by Lee Burwasser
lee46b@gateway.net

From: lee burwasser <lburwasser@crs.loc.gov>
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 12:01:56 -0500
Subject: NEW: }It's Me{ (1/2) by Lee Burwasser

Rating - G
             mostly noromo-safe, but some bumps
             Doggett-neutral
Category - S
Spoilers - Requiem, W/in
Keywords - ScullyAngst
Summary - He's baaaaack! -- and so is Lioness!Scully

Archive - yes, with the usual provisos
Disclaimer - they ain't mine
Feedback - sure

AUTHOR's NOTEs:

Lines in }reverse braces{ are verbal descriptions of nonverbal
reactions.

Carter did a piss-poor job on all three characters -- and while
I will *try* to turn PalaceFavorite!Doggett into a real boy, I
will have nothing to do with WhinyWimp!Scully or
CandyAss!Skinner.  Those two stay as Morgan & Wong made them.
 

}It's Me{
by Lee Burwasser <lee46b@gateway.net>

Doggett entered the office just as Scully closed the reagent box
and grabbed her coat.  "You are not going to Oregon," he said.

"Wrong, Agent Doggett.  I am."

"Not in your condition!"

"Strike two! Agent Dogget.  One more and you're out!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Kersh's golden boy, that's what!"  Into his slack-jawed silence,
she continued:  "You've been behaving yourself, while there was
no reason to MISbehave.  But now the abductees are returned, you
try to *order* me out of Oregon -- using the lamest, most
despicable, fake argument that men have ever used to bully
women--"

She had to catch her breath, and into the pause came Skinner's
voice.  "So you've both heard."

The two agents turned to face their A.D., and Doggett burst out,
"Sir, she *can't*!"

"If you please, Agent Doggett.  Agent Scully, why are you taking
personal time?"

"Because I'm not the fool that Agent Doggett thinks I am.  I
*am* an MD, and I have consulted with specialists whose
training and clinical experience entitle them to a voice in
my decisions.  I am going first class, with all the amenities.
To avoid administrative complications--" this with another
glare at Doggett -- "I am going on my own time and my own money.
Which makes it my own business and nobody else's."

"What will you do when you get there?" asked Skinner.

"I've devised a set of tests, based in part on my own abduction
and in part on statistical analysis of a database the Gunmen
assembled for me.  Standard clinical pathology, plus of course
the EEG check.  Most of the reagents are hospital standard, the
odd ones I'm taking with me, along with the EEG records," she
gestured at the box next to her briefcase on her desk, "of the
abductees' electro-encephalitic traumas."

"So you'll be staying at the hospital."

"I repeat, sir, I am not a fool."

"No, you've never been a fool.  You're aware that anything that
can possibly be described as carelessness on your part will give
the . . . 'administrative complications' a field day."

Doggett burst out, "She's bigger around than she is tall!"

Scully whirled on him, but Skinner reached him first.  She
deferred to her superior.

Skinner did not, however, grab Doggett's jacket or touch him in
any way.  Standing just inside his subordinate's personal space,
he said, "First of all, Agent Doggett, you exaggerate: a bad habit
for an investigator.  Second: you are not a doctor; not the father
of the baby; and not the head of the X-Files.  Clear?"

"Clear, sir," said Doggett.  "But you can't send her out alone."

Skinner glanced at Scully, who said, "Anything could 'just happen'
in a forest search."

Skinner shook his head.  "Not with all those eyes on it.  When the
interest dies down is the time to worry."

"Very well, sir."

He turned back to Doggett.  "Be on the same flight, it doesn't have
to be in the same cabin."

"I'll upgrade, sir," said Doggett.

#

"All the amenities" turned out to include the no-smoking section
under the stewardesses' collective eye and close to the forward
rest room.  The solidly-built female steward (she reminded him
more of male stewards he'd known than 'stewardesses') personally
checked out the pregnant agent's oxygen setup.  No one offered
her anything alcoholic or caffinated.  He wondered if he dared
ask whether any of them were prepared to handle premature labor
at 10,000 feet, but decided not to risk Rosie the Riviter holding
him down while *Doctor* Scully got out her scalpel.  Or that
hideous long knife that she groomed so carefully after cleaning
the rest of her gear.
 

Fortunately, there were no incidents between DC and Salem, Oregon,
where a similar variety of VIP ground transport awaited.  Skinner's
influence, no doubt: "One pregnant woman and one set of unique
reagents, delivered in prime condition.  Clear?"

The regional hospital was expecting them, with local colleagues to
help Dr. Scully set up in a spare lab and orderlies to get the EEG
records over to *that* lab.  "Two have been brought in," a nurse
briefed her over the organised clatter.  "Both with varying degrees
of malnutrition, exhaustion and exposure."

The arrival of the third abductee started Dr. Scully and Nurse
Concise on their rounds.  Doggett asked if the team could use
another stretcher-bearer.

"Sure," said the dog handler.  "Clem wants to sit with his sister
a while.  Come on."  As an afterthought, "I'm Mick."  Indicating
the other man,  "That's Joe."  By this time they were at the jeep,
where a big mixed-breed dog raised his head.  "This is Duke."

#

The first rustle was something shy and too small to be a human.
The second was a hit.  As they moved toward it, though, Mick
said, "Wait."

"What's wrong?" asked Joe.

"The other one wasn't curled up on himself, nor the ones the other
teams brought in.  This one could be hurt worse than just cold and
hungry."

Slowly they approached their target.  It was indeed a man curled
up on himself.  When Mick spoke to him, he curled up further.

"Are you hurt?" Mick asked, laying a hand on the man's shoulder.

Abruptly the man uncurled and scrabbled toward the deeper
underbrush, trying to get up and get away simultaneously.
Doggett tackled him in pure reflex.  The man stopped trying to
scramble off and started fighting and screaming.

"Easy!" said Doggett, keeping hold of one leg and trying to avoid
getting brained by its flailing mate.  "Easy, there!"  He couldn't
hear himself over the screams.

The other two scrambled to the man's head and tried to calm him,
with no success at first.  The man's voice gave out, his screams
becoming rasping croaks.  Now they could be heard, the others tried
to soothe him vocally.  What finally settled the matter was
exhaustion; the man was running on adrenaline, and when that ran
out, he collapsed.

Doggett retrieved his flashlight and shone it on the supine figure.
He wan't in the least surprised to recognise Mulder.  "She's gonna
kill me," he sighed.

"It was me touching him that set him off.  Not your fault at all."

"Anything happening to Mulder is my fault.  Can we get him to the
hospital without tying him down?"

"Don't seem to have much fight left," said Joe.  "Just keep him
from grabbin' me or the wheel."

#

"Two more, Dr. Scully," said the ER nurse with the vials of blood.
She set them down before adding, "More variations on the same
theme: malnutrition, exhaustion, exposure."

"I can't say I'm impressed with their technique," said Scully,
sorting the vials into racks and taking up a fresh pipette.  "It
smacks less of dominance than of carelessness.  Thank you, just
set it there."  For the next few minutes, she added and swirled
and sealed while the nurse looked on.  One entire set ended up in
an ultracentrifuge.  Finally she pulled off her mask and cap,
saying, "Let's see if anyone's awake yet."

All the returned abductees had showed the presence of mind to
fall asleep as soon as the nurses stopped swarming over them.
Some didn't wait that long.  The ones that had preceeded Scully
to the hospital, and had to have more blood drawn for her tests,
slept through that.  They were clinically exhausted, and didn't
need doctors to tell them what to do about it; as soon as they
were out of the wind and no longer being jounced about, they did
it.

So the nurse and the pathologist strolled down the line of
sleeping forms.  Billy Miles snored softly.  Ray Hoese snored a
bit louder.  Neither Billy's father nor Ray's wife had turned up
yet, but the steady results of the search teams presaged well.

Shouts and thumps sounding toward the emergency room entrance
reminded Scully that the abductees were not the only thing going on
in the hospital this night.  The ER nurse trotted off to her post,
Scully following essentially by habit.  By the time she recalled
that she had no business in the ER and would only be in the way,
she was in sight of the entrance and the figures struggling around
the gurney.  The sight of John Doggett sent her fairly leaping
toward them.

Sure enough, it was Mulder.  With a brusque, "Let me," she pushed
into the broil.  Though probably trying to shout or scream, Mulder
was only managing a sort of rasping croak; he should be able to
hear her.  "Mulder, it's me," she said.  As soon as she was close
enough, she stroked the sweat-soaked hair back from his brow.
"You're back, Mulder.  It's over.  It's going to be all right."

Slowly his struggles subsided to adrenaline shakes.  When those
ran down, he fell asleep as promptly and as deeply as the rest.
The staff wheeled him into the ER.  The search team started
picking up in preparation for another run.  Scully pinned Doggett
with laser eyes.

"What  happened?"

The search leader gave her a brief description, ending, "--when I
touched him, all hell broke loose."

"I see," said Scully, more civilly than she'd addressed Doggett.
"Thank you."  She took a breath and said, as much to herself as
anyone, "He's going to be out cold for a while.  I'll get back to
the tests."

Doggett said "I'll call Skinner."

She nodded and headed back to the lab.

#
}warm{
}warm-sound{
}warm-soft-touch{
}warm-warm-warm{
#

Hospitals don't like cell phones.  Doggett headed for the bank of
pay phones, digging out his phone card.

Mick said, "She was reasonable."

"Sure, in front of company," Doggett growled.  Damn it, what did
it take to *keep* her trust?

He dialed Skinner's office number, got Ms Cook and was passed on
to the AD.

"Skinner."

"Doggett here.  We've got Mulder."

"Alive?"

"Yes."  He decided to let the details wait.

"The rest of them?"

"Not all are in yet, the teams are still bringing them."

"Get back to it, then; call me again afterward."

"Yessir."  They both hung up.
 

Back in the jeep, he fumed to himself: I thought she'd learned to
trust me.

He didn't realise he'd spoken aloud until Mick said, "There's some
as trust their own lives more easily than people's close to them."

#

The pathology tests were done and the results coming in.  The
abductees started to wake up, and were fed and run through the EEG
as they did.  Somebody called Gramma Hoese to bring Theresa her
baby.  Scully had no more immediate duties toward the group as a
whole and headed for Mulder's bedside.  He was still out, not
surprising the way he'd used up what little strength he had.  She
stroked his arm and sat beside him, holding his hand.
 

Billy Miles returned from his EEG and ambled around the ward for
a bit, ending up by Scully.  "The first time is always the worst,"
he said.  "And they were real interested in him."

Scully looked up.  "Hi, Billy.  You feeling OK?"

"A little tired," he yawned in proof.  "Otherwise OK."  They both
stared at the sleeping Mulder, then he said, "They tell me you've
been doing tests on us, too."

"Yes, I'm afraid so.  The lab's checking you all as you wake
up for electro-encephalitic trauma.  They should have the
results by this afternoon.  The pathology results are coming
in now.  None of you have branched DNA, which is a relief.
None of the women show residual trace of the drugs that
induce superovulation, but after this length of time that's
not at all definitive.  Visual exam turns up no one with new
laparoscopy scars, but with the Bounty Hunter involved that's
not very definitive, either."

"How come?"

"It's a common scenario for abductees -- Whoops, I didn't use
that word! -- for captives to report being 'dissected like
frogs,' with no scars to show for it.  We don't have that
kind of technology, and neither does the Consortium.  But the
Bounty Hunter very well could."

Billy looked his question.

"I'm under orders not to use either of the A-words."

Billy made a wry grimance.  "The FBI does not credit . . .
'foreign kidnapping'?"

"Well, nobody's denying you were kidnapped.  But nobody saw any
foreigners."

Billy  gave an equally wry chuckle and commiseratingly shook his
head.

Mulder stirred at last.  She forgot Billy.  "Mulder?  Mulder, it's
me."  She stroked his arm.  "Gonna wake up, Sleepy-head?"

#
}warm{
}warm-sound{
}warm-soft-touch{
}warm-snug-safe-warm-warm{
#
 

His eyes opened, still clouded with sleep.  "Mulder?" she said
again.  "Mulder, do you know where you are?"  A smile and a grip
to her hand was his only reply; she'd settle for that temporarily.
"You're back, Mulder.  It's over.  You're safe."

"I'll tell the nurse," said Billy quietly, and left them together.

She hardly noticed.  "You all came back safe, Mulder.  Hungry and
tired and cold, but alive and well.  You're going to have some
broth, now, and a little of something soft to eat, and then we take
you for an EEG -- that's why they took you, Mulder.  It wasn't me
they wanted at all.  Skinner says you were sticking your fingers in
things again.  He blames himself for losing you; Doggett called him
as soon as his team brought you in.  Doggett's your temp; not a bad
cop, but Kersh has his hooks into him.  Maybe he'll get loose.  No
scars on anyone -- no new scars -- and no branched DNA."  She
babbled on to those sleepy eyes and childlike smile, and the thumb
rubbing circles against her hand.

Mulder's sudden alert brought her attention to the nurse that took
his vitals.  He didn't like the pressure of the rubber cuff, but
kept quiet under continued stroking.  Raising the bed startled him,
but again he kept quiet.

An orderly brought in a tray and put it on Mulder's lap.  The nurse
diplomatically let Scully position his near hand to steady it; he
got the idea and positioned the other.  He stared at the tray with
its cup, bowl and spoon until Scully spooned broth from the cup
into his mouth.  That got his interest, and after another spoonfull
he picked up the cup.

"Slowly," said Scully, putting her hand around his.  She tipped the
cup away from his mouth for him to breathe every few sips.

Both the doctor and the agent in her noticed that Mulder had
ignored the cup handle and was holding the cup as though it were a
glass.  Soon he brought his other hand up, letting the tray balance
on his lap, to use both hands.  When he finished the broth, he still
held the cup, as though cherishing the warmth.

Scully took the spoon again and offered him a spoonful of -- gruel?
mush? -- whatever was in the bowl.  He accepted it, and a second,
then abandoned the cup to hold the bowl in both hands.

Scully caught the cup before it rolled off or unbalanced the tray
and set it upright.  The nurse, who had continued her diplomatic
silence, put it safely on the bedside table.  Scully gave her a
grateful glance,  and found her eye held.  Nurse . . . Lane, said
her nametag . . . was about Mulder's age, and had clearly been
looking after patients all her adult life.  "Try him with the
spoon," she suggested.

A little fumbling got the spoon safely into Mulder's grasp.  He
used the power grip rather than the precision grip to hold it, but
successfully fed himself the rest of the bowl.

#

Dr Reid had worked with Nurse Lane for some years; he could
read trouble in her posture.  He schooled himself to hide his
apprehension without sounding falsely hearty as he gave his
customary greeting: "Wide awake, are we?"

The patient came to a silent alert, then slowly relaxed and reached
for the woman beside him; Dr Scully, Reid remembered, the FBI
pathologist.  She held his hand and studied him a moment before
turning to face Reid.

The patient did not respond to "I'm Dr Reid," but stared at the
doctor's outstretched hand.  After a minute, he offered his own,
but did not speak.  Several efforts to entice a verbal reply had
the same no-result.  "Hmm," said Reid, and raised his eyebrows at
Dr Scully.

"He hasn't spoken since he woke," she said.  "He had to be
introduced to cups and bowls and spoons, but he caught on quickly."

Reid looked at Nurse Lane.  She said, "Since we're going to take an
EEG anyway . . ."

Dr Scully nodded and completed the thought: ". . . we can look at
Broca's and Wernicke's areas at the same time."
 

The patient was no fonder of the wheelchair than any of his fellow
returnees, but he didn't argue (they would have preferred it if he
had) and didn't actively resist.  He just didn't cooperate.  At the
end of the ride, though, when he saw the table and the electrical
leads, he panicked and tried to run.

The orderlies brought him down within three steps.  He continued
his panic fighting.  They got him turned onto his back, setting
off fiercer struggles.

"Mulder!" Dr Scully cried, "It's me!"  She caught her breath and
knelt beside his head.  "It's me, Mulder."  This time she kept her
voice low and soothing.  She stroked his hair.  "Mulder, you're
safe.  Nobody's going to hurt you."  It was her voice that
mattered, not her words.  "It's not going to hurt, Mulder.
You're safe."  She looked up at Reid.  Still in the same low,
soothing voice, she said, "Why not show him the electrodes?"

Good idea.  Reid brought a handful of spares from the drawer.  The
patient flinched and closed his eyes when they came close to his
face, but when nothing happened, he slowly opened them.  Reid
spread them out, holding up one at a time.

Meanwhile Dr Scully said, "See?  They're not sharp, they can't
hurt you."  She bent further over the patient and said, still
soothingly, "Show him on me where they go."

Another good idea.  Reid put an electrode approximately over her
frontal lobe, let it fall and put another as approximately over
her temporal lobe.  He ran through the set while she reassured
the patient with unheeded words and vital tone of voice.

#
Cascade of pictures:

}bright white place{
}bright-sharp-hurt!hurt!{
}glare-glare-hurt!hurt!{
}bright-glare-sharp-hurt!hurt!{
}help!help!hurt!hurt!help!help!{

Another cascade:

}Warm room, warm voice, warm touch.{
}Smiling woman holds his hand.{
}Touches his wrist, throat, forehead.{
}Strokes his arm, his hair.{
}Many rooms, little differences.{
}Herself.  Herself.  Always Herself.{
#

Mulder stopped fighting and lay trembling in the orderlies' grip.
His eyes fixed on Scully, and for the first time his face gleamed
recognition.  He was still frightened; his eyes clung to her like
a terrified child's.  *Like a traumatised twelve-year-old.*  She
went on talking and stroking, interspersing, "Let him up, now,"
and "See if he'll get on the table."

He sat on the table, still trembling, while Dr Reid and Nurse
Lane slowly fastened the electrodes, showing him each one before
touching him with it.  He flinched but didn't try to pull away;
his eyes rolled like those of a frightened horse.

It took more soothing to get his head positioned.  Scully held
his hands and kept on talking.  The sound of the recording machine
starting up terrified him to immobility, but in time he relaxed.

"OK," said Dr Reid quietly, "We need a few minutes' silence here."

Scully pinched her lips and then laid her finger across them.
Mulder kept his eyes on her, staying quiet if not actually calm.

"OK," said Dr Reid again.  "Now just a tone.  Ahh."

"Ahhhhhh," said Scully, trying to hold the same note.  At least he
wasn't asking her to sing.

"Good," said Reid.  "Now a series of short tones."

"Hah.  Haah.  Haah.  Haah."  They came out breathy, for some reason.

"Good," said Reid again.  "Another round of silence, now."

Again she gestured silence so Mulder knew she wasn't distracted or
losing interest.

"Good.  Talk to him again."

Thank God.  *Thank you, God, for bringing him back again.*  She
picked up on her soothing babble.
 

Back in the ward, Mulder could scarcely stay awake long enough
to get back into bed.  She waited and watched him, turning it
all over in her mind.

*He's back.  He was disoriented for a while, but he definitely
recognised me in the EEG lab.  That business with the warm cup and
bowl is surely significant.  As though he associates warmth with
safety.*  He seemed to be in permanent child-mode: Scully's little
boy.  All right, she could be patient.
 

[continued in part 2]

}It's Me{ (2/2)
by Lee Burwasser <lee46b@gateway.net>
[front matter in part one]
 

Eventually, Dr Reid and Nurse Lane brought the EEG records and
they went over them.

"Normal resting rhythm in Wernke's area," said Scully.

"No sign of anything wrong, but no sign of any activity, either.
He's hearing normally," Reid pointed to the upper squiggle, "but
not processing words.  And here," he pulled out another sheet
and set it on top of the stack, "he's seeing normally, but
the angular gyrus is resting instead of active."

"Where's the nearest PET facility?"

"Portland, but will the Bureau finance it?"

*Not with Kersh peering over our shoulders.*  "Probably not, but
with a full suite of readings we can probably get someone
interested."

"I do believe that was a hint," said Reid, and turned to Lane.
"CAT scan and MRI as soon as we can squeeze him in."

"Speech therapist?" asked Lane.

"Let that wait," said Reid.  He glanced at Scully's swelling
abdomen and away again.

"I know I can't be with him during the CAT scan.  It may not be
as much of a problem, now that he's recognised me.  But how
we're going to tell him 'Hold your breath' . . ."

"Train him beforehand," suggested Lane.  "There's nothing wrong
with his hearing."

Reid nodded.  "So the speech therapist can't wait, after all."

Both of them went about their various tasks.  Scully debated
checking the pathology lab again when a sound in the doorway
called her attention to Agent Doggett.  When he caught her eye,
he tilted his head toward the corredor.  She followed him out.

In a quiet corner, he introduced her to agents Altamont and
Barton from the Salem Resident Agency.

Altamont asked both of them, "Does anybody know what we're
supposed to be doing, now that the missing people are back?"

"Besides saying 'No comment'," said Barton

"Nobody knows how they were taken, nobody knows how they were
returned, the reporters are lying in wait for us, and the SAC
in Portland sends the word down not to say anything about
'alien abduction'."

Scully sighed and shook her head.  "I'm under direct orders not
to use either of the A-words, but the Bellefleurans will use
whatever words suit them.  If they want to talk about . . .
'foreign kidnapping' . . . nobody can make them stop."

"The reporters are trying to set us and the Bellefleur cops by
the ears," said Barton.  "Do we think the locals are hysterical,
or lying?"

"Mmm.  Well, aside from the fact that mental and physical abuse
such as we know the captives suffered does interfear with
observation, even in trained officers, the . . . 'foreign
kidnapping' . . . scenario is very like a bad acid trip.  And
there are many psychedelics, both natural and synthetic.  A
judicious mix of drugs and hypnosis should scramble anyone's
memory, and by this time the drugs will have cleared out of the
system, leaving no physical trace."

"Look here," said Altamount.  "You're doing special tests on
these people.  Off the record, what are you looking for?"

"Off the record, trouble of the sort that's often associated
with this kind of disappearance.  Fortunately, they all test
out normal so far."

"*Strictly* off the record," said Barton, "why this flap about
'alien abduction'?"

Scully kept her face and voice expressionless.  "Strictly off
the record:  If you shoot someone and he bleeds green, hold
your breath and blow his head off.  You need to destroy the
brain stem, which is about here."  She demonstrated first on
Barton, then on Altamount.  "Remember that your eyes will be
stinging from toxic fumes.  Don't touch the body except with
instruments; it's corrosive."

Both Salem agents drew long breaths.  "OK," said Altamount.  "We
just say 'no comment'."

#

Agent Doggett turned his cell phone back on as he left the
hospital.  He understood why the rule, but it was a nuisance
all the same.

Halfway back to his hotel, his phone rang.

"Doggett."

"Why was your phone turned off, Agent Doggett?" asked Kersh
in a dangerous voice.

Doggett refused to squirm.  "Hospital regulation, sir.  Cell
phones interfear with their telemetry."

"I see."  Dismissing that, Kersh said rather than asked, "Who
is behind this talk of alien abduction.  Agent Scully?"

"No way, sir.  She has not used the A-words even to me."

"Then where *does* all this 'alien abduction' nonsense come
from?"

"The Bellefleurans.  We can't order *them* not to use the
A-words."

"What *are* you doing, then, Agent Doggett?"

"Agent Scully is caring for Agent Mulder.  The rest of us
are standing around saying 'No comment'."

"And what is wrong with Agent Mulder?"

"Same as the rest, plus aphasia."

"I want all of you back at your desks, you two and the Salem
agents as well."

"OPR won't back you on that, sir."

Kersh's voice was dangerous again.  "*Explain* yourself,
Agent Doggett!"

"Agent Mulder is effectively disabled. Ordering his personal
physician to abandon him is going too far.  OPR will carve you,
not Agent Scully."

"How long until he can be brought back to DC?"

"They're sending him somewhere for tests in a couple of days,
then he'll be released to Agent Scully's care."

"I'm having Portland recall the Salem agents now.  You two will
consider yourselves recalled as soon as Agent Mulder's tests
are done.  And I expect Agent Scully's interim report on Agent
Mulder's condition in 24 hours."  Click.

At the next stoplight, Doggett left a message for Dr Scully.
Since it would be passed along by hospital personnel, he worded
it diplomaticaly.

#

Scully decided to rough out her report and cover letter in
longhand so as to sit with Mulder.  With all the tests and
therapies on his schedule, he'd been moved from the ward to a
semi-private room; he had only one roommate at the moment, but
it was still not a good idea to be tapping computer keys when
patients were resting.  Few people found it as soothing as
Mulder did.

Cover letters, plural, she decided.  Copy to Skinner and -- did
she have the fax number of Mulder's lawyer, what was his name?
Danford, that was it: Curtis Danford.  He'd done the legal
paperwork on Mrs. Mulder's autopsy, and she'd spoken to him about
keeping up the rent on Mulder's apartment.  Wouldn't hurt to plan
on sending him a copy, she decided.  She'd check for his fax
number before she typed out the final draft.

She looked up at a soft rustling sound, and saw Mulder propped
on one elbow, looking at her.  She smiled at him and put the
paperwork on the bedside table.  Turning back, she found him
staring in total crogglement at her waist -- or where her waist
used to be.  It was funny, and it was adorable, and it was her
next challenge in nonverbal communication.  How do you tell a
man with global aphasia *this is our daughter, yours and mine*?

Mulder sat up and advanced a hesitant hand about halfway to her
before he lost momentum, or lost courage, and started to let it
drop.  *None of that,* she thought, and caught his hand in hers,
holding it against the swell of her abdomen while her other hand
cupped his cheek.  She knew her face was stretched in a
ridiculously wide smile.

Mulder sat dumbfounded, then surged to his feet and pulled her
close to him, only to let go and fall back in transparent fear of
hurting her -- or them.  Still grinning like the Cheshire Cat (or
so it felt), she stepped back into his embrace and leaned against
him.

Yes, indeed, Mulder was very good at nonverbal communication.
 

###
 

The next morning, neither Scully nor Mulder were in the ward
when Doggett arrived.  He tracked down Mulder, and to his
surprise did *not* find Scully with him.  Instead, an intense
young woman was apparently giving him breathing exercises.
Speech therapist, he hazarded, and went on hunting.

He and the Salem agents found her almost simultaneously, in the
office area where she was printing something off her laptop.
Altamount and Barton had stopped in to say goodby, and left in
a flurry of good wishes for their future cases and for Mulder's
recovery.  When they were gone, she closed up her laptop,
gathered up what she had printed, and headed for another bank of
office machines.

It didn't take rocket science to recognise a fax machine, nor to
deduce from the two pages left on the table while three went into
the machine that there were to be three faxed copies, each with
its own cover letter.  "One to Skinner . . .?"

"He *is* our immediate supervisor," she said.

"Yeah, I mean --  Who gets the third one?"

"Mulder's lawyer."

"When did you get palsy with him?"  He knew it was the wrong
thing to say, or the wrong way to say it, before the sentence
had fully left his mouth.

"Lost the transcript?" Scully growled.

"Damn it!  What does it take to *keep* you convinced?"

"Skinner gave you good advice.  You are not the head of the
X-files: you do not give me orders."

What else they might have said was lost to a call of "Dr
Scully?" from the doorway.

Doggett looked up and saw the intense young woman he'd
seen with Mulder earlier.  In his peripheral vision he
saw Scully wave.

"Here, Elaine," she said.  "Faxing."  When the young woman
had come up to them, Scully made formal introductions.
Sure enough, Elaine Thorne was a speech therapist.

"Agent Mulder is going to the CT lab now."

"Good," said Scully.  "I thought he would catch on."

"He's very good with nonverbal communication," said
Elaine.  (Scully flushed slightly.)  "Once I got him to
breathe in synchrony with me, I used a broad, obvious
gesture at first to signal holding his breath, then
switched to a pitch pipe."

"Sounds like Pavlov," said Doggett.

"No, no conditioning.  Just signals.  Though of course
Pavlov did have to communicate nonverbally with his
subjects."

"I'm going to finish the faxing," said Scully, "and head
over there.  Fourth floor, you said?"

"Yes," said Elaine absently, attention still on Doggett.
"Agent Doggett, will you be . . . interacting very much
with Agent Mulder?"

*Not if Scully can help it,* he thought sourly.  Aloud, he
only said, "We don't know yet."

"Because there are two rules you absolutely must keep in
mind when dealing with someone with aphasia."  She held up
her index finger and said, "He's not deaf."  She raised
her middle finger next to it: "He's not retarded."
 

#
Picture cascade:

}other rooms like this one{
}Herself{
}other big metal doughnuts{
}Herself{
}many big metal tubes{
}Herself{
#

In the scanning room, the CT technician was trying to
instruct Mulder nonverbally in what to expect and what was
needed of him.  He was clearly embarrassed at the acting
out and gesturing, and Mulder was cearly enjoying it
entirely too much.  "Mul-l-l-der-r-r," said Scully, giving
him a Mommy Look; she got back a not-really-repentant 'who
could resist?' face.  Letting out an exasperated/affectionate
sigh, she clapped her hands briskly.  Mulder meekly climbed
onto the table.

Elaine came up to him and blew a pitch pipe.  Mulder held
his breath, then flashed her a V-for-victory and a
mischevious grin.

At Scully's chuckle, he looked back to her.  She gestured
to herself and the window of the observation room, while
saying, "I'll be right over there in the observation room--"
then bent close and continued mock-ferociously, "so I'll see
if you get up to any more mischief!"

Scully, Doggett and Reid trooped over to the observation
room, while the tech and Elaine headed for the control room.
Scully got the feeling that Elaine wanted to discuss
something, but had decided to wait.  Fine; one thing at a
time.

#

No doubt a CAT scan was fascinating to someone who knew the
process, or knew the patient, but Doggett was bored silly.
The only thing he understood was that the tech would tell
Thorne to blow the pitch pipe whenever he would normally
tell the patient to hold his breath, and he never got to
hear that.

As soon as the test was over, Scully and the tech were back
in the scanning room.  Thorne was still observing, apparently.
Doggett decided to risk asking Doc Reid about Doc Scully's
condition.

"I assumed Agent Mulder was the father," said Reid, puzzled.

"Probably.  she hasn't said outright."

"But in any case, not you."  Reid's nonverbal communication
was good too: What business of yours is her pregnancy?

"I'm the one assigned to guard her back, while she's
tearing around the countryside."

"I haven't noticed her tearing about.  She stayed in the
hospital while you went with the search teams.  She left the
scanner room without argument, before we started the x-rays."

"She flew transcontinental to get here," said Doggett.

"First class, I trust."

"Yeah."

"As safe for her as for you."  Reid was looking a bit more
sympathetic, but no less stern.  "Agent, my grandmother
had nine pregnancies.  For each one, she did regular farm
chores right up until her water broke.  Now, typical office
workers today probably couldn't do my grandmother's chores
even if they weren't pregnant, but most of them stay at
their desks, doing what they *are* used to doing, well into
the third trimester.  Many stay on into the final month.
And some are still there the day before delivery.  For a
healthy woman, her OB is insurance."

As Doggett chewed on this, Thorne appeared in the scanner
room where Scully, Mulder, the technician and an orderly
were gathered at the table.  No need to see Mulder's face
to figure that he was refusing to get into the wheelchair.
It was written all over his body.  No need to see Scully's
face either; she was patience and determination
personified.  She might have to stand there the rest of
the day, but Mulder *was* going to get into that
wheelchair.  Eventually, he did, and the whole party left
the technician once more in charge of his realm.

#

Elaine stuck to Dr Scully until they had Mulder back in bed
and the rest had dispersed.  She gestured the older woman
away from both patients.  They could have spoken
confidentially next to Mulder, but that would have been
more than rude.  Not that she was about to be the picture
of courtesy to Dr Scully.

"Dr Scully," she began, "you're very good at nonverbal
communication too, at least with Agent Mulder.  I suppose
an investigator gets into the habit of *not* communicating
with all and sundry.  But I've noticed . . ."  Despite her
own observation, she tried to guage the effect her words
were having on the other.  "I've noticed that you tend to
treat him like a child."

To her surprise, the federal agent merely nodded.

"That's . . . not usually a good idea," Elaine went on.
"Anyone who's treated like a child  can't help but feel
disempowered.  And a patient who feels he's lost control
of his life, that other people make decisions for him
without even considering his views, is not going to make
the best or fastest recovery."

"An adult patient," said Dr Scully.  She sighed, looked
across at the patient, then back at Elaine.  "In
confidence," she said, and her eyes were cold steel as
she waited for Elaine's response.

"In confidence," Elaine promised.  She almost made a
cross-my-heart gesture.

"In confidence, Mulder was emotionally traumatised in his
pre-teens.  Too much grief and guilt for a child his age,
and his parents, well, they weren't coping all that well
with their own."  She drew a long breath.  "Under the right
stress --or the wrong stress-- he reverts to a traumatised
twelve-year-old.  His adult intellect, and some of his
adult defenses, but a child's need for security.  And a
need for a child's security."

"I see."  She, too, glanced to the patient and back.  "He
probably needs it for the moment, but wean him as soon as
you think he's strong enough."

"He'll make it plain.  Mulder is *very* good at nonverbal
communication."  Dr Scully didn't seem to realise that she
was stroking her swelling abdomen.

Elaine blushed, stammered, and finally blurted, "When is
the MRI scheduled?"

"Not today is all I know.  I'll have to ask Nurse Lane."
 

###
 

*Thank God for small favors,* thought Doggett.  After too
many days, they were going home at last, though via
Portland, and Scully had let him take charge of the first
leg of the trip.  He had picked out and inspected the
rental car, and he would drive it while Scully stayed in
back with Mulder.

They would pause at every rest stop on Interstate 5, and
Scully had some variety of motorman's friend with 'Jane'
fittings that he'd never heard of, and was happy to stay
ignorant.  He knew far more about brain imaging than he
wanted to, and they were going to stop in Portland to
take pictures of Mulder's metabolism.  'Jane' fittings
were really beyond the call of duty.

#
}cars and cars and cars and Herself{
}driving with Herself asleep in the other seat{
}waking to watch Herself drive{
}roads unrolling and Herself beside him{
#

"It's preposterous," said Dr Vincent, pointing to the
offending spots.  "Broca's and Wernicke's areas, the
Arcuate Fasciculus, the Angluar and Supramarginal Gyrii:
they all sit there metabolising normally, tissue
maintaining itself, ready to go into action . . ."

"Only it doesn't," said Scully.

"Only it doesn't.  Here, where you're talking to him,
Wernicke's area should be lit up, just like the hearing
area here.  Nope, normal resting metabolism.  It's like
something put a metabolic padlock on his entire
linguistic apparatus."

"Aliens?" said Doggett expressionlessly.

"The saying goes," said Scully careful to show as little
expression, "'When you hear hoofbeats, look first for horses,
not zebras.'  That's what we're doing now.  If we run out of
places to look for horses and still don't find any, we'll
look for zebras."

"Trouble is," said Vincent, "there aren't any zebras, either."

"No research that might bear results in a decade or so?"

"How do you mean?"

Scully spoke carefully.  "There is a group of powerful men who
have access to biomedical technology a decade or two in advance
of our most extensively fitted hospitals.  Given that lead time,
could this be their work?  Do you know of anything out on the
fringe, so to speak, that might relate to this?"

Dr Vincent slowly but definitely shook his head.

Doggett finally said, "OK, means is a dead end and opportunity
is wide open.  Who has motive?"

"The Consortium," she said, adding for Dr Vincent's benefit,
"That group of powerful men.  Mulder gets in their way, but
they've avoided killing him, because one of them has some sort
of obsession about him.  Spender may or may not be alive, or
still in power, or there might be others with the obsession
or with their own reasons not to kill Mulder, but this would
suit the rest of the Consortium.  It destroys him as an
investigator, while throwing a bone to those who want him
alive."  She hadn't seriously thought about Mulder's
professional future before; busying herself with his
condition had kept it at bay.  Until now.

"What about the Bounty Payers?  Whoever's behind the Bounty
Hunter?"

"Yes, he has to be working for, or with, some team or other."
She thought, and said, "It's stretching, but part of their
pattern is giving their victims amnesia.  But eventually they
do remember, even with average memories.  Mulder has a
photographic memory.  Instead of trying to fight that, they
could just decide to keep him from talking about it -- or
anything else!"

"Or," said Doggett, apparently thinking aloud, "They might do
the Consortium a favor while doing themselves one, too.  Or
doing another of their experiments."

At her response, Mulder made a distressed coo and held her,
rocking slightly.  She let him, and to hell with their
audience.  Dr Vincent knew about aphasia, and Doggett
mattered a lot less now that her *partner* was found.  After
a moment she pulled away enough to look him in the face, and
received the wistful smile of a child.
 

finis
 
 
 

AUTHOR's NOTE:  Apologies to any readers who are or know
speech pathologists.  I collapsed a couple of specialists into Dr Reid,
and I know nothing about any of them.