Bardo

By Darwin
Darwin_xf@yahoo.com


Rating - R
Category - MSR
Spoilers - all things, SR 819
Keywords - MSR
Summary - Fills a gap.
Feedback - Please. Note new email.
Archive - Anywhere, just let me know so
that I can visit.
Disclaimer - Not mine.  
 
     He was dawdling in that bardo that
divides waking consciousness from sleep,
vaguely aware of his surroundings: his
junky bedroom, dartboard, back issues of
UFO Casebook, stratum of dress shirts
draped over an uncomfortable chair. He
was tired, but reluctant to let go of the here
and now, her leg hooked over his hip, how
salty and complex she smelled, the scritch
of her pubic hair on his thigh where she
opened against him like a wound, like a
flower. She was immediate and real and
he wanted to stay for a bit longer, but he
was drifting out the window, moving out
over the city, watching it decelerate and
dim for the night. He climbed higher until
the land was indistinct, then higher still,
kicking out toward a beyond he couldn't
completely imagine, as often as he'd tried.
Next to him, Scully's breathing deepened
as she too slid toward sleep, midnight.  

     It was where he had been dwelling that
night a few weeks before, teetering
between worlds, when he became aware
of a presence in the bed next to him
exerting a gravity all out of proportion to
her mass, pulling him back toward where
she was. He opened his eyes. Scully lay
top of the covers, propped up on her
elbow, watching him.  

     He had tucked her in with his ratty
Navajo blanket on the couch a while
before, which she'd shed. He figured
she'd wake up with a stiff neck and head
home without so much as leaving him a
note dashed off in her doctor's script
saying bye. Yet here she was, if he could
believe it, slashed with moonlight filtering
through the blinds, equal parts riddle,
green cashmere, invitation. She blinked
slowly. Once. Twice. The stillness she had
grown to inhabit lately was palpable,
somehow animal, the opposite of his
frenetic speed. It grounded him utterly.  

     "Hello earthling," he said.

     "Hey," she said back.
 
     As she had moved toward him, he
moved toward her. He closed the gap that
remained between them, crooked his
elbow behind her neck, found her mouth
and sealed it with his own.

     Monday, two weeks later, back at
work after a weekend spent mostly in bed,
working next to her but not being allowed
to touch her for ten consecutive hours had
been akin to some arcane, draconian
deprivation torture. Since returning to his
place they had remained in more or less
constant contact, not bothering even to eat
the burritos they had picked up on the way
home, barely noticing their phones when
they chirped. He was spent, just about to
tumble into oblivion when he heard a
tapping at his door. Soft, but unmistakable.  

     He suspected the downstairs
neighbor. What was his name? Frank. A
few minutes before his headboard had
been slapping violently against the wall
during one particularly vigorous and goal-
oriented moment in their intimacy, one
more thing to which they had remained
oblivious. The guy, never the friendly sort,
was probably still peevish in the wake of
the whole waterbed thing. Mulder held his
breath and hoped whoever it was would
go away.
 
     Then another knock, slightly more
insistent. Not going away. He'd have to
say sorry to this guy. Even though he
wasn't. Not that he was glad to be
disturbing the neighbors, but, you know.
Worth it. He climbed out of bed, tucked the
covers around Scully who was beginning
to stir, kissed her ear. He pulled on some
jeans, wedged his holstered gun between
his waistband and his spine because you
never knew, and went to see what was
what.  

     He peered through the peephole
and immediately recognized the set of the
shoulders inside the overcoat,
simultaneously apologetic and
authoritative, the thick neck and blunt
profile as he swiveled his head, casing the
hallway. Skinner.

     He opened the door.  
    
     "Sir?"
    
     "Agent Mulder."  

     They regarded one another for a
moment. Mulder knew he should be
alarmed, what with the very off-limits
Scully a post-coital, ectoplasmic tangle in
his bedroom, the door to which was not
even closed, the air fogged with the tang
of their sex, him still shirtless, their boss at
the door. They were, quite possibly,
busted. Yet Mulder stood there, not quite
processing, sporting an expression not
unlike that of an exsanguinated cow.

     "Can I come in?"  Skinner finally
asked.
    
     "Sure," Mulder said mildly,
apparently recovering his capacity for
speech as well as action.  He opened the
door and Skinner brushed by him.
    
     "What's going on?" Mulder asked
as he groped toward the end table where
he set down his gun, switched on a lamp.
    
     "I may be involved in a bit of a...
situation," Skinner said, sinking down into
the leather armchair.  
 
     Mulder slid onto the couch and
discovered, wedged between the
cushions, his undershirt Scully had peeled
from his frame a few hours before. He
pulled it on. At the moment his head
popped through the neck hole, it occurred
to him to wonder where her clothes were.
He looked around, trying to be casual
about it, and then he remembered: she'd
undressed in the bedroom that evening.
Dumb luck.  But. Her purse was underneath
the coffee table. Her coat hung companionably
next to his on his coat rack. Whatever Skinner
wanted, it wouldn't take Herculean leaps of
deductive reasoning on his part to figure out
at least that Mulder hadn't been passing this
evening alone.

     Fortunately Skinner eyeballing
some printouts he'd brought with him. He
seemed too preoccupied to have absorbed
much of the data contained in his surroundings
as of yet. Whatever Walter wanted, Mulder
hoped to get rid of him before that changed.

     "Do you happen to know where
Agent Scully is?" Skinner asked, looking
up from the file he was holding.

     Shit. Questions were supposed to
start easy and get harder. That was how it
worked on quiz shows. Mulder looked at
Skinner levelly and carefully selected the
next words that came out of his mouth. "I
can't say that I do, Sir."

     "Because I've been trying to reach
her.  When I couldn't get her on the phone,
I went by her place. She didn't seem to be
there."

     "Could she have been sleeping?"

     "I made some noise. Woke a
neighbor. I really need to find her."

     "Is it something I can help you
with?"

     "I don't know. I need to talk to her
first."

     "What's going on?"

     "Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. I was
having a beer with a friend tonight. A man
who possesses a high security clearance
in the NSA and sometimes serves as a
contact for me. We share information, as
necessary. Have for years. He's someone
I trust. We served together in Vietnam."   

     Mulder nodded.   

     "We were watching the Redskins
get beat. When he got up to go to the
bathroom, he fell back onto his barstool,
dizzy. He seemed okay, but when he
came back, he was having trouble seeing
the game."

     "Was he drunk?"

     "No. Never has more than two
beers."

     "I see," Mulder said.  He was
beginning to see. "You're worried he's
infected with the same virus that you were
last year?"  

     Skinner nodded.

     "Those were your initial symptoms
exactly." Mulder's speed of cognition
seemed to have been restored. "What
happened next? Where is he now?"

     "I took him to Memorial Hospital.
They examined him and admitted him, did
some preliminary blood work and an EKG.
The EKG was fine, but they said there was
an issue with the way the blood was
clotting."

     Skinner's chin was tucked and he
was shaking his head ruefully as he
spoke. Mulder knew that feeling, the
helpless one you get when the people you
love get badly hurt and you're vaguely
certain that it's your fault somehow. And
just when it would seem that you're just being
grandiose or paranoid, but it turns out it
is your fault. Sort of. Mulder himself
liked to bitch out medical professionals,
insult family members of the afflicted, plot
revenge, and/or throw stuff around at a
moment like this. He admired Skinner's
restraint.

     "Is that the blood work?" Mulder asked,
gesturing the folder

     "Yes. I have no idea if this clotting
problem my friend is having is anything
like the clotting problem I was having. I
don't know enough about medicine to
decipher what this says, even. Since
Agent Scully followed my case so closely
when I was sick, I was hoping she might
take a look. I'm going to try her again."

     He pulled out his cell phone and
placed the call.   

     Mulder's mind whirred. Even if this
man had been infected with the same
stuff Skinner had, how could they help
him? It remained a mystery how Skinner
had recovered, after all. He wanted to quiz
Skinner about that some more, but the
problem of Scully, contraband Scully,
happily snoozing in his bed a few short
feet away, occupied him completely. He
needed two contradictory things:  to keep
their secret, and to get these test results
into her hands, ASAP. On the one hand,
what would Skinner do if he found out?
Split them up? Mulder had no idea. The
other? No small thing, a man's life.  

     Skinner left another message on
Scully's answering machine.

     "Not home," he said, slipping his
phone into his overcoat pocket.

     Mulder sat there silently, nodding,
tapping his fingers on his knee.

     Skinner had relaxed a bit after
spilling his story. He looked around the
room for the first time. His eyes lingered
on the coat rack, wandered back toward
the couch and noted the purse on the
floor. There were two water glasses, one
smudged with lipstick, on the coffee table.
And next to the water glasses, cell
phones. Two. Side by side. Skinner
leveled Mulder with a cool stare.  

     "Maybe I should try her cell again."
Skinner said evenly, pointing almost
imperceptibly with his chin toward the
coffee table.

     "Maybe." Mulder said in voice that
sounded very far away, even to him, and
studied his bare feet.

     "That won't be necessary, Sir,"
Scully said, having materialized at the
very moment Mulder most wanted to
disappear, his anti-matter, his love, he
couldn't help but greet her with a grateful
smile. She sat down next to him on the
couch and shot him one wide-eyed,
incredulous look before doing her best to
assume a professional posture. She had
managed to pull on most of her work
clothes, but her hair, hastily tucked behind
her ears, was unmistakably sexed up.
Skinner suddenly seemed intrigued by
Mulder's fish tank.  

     "I think I got most of that." Scully
said, addressing Skinner.  "Are those the
lab reports?"  
 
     Her voice was thick with sex
and sleep, but her movements were crisp
as she accepted the file Skinner handed
her. Her neck was red where it had been
abraded by Mulder's late night stubble.
Her lips were looking very, very kissed.    

     As Scully reviewed the results,
Mulder's curiosity overcame his
embarrassment and he peppered Skinner
with questions about this contact, and just
what kind of information he provided
Skinner with, who might have a reason to
want to hurt this man. Scully interrupted
his questions with her own.

     "Were you there when the Doctor
examined your friend?"

     "Yes.  I stayed with him."

     "Did you notice a bruise of the sort
that you had on your ribcage when you
became ill."

     "No.  And I looked him over pretty
carefully, too. I was dreading I'd find one."

     "Good," Scully said.  That bruise
and the veining that emanates from it
seems to me to be the hallmark of the
condition you developed."

     "Uh huh.  But what about the
dizziness, and the vision problems?"
 
     "Those symptoms can be caused
by a myriad of problems, one of which is
an ischemic stroke.  The clotting problems
indicated in this blood work can cause this
type of cerebral event, which might occur
when the blood has trouble clotting. The
problem you had was that your blood
clotted too readily, became sticky.  
Furthermore, your condition was caused
by a contaminant in your blood, a foreign
pathogen. That's a very different
phenomenon from what I'm seeing here."

     "So, you don't think my friend is
infected with this thing?"

     "I think your friend had a garden
variety stroke, and if he didn't lose
consciousness probably a mild one. They
are pretty common among men in his
demographic. Did they order an MRI?"
 
     "They're doing that right now,"
Skinner said.

     "I think they will find a subdural
bleed. It's quite serious, but there are
good ways to treat for this. I can't say for
sure, but I suspect his prognosis is
reasonably good."
    
     Skinner leaned back in his chair
and exhaled.  "That comes as quite a
relief."
    
     Mulder realized he was smiling
idiotically, like a kid on his birthday, and
ordered his face to resume displaying its
customary deadpan expression.  
    
     "Do you want me to head down to
Memorial and examine him, just to be
sure?"
    
     "No.  Not if you're pretty confident in
what you're seeing there.  That shouldn't
be necessary.  And thank you, Agent
Scully. I can't tell you how relieved I am."
    
     "You're welcome, Sir. I'm glad to be
of help."
    
     An awkward silence settled among
the three of them.
    
     "Well," Skinner said, standing up.

     "I'm going to get going. It was fortunate for
me to find the two of you together.  
Working late."
    
     "Yes, indeed," Mulder said.  "That's
us.  Always workin'"
    
     Scully pinned him with a sharp
look. She was right, of course, a gift horse
and all that. Still, he couldn't keep himself
from gloating a little. He shut up.  

     Skinner stood up and Mulder rose
to accompany him to the door. Scully
followed close behind them.
    
     "Are you going back to the hospital,
Sir?"
    
     "Yeah, I think I'll head back over
there, see how he's doing."
    
     "Give me a call if they didn't find a
brain bleed on the MRI." Scully said.
    
     "Yeah, I will." Skinner said, opening
the door and turning around to face
Mulder and Scully. "I'll call your cell
phone."
    
     "That might be the best way to get
in touch with me," she said, nodding.    
Skinner gave them a bemused look, pursing
his lips and shaking his head.  

     As soon as they closed the door
and Skinner was out of earshot, Mulder went to
grab her, but she shoved him in the chest.

     "Always workin'?" she said.

    He tried to smile apologetically, but
kind of shrugged in the end.

     They sat at his rarely used table
and ate their burritos, Scully making
sour faces and plucking shards of
cilantro from her food, mumbling about her
Nordic anscstors and Gregor Mendel.  
 
     "Did you the name cilantro comes
from the Greek word for bedbug?" Mulder asked.

     "Are you coming on to me?" Scully said.

     Soon they were back in bed and
Mulder was drifting again, swimming
pleasantly in space and time. This liminal
place between awake and asleep used to
unsettle him. He'd finally quiet his
galloping mind and twitchy body sufficiently
so that he might start to nod off
in front of the TV, and in a flash become
aware that he was, in fact, moving, a
single, singular dot among many in a
whirling, inchoate universe. Feeling dizzy
and hopelessly lost, he'd jerk awake
myoclonically, pulse pounding, and have
to start the process of falling all over
again.

     He liked it there lately, though, in
the in between, feeling free to explore
this place where questions were more important
than answers, where the past, present,
and future seemed to collapse and spin,
where nothing was truly lost to him, or
found. It felt good. It felt like his natural
habitat.