By Shirle
cwrogers@hiwaay.net
 
 
 

Referents: S5- The End,  The Movie, S6- The Beginning, Drive, Triangle
Classification: A, UST, M/S/Other friendship- Mulderangst, Scullyangst, Otherangst,
some Skinnerangst.
Date: November 1999
Rating: R for language
Archive: just let me know
Summary: Mulder overcomes some obstacles to solve a terrorist case, and makes
friends in Domestic Terrorism Division.
Disclaimer: I'm not making any money, I'm borrowing with respect, and I fully
understand that Mulder, Scully, Skinner and Kersh are the intellectual property of
Chris Carter, 1013, David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, A.J. Pickens-
and Fox. And one minor use of  JAG characterization- so disclaimer includes Donald
Bellasario.

************************************************************************

The dim room resounded to a myriad of beeps, sighs and the soft groan of the IV
pump pushing NSD5W and Keflex into Fox Mulder's circulatory system. Dana Scully
leaned forward, elbows braced on knees, head resting on hands; it was a lousy
substitute for sleep. This time, Mulder's stay in ICU wasn't even due to her having
indulged his sense of chivalry and letting him shoulder most of the responsibility
of being a partnership. It had been his assignment to go first.
 
 

 She had tried in every logical, calm, professional way to explain to Kersh that
Mulder, at least, shouldn't be assigned to the domestic terrorism case that was
forming up from nearly every FBI unit in DC. Yes, the so-called DCBomber was
ravaging Washington with fear and suffering- eleven people had died as a result of
his devices. And, yes, his avowed targets were politicians or  those close to them,
and no one was safe in DC until he was caught. But Fox Mulder had just had four of
the hardest, most wringing months of his entire life. In her estimation, he just
didn't deserve to be on field duty right now. As much as he hated it, desk time was
what he needed until he had time to deal with the events that had turned his life
upside down over the last few months.
 
 

 First there had been the Gibson Praise case and the arrival of his old X-Files
collaborator, whose relationship presumably went beyond partnership in a way Dana
Scully's did not, then the loss by dread, feared fire of Mulder's reason for
living, the X-Files themselves. And if that was not enough, he had pulled himself
together and rededicated himself to the X-Files by putting the charred remains of
paper back together using high tech methods from any FBI division that would give
him equipment and instruction only to be discredited in the Dallas bombing that
destroyed the federal building, resulting in their being taken off the X-Files.
 
 

 He, and she, had been absolved of blame and restored in their FBI careers, if in
another division with the surly, unimaginative Kersh as their supervisor, but at
what tremendous cost. The X-Files were given to Diana Fowley and Jeffery Spender
and Mulder had grown to doubt himself- and even her. He had risked his career and
his life to come for her in the frozen wastelands of Antarctica. And she remembered
virtually nothing beyond the bee sting in his hallway.
 
 

Intellectually, she knew he had been shot in the head and nearly killed trying to
find out where she was being taken by the bogus "paramedics" who had come to
transport her after her incredible reaction to the sting. She had vague memories of
intense cold that made her dread winter even now in the middle of the sweltering,
humidity of a Potomac summer. She knew- though not from him- that Mulder had almost
died in Antarctica. The Lone Gunmen had stayed at their sides during her and
Mulder's recovery at GWU Med Center and after they went home.
 
 

But she had not seen what he had seen. She had not seen the ship. And Special
Agent, Dr. Dana Katherine Scully could not lie. Not even for the man who had moved
heaven and earth to come for her at the frozen ends of the earth.  Not would not
lie- could not lie. For the life of her, and for that of Fox Mulder, Scully had
been unable to attest to something that she had, in fact, only heard recounted. The
fact that the source of that recounting was someone she absolutely believed, did
not alter the fact that she was constitutionally unable to swear to having seen
something that she had no recollection of having seen. The effect on Mulder had
been devastating, and had nearly cost him his ability to continue as an FBI agent.
 
 

Trust was, if not destroyed, then badly damaged. How Mulder had continued to
believe in her and accept her as his partner was a miracle to her. Or maybe just a
habit... or maybe a sign of the deep and abiding love the man had for her. On one
level, she was certain that she regarded Mulder as best, if sometimes troublesome,
friend. He was the most incredible and riveting professional colleague anyone could
want. They had done important work in the X-Files division, of that she was sure.
Professional respect, even deep and abiding friendship was possible. But love. She
wasn't ready for that. That would change everything, and change and disruption of
norms was something that Dana Scully found made her uncomfortable at the most
superficial levels and almost enraged her at the more obvious, gruesome levels she
witnessed as a part of her job. It was the part of her personality that had driven
her into medicine and thence into forensics instead of hospital or private
practice.
 
 

Dana Scully recognized that she had a passion for understanding the reasons why
things are not 'normal,' not 'routine,' why they 'changed.' Change was the enemy.
Change had to be fought by doing the autopsies that identified what changes had
taken place and why. Change had to be fought by identifying and apprehending the
perpetrator of those changes.  She wasn't ready to think of Mulder as a perpetrator
of changes in her life. Maybe sometime in the future, but not now.
 
 

 So, she and Mulder had slipped into an uneasy truce after Antarctica and the OPR
reassignment in which trust was tabled for further discussion and simple habit and
trained routines had had to suffice. Kersh had put them on background checks and
low level domestic terrorism cases, and Mulder had ditched the assignments right
away by going out to Arizona to investigate what she did come to believe was the
escape of a dangerous extraterrestrial creature into a nuclear power facility. That
had put him cross-wise up Fowley and Spender's asses, not to mention setting Kersh
on hers and Mulder's. Then he ditched an agricultural explosives investigation in
Idaho that ended up with him driving a man to the California coast in hopes of
saving his life from a mysterious radio frequency overload. Kersh had nearly
stroked out on that one. She knew the scuttlebutt mongers had a betting pool as to
when she'd dump Mulder. Well, let the money pile up, ladies and gents, I'm not
ditching him, she declared to herself, surprised at the strength of her reaction to
that thought.
 
 

  Despite their track record of solve rates, and despite the rumor that Mulder had
been taken down a few pegs, no one was really comfortable when he and she were
assigned to the task force convened to find and remove the threat of the DCBomber.
Since this case fell under the purview of Kersh's division, no one had a choice,
and since she and Mulder were assigned to domestic terrorism for the duration, they
had no choice. No one was unprofessional, but she could see the agents on loan from
ISU walk in and warily scope out 'Spooky' Mulder. Folks she had taught with at
Quantico, on temp assignment to the effort, unabashedly took the opportunity to
observe the man, the myth, the profiling legend and declare him interesting-
handsome in a couple of cases. They, at least, didn't sneer at him behind his back.
 
 
 

 She thought being back on a more worthwhile project would lift Mulder's spirits,
but watching him work, Scully was eerily reminded of the Mostow case and how
Patterson had driven him to become the victims and become the killer. She watched
the ISU team bait and drive him the same way. She finally went to Donovan with a
complaint, not telling Mulder that she was speaking on his behalf, and was told
that Mulder was capable of deciding how much effort he put into his work, and that
this case needed everyone's utmost effort to identify and apprehend the bomber who
was holding the city hostage. The fact remained, that he was falling into the
pattern she remembered from three years ago. He didn't eat, looked as if he was not
sleeping, and spent more time than anyone else going over the case evidence files
and photos. To anyone else, he  looked like a man devoted to his job. Scully knew
it was eating him up inside.
 
 

 The problem was the same as always, Mulder's devotion to finding answers made him
look like an assistant director's answer to a prayer. Unfortunately, his answers
often didn't fit into the pattern everyone wanted to see. Everyone else looked for
answers that made sense in a pattern, and Mulder- well, Mulder was never in the
pattern. He spent his life living and looking outside the box, and the rest of the
world couldn't or wouldn't follow him there. Most of them jeered and ridiculed him
without ever trying to understand, a few watched from inside the box, trying to
make sense of what he saw.
 
 

Scully noted that he was out of the office a lot, and he would only say that he was
talking to Frank Quentin of the FBI's bomb squad. She knew, too, that he was
spending a lot of time in the archives, studying every bomber the FBI had ever
caught. He was running on coffee and nerves, but the day he went to SAC Wade
Donovan and told him he had some information to present to the group, Scully was
amazed at his appearance. The minute he stepped before the assembled task force,
all signs of fatigue disappeared, and Scully could well imagine a younger Mulder
standing for orals in Oxford.
 
 

Mulder struck a pose before the tired, rumpled group that slouched or perched on
chairs and desks in the bullpen. His starched shirt was as rumpled from an
uninterrupted twenty hours on the job, his shirtsleeves were rolled up, his tie as
askew and loose from his collar as anyone's, but the moment he stepped before them,
Mulder's stance altered. His lean body became relaxed, his gaze confident; he
expected to be believed.
 
 

"God knows he must be as tired as the rest of us," Scully remembered  thinking.
"How can he look so fresh and strong?"  She knew the answer, though, long
accustomed to seeing Mulder pull strength from his hidden reserves. That pulling
exacted an incredible toll that had to be repaid, but the man could stay up longer,
with less apparent strain, and find more answers than anyone else. Just another of
the reasons he was "spooky."Now, at three on a rainy morning, Mulder began to
distill for them, his profile of the DCBomber, his voice soft and persuasive,
almost lost in the drum of the rain against the windows and the occasional rumble
of thunder.
 
 

"The UNSUB is a white male, between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five," Mulder
began, "Sorry for the wide age range, but it accounts for the time it would take
for someone to enter the military and get the training needed for devising and
placing these devices. He will be a meticulous, somewhat reserved man between five
foot eight and five foot ten in height. He is now, or has been, in the military-
bomb residue has been from C-4 explosive material, and remnants of the triggering
device point to military hardware. He could be in the Corps of Engineers or the
SEALs, but with his bombs being more surgical strikes than demolition, I place him
in the SEALs
 
 

He lives alone- divorced or widowed- and he sees the military as responsible for
the inadequacies of his life- thus the targeting of senators who have assignments
with military concerns. Um..."
 
 

Mulder paused to think, and his stance faltered as if from fatigue, but Scully knew
the real reason. Mulder was about to deviate from information-based profiling and
go off into Mulder-land speculation. The fact that he was nearly always right never
made any difference at this point; skeptics always abounded and were quick to point
out how wrong they perceived him to be. Based on her experience, she was willing to
listen first and doubt later.
 
 

"He is not doing this for power," Mulder straightened his shoulders and continued,
but his delivery was altered. No longer was he quietly and calmly detailing; his
voice rose, and his words tumbled over each other as if he were in a hurry to
finish what he wanted to say before someone stopped him. "He wants revenge, and
from the hiding of his bombs and his lack of notification, he sees himself as
having been hurt very deeply by the military system. He can't hurt or destroy the
military, so he's striking at the people he can get to."
 
 

The objections came from just where Scully thought they would. Bill Walker from
ISU, Mulder's former duty assignment, stood with a lazy smile and shook his head in
theatric, mocking disbelief. "C'mon, Mulder, this isn't Bill Patterson's BSU
anymore. We have to have facts not 'spooky' intuition. This guy is strictly into
power and proving that he can hold the city hostage- why else would there be no
notes or manifestos? No letter to the Post proclaiming his woes and complaints."
 
 
 
 

Wade Donovan didn't know all the details of Mulder's assignment to Patterson in the
old BSU department, but the 'facts" showed that Mulder had been a brilliant
profiler with an incredible solve rate and that Bill Patterson had gone nuts and
killed a fellow agent during a case in which Mulder was involved. And the facts
before him showed an agent who was willing to denigrate a fellow agent before his
peers. Well, not on his watch. Donovan slowly levered himself to his full height,
drawing everyone's attention as he did.
 
 

"Agents," he used his gravelly voice and a frown at the assembly around the room to
convey his displeasure and disappointment, "We will make no progress toward taking
this man off the street by taking out our impatience and frustration on one
another. Play nice and do your best," he finished and looked to Mulder who was now
slumped, on his feet, just barely, with the look of a fox at bay. "Mulder, I want
to see you in my office."
 
 

 When Scully asked him later what Donovan had said to him in his office, he had
just shrugged and said everything was okay and ignored her. Which he continued to
do. It took her three days to realize that he was trying to distance himself from
her to avoid having his reputation ruin hers.
 
 

 She began to breathe a sigh of relief for her partner as hard work and information
gathering activity began to yield results; maybe they could go back to doing boring
background checks soon. At least he ate and slept while he was involved in that-
bitched and moaned, but he took care of himself.
 
 

Six weeks of  crime scene investigation and profiling by Randy Connors and Kevin
Scherelli of Domestic Terrorism aided by Mulder and the ISU group, and careful
investigative work largely by Scully and Agent Mike Benson of the Domestic
Terrorism unit  resulted in the compilation of a raid party being assembled to
charge the castle of the man believed to be responsible for the deaths of two
congressional aides and a senator's secretary- well, it was his house in Anacostia
across the Potomac.
 
 

 Starting with minute traces of explosives residue, Scully and the rookie Benson
had done painstaking research to identify the person or persons who might have
purchased the initial components. It was obviously an assignment in which she was
supposed to mentor the incredibly large Benson who had come to the bureau from
Baylor University's law enforcement program and its offensive line. Her reputation
had preceded her, and the new agent was in awe of her. She convinced him to stop
calling her Miss Scully, but he still suffered from hero worship and tended to duck
his head and shuffle his feet in shy embarrassment around her. Scully couldn't help
think that their pairing was someone's idea of a joke. Mike Benson was well over
six feet tall and dark-skinned.  Mulder, assigned separately to the profiling team,
fumed and refused to speak to her but in the coolest terms. She didn't think it was
jealousy, but he had become...odd- okay...odder, since they returned from
California and Patrick Crump's death- quieter and more moody.
 
 
 
 

 Their investigation, coupled with information from the profiling team, mostly
Mulder's, led them to Paul Allen Grant, currently working for a janitorial service
whose contracts serviced federal buildings. He was an ex-SEAL with certain
knowledge of military explosives, how to procure them, and how to use them. SAC
Wade Donovan drew them together to plan the raid on Grant's house. As usual, Mulder
disagreed.
 
 

 Mulder's profile in opposition to the ISU profile said this was not the safe or
efficient way to approach capture of Paul Allen Grant, and argued that the
ex-military bomb expert was very capable of rigging a trap for them. Donovan
rebutted that Mulder's own profile didn't point to Grant's actions that way, and
the assault force was gathered. What Mulder couldn't say, without jeopardizing his
career by frank insubordination, was that SAC Wade Donovan was choosing to
interpret the conclusions in a way that said frontal assault was the appropriate
way to apprehend this criminal. The real reason Donovan was choosing this method,
Mulder understood, was that the city was terrified, and the press was on their
heels, snapping like a pack of junkyard dogs.
 
 

They formed up a block away in an unused auto body shop that smelled of bondo and
paint. The weather was hot and humid, adding the scent of human fear and body odor
to the mix. Eveyone's 'Degree' was working overtime, the joke ran as agents in
jeans, hiking boots and t-shirts strapped on service weapons over kevlar vests, and
picked up M-16's. Mulder had stopped trying to tell them that Grant was not in the
house. He was  suiting up like a good, little FBI agent and toeing the party line.
She tried to talk to him, but he was noncommital, treating her almost like a
stranger.
 
 

"Let's just do our jobs and go home, Scully," he had murmured while adjusting his
vest and not looking at her.
 
 

 Grant's house was a lowslung ranchstyle that had once been chic and trendy. Now,
it was a rundown symbol of a neighborhood in decline. Mulder had been assigned
point position, then Wade Donovan, as task force commander had  put her in a
flanking position on the other side of the house. She had argued with Wade- calmly
but audibly- and with Mulder quietly and intensely. Donovan had taken her
oppositions under advisement but would not change her assignment. Mulder had
ignored her, refusing to meet her eyes, but not denying her. She had then defiantly
told the task force commander that she would go in  behind Mulder and he could
censure her later. Not good for her career, but it wasn't as if it hadn't happened
before. At least this time, she would be backing her partner up, and no one spoke
against her. Mulder's profile had chosen this suspect. Scully's investigations had
helped substantiate the choice; so, no one was going to argue with Mr. & Mrs.
Spooky today.
 
 

 She had gone in snugged up at his back, watching for anything peripheral to them
that might jeopardize the strike or their lives. Everyone in this group was
dedicated and professional, but she realized how completely Mulder lost himself in
his part at times like this. Only she would know to protect him from danger coming
from outside his primary task.
 
 

Scully was still angry that Kersh had let them use him this way. When this
assignment began, he was only a week off the incredible stress of driving John
Crump to his death at the Pacific shoreline. Everyone thought he was recuperated-
all sunglasses, neat suits, and aloof posture- GQ FBI, but Scully knew better. His
superior memory wouldn't let the passage of time soften the blow of remembrance,
and his heart wouldn't let him stop grieving so soon for innocent lives ruined by
the government's thoughtless manipulations that destroyed the future for one man
and his wife. Fox Mulder was still in emotional shock, and Kersh was using his
genuine care for others to fuel his involvement in this case. It was just the way
Patterson had manipulated him.
 
 

The strike had gone amazingly well until the absolute last second. Donovan had
identified them by bullhorn and advised the man whose lawn they occupied that he
was under suspicion of  placing bombs in the city. He offered him fair process of
law if he came out peaceably. All standard FBI procedure and in accordance with the
law. The house was quiet. Infrared tracking equipment had shown Paul Allan Grant,
the man six weeks of intense investigation identified as the DCBomber, to be
inside. His car, identified by the license plate, sat in the driveway.  But
Mulder's  profile had indicated that Grant would not allow himself to be cornered
like this. Mulder said Grant wasn't in that house, no matter what the IR and the
car in the driveway seemed to indicate, and her money was on Mulder.
 
 

And that was why Dana Scully was at his back. As frustrated and depressed as he had
been in the past weeks, Mulder was not suicidal. She might not be able to save him
if things went wrong, but she sure as shit wasn't going to abandon him because of
some crappy political maneuvering that would have put her on the other side of the
house from him. Donovan gave the signal to move in. Snipers took up stations, and
the rest of the team moved in at various assigned distances behind Mulder.
 
 

 The raid was going according to procedure, until  Mulder approached the kitchen
door that he had identified as the safest entry point. Scully saw him stiffen.
Then, he was shouting the traditional "Fire in the hole!" warning for blasting and
reaching back to push her violently to the ground. She heard herself screaming his
name as she fell. He had never, never touched her in anger. As furious as he could
become with her and others, he had never to her knowledge expressed that anger,
with two exceptions. Manipulated and controlled, hurt and betrayed, Mulder remained
a model of control. So, she knew that if he was throwing her to the ground now, it
was to save her life. And it was at that moment, that Special Agent Dr. Dana
Katherine Scully realized that life without Fox Mulder was something she absolutely
wasn't prepared for.
 
 

************************************************************************
 
 
 

 She heard the explosion, her ears strobing pain, then going mercifully deaf, then
felt what must surely be only a small part of the overpressure before Mulder's body
slammed into hers, protecting her, from a pounding rain of brick, splintered wood,
and glass. His head knocked painfully into hers, and she struggled to get out from
under him so she could assess the extent of his injuries. He was moving off her...
no, people were moving him. "Jesus Christ, don't move him!" she screamed at them,
her voice not even  a whisper in her own ears. Scrambling up, Scully attacked huge
Mike Benson, who held Mulder's body draped over his arms like a broken doll. "You
don't know what injuries he has! Call the medics!" She was in full Dr. Scully mode,
giving orders and expecting them to be obeyed.
 
 

 Wade Donovan walked up behind the intense red-head whose every gesture and posture
showed how commited she was to the man who lay in Mike Benson's arms- the man who
had been Fox Mulder. "Agent Scully..." he began, "Dana..." She ignored him, and he
looked around at a touch from Paula Avery from Quantico.
 
 

 "I don't think she can hear you," the tall brunette told him. "The blast probably
got her ears."
 
 

 "In that case..." Wade Donovan stepped up behind the woman who was pulling at
Mulder's body and enfolding her in his arms. Scully fought like a wildcat,
struggling and screaming Mulder's name. He had no idea someone so small could fight
hard enough to almost overcome someone who made two of her. "Get him outta here!"
he slung his head to indicate anywhere out of Scully's sight. She fought even
harder as Mike shifted the lolling body in his arms and turned away with it.
 
 

 Incredibly, she twisted in his arms and slipped away, dancing back, "What the fuck
are you doing!" she howled, slinging her head quickly to survey the ruined yard,
"Where the fuck are the goddamned medics?!"
 
 

Lord, he thought, Dana Scully could get foul when she was under stress. He held out
his hands in supplication, "Dana, he's gone," Wade Donovan pleaded with her. "Let
Mike get him..."
 
 

 "Shit! I can't hear!" Scully ripped at the velcro fasteners holding her heavy, hot
kevlar shield closed. "Never mind," she waved him away, shrugging out of the vest
and dropping it where she had stood as she whirled and looked around anxiously.
Then, before he could grab her, the tiny woman saw Mike and raced to catch him.
 
 

 Mike looked around at the sound of Scully yelling his name and then nearly dropped
Mulder's body as the man twitched and moaned in his arms. "Oh Jesus, oh Jesus," the
devout Baptist babbled as he gently placed Fox Mulder on the ground and looked up
as his partner raced over. "Scully," he used Mulder's version of her name, "Scully,
I swear, I didn't know he was alive. I..."
 
 

 "Save it," Wade Donovan waved him to silence, "She's deaf as a post. Blast got
her. Go call medevac for him."
 
 

 The next two hours passed in nightmarish fashion for Scully. Still deaf when they
loaded Mulder onto the Lifeline helicopter, she grabbed an EMT's stethoscope then
threw it to the floor in disgust when she realized that the only thing she could
hear was the ringing in her ears. She comforted herself by counting his pulse with
her fingers and checking his respirations with a hand on his chest. He still wore
his kevlar vest, but it and the rest of his upper body was slick with blood. His
face was a maze of lacerations, and his hair was soaked. His hands and forearms
were... shredded.... Was the only word to describe it. They would heal, but he was
going to hate the bandages that would render him largely dependent on someone else
to help him with the routines of daily life until they did.
 
 

 In the ER at George Washington University Med Center, she asked questions whose
answers she could not hear and cursed herself and the doctors and nurses. The ER
attending finally took pity on everyone concerned and called in a resident to write
answers for the small red-head who clung to the blood covered wounded FBI agent. It
was easier to include her in the assessment process and detail someone to translate
the answers to her via a pad and marker. She was pretty wired, and she did have a
gun. That showed plainly in the waistband of her dust smeared jeans.
 
 

It wasn't the first time Tony Waters had seen the two of them, but it was the first
time both FBI agents had come in for treatment of injuries. The fact that Scully
was his partner, a medical doctor and had helpful knowledge of Mulder's  medical
history made it less complicated in legal and medical terms  to allow her in the
treatment room than if she were just his wife/girlfriend/sister.
 
 

 Mulder jerked his leg sharply when someone did a quick and dirty test for spinal
cord injury and broke into gooseflesh when the nurses started washing the blood off
his arms and face. They pulled him into a sitting position, and stripped him of his
heavy vest, letting Scully take his service weapon and tuck it into her waistband
along with hers. They cut away his t-shirt and divested him of his boots and jeans.
He stiffened and moaned in pain, even unconscious, when two nurses began picking
the glass and wood out of his arms and face. She watched solemnly as they
questioned Wade Donovan, who had arrived right behind his injured agents, then
nodded approvingly as a radiology tech did a portable x-ray to check whether he had
broken bones.
 
 

Keeping an eye on the armed woman, the nurses saw her nod in approval as they
covered the man on the table with a gown before gently sponging his arms and face
to remove the drying blood before beginning the tedious process of  pulling FOD-
foreign object debris- out of his skin. She bent closer when they inspected his
ears and found the wash of blood leakinng from his ear canals. Scully jumped in
surprise when the ER doc came around behind her without apparent warning.
 
 

 "He needs an ENT," she reached over to pat the doctor's arm and heard her own
voice dimly through the ringing.
 
 

 "I agree," Dr. Anthony Waters said carefully to the petite, anxious woman, before
taking out a pad to write the rest of what he needed to tell her. "His x-rays are
clear. I'll call in an ENT." He started another line and showed it to her, ""Are
you hurt?" his note asked.
 
 

 "No, the blood is his," she sighed in after-adrenaline exhaustion, "I'm just dirty
and tired."
 
 

 And still deaf, Waters thought to himself.  He'd get the ENT to check her out,
too. "Okay, I'll see you later," he smiled at the woman who could be beautiful, he
bet, when she was rested and clean.
 
 

"Why don't you go into the doctor's lounge and get cleaned up. He's stable."
 
 

 Scully grinned at the doctor's obvious relief when she willingly agreed that she
would leave her partner long enough to wash the dirt, dust and Mulder's blood off
herself.
 
 

 "Hey, " she said in surprise, "I think I heard that!"
 
 

 Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Dana Scully, clean faced with her hair pulled back into
a copper ponytail and wearing a borrowed scrub top returned to the cubicle where
her partner was being examined by a plump black woman wielding an otoscope. Mulder
was still unconscious, but his color was returning, and his arms were bandaged.
Waters was standing beside the ENT, and looked around when she came up.
 
 

 "How's your hearing?" he asked in a more than conversational voice, but not
shouting.
 
 

 "Better," she was able to say, "but I still probably need to have my ears checked
when she is through with Mulder. What's the verdict?"
 
 

 "Bad, but not impossible," the other doctor didn't speak until she was facing
Scully, and raised her voice to match her colleague's. "The tympanic membranes are
gone, but there was only slight injury to the structures in the middle ear. I'll
have to wait until he's awake to do more testing to see if there is damage to the
inner ear. But if I had to bet, I'd say he will make a full recovery. It just may
take a couple of months for full hearing to return."
 
 

 Relief at that was immediately evident as Scully's shoulders slumped. Tension she
wasn't even aware of holding, dropped away, leaving her feeling weak. Has his SAC
been informed of his condition?" she finally managed, knowing that she should give
a report if Waters hadn't already done so.
 
 

 "I talked with Agent Donovan about ten minutes ago," the tall doctor said as the
ENT moved to examine Scully's ears.
 
 

 "Thanks," she mumbled, holding herself still as the cool speculum of the otoscope
slid into her ear canal. The exam was quick, and the results heartening.
 
 

 "No damage," the otologist said, "Probably there was a lot of shock; you should be
hearing normally within a few hours. I'll see you later if you think there's a
problem. Tony has asked me to consult on Mr. Mulder; so I'll be around."
 
 

 The friendly woman, who Scully now realized was dressed in evening wear, packed up
her bag and waved goodbye as she left. Probably to return to an opera or a play.
With Mulder's survival assured, Scully was suddenly remembering that there was life
outside the walls of this tile and stainless steel trauma room. She looked around
as the ER doc touched her arm.
 
 

 "You started a central line," she observed the high volume IV inserted just above
her partner's collarbone, nodding in concurrence.
 
 

 "Yeah, well it was the best place to start an IV. Not much territory left on his
arms," Waters said as he moved back in to begin enclosing those bandaged arms in
bladder-like removabable air casts that would prevent Mulder from damaging the
healing skin,. "You hearing me okay?" he asked as he bent his head to his job.
 
 

 "Yeah," Scully yawned.
 
 

 "He has one more injury that is serious," and he saw her come back to full alert
again. My god, where did she get the strength, he wondered in amazement. She didn't
say anything, and when he looked up to check, she had him pinned with eyes so
glacially blue that he flinched from her stare.
 
 

 "What!" she demanded, her tone reminding him that she was both a doctor and this
man's next of kin.
 
 

 "His corneas are lacerated, and there is some moderate flash burn. His eyes will
be under wraps for a week I'm going to admit him for observation until we can be
sure there aren't other effects. I know he was wearing the vest, but until we watch
him for a couuple of days I can't rule out..."
 
 

 "... tamponade bruising." Scully nodded, naming the side effect of surviving a
nearby bomb-blast that could cause severe bruising and bleeding of internal organs.
The effect Mulder's body atop her had spared her.
 
 

 "Shit." she swore unenthusiastically. "Have I told you he doesn't like being in
hospitals?" She looked up from under flaring brows and loose tendrils of hair
escaping her ponytail. A wry grin shaped her lips, "He's gonna hate you, me, the
nurses. He isn't a good patient."
 
 

 "We'll do our best  to make his stay short," Tony Waters grinned in return. "He's
done here, I'm going to send him up to ICU; I'll tell them to expect you, too."
 
 

 Meaning, she supposed, that Waters would inform the intensive care staff that
their least favorite patient was arriving in condition that was sure to make him a
worse than usual customer, and he was accompanied by his partner who was armed and
not in a good mood. She gave him a wan smile, hoping to soften him up a little, he
wasn't bad looking, and he had always treated Mulder nicely- patiently, she
thought, not meaning to pun.
 
 

 "You gonna notify his doc?" she asked.
 
 

 "Already done," Tony Waters smiled in return, clasping her shoulder a moment, "ICU
will let Doug Morrison know when Mulder's settled in."
 
 

 "Thanks," she had told him, turning to trace a familiar path to the elevators and
up to ICU. The amount of time Mulder spent up there, he ought to get a discount on
the room, she thought with a mental snort of silly humor. Getting tired, Dana, she
decided, and stiffened her body with an effort. She couldn't rest yet.
 
 

Mulder's nurse met her at the desk and showed her where he would be housed- the
place of honor, right across from the desk. "We heard he was in an explosion,"
Regina Stack said.
 
 

 "Mongo blast," Scully sighed straining to hear her. "You get his chart, yet?"
 
 

 "Nope," she looked behind Scully, "But here it comes, along with him."
 
 

 Becky's glance cued her of the arrival of Mulder's gurney; she hadn't heard it.
Scully stood out of the way until the nurses had settled him in a glass-fronted
room, arranging a monitor cart and IV pump to allow easy access to him should it be
necessary. When they finished, they thoughtfully drew the curtain across the window
and let her go in.
 
 

************************************************************************

 And here she sat, six hours later, leaning her head in her hands, elbows braced on
knees. It was a damn lousy substitute for sleep. The nurses had offered to bring in
a cot for her. Donovan had come in to apologize to her for what had happened to
Mulder after the explosion. And he made sure she understood that no report would be
filed on her insubordinate behavior regarding the assigning of her position in the
raid. It had been a stupid idea to try and separate partners, anyway, but Kersh had
said said they were having problems, and might be more comfortable working apart.
He apologized again and offered to sit with Mulder and let her go home and sleep.
It was amazing to see a Special Agent in Charge contrite, Scully decided.
 
 
 
 

 And again, she had refused the chance to leave Mulder. Now that her mind was
operating more logically, she knew her vigil to be based as much on regard and
partnership as on a variation of survivor guilt. Mulder was going to wake, blind,
deaf and unable to use his hands. All three conditions would persist concurrently
for several days. He was going to frightened when he first awoke, and then he was
going to be pissed off in a truly quality way. And here sat Dana Scully with no
more than a severe case of fatigue and minor sleep deprivation. Why did it have to
be him suffering? Hadn't he suffered enough in his life?
 
 

 "Thanks, I'm okay," she had told Donovan, when he came up to check on Mulder.
"He's going to be difficult to live with when he wakes up, and I can deal with him
better than anybody else. Was anyone else injured?"
 
 

 "Minor cuts and bruises," Donovan smiled and looked over at the still figure in
the bed. "The whole house went up. Mulder really saved everyone's butt by standing
up long enough to warn us. "If I have anything to do with it, he's going to get a
distinguished service commendation."
 
 

 "He'll appreciate it," Scully decided. "He may not show it, but things like that
do let him know his efforts are valued." There, maybe that did something to
alleviate some of the 'Spooky' reputation. And maybe this asshole will listen the
next time Fox Mulder tells him a frontal assault isn't the best way to approach a
suspect. And she didn't have the strength to put much heat into that thought.
 
 

"He's a good agent," Donovan offered, "Not what I expected," That sounded lame.
 
 

He handed Scully her holster that she had dropped when she stripped off her vest at
the scene and watched her clip it to her belt and slip her Sig into the well-worn
sleeve. Not a man for chauvinism, he nonetheless marvelled that a hand that small
could manage a weapon that large. Even more impressive when you knew her range
scores, and SAC Wade Donovan made it his business to know the proficiency of every
agent on his team. They all had to be able to protect each other and he had no
doubts about Scully's potential to protect team members. What worried him right now
was her potential to use her ability against them.
 
 

 Donovan left and Scully stayed where she was, not wanting to lean back. If she
leaned back, she might sleep. If she slept, he might wake before she knew it, and
be alone in his sensory deprived world. The nurses brought her coffee and a
sandwich, and she watched the monitors tell her that Mulder was alive, but deeply
asleep. It wasn't true unconsciousness, but his body had been through a great shock
and was healing itself by nature's oldest way. Meanwhile, modern technology kept
him safe and nourished as it fought bacteria that would have stressed the system
even more.
 
 

 Her hearing gradually improved until she could hear every beep and  whir, and even
the changes in Mulder's respirations as he drifted between REM and light sleep. She
hoped he wasn't dreaming. His dreams were seldom good. Maybe she should warn the
nurses about that. The light scuff of a leather shoe in the doorway brought her
head up,  hand reaching unconsciously for the Sig at her back before surprised
recognition took place and  she smiled at the man who stood in the entrance. His
body language told her he was waiting to be asked in, and that he would leave if
she did not want him there. Instead, Scully beckoned Walter Skinner in.
 
 

 "I would have been here sooner," he offered softly by way of some unneeded
apology, "but I was debriefing some of the team."
 
 

 "I'm glad you came, Sir," She knew that technically, he shouldn't be here- knew he
was aware exactly of the risk he took being here. She and Mulder had been taken
from him and declared off limits. Scully sat straighter and yawned loudly in a most
unlady-like manner as Skinner looked toward the bed worriedly. "Oh, don't worry
about him," she grinned, "he won't be hearing anything for a couple of weeks, and
it'll be six to eight weeks before his hearing is back to normal. Unfortunately,
his mouth will be fully operational."
 
 

 The AD had to grin at that. It felt good to smile in the midst of this near
tragedy. And losing Mulder would have been just that. The profiler was an extremely
valuable resource for the bureau; how else could he have justified him to the
brass- and OPR- all these years? But Scully wasn't going to like the next piece of
news he had. "Preliminary investigation of the site indicates that Grant was not
there at the time of the explosion. He set a trap, and we walked right in." And she
would like the second piece even less. " The IR trace was a junior intern for
Senator Mark Albertson."
 
 

 Scully's head came up, and her eyes were blazing, "That's what Mulder was trying
to tell Donovan!" she grated, "He wanted to do surveillance and keep everything low
key. We could have caught him that way!" she found the energy to express that
hotly.
 
 

 Skinner didn't have anything to say to that- not anything he could say. He agreed
with Mulder on the surveillance, and he agreed with Scully now. High level bureau
politics. Damn, fucking machinations because the Bureau was starting to look bad;
it was Waco all over again, the press pushing them to resolve a situation, and
people in positions of responsibility reacting with hasty decisions. He went over
to stand at Mulder's bedside. "How bad are his eyes?" Skinner asked, his gaze
compassionate.
 
 

 "Not bad. They'll heal without scarring if we can keep him quiet and bandaged for
four or five days. He'll need  some antibiotic drops for a couple of days after
that, but he'll have his vision back unimpaired."
 
 

 Skinner sighed deeply and nodded at that, acknowledging that he had heard. "And
Donovan said his hands will take some time to heal."
 
 

 "Couple of weeks," Scully clarified. "They will be tender probably for a month.
He's going to need a couple of weeks medical leave for sure, but I can guarantee
you he'll want to be back at work before he can hear well enough to understand what
people are saying to him. I'd appreciate if you'd pass that on to AD Kersh- the
couple of weeks timeframe. But..." she nodded toward the bed with a frustrated
grimace, "... he'll be much happier and heal better if he comes back as soon as he
can see well enough to read reports and peck on his keyboard."
 
 

 "I'll make sure he understands that," Skinner grinned, knowing what is was like to
try to assign Mulder sick leave.  "Any idea when he'll wake up?"
 
 

 "Soon," Scully judged. "His vitals have been on the increase for the last hour.
May not be pretty, but I had his doctor write an order for IV valium. It'll take
him down."
 
 

 Skinner wondered how she knew that so surely. Decided he wouldn't ask. He watched
the heart monitor increase its count as the tempo on the audible alarm rose. Scully
came over and began to wrap lambswool cuffs around Mulder's ankles and secure the
straps to the bed frame underneath the mattress. Skinner looked dubious as she
wrapped another set around the air casts on his bandaged hands and arms and brought
the straps down to the frame. "That's not going to make him very happy," he noted.
 
 

 "No," Scully agreed, reaching over to push the call button. "But it may prevent
him from hurting himself further." The nurse responded almost immediately, calling
the agent 'Dr. Scully.' "I'll be ready for that IV valium in a few minutes," she
reported, and there was a promise of speedy delivery of the medication, and Scully
was watching the man in the bed intently.
 
 

 "I don't like to sedate him," she admitted, "and he sure as hell doesn't like it,
but I doubt he'll leave me any choice."
 
 

 Mulder's long body had acquired tension, and he lifted his chin, swallowing hard.
Sweat beaded on his forehead above the bandages, dampening his short, dark hair. He
relaxed a moment, his face under the bandaging taking on lines and movement a bare
moment before he struggled to sit up and screamed Scully's name.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

************************************************************************

 He remembered crossing the neatly kept lawn. Remembered the psychic feel of the
team around and behind him. Felt Scully solidly behind him, a couple of feet back.
He didn't have to look to know that she was scanning the area around them for
danger. That meant he could concentrate on his job. And his job was to give the
best first warning of what their subject was doing. He didn't even have his weapon
drawn. In fact, Mulder was sauntering up to the back door as if he was making a
pizza delivery. If they could fool Paul Grant into thinking he was safe until
everyone was in position, it would make capturing him much less dangerous for
everyone.
 
 

 It was so quiet he could hear crickets chirping and children playing somewhere in
the distance. The summer sun bore down on his neck, making him wish that his hair
still swung long enough to protect the tender skin. Sweat ran down his ribs, and he
thought about his 'Degree.' He could see into the kitchen as he stepped up onto the
little stoop at the back door. Through the half width glass window, he saw a messy
counter, dishes in the sink and pots on the stove.
 
 

No sign of Paul Grant, but seated at the table, tied to a chair was a young man
who, by the looks of his attire, was a congressional aide or intern. Before him, on
the table rested a mass of plastic explosive and wiring that could only be the
business end of  something that would go boom! in a big way. The terrified
hostage's  mouth was taped silver, but his eyes screamed. Mulder felt his own eyes
narrow in an attempt to understand the entire situation instantly and fit it into
what he had already profiled.
 
 

 Looked like their carefully planned raid had been useless. Stastically forty
percent of them were, after all. Then he heard the sound that sealed his fate. He
was a dead man, he knew it. But that didn't mean Scully had to die. His mind went
into overdrive, and he shouted 'Fire in the hole!' as loud as he could. That
traditional phrase of dynamite blasters would warn everyone that a bomb had been
found and detonation was imminent. There was no telling how much time he had. He
screamed the warning again, reaching behind himself to push Scully away and down,
but unable to take his eyes off the door into hell.
 
 

 Click!

 Flash.

 BOOM!!!
 
 

 There was sudden agonizing pain in his ears and things were hitting him. His eyes
felt like someone had thrown sand and rocks in them, and things were pelting his
face

and body. The kevlar vest protected his torso, but he brought up his hands to
shield his face. That hurt, too, and panic was beginning to take hold of him. He
felt his body flying backwards, and he struck something. Then there was only
blackness.
 
 

 Now, he felt his chest rise and his lungs burn as he strained at Scully's name. He
had not expected to ever wake up, but the sensation of breathing, and the
assortment of pain he felt told him in unmistakable terms that he was, indeed,
alive. Now, by god, he wanted to know where his partner was. His mind was in
screaming overdrive, cataloging his situation.  The world was black as the lower
levels of hell around him. He could not hear his voice, even though he knew he was
bellowing Scully's name. And then the coup d' grace- he could not feel his hands.
The scream that tore through him was pure, wordless terror.
 
 
 
 

 Skinner watched in helpless horror as Mulder twisted in the bed. His voice filled
the room with Scully's name, and nurses came running in, one handing her a syringe
containing a clear liquid. Scully took the syringe and motioned them back, which
they obeyed unwillingly as Mulder continued to thrash and scream for his partner.
She reached for his IV line, jerking the plastic cover off the syringe with her
teeth, poising the bared needle over the little injection port just as he suddenly
went still and simply shrieked, no words, just mindless horror.
 
 

 Scully pushed half the dose of valium into the IV; the fast flowing central line
would take it rapidly into Mulder's bloodstream. Too much, too fast could take him
deeper into chemically induced tranquility than she wanted. The ICU nurses would
have given the full dose as a matter of routine protocol, but she wanted to give
Mulder an opportunity to calm down on his own as well.  Damn! She wished she could
see his eyes to gauge the effects of the drug and his own attempts to control
himself. She watched his body instead, and noted when it lost some of its rigidity.
His face below the bandages relaxed, and his voice, hoarse from brief, intense
exertion was rough when he spoke.
 
 

 "Scu- lly?"  his voice broke on her name, and her heart jumped.
 
 

 Exhaustion and worry caught up with her at that point as she realized that he had
no idea she was there. Goddammit, she was his 'one in five billion!'; she
'completed' him!, and she couldn't bring herself to let him change her. Dana Scully
didn't realize she was standing there crying, holding half a dose of valium until
one of the nurses stepped up and made to take it from  her gently.

 "I- I'm going to waste this," Scully advised shakily and squirted the rest of the
valium out onto the sheets at Mulder's feet, "Half cc." Then, a large, warm hand
was taking the syringe and turning her shoulders. Voices were a buzz in her head,
far away. There was something she had to do. Had to do. But she couldn't think.
Couldn't find the answer. Couldn't even find the energy for frustration and anger
that she knew was the proper response to this feeling.
 
 

 "Show me where she can lie down and get some sleep." Skinner's tone and attitude
left no room for questioning, and one of the nurses came to beckon him.

He thought he would have to carry her before they reached the nurses' lounge where
a cot was set up. Scully was asleep on her feet; unlike Mulder, she couldn't stay
awake for days at a time under stress. Hell, no one could do that the way he did.
By the time Skinner got her to the little fold away bed, Scully was ready to slip
bonelessly down. Her eyes were already closed, and she was breathing deeply and
slowly. Asleep on her feet. Now to go back and check on Mulder. First, though, he
thought to warn the nurse beside him about how the agent would be when she woke.
 
 

"She is going to be very angry when she wakes up," he said with a tiny smile of
chagrin. Scully and Mulder separated in times of jeopardy for either one of them
were not poster children for the FBI. In fact, they got downright abusive and
foul-mouthed with anyone 'obstructing' one of them from finding the other. "Uh, she
will probably be rather tart with her language. Don't let it bother you," he said
as he slid her Sig Sauer out of its holster and Mulder's out of her waistband. "She
will cool down as soon as she gets back to him."
 
 

"Are they married or something?" the nurse asked in misunderstanding.
 
 

Skinner studied the sleeping redhead a moment and shook his head. "No. Just
...partners." And he left the room with the nurse still not understanding why
Mulder was screaming Scully's name and why Scully was willing to stay awake as long
as it took for him to be back to his near normal self. He found that he didn't have
words to explain, not sure that mere words would ever be enough. You had to live it
to understand it. More than friendship, less than a sexual relationship, but more
intense. Partnership.
 
 

     ****

Mulder knew he was drugged. He had felt the sting of the medication, and recognized
the valium signature. Enforced lassitude stole purpose from him but left him with
aimless frustration. He knew he should be worried about something, but all the
energy and purpose he could muster only netted him the ability to jerk his head
periodically and wiggle his feet. Anger was a banked coal, smoldering deep inside
him, waiting for the drug to wear off to explode into full fury. Someone had done
something to him. Someone had done something to him. Where was...? Where was....?
Oh, yeah.... An image of a passionate, redheaded woman built itself  lazily in his
drowsing mind. Scully. He held onto that appellation as his brain took up the
chemical inhibitors, and his mind submerged deeper into the still waters

.

    ****

Meanwhile, Walter Skinner was using his cell phone to call Wade Donovan. He checked
his watch while the phone rang and saw that it was just after three in the
afternoon. Wade should be in the bullpen- probably hadn't left except to sleep in
the past three days. The big agent wasn't his to direct, but he felt he could
depend on him to detail someone to come sit with Mulder until Scully was rested
enough to do it. Tradition held that a wounded agent always had someone with him.
If not family- and Mulder wasn't close to his mother- then his law enforcement
'family.' Kersh might look darkly on him for meddling with his agents, but if the
bastard wasn't going to do it, then someone had to. If Kersh didn't recognize who
and what Mulder was, then someone who did would have to look out for him right now.
 
 
 

Wade Donovan's voice was hoarse, and he sounded tired and frustrated. Skinner
identified himself,and the agent came to attention. Skinner smiled a little,
imagining the big man straightening himself physically and sharpening his mental
focus. "AD Skinner, look, I'm sorry about Mulder..."
 
 

 "At ease, Wade," he said gently, "Listen, Scully's gone down for a while, and I
need someone over here at GW who can sit with Mulder. He's drugged, but restless,
and the nurses may need some help with him if he comes out of it."
 
 

"I'll send someone," Donovan promised.
 
 

"Send someone who gets along with him," Skinner growled, and that carried the snap
of an order. He didn't want someone in this room who had taunted or ridiculed the
brilliant but abrasive profiler.
 
 

"Yes sir," Donovan, ex-police detective recognized an order and understood where
Skinner was coming from.  The line went dead, and Donovan scanned the bullpen to
see if someone suitable was available to sit with Mulder. He spotted Mike Benson's
big bulk and remembered how kind the big, black man had been with Scully and how
deferential he had been toward Mulder's supposed corpse.
 
 

He, too, wondered at Kersh's careless attitude toward Mulder, and the rumor mill
was rife with tales of Mulder and Scully and the X-Files. Donovan had found him to
be a solid investigator with good skills and insight though with an unsettling
tendency to automatically think outside the box. His partner, on the other hand,
was his mirror image.. Scully was as by the book and solid as anyone he'd ever
known in law enforcement. Ah, well, it was a mystery- with a capital M, and that
stood for Mulder.  Mike Benson looked up at the sound of his name and came over.
 
 

Wade was not small, but he always felt dwarfed when Mike stood beside him. The big
black man had majored in law enforcement at Baylor University where he played
offensive tackle. His goal had always been to be a special agent for the FBI, and
his grades and special projects had easily earned him that right. He kept in
linebacker shape, didn't smoke, drink or cuss, and was the object of some interest
in the secretarial pool. Yeah, he'd be good to sit with Mulder, and strong enough,
maybe, to hold him down if need be.
 
 
 
 

Skinner sat down in the chair Scully had held down for the past  seven hours and
leaned his head back. The chorus of beeps from the medical equipment lulled him
into a light doze, but he kept part of his brain open to any change in the status
quo. He opened his eyes and was alert immediately when Mike Benson called his name
softly.
 
 

"Uh, hi Mike," Skinner rose and shook the bigger man's hand. "Glad to see you," he
nodded in Mulder's direction. "He's been quiet, but don't let that fool you."
 
 

"No sir," Mike grinned, "that man came back to life in my arms. I wouldn't put
anything past him."
 
 

"Good man," Skinner lauded as he dug in his coat pocket for the agents' weapons,
and handed them over, "He's all yours. Scully's asleep down the hall, but she's
going to be pissed when she finds out she couldn't stay awake for a week."
 
 

"Yes sir," Mike grinned even bigger, flash of white in his dark face. "I'll take
care of Miss Scully, too."
 
 
 
 

    ****

It felt like moving through fog and jello. Mulder saw each step along the way up to
Paul Grant's back door in excruciating detail. This was wrong. This was wrong. This
was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Grant wasn't in that house. This was a trap,
and it was going to catch him and Scully, dammit. He had tried to make her keep her
position on the other side of the house where Wade had assigned her, but she
stubbornly refused to do it.  In the end, he had sharpened his senses and kept in
mind that whatever happened, she must be warned first.
 
 

He always had this argument with himself when they went out to chase bad guys. She
was a qualified FBI agent. She knew procedure; she was qualified with her weapon-
not as highly rated as he was, but solidly qualified. She was as courageous and as
dedicated as he was; so, why did it bother him when she wanted her share of the
dangers of their job? Ow, he always shied away from answering that, though he knew
the answer. She was a woman. She was a petite woman who didn't weigh
one-twenty-five soaking wet. Okay, Mulder, but Sig Sauer made everyone equal. And
Scully was not afraid to use her equalizer.
 
 

He remembered arguing passionately against her decision to come in behind him. She
had given him her reasons for being there just as passionately, and in the end, she
had just ignored him and gone in at his back. He couldn't deny it made him feel
good to have her there. But as much as he trusted her to back him up in any
situation, he knew this one was bogus bullshit, and hadn't wanted to endanger her
needlessly.
 
 

He remembered pushing her down. Remembered that it hadn't been enough. And so the
loop played endlessly in his mind. The approach to the target, feeling Scully's
presence at his back, stepping onto the stoop, arming the bomb, seeing the inside
of the kitchen. The kid at the table. Tied and helpless, the look on his face that
said he knew he was about to die. The feel of the hair thin trip wire against his
leg. Click... Flash! BOOM!!!
 
 

Pain and darkness came after that. He thought he was dead, but he remembered
waking, and you sure as hell don't 'wake' from death. That left alive but injured.
Severely injured if he had to guess. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear. He couldn't
feel his hands. And they had him drugged. So he wouldn't realize that he was a
basket case? That brought a bitter smile to his lips. So he would have time to
adjust before they told him Scully was dead?  That brought a rush of despair that
even the valium couldn't depress.
 
 

He played the kitchen scene over in his mind, searching for something that would
tell him where the sick bastard was. If he couldn't catch him and make him pay for
what he had done to Scully and him, at least he could pass on information that
would help someone else do it. Minute detail by minute detail, Mulder went over the
scene, collecting data points, analyzing, filing information. Some parts of his
brain were blanked by the valium, some weren't- he always saved a few places to go
to where the drugs couldn't get to him, places where he could think.
 
 

This asshole would escalate. That was what he'd tried to get over to Donovan. Grant
had started with people who worked for members of congress whose voting record he
didn't like. The profiling team had interviewed Grant's co-workers and learned that
he was outspoken about certain legislation and the people who originated it. Bill
Walker from ISU thought Grant was just lodging complaints- noisily and
destructively, but just complaints. Bill said the deaths had been accidental- a
case of a senator's secretary and a congressman's  gardener being in the wrong
place at the wrong time. ISU published a case study that predicted more  property
destruction and didn't include any proposal that he would move on.
 
 

Mulder proposed that the first bombings were only a prelude and Grant would move on
. He had bombed secretaries and gardeners- people he could get to easily. They
didn't have bodyguards or live in security-monitored homes with secret service
agents to protect them if need be. He had graduated to interns and now he had left
a trail of evidence and invited the FBI to a party they couldn't refuse. They just
didn't have to come dressed in kevlar with the bomb disposal sisters, Mulder had
thought. Even the ISU folks didn't see it, but that wasn't uncommon. They called
him 'Spooky' when he suggested that they were missing some key information and
lobbied for more investigation into Grant's background.
 
 

When ISU and Donovan had declared the profile complete, Mulder had continued to
contact people who had known Grant. People he worked with told of a man with
dangerously conservative views- a man who readily and vociferously denigrated
government policies he disagreed with.  Men he had served with in the military
remembered him as meticulous, knowledgeable, and talented at his work with common
and exotic explosive ordinance. Though speaking out against the government was a
citizen's right, what told Mulder that he was likely to be capable of striking out
against his government with more than words was the fact that Paul Grant was a
driven individual who possessed law enforcement's holy trinity. He had means,
motive and opportunity.
 
 

Mulder had argued for discreet surveillance of the house. His profile had shown a
man who was clever as well as pissed off at the government but who evidenced no
desire for direct confrontation. It had predicted escalation and the distinct
possibility of setting traps, but nowhere in what Paul Grant did was there an
indication that he would allow himself to be bottled up inside his house. He had
started with people only peripherally connected with the government, now he had
moved on to actually attacking a government agency.  Well, not exactly an attack,
Mulder thought. We brought ourselves in and I fucking tripped the wire. And Scully
and how many others paid the price? He's going to work up from here. He'll bomb
higher level federal buildings, and he's probably working up to the White House. He
started out for revenge. Now he's doing it just because he can. That thought came
from out of left field; he put it behind more prominent ones to consider later.
 
 

Mulder, he told himself, those places have strong detection and security systems.
But it doesn't matter, he knew. Grant was driven and clever. And unlike serial
killers, there was no dropping off of the desire. There was no building and release
of stressors. Grant was acting off a single stressor that still drove him to bring
death to the people he saw as responsible for that precipitating event. When he
knew what that event was, he could begin to understand why and where Grant would
strike next.
 
 

"Bo(s)nia," he felt his lips shaping that word, though there was no hint of sound.
Something  happened  there that changed his life; Mulder would bet on it. But what?
Grant had been in the SEALs until six months after that. Had he served in that
conflict? He was old enough to have taken retirement with full pay. Why had he
stayed in the military?  To gain knowledge he could use to damage the men he saw as
responsible? To earn a living? His thoughts were growing fuzzy; the valium was
creeping even into the places he tried to keep inviolate. Later. He'd think about
it later.
 
 

    ****

Mike had drawn the chair up close to the bedside and was reading a newspaper. There
was no problem with having to keep the lights or sound low, so he had the
television on, too. College football was in full swing with Baylor beating
University of Florida. Mulder had been mostly still, only jerking or stretching a
few times. His doctor had been in once and had left orders for Mulder's valium to
be put on a schedule. Mike, personally, thought it was a bad idea to keep the man
drugged, but supposed the doctor knew what he was doing. The nurses had come in
from time to time to freshen up the valium or to turn Mulder on one side or the
other.
 
 

With his face half covered in bandages and clothed in a standard hospital gown, the
man did not resemble the fiery, opinionated person Mike had come to know. Until the
task force had formed to apprehend the DCBomber, he had had only sporadic contact
with Mulder and Scully even though they were assigned to his division, but he got
the idea that Scully, at least, was very distant, and very devoted to Mulder. She
seemed to put up with a lot from him, Mike had noticed.
 
 

Mulder had never been overtly rude to him, but he seemed to simply ignore most of
the department, never offering to fraternize with anyone. Somedays, he even seemed
to ignore Scully. He had looked Mike up and down with a wry grin and a corny joke
the day they were introduced, and from then on, he had a friendly nod for him
whenever their paths crossed. It was more than he had for anyone else, though he
was properly civil to Donovan. The overwhelming impression Mike got from Mulder was
that he was scarily intelligent. Standing next to him when he was explaining
something reminded Mike of visiting a power plant on an elementary school field
trip. Mulder hummed like a million dollar generator.
 
 

And now, he had said a single word. It didn't make sense, but it had been clear and
spoken in a conversational tone: "Bosnia."
 
 

Meanwhile, down the hall, another FBI agent was waking, and hurricane season was
about to start with Dana. She jumped from sleep to waking in one movement, finding
herself sitting on the side of a fold away bed in a lounge. A couple of nurses were
sitting at a table across the room, talking quietly, and Agent Dana Scully tore
into to them.
 
 

"How long have I been asleep!?" she demanded then found that her holster was empty
and Mulder's weapon was missing. "What did you do with my gun!? There were two of
them, where are they?!" She started out the door, shoving her feet into unlaced
boots so small that the nurses had made jokes about childrens' sizes. There was
nothing small or childlike about Dana Scully now; she was running down the hall
toward her partner's room, not waiting for answers that they had been told in
evening report to tell her.
 
 

Scully careened into Mulder's room to find a nurse bent over the bed in the company
of a huge black man whom she recognized after a moment of  intense thought and an
instinctive grab for her missing weapon until she did. Mike nodded to her.
 
 

"Agent Scully," he said quietly, standing very still. There was nothing this tiny
woman could do to him, but he gave her the respect of letting her think that he
considered her somewhat dangerous.
 
 

"How long has he been under!" she demanded to know of the nurse who was putting the
finishing touch on  a new dressing over Mulder's abraded arms.
 
 

"Dr. Morris put him on 15 mg. Every four hours," she answered, setting the air cast
back on Mulder's arm and replacing the restraint.
 
 

"How long has he been on it!" Scully reiterated.
 
 

"About 16 hours; this is his fifth dose."
 
 

"Discontinue it!" Scully growled. "He needs to come off it. Change his routine
order to PRN for agitation lasting more than ten minutes."
 
 

"You'll have to talk with his doctor about that," Allison Michelson said calmly,
knowing that it was going to set the red headed woman off.
 
 

"I am his doctor," Scully grated, "discontinue the valium, and change the
administration protocol."
 
 

"But Dr. Scully, you aren't his physician of record," Allison respsonded quietly,
depressing the plunger to release the medication into Mulder's IV. "I can't do that
on your orders."
 
 

"Look, Allison," Scully glanced at her nametag. "He fucking hallucinates on valium.
Not as badly as he does on some other things, but he's tearing himself up inside.
He doesn't go all the way down on valium. It only depresses the worst of the
anxiety. Then he lies there being nibbled to death by self-doubt." Her voice turned
sarcastically sweet. "When he comes off the valium, he's so depressed that he needs
an entire pharmacy to get him back to something you'd recognize as normal. I don't
want to have to put him through that. So take... him... off.... the valium."
 
 

"I'll put in a call to Dr. Morris and pass that along," Allison promised, cleaning
up spent packages and soiled gauze to drop in the trash can.
 
 

"You were pretty hard on her," Mike remonstrated with Scully gently and flinched as
the piercing blue gaze caught him.
 
 

"You don't know him," she snarled, then softened her delivery, remembering the man
who had held Mulder gently even in his supposed death. "Right now, he thinks I'm
dead. He may think he has lost his sight and hearing permanently. Even so, I can
guarantee you he's working on a way to tell Wade Donovan how to apprehend Paul
Grant before he blows up the Capitol building or the White House."
 
 

 "What.!?"
 
 

 "Yeah, 'what?'" Scully grinned in a way that had nothing to do with humor. "That's
the profile Mulder came up with and Donovan and the ISU goons wouldn't believe him.
Mike, he knew from the beginning that Grant was setting a trap at his house, and no
one could see it. And no one would trust Mulder."
 
 

 "Oh my Lord," Mike Benson breathed softly.
 
 

 "Right. Even under the influence of the valium, he'll be working on it. But the
longer he's under he valium, the more hallucinatory his thoughts become, and the
less effective his profile."
 
 

 "Not to mention that it's just bad for him, huh?" Mike asked.
 
 

 "Yeah, that too."  She ran a hand through her disheveled hair, setting it on end
more than settling it, and caught her composure with a shrug of her shoulders and
one deep breath.
 
 

 "But isn't he going to get agitated?" He brought his gaze to were hers lay- on the
still body in the bed.
 
 

 "Probably, but he will remember the first time he woke, and he will be aware that
he's injured. By now he has worked out how to handle himself. I just have to work
out a way to make him understand that I'm not dead."
 
 

 "So how do you know he thinks you're dead?" Mike wondered.
 
 

 "I know him," Scully smiled a secret expression he didn't think she was aware of
exposing, and turned away.
 
 

 Mike went out and got another chair, offered to go get Scully something to eat.

 "I could use a shower and a change of clothes," she mused looking at him
speculatively. "Can you stay with him a little longer while I go home and get
cleaned up?"
 
 

 "Yes ma'am," Mike affirmed. "Any suggestions what to do if he wakes up?"
 
 

 "Well, you could always kiss him," Scully found her sense of occasional wry humor
and saw that Benson didn't know how to take it. "Seriously, I don't' expect him to
wake up, but if I'm going to be here when he does, I'd better go now." Her ulterior
motive was to go home, shower and wash her hair in the distinctive shampoo she used
and put on a hint of a familiar perfume. She wanted to give Mulder solid clues to
identify her with. She accepted her weapon and Mulder's  from Mike, along with the
key to his fleet sedan and hurried out so she would have time to fight traffic
across the county and get back by the time Mulder needed her.
 
 

 "Before you go, you might want to look at this," he thrust the folded paper out to
her, "Check out the front page."
 
 

 If Mike had had any doubts of his own ability to correctly analyze the danger in
the banner article about a failed FBI attempt to capture the DCBomber, Scully's
expression wiped it away.
 
 

 "Who the hell is this Kirby Feldshaw, and who told him he could use Mulder's name
in this horseshit!?" she exploded, snapping the paper down on the tray table.
 
 

 Her eyes were blazing, and Mike wondered whether he should advise her to read
further. Better now than later, he decided. He rescued the damned periodical and
showed her a line. 'The injured agent is resting comfortably in Georgetown
Medical's ICU though it is not known at this time whether he will regain his sight
and hearing.'
 
 

 "What!" Scully said dangerously quietly. "Oh shit, why doesn't Kersh just give
Grant an engraved invitation." She couldn't tell Mike Benson, but if she had ever
doubted that Kersh was being manipulated by the same people who had hunted Mulder
throughout his life, there was none anymore. Only a fool or someone who wished
Mulder harm would have told all of the Washington DC metro area where to find
Mulder and how incapable he was of defending himself. Kersh wasn't a fool.
 
 

 What Mike saw on Scully's face terrified him. He knew she was courageous, capable
of killing to protect herself and her team mates, but this was murder that he saw.
Suddenly, he was sure he didn't want her leaving. She definitely had more on her
mind than getting cleaned up. He wondered if she would let him keep her weapons.
And he knew better than ask.
 
 

 "Keep him safe, Mike," she asked, and suddenly her face changed. She was asking
him to stand in for her, to put his life on the line for a man he'd only known for
two months.
 
 

 There was no hesitation. "I will Miss Scully. You be careful, too." He watched her
leave, still clutching the paper, and returned to the sleeping Mulder, bowing his
head to have a word with God.
 

*******************************************************
 

 She locked the door behind her and leaned back against it. Home. She looked around,
and for a brief, incredible moment, her mind wanted to believe that she had come in
from a hard day at work with Mulder. He would be settling in on his leather couch to
eat take out and root for the Yankees. The image was so powerful, that she shed all the
worry and pain in a physical movement that left her knees weak and her body sliding
down the door.
 
 

 The scrape of her Sig against the wood and the pinch of Mulder's in front woke her to
reality, and her comfortable surroundings took on a cold feeling as memory came
flooding back. Scully pulled herself up with an effort and started for the shower. She
threw her keys on the night stand but took both weapons with her into the bathroom,
laying them on top of the toilet as she stripped and started the water.
 
 

 Her image in the mirror startled her, looking more gaunt and older than since she
recovered from the cancer. Since Mulder recovered the chip that sent it into
zero-detectable remission. There were dark spots along her collarbone, and she fingered
them anxiously only to find that they flaked away- dried bits of Mulder's blood. She
expected tears, but all she could find was anger. Anger at the people and events of the
past two days. She had been forced to admit to herself that Mulder meant more to her
than she thought. Shit, she was....watch it, now, Dana....deeply attached to an
alien-chasing, iced-tea swigging, certifiable genius who looked like a million dollars
in Brooks Brothers and preferred denim and Knicks t-shirts. It was change on a
near-cellular level. It looked dangerous to her. Who would she be if she changed? What
would a change involving Mulder mean for her? Dangerous to even think about.
 
 

 "Shit," she said again with less conviction and climbed into the shower, hurriedly
cleansing herself and stepping out to dry. Climbing into clean jeans and t-shirt, she
glanced at the radio-clock on her nightstand and calculated how much time she had
before Mulder might wake. Not enough time to run by his apartment to pick up clean
clothes for him to leave the hospital in, but enough time to search a bottom drawer for
a t-shirt Bill had left the last time he visited her. Too-big for Mulder, but it would
do to go home in. She grabbed the shirt and her carry-all to stuff a change of clothes
for herself and grabbed up her keys and weapon, pausing only to lock Mulder's Sig in
the gunsafe in her closet.
 
 

 Stepping out to her car, she was startled to realize that it was morning. It seemed
like all she could remember was darkness. Scully set her clothes on the passenger seat
and went around to slide under the wheel, cranked the engine and made a mental note to
stop at the first gas station before she found herself walking back to Georgetown.

    ****
 
 
 
 

 Mike Benson looked up at the arrival of a tall man in the doorway to Mulder's room,
his hand going to his weapon momentarily. Then, he recognized the doctor that had been
in the previous evening and this morning.
 
 

 "Agent Benson," Dr. Morrison greeted the edgy man, pausing until he saw him relax. He
was accustomed to dealing with wounded law enforcement personnel, and was especially
familiar with Agents Mulder and Scully, but he never pushed his chances when dealing
with a nervous man or woman with a gun.
 
 

 "Sorry," Benson smiled, but he still watched the doctor. His job was to guard Fox
Mulder, and he had not forgot that. After reading  the early edition of the Washington
Post he had become more sensitive to who came through Mulder's door. Grant was out
there, and he had surely read the paper.
 
 

 "S'alright," Morris came over and observed his patient. Mulder appeared to be asleep,
but his heart rate and respirations were inconsistent with that, or even with those of
a man under the influence of the moderate doses of valium he had been getting. "Dr.
Scully was concerned with the amount of valium Agent Mulder is getting."
 
 

 "Yes sir, she says it causes him to hallucinate after a short while," Mike repeated
Scully's rationale for discontinuing the psychotropic medication. "She has gone home to
shower and change clothes. I'm sure she would want to talk to you if you can stay or
call her home number."
 
 

 "No, I'll take her word for it," Morris decided and drew a covered syringe from his
pocket. "I'm going to go ahead and administer an agonist that will negate the effects
of the valium in his system. I am aware that he can be hallucinatory even while he is
on anxiolytic meds, but he fights most pain medication worse. He's probably not going
to be a happy camper when he wakes, though."
 
 

 "I'll stay with him," Mike ventured, "and Agent Scully will be back shortly."
 
 

 "Well," Morris said as he slowly pushed the medication into the port on the IV line,
"It may take a big guy like you to hold him down." The doctor stood back to observe his
patient. "Tell Dr. Scully I changed his medication order as she suggested. His eyes and
arms are moderately painful; I've left orders for some PRN demerol. He tolerates that
fairly well in low doses, and he shouldn't need much for this level of discomfort."
 
 

 "Thank you sir," Mike nodded. "I'll tell her."
 
 

    ****

 It was a small thing in the back of his mind, but Mulder finally realized what it was.
Something smelled different. He had been aware of a scent for some time, and this one
was an addition to that first one. Someone else had come into his room. He instantly
cataloged them as Smell 1 and Smell 2. Both were male, a fact he based on the faint
odor of two separate brands of faded aftershave or cologne. Like most people in
investigative careers, Mulder noticed his surroundings almost obsessively, and smells
were no exception to that tendency.
 
 

 He noticed the fog disappearing, too. As his brain cleared, he became aware once more
how limited his sensorium was. Noticed and began to work with what he had. Accepted
that Scully was dead and that someone from the bureau was probably with him. Because
they liked him? No. Because they cared about him? No. Because it was tradition. Yes. He
tried to speak and found his throat stiff.
 
 

 "Um, the bomber is going to escalate," he told the dark silence. "He'll hit higher and
higher profile targets until he makes a try at the White House or the Capitol building.
Precautions need to be stepped up and all non-essential personnel limited."

    ****
 
 

 Mike Benson could hardly believe his ears. Mulder had been blown up, lost his sight
and hearing temporarily and drugged senseless for two days. And he was still profiling.
His speech was blurred, but Mike could make it out. Maybe he deserved a new nickname:
Miracle Man. He settled into the lounge chair that Scully had been sleeping in and
looked over the notes he had already taken from Mulder's drugged ramblings, pulling out
his cell phone to call Wade Donovan.
 
 

 Donovan was short with him, and he could hear confusion in the background. "What's
going on, Sir?" he asked.
 
 

 "Senator Jackson Thorne's office in the Capitol building was bombed."
 
 

 "Holy shit," the devout Baptist swore. "That's what Mulder said would happen. Sir,
according to Agent Mulder, there might be some connection between Grant, Senator Thorne
and the war in Bosnia."
 
 

 "What?" Donovan was familiar with the profile Mulder had written, and that was new
information since the profiler had been injured. "Where did that come from?!"
 
 

 "Sir, he's been talking..."
 
 

 "He can hear?" Donovan asked incredulously.
 
 

 "No sir," Mike answered, "but he's talking to us, still profiling, and he has been
saying that Grant would move on to targets related to the stressor that is driving
him."
 
 

 "Son of a bitch!" Wade Donovan swore and covered the receiver with his hand to shout
something. "What does Mulder think the stressor is?"
 
 

 "I can't be sure," Mike relayed,"but he said the word 'Bosnia' a while ago. I don't
know how sure he is about it, but I'd guess he thinks there's a connection between
Grant, the war in Bosnia, and the targets he chooses."
 
 

 "Are you taking it down!?" Donovan came back.
 
 

 "Yes sir," Mike affirmed.
 
 

 "Good," the SAC lauded, "We're going over to the crime scene, I'll have Randy check
his service record to see if he was in Bosnia, and I'll get back to you with what we
find."
 
 

 Wade hung up with no further comment, and Mike wondered what he was supposed to do
when he did call back. Profiling was Mulder's specialty, not his, and Mulder was
unreachable. He looked over at the sleeping man and cocked his head thoughtfully. Maybe
he could learn from the brilliant profiler. He didn't have a 200 IQ, but he was no bum,
either. He regarded the man in the bed thoughtfully. Mulder was lying quietly, but his
body showed him to be awake. The four point restraints were still in place, but he
didn't seem to notice them. His voice, rough from disuse, startled Mike, and he grabbed
up the pad, ready to record the jewels of Mulder's intellect.
 
 

 But, there were no insights forthcoming.
 
 

 "Drin'," the tall man in the bed slurred in deaf ignorance of  his altered language.
"C'n I have a drin' o' wa'er?"
 
 

 The black man smiled softly, in amusement at himself, and in simple affection for the
man in the bed. He was liking Mulder more and more. He had bought all the legends about
the man, hook, line and sinker, and his behavior when he joined the task force team had
not done much to repudiate them, but he had quickly learned that the tall, gangly man
was courteous to those who offered courtesy to him. To all others, he was brash and
sarcastic, winning all contests. Mulder reminded him of an expression he'd been
astounded to hear from his Baptist minister grandfather: "Don't never get in no pissin'
contest wit' a skunk, boy, and no bitin' contest wit' a rattlesnake." Mulder was that
skunk and that rattler when he was pushed to it. He was going to win. At any cost. Even
if that cost was himself- and especially if he was protecting Agent Dana Scully, who
seemed unaware how he felt about her.
 
 

 He poured water into a plastic cup and added one of the flexible straws to hold to
Mulder's lips. The man in the bed sipped and swallowed. "Who are you?!" Mulder  asked,
turning his bandaged face toward Mike. "Two taps f'r no- thwree f''r ye'" he demanded.
"Don'van?"
 
 

 Mike tapped two times on Mulders arm.
 
 

 "Scherelli?"

 Two taps.

 "Connors."

 Two taps.

 "Benson."

 Three taps, and Mulder relaxed.

 "They catch Gran' ye'?"
 
 

 'No,' Mike told him, offering water again.
 
 

 "Shi'," Mulder commented, taking the straw and sucking up the rest of the liquid.
 
 

 Mike offered him more, that  was refused, and looked around at the sound of someone
bumping the door open. He hoped it was Scully, wanting Mulder to know she was alive,
but it was only the nurse coming in to check her patient.
 
 

 "How has he been?" she asked.
 
 

 "Calm," Mike reported. "He asked for water and drank about two thirds of the cup, he
nodded at the plastic container on the tray table. "He established a code for yes and
no- three for yes and two for no."
 
 

 "Well, in a  few days, he can have the bandages off his eyes, and he'll feel better,"
she said with a compassionate smile. "I hear he's one of the agents who is trying to
catch the DCBomber."
 
 

 "He's our best chance," Mike said seriously, realizing that he meant it without hurt
or jealousy.  None of them was stupid, but Mulder had the talent to get inside Grant's
head and imagine where he'd strike next, giving the task force a chance to be one step
ahead.
 
 

    ****

 Mulder drew in a deep breath, catching the unmistakable scent of woman- not  Scully,
he remembered sadly; he knew her perfume and her shampoo, and the smell of her when she
was two days in the woods and all those smells had worn away. Probably a nurse.
 
 

 "That the nurse?" he asked the dark silence, wanting to play with their minds. Wanting
some control over what was happening to him.
 
 

 He recognized the strength and weight of Mike's big hand on his shoulder, tapping
three times.

    ****

 "Must have smelled my perfume," Regina Stack smiled, looking over to the man who was
grinning in victory. "And he's pretty impressed with himself."
 
 

 "He's always impressed with himself," Mike grinned, too.
 
 

 "Hey, c'n I have dese restrain's off?" the impressed man requested.
 
 

 "Can he?" Mike asked, "I'll restrain him if he gets too impressed with himself, but
I'm gonna push that call button first and request backup.":
 
 

 "Yeah," the plump brunette nodded, "His doctor left orders to remove the restraints if
he behaved himself. And it'll be easier to shave and bathe him."
 
 

 Time stretched for Mulder with no outside referents between his question and the
response, and he startled as hands touched him, throwing his head back and gasping in
surprise. Immediately, the light hands left his ankle, and a warm, heavy weight settled
on his chest. Mike.
 
 

 "Sorrwy," he mumbled, "Okay, go ahea'.  Mi' you're cho(k)in' me!" he complained.
 
 

 The weight lifted, but Mike's big hand still rested lightly on his shoulder as smaller
hands flitted over his feet and then did something that he felt vaguely on his forearm.
Well, at least he still had forearms. Hadn't he told Scully he wanted a peg leg when
they were stranded on the rock on that lake in Georgia? Now he'd have two artificial
hands. ... and he was deaf and blind. Jesus, Mulder, he told himself, you don't do by
half measures do you?  And Scully was gone.  Mike's hand left his shoulder, making him
feel oddly lonely and a little frightened. Never a girly boy, Mulder would have
normally eschewed another man touching him, but  in this case, Mike's hand on his
shoulder gave him a focus point, a clue that he was connected to the world outside his
head. For Fox Mulder, that was essential for survival, because he was trapped in his
head in the dark silence with mutants and aliens and every killer he'd ever profiled.
 
 
 
 

"You can step out if you want," Regina offered, but Mike shook his head.
 
 

"My orders are to not leave him," he said soberly. He observed as she effeciently and
discreetly sponged Mulder clean and shaved him. Mulder jerked in surprise when she
massaged some sort of blue liquid into his cropped hair before rubbing it with a damp
washcloth, leaving it standing in spiky disarray. A clean gown completed the bath, and
Regina emptied the basin.
 
 

She pulled out clean sheets and got Mike to help her roll Mulder gently from side to
side as she removed and replaced the linens under him. She pulled a clean sheet over
him and tucked it at his feet, folding a white blanket up to his chest. Mulder seemed
to appreciate the procedure, drawing in a deep breath of fresh scents.
 
 

 "He'll have some juice, broth and jello on his breakfast menu, " Regina smiled as she
bundled used linens, "I'll bring his tray in a minute".
 
 

 Mike nodded at that and stepped away from the bed to clear the tray table of
newspapers and the legal pad where he'd been keeping track of Mulder's insights. He
noticed that his charge had begun to breathe in little pants and move restlessly in
bed. Praying it was not a prelude to his going crazy, Mike froze and watched him.
Mulder's mouth, the only thing visible under the bandaging on his face, was set in a
tight line, his full lower lip crimped tightly between even, white teeth. Then, it
occurred to Mike. He was scared. He would never have thought the cynical agent a
coward, but he recognized the emotion.
 
 

 He stepped back to the bed, bringing a chair with him, and placed his hand on Mulder's
shoulder again. The bed bound agent quietened right away. "Oh, there you are," he said
with false bravado, "though' you ha' lef.'"
 
 

 'No,' Mike tapped as Regina brought in a covered tray and set it on the table.
 
 

 "Enjoy," she quipped wryly.
 
 

 "Right," he returned and got a wink for his humor.
 
 

 Turning back to the intended recipient of the questionable 'food,' he realized he was
going to have to raise the head of the bed, and he had his doubts about how Mulder
would react to that. Surprisingly, beyond an initial startle, he accepted the maneuver
without fear or fuss. He drank the grape juice thirstily and another glass of water as
well, ate the jello and sipped at the broth. Mike would have put the head of the bed
back down, but Mulder raised his casted arm and asked to be left sitting up for a
while.
 
 

 "No problem," Mike said happily.
 
 

Scully was going to be surprised, he thought. Well, maybe not, she was a doctor, after
all, and she 'knew' Mulder.  He stacked up the dishes and retreated to the chair to
read the paper. Mulder was quiet for almost ten minutes, then he began to scrunch
around restlessly. He looked up with a frown of concentration. Why on earth was Mulder
so fractious all of a sudden? Mike had the sudden realization that he should be able to
use his deductive reasoning training to figure out why Mulder had suddenly become
restless. It took him a couple of minutes. He tried Mulder's profiling technique- he
put himself inside the 'victim's' head and the realization struck him forcibly.
 
 

It struck him, and made his heart skip a few beats. Mike remembered his cousins
stuffing him in an empty oil drum and banging the lid shut on a Sunday afternoon when
one small, active boy became too much of a nuisance. It had been mostly dark and he had
heard his cousins' voices retreating into the distance. When no one came to let him out
after a few minutes, he began to yell. But he was alone in the dim, echoing barrel, and
his cousins had gone to the creek to catch crawfish and wade in the minnow shoaled
shallows. It was only thirty minutes until someone remembered where they had stashed
him, but  it had seemed like hours to Mike.
 
 

Mulder was unable to see or hear anything, and his hands were encased in thick
bandaging, foam and air casts, leaving him completely isolated from the world. And as
far as he knew, he would be in that isolation the rest of his life. He was alone, and
he was terrified. Mike hurried over to place his hand on the frightened man's shoulder
and saw him relax in relief.
 
 

"Mi'?" Mulder dropped letters without regard for his hearer.
 
 

Three taps assured him that Mike was nearby, and the tall man sighed unhappily.

Footsteps sounded in the room, and he looked around to see Scully coming in. She looked
fresher and energized. "Hi," she greeted him brightly, her copper hair loose on her
shoulders now. "The nurses say he ate some clear liquids and is behaving himself."
 
 

"Yes, but he gets anxious if someone's not touching him," Mike reported. "The good news
is that he gave me a code for yes and no."
 
 

"Three is yes, and two is no?" Scully said as she dropped a bag of files and a laptop
into a chair and headed for the bed..
 
 

"Yeah," Mike said in amazement, "How'd you know?"
 
 

"It's something we worked out a couple of years ago," she replied offhandedly as she
came to lean over the rails that kept Mulder safely in the bed- she hoped. "You want to
take a break?"
 
 

"Can you handle him if he gets rowdy?"
 
 

 "Always have before," she joked, then had her flip words put to the test.
 
 

    ****

The scent exploded into Mulder's brain. No. He shook his head sharply. How could it be?
She was dead. Wasn't she? He sat up straighter, feeling his eyes hurt, and his arms
strobe pain.
 
 

"Scul-ly!?" he felt the effort in his chest, felt his heart speed up.

   ****
 
 

Scully reacted with trained responses at Mulder's bellow. Her head jerked around, and
she stooped into a crouch, reached for her gun. Then, sheepishly, she looked to the man
in the bed. Fox Mulder had gotten himself fully upright and was straining forward. Mike
was supporting him with an arm around his shoulders, himself sporting a manic grin.
 
 

"I don't think he thinks you're dead anymore!" he raised his voice over the patient's.
 
 

And her small, strong hands were on his shoulder; Mulder recognized her touch. Mike
still braced him up, but the scent of Scully's  fruity shampoo and spicy perfume
intensified. Satisfaction rushed over him in a warm wave. The woman he had carried up
out of the alien ship was still alive. Something else rushed over him, and it was not
as satisfying. A dizzying wave of vertigo attacked out of the silent blackness, making
his stomach want to give back the little he had eaten.
 
 

"Uh, dizzy," he complained, trying to put what was left of his hands to his head and
not making it. "Urp," he swallowed hard, "Si'." He was afraid of what was coming.
 
 

"Lay him flat," Scully advised quickly, "and turn him on his side."
 
 

Mike obliged, rolling Mulder's suddenly limp body gently onto the mattress as Scully
put the bed flat. Mulder was complicating matters by waving his air casted arms in the
air, knocking Scully in the face.  She took the offending arm and held it, placing her
other hand on his chest and pushing him down.
 
 

"Scu-lly, za' you?" Mulder asked muzzily, swallowing audibly again.
 
 

'Yes,' she told him with a quick three-beat on his shoulder, setting his arm down
 
 

"Scu'y," he said earnestly, leaving out a third of the syllables this time, "he's
escala'ing. He'll go f'r a sena'or's  office nex'. Warn 'em," Mulder slurred.
 
 

"He's been profiling, I see," she smiled at his persistence.
 
 

"Donovan called a while ago," Mike affirmed Mulder's prediction, "Grant hit Senator
Thompson's office downtown."
 
 

"What's his stressor?" Scully mused, reviewing Mulder's profile as she continued to
press her hand into Mulder's chest, "Ex military, a SEAL, familiar with explosives. And
I'll bet he can slip in and out of these places at will. Shit."
 
 

"He go for gov'ment buil'in's nex'," Mulder  stressed, straining up against his
partner's hand.
 
 

"He never quits, does he?" Mike said in amazement.
 
 

"Not in his nature," Scully agreed, trying to simultaneously let Mulder know she
understood and push him down on the bed.
 
 

"Tell you what," the ex-linebacker offered, "You call Donovan and get some protection
for Senator Thorne and the rest of the legislature since we don't who Grant's other
targets might be, and I'll try to keep Agent Mulder in bed."
 
 

Scully knew it wasn't a good idea to take her hands from him, but she couldn't keep
Mulder down- for a skinny guy he was strong as a mule- and she wouldn't be able to have
a coherent conversation with Donovan with him talking to her at the same time. "Ok,"
she warned, "but he's going to howl, and he's stronger than he looks." The moment she
took her hand off him, Mulder came up in the bed before floundering in disorientation
and vertigo.  "Watch him," she called as she retreated into the quieter hallway, "he'll
throw up..." just as the sound of Mulder retching and Mike Benson's disgusted, 'ewwww,'
reached her ears as Donovan answered his phone.

.

"How reliable is this?" Wade Donovan asked her cautiously, "He's severely injured and
two days out of the field..."
 
 

"Let's just say he runs true to his reputation," Scully  said grimly, wincing at the
volume of Mulder's shrieks as a nurse ran in with a syringe. "It won't hurt to err on
the side of caution, sir." Try to downplay the spooky angle.
 
 

When all was said and done, Donovan agreed to warn all the legislators to move
themselves and their families as quietly and surreptitiously as possible out of town.
The same warning would go up the line and  be delivered by the Attorney General to the
President,  who would  decline to leave.
 
 

Scully folded her phone and returned to find Mulder moaning in distress, fighting the
drug and the nurse and Mike who were trying to get him into a clean hospital gown. She
grinned sheepishly at Mike whose shirt and pants had been the recipient of Mulder's
stomach contents, nothing but water, juice and jello, but still still redolent of their
partial voyage through his gastrointestinal system.
 
 

"Go home and get cleaned up, and get some rest," she told the big agent, "He'll be out
for a while pretty shortly."
 
 

And Mike believed the lie. Mulder would be slower to struggle with the valium in his
system, but he would not be 'out.' He did, however, recognize her perfume, and quieten
enough for them to get a clean gown on him and change the blanket that had, happily,
saved the sheets underneath it. He kept taking deep breaths, his chest heaving like a
long distance swimmer, and rolling his head around abruptly, fighting sedation.
 
 

"Warn..." he mumbled, "warn..." and Scully rubbed his tense shoulder.
 
 

"Sorry," she apologized to the accusing nurse. "I had to make that call, and I knew he
would get upset when I left him, but I had no choice; peoples' lives depended on my
making that call.":
 
 

She didn't say anything, and Mulder stopped slinging his head. He mumbled her name
sleepily, leaving out most of the letters, and finally slipped into an uneasy slumber.
Then, and only then did Scully feel safe to take her hand off his chest long enough to
bring a chair to the bedside and take a seat, replacing her palm on him. She had pulled
the tray table over and began adding her new knowledge of the case of the DCBomber to
her notes, writing in longhand on a legal pad until she could have both hands free to
do it on her laptop. An hour, then two passed; Mulder finally slept peacefully under
the effects of the drug. Donovan called and recounted the progress they were making
with the senators and congressmen- reported the ATG's failure to convince the President
to leave the White House.
 
 

"Fine time for him to discover courage and nobility," she snorted and noticed Mulder's
muscles begin to twitch. Oh shit, "Gotta go, sir," she apologized quickly and punched
the 'end' button.
 
 

Just in time, she tossed the little phone onto the tray table and shook Mulder's
shoulder sharply. It had brought him out of his demon-ridden sleep before; she prayed
it worked now.  Without being able to see his eyes, it was hard to tell whether that
interrupted his nightmare, but Mulder did relax and drop back into normal sleep. She
dozed with him, draping an arm across his chest and laying her head on the bed beside
him. That was how Mike found them.
 
 

Scully raised her head at the sound of Mike calling her name. "Did you get any sleep?"
she asked muzzily, looking at her watch to discover it was nearly dinner time. "About
six hours," Mike said, "I feel better, thanks. How has he been?"

"Pretty quiet," Scully admitted. "He had a bad moment a couple of hours ago, but made
it through."
 
 

"Is that what profiling does to you?" Mike asked softly, coming to gaze down at the
peacefully sleeping Mulder.
 
 

"It does when you care as much as he does," Scully nodded, "He came straight out of the
academy and started in BSU, profiling serial killers no one else could find. Patterson
used him, giving him the cases no one else could figure out. He lives with both the
victim and the killer when he's 'in the zone.,' in effect becoming both of them," she
studied the visible portion of Mulder's face, "And he doesn't forget them."
 
 

"Because he doesn't want...?"
 
 

"Because he can't," Scully interrupted the compassionate black man, "His memory is
eidetic. He never forgets anything he does, hears, or sees. That makes for interesting
dreams," she grinned up at him in an expression that had nothing to do with humor.
 
 

Mike was quiet a long while after that, sitting on Mulder's other side with a big hand
on his shoulder. When the bed bound agent woke, he knew both of them from the size and
weight of their hands, and he was quiet and thoughtful. He didn't speak,but Scully had
a feeling that when he did, they would not like what he told them. When he did speak,
requiring them to strain to understand him, he asked whether anything had been bombed
and identified the nature of the site with yes/no questions.
 
 

"Sc'uy," he said at last, "Are ya lis'enin' ah me?"
 
 

"Yes, Mulder, I'm listening to you," she tapped 'yes' on his shoulder. His speech was
getting  gradually worse, "Question is, how much longer are we going to be able to
understand you?"
 
 

"Nee' uh amen' muh p'ofil'," he muttered, proving her point.
 
 

"He needs to amend his profile," Mike translated easily and shrugged at her, "I had a
line coach that talked like he had a mouthful of marbles."
 
 

"He ha' a son inna mi'ita'y who was  ki''d o' in(j)ured."
 
 

Scully looked over to where Mike was writing as Mulder talked. " He has a son in the
military who was killed or injured." Mike looked at her in wonder. "How does he come up
with this?"
 
 

She read in his broad, dark face that the big agent saw Mulder's profiling as akin to
voodoo. "There's a solid, procedural basis for how he does it," she lectured. Then,
having had more experience at watching the Mulder mind in action, "And he's good at
putting seemingly disconnected pieces together to from a coherent picture. But, ah, his
mind doesn't work like most peoples'"
 
 

"Well, that's for sure," Benson nodded, and Scully looked at him sharply for a moment,
not sure how he meant it. Finally decided he was just agreeing with her.
 
 

Meanwhile, the 'atypical Mulder mind' was in full swing, not at all hindered by its
current sensory deprivation- maybe even aided by the lack of distraction. "Twen'y  ta
twen'y-fi'. He wi' ha' be'n ki'', injur' ..." he paused, and Scully could visualize the
frown of thoughtful concentration that would be underneath the bandages on his face.
"No wai'!" Mulder moved his head against the pillow in a movement analogous to the
sideways jerk of his chin when several pieces of a profiling puzzle suddenly fell into
place for him. He continued excitedly, so fast and so distorted that even Mike was
having trouble understanding him.
 
 

"He' may ha' b''n di'hon'ble di'ch'r'-  maybe f'r  ser'ous mi'conduc'."
 
 

"Dishonorable discharge," Mike frowned in concentration as he copied Mulder's words
onto the legal pad on his lap, "-for serious misconduct."
 
 

"Loo' f'r cour' martial recor's!" the man in the bed crowed triumphantly. "Conta' JA'."
 
 
 

"My cell phone's on the tray table," Scully pointed with the hand not on Mulder's
chest. "Call Donovan. Tell him to call JAG in on this."
 
 

And Mike got the same question she had gotten. She could tell from his side of the
conversation : "Just how reliable is this information? Coming from a man severely
injured and three days out of the field.'
 
 

"He says none of the ISU guys' profiles are agreeing with Mulder's," Mike said with a
deep, unhappy sigh after he punched off and set the phone aside.
 
 

Scully didn't have anything to say to that, and the two of them just traded a look.
Then, they jumped when the phone rang immediately. Mike grabbed it up and pushed send
button vigorously to end the shrill chirping in the otherwise quiet room. He spoke his
name, listened, and handed the phone over to Scully. "AD Kersh," he mouthed.
 
 

"Scully," she identified, prepared to listen and answer respectfully. At least one
person on her team had to placate the bastard. But it made her grit her teeth.
 
 

"What's this spurious information Mulder is spewing?" Kersh started right in.
 
 

"It's not spurious, sir," she had to fight to make the honorific respectful.
 
 

"Agent Scully, he has had no contact with the case in two days, and my reports show him
to be deaf and blind. Is my information in error?"
 
 
 
 

"No sir," she felt her face harden. "But Mulder..."
 
 

"No buts, Agent Scully," Kersh growled, "you are not to transfer any further
information from Agent Mulder to SAC Donovan! Is that clear?"
 
 

"Yes sir," she agreed, and found herself listening to an empty line. "He says we're not
to transfer any more of Mulder's profiling to Donovan."
 
 

"Well ain't that some shit?" Mike commented pithily with a downhome expression that
made Scully smile, "What are we going to do?" earnest brown eyes surveyed Scully over
their shared responsibility.
 
 

"First thing we're going to do," she declared, "is keep documenting what Mulder says.
Those ISU guys aren't there because they're not good or because they don't want to
solve crimes and save lives, but sometimes they just can't think nonlinearly enough
come up with the answers they need. I know he's a pain in the ass, but Mulder's usually
right. And the next thing I'm going to do is call AD Skinner- at home," she grinned
triumphantly. "and brief him on the situation.  It's going to be a good thing to have
someone else know what's going on, and Skinner has contacts at JAG."
 
 

Mike's expression told her his opinion of breaking the chain of command and going over
Donovan's head. Dana Scully's expression told him she knew she was risking her career.
"I'm going to go get a juice and stretch my legs if you'll be okay with him by
yourself," Mike said, uncoiling his body and reaching for the ceiling in an awesome
display that had Scully glad he was on her side. He wanted to be out of the room when
she spoke to Skinner. That way he could disavow knowledge if he had to. He respected
Dana Scully highly, but he also understood that he was just beginning his career, and
couldn't afford the risks she was taking. "Bring you back something?"  he asked her
when she  shook her head, phone to ear, to acknowledge him.
 
 

"No, thanks," she grinned in understanding, "Get out of here before you hear something
you're not supposed to."
 
 

And when he returned, Mike found her curled into the big lounge chair, asleep with the
legal pad on her lap. Small as she was, he hesitated to touch her shoulder to rouse
her, but thought he'd suggest that she go home. Scully woke with a little startle as he
shook her shouder gently.
 
 

"Uh," she looked over at Mulder, "S'he okay?"
 
 

"He's fine, Agent Scully; I wondered if you'd like to go home for the night."
 
 

"I don't think I'd sleep if I did," Scully surveyed Mulder who was shrugging his
shoulders and wiggling his feet a little.
 
 

Their night passed without incident. Mulder had his diet upgraded to 'soft,' and was
not impressed. He recounted a recent Yankees-Padres game, even to the commercials and
had Mike and Scully laughing. He mentioned that he was very bored.
 
 

Morning found Scully reading case files that Randy Connors had delivered with one hand
on Mulder's lean abdomen to advise her if he woke. As usual with this kind of event, he
was catching up on sleep. Now if he would just eat more. His ribs were prominent under
her hand, rising gently with his respirations. She felt him take a deeper breath and
shift against the bed. His lips moved, and he swallowed once.
 
 

"Scu''y?" Mulder mumbled into the quiet, and she patted his side to let him know she
was listening. "Do I sti'' ha' muh han's?"
 
 
 
 

That took her by surprise, with as much pain as his torn hands and arms must have
caused him, she would never have expected him to think that he had lost them. She
supposed with all the padding material around them, keeping his hands still and
protected from unwary movements, he might have interpreted that as an absence. She
hurried to tap 'yes' on his shoulder, then repeated it for emphasis. He smiled
crookedly, his impressive nose wrinkling.
 
 

 "Relie'," he grinned crookedly, and his tone of voice warned her she was in for a true
Mulderquip, "Though' I' be runnin' in'a K'yce' at th' arm s(t)ore." Affectionate
amazement softened Dana Scully's face for the first time in almost two months, and she
squeezed his biceps lightly in reply.
 
 

"I hear you, Mulder," she said quietly, shaking her head at him before settling back to
the files.
 
 

 The rest of the third day brought interesting news, if only for the fact that it
brought a lunchtime visit from Walter Skinner and renewed proof that Mulder- deaf and
blind- was a better profiler than the ISU group back at the Hoover. Scully was trying
to get Mulder to eat his lunch when Mike drew a quick breath and stood up between her
and the door. She heard Skinner's "At ease, agent," and turned to see him confidently
coming to the bed.
 
 

 "Good afternoon, Sir," she greeted him, wondering how much of Mike's reaction was
based on the fact that the only AD he had known so far in his FBI career was a horse's
ass.
 
 

 "How's he doing, Scully?" Skinner honestly wanted to know.
 
 

 "He's bored, and he's a picky eater," she relayed. "And he's still working on the
case."
 
 

 "Hmm," Skinner observed the oblivious Mulder thoughtfully. "I heard about Kersh's
order to... ignore any further information he might provide." He was thinking that
Kersh might live to regret that order. "I think you will be very interested to hear
what JAG had to say."
 
 

 "There was a son... who was courtmartialed?" Scully arched an eyebrow  a moment later.
 
 
 

 "Twenty-one years old. Martin C. Grant, convicted by military tribunal of cowardice
under fire and sentenced to a year in Leavenworth and a dishonorable discharge."
 
 

 "He was right," Mike breathed in awe. Until now, he had tried to be inconspicuous in
the presence of an unfamiliar assistant director and a ranking agent, but the
information that corroborated Mulder's profile was too precisely accurate to resist
comment.
 
 

 "There's more," Skinner turned to the big man and included him in the conversation,
"Martin Grant was killed in Leavenworth. That may be the stressor that's driving his
father to set bombs to kill legislators. The next thing to follow up will be whether
those Senators and Congressmen played a part in getting Martin court martialed or
imprisoned- or failed to get his sentence commuted or abbreviated."
 
 

 "Thank you for bringing us that," Scully told him, "I'm not sure how we can use it
until he can see and start back to work, but it will be valuable."
 
 

 "Make the best use of it you can, Scully," Skinner nodded and started to leave when
Mulder's  husky voice broke the quiet.
 
 

 "AD Skinner," he stated. "Di' you fin' ou' anythin' abou' Gran's son an' 'e'
cour'mar(t)ia'?"
 
 

 Scully tapped 'yes' on his chest, amused at the look of astonishment on Skinner's
face. "No mystery, sir," she said, "It's probably your aftershave. Mulder is an
accomplished investigator, and he notices his surroundings. And he probably knows who
you spoke to at JAG." Skinner's discomfort at the thought of Mulder knowing who he
would have spoken to- the thought that he had manipulated the entire process since he
couldn't do it himself- amused Scully as much as it disturbed Skinner.
 
 

 "Goodbye, Agent Scully, Agent Benson," Skinner nodded solemnly and took his leave.
 
 

 "He's very different from AD Kersh," Mike observed when Skinner had left.
 
 

 "He's very different, indeed," Scully agreed, giving up on lunch and wiping Mulder's
mouth.
 
 

 The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to keep a restless, irritated Mulder
occupied. He wanted to sit up, but he experienced vertigo and nausea. He was bored,
angry... and scared. That made for a pissy Mulder. Mike finally casually wrestled him
flat on the bed and insured his positon with an easy strength. Even so, Mulder
struggled frantically for a few moments, saying things that neither agent cared to try
and translate. He finally gave up and took a different tack.
 
 

 "Wha' di' Don'van say abou' Gran's son?" he asked in unanswerable format- on purpose,
Scully was sure. She waited patiently for him to see the error of his way and code his
inquiry in a way that they could answer him. Finally, they got: "Di' you te' Don'van
abou' Gran's son?"
 
 

 Mike was not surprised to see Scully tap 'yes' on Mulder's shoulder. There was no way
they could have explained a 'no' to him, and the resulting agitation would have doomed
him to another valium vacation. Because knowing that his peers rejected his efforts
would have added insult to injury and made an already pricklish Mulder positively
explosive. This, then, was the evening of their third day in his least favorite place
on the face of the earth. He was just getting used to the routine.
 
 
 
 

************************************************************************

On the fourth day their routine was interrupted. Just after Mulder had agreeably eaten
a lunch of beef stew and iced tea,  his day nurse came in with a man in the maintenance
uniform of the hospital and showed him to the air conditioning console. He nodded to
them and promised, "Won't take but a few minutes, and I'll try to be really quiet."
 
 

"And I'll be in after he finishes to change Mulder's dressings," Carol Brown promised.
 
 

Scully just nodded, accustomed to giving the rest of the world as little as she could.
Mike glared suspiciously at the man. Both of them noticed his build and coloring; it
was automatic.
 
 

 Under a baseball cap proclaiming  the Washington Senators, the man's hair was a
grizzled hue, characteristic of black hair going gray, and he sported a bushy mustache
of the same coloring. Horn rimmed glasses magnified his brown eyes. He was not much
taller than Scully, and she smiled when she saw how warily he regarded Mike Benson who
was scowling fiercely at him.
 
 

He did, however, seem to know his trade. The front of the a/c unit came off readily
under his hands, and he quickly took a piece out and replaced it, adjusted something
that made it give forth more air flow. From start to finish, the job took less than
fifteen minutes. The small man put tools back into his box and rose easily; he touched
a forefinger to the bill of his cap in old-fashioned courtesy and left, whistling
softly. The tune was Anchors Aweigh, something any Navy brat would know, and Scully
certainly did. Not unusual in a town where half the people were government and the
other half were military of some type, for someone to be absentmindedly whistling a
military theme.
 
 

Why did she feel so nervous? She shuddered, making a leap of logic foreign to her, and
Mike looked at her in agreement.
 
 

"I think that was him, Mike," she said in fright. "Jesus, I don't know how he could
just waltz in and..."
 
 

"Me too," the big man agreed as he pulled out his cell phone, "Let's get Mulder out,
and get the bomb squad up here"
 
 

Getting Mulder out was not easy, but it was easier than convincing Donovan that they
had just seen Paul Grant