.

*****

Mulder blinked his eyes open and looked around.  He felt
groggy and thick-headed, but a moment's glance around
oriented him and he remembered being sedated yet again.
He grumbled to himself that he should be used to it by now...

Then he remembered that if he was awake, Scully should be
back.  There was no sign of her in the room.  He thumbed
the call button.

Footsteps came hurrying down the hall.  "Mr Mulder?"

It was his only male nurse, Peter Knolland.  "Pete, where's
Scully?  Shouldn't she be back by now?"

"She phoned.  She went home for the night and said she'd
be back in the morning."

Mulder frowned.  "She was only going to Baltimore for an
autopsy.  What time is it?"

"Time for breakfast," Pete shrugged.  "9:12am."

Mulder blinked in shock.  They had sedated him at 1:30pm
the day before!  "Would you hand me the phone?  I need to
call her."

"She'll be here in a few minutes, Mr Mulder."

Mulder swallowed hard.  "Are you sure?  She's usually here
by now.  Did she call today?"  He hated how pathetic he
sounded, but he needed to know more than he needed to
maintain any macho facade before the staff here.

"We haven't heard from her this morning, Mr Mulder, but if
she was going to be late she would have called."

"She's already late."

Peter saw the tension visibly growing in his patient and
realized that Mulder was going to worry until he knew for
sure. He brought the phone over and handed the handset to
the patient, who cradled it awkwardly between his head and
the pillow, braced with one plaster-encased hand.  Mulder
recited the number and Paul dialed.

It only rang twice, then his partner's harried voice became
audible.  "Scully."

"It's me.  Where are you?"  Mulder hardly noticed when
Peter retreated to give him privacy for the call.

"Oh, Mulder, I'm sorry.  I didn't realize the time.  How long
have you been awake?"

"Just a few minutes.  But you were supposed to be back
here sixteen hours ago."

"I know.  I'm sorry."

"So, what's going on?"

"Jimmy Fremd is dead."

That was Colleen's boyfriend.  "Did you get to talk to him,
first?"

"Yes, briefly.  He described the kidnapper as a big burly guy
with a handgun the size of a cannon.  Which did match the
injuries Jimmy sustained."

"Poor kid never really had a chance, did he?" Mulder was
saddened by the teenager's death but he was also
processing the description.  Ricky Lee Mathers had been
five foot nine and had weighed about 140; no one could
have described him as big or burly.

"Actually, he did."  Scully's voice cut into his preoccupation.
"He was recovering.  After Zajas and I left him he was
assaulted in his room.  Someone cut his throat and he bled
to death before they could get him up to the OR."

Mulder was stunned.  "Oh, my God!"

"Yeah."

"So, Ricky Lee was already dead when Jimmy Fremd was
murdered..."  Mulder was thinking out loud.  "Were you and
Zajas still there, still in the building when it happened?"

"No.  We'd gone to see the officers who were investigating
the Mathers murder.  We'd been gone a couple of hours."

"Suspects?"  He was listening very hard.  "Scully?" [[ "It
happened during visiting hours, Mulder," she sighed.  "The
locals are checking employees but there's no feasible way
to check up on all the visitors in the building; we'd have to
interview all the patients to find out who came to see them...
It'd be a tremendous amount of work for a very low
likelihood of success."

Mulder took a deep breath.  "Scully, I don't have the file, but I
remember that Ricky Lee had a buddy a year ahead of him
in school.  Ricky Lee was an utter social misfit --the only
thing he could do really well was catch the football.  He
wasn't even much of a runner, but he could get downfield
and catch the ball. All the usual football hero stuff applied,
especially after he caught the winning touchdown in the
homecoming game his junior year.  The coaches and
booster club were already talking about the NFL.  Then he
broke his neck diving off a dock into a lake that summer; he
recovered to have a normal life... but the magic hands
weren't magic anymore.

"The school acted like he'd damaged himself on purpose to
sabotage their hopes of a championship.  He was harassed
and bullied, all the girls who'd been lining up to date him
disappeared...  He went from hero to goat fast, and he
dropped out of school before Christmas."

Scully was quick on the uptake.  "Did the buddy try to protect
him from some of the harassment?"

"Saved him from a good bit of it, apparently.  His name
was... um... Galen Garay.  In school they called him "Gator"
because he was so unpredictable and violent.  He'd
dropped out the year before but he hung around to be with
Ricky Lee."

"And when Ricky Lee couldn't take his change in status any
more, he disappeared out, too," Scully speculated.

"Got it in one, Scully," Mulder grinned.  "Tell Zajas to do the
IRS and Social Security checks on Garay; if there's a
connection, it means Mathers and Garay were partners, but
had a falling-out.  Garay killed Mathers and then went for
Jimmy Fremd because he was an eyewitness."

"But Mulder-- Mathers was tortured to death.  Would a friend
and companion of so many years do that?"

"Not normally, no," he agreed.  "But there's very little normal
about these two guys."

"That certainly seems to be the truth!"

"And Garay was a 'big and burly guy,'" Mulder pointed out.
"He'd been an offensive lineman when he played."

"Jesus."

"Where are you now, Scully?"

"I'm about to start the autopsy on Mathers."

"Are you anywhere near the hospital where Jimmy Fremd
was killed?"

"Same place.  The county morgue is in the basement, under
the ER."

A thrill of terror sleeted through him.  "Scully, tell me you
aren't alone."

"The deiner's gone to get the body.  I'm in the locker room."

"Where's Zajas?   Isn't he going to witness?"

"He detoured to the front lobby for coffee.  He should be
back any minute."

He could feel the terror rising in his chest, making it hard to
breathe.  "Scully, go find him.  Meet him halfway.  Get out of
there and into a public corridor!"

"Mulder, what...?"

"Scully, please!  Garay is probably still there!"

He was not surprised by the silence that greeted that
statement.  Whenever he came up with one of these sudden
insights, when he pulled the answer out of the ether and
demonstrated yet again that he had earned his nickname,
she always had to pause to readjust.  He suspected that, at
least early on, that she had refrained from immediate
reaction out of courtesy; she paused for a moment to
re-word her response. Now it was just a habit.

But she usually reacted within a few moments.  "Scully?"

Nothing.

"Scully!"

The rapid signal that meant the other party had
disconnected rang in his ear.

Frustration warred with terror, now; he could not even reach
his phone to dial it.  Magically, Peter was suddenly there.

"Take it easy, Mr Mulder.  You want to make another call?"

Forcing his breathing under control, Mulder nodded and
recited the number.  That line only rang once.

"Zajas."

"This is Mulder.  Get down to the morgue.  I think Mathers'
partner Galen Garay killed him and there's a good chance
he's still in the hospital.  I was just talking to Scully and I lost
her."

"On my way."

Mulder relaxed fractionally when Zajas did not argue with
him. "Thanks."

"No prob.  You know that maybe her cell just cut out: there's
a lot of metal around here."

"I know," Mulder admitted.  "But if Galen Garay is there,
neither of you is safe alone: in high school this guy was
six-two, two-eighty and he has a handgun."

"Eeek," was Zajas' emotionless response.  "Last set of
stairs, Mulder.  Two minutes."

Mulder forced himself to breathe normally.  All his usual glib
eloquence deserted him: all he could even think was,
"Please, please, please..."

"I'm putting the phone in my pocket, Mulder," Zajas told him,
and then did it without waiting for any response.

"Agent Scully?" Zajas called.  Mulder hoped he had his
weapon out; Garay was an experienced killer who would not
give anyone a break.

Strain though he might, Mulder could not hear any response
to Zajas' call.

"Agent Scully?  Harvey?  Anyone down here?"

"Tom!  Look out!"

Mulder felt a thrill of hope: muffled as it was, that was
certainly Scully's voice.

Then there was a flurry of gunfire and random noises.  His
heart in his mouth, Mulder could only listen and pray.  He
heard Zajas curse and the distinct combination of sounds
--an aspirated grunt and a gasp-- that meant that the trooper
was hit.

Not knowing the situation, Mulder kept still, straining to hear.
There were muffled sounds that were too indistinct to tell
him much.  The gunfire had stopped after that single flurry
but the situation was still ongoing or Tom Zajas would have
said something.

Mulder looked up suddenly.  "Pete?  Pete!"

The nurse was just outside in the hallway.  "Yes, Mr
Mulder?"

"Call 911.  Officer in trouble, shots fired, officer down, in the
county morgue.  If they give you a hard time give 'em my
name: the officers are my partner and New York State
Trooper Tom Zajas.  The suspect is a white male, thirty-two
years old, brown hair and eyes, six foot two ex-football
lineman.  He has a firearm and he has killed before. 
Extreme caution, armed and dangerous.  His name is Galen
"Gator" Garay.  G-A-R-A-Y."

Pete blinked at the torrent of information.

"Got all that?"

Pete nodded slowly.  "Yeah, I think so.  You keeping your
line open to Miss Scully?"

"But I can't hear anything, right now," Mulder added.  "Tell
'em we'll call back if we get any new information."

"Okay.  Be right back."

Mulder could only wait.  There were some indistinct sounds,
but everything was muffled because Zajas's cell phone was
still in his pocket.

Peter came back a few minutes later.  "The dispatcher
didn't argue.  I heard it go over the radio while I was still
giving her details.  There'll be a hundred cops there in a few
minutes."

"Thanks, Pete."

"Why are you still so tense?"

"There are three possible outcomes," Mulder fretted.  "One,
suicide by cop.  Two, he grabs Scully or Zajas or both of 'em
and uses 'em as hostages or, three, he decides he may as
well go for it, and he kills them both and dares the SWAT
unit to come and get him."

"That sounds like scenario one," Pete commented.

"In number one he dies alone," Mulder growled.  "In three he
takes my partner and my friend with him."

"You forgot number four and five, you know."

Mulder glared at the nurse, whose calm was interfering with
his rage.

Pete shrugged.  "Four, your partner and Trooper Zajas get
the guy themselves; five, the hundred cops stampede the
bad guy and they catch him."

Mulder shuddered.  "God..."

"Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr Mulder?"

Mulder forced himself to calm down.  "Pray."

Mulder had not really expected to hear sirens, since Scully
had described the morgue as being in the basement under
the Emergency Department.  But he was utterly surprised
when he heard the distinctly short sharp sound of a
flashbang exploding near the phone.  The familiar sounds of
SWAT team coordination were a balm to his ears.

"Medic!"  A voice cried very near the phone.  "Officer
down!"

"I'm okay," Mulder heard Tom Zajas grumble.  "Just don't
move me.  Did you get Garay?"

"No sign of the suspect yet, sir," the officer told him.

"What about Agent Scully?  She's five-two, red hair,
probably wearing scrubs --she was about to start an
autopsy.  She has to be here...!"

"I'm here, Tom," came a familiar female voice.

Mulder let his eyes close and sighed in utter relief.

"Here; it's Mulder," was all Tom Zajas said as he handed
her the phone from his pocket.

"Mulder?"  She was startled, but moved aside to let the
medical team deal with Zajas's injuries.  "Mulder, are you all
right?"

"I wasn't just in a gunfight, Scully," he said sharply.  "Are you
hurt?"

"No, I'm not," she assured him.  "Someone hit me, knocked
me down.  I have a headache but I'm not injured."

"How's Tom?"

"He took one through the body, Mulder, but he's doing quite
well.  He's being taken to the ambulance, now."

"Did the SWAT guys get Garay?"

"No, Mulder.  There doesn't appear to be anyone here but
us. He must've taken off right after he shot Tom."

"Dammit!  But you're okay, right?"

She sighed, understanding his distress, and made sure he
could hear her smile.  "I'm fine, Mulder.  Really.  Someone
grabbed me from behind and slammed me into the bank of
lockers.  I was dazed and let myself slide to the floor.  He
tried to kick me once but I rolled and it mostly missed me. 
I'm not hurt."

"You get yourself checked out, Scully!  You know better than
I do why!"

"I will, Mulder; I promise."  She gentled her tone.  "I'll be a
while getting back, between getting checked out up in the
ER here and then debriefing.  You go back to sleep."

"I just woke up, Scully," he growled.  "I'm not going back to
sleep right away.  You stay with Tom."

That startled her.  "Tom?  Why?"

"Because Garay's still at large; he may still be in the hospital
somewhere.  Don't leave Tom alone."

"All right, Mulder.  I'm hanging up, now.  The SWAT captain
wants to talk to me."

"Okay.  Come back when you can?"

"Of course, Mulder.  As soon as I can."

She did not say good-bye, but then, she never did.  He
sighed with relief.  They'd survived one more crisis relatively
unscathed.

Pete came back in with a breakfast tray.  "You up for
something to eat, Mr Mulder?"

He managed a creditable smile.  "Sure, Pete.  Thanks.  And
thanks for all your help."

"Is Miss Scully all right?"

"She's a little bruised; the bad guy smacked her around a
little. But she's okay."

Pete nodded.  "Good."  He pulled up a chair and began to
feed Mulder his breakfast.

*****

It took Scully several hours to get clear of the hospital and
morgue.  She rescheduled the autopsy for the next day; she
was just too shaken by the close call to face doing it now.
Besides, she needed to set up a bodyguard schedule for
Tom and get back to Mulder.  A national BOLO had gone
out on Garay and lunchtime found her, weary and sore,
making her way to her partner's bedside.

He was watching the noon news: a local channel had
covered the incident at the morgue in some detail and had
even gotten most of the facts correct.  Scully stopped in the
doorway to watch.

The local reporter was interviewing Major Mike Montcalm,
who was Captain Jeshner's commanding officer.

"I want to give a good deal of the credit, here," the Major
said pompously, "to FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder.  He's on
limited duty, still hospitalized after being shot by one serial
murderer, but he has identified the suspect in today's shoot
out at the county morgue, where two Task Force officers,
one a New York State Trooper and the other an FBI
pathologist, were injured.  We've got a nationwide alert out
on Galen Garay, commonly called "Gator," who is now
identified as the Sibley County Killer and is wanted in
connections with forty-eight murders over the last fifteen
years."

Scully frowned.  "I don't like that."

Mulder turned, only then aware of her presence, and grinned
at her.  "Are you jealous because he remembered my name
and not yours?"

She snorted, knowing he was teasing.  "No, I'm concerned
that he's dumping it all on Garay and giving you all the
credit. What's to stop Garay from finding you here?"

Mulder looked thoughtful.  "That could work, Scully," he
agreed. "Call Jeshner and see if he can get a few guys
down here so they can grab him if he comes for me."

She could only shake her head in amazement.  "Aren't you
scared at all?" she inquired.  "You're helpless in here!"

He blinked at her, suddenly utterly innocent.  "You're staying
with me, now, aren't you?"

She dropped into the chair beside the bed.  "Mulder, you're
incorrigible!"

"I'm hungry," he said placidly.  "Lunch should be along,
soon. Have you eaten?"

"I... I don't think I even had breakfast, much less lunch," she
admitted, settling into the recliner beside his bed and
putting her feet up with a sigh.

"Kick off your shoes," he advised.  "You don't need 'em in
here."

"The floors are cold," she pointed out.

"You're not walking.  Relax a little, Scully.  It's okay."  He
watched as she settled back, toed off her shoes and was
asleep in moments.  He pushed his call button.

The nurse who responded was Ellie and Mulder grinned at
her. "Hi, Ellie," he greeted her softly.  "Can I order her a
lunch, too? She didn't get breakfast this morning."

Ellie glanced at the sleeping redhead and smiled
indulgently. "Sure, Mr Mulder."  Then she took an extra
blanket out of the cabinet and shook it out over Scully's
sleeping form.

Mulder sighed and Ellie glared at him until she realized that
he was watching Scully's face.  She gentled her expression;
he hadn't been ogling the sleeping woman's body at all: he'd
been studying her face with an expression so wistful that
Ellie found herself fighting back tears.

"Why don't you relax until lunch comes, Mr Mulder?" she
suggested.  "You two can share our latest culinary delight
when it gets here."

He tore his eyes away from his partner and grinned wanly at
the nurse.  "Okay, Ellie.  As long as you and your
co-conspirators keep your fingers off the morphine switch! 
I'm just fine, thank you very much!"

Ellie laughed at him.  "I know; you got a good night's sleep,
for a change.  Refreshing, isn't it?"

He stuck out his tongue at her and she snickered.

"Go to sleep.  You clearly need a nap."

Mulder watched her leave, smiling.  Ellie and the rest of the
staff here were being awfully nice to him, especially
considering how much chaos and upheaval he'd brought
with him.

He was just settling back for a little snooze when the phone
at his bedside rang.  He needed both hands to maneuver
the handset, but he was getting a lot of practice.  Finally he
had the handset braced against his head, held in place with
one casted hand and his pillow.

"Mulder."

"Agent Mulder?  This is Marty Jeshan, Baltimore PD."

"Hi, Marty.  What's up?"

"I thought you'd like to know that Tom Zajas is out of surgery
and already wide awake and demanding discharge," came
the amused response.

"I knew it would take more than a bullet to keep Tom down,"
Mulder felt some of his internal tension relax.  "Marty, can
you have the Task Force set up over here at Oakwoods?"

"When?"

"Now.  I want my wing staked out."

"Why?"

"Your boss went on the news at noon and credited me with
identifying Garay and blaming him for all forty-eight murders.
I'm really not capable of much, right now with these casts on
my hands.  If he shows up here looking for me, I'm going to
need help to grab him."

"Jesus Christ!"  Jeshan was shocked.  "What was he
thinking?!"

Mulder almost shrugged but then didn't bother for fear of
dislodging the phone.  "It made a good sound bite; he
dumped all the credit on me and sounded very
magnanimous."

"He hung you out to dry, Mulder!"

Mulder chuckled softly.  "So get some of your glory hounds
over here, Marty.  Scully's here, but she's already lost one
confrontation with Garay.  We need backup.  I can't use a
firearm yet."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes.  I'll have the locals there in
five!"

"Gently, Marty.  Unmarked units, plainclothes officers,
please. We don't want to scare him off."

"On the way, Mulder.  On the way."

*****

Mulder was not surprised when Tony Marrinaccio strolled
into his room a few minutes later.  "Hi, Tony."

"Hi, Mulder.  Skinner's right behind me; I saw him parking
his car when I came inside."

Mulder could not help but grin.  "And the party hasn't started
yet."

Marrinaccio set his briefcase down and went back out into
the hall.  When he returned a few minutes later Skinner was
with him and they were each carrying a chair.

Skinner set his chair down just inside the door.  His attention
flicked from Scully, who was still sleeping, to Mulder, who
was grinning at him.

"Is she all right?"

Mulder glanced at his partner for just a moment before
returning his attention to his supervisor.  "She's just bruised
and banged-up a little."

Skinner nodded slowly.  "Okay.  There's a SWAT team
outside doing a stealth approach to a perimeter.  It's very
odd to be in here and not out there."

Mulder let himself relax.  Now that the backup was in place,
he did not have to be on guard.  He had been terrified that
Garay would appear too soon.  He knew that he was
helpless, unable to defend himself or his partner, and had
been doing the best he could to avoid thinking about what
would happen if Garay got there first.

"Mulder?"

That was Scully's voice and he struggled to focus.  "Yeah?"

"Go to sleep, partner.  We're all right."

He would have argued but it would have taken too much
effort. "Okay," he agreed, not hearing the exhausted slur in
his voice.

Scully stroked his forearm very lightly alongside the IV and
in moments was rewarded by seeing her partner relax. 
When she was sure he was asleep she lifted her hand
cautiously and then stretched, reaching for the ceiling with
each hand in turn, flexing back muscles that had stiffened
while she napped in that chair.

Skinner watched her back and concentrated very hard on
remembering that she was not available; she was one of his
subordinates.  He could not think of her as a woman.

"Agent Scully?"

She turned slowly.  "Yes, sir?"

"How are you?"

She sighed.  "I'm fine.  Really," she added when she saw
the doubt in his expression.  "I'm not hurt.  I'm just bruised.  I
have a headache," she admitted.  "I'm okay."

"All right.  How's he?"

"No worse," she shrugged.  "He's not getting better, sir.  He
needs rest, not all this stress."

"Well, if he's correct, Garay will be trying for him soon, and if
we're lucky, we'll be able to put an end to this fairly quickly."

"God, I hope so," she sighed.

"Sounds like you need a rest, too, Agent."

"I'll rest when this is resolved," she stated, flashing him a
glance he preferred to define as annoyed.  "Not before."

Skinner knew there was no point in arguing with her about
this and he did not try.  He just settled back to wait.

An uneasy silence settled over the room, broken only by the
very quiet chirping of the machinery around the bed.  Scully
was back in her chair, drowsy but fighting it.  Skinner was
wound so tight he could hardly breathe.  He had seen
combat, he had been in HRT when he had been a field
agent.  He had been on raids that had resembled military
missions.

But he had never done bodyguard duty.  The Secret Service
was jealous of their prerogatives and he had never worked
in Organized Crime, so there had never been an
assignment like this one: to step aside from command,
yielding it to SAC Scarborough, and to simply sit in this
room and wait for a murderer to attack.

After ten minutes he knew he could not do this.  He stood
up, intending to quietly pace, and both Scully and
Marrinaccio looked up, tensing.  He waved them down.

"I'm just too restless for this waiting game."

Slowly, Scully relaxed again.

Marrinaccio sighed wearily, scrubbing at his face with both
hands.  "This does suck," he agreed.

Scully eyed him.  "You've been following this case longer
than anyone," she observed,  "Do you think Garay will try
today?"

Marrinaccio nodded, his expression grim.  "Rickie Lee was
the brains of the outfit.  I don't imagine that Garay is bright
enough to realize that we might be ready for him."

"Have you got any thoughts on why he might've killed
Mathers?" Skinner asked.  He leaned against the wall by
the door.  "They'd been friends for a long time."

Marrinaccio shrugged and glanced warily at the man
sleeping in the bed.  "I suspect we'll never know," he said
quietly. "Garay's a classic case for SBC: killing his partner
had to have been a conflict over something vitally important,
like their survival.  If Garay became convinced that Mathers
was losing it and was going to make a mistake that would
get them both killed or captured, that might have been
enough."

Scully grimaced.  "Mathers was tortured, Tony; not just
killed."

Marrinaccio spread his hands helplessly.  "Considering
their history, that's not too surprising, is it?  He and Mathers
had to have developed the pattern of treating their victims a
certain way.  Killing isn't something that humans do without
ritualizing it; serial killers are unique in that their ritual
includes their own sexual arousal and satisfaction with the
act of killing.  When the post-mortem on Mathers is
complete, I'll bet there will be evidence of sexual abuse that
matches the abuse suffered by their female vics."

Scully looked thoughtful; Skinner just looked confused.

"How could his partner get demoted to victim, though?" he
asked.  "As far as we know, all their targets were females."

"As far as we know," Marrinaccio pointed out.  "Consider
that these two guys have been successfully locating target
women, kidnapping them, torturing them, killing them, and
disposing of the bodies in such a way that they haven't even
been suspected by any police agency as even being
persons of interest in the investigation.  Hell, it wasn't till this
most recent profile that we even linked all the deaths
together!

"When we looked at that new list of victims, the first and
most immediate facts that leaped off the paper was that the
perps were escalating: the attacks were coming more and
more frequently.  They started out at one or two a year, there
was a flurry in Sibley County but shortly thereafter it calmed
down, again.  Most recently they had killed four in four
months.  None of the other victims were accompanied by
any collateral killings; their murder of Jimmy Fremd is totally
out of character. In past times, they'd just leave."

Scully gnawed on her lip as she considered this information.
"Out of character for the partnership," she postulated slowly.
"But as a solitary killer, Galen Garay is an unknown quantity.
He's abandoned his old pattern: he has to devise a new one
of his own.  Until he does, he may be floundering a bit. 
Makes him vulnerable..."

Skinner frowned.  "Would that make him easier to catch?"

"It might," she shrugged minutely, while Marrinaccio
nodded. "In any case, we don't know where he is, so if he
doesn't show up here we'll be left with posting him to the
Marshals and hoping they can bring him in for trial."

"Hopefully before he commits any more murders."

"Hopefully."

***

Scully drowsed, comforted by the presence of her partner
sleeping beside her and two other armed agents between
herself and her helpless partner and the danger of the
enemy outside.  Sometimes she could hear Skinner and
Marrinaccio speaking quietly, and the low rumble of their
conversation was reassuring.  She let herself smile in her
slumber...

...and jerked awake, reaching for her Glock, blinking back
sleep, unclear on what had startled her.  She stared,
shocked, at the FBI agent standing in the doorway, his arms
full of fast food bags.

Skinner, who had leapt to his feet when the door opened, let
himself relax only when he recognized the agent.

"Dammit, MacGready..."

"Sorry, sir.  SAC Scarborough's compliments, sir; he
thought y'all might be getting hungry up here."

"What time is it?" Scully demanded querulously.

Skinner glanced at his watch.  "5:30."

Mulder stirred and looked around groggily.  "What's goin'
on?"

"Nothing, Mulder.  Just dinner."

Mulder grinned tiredly.  "Food is good."

MacGready came inside and shut the door with his foot.  He
set the food down on the foot of the bed and started passing
out sandwiches and pasteboard scoops of french fries.
Everyone settled down to eat.  Scully sat beside her partner
and nonchalantly broke his double cheeseburger into bite
size pieces and fed him.  No one paid any attention.

"So, how long is this stakeout gonna last, sir?" MacGready
asked as he finished off his sandwich.  "SAC Scarborough
has started rotating his HRT personnel off-post: an hour off
for three hours on."

"How long is he prepared to stay on post?" Skinner asked.

"As long as you need us, sir," MacGready replied.  He met
the assistant director's steely blue eyes without flinching in
the least.

Slowly, Skinner nodded.

MacGready gathered all the trash and excused himself.  "I'm
reporting back, sir.  The stakeout units are on radio silence
but SAC Scarborough's cell is set on vibrate; you can call
him."

Skinner nodded.  "Thanks, MacGready.   And thank
Scarborough for us."

"You're welcome, sir.  This is our job."

***

HRT units rotated out of their sight.  Skinner and
Marrinaccio took turns going out and wandering the halls in
another corridor, where their suspect might not see them,
but they would be close enough to hear if Scully screamed.

Mulder watched his friends getting more and more tense
and could not but pick up some of the tension himself. 
When Brina Drexel came in to do his vitals and administer
his sedative that evening, he found himself snarling at her to
get out.

"Mulder!"  Scully was shocked.

He had the grace to look ashamed.  "I'm sorry, Brina.  It's
not your fault we're all so tense, and I shouldn't take it out on
you."

"You're right," she said coolly.  "And your blood pressure is
significantly elevated, Mr Mulder.  You need to rest."

Scully saw him clamp his jaw shut as Brina reached for the
port on his IV and administered his sedative.

"Thanks, Brina," she said softly.  She watched as Mulder
relaxed and fell asleep.

"You're welcome, Ms Scully."  Brina was watching her
patient, too, but then glanced at the other woman.  "You look
like you need a nap, yourself, you know."

Scully nodded.  "I napped a little this afternoon."

"Nap a lot," Brina advised pointedly.  "When was the last
time you got eight uninterrupted hours of sleep?"

Scully made a face at her.  "I'm a doctor, Brina.  I learned to
function on very little sleep."

"That doesn't mean you should," Brina pointed out.  "And
you were younger then."

"We were all younger once," Scully growled.  "Thank you,
Brina."

Shaking her head, the nurse left.

Skinner, standing in the doorway, had moved aside to let
the nurse out.  Then he shut the door behind her.  "She has a
point, Agent Scully.  You've been burnin' both ends of the
candle ever since he was shot."

"There was work to be done."

He nodded.  "I know.  And you did it well.  But you've been
effectively on duty 24/7 for a month, Scully.  You need to
rest. Marrinaccio and I will shift to outside the room.  Go to
sleep."

She wanted to argue, but could not dispute the facts: she
was tired and scared and dependent on backup to keep her
and her helpless partner safe.

"I hate this, sir," she said tonelessly.

"I'm not fond of it, either, Agent Scully.  But we have our duty
to the FBI, to our fellow agents, to the rule of law.  I'll take this
watch.  You are relieved.  Go to sleep; I'll wake you in the
morning."

Scully nodded briefly.  "Thank you, sir."

***

In the morning, Skinner woke her and stayed with Mulder
while she showered in the nurses' locker room.  She brought
breakfast in for all of them.  Skinner waited until two agents
he had summoned from JEH arrived, briefed them and
introduced them to Scully.  Then he went back to the office
himself, reported to the Director, and went home.

***

They quickly settled into a routine.  Skinner and Marrinaccio
split the evenings and nights and Scarborough rotated his
people outside, moving more than fifty men through fourteen
posts outside.  Scully stayed with Mulder, trying not to pace.

After five days of waiting and resting, too distracted by the
tension to think about other cases, Mulder was finally
deemed ready to start his physical therapy.  Scully stayed in
his room, detailing their two daytime HRT agents to cover
him in the halls and in the workout room.  He was exhausted
when he came back and Scully watched him till he fell
asleep; a matter of moments.  Then she settled back into
her chair beside the bed to catch a nap, herself.

They were awakened by excited conversation outside in the
hall.  Mulder frowned worriedly at the door, which was ajar
only an inch or two.  Scully stood up, drew her Glock and
moved to stand between her helpless partner and the
unknown.

When the door opened she raised the weapon only to
recognize AD Skinner who was grinning widely.  She
lowered her weapon, puzzled.  She had never seen the man
smile like that.

"Sir?  What's going on?"

Skinner stood in the door and grinned at her and her
partner. "I just sent Scarborough and his men home.  It's all
over.  Galen Garay is dead."

Scully fought against lowering her guard.  "What makes you
think so, sir?"

Mulder stared at the AD, waiting.

Skinner's smile got even wider.  "Information from the
Alexandria PD is that Garay was shot to death this morning
burglarizing a home in their jurisdiction."

Mulder swallowed hard, and Scully frowned.  "Burglarizing a
house?  That makes no sense, sir."

"Actually, it does," Skinner grinned.  "The address was
2360 Hegal Place, apt 42."

"He was burglarizing my apartment?!"  Mulder spoke for the
first time.

"Actually, from what information we have from the PD, he'd
apparently been living there for several days.  He'd brought
in the mail and the papers, and no one thought it odd when
they heard the TV."

"So, who shot him?"  Scully asked as she let herself relax a
little, sitting down on the end of Mulder's bed, by his good
leg.

"A Viet Nam veteran named Melvin Frohike."

Mulder shouted his laughter.

Skinner eyed him.  "I take it you know this person."

"Absolutely," Mulder nodded.  "He's the one who picks up
my mail and feeds my fish when I go out of town."

Skinner nodded.  "That's what he told the cops."

Mulder sobered suddenly.  "He's not in trouble, is he?"

Skinner shook his head.  "No.  He is licensed to carry and
the weapon he used  a Glock Model 22  is legally registered
to him.  Apparently he and two friends of his..."

Mulder nodded.  "Byers and Langly.  They all live together."

"Uh... yes.  The building manager confirmed that they were
friends of yours and entitled to unlimited access to your
apartment; when they opened the door, Garay fired at them
and hit Byers."

"Is he all right?"

"He's in good condition, expected to be released day after
tomorrow.  Bullet caught him high in the chest but didn't
break any bones or damage anything vital.  He was very
lucky."

Mulder nodded grimly.  "He is.  Go on."

"Langly ran for a phone and called 911.  Frohike ordered
the shooter to surrender, announced a citizen's arrest.  He
admits he was more than a little crude in his vocabulary
choices but insists that his meaning was clear."

Mulder nodded, again.  "Fro' is very clear when he wants to
be."

"He made sure Byers was out of range and then went into
the apartment.  Garay took cover in the kitchen.  They
exchanged fire and Frohike killed him."

"Where's Frohike?" Mulder asked tentatively.  "He's not
being charged?"

Skinner shook his head.  "No.  Even in Virginia,
self-defense is legal.  And Garay had already shot Byers
and threatened to kill Frohike.  His actions were putting all
the residents at risk: the apartments all around them were
occupied.  Frohike said that Garay was shouting that he
would kill everyone, and he fired toward the sound of a
crying baby in the next apartment.

"When Alexandria PD showed up  a dozen officers and a
lieutenant  they came under fire.  Frohike was inside the
apartment, behind the couch, and he provided cover while
the police entered the apartment.  Then he stood down and
let the officers handle it.  Garay was still alive when they got
to him but was DOA at the hospital."

Scully sighed.  "You mean it's really over?"

Skinner nodded.  "It's over.  Another case successfully
wrapped up."

"And Frohike's not being charged?" Mulder asked for the
third time, clearly worried.

"No," Skinner shook his head.  "He kept the suspect pinned
until law enforcement could arrive, he shouted at the
neighbors to evacuate the fourth floor and most of them did. 
He offered covering fire for the police when they arrived and
then backed off and let them handle it.  He did everything
right.  He's making his statement at Alexandria PD HQ and
he'll be notified when the inquest is scheduled."

"How are they sure that Mulder's friend is the one who killed
him?" Scully asked, puzzled by that apparent certainty.

"Last thing Garay said was a muttered curse against the
'ugly little dwarf' who'd shot him," Skinner manfully hid a grin
at that comment.  "Certainly the finalization of the
responsibility awaits the post-mortem and ballistics tests."

Scully turned toward her partner.  "Mulder, when am I going
to meet these friends of yours?"

"Never, if I can help it."

"Mulder!"

Skinner relaxed a little and let himself smile a little.  Their
banter was always fun to hear.  "You two just relax.  You did
a great job on this one and now it's all over.  Time to take a
break.  You're both off-duty, now, until I say otherwise."

"Yes, sir."  Scully noted that Mulder did not agree.  She
turned to face him.  "Mulder...?"

He pushed the button to elevate the head of his bed. 
"There's a couple of hours till dinner time, Scully.  Pull up the
next case."

The End