Summary: Second installment, all disclaimers remain the same 

Follies of the Mind II: Scully's Thoughts
 by Vickie Moseley
vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com 

Calumet City Mercy Hospital
 12:05 pm 

As soon as Assistant Director Skinner had left the waiting room to
 visit the still sleeping Mulder, Dana Scully turned her attention to the
 young resident sitting before her. Dr. Jerry Kaspar seemed
 competent, but this was her partner's mind they were discussing.
 She couldn't help wondering if something might be amiss. She
 itched to get to a phone and have a background check run on the
 good doctor. 

You're sounding as paranoid as Mulder, her logical, scientific voice
 told her. But that doesn't make it wrong, the new little voice in the
 back of her mind echoed. She closed her eyes and tried to
 concentrate on the doctor's voice instead of the voices in her own
 head. 

"Mr. Skinner mentioned an earlier episode--a couple of years ago, I
 think. Agent Mulder was poisoned somehow?" Kasper was saying
 as she opened her eyes and looked at him. He was looking rather
 concerned, and wary. She had to admit, she did appear rather upset
 and possibly not that much help at that moment. She'd better
 change his opinion of her fast, or she'd have almost no say in
 Mulder's treatment. 

"Yes, it was three years ago. There was psychotropic drug added
 to the water in Agent Mulder's building. At the time, he drank
 quite a bit of water daily. In at least one instance an apartment on
 his floor, a woman shot her husband of over thirty years." 

"How was Agent Mulder treated at that time? Hospitalization?"
 Kasper asked, making notes as Scully talked. 

She swallowed, stalling for time. Hospitalization? Not exactly.
 More like a bullet in the shoulder and two days on a road trip from
 hell. Her mind flashed for a second on that time. Dragging her
 partner, bleeding from a gunshot would she had inflicted, into the
 backseat of her car. Bandaging his injured shoulder in a dark
 corner of the parking lot of an all night drug store. Crushing
 amoxicillin tablets and mixing it with bottles of infant pedialyte to
 force down his throat because she wasn't going to risk giving him
 any more water--no matter how irrational that was. Listening to
 him moan in pain before she could find a place to pull the car over
 and give him another shot to keep him under. Who was the crazy
 one that time, Dana? the little voice asked--rather nastily. She
 looked up and saw Kasper still waiting, a worried frown creasing
 his forehead. 

"Uh, no. Actually, he was sedated and and confined--at home," she
 lied expertly. "I was with him continuously until the drugs had left
 his system." 

"And you're certain it was the drugs, and not some inherent
 psychological problem?" Kasper asked, his voice tinged with
 suspicion. 

"Absolutely certain. Once the drugs had left his system, Agent
 Mulder was completely rational. When I asked how much he
 remembered, he told me he remembered everything, just from a
 rather unusual perspective. But he was fine after that." She stared
 the young doctor straight in the eye, not blinking. This was a point
 she wanted to make sure there was no room for debate. 

"Well, as I told Mr. Skinner, I've ordered a tox screen. The results
 will take a while, but we should know something by this evening.
 Short of that, is there anything else I should know about?" 

She didn't want to bring it up, but it might have some bearing.
 "About a year ago, Agent Mulder underwent an experimental
 treatment for lost memories. It was, ah, rather unconventional.
 Two small holes were drilled into the cranium while the patient was
 given a fairly substantial dose of the drug Ketamine and strapped to
 a stobe light attached to a visor." Scully's stomach dropped, not
 just at the memory of that time, but at the look of total disbelief and
 horror on the young man in front of her. 

"My God! That's . . . t-that's _insane_! And you let him do that?"
 Kasper demanded. 

Scully fought hard to control her temper. "I didn't 'let' him do
 anything, Dr. Kasper. I had no say in the matter. Agent Mulder
 discovered the . . . 'doctor' who performed the treatment
 completely on his own, and without my knowledge or consent. I
 was the one who found him _after_ the treatments. And that time
 he was hospitalized briefly, so that he could receive antibiotics and
 be monitored closely. He was released two days later, after x rays
 showed no damage to the duramatter." 

"But the reason you're telling me this is because you think
 something might have been missed?" Kasper second guessed. 

Relunctantly, Scully nodded. "I don't think it's probable, but it
 might be possible. I just don't want to miss something that simple." 

"Simple," Kasper muttered sarcastically under his breath. "Well,
 Dr. Scully, I guess I'll order a PET scan while I'm at it this
 afternoon. Something could have happened, the formation of a
 tumor, or a latent infection that is exhibiting in irrational and
 delusional behavior. His temp was slightly elevated--99.8. That
 could have been the struggle or the vomiting from the Ativan,
 though. Still, it never hurts to rule these things out." 

All the while Kasper was rambling, Scully was going through her
 own silent terror. Tumor. She'd never considered that possiblity.
 If the powers that be could give her a rare cancer, and then cure it,
 could it be that much of a stretch to inflict her partner with a tumor.
 They'd had ample opportunity--she still didn't know everything that
 happened to him in Russia. She should have been watching, she
 should have been more alert to the threat-- 

"If that's all right with you, Dr. Scully?" Kasper was saying and she
 shuddered then looked at him. "We'll do the PET and then you can
 see him. Do you object to that?" he asked again. 

"That's fine. I'd be interested in sitting in on that, if you don't
 mind," she said, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt. 

Kasper looked like he was going to object, then seemed to think
 better of it. "I suppose it will be all right. You are a doctor, and
 you do have his medical power of attorney. But I'm not looking to
 expand my practice, Dr. Scully. You are an observer--nothing
 more," he added pointedly. 

"Of course, Dr. Kasper. My field is pathology--you're the expert
 here," she assured him with a smile that was more teeth than
 sincerity. Under other circumstances, she would have mopped the
 floor with the little twerp, but he held Mulder's life in his hands and
 she was not about to antagonize him needlessly. Time would tell if
 that opinion would be changing. 

A nurse directed her to the observation room of the x ray
 department. She stood in the doorway and watched Mulder being
 rolled in the exam room on a gurney, then lifted onto the movable
 table. For a split second, she remembered her own experiences
 with just such an exam. She remembered so clearly the prayers
 she'd whispered the last time she'd been on the sliding table,
 entering the machine's giant mouthlike opening. She whispered
 them again, this time not for herself, but for her partner. 

"I'm surprised that he's still asleep," Kasper said as he entered the
 room. "I would have thought he'd wake up from the move to the
 gurney or the table in there." 

Scully shrugged. "Ativan knocks him for a loop. First he gets
 sicker than a dog, then he sleeps. He's a hard one to dose properly.
 On many medications he's close to intolerant, even at smaller than
 normal amounts. Then, with other drugs, you can't knock him out
 with a bucketful." 

"Bet his doctor loves that," Kasper smirked. 

"I couldn't say. He's never managed to hold on to one personal
 physician long enough for anybody to get used to him," Scully
 deadpanned in return and had to bite her tongue to keep the smile
 off her face. 

Kasper had the good grace to snort at that, but say nothing. 

The technician adjusted the computer and hit a button, bringing the
 big machine to life. Mulder slowly disappeared into the circular
 opening. Even through the thick glass partition, Scully could hear
 the whirring sounds the machine made as it twisted and moved,
 taking pictures of the soft tissue of her partner's brain.
 Automatically, she moved her eyes over to the computer screen to
 see what was happening. 

Several minutes later, Scully drew in a full breath of air, her first in
 a long while. No tumor. No abnormalities of any kind had
 appeared on the screen. They weren't dealing with a death
 sentence, at least not in the traditional sense. 

Her sense of relief was short lived, however. The technician was
 still mapping the brain, taking pictures which would later be
 analysed by a radiologist, when Mulder started to wake up. 

"We may have problems," Scully warned, leaning forward and
 almost ready to run into the room regardless of the procedure going
 on. 

"Flip on the intercom," Kasper ordered the technician and the
 young woman did as she was told. "Mr. Mulder? Mr. Mulder, I'm
 Dr. Kasper--" 

"SCULLY!" It was somewhere between a scream from a
 nightmare and the desparate yell he used when they were both in
 the gravest of dangers. Scully recognized it immediately and put
 her hand on Kasper's shoulder, essentially pushing him away from
 the intercom speaker. 

"Mulder, I'm right here," she said, loud enough to be heard over
 her partner's yells for her. "You're in the hospital, we're doing
 some tests--" 

"NO! NO TESTS!" Mulder shouted again and this time, it was
 obvious to Scully that he wasn't really awake, but in some
 purgatory where reality was interconnected with his nightmare.
 "No tests, Scully! Get out while you can! Get out NOW!" 

"Oh shit," Scully muttered and headed for the door. She knew
 what was happening. The drug was keeping him in the nightmare,
 he couldn't wake up. She needed to get in there and help him.
 "Turn the damn thing off!" she shouted over her shoulder. She
 vaguely heard Kasper calling orderlies to the exam room. 

By the time she could get the door open, Mulder had the 'head
 gear' that acted as a guide during the test off his face and was
 struggling to get off the table. He was doing a fairly lousy job of it.
 The orderlies hit the door running and made a grap for the man
 about to fall face first onto the floor. Scully was already on the
 other side of the table, trying to get Mulder's attention. But the
 moment the orderlies touched him, all hell broke loose in earnest. 

"Let GO! Let! Me! GO!" Mulder was screaming at the top of his
 lungs. His eyes were open, but they were glazed and too bright and
 from her position just feet away, Scully could tell he was still in his
 nightmare. She could almost tell which particular nightmare it
 was--her abduction and Sam's abduction all rolled into one. 

"Mulder, Mulder, listen to me," she said, trying at first for calm and
 soothing, but soon giving over to fear and desparation. "Please,
 wake up, Mulder. We're in a hospital. No one is going to hurt
 you." 

Even as the words left her mouth, Mulder pulled back out of the
 firm grasp of the one orderly and socked the other man right in the
 jaw, dropping him to the floor. The first orderly, seeing his
 companion flattened, grabbed Mulder around the neck and wrestled
 him back on the table. Before Scully could draw a breath, Kasper
 was there with a nurse and a syringe. Holding Mulder's legs while
 the orderly held his arms, Kasper nodded and the nurse deftly
 injected the patient's hip. Within seconds, Mulder was out like a
 light. 

"Goddamn it," Scully spat out angrily. "I could have handled that!
 You didn't have to drug him again!" 

Kasper gave her a look that showed how close he was to sedating
 _her_. "Are you nuts? He was hysterical and violent! We have
 procedures for handling violent patients, Dr. Scully." He turned to
 the orderlies, now standing and pointed to the gurney in the hall.
 "Take him back to his room, and make sure he's restrained before
 you leave." They nodded in agreement and hoisted the limp agent
 back on the gurney. 

Scully followed them to the elevators and then made sure she was
 first in and holding the door as they pushed the gurney into the car.
 Kasper shot her a disgruntled look, but as Mulder's 'next of kin'
 there wasn't much he could do about her coming along and she
 knew it. Scully kept the smirk she wanted to wear tucked tightly in
 her cheek for the duration of the ride. 

She was forced into a corner of the room as the orderlies hefted the
 limp agent onto the bed, then a nurse followed in and tucked the
 blankets around. Not before first enclosing his ankles and wrists in
 two inch wide webbed straps. The nurse picked up the straps to
 place across his chest, but Scully covered the distance between
 them and stilled the other woman's hands. 

"He doesn't need that one. Believe me, he'll be fine without it,"
 Scully assured her. The nurse frowned sourly, but in the end,
 dropped the straps back to the sides of the bed. 

"If he has problems, I'll tell them this was _your_ idea," she said
 hautily and huffed her way out of the room. 

Grateful to be alone at last, Scully spotted a chair near the window
 and pulled it closer to the end of the bed, then dropped into it. She
 had no idea how tired she was. Chasing after crazy partners
 seemed to be very exhausting. 

Crazy partners. She couldn't stop thinking of the look on Skinner's
 face. The look of accusation, the look of betrayal. As if it was
 Scully's sole responsibility to keep Fox Mulder on the straight and
 narrow--to keep his feet attached to the ground. It angered her that
 with all her training, that was what she'd been reduced to--a
 psychiatric wet nurse. 

Then she looked at the face of the person sleeping just inches away
 and the hot fire of anger cooled. He looked so young when he was
 sleeping. Gone were all the crowsfeet and creases of a 37 year old
 man. Lately, she'd noticed the tiny lines that were forming around
 his eyes and mouth. She'd been walking behind him just a week
 before and found a couple of gray hairs mixed in with the brown.
 That's what happens when you run with the big dogs, her father
 used to say. Run with the big dogs, indeed. 

She glanced at her watch and realized that it had been just a little
 over 24 hours since she'd arrived in Oak Park for the first time. All
 she knew then was that Mulder was in an office building, held
 hostage by a man with a gun. Leave it to Mulder to find the right
 building, the right maniac, to get into such trouble. 

Scully had felt such an odd deja vu at that moment she arrived.
 Only the last time, it had been night, and it had been Richmond--so
 close to home, and Alex Krycek had been a friendly face in the
 crowd. Man, oh man, how things change, she'd thought to herself
 at that moment. 

In the stark daylight, though, as the SWAT team and the ASAC
 crowded around, discussing options and ideas, suggesting to call
 Mulder on his cell phone--it hit her. Things hadn't really changed
 at all. Mulder was in trouble and there she was, waiting and
 wringing her hands. The perfect SNAFU: Situation Normal, All
 Fucked Up. The military definitely got that acronym right the first
 time. 

Time stretched into seconds, breaths, heartbeats. No word, no idea
 what was going on. Then suddenly--gunshot! 

Scully's heart stopped beating. She didn't want to think, but it was
 all she could do. She closed her eyes and felt--felt for him. Mulder
 would have teased her forever if he knew that she often turned
 inward to find where he was, if he was all right. She'd known in
 her heart all the times he was in danger. At that moment, she knew
 also that he was still very much alive. It gave her the courage, the
 serenity to take charge of the situation. 

When the camera man was requested, Scully saw an opportunity.
 "Give him what he wants," she growled and the other members of
 the team were obliged to agree. There were a pack of reporters at
 the site already anyway, it was time to put them to some kind of
 use. And Scully knew that then they'd be able to see inside the
 building, get a feel for what was happening, where people were
 located. Knowing Mulder as she did, he would give them whatever
 help he could. She just prayed he hadn't fallen into his old habits of
 'siding' with the hostage taker. 

It had happened so long ago that she almost never thought of it
 anymore. She'd never confessed her suspicions to her partner,
 never wanted to rub salt in wounds that were opened on a daily
 basis. But before she'd been abducted, in the day immediately
 following the Duane Berry hostage crisis, one of the SWAT team
 members had called her. They'd been reviewing the tapes, going
 over the video from the camera secreted in the wall and had a
 question. 

Why in the world, when the target was in range, did
 Special Agent Fox Mulder speak to Duane Berry and call him away
 from the door? 

Scully didn't understand the question and asked for
 it to be repeated. Apparently, it was very obvious that Mulder had
 first suggested to Berry to go to the door and lock it, thus putting
 Berry--the target--in perfect sight of the SWAT team. Mulder
 would have even been able to see the red laser tag on the back of
 Berry's neck. It would have been a single shot, perfect kill. But
 Mulder had called Berry away from the door. As a result, Berry
 was shot in the chest, not killed, but wounded. Mulder had saved
 Berry's life. 

Scully hadn't had time to analyze her partner's motives at the time.
 She was too busy trying to ascertain the significance of the metal
 chip. And then later, she'd been bound and gagged and all she
 could think about was getting out of the trunk of the car alive. But
 later, months later, on long, lonely nights, she wallowed in the
 muck of 'what ifs'. What if Mulder had allowed the SWAT team to
 put a bullet in the back of Duane Berry's head? What if Duane
 Berry had never survived that night? Would she have been
 abducted? 

Now, with the passing of time, she knew the answer to that
 question as an undeniable yes. If not Berry, then the next hapless
 nutcase would have been pulled into service. Maybe a Luis
 Cardinale or another Alex Krycek. It would have made no
 difference, with the possible exception that she might have been
 killed in the process. She didn't blame Mulder, even during those
 dark nights following her return. She didn't blame him in the
 present, either. But she couldn't help but wonder if she might be
 witnessing some of the same confusion on his part once again. 

For some bizarre reason, she felt herself panic as she watched the
 television screen. She could see Mulder plainly, his face was a little
 battered, his lip bleeding. She searched frantically over what little
 of his body was in view to see if there were any other injuries to be
 catalogued. Not finding any really didn't ease her mind that much.
 She continued to stand, her eyes glued to the small set as the
 SWAT team prepared their assault on the building. 

She wasn't paying that much attention to what was being said until
 she saw her partner defiantly step in front of one of the hostages.
 The gunman had obviously decided this hostage was the next to die
 and Mulder refused to let that happen. Scully's stomach dropped
 to the floor, she couldn't watch and yet she couldn't take her eyes
 off the tiny 13 inch version of the drama taking place just yards
 away from where she stood. "Don't kill him, don't kill him, don't
 kill--" It was all she could think of, all that mattered. 

The SWAT team attacked and the site was under control before she
 had a chance to breath a sigh of relief. But her relief was short
 lived when she got a good look at her partner. 

Mulder's actions confirmed her earlier worst suspicions once the
 situation was under control. The gunman was secured and led
 away, the body of the man he'd murdered was being removed by
 the Medical Examiner. Mulder had been checked out--or as much
 as he'd let the EMT's take a look at his jaw. And before she knew
 what was happening, he was giving one of the hostages the third
 degree. The man Mulder had just minutes before sheilded with his
 own body. The man the gunman had called a monster. 

She should have done more at that point. But Mulder himself had
 seemed unsure of his actions. When she called him on his behavior,
 he'd admitted that he didn't know what was wrong. He's tired, she
 thought. Emotionally and physically exhausted. He'd barely
 recovered from the run in with digit breaking terrorists and here he
 was, in the middle of a hostage situation. As she so often did, she
 gave him the benefit of a doubt and vowed to keep an eye on him. 

But she hadn't really kept that vow. On the flight back to DC, he
 hadn't slept, had just stared out the window. She should have
 broken the silence, but she knew what the inevitable answer would
 be. "I'm fine, Scully." She was tired of hearing it, but equally still
 she felt a little guilty for the all the times she'd used it herself. She
 left him to his thoughts. She'd dropped him off at his apartment,
 reminding him of the dosage of the sleeping pill he'd been
 prescribed months before, but not pressing it further than that.
 Scully was certain that his body's response, once it was in familiar
 confines, would kick in and he would collapse on the couch and
 sleep. It was his way, to wait until well after the danger was past
 and then just simply shut down for 12 to 20 hours. 

That was why she was so surprised to see him early the next
 morning, looking like he'd been busy for a while. And then, he'd
 frightened her when he'd asked her if she thought he was sick. It
 was such a loaded question. The same kind of question he'd turned
 on her in a silent prison hallway when he'd asked her if she'd ever
 really believed that his sister had been abducted by aliens. 

There was so much more to the question that just answering in the
 affirmative or the negative. It was a confirmation or a negation of
 their trust in each other, the very foundation of their relationship as
 partners and more. Or at least, that's how Scully viewed it at the
 time. So instead of answering the question, she'd fled the room,
 finding something else to occupy her. 

This time, Mulder didn't ditch her, she'd abandoned him. 

But she hadn't been able to stay away for long. Even though a
 large part of her saw it as a futile action, she still went through the
 motions of the autopsy. She'd been angry at first, that he'd stepped
 all over her--forced her into this exam by setting it up and then
 leaving without saying a word. But as she looked at the body, her
 curiosity got the better of her. Not Mulder's questions, but her
 own now popped into her mind. Why was the body so badly
 decomposed after less than 24 hours? It looked to her
 knowledgeable eye to have been dead for at least three days,
 possibly four. 

Her stubborness took hold again. There was nothing to the
 mystery. Time of death was the hardest factor to determine in an
 autopsy. So she'd left the body intact, and went back to what she
 was doing. Not just her stubborness, but her pride kept her from
 going to Chicago. If Mulder didn't want her along, she certainly
 wasn't going to follow after him like a puppy. He was a big boy, as
 he so often reminded her. He could just take care of himself for
 once. 

Scully found sleep, but not easily that night. The body in the
 morgue plagued her dreams. In one particularly vivid dream, it had
 sat up and talked to her, telling her that she was a fool. When she
 woke up the next morning, she'd decided to call Mulder and find
 out what the hell he was doing. Maybe even go out and see for
 herself. But by the time she got to the office, it was all for naught. 

She'd been called from over a thousand miles away to find him as
 he was before her. The brave intellect she'd followed blindly for
 the past five years, reduced to the drugged and restrained man
 laying in a hospital bed. The sight of him sleeping usually brought
 her peace. But everytime her eyes fell on the white webbed
 restraints holding him against his will, her own heart screamed to
 release him. 

She couldn't stand just sitting there watching him sleep any longer.
 She pulled herself out of the chair and paced the room, turning
 toward the window and looking out on the yard below. A maple
 tree was directly outside the window, towering majestically, it's
 limbs close enough to brush the building. She noticed how the tree
 was budding, tight, red buttons ready to burst forth with green.
 Spring was coming, and with it a sense of renewal. A sense of
 hope. She closed her eyes and briefly prayed for hope of any kind. 

As if on cue, she heard a low groan behind her. A smile played at
 the corners of her mouth, but she tamped it back when she realized
 she wasn't sure what would greet her. Her partner, acerbic as ever,
 demanding to be released and given his clothes--standard operating
 procedure whenever Mulder woke up in a hospital bed? Or a
 delusional psychotic who wouldn't know reality from his
 nightmares? 

She pulled the curtain aside and approached the bed slowly. He
 was just blinking and she knew that he'd be struggling against the
 restraints to reach up and rub the sleep from his eyes. Before he
 had the chance, she covered his hand and gave it a squeeze. 

"You can't tell me that after five years, you didn't see this coming,"
 Mulder joked, his eyes not quite giving truth to the lightness of his
 words. 

She had no answer to that. How many times had she expected just
 such an event? How many times had she wondered when it would
 be her own hands tied in restraints? Too many to count, too often
 to say. 

He sensed her silent turmoil and let her off the hook. "What did
 you find in the autopsy?" he asked. She could feel the urgency of
 his words, could hear the unspoken plea for anything that might
 substantiate his theory. 

"What we would expect to find, generally," she told him, a
 noncommital answer to the question, but still leaving the door open
 for further discussion. She didn't want to destroy any chance that
 she could still reach him, reach beyond the delusion. Beyond that,
 the mystery still tugged at her, giving her a glimmer of hope to offer
 her partner. 

He jumped on her vague reply. "What do you mean-- 'generally'?
 What did you find?" 

"The body was more decomposed than we would expect to find.
 But Mulder, that means nothing. Time of death is notoriously hard
 to pin down." Even to herself, the rationalization sounded hollow.
 There was something here and given other circumstances, she'd be
 jumping all over it. But she didn't have the time--she had to focus
 on Mulder now, not the case. 

He wasn't buying her subterfuge for a minute. "Scully, that could
 also mean that he was dead long before he was shot. This monster,
 Pinkas, whatever you want to call him--he did something to that
 woman when he attacked her. Something to her neck. The body, it
 would have bite marks or puncture wounds on the back of the neck.
 You have to look for them. You have to believe . . ." 

Each word tore at her heart, she'd been so certain that he'd wake
 up in the real world. But he was still spouting 'the monsters are
 here' line that had led him to this place, to this mental state. She bit
 her lip to keep the tears at bay. "Mulder, all I hope is that you'll be
 able to see past this delusion--" 

"Scully, you have to believe me. You are the only one on this
 whole damned planet who does or ever will! You are my one in
 five billion--" 

She choked back a sob and swallowed hard. He reached for her,
 but didn't get far when the restraints held him back. "Please,
 Scully," he pleaded, his voice low and strained. She could see tears
 in his eyes, too and it was almost too much. 

She felt the tug again. Just like all the other times, her scientific
 mind was telling her it was a futile pursuit, but the little voice inside
 her heart, the one that had urged her to follow this man into places
 no sane person would ever go, was telling her to give him a chance.
 "Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread," her mother often
 quoted. If that was the case, she was as much a fool as her partner. 

"I'll look, Mulder. I can't promise what I'll find, but I'll look--all
 right?" 

He eagerly nodded up and down. 

"But you have to promise me that you'll be good, Mulder," Scully
 told him sternly. "You have to do what they say, when they say it,
 no arguments." 

He swallowed and then nodded, staring directly into her eyes. "Just
 don't let them keep me here too long, huh, Scully?" he answered
 and she felt her throat grow tight. To make matters worse, he
 squeezed her hand tightly, then let it go. 

"Get some rest," she told him, then leaned over and kissed him
 lightly on the forehead. "I'll be back later, I promise." 

the end.
 Vickie 

"Your ability to juggle many tasks will take you far." 

My fortune cookie, Feb. 28, 1998