Title: Changes 

Author: 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 rememberance, 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 nightstand 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 in his room 
wiring a bomb into the a/c unit. Scully was able to convince the 
charge nurse that sufficient danger existed and they rolled a 
nervous, questioning  Mulder out in his bed. Two nurses' aides 
brought his IV pumps and monitor carts.

"I feel like  that guy that was going to St. Yves, " Mike grinned 
as he pressed Mulder down in bed with one powerful hand on the 
agent's chest below the IV site and helped push the bed with the 
other, "You know, kits, cats, sacks, wives- who was going to St.  
Yves?"

Scully found herself looking at the huge man in astonishment. Her 
mind was entirely occupied with tragedy and impending disaster, 
and he was recalling corny poetry.  "You've been around Mulder 
too long," she sighed.

"Why ma'am, I believe I'll take that as a compliment," Mike 
drawled in pure Texan with a twinkle in his eye.

Scully looked at him in sudden, sharp curiosity, "Why do you like 
him?" she demanded.  Mulder worked so hard to keep others at bay, 
it was difficult to understand how this big athlete had seen 
though the façade. She was intrigued.

After a thoughtful pause, Benson replied in his carefully 
cultivated, unaccented Bureau voice. "He's just so... Texan, 
Agent Scully. Hard-headed, hard working and... honest.  We Texans 
like that in a person."

Scully let a long silence develop as she considered the big man 
across Mulder's body from her. It impressed her that he wasn't 
uncomfortable with it. Mulder fidgeted under her hands, as she 
fixed Mike Benson with a thoughtful, cautionary look.

"Mike," she said into the silence she had let fall, "Just call me 
Scully. And I'm glad you like him. He's worth the effort most 
days, but you know he can be... difficult, and," her eyes 
sparkled with incoming mischief, "you'd better be willing to 
believe two impossible things before breakfast every day if 
you're going to hang with him."

"Yes ma'am," the Texan said softly with a warm grin.

"Now what?" Scully redirected her attention to the charge nurse 
who was looking on her actions unfavorably. She had vetoed moving 
Mulder, so Scully had comandeered a couple of aides and done it 
anyway. "Agent Scully, you can't just come in here and move 
patients whenever you please..."

She tuned the rant out, feeling even more uneasy. She was sure 
Kersh had already gotten an earful. She would get his dressing 
down later, if her hunch proved wrong. Kersh was ex-navy, and she 
was certain that the AD wished he had access to captain's mast 
for the two mavericks he had inherited from an ex-marine. He 
would have liked to see her and Mulder scraping paint off hulls 
or sludge from the bilges. She could imagine serving under Kersh 
had been a rough tour.

Then the event that obviated her worry about repercussions for 
her behavior occurred.  It was the raid all over again, A dull 
boom sounded from the room where Mulder had been, the closed door 
bulged out and the glass observation window exploded into the ICU 
center. Nurses, aides and outraged charge nurse alike screamed in 
terror as shards, splinters and chips of brick, metal, glass and 
wallboard blew into their ordered world, forever changing the way 
they saw their job and their work environment. Robin Cassavetes 
looked at Dana Scully in shock, blood drooling from cuts that 
dotted her face.

Told you so, Scully thought in triumph as she leaned over the 
desk front and shook the ward clerk's arm sharply. "Call security 
and maintenance. Get them up here RIGHT NOW!" The shaken woman 
roused from her confusion to nod and punch buttons on her phone.

"We need to get him to a safehouse," Mike was at Scully's elbow. 

"You're right," she agreed, remembering that he had shielded 
Mulder's body with his own, "But first, let's see if you're 
alright," she turned him and noted that his suit coat had 
protected him adequately. His neck and head were dotted with 
spots of red, but nothing serious and she asked him to go back to 
a vaguely excited Mulder as she checked on the nurses and aides 
who had been on the periphery of the blast. The event hadn't gone 
unnoticed by her partner; with all the dust and semtex scent in 
the air, he knew what had happened.

Not only security and maintenance, but two doctors and three 
nurses arrived on the run.  Scully gave the quick-thinking ward 
clerk a thumbs up and a smile as she went to help Mike with a 
writhing, yelling Mulder. He was trying to get out of bed, 
wriggling like a snake in Mike's grasp. 

"Bomb!" Scully finally made sense of that one word spoken clearly 
among the melee of mangled sounds and something that sounded like 
her name. She took his face between her hands and stopped him 
from throwing his head around, tapped three times definitely on 
his chest. He calmed and, "Go''a ge' ou''a here," he declared. 
"Sa'ehou'."

"I'm on it," Mike said, cell phone to ear, shivering in 
involuntary, primal fright at his second near miss in four days 
and at Mulder's fey understanding of what had just taken place, 
"Donovan's sending a car for us," he reported.

She nodded to him and began issuing orders for Mulder to be freed 
of all his tubes, monitors and IV. The doctors looked at her in 
surprise, but the ward clerk calmly located Mulder's chart and 
handed it to her to document the order.Not precisely sure of what 
was happening to him, Mulder fought the process of getting him 
ready to leave the hospital. The medical part of preparing him to 
leave was mostly uncomfortable to some degree and downright 
painful at times. Dressing him was like fighting an octopus at 
first as he  misunderstood what they were trying to do and 
squawked about all the unfamiliar hands on him; then, he caught 
on- started trying to help them- and it got worse.

Despite the discomfort, Mulder had been happy to get rid of the 
various lines and the catheter, but he was concerned about the 
procedure of removing the central IV line.  There was no way to 
tell him that it took long minutes of pressure on the site to 
prevent hemorrhaging from the deep puncture. He complained about 
the weight of Regina's hands on his chest, but Mike's hand on his 
shoulder convinced him to remember his manners.  Another nurse 
deflated the catheter and he shouted in pain as she drew it out 
of him. The bedbound agent railled at them, unintelligible except 
for strong emotion.  Scully looked to Mike who so far had the 
best track record understanding him as his language deteriorated.

"You don't want to know," he shook his head, "Actually, I don't 
know what he said, and I don't want to know.  I do know that it 
hurts like hell when those things come out," he grinned 
sheepishly.

Mulder was further distressed when several pairs of hands began 
to pull his boxers and dust-streaked jeans on him. He held still 
as Scully rolled socks hurriedly onto his feet and began to work 
his sneakers on. Then, he tried to help as Mike braced him up for 
Carol to remove his gown and pull a  scrub smock over his head. 
His head lolled in disorientation, and Scully got a basin to his 
mouth before he could ruin the only street clothes he had with 
him.  Nothing came up, but he was miserable, and she knew the car 
ride would be worse. She considered giving him a dose of 
Dramamine, but they would be at the safehouse before it even had 
time to have significant effect; he didn't have much left in his 
stomach anyway, she thought guiltily as she contemplated how 
miserable a ride it would be for him. With no visual input and a 
scrambled vestibular system, he was going to be carsick for sure.

"Couple of doses of phenergan and demerol," a doc named Sims 
handed her a handful of ampoules and syringes as Mike lifted her 
still retching partner into a wheelchair and pulled his aircasted 
hands into his lap.

 Mulder kept slumping bonelessly down, and she was afraid the big 
agent would have to carry him again. "Hold a press conference," 
Scullly called out to the doctors as she ran to catch up with her 
partner, "tell them Mulder has been taken to an unspecified 
location to avoid risking the other patients; that will prevent 
another bombing," I hope, she added silently.

Mike and Randy Connors had just gotten a very disoriented Mulder 
into the back seat of a fleet sedan when she arrived at the 
outpatient doors. Mike got in beside him and motioned for her to 
get in the front. He was already reaching around Mulder to fasten 
his seatbelt and had one hand on his chest, pressing him upright 
and giving him a reasurring presence. Scully flushed at the tiny 
spear of ... jealousy, she realized in amazement, that went 
through her. Someone else giving Mulder the sense of balance and 
security she normally provided for him led her to reevaluate her 
feelings for the man who was her partner. 

If Mike noticed her sudden grimace, he never said; Randy was 
already rolling when she pulled her leg in and shut the door.  
"Kevin Scherelli is flanking us," he reported to her, "and Jim 
Adams is at the safehouse on 18th Avenue. The house is secure."

"What's the security arrangement?" she wanted to know whether she 
should be prepared to resist ISU barbs.

"Kevin and I have days outside," Jim and Paula Barnett from 
Quantico have nights. You and Mike are internal days and nights."

Donovan was doing something right. Scully nodded acceptance of 
that information and looked over her shoulder at Mulder. He was 
upright with Mike's support and tense, the visible part of his 
face drained of color. His throat bobbed as he swallowed 
convulsively, and Mike got the basin and a stolen washcloth 
ready. "Any word where Grant is now?"

"Not from our end," Randy said as he turned onto a quiet, oak-
lined street. "What does Mulder say?"    

"That he is escalating," Scully returned quietly, resting her 
head against the seat and closing her eyes.

"Well he is that," Randy agreed, turning into a driveway and 
aiming a remote at the closed garage door. "He hit Senator Hale's 
home in Falls Church last night. Did Sp- Mulder 'predict' that 
he'd be a target in the hospital?"

That woke her up. "No. He had no idea that a newspaper article 
about the raid would mention him by name. That's against 
protocol. I'd like to know what the hell Kersh was thinking 
giving  Mulder's name and location out for public use," Scully 
muttered darkly, glancing back to check on her partner who was 
steady in Mike's embrace."As to who predicted the explosion at 
the hospital... I did." And she smiled sweetly at Randall Connors 
in a way that made icicles tingle along his back.

Connors eased the car into the garage closing the door behind 
them to prevent anyone outside from seeing who exited the car. 
The speed with which Scully and Benson had expedited Mulder from 
the hospital made it unlikely that Grant had surveilled and 
followed them, and their backdoor man reported no tails, but they 
were guarding Mulder's safety carefully. He might be the best 
hope of catching  Paul Allen Grant, the DCBomber. Meanwhile, the 
'best hope' was swinging his head around and straining against 
his seatbelt as the engine was silenced and doors opened and 
slammed. 

"Sa'hou'?" he croaked as Mike unfastened him.

"Yeah," Mike quickly tapped and was surprised when Mulder turned 
to exit the car without help floundering, but determined. 
"Someone get him!" the big agent shouted as he saw his charge 
attempt to stand and become wobbly.

"I got 'im!" Randy Connors made the grab as Mulder started to 
slide down, and missed as his quarry shied away from the 
unfamiliar and necessarily rough handling. He managed to impede 
Mulder's fall, turning it to a slide down the side of the car 
until the helpless agent sat down with a grunt against the wheel. 
By that time, Mike was standing beside his charge with a wry grin 
at the agent who was jerking in anger and startlement.

"Smart, Mulder," he lauded ironically and reached down to place 
one powerful hand on his chest.

"Mi'?" the slumped man questioned.

"Yep, get ready to ride, Mulder," he quipped as he reached under 
the smaller man's arms and lifted, heaving  him over his 
shoulder, legs and arms swinging. His burden mumbled something, 
but did not struggle.

Scherelli, holding the door, nodded a greeting to his co-worker, 
"The bed in the middle bedroom is ready for him."

"Thanks, Kevin," Mike shifted Mulder and climbed the steps into 
the house, "not that he's going to sleep." 

The trip inside was interrupted as Mulder's stomach muscles 
heaved Nothing came up but a thin string of slimy drool, and Mike 
counted his suit as ruined anyway. Scully was ready with the 
injection to still his nausea when Mike rolled him onto the bed 
and pulled his pants off one hip. Mulder fought them spastically, 
his inner ear too disturbed for him to make effective movements. 
He yowled at the sting of the needle, and muttered unintelligible 
curses that seemed to contain his now-familiar mangled form of 
Scully's name. Mike covered him and sat on the edge of the bed 
next to him, preventing escape as well as providing a reassuring 
presence. Scully stood beside them, her face stony until the 
anti-emetic finally fulfilled its other duty, lulling Mulder into 
restless sleep. Only then did she move and start out of the room.

"Scully...?" Mike called after her, unsure of her plans and 
needing to know.

"I'm going back to the hospital," she answered tiredly from the 
doorway, "He'll need antibiotics and pain meds."

Her fatigue was plainly visible, and Mike stood up to go to her. 
He had promised Skinner to look after her as well, and Mulder was 
quickly sinking into sleep. "Jim can pick them up. I'll get him 
on his cell, and you call the hospital to arrange what he needs 
to get."

She studied him blankly for a moment, obviously tired enough for 
her mind to be fuzzy.  After a while, she nodded, "Okay. But I 
need to..." she started back toward the nearly unconscious form 
in the bed.

"You need to rest," Mike dared touch her, engulfing her slim 
shoulders in his hands and turning her back to the door, "Take 
any of the other bedrooms, but lie down and rest.  You're not 
going to be any good to him if you're exhausted." He was playing 
a hunch that those would be the magic words to get her to recoup 
her strength. 

"Okay," Dana Scully agreed with one last steely look up into Mike 
Benson's face, "But stay with him. He's not really asleep in the 
normal sense, and he'll know when you leave him. He'll think 
we've deserted him."

"I'll stay with him; I promise," Mike squeezed her shoulders 
lightly, feeling the muscles begin to relax. "And I'll call you 
if he needs you." 

Those were  magic words, too, he realized. He had come to believe 
that Dana Scully did not fully understand that she was connected 
to Mulder by personal as well as professional heartstrings. It 
was an office joke and speculation ran rampant, but she was 
dedicated to her partner, and only the assurance that he was 
being watched by someone she trusted would allow her to rest. 
With that promise from him, she drew away and shuffled down the 
hallway, drawing out her cell phone, presumably to call for 
Mulder's medicines .  Mike nodded to Connors, who had watched the 
entire sequence unnoticed by Scully.

"Hey, Ran, make sure she gets to bed okay; she's out on her feet. 
And see that Jim gets those medicines, okay?" he tried to take 
the sting out of a junior agent giving orders to someone who 
outranked him. Randall Connors never mentioned it; he just waved 
affirmation and headed back out. And Mike Benson, deacon of his 
church, member of a Masonic lodge and card-carrying FBI agent 
paused a moment to consider how honored he felt that Dana Scully 
would surrender herself to sleep simply because he was awake and 
aware of Fox Mulder.

He was heading back to Mulder as light faded from the room, 
leaving it in twilight. His charge was twitching from time to 
time, mumbling under his breath and grunting as he tried to move 
out from under the pall of the drug. Gingerly, Mike divested 
himself of his shredded jacket and settled beside Mulder on the 
bed, not knowing what to expect- fireworks or recognition- he 
hadn't shaved in 10 hours, and his signature aftershave had worn 
off. Whether it was recognition, he couldn't tell, Mulder didn't 
say his name, but it was acceptance. The drugged agent stilled 
and began to breathe quietly.  Emotionally and physically tired, 
Mike stretched out alongside Mulder, resting a hand on his chest 
and planning to just close his eyes for a few moments. If Mulder 
moved, he'd know it.

The next thing he knew, he was awakened by someone's hand on his 
arm and jerked awake in mild panic. Scully was standing at the 
bedside, dressed now in jeans and a t-shirt proclaiming the 
Grateful Dead. Pale, early morning sunshine poured across the 
bed, and there was a wonderful smell of food in the air. He 
looked around worriedly to check on Mulder and heard Scully's 
soft laugh as he panicked big time at the man's absence.

"He's okay," she smiled as Mike rolled to his feet in rumpled 
clothes and stood before he was fully awake. "He's sitting at the 
table, eating pancakes and feeding Randy notes as fast as he can 
write."

"They're understanding him?"

"Mostly," Scully said, "but they need to rotate out. Donovan and 
Chuck Agee are coming out to replace them. 

"Let me get a shower and shave," Mike rubbed his scratchy face, 
"I'll be right out."

"Mulder's kit is on the sink," she said as she left, "You can use 
his razor."

The three agents from Domestic Terrorism were cleaning off the 
table and getting ready to depart when Scully returned to the 
kitchen. She thanked them for their help in getting Mulder 
settled, and was surprised at Scherelli's response.

"He's okay, y'know," Scully surveyed the tall blonde for a longer 
time than was polite, and he ducked his head in discomfort, "I 
mean, you hear the tales, and....well, he's everything the ISU 
guys said; he is spooky. But that's just the way it seems. He's 
so damned smart no one can keep up with him, and you know those 
ISU pukes like to think they have the market on brains in the 
bureau.  Hell, I used to work with Reggie Purdue's gang after 
Mulder left to take the X-Files, and from what they said, 
Mulder's just a slightly weird, whiz kid. He's never treated any 
of us badly, even though we all know he got snatched from the X-
Files because he wouldn't deny what he saw."

Scherelli paused, bringing green eyes the color of spring leaves 
up to meet hers solidly. 

"What did he see, Scully?"

Memories of bone-deep cold and terrifying almost images that 
scared her beyond her capacity to think rationally flitted out 
from the recesses of her mind where she thought she had hidden 
them forever, and her face frightened a man who had ten years 
experience with rooms, buildings and people who went boom. Kevin 
Scherelli laid one long-fingered hand on the petite woman's 
forearm.

"It's okay, Scully," he said quietly, "You don't have to..."

"No, Kevin," she shook her head a little and felt her face 
soften, knew his voice had been a lifeline back to the warmth and 
light where her partner sat blind and deaf to her. "I don't know 
what he saw. I know what he said he saw, but I was unconscious. I 
didn't see it.... I couldn't back him up."

There, it was out. The terrible truth that was the cause of them 
being severed from the X-Files. Dana Scully wouldn't back her 
partner up. Couldn't testify to what she had not witnessed- 
couldn't take it on faith. Faith in him.  She was the reason  he 
bitched and moaned and kept everyone at arms' length. She was the 
reason there were no Mulder smiles, no corny humor, no gleeful 
explorations into the cases no one else wanted to consider. 
Scherelli's voice brought her back this time.

"Hang in there Scully. Mulder's given us more this morning that 
we came up with in the past three days. We can't hand it to 
Donovan as his. Kersh would have Wade's hide and ours," he raised 
almost invisible blonde eyebrow in a sardonic expression, "We can 
work his predictions into ours and come out with something that 
will help us figure out where this bastard will hit next and 
maybe catch him before he blows up another...." He stopped, 
seeing the pain and guilt on the redhead's face.

"How many?" she asked, and he knew what she meant.

"Dana," Randall Connors leaned over the table in front of Mulder 
and clasped her shoulder, "It's not your fault." He nodded toward 
the silent man beside him. "It's not his fault"

"Yeah," she decided with a tiny, stubborn twist of her neck, 
"It's not. But in twenty-four hours he's going to start asking 
questions and wanting answers, and you won't be able to make him 
believe. Like you said, he's a weird whiz-kid, and he believes 
what he wants.  He will feel that it's his fault that Grant 
hasn't been caught and people have died because of that." That 
was Mulder- and the legacy of Patterson. "Then you will see some 
profiling."

Then they would see Spooky Mulder at his most flagrant weirdness. 
He wouldn't sleep, he wouldn't eat, and he would turn into 
something almost not human in front of them.  Then they would be 
tested. Could they watch him and still be so sanguine about him.  
Could they be his colleagues then? Could they be his... friends? 
He was going to need them as both. Only time would tell. She gave 
the tired agents her best smile.

"We'll see. Thanks for all your help, guys. Go get some rest. 
We're going to need it when the bandages come off his eyes. If 
you really want to help those people, bring back the latest 
information and be ready to stand by him."

They nodded, their eyes telling her they knew that what she 
proposed was strictly forbidden. It said a lot for the men who 
had only known Mulder for three months as a man of weird mystery 
that they had accepted him as part of their team. They were alive 
because of him. He was weird, but he was family now; they had 
been through a rite of passage with him, and he had tried to 
protect them even before he had given his body for them. 
Sacrificial lamb, that was Mulder, sacrificed for his sister, for 
Dana Scully. And on the third day, he would arise.

Mulder lifted his head in question, stirring his covered hands on 
the table before him as chairs scraped and Scully's light touch 
advised him of her persence. "Ran and Jim leavin'?" his words 
were almost normal.

"Yeah," she tapped and looked up as Mike appeared in the doorway, 
smelling of soap and aftershave. Dressed in the same rumpled suit 
paints and his t-shirt, he filled the doorway.

"Mi'!" Mulder yelped with a smile curving below the bandaging, 
"C'mon in an' have some pancake'. "

"Don't mind if I do," Mike eased his bulk into the room with a 
considering look at Scully. 

She looked drained despite having slept most of the night for the 
first time in two days.  He tapped three times on Mulder's 
shoulder and glanced away from his partner.  "What's the matter 
Scully," he asked in the same tone he had been known to lay out 
plays to his line mates.

She sighed and her face lifted, as if telling him would heal her. 
"When the bandages come off , Mike, he's going to be Spooky 
Mulder in full phase. He won't sleep. He won't eat. 
He'll....you'll think he's....crazy. I've only seen it once, and 
if I  hadn't been his partner for nearly three years, I'd have 
thought he had gone off his rocker. The only thing is, when he's 
like that, there's no one better at catching murderers. I can 
only assume it will be the same for domestic terrorist bombers. 
You might not like him very well....he may...scare you."

Mike cut into a stack of dripping pancakes and fixed Scully with 
a stare that heartened her. "Agent Scully, I ain't never been 
afraid of anything but the Devil and my momma's frown. I've been 
razor strapped, bit by a mule and buried under eight hundred 
pounds of living flesh." He paused to look at a silent Mulder. "I 
think I can handle one spooky white man." Mike finished his 
breakfast and washed it down with a glass of water. He pulled a 
clean plate out of the cupboard and stacked three pancakes on it, 
handed it to Scully.  "Here, eat something; I'm going to get 
Mulder cleaned up."

Mulder got up easily at Mike's tug on his elbow, but wobbled 
uncertainly once he was on his feet. Mike took his arm and 
steadied him, walking him out of the kitchen with an arm around 
his back. Scully watched them and suddenly succumbed to an 
uncontrollable fit of giggles. Pale Mulder held up by the dark 
giant at his side. Oh for a camcorder.  Oh for Mulder's eidetic 
memory- she was sure this would eventually fade from her mind or 
be buried underneath a pile of subducting minutiae. Her spirits 
lifted, she swirled butter and syrup on Mike's offering to her 
and enjoyed a cup of coffee with her hotcakes. Mike, still the 
athlete, did not drink coffee or sodas, she had noticed.

A noise in the garage moved her to rise, reaching for her weapon 
wedged at her back in the waistband of her jeans. Wade Donovan 
and Chuck Agee paused on the stoop in view of the window in the 
door to let her identify them. Only when Scully's hand left her 
back did they move to enter. Donovan sniffed the air 
appreciatively.

"Kevin's been cooking, I see," he nodded. "Did you know his 
father is a master chef in Paris?"

"How on earth did he end up in the FBI," Scully asked in blatant 
amazement as she put her plate and cup in the dishwasher.

"No one is sure," Donovan pinched a bit of leftover pancake, "but 
I've done my best to keep him in Domestic Terror- otherwise the 
rest of us would have long since died of fast food poisoning."

"Maybe that's what's wrong with Mulder," she mused ironically, "I 
gained ten ponds the first week I worked with him before I got 
wise and started bringing my lunch."

"He sure doesn't look like a diet of burgers and pizza," Agee was 
surprised.

"Runs it off," Scully offered with a shrug to explain her 
partner's slim build. Sooner or later, they would learn the 
truth. Mulder on a case, didn't eat. And he tended to run more 
and farther than ususal. By the end of the Mostow case, he had 
been skeletal.  His appetite so far had been fairly good; he ate 
what he was fed unless he was nauseated, and as long as he was 
sitting or lying his stomach was willing to entertain food and 
drink. She and Mike had been loading him with as many calories as 
he would take. The time was coming when he would refuse to eat 
and give back what he did eat.

Mike was just combing Mulder's damp hair where it sprang out over 
the bandaging when Scully took Donovan in to advise his presence. 
Mulder was seated quietly on the toilet, a towel beneath him, 
another covering his lap. He was clean shaven and his skin glowed 
pinkly as if he had been scubbed, but half-naked, it was too 
apparent how thin he was.  Ribs and collar bones stood out in 
blatant testimony to what else this case had  taken from him. 
Mulder was surprisingly patient, but when Mike  paused too long 
to converse with his SAC, Mulder wriggled his long, bony feet on 
the bath mat.

"Mi', who's here?" he questioned, lifting head and scenting the 
air. "Scu''y?'

Donovan looked appalled at the blurred speech, but Mike tapped 
twice on his bare shoulder and moved to start his arms through 
yesterday's scrub smock. "No, Mulder," he spoke companionably and 
fixed Scully with a suggestive eye, "Why don't you go home and 
get a change of clothes. His keys are in his jeans, can you go to 
his place and get him a change, too? He can wear these clothes 
until you get back, but he told me he'd like to have something 
clean."

Scully knew what Mike was doing, and she was grateful. Going to 
get Mulder and herself a change of clothing got her away from 
Donovan, made it less likely that he'd quiz her about what Mulder 
had been doing- whether he had been profiling. She started to 
leave and Mike's voice made her turn back, "And if you could, 
swing by my place and pick me up a change. I live in the 
townhouse group down the street from your apartment. House number 
is 3576," he grinned at her expression as he tossed her his key, 
Everything is in the dresser in the bedroom." 

During the next eighteen hours, Mike transcribed Mulder's 
theories about where Grant would strike. He sat in an armchair 
and talked, drank juice and milk at some of Mike's offerings, 
refusing to eat, and allowed Mike to toilet him with fastidious 
aversion to someone else handling him. Mulder seemed lost in a 
separate world, not even recognizing when Scully came to sit and 
take notes while Mike ate and stretched his muscles, flinching in 
surprise when either of them touched him. He set up a great 
outcry and struggled when they tried to get him to bed. It became 
easier to just let him sit and meditate about whatever was on his 
mind. Sometimes they understood him, and sometimes his words were 
entirely incomprehensible.

Scully gave up about midnight, and at one a.m.  Mike rolled 
Mulder into the double bed and sat down beside him as if he were 
a recalcitrant child- which, come to think of it, he currently 
resembled in his behavior. It was finally a wrestling match that 
Mike won.  He held the skeletal man down easily and put a palm 
over Mulder's mouth,  covering his entire jaw.

"Shut up, Agent Mulder," Mike advised him congenially and fell 
asleep beside a fidgeting Mulder. A heavy arm across Mulder's 
chest kept him anchored, and he, too, slept after a while as Mike 
snored strongly beside him.

Morning brought a Mulder  who willingly accepted aid in toileting 
and cooperated with being shaved and dressed in fresh clothes. 
Mike's cell sang, and he advised Scully that Dr. Wilson had 
arrived. Shortly, Agent Randy Connors escorted the small, wiry 
man into the livingroom and removed his blindfold. He paled as 
Mike Benson moved up to him and informed him that he wiould have 
to be searched, but submited to being patted down and his medical 
bag being riffled thoroughly . Mike finished and apologized to 
the weakly grinning man.

"Sorry doc," Mike told him, "but we have to be careful."

"No problem," Jack Wilson caught his breath and tried to compose 
his face. "Doug Morrison told me this would probably the most 
interesting consult of my life. Is my patient ready?"

"Oh he's been ready," Scully quipped, "He just hasn't realized 
it." Mulder had asked about his hands. He had never given them an 
opportunity to tell him that he would have his sight and hearing 
back. If Scully hadn't been looking so forward to his reaction 
then the bandages came off, she would have been sad.

That earned her a puzzled look as Wilson took up his bag and 
followed Benson into the bedroom. His patient was slouched  in an 
overstuffed  armchair by a window, basking in the warm swath of 
sunshine that bathed the room. Dressed in jeans and gray t-shirt, 
he looked more like a college student than an FBI agent. His 
aircasted arms lay inert in his lap. Indolently relaxed in the 
sunlight, the man stiffened as soon as they entered the room, and 
Wilson stopped in reaction to the sudden intensity and danger he 
felt.

"Scu'y?" Mulder asked, raising his head in question. "Mi'?"

"How does he know we're here?" he asked the two agents with him. 
"We're not close enough for him to smell aftershave or 
perfume..."

"Bare feet," Scully pointed out, brushing past the doctor into 
the room. "He feels the vibrations of footsteps on the floor," 
she tapped one foot on the hardwood for emphasis as she went to 
the alert man who was now sitting up in the chair, sunlight 
forgotten, poised for movement.

"Pull the shade, please," the opthamologist asked, "He will need 
it as dim as we can make it. "Jack Wilson was glad for Agent 
Scully's presence as he moved to snip the bandages from Agent 
Mulder's head. She stood on the other side of the patient, one 
small hand resting on his shoulder. The other man, the 
intimidating Agent Benson moved to pull the shade, bringing the 
room into twilight. Catching his breath, he took out his bandage 
shears and slipped the safety tip under the layer of gauze on 
Mulder's temple.

He was prepared for the startle reaction, but not for Mulder to 
bat his hands away in a lightning motion.

"Who are you!" Mulder growled, his words softened only by his 
mangled pronunciation as he ducked his head back in avoidance and 
raised his arms in defense of unseen hands.

"Wrong question, Mulder," Mike intervened matter-of-factly, 
gathering Mulder's  arms together in one hand. "Can't be answered 
by yes or no."

And there was no resisting the power of the man who could bench 
press five hundred pounds. Mulder recognized his strength 
immediately and relaxed until he was only stiff in indignation, 
but he yelped and jerked his head back from the feel of the cold 
steel against his skin as the opthamologist tried once more to 
cut the bandages. "Mi' wha's goin' on!?" he pleaded this time.

Dr. Wilson looked at the alarmed man with compassion and turned 
to the slight redhead whom he had been told was a medical doctor- 
albeit a pathologist. "Here," he held out the rescued shears, 
"You do it. I think he'll be more comfortable with you. I'll do 
the eye exam when he can see that I mean him no harm."

"You mean he'll be able to see as soon as the bandages come off?" 
Mike asked, now just holding Mulder's aircasted hands lightly in 
his.

"Should be able to," Wilson nodded, "According to the ER report , 
there was no lasting damage to the eye." He looked in question to 
Scully as she left the room.

"Be right back, " her voice rang around the corner and she 
returned with a tiny bottle that she used to spritz  her wrist 
with a fresh coat of her trademark perfume. Now, as she 
apporached her partner, he relaxed, and his lips curved into a 
smile.

"Ah, Scully," he smiled.

Mike released his arms , but stood by to insure good behavior. 
Scully tapped a 'yes' on Mulder's shoulder and cupped his face in 
one hand to brace it as she drew a finger of the opposite hand 
down across the bandages on his head.

"Gonna ta' t' ban'age' off?" he murmured the right question.

"Right in one," she humored him with a tight smile, but he pushed 
at her with his casted arms.

"'Wai'  'm I gonna loo' okay?" he wondered.

"Oh shit," she swore softly. He thought that he would still be 
blind and that his eyes and face might have an aversive 
appearance.  Scully hurriedly tapped 'yes,' and began to cut in 
earnest. The layers parted easily, and she pulled them away, 
removing the eye patches that lay underneath.

"Here, " Mike reached over to physically position her in front of 
Mulder as she began to peel the layers of gauze away, "He needs 
to see you first."

"And put a couple of drops of this in each eye," Wilson handed 
her a tiny bottle, "Gentocin,  to prevent infection."

"Right," Scully affirmed her knowledge of the drug and its use. 
Mulder had not opened his eyes, and he tilted his head back 
obediently as she lifted his chin. His right pupil contracted 
incompletely as she gently pushed the lid up and let drops fall 
in.  That was normal for him. "By the way," she advised Wilson as 
she she prepared to dose the other eye, "His right pupil doesn't 
constrict completely- got his head slammed into the court in a 
pick-up basketball game."

Mulder blinked as the cold drops washed across his eye, and 
lifted his arms in a vague defensive motion as Scully lifted the 
other eyelid. With a definite effort, he hesitantly lowered his 
arm to his lap and permitted the uncomfortable ritual on the 
other eyes.  He opened his eyes wide and lifted his head. Saw his 
partner. The relieved sigh that gusted through him and the 
expression on his face made her want to hug him to her fiercely. 
The desire had nothing to do with romance; she was just so glad 
to see the lively intellect shining in those hazel eyes again.

"You're a sigh' f'r sore eyes," he joked.

"I'll bet," Scully smiled, knowing he wouldn't be able to 
understand her.

"Ears don' wor' so well," he raised his eyebrows in a wry 
grimace. Then his face changed, and he reached wonderingly up to 
touch her cheek with a blunted hand. Not until then did she 
realize that she was crying. "Scu' 'y?" he queried, "Are you 
okay?"

"Stupid question Mulder," she swiped her hands across her face, 
"Of course I'm not alright. I wouldn't be crying if I was." But 
she gave him a smile that erased the worry from his face.

He turned to his right and saw Mike in the dim shadows, smiled 
sunnily at him and commented, "Camoflauge,' the clearest word 
he'd spoken in seven days.

Mike whirled to get the pad where he had been archiving Mulder's 
words, and wrote in big letters, "You're a sight for sore eyes! 
Don't worry. Let  eye doc check your eyes."

"No worries," the agent quipped, noticing Dr. Wilson now. "You 
tri' cu' th' ban'ages firs'," he observed as logical fact and 
accepted his nod. "Sorrwy, I wa' a li''le scare'"

"Well," Wilson sighed as he bent to use his instrument, "that 
made two of us." He finished and backed away, noticing that the 
man he had just examined was watching him carefully. He smiled, 
hoping to look friendly, and turned to the man's partner. 

"Everything looks fine. There's no sign of  residual injury 
either from the flashburn or the foreign objects. He needs to 
avoid exposure to strong light and accustom his eyes gradually 
over a couple of days. Sunglasses would be a good idea, even 
inside."

Mulder was quiet and cooperative just long enough for Wilson to 
examine his eyes and pronounce him free of effects of flashburn 
and corneal scratches. After that, the mercurial agent was up and 
exploring the room, seeking out a mirror as Mike regrettfully 
replaced the doctor's blindfold and led him out to the agency car 
in the garage. Mulder watched that in thoughtful silence. 
Afterwards, he scrutinized his reflection in the mirror of the 
room's dressing table, noting the remaining signatures of what 
had been deep lacerations on cheek and forehead. Scully scrawled 
a quick note and tapped his shoulder with the corner of the legal 
pad.

"Huh?" he turned back to her, looking at the pad when she held it 
up to him.

"Those will heal without scarring," she reasurred him.

"Gla'," he commented with a sudden sharp grin, "Ha' to spoil my 
GQ goo' loo's." and grinned bigger when Scully blushed. But she 
never dropped her eyes from his, and he held out his casted arms. 
"Wha' abou' m' han's?"

He waited with unusual patience while she wrote, and slumped in 
relief when he read, "Just deep cuts. All ten fingers present and 
accounted for! Bandages off in two or three days."

"Wha's goin' on wi' t' case?" he asked next. "Di' you ge' wha' I 
wa' sayin'?"

Scully smiled at his dogged determination as she hurriedly 
scribbled. Yep, put the man out in the desert and he would ask 
for a backhoe to dig for answers. She showed him, "We got it, G-
Man. You just take it easy a few more days and heal." Skirting 
the issue that his work had not even been considered and was 
ordered off-limits by Kersh.

His eyes flicked over the words, committing them to his permanent 
memory, then back to her worriedly, "I nee' t' ge' t' th' 
office."

This, she had anticipated, and Wilson had advised that he wait 24 
hours before returning to work on notes or computer- and no 
television. "Not sure when you can go back to the office," she 
told him, anticipating fireworks. "Let your eyes get used to 
working again. And no television. Rest your eyes 15 minutes  
every hour for the next six.  Dr. Wilson's orders."

Mulder was growing impatient, his breath coming faster and 
deeper, as he read over her shoulder.

"No compu'er?" he asked in exasperation, arms akimbo as he rested 
his aircasts against his hips.

She shook her head. She knew she couldn't keep him from working 
on the case for long, but it was best to stick to Kersh's orders 
that he not work on the case as long as possible.  Mike and Randy 
and Kevin were going to look the other way when he did and accept 
what he came up with as gospel. 

"No no'es," he dropped his head, thinking. It was a motion that 
cut him off from her completely and the realization that he knew 
it and was using it, hit her with a flash of irritation.  He 
looked up innocently at her footbeat of frustration and grinned 
in perfect realization of what he'd done. "Okay, " he quipped, "I 
talk, you wri'."

"I don't think so," she shook her head, seeing his eyes narrow at 
the silent words he couldn't decipher, "I'm going to report in to 
Donovan. Mike can write."

Mike grinned at the disgruntled agent as he took up the pad and 
pulled a chair over to the bedside table. Mulder perched on the 
side of the bed, watching him closely in the dim room. 

"Where Scu''y go?" he slurred, resting an aircast on Mike's arm 
to get his attention.

"Don't know," Mike wrote, "You need her?"

"No," Mulder shook his head, "S'okay. Le's ge' star'ed."

Scully returned shortly with a bowl of oatmeal and peaches, 
something Mulder would eat, she hoped. He was seated on the edge 
of the bed, casted arms drawn up in his lap, heels on the 
bedframe, looking like some human rendition of a frog. He was 
bent over the night table where Mike was writing on the pad as he 
spoke, and looked up with a start as She set the bowl down beside 
the pad.

"Can you feed him?" she asked, "I'm going to phone in a report to 
Donovan and Kersh."

"Sure," Mike agreed.

"And don't let him read too long, Mike, okay? He's supposed to be 
resting his eyes."

"Do my best,"Mike murmured, trying to listen to her, and to 
Mulder and write at the same time.

The hunched man looked up in time to see his partner leaving the 
room. "Wha' di' s'e say?" He tapped the pad for emphasis, looking 
sharply at the hulking shape in the dim light of the shuttered 
room.

"She. Said. You. Need. To. Eat." Mike spoke in time with his 
writing.

"Ma' le''ers bi''er, Mi'," Mulder urged him.

"OK, " he obliged, changing to capitals, "BUT EAT FIRST- CASE 
AFTER." he scrawled in shorthand.

Mulder gave in gracefully. It hadn't taken him long to learn that 
refusing to do things Mike's way was often a losing proposition. 
The big agent could easily wrestle him into submission, and he 
hadn't forgotten the few times he had done it. Still, Mulder 
accepted being fed like a baby with much less tolerance than 
before his sight was restored to him.  Mike foresaw that he would 
be more fractious about being helped with his daily needs; he ate 
half the cereal, but was fidgety and kept cutting his eyes back 
to the pad. It was clear his mind was not on food.

Scully retreated to the living room to call Wade Donovan. The SAC 
was glad to hear Mulder was on the mend. "He will be out of those 
casts in a couple of days, won't he?" he asked.

"Does that mean you want him back as soon as the casts come off?" 
she pushed for information. She couldn't lobby Kersh to let a 
deaf Mulder return to the case, but Donovan could.

"Assistant Director Kersh will determine that," Donovan said 
pointedly , "I'd gladly have him back. The bomber has blown 
Representative Carl Simpson's townhouse.  Mulder was right. He's 
escalating. We're making it harder by posting agents and off duty 
police officers everywhere he might target, but we're spread 
thin, and we can't keep it up much longer. And the press is 
having a field day. Jesus, I wish he'd hit the Washington Post 
and see how they like it."

"He's still profiling, Sir," Scully said quietly, thinking that 
she had a more specific target at the Post in mind.

"Scully, you know I can't accept anything from him- officially."

"Sir, you need to find out which legislators and judges were 
involved in the death of Grant's son and warn them. Mulder 
wouldn't mind if you let someone else take the credit," she told 
him, knowing it to be so. "He just wants this guy caught."

"I'll take that under advisement," Donovan sighed tiredly. "In 
the meantime, just take care of him and keep him safe. Crazy 
bastard probably qualifies as a national treasure."

"I'll tell him you said that, sir," Scully laughed.

"You tell him I meant it as respect Agent," her SAC chided with a 
chuckle.

"Yes, sir," Scully rang off and speed dialled Kersh's number. She 
gave him an update on Mulder's condition, speculating in her 
professional capacity that he would be ready for limited duty in 
three or four days.

"When he's able to care for himself, he will continue on medical 
leave until his hearing returns to optimal levels," the AD said 
definitely. "When his hands are better, he can return home. No 
use tying up the expense of the safehouse if it's not needed."

"Yes sir," she said numbly. "Some days she thought she and Mulder 
had descended into FBI hell, and would never get out. As much as 
she had griped about denial of science and logic to an all-
believing partner, the X-Files and Skinner had never been this 
wearing on her. She hated domestic terrorism, and most of all, 
she hated what being there was doing to her partner. 

Skinner, now there was a thought. She hit number two memory 
button and waited for his assistant to answer.  Kim was afraid 
she had bad news, but Dana hastened to tell her that Mulder had 
had a clean eyecheck and was on the mend. When she gave AD 
Skinner the same news, he was warmly congratulatory. The 
conversation left her feeling as soothed as Kersh's had disturbed 
her. She lay back on the sofa and let her exhausted body fall 
into deep, restorative sleep.

When Mike and Mulder came looking for her several hours later, 
she was curled up against one end of the sofa. Mulder watched 
in satisfaction as Mike covered her with a blanket She hadn't 
mentioned it, but he knew she still got cold easily- even on hot 
summer days- a legacy of her harrowing Antarctic experience. For 
a moment, he was angry and bitter all over again about what had 
been done to her Mike noticed the change on Mulder's face. One 
minute, he was looking at the sleeping woman with such gentle 
affection that he suddenly believed the rumors thaat there was 
more between the two agents than the usual partnership dependence; 
then, Mulder's expression hardened, and he saw an anger whose depth 
chilled him. He jostled the deaf man's elbow gently to get his attention.

"What?" he asked in a single word, putting question on his face 
in lieu of having the pad with him.

"Nothin'," the enigmatic man  responded and turned to pad, 
barefoot, into the adjoining kitchen, "Hun-gry," he declared, 
toeing the refrigerator open to squint in at the milk, juice and 
soda bottles. "Canna hav' a san'wish?" He asked a little too 
loudly.

"Lord, yes, hosanna," Mike nodded. A Mulder willing to eat while 
profling was a situation to be taken advantage of according to 
Scully. Then, "Shhh," with his finger to his lips to caution 
Mulder against waking his partner. Scully had not been sleeping 
well, but she had left explicit instructions not to tell Mulder.

After that, Mulder wouldn't trust himself to speak. He nodded his 
agreement of turkey and swiss, dill pickle on the side, with a 
glass of milk. And all the while, the slender agent was pacing 
abstractedly in the small kitchen. Refusing to sit, he 
nonetheless finished the entire meal as Mike confronted him and 
offered bites and sips.  He had never seen Mulder like this; he 
was practically bouncing off the walls. His eyes evidently hurt, 
and he would squint suddenly and lower his head when he passed 
through beams of sunlight coming through the kitchen window. 
Blinking and tearing, Mulder stiffened and  stared out that 
window as a figure passed by. He turned to Mike automatically, 
but shook his head in frustration when he remembered that the pad 
and pen were back in the bedroom. Mike waved his hands to get the 
deaf man's attention and used a fingertip to trace letters on the 
tabletop- C-o-n...

"Connor'" Mulder slurred, and Mike nodded sharply, wriggling his 
hand to keep Mulder's attention. He traced other letters.

S-c-h-e-r..."

"S'ere''i," Mulder nodded,  making mincement of the consonants he 
couldn't hear himself dropping.

"Yes, Scherelli," Mike nodded and gathered up a sandwich and soda 
he'd fixed himself, gesturing Mulder to follow him back to the 
bedroom. Once again, they passed the sleeping Dana Scully 
silently, and Mulder  looked at her for a long moment, his face 
composed and offering no comment.

Back in his bedroom with the door shut to keep from disturbing 
Scully, he devoured her case notes in direct disobedience to her 
instructions and began to pace again, talking so fast that Mike 
had to ask him to slow down and try to concentrate on his 
diction.

Mulder looked at him in question, and he quickly provided an 
explanation. "You can't hear what you're saying. You leave out 
parts of words- mostly t's and l's and b's..."

"Co'sonan's " Mulder nodded, proving Mike's point.

"So you have to speak slower so I can fill in the letters you're 
leaving out. " He looked up at the intense man who had come to 
peer over his shoulder. Mulder's hazel eyes were nearly 
transparent in the dimmer light, and he raised his casted arms 
with a grimace.

"Wi(s)' I ha' these thing' off!" he declared, "I coul' use th' 
compu'er t' comu'ica'."

"Not yet," the burly agent shook his head over his block letters, 
"Talk. Slower."

Mulder stopped dead still and studied him intently, something 
that got Mike's attention immediately. "I' been ta'en o' th' case 
haven' I?" he asked , and Mike suddenly felt like a mouse being 
stalked by a snake. How did the man do it?! It was almost as if 
he read minds. Definitely spooky. He was remembering a Quantico 
instructor's advice: 'He's a little strange, but if you want to 
learn good suspect interrogation procedure, watch that guy Mulder 
who works out of the basement at Hoover.' The trouble was, right 
now, Mike was the suspect. It was definitely uncomfortable to be 
on the receiving end of Mulder.

 As abruptly as he had begun, the profiling legend released  his 
prey. Mulder spun away, raising one useless hand to his head in 
an attempt to run his fingers through his hair the way he did 
when he was grappling with ideas. A quick glance back showed him 
that Mike was bent over the nightstand, ready to commit his words 
to the pad. "Th' ques'ion we shoul' be askin' is 'who,' not 
'where.' When we know 'who,' cause' the deat' of Mar'in Gran', 
we'(ll) know where he wi(ll) stri'e." he struggled to make 
coherent ll's . "I nee' more info'mation," he decided.

"AD Kersh says you are off the case until your hearing returns. 
We're not supposed to transfer information between you and the 
task force." Mike told him, fearing a tantrum.  Mulder read it 
and by the looks of his face was deciding among several 
responses. 

Finally, he sighed and screwed up his face in a small frown.

"How ma'y people will die becau' Kers' though' I was dum' as we' 
a' dea(v)?" Turning away to pace the room, Mulder missed Mike's 
pained expression. He continued, "We know Gran' ha' mi'itary 
experience- he wa' a SEAL," the restless agent enunciated 
carefully, partially effective, but the effort was wearing on 
him. "He knows hi' way aroun' e'plosive'. He hasn' lef' a no' or 
manifes'o why he's doing thi', so he' pro'a'ly no' doin'  it for 
himself. Pro'ly doin' ou''a revenge for hi' son." striving for 
consonants was beginning to tire him; his pace slowed. "He wi' 
ki'' again." Mulder predicted miserably, "an' he c'n sli' in an' 
ou' like a ghos'. Jus' li' he di' a' t' hospi'al."

"Time to rest," Mulder looked at the words on the pad with 
obvious reluctance, but seemed inclined to obey.

"Don't have to sleep," Mike wrote him, thinking that was the 
problem, "just rest your eyes."

Mulder tried to look defiant, then let that mask fall before the 
man who had been his protector and just looked stricken. "Bu' 
Mi', when I close my eyes, th' worl' goes away." Mike sighed with 
relief when the intense agent finally made his way back to the 
bed, fell onto it and closed his eyes with a will. "Te'' me whe's 
fiftee' min's, Mi'." 

Mike decided Mulder's trust and obedience was an awesome burden. 
Watching him curl into a ball, the former linebacker sat down in 
the armchair where he had chronicled Mulder's profiling. The 
injured agent was so tense, he shivered. Mike checked his watch, 
Mulder might be resting his eyes, but his body was using itself, 
and he knew the brain was churning away at the case. He stretched 
his neck, looked to the blocked winow and concentrated a moment 
on the sounds of mingled birdsong and lawnmowers. Mulder took a 
deep breath and relaxed a little, a conscious, deliberate move.

Mike looked up at movement in the doorway and relaxed when he 
recognized Dana Scully.  She was rumpled and her hair showed the 
effects of sleep, but she was alert. She took in the curled 
Mulder and  brought her full attention back to him. "He knows 
about Kersh's order."

"How did he take it?" Scully asked worriedly.

"I'd swear he expected it," Mike shrugged, "One minute he's 
saying he needs more information, and the next second, he's 
interrogating me." Mike looked up in injured innocence, "He's 
flat scary when he does stuff like that."

"Yeah, well, he's rather singleminded when he goes after the 
truth," Scully admitted, pulling her hair back and winding it 
into a bedraggled pony tail.

"He read all the case files and looked at all the photos, " Mike 
said tiredly. "He has a new profile, and I'm wiped out, but I 
didn't want to leave him alone." Some emotion haunted the big 
man's face.

"Thanks, Mike," Scully came to lay a hand gently on the muscled 
shoulder under the knit shirt he wore; FBI suits drew unwanted 
attention, and casual was the dress code for this assignment. 
Even Randy and Kevin were in jeans and t-shirts. 

 Scully in jeans and loose t-shirt looked even smaller than in 
her FBI armor; it had led all of them to become very protective 
of her- especially since Mulder was unable to do it.  Spooky he 
might be, but no one doubted that they were safe from him until 
they disturbed his partner or let her come to harm. No one was 
sure whether it was a love affair, but everyone knew it was more 
than a partnership- except the two people involved, and the story 
of how Mulder had ruined Tom Colton's rocket ascent up the bureau 
ladder while appearing to help him with a case was institute 
canon. Don't mess with Mulder.  But, especially, don't mess with 
Scully.

"Go get some rest," she offered him, squeezing his shoulder in 
compassion and gratitude for his sitting vigil with her volatile 
partner. It seemed that one good thing had come out of this 
asinine reassignment under Kersh- Mulder had gained an ally, 
perhaps a friend.  And Scully had an idea that the Texan was 
strong enough to endure the ridicule he'd get for that. She 
smiled slow and soft, a wolf's smile, at the idea of someone 
trying to ridicule Mike.

She picked up the pad as Mike stepped over to the bed and gently 
jostled Mulder to cue him his enforced rest period was up before 
heading for the other bedroom. No sofa for him, she briefly 
entertained a comic image of him on the sofa. He was taller than 
Mulder and big. She had somehow never thought of football players 
as... human, certainly never as intelligent lifeforms, but Mike 
was giving her a new opinion. He was bright, new to the bureau, 
but driven to excellence in his work; however, the most 
impressive thing about him was his physicality. Probably typical 
for the offensive line of a major university team, he dwarfed the 
agents he worked with, but he moved with a dancer's grace. Most 
of all, she remembered the gentle almost reverent attitude with 
which he had held Mulder's body.

"Mi' goin' uh res'?" Mulder inquired, swinging his legs off the 
bed.

"Yes," Scully nodded, watching her partner stand and stretch a 
little.

"Goo'," Mulder mused, "He nee' i..."

Pot calling the kettle black Scully thought as she turned her 
attention back to the pad, recognizing Mike's neat script written 
'bi'" per Mulder's request and the style of Mulder's profiling. 
Mulder, himself, prowled the room while she read.  Almost 
finished, she was interrupted by the warble of her cell phone 
that lay close to hand on the night stand.  Donovan was checking 
in with her.

"Yes, he's still working on a profile," she answered his 
immediate question, seeing Mulder come to a stop and watch her. 
"It's what he does; he can't just turn it off. Any progress on 
your end?" There was none, and Grant had done another urban 
renewal at the Pentagon. Security had been too tight for him to 
get inside, but he had destroyed a column at the front entry. 
"Kersh still wants Mulder home and off the case?" she asked, 
hoping to hear that Donovan would take it up with the AD again 
since Mulder was still working the case anyway.

"Yes, and when I tried to wrangle a way to use him in a reduced 
capacity- e-mail from home, maybe, Kersh told me I was starting 
to act like Mulder, insubordinate and questioning orders.

"Well, that's Kersh," Scully tightened her lips on the fact that 
that was just what she was planning to do. "Who's with Mulder 
when he gets home?"

Wade Donovan sighed, and in that gesture, Scully knew what he 
would tell her. "He's on his own; you and Mike are being 
reassigned here," the exhausted agent relayed. "And we should 
could use him here. Spooky he may be, but his kind of intuition 
is just what we need to predict where Grant will hit next and be 
waiting for him. But orders are orders, eh?"

"Right," she agreed mildly, having had enough experience with the 
X-Files to consider that his phone line was being monitored- 
probably by OPR. Seemed like anywhere she and Mulder went, there 
went OPR. Sometimes, she daydreamed torture scenes for them, then 
dropped by church to confess her sin. "Thanks for the update. 
I'll tell Mike about the reassignment."

She laid the phone in her lap and startled to find Mulder 
standing armslength away in the dim light. His expression was 
wary. "Kers' wan's me to go home, an' he doesn' wan' me workin' 
on th' case," he slurred.

"How..." she asked, then reached for the notebook with its days 
of recorded conversation and profiling notes, but he stopped her 
with with a touch of his bandaged hand on her wrist.

"I am ge''n' pre''y goo' a' rea'in li's," he said carelessly.

"Yes, you are," she agreed, watching the tension grow in his 
body. He didn't eat that evening, and Jim Adams and Barb Barnett 
watched him spread out photos and stalk back and forth before 
them, chewing his lip, his eyes intense. Some time before dawn, 
he slept on the couch with the television throwing silent blue 
light over his relaxed features.

Morning found Mulder huddled in conference with Ran Connors and 
Mike at the kitchen table. Mulder was talking, sometimes asking 
questions, sometimes giving answers- profiling. They had 
specialized tasks Scully noticed; Mike wrote out Ran's questions 
to Mulder, and Connors was taking down what Mulder was saying. 
She poured herself a cup of coffee and watched three men 
emperiling their FBI careers- well maybe it wasn't peril for 
Mulder. This was just the way he lived his life- taking risks for 
what he believed was right.

"Wou' be a goo' idea to fin' ou' who Mar'in's comman'in 
o(ff)cer's were in Bo'nia," he managed some consonants and 
fumbled others. "See if you c'n lin' them with th' politicians 
he's attac''d."

"ISU doesn't have anything like this." Kevin Scherelli noted to 
nobody in general.

Scully dropped two pieces of bread into the toaster and surveyed 
the dishes on the counter, easy to see which one was Mulder's; it 
had the barely eaten food on it.  Waiting for the toast to pop 
up, she slipped over behind Mike and Mulder, scanning Ran's last 
few questions and comments to Mulder. "He eat anything?" she 
asked Mike.  Mulder had not seemed to notice her.

"Not really," the big man informed her.

"Scu'y, I'm all righ'," Mulder complained, "I' no' hun'ry."

She looked at him in surprise, and Mike pulled back from his 
stance over the pad to look at Mulder in amazement. He had not 
been looking at her when she asked Mike whether he had eaten, and 
he wasn't really in a good position to have seen Mike's lips. She 
poked Mulder sharply on the shoulder and was rewarded with a 
sharp gasp from him and an immediate realigning of his attention 
to her.

"How did you know what I said?" she asked him, speaking 
distinctly and giving him her face.

"Didn' see your li's," he grinned triumphantly, cocky, "Saw you 
loo' at the pla'." He shrugged at her, mischeiveous, "Tha's why 
they pu' t'  I  in FBI."

"Okay Sherlock," Mike penned, nudging Mulder with his elbow, 
"back to work. Ran has to do perimeter."

Security, that meant. Keeping the outside of the house scanned 
for intruders.

The rest of the morning was more profiling for Mulder, and more 
secretarial work for Mike, who made use of working with Mulder to 
question him not only on facts pertaining to the case, but on 
profiling and investigative work in general. They took a break 
for Mike to help Mulder to the toilet and empty himself. 

Mulder refused lunch and paced about the house, lost in himself 
while Mike and Scully fixed for themselves and Ran and Kevin.

"It won't be on a par with what Kev could do," Mike said as he 
fixed cold cut hoagies for them," I'm, uh, mostly accomplished 
with the microwave and the can opener."

"No wonder you and the whiz kid get along so well," Scully 
laughed, amazed that she could with Mulder lost in profilerland 
and careers endangered while a mad bomber stalked political 
Washington, "If it weren't for fast food and modern convenience, 
Mulder wouldn't have survived. He's a true child of technology."

They offered him bites of their sandwiches, but Mulder shook his 
head and put up his hands in refusal. After lunch they worked 
until Mike finally just stopped and laid down his pen. 

"Wha'?" Mulder questioned him in amazed panic.

"Tired," Mike told him. "Got to rest." And Mulder looked at him 
as if he were certifiable.  How could anyone think of 'resting' 
in the middle of solving this destructive puzzle that was Paul 
Grant?

Scully interrupted them to remove the aircasts from Mulder's arms 
a final time and change the dressings, giving Mike a chance to go 
to his bedroom and lie down. His arms looked scary, and they were 
tender as evidenced by his hiss of discomfort when she gently 
scrubbed with peroxide, but there was excellent healing except 
for where a tendon on his left wrist had been exposed by flying 
debris. That would simply take longer to form skin, and he would 
be wearing a bandage cuff for a while after the rest of the 
bandages came off. Mulder looked stormclouds at her as she wound 
gauze around his arms once more. She told him he could leave the 
aircasts off now, but it did little to appease him.

"When do th' ban'age' come o''?" he pantomimed stripping the 
gauze away to clarify as she frowned difficulty understanding 
him. 

"One more day," she held up one finger. As ususal, Mulder was 
pushing the limits. He really needed two more days of protective 
layering, but she knew him well enough to know that he would not 
tolerate it. By the look in his eye, one day would be a fight.

"Do I rea''y hafta wai' tha' lon'?" he implored. The look in his 
eyes told her that he would not wait any longer. He had been 
remarkably patient, watching as she or Mike accessed data on her 
laptop for him to read and building a profile that predicted with 
a fair amount of certainty where Grant would strike next. The 
fact that every piece of case information that he had read today 
was prohibited from him meant nothing to Mulder. He only knew he 
had a puzzle to solve, and his mind could not let it alone.

"Loo'," he gave her his most boyish, charming smile and wiggled 
his fingers under the bandaging, "M' fing-ers aren' sore. I coul' 
type an' rea' progre' repor's. You coul' emai(l) 'em uh me a' 
ho'," he paused at her cautionary expression. That would be in 
direct contradiction to Kersh's orders- putting his career on the 
line- and hers if she did what he was suggesting.

Anyway, if he got involved at all, she was sure he'd overdo and 
exhaust himself. It was sheer lunacy to cut him loose at this 
point- especially to send him home without a babysitter. Not to 
mention that there could be no easy communication with him once 
he was home. Telephone was out, and she knew he wouldn't sit over 
his computer waiting for e-mails.

Then again, maybe it was for the best that he didn't return to 
work until his hearing came back. He was easily frustrated when 
he couldn't understand what was being said to him, and his anger 
boiled over until he was scathing to himself and everyone around 
him.  Mike and the guys from Domestic Terrorsim would cooperate 
with him, but Scully was sure the visiting ISU agents in the 
bullpen wouldn't stop to write to him- not for Spooky Mulder- 
especially not for Spooky Mulder. 

There was no good solution, and she was worried about what he 
would do when he had no supervision, but his angry tone of voice 
brought her back to the situation at hand.  The charming smile 
was gone, and his eyes flared danger.

Mike woke to the sound of Mulder's mangled voice, loud, Scully's 
quiet but intense, trying to reason with him. Slipping down the 
hallway, he came into the doorway. Mulder was standing with his 
back to him, unaware of his presence. Scully was poised with her 
hands out as if to ward him off, and Mike's face hardened. He had 
built bridges with these two remarkable people, had pledged his 
life for Mulder's, but he wouldn't let even the mercurial whiz 
kid threaten his diminutive partner. Only Scully's expression 
stopped him from stepping up behind the deaf man and just pinning 
him in his arms. He knew Mulder couldn't overcome him. But 
Scully's face told him that this type of exchange was not unusual 
between them, Mulder wanting to do something he shouldn't- Scully 
trying to talk him out of it. She was in control of the 
situation. More surprising, he realized, Mulder knew it.

"Scu''y! I c'n cat' dis guy!" Mulder almost stomped his foot at 
her, and his eyes were desperate. "Mor' people are gonna die!"

"Mulder..." she noticed Mike standing in the doorway behind him, 
her glance cueing Mulder to turn and take in his presence. 
"Mulder," she repeated for herself, reaching out to touch his 
shoulder and refocus his attention. "You can't save everyone. 
This is not your fault."

"Wha'?" he frowned, groping for the notebook automatically now, 
"Wri' p'ease. Too ma'y wo's."

"Not your fault," she penned hurriedly, "You can't save 
everyone." She grabbed his arm as he spun away angrily, felt the 
muscles tense under her hand. Mike started in, and she put him 
back with a short shake of her head. Only Mulder's  need to see 
her words to him held him with her as she tapped the pad and 
began to scribble frantically, speaking as she wrote for Mike's 
benefit. He had to know this way of diffusing Mulder when he was 
like this. Times like these, the only solution was to bring him 
more information- no matter the cost to him.

"Okay, let me look at your hands-" she capitulated, "maybe okay 
for bandages off fingers- you type on computer- work on case at 
home- I send you info by e-mail- use e-mail to communicate." It 
was a partial victory; his fingers were the least injured. If he 
agreed to this and followed her orders strictly the more deeply 
lacerated and still healing forearms would be protected.

She looked up hopefully. He was standing beside her, bent over 
her shoulder watching her write, close enough for his raw anger 
and frustration to roll off him in near-psychic waves. She looked 
beyond him and saw Mike start into the room, moving like a huge, 
black wraith. Before any action was necessary, Mulder's stance 
softened, his anger  melted, and he smiled. His eyes, when he 
inclined them to her were alight with hope and triumph. The sigh 
that gusted from Mike Benson should have been audible to Mulder.  
Scully looked at him with a wry expression.

"I told you you he could be difficult," she reminded with a 
smile.

"Scully," Mike shook his head, "If this is "difficult," then the 
dictionary needs a whole new definition and  'see more at 
Mulder,'" he rumbled a chuckle and turned away to check on the 
outside team.

Mulder looked from his partner to the departing Benson with a 
frown of inquiry, but decided not to ask. He was sure both of 
them had his best interests at heart, but he had a killer to 
catch, and the sooner he could convince Scully to uncover his 
hands and take him home, the sooner he could get to work on 
catching him- the hell with Kersh.

She took the covering off his hands that night and let him 
realize how fragile they still were. Mulder winced when he tried 
to grip a fork, and found that he still could not use a pen. He 
quickly commandeered Scully's laptop and began archiving notes. 
"You use these," he invited in a rare use of language that was 
clear only because the words contained no consonants not already 
controlled by vowels. "Ran and Mi' c'n use 'em too," he granted, 
"Jus' don' pu' my name on 'em." He grinned wildly, "ki' o' deat', 
y'know."

He spent the afternoon writing at the laptop, ate dinner, feeding 
himself, clumsily but accurately with tender hands, and actually 
went to sleep after his first shower in two weeks. Mike glanced 
askance at Scully when the water still ran after half an hour.

"He likes long showers," was all she would tell him, and, "It's 
not what you're thinking."

Scully wouldn't have believed someone as dark as Mike could be 
seen to blush.

The next morning, there was a general leavetaking. Mike was 
heading straight for the office with Ran Connors and Kevin 
Scherelli. He had Scully's laptop clutched in one massive hand; 
the other he held out to Mulder and enfolded the other agent's 
slender hand carefully.

"See you when you get back," he said carefully as Mulder watched 
his face.

"Coun' o' i.." Mulder promised and accepted gentle, pro forma 
handshakes from the other men. There were smiles of acceptance 
all around, Scully noted. Not only had Domestic Terror accepted 
Mulder- Mulder had accepted them.

She packed Mulder's things and gathered up all the files and 
photos from the case.  Those had to go back to work with her, but 
Mulder had already seen them so he retained mental copies of 
everything. Sometimes, she envied him his eidetic memory. She 
slipped the strap of his carry-all over his shoulder. His hands, 
though unbandaged, were still too tender to pick up any weight, 
but he was strong enough to carry his clothes and toiletries.  
She shouldered her own bag that contained her things and Mulder's 
weapon that she had brought to return to him. The case files went 
into her briefcase, and she tucked the legal pad that had become 
his communications lifeline as well as documentation of his 
profiling under his other arm. 

She opened doors for him until he was settled in the passenger 
seat of her fleet Ford.  Through the back window, she could see 
him waiting for her with studied patience as she put their bags 
in the trunk. Strange to notice how patient he had become. How he 
moderated his anger and frustration as others had had to do 
everything for him. She smiled as she walked back up to his side 
of the car to fasten the seatbelt. Dana Scully had a feeling that 
Mt. Fox Mulder was just biding his time. She hoped she was not in 
his path when he blew his top.

The ride to Mulder's apartment was quiet. He didn't ask her 
anything, maybe acknowledging the fact that she could not write 
to him or give him her face while she drove. On arrival at his 
apartment building, he seemed happy, was animated. He greeted a 
couple of his fellow tenants with a smile and a wave of his stiff 
hand. The women, a middle aged retiree and a stay-at-home mother 
with an energetic toddler and a baby in a carriage paused to 
speak to him, telling him they were glad to see him home safe. He 
smiled and nodded to them, understanding little of what they had 
said, but being congenial. She knew him capable of it, but had 
never envisioned him so interactive, so charming... so normal. 
The thought made her smile as Mulder forged on.

"Le's che' my mai(l)," he suggested, "Com'ination  is my mom's 
bir'day."

Scully received her own smile from Mulder's neighbors who were 
familiar with her presence in the buiding. "He's deaf," he told 
them with a soft smile for their concern.  " I'll tell him what 
you said.

"We were worried about him," the young woman said, reaching out 
to touch her arm.  "Mulder's always getting himself in a 
situation, but when we read about the explosion in the paper, we 
were really afraid for him. Is he going to be okay?" 

"He'll be fine," Scully said as Mulder finally missed her and 
turned back. "His hands are mostly healed, and his hearing will 
return."

"Thank God," the older lady exclaimed softly.

She hurried to catch up to her partner who was standing with an 
expectant look at the entrance to the building. She turned the 
combination lock and pulled out a stack of envelopes, magazines 
and newspapers that he hurriedly took from her, bundling them to 
his chest. Turning a comically speculative gaze on him, she could 
see that he was blushing. He shouldered past her to the elevator 
and signaled her with a pointed glance at the button that she 
should call the car.

He rode up watching her, and waited expectantly as she fumbled 
her key out to open the door. "Carefu'," he warned, and Scully 
inserted the key slowly into the lock, listening and feeling for 
anything, ready to push Mulder away. But the key turned easily 
with nothing but a harmless click. The door swung in with a tiny 
squeak. Before she could enter, he stepped in front of her, 
blocking the way. "Loo' for tri' wire," he cautioned her. They 
entered the apartment like cat burglars walking on eggshells and 
dropped luggage, mail and yellow pad beside the doorway to 
carefully and thoroughly search the four rooms.  

There was nothing visible; Mulder even sniffed the air as if he 
could scent a bomb. The only things to be seen were the signs of 
a man who had left this apartment in a hurry.  Clothes lay across 
the unmade bed in the magazine and file-strewn bedroom, toast and 
orange juice, partially consumed still sat on the kitchen 
counter. His computer was still on, screensaver fish cruising 
languidly. With a gasp of memory, he spun to check his real ones 
and found all present if thinner. Scully moved to drop flakes 
into the water in a well-practiced ritual. At that, Mulder sighed 
in relief and plopped  down on his sofa and was a man at home and 
satisfied. He looked at her in surprise when Scully came to perch 
beside him, turned to face him. Mulder looked from her to the 
still open door, blatant invitation for her to leave and allow 
him to enjoy independence and solitude for the first time in two 
weeks.

"Scu''y, I c'n 'tay by mysel'" he began, getting up to shut the 
door, but not taking his eyes off her.

She was up, too, and her eyes flashed dangerously, "Mulder!" she 
shouted in frustration, "You're deaf! You wouldn't hear Grant if 
he came in here singing 'Oh Suzanna' at the top of his lungs!"

He watched her, arms akimbo, with a comical expression, "We' you 
don' have t' shou'" he said prissily, "I know I'm dea(v)."

Turning with a swirl of copper hair, Scully dug through the pile 
by the door for the pad.  Unclipping the pen from its side, she 
slashed block letters across the yellow sheet, "YES, AND GRANT 
KNOWS IT TOO! The article in the paper about the raid carried 
your name- you won't be too hard to find. Probably the only 
Mulder in DC."

"A' a ma''er o' fac'," he straighened in mock pique, "there are 
two othe' Mul'ers in the phone boo'." Then, his voice and body 
softened, and he fought to pronounce her name in its entirety, 
"Scully, i.. you stay, you' be in danger too." 

"I'M USED TO IT," she wrote and held the result up with an 
adamant expression. "I stay tonight at least."

"Okay," he gave in, seeing no way out, "bu' my neighbors are 
goin' t' tal'..." a quick glance at her from under lowered brows, 
a last attempt.

"They've been talking for years, Mulder," she said under her 
breath as she turned to put the pad on the coffee table and pick 
up her carry-all.

"I know," he lamented, moving to slip his arm under the strap of 
his own luggage and start for the bedroom, "And you're pro'a'ly 
the tamest par' o' the gossip."

Scully looked at his retreating back in amazement. A hearing 
Mulder would never have picked up her sotto voce gripe, but this  
Mulder could lipread better than he had any right to. Better 
watch herself, she decided- and no more murmured back talk.

The next issue they had to settle was sleeping arrangements. 
Mulder was sure to claim the sofa, but that made poor tactical 
sense. "How will you hear someone coming through the door?" she 
asked him, and the answer, of course, was he couldn't. And that 
would put her in danger. 

"I..." he started, then gave up, "Okay, you're righ'; I' ta' th' 
be'." But he gave in more easily than she expected. It was 
suspicious, but she didn't have time to dissect his out of 
character capitulation.

Scully turned away to use his phone to dial a local Chinese take 
out place, smiling in the sure knowledge that she had won a 
victory and that he was wrestling with his chauvinism. Mulder, 
meanwhile, was spreading the photos and case file over dining 
table, coffee table and computer desk. He stalked between the 
venues, looking, mumbling to himself, sometimes reaching out to 
caress a particular photograph. He paused most often and longest 
at the pictures of what was left of Grant's destroyed house. 

Scully moved toward the door with a purpose, and he flinched at 
the knowledge that he had never heard the knock she answered. She 
was properly cautious in going to the door, he noted with 
satisfaction, taking her Sig with her and opening the door only a 
crack after standing on tiptoe to look through the peephole. 
Prudent. Capable. Yep, that was Scully.  She laid the gun down on 
the credenza beside the door, picking up the money there to 
exchange for the three white boxes with wire handles.

"Food," he read on her lips. "Let's eat." With a stern 
expression.

He tried, he honestly did, but the warm, sticky rice and piquant 
Mongolian Beef was ashes on his tongue. "Sorrwy, Scu''y," he 
didn't even try for diction, "Can'(t). I ea' b(w)e'fas'- 
promise."

And before she could tell him she understood, he was back at his 
altar, pacing before the pictures. Scully gave up at midnight and 
fell into Mulder's cool sheets in contradiction to their 
agreement and with his promise to swap with her when he got 
sleepy- just like a stakeout. The linens smelled musky and spicy- 
Mulder's scent, familiar and comforting, yet she didn't remember 
being specifically aware of it before.  He never wore blatant 
cologne or aftershave, and she knew he could get rank after a 
couple of days without batheing- knew his feet smelled strongly 
at any time- but she had never been conscious of knowing this 
scent. The ambience of strange bed, man's scent and the passage 
of Mulder across the doorway as he paced made for light sleep; 
she was up at first light, bumbling into the livingroom to find a 
calm Mulder seated on the sofa, watching television with the 
sound turned off and eating left over Chinese.  It was so 
completely Mulder, she smiled a little, to be thoughtful of her 
when it would have made no difference to him. Damn, but he had a 
way of doing things that completely negated your plans to be 
angry or stern with him.

He was periodically scanning the entry, the window where he had 
taped many an 'X', and the bedroom doorway. His face lighted when 
he saw her, "Hi Scu''y," he chirped, "Wan' some lef' over 
Chine'?"

"Did you sleep out here?" she asked suspiciously, coming to sit 
with him.

Mulder looked at his rumpled partner, watching her lips, but 
noting that her bright hair was wonderfully unglamorous and her 
face was still languid with sleep. It wasn't often that her eyes 
held the soft, dark color he saw now. It made him comfortable to 
know that Scully could be this relaxed. Especially warmed him to 
know that it could be in his presence.

"Slee' ou' here?" he patted the couch, needing clarification.

"Yes..." she made to get up for the pad, but Mulder's bare 
fingers on her wrist stopped her.

"No. I didn' slee'," he admitted. "Bu' I fee(l) fine," he turned 
sideways to her, bringing up his leg until his knee touched her 
thigh, his gaze intensifying in a way that caused her to go from 
sleep to high alert in that moment.

"Lis'en," he urged her, "Te' Don'van to expec' Gran' to bom'  
fed'ral buil(d)in's." He stressed the 's', wanting her to realize 
the plurality of his noun.

"Any in particular?" she queried.

"Wha'?" he questioned her speech, frustration on his face as she 
went for the pad to write for him.

"No," he shook his head after he read her question. "Jus' be 
aware."

"I'll pass that on," she wrote on the pad between them. "You 
going to be okay here today?" She touched his hand that he was 
using to fork Mongolian Beef, "Hurt?"

"Jus' real tender," he lied, "I thin' I' go''a be alrigh'," he 
turned her wrist over and tapped her watch, "You' be la'e if you 
don' go soon."

"Email me!" she wrote and tapped the pen on the paper to 
emphasize as she pulled herself off the couch, leaving the pad 
behind.

"Ye' mom," his face shining with a teasing smile, he struggled 
with the final consonant and winced at a Scully scowl that she 
flung back at him as she began to scoop up case file and photos.

The truth hurt. Mulder was right; she was going to be late if she 
didn't get a move on.  Scully thought longingly of a shower, but 
settled for brushing her hair in the mirror and washing her face 
while he stood in the doorway. The man was entirely too relaxed 
and too innocent. Innocent Mulder always worried her. At this 
point, however, she had no choice but to leave him.

"Be careful!" she wrote to him before standing in the doorway, 
"Email me! Have a neighbor call me if you need me!"

"I wi'," he promised, pushing at her. "Go. Go, Scu''y before 
you're la'e and Kers' bla'e me." Said with a grin, but it was a 
possibility she hadn't thought of. FBI hell.

Mulder craned his head around the door frame and watched her 
stride down the hallway.  Her back was straight, and set. Unhappy 
with the choice she was having to make. He gave her ten minutes 
to get to her car before starting his day's work. The first thing 
he did was turn on his computer and send scully.dana@fbi.gov an 
email with a silly, animated gif featuring a dancing fox and the 
message, "Have a good day." He hoped the preemptive strike would 
allay her concerns for him.

He checked his email and tabled most of it for later reading 
before logging onto the a DC tourism commision site to check 
availability of reservations in the guided tours of the Capitol 
Building. Self guided tours were available, but he felt that 
Grant would use the anonymnity of a large crowd to scope out 
sites to set up a bomb. It would be safer for him, too, to be 
able to blend with a group of tourists. He was sure that Grant 
was very capable of disguises; Scully had said the driver's 
license photo of him in the case file didn't resemble the "air 
conditioning repairman" who had entered his ICU room just before 
the explosion that destroyed it. Mulder didn't expect to pick him 
out by appearance, however, he felt sure the man's body language 
would be like a beacon.

The Capitol City Tours site listed four tours; there were 
vacancies in the 10am and the 3pm tours. Mulder knew a bolt of 
intuition that the afternoon tour was the one' he reserved a 
place for himself with his personal Mastercard and prepared the 
rest of his schedule with an eye to ensuring that Scully wouldn't 
get worried about him and come charging to his rescue. 

The next step was to get his car back so that he would have 
mobility. That would be the tricky part. His car was in the 
parking deck at the Hoover building where he had left it before 
the raid on Grant's house. He would have to involve Cindy, his 
neighbor with the two small children, and he would have to 
concoct a story that would not alert her to call Scully. But he 
needed wheels.

 Mulder ruffled his short hair with a damp washcloth, to give 
himself an antiFBI look, donned  black jeans and a lightweight 
long-sleeved shirt of the same color, and dug into a shoebox in 
the closet to find a camo stick to stuff into his pocket. If his 
hunch that Grant would select a bombsite then sneak away from the 
late afternoon tour group to set it was right, he might need to 
be able to blend into the shadows in the building. He tucked his 
Sig into the back of his jeans under the shirt and started to 
pick up his FBI identification, left it on the dresser. Today, he 
was not going with the bureau's blessings. This was a citizen's 
action. He locked his apartment door and stepped across the 
hallway where he had nearly kissed Dana Scully, to tap his 
knuckles against a door just like his.

Cindy greeted him with a smile, holding Elena and trying to keep 
Todd from dashing out the door. "Hi Cin'y," Mulder smiled in 
return and just did his distracted best to speak so she could 
understand him. "Coul' I as' you a bi' favor?"He bent and tickled 
Todd until the wriggling tow headed boy was distracted while his 
mother could invite him in and shut the door.

"Sure," he read on her lips, "What can I do for you?" She spoke 
without thinking then developed a horrified face, "Oh Mulder, I 
forgot...!" She turned away from him, searching on the dining 
table for paper and pen, finally coming up with an envelope and a 
red crayon. Started to write, balancing Elena on one hip, but 
stopped at Mulder's voice.

"Wai', tha's no' ne's'a'y." Even he felt that last word 
decimated, but Cindy, with two kids just learning to talk, had no 
apparent problem understanding. "I jus' nee' a ri' down to th' 
Hoover Buil'in' to ge' my car. I' go''a visi' my mom while I' on 
me'ica' leave."

He didn't understand what she replied, but it was evident that 
she was amassing the things it took to travel with two small 
children. The last two things she gathered, purse and keys, 
signalled her readiness to leave. Todd clung to Mulder's hand as 
they exited the apartment building, chattering away merrily, not 
noticing that his adult companion couldn't hear him and didn't 
reply. For his part, Mulder said "uh-huh" every so often and just 
looked at whatever the vivacious boy pointed out.Todd's grip 
caused him to wince from time to time, but he endured.

When the kids were safely fastened into Cindy's minivan, the ride 
into Washington was underway. As was his custom, a wearied Mulder 
was soon deeply asleep and remained so until he was roused by a 
shake on his arm. He looked around and saw the front of the 
Hoover Building. Cindy said something that he didn't get, and he 
thanked her as he punched the seatbelt loose and exited the car. 
With a wave exchanged, he was standing outside the van, watching 
her drive away. The entrance to the underground parking deck was 
just around the corner.

Ernie Maddox recognized him right away, despite his casual dress 
and greeted him happily, but let him know that he was aware of 
Mulder's leave status.

"Good morning, Agent Mulder," he smiled, "It's good to see you up 
and around. You're not back to work are you?"

"No," Mulder got most of what he said. "Jus' came to ge' my ca'." 
He spoke slowly and tried to be clear. Ernie's expression showed 
that he was mostly successful.

"I'll have to go get it for you," Ernie started and saw by the 
young agent's stance that he did not understand. Holding up a 
hand to signal him to wait, the guard ducked into the hut and 
pulled out a scrap of paper. "Kersh has you on the no-entry list 
until you're off medical leave," he wrote. "I'll get your car."

The shock on Mulder's face as he handed over his keys was 
expected; Ernie thought Kersh was nuts; he'd never heard of 
someone being on the no entry list just for medical leave. Then, 
bureau scuttlebutt had it that Mulder was on Kersh's shit list 
anyway. He took the keys and headed up to Level 2 the get the 
late model gray Accura he knew belonged to Mulder.

At two-fifteen, Mulder parked in a public deck a few blocks from 
the Capitol Building and checked the clock on his dash. He had 
just enough time to use his cell phone and laptop that had been 
in the trunk to send Scully a message. He brought it up and 
scanned his inbox for mail from her. Found it and read an 
acknowlegment to his earlier post to her.

"Thanks for the humor," he read, "Helped me through the morning. 
Get some rest, see you tonight."

"Oh shit," he thought, he was likely to be tracking Grant into 
the evening. What could he tell Scully?  Going to see the Gunmen? 
No, she would check. Tell her the same thing he told Cindy? Hell 
no. She'd have a cow at the thought of him driving deaf. That 
miffed him. Thousands of deaf people drove safely,  and he had 
just driven across town in moderate traffic without incident. 
Okay.... think. He imagined a light bulb going off over his head 
and typed, "Scully, thanks, but I had Cindy call my mother. I'm 
going to ride the Amtrak to Greenwich to stay with her for a few 
days. I've done as much as I can for the case. I'm pretty pissed 
about being excluded, I can tell you, but there's no fighting 
city hall. I'll get in touch with you when I get back. Be 
careful- all of you. Don't underestimate Grant. Mulder." He 
breathed a sigh of relief and closed out of the program. 

It was two-thirty; he had plenty of time to walk to meet his 
tour.

It was two-thirty. Scully looked up from her notes on the 
information Skinner had provided from his JAG source and tried to 
imagine where Grant would hit next. ISU's money was on the White 
House- "Escalation, Scully," Bill Walker from the profiling unit 
had sneered, "isn't that what Mulder predicted." She had just 
looked at him blankly, too tired even to ponder a comeback. She 
started at a wall suddenly between her and the irritation, and 
looked up to find Mike standing before her.

"You okay?" he wanted to know.

"Just tired," she sighed, "and really tired of Bill Walker."

"Have you had lunch?"

"Lunch. What's that?"

"Something Mulder doesn't eat?" he offered with a grin. "C'mon, 
let's go get a street dog; we can live really dangerously."

"You know," she lifted her chin to stretch her neck, "I think I 
like that idea. Let me see if I have anything from the wunderkind 
on my email."

Mike sat down to wait, glaring at an encroaching ISU staffer to 
send him in another direction. Scully gave a little hum of 
pleased surprise. "He says his mom is coming down from Greenwich 
to get him for a visit. Good. He doesn't see her very often; 
it'll be good for both of them." She clicked out of the mail 
function and stood, "Let's go see if we can survive a chili dog."

Outside, the summer afternoon had turned dark and blustery, and 
clouds covered the sun.  Mike rubbed the back of his neck as a 
raindrop smacked him, "Heck," he complained, "I had hoped to eat 
outside in the fresh air." Away from all the hot air in the 
bullpen, he meant.

Mulder surveyed everyone in his group carefully in covert 
glances. There was the usual mix of summer tourists. Six 
Japanese, a tall young couple, a clutch  of older women wearing 
t-shirts that proclaimed their membership in the Baysville 
Grannies Club, five older men of varying heights and himself- 
twenty people in all, but the only ones he'd be interested in 
were the older men. The guide, a young college student who seemed 
confident in her spiel moved them into the area around the 
rotunda. Mulder could hear the speech in his mind, having heard 
it when he first moved to Washington to work for the FBI.

He observed each member of the group, establishing their behavior 
pattern. All were paying polite attention or asking questions 
with a raised hand. The listening behavior, facial orientation on 
the young woman and intent expression was evident, and his lack 
of distraction by sounds in the building he remembered as full of 
echoes, was turning out to be an advantage.

Mulder followed along with the group, looking at what they looked 
at and noticing who looked and didn't look. He only had to 
observe the group of older men.  They were all white and about 
the same height Grant's driver's license listed. Mulder used 
display cases and picture glazing to surveil them 
surreptitiously, noting who paid proper attention to the lecture 
and sights and whose gaze wandered. 

Over the last hour, a pattern developed. The man in khaki slacks 
and a matching plaid shirt was paying more attention to alcoves 
and niches than those features of the Capitol Building warranted. 
He had stood on the balcony over the gallery floor, looking down 
with an expression of cold farewell. Mulder began to ignore him 
except to make sure whether he was making an effort to stay with 
the group. Every instinct he owned as an investigator screamed 
that this was the man and now was the time.

Now was the most difficult time of the operation. Without hearing 
to track Grant by the sounds of his footsteps, Mulder was forced 
to surveil him more visually, and that made him more visible to 
Grant. The group passed a window, and he was surprised to see 
that it was dark and raining, flashes of lightning springing 
against the glass. The group flinched, and Mulder could imagine a 
great clap of thunder; he laid his hand flat against the window 
and felt what he couldn't hear, a peal of thunder that vibrated 
intact surfaces.

In that moment, Grant was gone, fading back into strobing 
shadows. Mulder dug the camo stick out of his pocket as he knelt 
to fiddle with his shoelaces, smearing his face and leaving it on 
the floor as he backed into the lee of a column as the group, now 
shy two members, followed their shepherd. Drawing his weapon, he 
scuttled along the wall, guided more by that feeling that he 
could never explain to Scully than by logic. The balcony. That 
was where Grant would place his device. He probably had enough C-
4 moulded to his body to bring down most of the upper level, and 
cap and detonator stuffed in a pocket. He would set his 
explosives and just walk out, a baffled tourist explaining that 
he had got lost from his group.

Reflections of lightning undulated down the hallway and Mulder 
saw the flash of movement. Everything was in shades of gray and 
black, but the plaid shirt open and flapping with his movement 
identified Grant. But when Mulder came to that spot, it was 
empty. He pirouetted, scanning frantically for any sign of the 
man who would bring Washington to a standstill with fear. 
Congress was already holding only essential meetings, and 
committees were convening in unaccustomed places to confound 
Grant's planning. With a radio-operated device, though Grant 
could emplace a bomb, disappear, and not set if off for days or 
weeks after it seemed that he had given up his vengeance.  This 
was the kind of bomb, Mulder felt sure he was leaving tonight.

Where along the gallery would be most effective? Mulder wasn't 
getting an image. There was no sign of Grant. He was standing 
outside a pair of solid oak doors in the circular hallway 
interior to the balcony that circled the floor of the senate. 
Lightning stroked the floor, striking highlights off the polished 
marble. He stood so still, was so dark that for a long moment the 
man who crept cautiously out from the doorway did not see him. 
When he did, Grant's surprise was  tremendous. His first reaction 
was to run.

And Mulder's first reaction was shout and leap after him. "Hal' 
FBI," he felt his chest rise with inspiration and forcefully 
decompress as he yelled. "Hal' I' shoo'!"  It simply never 
entered Fox Mulder's mind that his command coincided with an 
explosion of thunder or that his words were so distorted that 
they were incomprehensible. He stopped and braced his shoulders, 
keen eyesight and steady hands making an effective firing 
platform. The fact that his familiar Sig Sauer made no sound when 
it jumped in his hands surprised him momentarily, but he sprang 
into motion toward a bobbling figure.  Constant lightning turned 
Paul Grant into a crazy, spastic scarecrow shape as Mulder leapt 
on him while drawing handcuffs out of his waistband to snap his 
hands captive.  The action tore the tender skin on his own palms, 
but he didn't notice.

Thunder and lightning charged the humid atmosphere in  Domestic 
Terrorism.  Mike had convinced Scully to go home, and the ISU 
team had gone down the hall to avoid accidentally picking fights 
with the pricklish agents whose territory they were sharing. They 
had no beef with any of them as long as Mulder wasn't there 
smirking and critisizing, but tonight they were edgy. Their SAC 
was doing a story conference with them.

"How much of this is Mulder's?"

An 'oh shit' look passed among the three agents, and Mike Benson 
took the initiative, "Ok, so how did you know?" he asked, knowing 
how hard they had worked to make the profile look more like 
theirs than Mulder's. A part of him realized that before his 
exposure to Mulder he would never have been so forward with his 
superior.

"Gotcha!" Donovan grinned, "It was just a guess, but I figured if 
you spent time with him, you'd pick up something. It's not 
exactly like the man can keep his mouth shut."

They all chuckled at that, and Mike a stab in the dark. "What did 
he tell you?"

Donovan's face sobered, and he shook his head sadly. "Nothing he 
hadn't already given us before Kersh denied him access to the 
case. I don't think he trusts me much."

"It's not you, sir," Mike consoled him, "It's Kersh. He knows 
you'd have to report to him.  Mulder wouldn't put you in a bind 
like that." The big agent looked around and stepped to his desk 
to pick up his rain slicker, "If we want to catch Grant, we need 
to follow Mulder."

Donovan looked from Connors to a preoccupied Benson, "Mike, 
Mulder's deaf, and his hands are still healing. Besides Scully 
said he's gone to visit his mother in  Connecticut...."

"No!" Mike thundered, slapping his palms flat on the desk in 
front of Donovan in uncanny synchronization with a crash of 
thunder. "He's not. He may have told Scully that, but that's not 
Mulder. He never went to visit his mother; he's out looking for 
Grant!" His voice softened ominously, "And my bet is that he'll 
find him."

Al Johnson was not in a good mood. As if this stakeout couldn't 
get any worse, it had started raining, great sheets of water 
punctuated by sharp flashes of lightning and startling explosions 
of thunder echoing through the halls of the venerable building.  
Then things got worse yet. The gunshot was unmistakable to a 
thirty-year veteran of metro law enforcement. His cherry partner 
noticed it too, and turned to him.

"Sounds like it came from the Rotunda stairs," Paul Keller 
ventured a guess.

Johnson nodded agreement as they jogged through a barrage of 
light and sound that filled the hallways and kept them confused 
between light and dark, alternating silence and booming 
cannonade. They entered the Rotunda hallway carefully.

Two figures struggled in the chairoscuro patterns of light and 
dark. One was in light colored pants and a plaid shirt, one all 
in black with a blackened face like a commando. The figure in 
black was dragging the other man behind him and carrying an 
impressive Sig Sauer. Which must be the reason for the blood on 
his captive's leg and marring the Italian marble floor. He 
couldn't understand anything the dark man was saying, but it was 
a good bet one of these two was the DCBomber. Al Johnson's money 
was on the young guy with the military makeup; however, he just 
wasn't going to lay his money down until he had an opportunity to 
question both at the station. Johnson had seen a lot of strange 
things in a thirty-year tour with the police department, and so 
far, this wasn't even the strangest. 

"Gun, Al!"  Keller shouted, drawing his with purpose.

"Yeah, I see it," Johnson said, raising his voice to identify 
them as police to the man who was shaking his victim like a 
terrier with a rat and shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Where's 'e bom'!" Mulder panted, grabbing Grant's shirtfront 
pulling him to his feet, "Ge' u' you son'a'bit'! Where i(s) 
i..?!" 

Grant struggled to his feet, leaving a smear of blood where he 
had been. He glared at Mulder, but had no recourse but to limp 
along with pointless resistance as his captor dragged him along 
the flashing, rumbling corridor.

Mulder was prepared to haul him all the way to his car thence to 
jail. "You ha' th' righ' t'  [r]mai' silen'!" Mulder snarled, 
paying no attention to diction as he dragged the struggling man 
behind him. "Anyt(h)in' you say ma(y) be hel' agains' you! You 
ha' th' righ' to an attorney. I' you canno' affor' one, one wi' 
be appoin'ed to you. Do you unde'stan' dese righ's ?!" Mulder 
glanced sharply back over his shoulder, needing to validate the 
legal formality.

Grant pulled to a halt, his attention  not on Mulder, but on 
something beyond him.  Sudden apprehension of what his captive 
was seeing made Mulder twist his body around- Sig still pressed 
against Grant's chest while he gripped the chain between the 
handcuffs in his throbbing hand. A man about Scully's height but 
built like a wrestler, stocky and powerful was standing only a 
couple of yards away from him. The man was dressed like a 
plainclothes cop and braced a Smith and Wesson nine mil at him.  
At first, he thought the detective was there to back him up. Then 
he remembered what he looked like, and what he had been doing. 
Fucking ironic, he considered. Now I'm going to jail.

The man's partner moved up to support him, and the strobing 
lightning turned their faces into fright masks. Mulder dangled 
his weapon upside down from an index finger, holding it out in 
surrender, but he did not let go of Grant. His hands were aching, 
slick from his own blood where the rough chain had torn his 
healing skin. The first man motioned him away from Grant, and 
Mulder tried to explain.

He knew he was charged with adrenaline, but he thought he had 
spoken pretty clearly.  Then he knew it was not so, when the cop 
motioned him more strongly away frowning in misunderstanding. His 
expression told Mulder there were two choices: walk away or be 
carried away. Grant's smug expression moved him to put his fist 
into the man's  face, but the plainclothes officer was already 
jerking his gun away and spinning him sickeningly against the 
wall while his partner herded Grant over to sit on a bench along 
the opposite wall. Metal snapped around his sore wrists, and he 
reacted to his  skin tearing with a gasp of agony.

Mulder closed his eyes against pain and nausea as the marble 
cooled his face. Turned back, he faced the younger man whose 
frightened bravado told him he had just provided him with his 
first real arrest. He interrupted the man's recitation of his 
rights heedlessly.

"That man is the DCBomber," Mulder told him. At least that was 
what his brain told him he was saying. He pointed one shoulder 
toward the man on the bench across the hall and tried again. 
There was no sign the young officer understood him, and he 
finally told Mulder to shut up in words and expression that he 
understood. When Mulder would not obey, he ignored him, pointed 
him down the hallway, pushed him forward with a grip on his bent 
arm.

Out of choices, Mulder went out through the pouring rain. 
Drenched and shivering within minutes, he sat, hunched miserably 
in the back of the unmarked police car, while an ambulance 
arrived in halos of silent light and his captor stepped out to 
direct the EMT's to Grant and his partner in the building. Cold 
and rage settled over him in equal measure until he was shaking 
with the combination.

Johnson let his eager, new partner cuff the tall man in black, 
read him his rights, and drag him babbling through the downpour 
to the squad car while he waited for the paramedics to come patch 
up the old guy. "Wanta tell me about it?" he asked hopefully as 
the still cuffed victim sat , bleeding on marble stairs. Silence, 
and a blank face.

"Suit yourself," he shrugged, patting his pockets for a cigarette 
and remembering that this place now forbade it. The medics 
arrived and made quick work of cutting the silent man's pants leg 
and cleaning what turned out to be a superficial, though bloody 
flesh wound to the left calf.

Down the front esplanade through the rain, and aided into the 
back of the unit, wounded man was still saying nothing, and the 
frenetic, younger man seemed constitutionally unable to be quiet. 
The man with the smeared face and intense hazel eyes had not been 
silent for a moment on the ride back to the precinct. Drenched to 
the skin, he shivered, until his teeth chattered, making it even 
more impossible to understand him.  Hunched forward clumsily, 
hands cuffed behind him, the shivering man harangued  them all 
the way to the station. Trouble was, between his speech 
impediment and the peals of thunder, they understood almost 
nothing of what he said.

"Flip you for taking our junior orator down to holding," Johnson 
offered the new guy.

"You do the report on him," the younger detective asked, nodding 
at the silent older man.

"I'll do the report," Al agreed as the man in the back started up 
again. "Anything to get away from that," he hooked his thumb back 
at the shouting man.

"Jesus God!" Mulder was literally beside himself....stuffed in 
the back of a DC  plainclothes unit with the man responsible for 
the deaths of 11 people. He couldn't even speak clearly enough to 
get through to the DC detectives. Frustrated, he put his face 
over the seat and tried to raise his voice and control his 
chattering teeth.

"Thi' i...' e' EE ba'er!" was what the detectives heard, and they 
made no sense of it. 

Johnson lost most of the man's unintelligible shout in a clap of 
thunder. Frowning in irritation, he put his hand on the man's 
forehead and shoved him back, watching him slump sullenly in the 
seat. His partner pulled in under the parking garage and shut off 
the engine.

"Al, wait a minute," Pete Keller turned to his crochety partner, 
"I think he's saying something about the 'DCBomber.' You 
think...?"

"I think we gotta book 'em both," Johnson surveyed his 
replacement partner skeptically, wondering if the boy had taken 
one too many falls in unarmed combat class at the academy, "They 
were both on government property outside normal visiting hours 
without permission or clearance. My money's on him being the 
bomber," he gestured sharply at the man in black, "He looks the 
part." The older man in khaki pants and plaid shirt still hadn't 
said a word. "And junior's not the one limping around with a 
gunshot wound." He grunted with the effort of dragging himself 
out of the car. A double shift of stakeout had left him low on 
energy and low on patience; Johnson opened the back door on his 
side and aided the wounded suspect in exiting the car.

On the other side, Keller pulled a resistant, babbling man to his 
feet. Al's suspicion seemed well-founded as the agitated man 
started into the building with minimal guidance and appeared to 
know the way to the holding area. The man in black even went into 
the small cell calmly enough, but Keller decided it was safer to 
leave him cuffed.  He pushed him in gently and closed the door 
behind him, surprised to see the man turn on him in stunned 
astonishment.

"Emov' 'e' cu''!" the tall man with the blackened face yelped 
indignantly, Keller understanding after a moment's consideration 
that he had expected to have the cuffs removed.

"Sorry, not right now," he turned his back on the horrified man 
and went to help his partner question the wounded suspect.

"Not right now!" Mulder muttered to himself, his words clear in 
his own mind, "Then when?!" Okay, he calmed himself with an 
effort. He knew police procedure.  They'd question Grant first- 
he was the obvious wounded party in the event. Only Mulder didn't 
know whether he'd been successful in preventing Grant from 
setting his bomb. If not, there would be many more wounded and 
dead.

He stomped his foot in frustration. He needed to know what Grant 
told them. No, he needed to be there while he was being 
questioned, to watch and evaluate the way he answered. But with 
his hearing loss, he wasn't sure he could have gathered the 
nuances he was accustomed to sifting to get to the truth. 
Mulder's emotions moved him to pace the small cell relentlessly. 
He needed to get in touch with Scully; he had no idea how much 
time had passed, but he knew he wanted a piss and his tender 
wrists strobed pain up his arms, waking aches from the healing 
lacerations there. Scully would probably not be happy with the 
reinjury of his wrists. He smiled grimly, Scully was going to be 
in a sublimely elevated sense of temper over this entire 
occurrence, and no one was likely to escape her wrath.

Mulder decided that his first prority, however, was getting 
someone to phone Scully- then he would address his comfort needs. 
He had stopped moving to stare up at the clouds visible through 
the high, barred window of the cell in the growing light of dawn. 
The rain and lightning had stopped, and the wind was beginning to 
push the gray masses eastward, out to sea. Decision made and path 
chosen, Mulder was calm. For that reason, the sudden, rough shove 
on his shoulder was terrifying; his organized world fell apart 
when he was reminded how easily anyone could sneak up on him out 
of the silence in his head. Threaten him. He jumped around, anger 
and fear warring in a shock of adrenaline through his body, as he 
yelled in reaction. Before he could recognize the younger 
detective who had brought him in, he was screaming. Then 
recognition and rational thought caught up, and Mulder was 
certain that he had made a mistake that would be hard to correct.

Oh God, Mulder, he mourned to himself at the sudden, dangerous 
expression on the man's face and his instinctive grab for his 
weapon. Calm. Easy. He had to make this man understand what was 
at stake. The detective was talking to him. Too fast. Too many 
words. Suddenly he was seeing Mike's words to him, "dropping 
consonants," and knew he was under too much emotion to speak 
clearly.

With his hands cuffed behind him, he could not make a gesture of 
surrender except to take a step back and put apology on his face. 
He stood very still and waited patiently until the man's lips 
stopped moving. He took a deep breath and began to speak, hoping 
he sounded sincere- no, scratch that- he hoped the detective 
would be able to understand him.

"My name is Mul(d)er. I am a' F.B.I. agen', an' I am' dea(v). I 
don' rea' li(p)s. You nee' to wri'." The strain of striving to 
speak clearly was tremendous, and he had an idea his brittle 
skills were deteriorating under stress. Never again would he 
underestimate the energy it took to communicate. Never again 
would he fail to appreciate the simple art of speaking and 
hearing. After a moment's pause to catch his breath, he 
continued, sore, aching and tired. And scared, let's not forget 
that he thought bitterly. If they let Grant go, he might not ever 
catch him again. He underestimated me, and I surprised him once; 
he won't let that happen again.

"P'ease ca' my par'ner- Dana Scully." He recited the cell phone 
number carefully and felt great optimism sing through him as his 
warder flipped out a notebook and began to write.  "S(h)e c'n 
verify my iden'iy." Better Scully than Kersh, he figured. Scully 
would only chew himout for chasing Grant while he was still deaf. 
He didn't want to contemplate what Kersh would do to him for 
breaking medical leave and shooting a suspect while he was not 
supposed to be working on the case. He looked to the detective 
sharply. "Tha' man you cau' wi' me i.. Pau' All(e)n Gran'- th' D 
C Bom(b)er; I sure a' he'' hope you didn' le' him go."

He finished and waited for the other man's response. The other 
man frowned for a moment; then his eyes widened, and he spun out 
of the cell, sprinting away as Mulder rammed himself, shouting, 
into the bars that made mockery of the fact that he was a federal 
agent.

Scully was getting ready to go to bed early, wondering how Mulder 
and his mom were getting along. With his need to be written to 
and his sore hands, she would have the perfect opportunity to 
coddle him. She hoped Teena Mulder would take advantage of the 
opportunity. Even more, she hoped Mulder would let her. The phone 
rang and she checked the caller ID-  no data sent. Probably some 
telemarketer; she got ready to give them a piece of her mind.

"Ms. Scully? Dana Scully?" It sounded offficial, but she didn't 
recognize the voice.

"Yes, " she replied, instantly alert, "Who's this?"

"Detective Keller, Washington PD. I have a man in custody who 
asked me to call you. He says his name is 'Miller' or 'Muller' or 
something like that; he doesn't speak very plain. Do you know 
him?"

All Scully had to hear was DCPD and her partner's name, however 
muddled, to know that Mulder had lied to her about going to his 
mom's and was now in trouble. "I'll be right down," she said 
hurriedly, shucking her nightgown and throwing on jeans and a t-
shirt  while talking on the phone, "Is he alright?" she asked,  
shoving her bare feet  into sneakers.

"Well, he's not hurt," the irritated voice told her, "But he's a 
big pain in the ass."

"About six foot, hazel eyes and a big mouth?" she asked.

"You got it," the detective agreed. "We're holding the other guy, 
too. Your Muller says he's the DCBomber."

Scully went cold  and nearly dropped the phone. When she spoke 
again, she was all business. "If that's what he said, believe 
him. Mulder's a pain in the ass, but he's seldom wrong." Even if 
it sometimes hurt to admit, it was the truth.

The drive from Arlington back into Washington was excruciating. 
She called Mike and found him still on duty. 

"I thought you were going home," she accused, knowing he had been 
on as long as she had.

"Well, I figured if we staked out some of the tourist spots in 
town, we'd catch Mulder and the Bomber." He yawned, and she 
remembered that she had never told Mike about Mulder's message.

"He's supposed to be in Greenwich with his mother," Scully said 
uneasily, six years on the X-Files having led her to question 
even the people on her side. Her heart sank to think that the man 
who had become such a caring ally might betray them.

"I know that's what he e-mailed Donovan," Mike yawned again, "but 
if you think like Mulder for a moment, you'll realize that it 
can't be so. Scully, he's too invested in finding Grant to leave 
town and leave the case to... a bunch of clowns that don't know 
the truth." She could hear the wide grin in his voice.

Scully sighed in relief. Mike was on their side. And he 
understood Mulder. A friggin' miracle. "Well, come on down to the 
downtown precinct. I just got a call from DCPD.  They say they 
have Mulder and the Bomber."

There was a moment of absolute silence as he absorbed that, then 
"We're on our way!" Mike shouted, fully awake now, and clicked off.

The rain had stopped and the humidity was, thankfully, on the 
wane, not that the east coast ever had the levels Scully had 
grown accustomed to in California. She parked her Nissan across 
the street from the station and grabbed her purse, slammed the 
door and chirped it secure with the remote as she jogged over to 
the precinct entrance. There was the usual front desk with the 
usual tough looking desk sergeant she had to convince of her need 
to enter the inner sanctum of local law enforcement. She flashed 
her badge at the latter day Cerberus and asked for Sgt. Paul 
Keller.

"Don't look like FBI," he gave her jeans and t-shirt an up and 
down.

"Don't be a smartass," a tired Scully growled, "Just get me 
Keller."

"Yes ma'am!" he sneered sardonically and reached for the phone. 
"Sergeant Keller, Fontaine on the front desk. Ya gotta visitor up 
here. Name of..." he beckoned Scully over and checked her badge 
again, "Yeah... 'Scully.' FBI, right." He set the receiver down 
and cleared his throat, taking his time and evidently relishing 
his control over the FBI, "Down the hall to the right- third door 
on the left." And he grinned.

"Thanks," Scully returned icily and hurried away. She was 
becoming almost frantic to see Mulder. Suddenly, she had a bad 
feeling.

The room she entered was identified only by 'Detectives' on the 
frosted glass, but she found herself the object of intense male 
scrutiny immediately on entry. The ambient buzz died  as a dozen 
detectives looked up from paperwork and styrofoam cups. There was 
a half-hearted wolf whistle from somewhere, and she caught sight 
of a short, stocky man in rolled up sleeves hurrying toward her, 
hand outstretched.

"Agent Scully,  Paul Keller," he said, "Sorry about the 
comedian."

"Oh, I don't know," she smiled at the man who was only an inch 
taller than herself, "It's one of the nicer things I've heard 
recently. Where's Mulder?" She had cataloged the room on entry 
and her partner was not in it.

"Uh, he's in holding," Keller gestured her back toward the door, 
beginning to feel that he would regret leaving the deaf man 
cuffed in custody. "He resisted arrest and had shot the other 
suspect. He's not too calm."

"Well, that's Mulder," she sighed, "Maybe wrong, never hesitant." 
She paused and fixed him with a serious stare. "But he's seldom 
wrong."

"So, you mean that guy he was wrestling with at the capitol 
actually might be the DCBomber?"

"Not 'might be,'" Scully shook her head, "Is. I'm not kidding 
you, Keller," she said tiredly. "He's deaf, and you can hardly 
understand him, but he's right." She had followed Keller through 
twists and turns until she stood before a barred cubicle. At 
first, she thought the tiny cell was empty, then a rustle and 
slight movement brought her attention to a lean form in black. 
Back to the wall, Fox Mulder regarded them from under lowered 
brows, his gaze wary and baleful when it found the detective. But 
a gleam of hope was born in his shadowed eyes when he saw her.

"Scu''y!" he shouted, and Keller jumped back in alarm as the tall 
figure went from wall to bars in a single, pantherish move. Dana 
Scully never moved, reached in to touch his chest as he prattled 
incomprehensibly, shrugging his shoulders ineffectually as he 
tried to reach out to her. His face was dirty and stubbled, but 
his gaze was clear water over moss.

"Keller!" she shouted not taking her eyes off Mulder, "Take the 
cuffs off. Now!" It was dim in the cell, but she could see the 
dark splatters on the cement floor and knew what it was.

The detective hurried to open the cell and scrabbled in his 
pocket for the key to the cuffs. He was cautious reaching to turn 
the man who was already shifting to offer his hands, but this 
Mulder was calm. He groaned as his hands fell forward, something 
he would never have done if he could have heard himself- or if he 
wasn't in great pain.  Scully knew his tolerance, and the 
unconscious vocalization meant he really hurt.

Brushing past him into the cell, she took his wrists and gently 
lifted them for inspection. He surprised her, placing sticky, 
bloody palms on her shoulders. "Scu''y" he asked earnestly, "(D)o 
'ey sti' ha'  'im?"

She looked at Keller, blocking the cell door, "Well, do you?"

"Do I what?" He looked at the two agents in confusion.

"Do you still have Grant? The DCBomber," Scully said impatiently, 
seeing her partner watching them intently.

"He's in an interrogation room."

"Ca' Don'van. Che' th' Ca(p)i(t)ol- Rotun'a Gallery." Mulder 
spoke to her urgently, working hard to make himself understood, 
and watched as she pulled out her cell phone and used it. When 
she finished, he sagged in relief and related, in what he must 
have thought was a whisper, "I go''a  pee."

"Bathroom's down here to the left," Keller informed her.

"Don't tell me," Scully responded tartly, seeing Mulder jerking 
his attention between them, "He's the one who has to go."

She was waiting outside with Keller ready to take them to the 
infirmary when Mulder emerged with a contented expression. "Bou' 
to floa' away," he muttered, and followed her complacently. "We 
goin' t' see Gran'?" he asked her, tapping her shoulder with a 
rusty finger to get her to turn her face to him.

"No," Scully pointed to his wrists.

"Okay," Mulder sighed and his next request stunned her. "You go' 
anythin' for pain wi' you?" he mimed giving an injection.

"Does the wild bear crap in the woods?" she asked, surprising 
Keller with her casual vulgarity. "I'm still with you aren't I?" 
she cast her gaze up to his pain-lined face.

Mulder sat silent on a stool as Scully cleaned his wrists and 
hands, reminding him with gestures to keep them up at shoulder 
level as they dried. "Hur's," he complained, but obeyed as she 
applied antibiotic cream over torn skin and an exposed tendon. He 
winced as she bandaged him into mitts of bandage once more with 
tongue depressor stiffeners to keep him from moving the lacerated 
sinew. Scully reflected that Mulder would need someone with him 
when he went home, and Kersh could just kiss her ass if he 
thought she would leave him alone again.

She was just finishing taping everything in place and stripping 
off the gloves when Mulder's head swung up, and he stumbled off 
the stool to put himself between her and the person who entered. 
Scully heard Mike Benson's voice cajoling.

"Easy, easy," she stepped aside to see the ex-linebacker 
ludicrously backing away, his hands held up in surrender. "Hi, 
Scully," Mike's smile gleamed in his dark face. "How is he?"

"He's going to be okay," she decided, "Donovan here?"

"And Scherelli, and Connors."

"Any ISU," she asked suspiciously, one eyebrow riding up.

"Not unless they can read minds," Mike guffawed, which earned him 
a sharp look from Mulder. "We didn't tell them what was going 
on." His face changed and was all business, "This was Mulder's 
collar, and I'll be damned if I'd let them horn in on it."

"Wha'? Wha?" Mulder was patting at Mike's chest for his 
attention, having seen his name on the agent's lips.

"Later," Mike told him, and it satisfied. "We sent the bomb 
sisters over to the Capitol Building; Donovan's taking custody of 
Grant right now. Come on, I think Mulder should be in on it." He 
smiled wickedly, "And Grant should know that he's going down 
because of Mulder."

They led the man who was only hanging on to awareness out of 
sheer perversity through the corridors to the room where Al 
Johnson was clipping Paul Allen Grant's hands behind him while 
Connors secured his feet. The man who had excited so much terror 
in the capitol city glared at the bloodied, hurting man who 
watched the process.

"There's one more, Mulder," he snarled. "It's where you'd never 
think to look, and it will happen when you least expect."

All Mulder knew was Grant's body language- intense and 
threatening. He took a quick inventory of the people around him 
and knew he had missed something vital.  "Wha'! Wha'  'e say?!" 
he turned to Scully and saw her already scrambling for a piece of 
paper on someone's desk. The man at the desk yelled and grabbed 
for the sheet she was snatching, but he was too late.

"SAID THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE," her block letters across an arrest 
warrant advised, and she looked to him for answers.

Icy calm now, Mulder looked Grant full in the face, absorbing 
him. "Ge' hi' ou' a here," 

He dismissed the bomber and watched as Keller and Johnson marched 
him away  lost in deep thought that set him apart as surely as 
his temporary handicap. He looked up at Scully's touch on his arm 
and turned to give attention to where she gestured. It was a 
surprise to him. Half a dozen tired detectives in wrinkled shirts 
and drooping ties stood applauding. Applauding him. The shy smile 
of appreciation that lifted his face was pure Mulder, but it was 
only fleeting as he dropped his head and began to pace, muttering 
incomprehensibly to himself. Scully looked to Mike who shrugged 
worriedly.

Scully made to search for another piece of paper, and the 
detective who had rescued his arrest warrant rushed to find her 
something less official to use for communications medium. She 
took it with a nod of thanks and bent to scribble, took the pad 
over to where Mulder was thoughtfully pacing.

"High profile," Mulder thought , "it's got to be high 
profile...." And he knew. Just as Scully stuck a piece of paper 
under his nose, he turned and announced, "Whi' Hou'." There 
ensued a comedy of errors as he reached for the paper she was 
holding out to him and she took it back. "Scu''y!" he complained 
as she took her words away. She held the pad up again and he saw, 
'What are you thinking?' grinned faintly.

Donovan gathered them together, and the left the precinct with 
hasty thanks to the detectives and a directive to keep Grant 
safe. "I want that bastard prosecuted the length and breadth of 
the law," Donovan growled as he, Scherelli and Connors climbed 
into a fleet car in front of the station. Mike split off in what 
was now a natural move, cleaving to Scully and Mulder. 

"Ca' Kers," Mulder directed Mike when the ex-linebacker had 
filled the backseat of  Scully's Nissan, "Ha' hi' ca' Whi' Hou' 
security and ge' the Presiden' an' hi' fam'ly ou' o' there. I' 
ca'..." he reached for his cell phone, normally in his inside 
pocket and realized with a start that he had neither suit coat 
nor phone, and he would have been unable to use it had he had it. 
With a bare grimace of frustration, he turned to Scully, "Ca' t' 
bureau bom' squa' an' have 'em mee' u' a' t' Eas' gate."

As soon as she had heard him start to say he would 'call' 
someone, Scully had pulled her phone out and was now dialing the 
extension for Tech Services and the FBI bomb disposal squad- what 
Mulder called the bomb sisters. Maneuvering through traffic, she 
caught Mike's eyes in the rearview as she laid her phone down.

"Mike, you got some paper on you?"

"Yeah," he nodded, seeing Mulder scrunch around  in the seat to 
watch them both.

"Ask him if he still wants that injection for pain. His hands 
have got to be killing him."

"Yah," Mike fished in his hip pocket for his paycheck envelope 
that he had stashed there earlier in the day, realized that his 
check was still in it, and braced himself against the seat to 
write. Mulder was giving him his complete attention now, and 
craned his neck a little to see when Mike held up the envelope. 
"Scully says do you want the shot for pain, now?"

Mulder scanned Mike's note on the envelope, hazel eyes moving 
back and forth rapidly, and shook his head, "No' ye' p'ease. Ma' 
me s'eepy." And he glanced worriedly at Scully, noting her 
understanding and compliance with his request with a sigh of 
released apprehension.

He turned around, facing front with a stony expression. Scully 
raced through the wet streets, only pausing at red lights when 
she could. Dread hung heavy in Mike's heart at the thought of 
what the amount of plastique Grant could have easily carried into 
the Capitol could do the the historic home of presidents in the 
United States. Any damage would be a blow to the American psyche. 
When they arrived, White House security met them at the gate and 
waved Scully through as she flashed her badge.

The President and first lady had already been evacuated along 
with the night butler and cook. Except for the security force and 
two secret service agents, no one else had been present at the 
home of the President at eight o'clock on a Thursday night. 
Clinton had been relaxing, watching the baseball playoffs while 
Hilary worked on a campaign speech for her quasi-run for the US 
Senate.

They exited the car into an ordered chaos. Bomb squad members 
with FBI in bright yellow across the backs of their shirts 
hustled, searching all nooks and crannies that could hold an 
explosive device or support a moulding of malleable semtex. White 
House security shadowed them, protective and zealous at their 
job. Scully could see that the bustle and constant harried 
arrival of people to question her and Mike was leaving Mulder 
disconcerted, and she moved him into a parlor off the main entry. 
It had already been searched and declared clean as shown by the 
white tape across the doorway.  Ignoring that, she stooped under, 
lifting the tape over Mulder's head and bringing him along with a 
grip on his shirt. It was a frightening measure of how far out of 
it he was that he questioned nothing and just let her direct him.

"Mulder," she stepped in front of him, saying his name, that she 
kmew he lipread, but there was no sign that he was aware that she 
was speaking to him. He flinched and yelped at her pinch on his 
upper arm, giving her an angry glare. Ah-ha, that woke him up!  
"Mulder," she pushed her open hands at him, miming her words, 
"Stay here."

"Okay," he said blearily and relaxed into the antique sofa. 
"'(S)tay here."

Thinking that he understood and would comply, Scully hurried out 
to meet Donovan and find out what the bomb squad was finding. The 
next thing she knew, Mulder was milling around with the bomb 
sisters, peering under and over and into things along with them.  
Since he looked conscious and functional, she didn't approach 
him. He was talking to Frank Quentin earnestly, trying, no doubt, 
his best to make himself understood. And Frank was listening 
carefully to the tall, stooped man with bandaged hands and arms.

The White House Security team, on the other hand was bemused and 
appalled at Mulder.He was at his spooky best, pacing a few steps 
one way then back, his attention directed to the floor, talking 
to himself in his mangled language."Go''a be on'a firs' f'oor," 
he muttered, "s'on'y p'ace he woul' ha' a''ess to."  He stopped 
at a cautious touch on his shoulder and looked up to see a secret 
service agent holding his hands palm out in a gesture to stop 
speaking. "I can't understand a word he's saying," Hal Astorina, 
head of White House Secret Service gestured Scully over, "Can you 
tell me what he's trying to say?"

Mulder focussed on Scully with a will, and she could tell he was 
close to collapse-knew he wouldn't quit now. "Mulder, say again." 
she commanded him gently, and beckoned Mike over. Watching them 
to see when their understanding faltered, Mulder repeated 
himself, closing his eyes momentarily and releasing a deep sigh 
of relief when Mike nodded in comprehension.

"He says it will be on the first floor because it's the only 
floor Grant would have access to," he translated for Astorina. 

"He's right," Hal agreed in surprise, "This is the only part of 
the open to the public except for the hallway by the library 
upstairs, and the President has asked that it be closed while 
he's in office to give him and Mrs. Clinton more privacy." 
Anticipating Scully's next inquiry, Hal continued, "and there 
have been no service or repair people not directly connected with 
the staff."

It was clear that Mulder didn't have a clue what Astorina's words 
were, but he was nodding encouragingly at his body language. He 
watched with approval as the secret service and FBI  fell away to 
continue the search.

After two hours of intensive searching, they were all beginning 
to reach the unsatisfying conclusion that this was not where 
Grant had planted a device. Mulder was standing in a loosely 
clustered group of bomb squad folks and White House security 
while Scully monitored him from the midst of the Domestic 
Terrorism team as Donovan conferred with Hal Astorina. Mulder was 
trying to follow what Frank Quentin was saying, but he wasn't 
having any success, she could tell. His eyes grew dreamy and he 
lifted his head the way she knew meant he was dipping deep into 
his phenomenal memory to review the facts of the case. It usually 
meant startlingly accurate conjectures that stunned his listeners 
and often turned out to be dead on. 

"Oh my God," she breathed in sudden panic.

Mulder's posture changed in the blink of an eye, and it indicated 
trouble. He had thrown his head back, and his eyes were closed; 
his face mirrored emotional pain. His hands hung back loosely at 
his sides, his shoulders rotated back until his chest thrust 
forward.

Mike was reacting to her; he had seldom failed in the past two 
weeks to be aware of either her or Mulder. He threw up his head 
to follow her gaze as Mulder's knees buckled and he began to 
crumple. Even as Scully screamed Mulder's  name, Mike was leaping 
to catch the man in black. The men and women around Mulder looked 
on in horror as he groaned long and painfully then: "How coul' I 
ha' been so (s)tupi'?" he beleagered himself.

His eyes flashed open at Mike's touch on his body, dark and 
dangerous. As if unaware of the big black man, Mulder strode over 
to Donovan, putting his near formless, mitted hands on the SAC's 
shoulders to push at him and speak urgently. No one understood 
him; after three days without sleep or food, he was gone into 
that place where sane people didn't like to follow, and he was 
unintelligible as much due to that as to his deafness.  Mike and 
Scully finally got him to calm down enough so that he could be 
understood. At least, they were able to translate him to the rest 
of the group now surrounding him with various expressions of awe, 
horror and repugnance. She noticed with a feeling of confidence 
and warmth, that Connors and Scherelli had moved with her to 
cordon off an area around Donovan and Mulder- protecting him from 
outsiders.

"Lis'en," he pleaded to Donovan with what had become his 
watchword- asking people to do what he couldn't. "Lis'en," he 
shook his head, his eyes beseeching, "'e' bo' i.. no' here." The 
bomb is not here. Okay, Mulder, we knew that, "Gran' no' ma' a' 
C'in'on. He' ma' a' anyone who cause' hi' son har' or kee' hi' 
fro' ge''in' to the'. " Mulder, still braced against Donovan's 
shoulders in what must be a painful position for him, ducked his 
head and swallowed, "Tha's us. Eva'u'a'e 'e' Hoo'er Buil'in'. Ca' 
Kers'!"

Scully liked what Mulder's deaf brain was doing with Kersh's 
name; it just fit. That brought a smile to her as she nabbed him 
and pulled him into a shambling run to her car.  Mike was right 
beside him on the other side, opening and shutting the door for 
him. The Nissan rocked with Mike's weight, and Scully was rolling 
before his door was closed.  The east gate was thronged with 
reporters, a gauntlet she had to run. CNN was set up beyond that, 
filming the ant's nest of activity from afar, but the print media 
was hugging her car, pressing hands to the windows, shouting 
questions and testing implications. 

Mulder shrank back from the silently mouthing hordes that 
accosted Scully's car as she slowly pushed her way through them. 
A glance at her face told him that she was angry at this mob 
obstructing her. The Hoover Building where they had spent the 
last six years of their lives was in peril, and they felt a 
shared need to make haste, even though he knew Donovan had called 
Kersh and the news would be out. Someone at the FBI headquarters 
would be alerting security and evacuating any agents or tech 
staff still working there. As far as he was concerned, the only 
thing in danger was the physical structure itself. The things 
important to Fox Mulder inside the Hoover had been lost months 
ago, but he would still mourn the loss of that certain feeling of 
inviolability that working in the protected building used to give 
him.

Mulder startled as Scully jerked and stiffened, narrowing his 
attention to her alone.  But it was only her cellular calling out 
for attention, startling her from her intense concentration on 
driving. She drew the small device out of her shirt pocket and 
handed it back to Mike, and Mulder shifted his attention to the 
man behind him.

"Well, I'll be damned! " Mike swore, surprising Scully, who knew 
his aversion to profanity.

"What?" she shouted, simultaneously with her partner.

"Your're not gonna believe this!" Mike exclaimed, "CNN ran DCPD's 
mug shot of Grant on tv, and they just got a call from a temp 
agency that hires janitorial staff for all the federal buildings. 
The owner saw his picture and recognized him as someone she hired 
to fill in at the Hoover today!"

Mulder shook his head in frustration, reaching back to touch 
Mike's arm,  "Wha' Mi'? Too ma'y wor's. C'n ya (w)ri'  I(t) p'ease?"

And he waited patiently as Mike took out a note pad and did just 
that. His reaction, after reading, took his companions by 
surprise. Mulder snorted in ironic humor, remembering that Ernie 
wouldn't let him go into the parking garage because Kersh had 
declared him persona non permitta . Yet, Paul Allen Grant could 
forge an ID, come in as a substitute janitor through a temp 
agency and threaten everyone and everything in the building.  
What the hell was up with that?!

Mulder noticed Scully's look of inquiry and waved it away. She 
had all she could do to drive them safely without trying to 
understand his convoluted humor. She pulled up to the front of 
the Hoover, reaching over to open his door before swinging out 
herself, and he shrugged himself out of the car. Mike reached in 
to help him and he was out and running after his partner, each 
footfall shooting pain up his hands and arms. 

There was a tangle of other FBI personnel around him. He saw that 
the bomb squad had arrived and was shooting past him into the 
building to begin scouring the hundreds of possible places a bomb 
or bombs could be hidden. Exhaustion hovered at the edges of his 
senses, making his vision go gray from time to time, but he shook 
his head and persevered.  The sudden appearance of AD Kersh was a 
shock, and he recoiled visibly before taking in the man's attire 
in confusion.

The stern man' s face was dust streaked, and he was dressed in a 
baseball uniform with an umpire's chest and groin protector still 
in place. Knee pads and dirty cleats completed the picture of a 
man pulled out of a ball game too quickly and urgently to do more 
than throw down his mask and come to where he was called.  Kersh 
glared at him balefully, and Mulder found he didn't even have the 
strength to put any emotion on his face. If this was the end of 
his career, so be it. At least he would be able to sleep.

"What is he doing here?" Kersh interrogated Dana Scully, angry 
once again that an agent with such a promising career was 
allowing a dolt like Mulder to ruin it. "He's not supposed to be 
anywhere near this case!"

Cool certitude flowed into Scully from somewhere, and she turned 
to Kersh  regally, "The fact remains, Sir, that he, of all of us 
has had the most accurate insight into the case.  He caught Paul 
Grant when we couldn't. He warned us about the danger to the 
Hoover Building. Mulder may turn out to have been the single most 
useful and important element in the solution of this case." And 
she turned away from him, surprised to find Walter Skinner still 
in FBI dress with rolled up shirtsleeves and rumpled slacks- 
working late as usual.

Kersh stepped around in front of her belligerently , exciting 
Mulder who found a sudden strength no one would have thought he 
had and almost shouldered into the irritated Assistant Director 
like a young stallion answering an encroaching challenger. 
Skinner cut him off with a gentle hand on his chest as Mike 
reached for his arm.

"This agent, " Skinner stressed that, "just apprehended the 
DCBomber singlehandedly.  I'd think you'd want to be careful 
how you treat him."

"I intended for him to be on medical leave," Kersh ground out. 
"He can't even keep his nose out of things when he's sick."

"Uh, technically he's not sick, Sir," Scully was emboldened just 
by Skinner's presence.  "He's deaf. And obviously that did not 
impair his deductive skills.

"Then tell him I'm putting him on..... administrative vacation 
when this case is closed!" Kersh shot a hard glance up at 
Skinner. "He can bill it as comp time for working while he was 
listed on medical leave."

The intense man spun away and hurried to get updates from a knot 
of agents who had set up a command post in the lobby of the 
Hoover. Scully found Mulder looking bewildered.  "Nothing!" she 
barked, spreading her hands at him to forestall having to 
interpret any more mangled Mulderspeak, and "Later!" when he 
opened his mouth to question her in defiance or her determination 
not to converse with him.

Well, Scully was pissed, Mulder decided. He knew Kersh irked his 
soul, but he had thought Scully was the correct agent, even to 
how she thought of the irritating AD. No, he remembered standing 
in the hallway waiting for OPR to decide their fate. Scully had 
been willing to quit the FBI if she had to leave him. That didn't 
sound like typical FBI, career-climbing agent attitude. Scully 
was a living, breathing contradiction, part of the reason- only a 
part of the reason he .... loved?.... her.

He sank down on a bench and watched the milling crowd of agents 
and management personnel that had convened atop the FBI seal. He 
loved? Scully? Legendary recall punished him with the memory of 
an almost kiss, reminded him that he had characterized her as his 
one in five billion- the one he trusted most in the world. Yeah, 
he guessed it was love for him. But what was it for her? Mulder 
had a feeling she wasn't sure. She had held herself more than 
usually aloof from him since returning from the Antarctic.  Of 
course, he admitted to himself, his pissy attitude lately might 
have something to do with it. Scully was human, after all. He 
decided even he would have pulled back from someone like himself 
the past few months; he sure hadn't won any humanitarian awards 
lately. He hadn't even been much of a friend, much less a 
partner. Well, I'm going to try to do better, he decided.

Mulder looked up in inquiry as Donovan came up. The SAC was 
scribbling on a piece of paper braced on his hand, held it out 
for Mulder to see, "They found the bomb- in the basement on the 
incoming gas service line."

Mulder found energy he didn't know he had, "They difu'e i..?" he 
asked in concern, rising as he spoke.

"Not yet," Donovan spoke this without writing, Scully said he was 
getting pretty good at lipreading. "Come with me," he gestured as 
well to make his meaning clear.

Mulder left Scully and Mike to follow Donovan. They were talking 
with Kersh again, and the situation appeared calm. He figured his 
proximity to them for any reason could only change the situation 
for the worse. Besides, he was a grown-up, and FBI agent- albeit, 
a very tired one- and this was his job. Donovan took him down in 
one of the elevators, not one he commonly used, then down a 
flight of stairs. 

The narrow hallways were well-lighted, but his fatigue and 
imagination kept painting them dark and scary. The number of 
people coming and going began to increase until with a scrabble 
of fear claws up his spine, he was standing in the circle of bomb 
experts surveying a doughy mass of plastic explosive draped over 
the meters that measured the flow of gas to heat the Hoover. At 
the end of summer, the flow of natural gas in the lines was only 
enough to heat water in the building, but if this went off, there 
wouldn't be enough of the Hoover to even clean up. An image of 
himself standing in the locked vending room in Houston rose 
unbidden, and he shivered, suddenly wishing Scully were here 
beside him. Yeah, right Mulder, he chided himself. Then she could 
get blown up, too.

The bomb sisters were bent over the deadly monstrosity like 
mechanics discussing which spark plugs to use as its tiny digital 
timer ticked off the seconds and minutes. Thirty minutes twenty-
four seconds, thirty minutes twenty-three, thirty minutes twenty-
two...  he craved to ask someone how the disarming process was 
going, but knew his crippled speech would only distract them. He 
sighed deeply in discontent. Focussing instead on the detonator 
and blasting cap wired into the doughy, gray mass, he stood 
dumbly, trying to recall what he knew about C-4 and setting it 
off. 

The silence in his head hummed at him. His wrist and hands stung 
and burned him. His mind was sluggish, responding to his body's 
fatigue. Mulder found he lacked the strength even to curse his 
situation. Yet, he knew there was something about the slim brass 
and copper firing device wired into the plastic explosive that 
was trying to come to his mind.  Just as surely, he knew it was 
significant. Oh Jesus, had the explosion of Grant's house 
affected his memory? 

Mulder buried his face in his bandaged hands, taking deep, 
cleansing breaths as he pictured the detonator in his mind. 
Tired. Just so damned tired. Hope had become an endangered 
species. If he couldn't figure this out, the place where he was 
accustomed to showing up for work every morning was going to get 
a new look- it could double for a meteor crater, he thought with 
grim humor as he settled his gaze on the bomb again. 

Wade Donovan glanced back nervously at the weary man behind him 
as Frank and Janice conversed in quiet, tight tones over the 
timer that was ticking down. He was just taking his hands away 
from his face and looked alright except for being godawful worn-
out looking. The SAC sagged in relief; the spooky guy had 
garnered a lot of friends in the past couple of weeks, and his 
name would be shit if he let Mulder collapse or hurt himself. 
Assured that the injured agent was holding his own, looking at 
the bomb with renewed interest, Donovan bent to listen to the 
bomb experts again.

Mulder saw Donovan check him out and traded gazes an instant 
before the SAC turned back, the bright yellow legend on his 
jacket gleaming in the florescent light. Color.  That was it. 
Mulder studied the long finger-like percussion fuze. Leaning in a 
little closer, he found what he was looking for. A slim yellow 
line banded the copper half of the tube. On the other, brass, 
end, there was a horizontal slit where a narrow metal safety 
strip would have been threaded if the fuze was safed. 

Yellow, he scrambled mentally, feeling his body weaken with the 
effort. Yellow...  yellow coded for 200 to 600 minutes; that 
meant they had from three to ten hours before the corrosive 
chemical in the ampoule inside the copper portion of the tube ate 
through a restraining wire that would drop a firing pin into the 
blasting cap and set off the C-4. 

Grant had obviously set the bomb before he went to the Capitol. 
Let's see, do the math, Mulder. He tried to scrub his face and 
wake up, and succeeded only in sending sharp sparks of pain 
through his torn palms under the gauze. If Grant had been at the 
Capitol for the afternoon tour, that meant he had worked in the 
Hoover today. The janitorial staff left at three.  The latest he 
could have set this up was three, but he would have been walking 
out the maintenance doors then,  in full view of the security 
cameras and having his temporary badge taken up by Maxine or 
Bobby. He had to have set the bomb at one or two, and it was 
almost eleven now.He did the math, and knew they were in great 
danger. The fucking timer was just for show.

Tapping Donovan's shoulder to avoid speaking, he gestured him to 
come away from the kneeling experts. "I don' thin' we ha' thir'y 
min's," he said seriously, expecting Donovan to want a rationale 
for that opinion, and trying to gear up for the effort it was 
going to take to speak semi-intelligibly. To his surprise, 
Donovan didn't say anything, and turned straight back to the 
huddled bomb experts.

"Mulder says we don't have as much time as the read-out 
indicates," he informed Frank Quentin.

Frank paused only a moment, the urge to question the source of 
Donovan's odd information plainly visible on his face, then he 
nudged one of the agents at the timer, "Hurry it up, Janice; the 
timer's reading false. Y'know, Wade," Frank said quietly as he 
oversaw his agent's work, "he comes down here half out of it- 
looks at this thing for five minutes and tells us that the 
timer's not reading true.That guy's spooky."

"I know," Donovan agreed softly, not wanting to disturb Janice, 
"I'm just glad he's our Spooky."

They were all bent over the timer. Mulder turned and headed back 
upstairs. There was nothing he could do here, and he wanted to be 
with Scully and Mike. Back in the lobby, he found his partners- 
old and new- worried and searching for him. Scully started to 
harrangue him, but he held up his formless hands to forestall 
her, "No' my faul' thi' time," he explained, "Don'van too' me 
down to see the bom'."

"And..." she encouraged him, knowing he was dead on his feet.

"We'," he shrugged and tried to run his hands through his hair, " 
I..'s a bom'."

"How. Much. Time?" she spoke the words separately, and he knew he 
would lie.

"Abou' twen'y fi' min's."

Mike's eyes narrowed, but Scully missed it. Mulder begged him 
with a look not to tell her. He lifted his hand to get her 
attention. "Hey Scu''y, we can' do an'thin' here; I' starve', 
le's go ge' somethin' to ea'."

She looked at him in amazement, then turned to Mike. The big 
linebacker shrugged and smiled. "Sounds like a plan to me. I'll 
go tell Ker- uh, Assistant Director Kersh," that we're taking 
Mulder home." He didn't even blink at planning to lie.

Mulder had no idea what Mike said, but after a moment to speak to 
Kersh, Mike gathered him and Scully with a gesture and they 
started to the car.

"Thin' we coul' as' (S)kinner, too?" Mulder wondered as they 
passed the bespectacled AD talking to some DC uniformed 
policemen.

Scully was flabbergasted, but Mike shrugged, playing along "Sure, 
why not?" And he strolled over to serious-faced man and issued 
the invitation while Mulder waited with Scully a little distance 
apart. Skinner was inclined to refuse, but Mike was persuasive.  
Mulder was saving the people who were important to him; that was 
worth being a part of.  Finally, the tall man rubbed the back of 
one hand across his forehead and agreed, pausing only to tell the 
command post commander where he was going.

"Where to?" Scully asked him with hands raised in inquiry when 
they were at the car.

"Joe Theisma'," he said definitely, "TV ha' clos' caption, and 
dey sto' impor' beer." Not to mention, Scully thought in relief, 
that the trendy sports-themed restaurant was not too distant from 
Mulder's apartment building. He slept on the way across the river 
to Alexandria, and Scully purposefully drove to allow him time to 
rest. Traffic was light, but neither Skinner nor Mike, sharing 
the cramped back seat complained. 

Halfway through a meal during which Mulder amazed Mike with the 
amount he could actually eat when he was in the mood, Skinner's 
phone warbled along with Scully's  and Mike's. Mulder watched 
them intently until Mike pulled his crumpled paycheck envelope 
out and penned neatly. "Bomb diffused. Hoover okay."

"Wha' a relie'," Mulder declared. "I c'n go home now an' slee'."

The next three weeks were exactly what Scully had wished for 
before Paul Allen Grant turned Washington upside down. She and 
Mulder were in the office, doing boring background checks for 
Mike and Ran who were out in the field investigating several 
large purchases of dynamite and ammonia fertilizer, and 
developing the case brief to take to court at Grant's trial. 
Currently, the federal judge was considering whether to change 
the venue of the trial. Grant's lawyer argued that he wouldn't 
get a fair trial in the district, especially since one of the FBI 
agents on the case was deaf from contact with one of his bombs.

Mulder frankly didn't think it would make much difference whether 
the trial was held in DC or Podunk USA or whether his hearing 
returned prior to the trial, since there was more than sufficient 
evidence to convict. He hoped his hearing returned by the time 
the case was convened in court-  for the sake of the judge and 
jury who would hear his tesitmony. He was aware of some loud 
sounds now- ambulances and jack hammers, oh joy- but people's 
voices still eluded him. When he had to be around any of the ISU 
crew, it was an unexpected blessing, but he missed the subtle 
rustle of people working around him when he was researching dull 
background checks.

He did end up going to court in Philadelphia for Grant's case 
before he was able to hear well enough to understand the lawyers' 
questions, but his cooperative attitude and a helpful computer 
screen that scrolled the proceedings for him in lieu of hearing 
them allowed him to give a good showing. Scully had had to cue 
him to "all rise," but after that, he was aware of every question 
and response. When he took the stand, there was a laptop on the 
rail, connected to the same system as the PC at the prosecution 
table.

Scully watched Mulder stride confidently up to the witness stand, 
all GQ FBI. It was amazing what sleep and some regular meals had 
done for him. He raised his reddened palm, still too sensitive to 
flatten entirely as he promised to tell the truth.  Watching the 
bailiff instead of the computer, he said his "I do" competently.

He proceeded to give a precise description of what Grant had done 
and why, giving chapter and verse to back it up; even Grant's 
defense lawyer, who didn't look at all happy to be in that role, 
wasn't able to rattle him. No matter how fast he tried to talk or 
how he tried to twist Mulder's words, the agent brought him back 
to the central facts- Mike and Scully's findings, the fingerprint 
evidence, Mulder's attempted arrest as Grant exited the Rotunda 
Gallery from setting that bomb, and his boastful admission at the 
police station of setting another device the night he was caught. 
It took only a week for the jury to hear evidence and deliberate. 

Mulder's speech was still blurred, and he dropped many letters, 
but the judge was inclined to be patient with him and had already 
instructed the jury and the defense to be so. For his part, 
Mulder patiently repeated anything someone didn't understand, and 
made his case without emotion or judgement. Special Agent Fox 
Mulder was the consumate professional.

It may have been one of the speediest federal trials in the 
history of the justice system.  When Grant stood to hear his 
sentence of life in prison without parole, Mulder turned away. 
Scully wondered at that, thinking that he, of all people, would 
want to look at the man who had nearly killed him eye to eye in 
his moment of downfall. But Mulder looked out the window with a 
calm, distant expression as Grant sputtered and lunged at the 
oblivious FBI agent before being caught up short with his 
handcuffs by a vigilant guard.  Then, she understood the 
psychological reasoning behind Mulder's action. Grant would have 
used the opportunity to manipulate Mulder if he could have seen 
his words, but Mulder sidestepped the issue and left Grant 
powerless. It was the ultimate punishment.  He looked around at a 
soft nudge on his elbow and swung his head down a little to watch 
Scully's face.

"C'mon, partner," her expression spoke of satisfaction. "Let's 
get out of here."

Mulder stepped out into the fresh air and sunlight surrounded by 
the people who had made the last month of his life bearable. Mike 
and Kevin and Ran stopped to shake his hand gently before leaving 
him and Scully standing on the steps of the Federal Courthouse. 
She had stopped a step above him, making then nearly eyelevel, 
and touched his arm for his attention. Her breath caught a little 
as he lifted his face to her, sunlight turning his eyes green-
gold.

"Here," she pulled the yellow legal pad with all its notes and 
conversations out of her briefcase, "I thought you might want 
this."

"Than's Scully," he took the pad and studied the first page, the 
things Mike had written while Mulder had been tied, blind and 
deaf , to a hospital bed. Not only had Mike taken down his 
profiling notes, but he had chronicled Mulder's condition and his 
reactions.  "Hmm," he hummed, "Mi' does goo' documentation."

"So, who do you think he learned from?" she laughed, remembering 
coaching the rookie agent, then was ashamed as Mulder frowned. 
Too many words... but he tilted his head with an incredulous 
expression.

"Hey, Scu'y!" he lost his letters in excitement, "I thin' I hear' 
tha'!" He turned a devastating grin on her, "You thin' Kers' will 
sti' le' me ha' my medica' leave?"

"Take a vacation, Mulder," she told him, "Leave today. Go 
someplace with tall drinks and beautiful women."

He paused, surveying her with a cocked head and a teasing look 
tinged with sincerity, "Scully," he replied seriously, "you're 
the only beau'iful woman I'm in(t)erested in, bu' I do have 
somethin' I want to check out. I migh' take a cruise to the 
Bahamas."

"Huh," she snorted in comic disbelief, "Take plenty of dramamine. 
And don't forget it makes you hallucinate."

"Hey Scully," he husked as he took her hand and pulled her down 
the steps, "Ha' you ever seen the Liber'y Be(ll)?"

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Constructive criticism on writing and canon accepted at 
cwrogers@hiwaay.net