Letting the Demons Go: Salvation Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 ***** Summary: Demons aftermath as told by Scully Spoilers: Demons, fourth season up to it casually mentioned Surgeon General Warning: I had to use the cancer arc--I'm guilty, I admit it. I've arranged for my fifty lashes with a wet noodle. Rating: PG-13 Category: S, Mythology, A, UST Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. But I play nicely and I don't make money from this. Archives: Please put everywhere you want, just leave my name attached. Comments: please, pretty please vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com Thanks to my editor, Susan Letting the Demons Go--Salvation by Vickie Moseley vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com Mulder Summer Home, Rhode Island April 14, 9:45pm "Mulder, put down the gun." God in heaven, how many times would I have to say those words? How many times were we going to play this perverted form of Russian Roulette? What would it take to end it? My death? His death? He was not listening. Or at least, not to me. I could see by the closed eyes, the way he's caressing his cheek with the barrel of the gun, like it was a lover's hand, a touch of silk. My stomach recoiled at the thought. Autoerotic asphyxiation. Why did those words invade my mind at that moment? He mumbled something about how everything is clearer and the cold of the room had nothing to do with the chills running relays up and down my spine. I held my breath, wished my heart would stop the incessant pounding in my chest. It's just Mulder, for God's sakes, I wanted to scream at my reflexes. Just Mulder with another fucking gun to his head. So what else was new? A dead policeman and two dead senior citizens, all recent recipients of the same 'treatment' my partner had just undergone. All dead by their own hands or the hand of a loved one. That was new enough for me. That changed the whole game plan. I don't know when I became so monumentally stupid, but I think at some point, I just gave up being scared. I started actually thinking I could talk him down from this ledge he was teetering on. "Are you going to shoot me, Mulder. Is it that important to you?" There it was, the question of our lives together. Who's more important to you, Mulder? A sister you haven't seen in 23 years, or the woman who has stood beside you for the last five? A woman who has given up everything, even her life, maybe, for you and your search. I promised myself once that I would never make him choose between us. Some promises are just made to be broken. My question still hung in the air. "yes," came the whispered reply and I wasn't really that surprised that I didn't feel anything in the answer. Not hurt. Not betrayed. Not frightened. Just numb. A cut too deep to feel. I would bleed to death before I would realize I had been mortally injured. But then, just when I thought to myself that it would probably hurt less to die from a gunshot wound to the chest than a tumor in my brain, Mulder changed all the odds. He swung his body around and started firing at the wall. The first shot made me jump. By shot number six, I was wondering how many rounds were left in the clip. He folded in on himself. Crumpled before my eyes. Curled into a tight ball on himself, the gun a forgotten mistress on the floor by his feet. I stood there, for a second, telling myself it was over. Instinct overcame me and I lowered down around him, covering him as best as I could. I laid my head on his back and heard his sobs through his ribcage. I added my own tears to the sweat the ran down his back. There was movement behind me and I gathered the presence of mind to give an 'all clear'. The SWAT team entered, glancing around the small room as if expecting an armed militia. Nope, guys, just one slightly mental FBI agent and his faithful sidekick, the cancer-riddled pathologist. Geez, we make a sick pair. Mulder was starting to shiver and I realized that the men in flak jackets sure couldn't help him, so I calmly forced my emotions back in their file cabinet and pulled out all my medical training. Any first year med student could see he was in shock. What might have been missed was the unmistakable 'aura' that I'd picked up on with the seizures. Mulder grabbed his head with both hands, his face contorted from intense pain and I knew, God help me, I knew in my heart that the seizures I'd seen in the last two days were nothing more than the warm up for the one I was about to witness. It wasn't medical school that had trained me how to respond to what happened next. It was brute hard life experience. He was holding his head, rocking, but suddenly, his whole body snapped taut, his arms snapped to his sides and his head was thrown back with the force of the muscles reactions to the strong impulses from his brain. And then, in less than a split second, he started to convulse. It scared me the first time I saw it happen. I was just a kid, first year in the dorms. Never had a beer in my life. We were out for a night, just a few of us. Fake ID's and a pocket full of refunds from books we had sold back to the college bookstore. Nancy forgot to tell us that she had epilepsy. I'd never seen a grand mal seizure before in my life, and I vowed that the next time I would know what to do. Watching your best friend almost bite off her tongue was not the kind of 'great college story' you want to hand down to your grandkids. I grabbed Mulder's head with my left hand, his jaw, with my right. I held his jaw shut against the bronco ride his body was taking, but made no attempt to hold him down. Nothing I could have done would have worked at that point, anyway. I wished I'd had the time to look at my watch, time the damn thing. The doctors at the ER would want to know how long the first one lasted. A baseline to determine if the next one was of longer duration. I had already determined that this would not be an isolated incident. As his body shuddered to a halt, his eyes rolled farther back in his head and I knew he'd lost consciousness without even checking. I gently lowered him the rest of the way to the ground and stood up. Five faces, pasty white, stared through me. Obviously, no one had called the paramedics yet. Then, I heard the sirens. At least someone on the outside didn't have their head up their ass. But the team was starting to worry me a little. "It's all right. He had a seizure. Remember, I said he was in need of medical attention," I reminded the assembled masses. I noticed that a few of them started breathing again. I looked at the one most likely to be lucid and motioned to the door. "Show the EMT's how to get back here," I directed. He was more than happy to comply. "I need blankets," I said and the others started to move, like 6 foot wind up dolls. Mulder had the good fortune to go berserk in the bedroom, so it wasn't long before I had enough blankets to keep him warm in the dead of winter. I tucked the blankets around him and then moved aside as the gurney was carried into the room. I was advising the EMT's of the most recent seizure when I noticed the blood on my left hand. Instinctively, I touched my upper lip, and then realized that the blood was from Mulder's forehead. Another little present from the now incarcerated Dr. Goldstein. "Better tell base that he's going to need a PET scan, stat," I told the nearest burly guy in powder blue. "Is that a gunshot wound?" burly asked and I shook my head no. "Dentist's drill," I informed him. He blanched, but went back to work. I wandered to the side of the room and tried to make myself look anywhere else but at my partner. My hands itched to start the IV myself, adjust the O2 so the edge of the mask wouldn't chafe the bridge of his nose. I wanted to go tell them to start antibiotics, to give him cortisteroids to reduce the swelling of the brain. In essence, make myself a nuisance to the people who were trying to help him more than I could at that moment. Luckily, Det. Curtis arrived and pushed his way through the men standing around, guarding Mulder from the as yet unseen intruder. "Agent Scully, is he--" I stopped him before he finished that statement. "I got here in time, Det. Curtis. He's alive." Curtis looked doubtfully at the gurney. "He's still bleeding?" A small trickle of blood was marring the white starched surface of the gurney's pillow. "Yes," I said. "Did Dr. Goldstein say anything more?" I really didn't want to dwell on the blood, or what it might mean. Permanent damage to the dura matter of the brain was not something I could fix with a cup of soup or a kind word. Curtis looked disgusted. "Man, the old bastard must rake it in. Called the best defense attorney in three states. He's not talkin'. Claiming 'doctor/patient' confidentiality prohibits him from giving us the details of the treatment, or some shit. It makes you wish for the days of bright lights and rubber hoses," he concluded, then looked at me, slightly embarrassed. "I didn't mean that--" "I was thinking of bamboo shoots under the nails, actually, detective," I told him and after he swallowed, he graced me with a smile. The burly EMT, who I noticed was named 'Stevens' according to the label on his shirt, touched my arm to get my attention. "We're ready to roll here. Do you want to follow?" "I'd like to ride along," I said, wondering if I would need to use my badge, my gun or both to get my way. "I'm a doctor," I offered. He considered that a minute, then nodded. I turned to Curtis and shook his hand. "How can I thank you? Without your help--" "Not a problem, Agent Scully. Just, uh, well, get him back to DC as soon as he's able to travel, if it's not too much bother." I snorted at that. Yeah, I'm sure Mulder was one Fed Det. Curtis would not miss. "I'll make sure he's out of your hair for the remainder of our stay," I assured him. The ride wasn't that long, maybe twenty minutes. Mulder was still unconscious, and he didn't seize again in the ambulance. I wasn't so far gone that I thought it meant that was over, I was just grateful that they weren't right on top of each other. Maybe, just maybe, he would be able to survive his own terminal stupidity. One more time. We arrived at the ER, and the lights always cause me to squint. I caught the stare the triage nurse was giving me and again touched my hand to my lip. Sure enough, I was having a nosebleed. I excused myself and found a bathroom, cursed that damned cancer that didn't have more sense than to leave me alone when Mulder was the one in need of a doctor. I can only deal with one medical emergency at a time, God damn it! Thankfully, the nosebleed was just an annoyance and stopped rather quickly. I was able to leave the restroom only to be escorted to a functional cubicle in admitting to give the hospital all the necessary information to ensure their payment for services rendered. I did get one chuckle out of the evening. When the nice looking admitting clerk, still not looking up at me, but only at his computer screen asked me 'how did Mr. Mulder become injured?' I calmly told him that he had some guy drill a hole in his head. The look on his face was priceless. Fun and games over, I went in search of my partner. He wasn't too hard to find, the whole ER was whispering about him. He'd seized again as they were moving him to the ER gurney. I glanced at my watch, it was after 11 pm. Roughly, I guessed that he was having them about an hour apart, but was probably miles off course. He might have two in a row and then he might not have another for the rest of his life. No, we'd never get that lucky, I told myself. As I was turning the corner, I ran right smack into a tall, middle aged doctor, with an interesting handlebar mustache. He took in my appearance and stuck out his hand. "You must be Dr. Scully. I'm Dr. Nate Highland, I'm treating your partner." I shook his hand and followed him into the exam room. Mulder was now sporting more than just sterile water above his head. I recognized IV antibiotics. "While you were busy, we did a lumbar puncture. The fluid was clear, no sign of blood. Mr. Mulder's blood pressure is 135 over 100, I suspect that's high," he said, stopping only for my answering nod. "He's running a temp of 101. I ran some lab tests, they aren't back yet, but judging from the placement of the wound and the history of the last couple of days that you gave Larry in the ambulance, I'm not ready to rule out an infection, possibly a form of encephalitis. Either way, I've started him on antibiotics." Told you so, Mulder. "I understand he had another seizure," I said. "Have you done the PET?" Highland winced. "I'm getting him in as soon as possible. We had a big crack up on the interstate--lots of head injuries. But believe me, your partner is toward the top of the list. I expect to get him in within the next half hour." Highland looked very uncomfortable all of a sudden. "Could you explain to me how he got the injury?" What, the good doctor didn't believe that a full grown man, an FBI agent, would willing sit in a chair and have some joker take a Makita (tm) power drill to his head? I didn't have time for this shit, but then again, I had all the time in the world until we could get that intercranial imaging accomplished. "Agent Mulder was receiving highly suspect treatments for a loss of memory that occurred during his childhood. He received the first treatment some time after Friday night. I found him Sunday morning. He received a second treatment tonight, late this evening. The treatment incurred receiving an unknown dose of the drug Ketamine and then having the patient sit with a strobe light attached to a visor over his eyes. The last stage of 'treatment' was to drill a small hole in the frontal lobe, right at the hairline. It was thought to induce the hallucinations that would lead to the return of the lost memory." I found myself looking intently at the floor during my recitation. It was hard to even think about it, much less say it out loud. "Well, I can understand the seizures a little better, now," Highland said with a decided frown on his face. "And I'm sure it produced some vivid hallucinations." He then scowled at me directly. "Why didn't you stop him from taking a second treatment?" Gee, doc, I didn't know the gun was loaded. What the hell could I say? I didn't think for a minute that leaving him alone with his mother, of all people, would result in him running off without me and doing the same damned thing again. Especially when he knew how dangerous the procedure was. But then, knowing Mulder as I do, that should have been my first thought. Highland was still staring at me. "I tried to stop him. He took off without me," I said and it sounded pretty damned lame to my ears. Highland shrugged and obviously thought considerably less of the federal government after our encounter, but there wasn't much I could do. God, occasionally, you do look out for me. The orderlies arrived to take Mulder to the X Ray department. I looked over at Highland, certain he would bar my admittance, but he jerked his head toward the gurney and I followed after them. ***** We were just getting to the X Ray room when Mulder started to come around. He gets so scared in the hospital. I don't know what happened to him before I got on the scene, but he wakes up hard and usually panics unless he sees me in the first few seconds. I pushed around an orderly to get into his line of sight. He was just getting his mouth to work. "Scully?" "Right here, partner," I assured him. My gut wanted to scream at him, pound a few holes in his head myself, but I knew it would be wasted effort. Much better to reserve that kind of display for when he was lucid and well enough to receive the blows. Now, I just had to be the caring friend and next of kin. I could do that. I didn't even mind that much. We do these things for each other. "Head hurts," he whimpered. I would hope so, but I didn't say that. They weren't even close to giving him pain killers, not till they knew if there was internal bleeding that might require surgery. "I know. I'm sorry. Just hang on a little longer, then I'll make 'em give you the good drugs," I said, trying to keep my voice light. It was as if a light went off in his head. He struggled to sit up, looked around frantically. "Where are we?" he demanded, and the orderlies were holding him down while I tried to get him to listen to me. "Mulder, you're in the hospital in Providence. They need to do a PET scan. You remember those. You don't like them because they stabilize your head and you aren't supposed to move, but it can't be avoided." "No, Scully. I wanta go home," he pleaded, but it wasn't taking that much to hold him down. The seizures had taken all the fight out of him and the fever was knocking him down a bit as well. "No, Mulder. Not yet. I told you this before. You have to be monitored. Mulder, you've gone past the headache variety episodes. You had a grand mal seizure back there, and one since you got here," I reasoned. He looked at me like I'd grown two heads. "No, I didn't." "Yes, you did," I said, as reasonably as I could under the circumstances. I was the one holding your mouth closed, stupid, I wanted to say, but the orderlies might think that was a bit harsh. "Mulder, now is not the time. You had that idiot quack drill a hole in your head," I hissed in his ear and again got the shocked look in return. Oh shit. He didn't remember. It was time to regroup. "Mulder, relax, OK?" I begged. "Just let them get you in for the test and I'll explain everything later." He wasn't that happy with the abbreviated explanation, but he accepted it. He nodded and took a deep breath, then closed his eyes. They pushed Mulder's gurney through one door, I was ushered through the one next to it. Inside, it was like every observation room I'd ever had the pleasure to visit. Mulder was carefully loaded on the movable table, eyes still clenched shut. He wasn't in pain, I knew that. Mulder hates having his head examined. I've reminded him of that every time he's put himself in a position that requires medical intervention. His photographic memory always manages to take a walk during those discussions. Since we'd been this road a couple of times, I knew my part well. I gestured to the microphone that was connected with the procedure room. The technician shrugged and flipped a switch, I was on the air. "Mulder. I'm right here. It's all right. Just relax." "I'm not gonna open my eyes," he responded. Gee, no change in dialogue so far. "That's OK, but with your face all scrunched up, you're going to scare the nurses," I told him. Variation on a theme. Last time it was 'scare the doctor' but that was when he'd pulled a really cute female resident. I know I heard him chuckle under his breath and his face did visibly relax a little. The tech made a few corrections on the computer and hit a button. The machine whirred to life and Mulder entered it's maw slowly. It takes time to map the brain, but the area of concern was easy to spot. Sure enough, the good Dr. Goldstein had nicked a small artery. There was bleeding within the cranium, but fortunately not enough to cause undue pressure. The question would be one of time. Given a few hours of rest, the bleeding would more than likely stop on it's own, and we could avoid surgery. If there appeared to be pressure building, we'd have no choice. Dr. Highland seemed to relax beside me. Good, he wasn't one for cracking open skulls without good reason, I figured. I relaxed a little. Mulder could safely be given some pain killers to help him sleep and we'd see what would happen during the next 24. At least it was looking good. I was about to discuss options with Highland, having turned away from the computer screen, when the tech let out a low whistle. "Ahh, I think we have a problem." The amazing thing about a PET scan, as opposed to the older MRI, is that you can actually see the brain working in color. And as I turned back to the computer screen, I could plainly see the flashes of color appearing in the frontal lobe. Electrical activity in glorious Technicolor. Massive, chaotic, almost hypnotizing in its beauty--but dangerous and unwanted like a nearby lightning strike. "Get him out of there," Highland was yelling, and I knew he was afraid Mulder was about to grand mal again. But this one was like the others, the ones from the last two days, and I held Highland off. "He'll be all right. It's one of the hallucinations," I tried to explain. I could hear Mulder moaning, like he had in the summer house. A low keening moan--not of agony, but of understanding. "Give him a minute," I pleaded with Highland, who was on step away from calling for a large syringe of dilantin--extra strength. "Why? Why her? Mom, why the hell did they take her? How could you let him take your baby girl?" Mulder's voice was more pleading than mine, speaking to a woman who was not only miles, but years away from us. The mother of an eleven year old boy and a seven year old girl. "Not him. No, no, no, no, no--please Mom, not him," my partner was crying and all the while I could see the storm move across the lobes of his brain, raining down memories, fears and anguish as they raged on. "Mulder," I called out. I couldn't leave him all alone with this, it was too much for him. "Mulder, I'm here. It's OK. It's going to be OK." "No, Scully--it's not. It won't ever be OK. Not ever, not ever," he cried all the harder but I could see on the screen that the storm was starting to wan. I think that's the only reason he was able to acknowledge my voice, because the synapses of his brain were finally firing down. "Not ever. Not ever." Highland was staring at me when I had a moment to notice. "I'm ordering dilantin," he said as if he was expecting me to object. I shrugged. "He might do better with tegretol. He hates feeling fuzzy," I offered. "Dilantin is a little faster in the bloodstream. We can talk about the longterm in a few days." That certainly made my blood run cold. Longterm. Highland was talking chronic epilepsy treatment. Cerebral damage, permanent. Restricted duty, desk and office only. No more trips to the field, Agent Mulder. "We don't know--" "You're right, we don't know. But we have to treat this as if it will be a permanent condition, Dr. Scully," Highland said in authoritative tones. I think I pissed him off when I wouldn't let them pull Mulder out of the machine at the first sign of trouble. I didn't really had any room to argue, I was just the 'concerned partner' and Highland was being more than fair by letting me in the observation room. "Whatever you think is best," I said, hoping I had appeased him somewhat. It's not a good idea to alienate the man treating your best friend. I wasn't about to let him do something stupid, however. "But I think it might be best to consider these seizures in the scope of the head injury, at least for the moment," I added. Drill a hole in anybody's head and they were likely to have seizures--for a while. But if there was no permanent damage, the seizures would eventually subside and not return. I had my toes crossed hoping for just that set of circumstances. "I'll keep him here for 48 hours, at the inside. We'll do an EEG and another PET day after tomorrow and see what we're dealing with," he offered to me, like it was the best offer I was likely to get. I nodded gratefully and let my heart start beating again. In the room beyond the glass wall, they hoisted Mulder back on the gurney. He was already starting to drift off. I noticed that the episodes were no longer leaving him 'feeling really good', but were wearing him out. He was groggy as hell when I got out to the hallway to join him. "Where are we goin'?" he asked, but he didn't bother to open his eyes to find out for himself. "Up to a room. No 'roach motel' for you tonight," I told him lightly. "So tired, Scully. So sleepy," he yawned. "Then go to sleep," I whispered, and reached up to stroke his hair as we walked. "I'll take the first watch," I said as I watched his breaths grow shallow and even, watched as he finally slept. Once Mulder was settled in a bed, I realized a promise I'd reluctantly made and picked up the phone in his room. A scrap of paper, hastily scrawled upon, provided the numbers that I would never have known otherwise. The phone rang three times and a sleep laden voice answered. "Mrs. Mulder? This is Dana Scully." I said. "Oh dear. Have you found him? Is he--" I didn't let the question hang in the air too long. I knew the woman was probably on pins and needles. "He's alive. We've taken him to the hospital in Providence." "Where had he gone?" she asked, and I knew she was still trying to figure out exactly what had gone on over the past three days. A tiny part of me wanted to tell her everything, lay it all out at her feet and let her take part of the blame--hell, all of the blame. But Mulder would never forgive me for that. Judging from the voices I'd heard raised through the French doors of her little house, he felt that was his responsibility. "Mrs. Mulder, it's not that important where he went. I need to know something. Has Fox ever experienced seizures? Probably febrile seizures, when he was little. I know he has fevers, and I know he was hospitalized after Sam--" "I thought he'd outgrown them," I heard with a heavy sigh. Strike two against us. This was not good. "Outgrew what?" I heard myself asking. "The convulsions. The seizures. He had them from the time he was two or three until . . . He had a couple of them when he was in the hospital." My mind was reeling. Mulder said he was catatonic at that time. Catatonic and seizing? I didn't understand. "Mrs. Mulder, are you saying your son had epilepsy as a child?" "Yes. He did. It wasn't that severe. He had several smaller episodes, but he only had one really bad one. Right after he woke up in the hospital, after we asked him what had happened the night Samantha--" Strike three. You're out. When the Bureau found out that he'd been epileptic as a child, his gun would be taken, he'd never get out of the office again. He'd be lucky if they didn't give him disability. "How is he? Is he all right? Why are you at the hospital?" Question after question and I was the only one with answers. "He's, uh, he's having seizures. But that's not the major concern. There has been a small hole drilled--" "His forehead, yes, he was bleeding. Remember I told you he was bleeding," she said anxiously. Oh, yes, I remember quite well standing at the bottom of the stairs, trying to figure out exactly how I was going to go after my partner when he took off with my car. Then having his mother reappear and all but accuse me of putting him up to the fight they'd just had. But after tempers flared, they settled and we got down to contacting Det. Curtis and getting me a ride. "That's the problem, as I said. There is bleeding beneath the skull. It's minimal at the moment, but the doctor wants to keep a close eye on it for the next two days." "Is he awake?" she asked, her voice calm and even. It never ceased to amaze me how detached the woman could appear at times like this. No wonder Mulder wanted me to be the person contacted in emergencies, to act as his next of kin. "He was awake for a few moments, but he was pretty out of it. He can't remember very much. The seizures have been severe and they've tired him out. He's sleeping now." "Then he hasn't made any more . . . accusations," she said tersely. "No, he hasn't said anything except to tell me his head hurts and to ask where we are," I returned in kind. She was seriously starting to piss me off. "I'm sure he'd like it if you could come up to--" "I don't think that would be a very good idea right now, Ms. Scully. Fox is obviously very confused right now and my being there would only upset him." Yeah, just what I was thinking. Your son is lying in a hospital, seizing every couple of hours, in pain when he's not convulsing and has no idea what's been going on for the last three days, but seeing his mother would upset him. Sure, fine, whatever. Deja vu all over again. Why should this time be any different? "Whatever you think is best," was what I said to her. Maybe my mom would be able to come up if I called her. I hung up the phone before I told the woman what I really thought of her and her so-called concern. But after the phone call, there was way too much time to sit and think. ***** I should have called Skinner, but it was going on one in the morning and I just didn't have the strength to deal with a complete report at that time, so I decided it could wait for morning. I could have asked one of the nurses to bring me a pillow and blanket, I could have caught a few winks. Mulder was so out of it, I could have slept for a while at least. If he had another seizure, I would know immediately. I wasn't going to leave him alone. But I just couldn't manage to get my eyes to close. I had too much on my mind. Everytime I've done this 'sitting at his bedside' thing, I go through the same steps. It's sort of a ritual now. My first thoughts are purely righteous indignation. How dare the son of a bitch--a title they have both earned--lie there and put me through this kind of anxiety? How does this selfish bastard manage to get me, much less himself, in these predicaments? I've always made a list, it makes me feel better. Start at the top--Ellens Air Base, skimming over the next several examples so I can linger over Arecibo, and Dead Horse and on and on. Each time, wondering if he'd come back, if he'd be in the office ever again, making my life miserable with his crazy theories and lecherous comments. Wondering if he'd finally left me for good. I like it dark during those times. I don't want the nurses coming in and seeing the tears streaming down my face, see the sobs when my shoulders shake so hard I'm afraid I'll break something. My heart. That night was no exception. But then other memories invaded my tearful thoughts, just like always. A reassuring hand at my back, a touch of my shoulder, my cheek. I can't shove back the memory of a voice in the darkness, telling me of my own strengths, my own beliefs. The sadness of that voice, the longing, the hope, acting as a beacon to bring me home. Other times, too numerous to mention always flood me then. Feelings. Senses. Hearing his voice through the dark, assuring me that he's there. Pounding on the door of an abandoned trailer while a broken mind quotes German and tabloid psychology at me. His arms around me in a hospital hallway outside a dying patient's room. Mulder to the rescue. How many times? It's been too many to count. As I said before, we do this for each other. I stopped crying. I was as exhausted as my partner and in minutes, I fell asleep. I awoke a long time later to my partner thrashing in the bed. At first, I was certain it was another seizure, but as I reached for the call button to notify the nurse, I heard him speaking, soft and hurriedly. It wasn't a seizure, just a nice, normal nightmare. He has them. Hell, I have them. We have some that are common to both of us and some that are distinctly our own. I've told him some of mine, I know some of his. But what he was saying was new to me, he'd never spoken of it. "Where is it? Where is the cure, goddamn you black lunged bastard," Mulder growled in his sleep. I stopped, sat down. Waited for the next words. "I want the cure. She won't die--not because of what you've done. I won't let you kill her. Give me the cure!" My stomach was knotted as I sat there, listening to my partner arguing for my life with a man who had no name and definitely no soul. "I know what you did. I remember now. You are responsible for Samantha. You took her. You son of a bitch. I know that now. I won't let you take Scully, too. I'll kill you first, I swear to God this time I'll do it and I'll do it right." Ice water was pouring down my back, I realized I was close to hyperventilating. Was this what he'd been doing when he underwent those treatments--trying to find information to exchange for a cure? He rolled over and quieted again, dropping back into a deep sleep. I sat there for a long time, too stunned to think, too devastated to go back to sleep. It was so much easier when I could blame his behavior on 'the quest'. It was something familiar, something I was used to dealing with. Mulder would do anything to find his sister--anything, even to the point of his own death. But to think that he'd undergo an experiment so dangerous in an effort not to find his sister, but to find a cure for my illness--that was terrifying. I never asked for that, never wanted that. It really made sense, in a Mulder sort of way. I once told him that not everything was about _him_, and at the time, I was feeling that everything was about me. In the end, I realized that Mulder is terribly myopic and self-centered, but not in a way that makes him the center of the universe. To Mulder, he is the center of the storm, the center of a black hole, the center of hell. People don't revolve around him, tragedy does. So it would make sense for him to tie his lost sister to his dying partner--maybe even exchange one for the other. I couldn't ask him to do that. But the harder question was, should I let him? And if I decided I couldn't live with that knowledge, live with the guilt of this trade--how could I stop him? I didn't sleep anymore that night. I sat there and wiped the tears from my eyes. A new shift, a new doctor. David Anderson, MD. A resident, fairly recently promoted from intern from the look of him. He greeted me with a nod and an extended hand, mistakenly addressed me as 'Mrs. Mulder' a couple of times before I could correct him. He came in bearing gifts--lab results. "The good news is, Fox doesn't have encephalitis or meningitis," Dr. Anderson said, and I nodded, relieved. Mulder's a medical magnet, and I would not have been surprised if he'd picked up either one, regardless of their rarity. There was more good news. "And it looks like the severity of seizures has decreased," Anderson offered. I had pretty much come to that conclusion. There hadn't been another tonic clonic seizure since the middle of the night and although he'd had a couple of the partials, they seemed to be shorter in duration. It was my guess that the swelling in his brain was going down and the bleeding had stopped sometime before morning. Dr. Anderson concurred with my unspoken assessment. "His blood pressure is down this morning. Temp is still up but only 100.5, so not really much to worry about. He's been without a major seizure for over 7 hours--considering how closely they were coming last night, that's good news. I've consulted with Dr. Highland, and we feel that he should stay for a couple of days. The intercranial swelling he experienced is going down, but given the injury and the onset of fever and the seizures, it's better to be safe than sorry. We feel bed rest and continued antibiotics following discharge will be the best course of treatment." Bet he learned all that in senior seminar. But it was no time to be catty. I was grateful. "Thank you," I told him, and meant it. It appeared that no complications were forthcoming, and if I could nail him to his couch for a week, Mulder would recover fully. My partner graced me with his consciousness somewhere around lunch time. "I'm gonna throw up," he said, no greeting as a prelude. "Right now?" I asked, but I was already moving the curved bowl toward him. He glared at it, silently communicating that I was out of _my_ mind if I thought that small bowl would be enough. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the dishpan that all the tissues, cup, pitcher and other assorted crap came in. He grabbed it out of my hands and vomited mostly bile, then had dry heaves for a few minutes. Finally, he leaned back and closed his eyes. "I feel like shit." "What happened to 'I feel _really_ good'?" I asked as sweetly as I could. "Don't be mean, Scully," he pleaded and slowly opened his eyes, but squinted immediately. "My head hurts--bad." I would have loved to bitch at him at that moment, but he looked too miserable. Mulder does the best 'miserable' I've ever seen. I decided to cut him some slack. OK, so that's 'co-dependent' of me--find a lawyer to take the suit. I walked over to the window and closed the blinds, then turned off all the lights save the small light in the bathroom. The room was plunged into relative darkness. "Better?" I asked. "Umm mmm," he said with a slight nod. He opened his eyes and looked at me. "OK, let me have it." What? No blindfold? No last meal of sunflower seeds? My, my, Mulder was feeling a tad guilty that morning. "How much do you remember?" I asked him. I wasn't being mean, I really needed to know. "Most of it, I think. I remember going to Goldstein's and I remember the summer house. I know it was stupid, Scully, but . . . but I had my reasons." He clamped his mouth shut and studied the IV shunt on the back of his hand. He had no intention of telling me what those reasons were. Of course, he didn't know that his little nightmare had already filled in those blanks for me. Maybe I should have jumped on that. Maybe I should have said, Mulder, I know what you were doing. I know that you think if you get enough dirt on what happened to Samantha, you can trade that knowledge for a cure for me. OK, I should have said all that. But I didn't. Instead, I sought a promise. "Mulder, don't ever do anything like this again. Please. It was more than stupid. It was suicidal. And I won't sit by and let you do that. Understood?" He nodded, not speaking. "No deals with the devil, Mulder. None. Got it?" His head shot up and he looked me in the eye. He knew that I knew. But would that be enough to stop him? No. I knew better. I could tell by the look in his eyes that nothing would stop him if he thought he could find the cure. The thought chilled me to the bone. And left me with more hope than I'd had in weeks, months. My slightly manic Archangel Michael, with his battered wings and broken halo. My salvation. We do that for each other. the end. Vickie "Your ability to juggle many tasks will take you far." My fortune cookie, Feb. 28, 1998