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To Have It All by Kel

From: ckelll [email protected]

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 11:49:54 -0400

TITLE: To Have It All

by Kel [email protected] (note- 3 L’s in ckelll)

RATING: PG-13

CATEGORY: SRH

SPOILERS: Colony/Endgame. References to other episodes.

KEYWORDS: MSR

ARCHIVING: I’d be flattered. Please keep my name on it and let me know.

DISCLAIMER: Honestly, if Fox Mulder belonged to me, do you think I’d be sitting around telling myself stories? Mulder, Scully, Skinner, and Kim Cook belong to Chris Carter, 1013, and FOX. I make no money from their use, and precious little from any other source.

SUMMARY: It’s the early days of the Mulder/Scully romance, and they can’t get enough. Not if they want to keep their jobs.

I’ve wondered for a while now how to make sense of Scully’s joining the FBI directly from med school. Why did she decide not to practice medicine? See how you like my explanation. It helps if you remember the ’80s.

FEEDBACK: It’s so pathetic. I check my e-mail at least once an hour, and nothing. Drop me a line, even if you didn’t read it.

~~~~~~~~

To Have It All 1/4

The biggest change since Dana Scully and Fox Mulder had let their bodies get as close as their hearts and minds was that he was sleeping a lot better and she was sleeping a lot less.

She had decided from the start that it would be “too weird” for them to wake up together and go in to work together, and he had agreed wholeheartedly. She didn’t think this would be a problem. Mulder slept maybe four hours a night; instead of hanging around and waking her up,he could go home.

That arrangement broke down the morning she woke up encircled in his arms with his leg across her. The clock radio was blasting and she couldn’t even get to it. Shades of Queequeg and Ishmael! He ignored her attempts to awaken him, even though they both knew he was awake by now, until she’d very quietly threatened to hurt him. He’d gotten to the shower first, and she decided it would be most efficient to join him. It might have been efficient if she’d kept her mind on the task at hand. As it was, they were lucky no one got hurt.

They’d arrived at work together, late, and with big coprophagous grins.

So last night she’d gone to his place. Bouncing him out had become so difficult she thought it would be easier if she was the one to leave.

Six months ago I didn’t even know he had a bed, she thought as she got up out of it. If she hurried home she’d be able to sleep another couple of hours before heading in to work. She was pulling on her jeans when he’d called to her.

“I’ve got to go, Mulder,” she said.

“Don’t defy me, woman. Get over here.” So of course she had to go over and set him straight. By the time she’d taught him a lesson and he had acknowledged her supremacy, it was five-thirty.

She arrived at work very early and very tired. She started plowing through the accumulated scutwork when the phone rang. It wasn’t Mulder.

“Dr. Scully, this is Sheriff Mike Schmidt from Schuyler, New York. We have a death here that seems to meet your profile.” He told her about a dead body with no marks on it and a laboratory finding of “atypical idiopathic agglutination.”

“I know you people want to be notified of deaths involving thickened blood,” the sheriff said.

She asked him about the coroner’s findings, and he told her that he’d been unable to get a post-mortem exam because of some legal maneuverings. Schuyler University was the dominant political and economic force in his town, and for some reason they were intent on limiting his investigation. He told her that the emergency department at the hospital had informed him of the unusual lab results. She asked him to fax her the lab reports and told him she would be in touch.

Death involving thickened blood. There had been one. Special Agent Weiss of the Syracuse office, killed by the shapeshifter bounty hunter with an alien virus. There had almost been a second one. Special Agent Fox Mulder. Usually Scully reviewed the literature on medical conditions that figured into their investigations, but she wouldn’t need to this time. Dana Scully, MD, was the world authority on the treatment of the alien coagulopathy retrovirus.

Scully allowed herself a minute to let the fear engulf her. The bounty hunter, with his poisonous green blood, who could look like any human but was stronger than any human. The virus, faster than any native virus. She had beaten it once, or Mulder had, defeated it with cold and plasma and a combination of antiviral medications.

What if she pretended she never got the call? What if she and Mulder took a nice winter vacation, maybe someplace very far away, maybe some island without phones…. More seriously, what if she left Mulder home on this one? He’d already been exposed to the virus and he might be at much greater risk. The blood thickening occurred when the body defended against the intruder, and Mulder’s immune system was already sensitized.

But she wasn’t going to do any of those things, not even ditch Mulder. The two of them had decided they could have it all, a professional partnership and a personal union.

Mulder arrived around eight-thirty. Scully passed him the paper bag with his breakfast and made her announcement.

“Pack your snowshoes, Mulder, we’re going to Schuyler, New York.”

Mulder put down his bagel. “Get over here, woman! Don’t defy me,” he said.

“It’s not going to happen,” she said, but she couldn’t help laughing. “Besides, we’re working.” That was the linchpin of their plan to have it all. Never during work. Never let the personal intrude on the professional. Never do anything to each other that they wouldn’t do with any other agent, even that weasel Spender.

“Okay. What’s in Schuyler?” he asked. She told him.

“Shit,” he said, his mind racing. “Scully, we can have the body sent to Quantico, once it’s cleared, and you can do your autopsy there. I’ll go up to Schuyler, I have a resistance to the virus now.” He knew she wouldn’t agree and she didn’t.

“I think this may not be the alien virus at all,” Scully said. She’d received the sheriff’s fax. “The hematology results are quite different in this case. The red cell count is normal here, where the alien virus causes polycythemia. There are other differences as well.”

Mulder was getting his coat. “I’ll meet you at National,” he said. “I’ll even stop off and pick up your bag.” They both kept packed suitcases ready.

“Mulder, I want you to listen to me very carefully,” Scully said. “I’m going to ask you where you’re going. You’re going to tell me. If I don’t get an answer, I’ll meet you at the airport all right. But first I’m going to stop at your place and kill your fish.”

She sounded serious. Mulder hated it when his fish died, and he really had nothing to hide.

“One of Cohen’s aides at the DOD,” he began. “She suspects there’s some covert support of biological warfare within the department. Schuyler was one of the universities that might be connected. I want to talk to her before we go.”

“There now,” Scully purred at him. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? And no fish had to die.”

* * *

Empire Flight 807

The noisy little prop plane was like a school bus with wings. Mulder said something she couldn’t hear, then leaned over to shout it in her ear.

“They’re following the road.” He was stuffed into the seat by the window with his knees practically in his chest. Out the window she could see the New York State Thruway below them. Looking through the passageway to the cockpit she saw an open road atlas. Perhaps she should have been worried about their safety, but she was simply too uncomfortable.

Conversation was impossible on this long, loud flight. She wanted to touch him, either rub his shoulders, or maybe poke him somewhere he wouldn’t be able to ignore, but they were working. Working with Mulder had always been like walking a tightwire. Working with him and hiding their intimacy was like juggling machetes while walking a tightwire.

Mulder twisted away from the window, shifted his weight and flung his leg over hers.

She turned her head to shout in his ear. “Spender.”

“I just need more room,” he shouted back. “I would do the same thing if Spender was sitting there.”

This last bit of nonsense didn’t rate an answer, but she answered anyway.

“Would Spender oblige you with a little massage?” She kneaded his inner thigh. His lips brushed her cheek on the way to her ear.

“Spender better be willing to make good on this tonight,” he told her.

The Spender guideline was not working.

* * *

Sheriff’s office Clark County Courthouse Schuyler, New York

Sheriff Schmidt’s office was furnished entirely in gray metal, from the desk to the filing cabinets to the chairs. He had little to add to what he’d already told them. He waited patiently while they read over his reports and findings.

The deceased was Gabriel Gilka, Ph.D., 42, assistant professor of engineering at Schuyler University. He had been in the home of Glenn Castelano, Ph.D., 57, professor of human anatomy, late Monday night. The sheriff seemed to find that odd in itself.

“The Castelanos aren’t much for casual entertaining,” he said. “They’re kind of fussy; you got to take your shoes off before you walk on their carpet, that kind of thing. All I can think of is that Glenn was celebrating his wife being out of town.”

Around ten-thirty, two more scientists came to the house. “Just dropped in!” the sheriff had written. Castelano met them at the door and told them Gilka was dead. “Just dropped dead” said Sheriff Schmidt’s notation. The older of the two was Tommy Schoen, MD, Ph.D. Scully was impressed.

“Oh my God, Mulder, Tommy Schoen! You know, as in the Schoen valve, the Schoen procedure, the Schoen approach…” Evidently Schoen, nearly 80, was a big man in medicine and in biomedical engineering.

The man with him was Alexander Korsakov, Ph.D.. Korsakov had attempted CPR.

“I know him too,” said Scully.

“Sure, Korsakoff’s amnesia,” said Mulder. This was a condition resulting from long-term alcohol abuse and thiamin deficiency. As a psychologist, Mulder was familiar with it.

“I mean I know him personally,” Scully said. “From U of Maryland.”

“Would he remember you?” Mulder asked. He was thinking that if Korsakov recognized Scully, they would know he wasn’t the shapeshifter. The shapeshifter would also recognize Scully, of course, but he wouldn’t admit it.

“Definitely. But we didn’t part on good terms.”

“Did these guys have anything in common besides being on the faculty?” Mulder asked the sheriff. “Were they working on something together?”

“They were all involved in something called Project Activator,” Schmidt said. “Good luck finding out what that is. Now, there is one more thing I want to tell you. Before I got the call about Gilka, I got a call from one of the neighbors. He said there was a bright blue light over Castelano’s house.”

“What do you make of that?” Scully asked the sheriff.

“I don’t have a clue. I guess if you watch enough TV, you’d think it was something about UFOs,” he said.

“Let’s start with your old friend Korsakov,” Mulder said.

* * *

They decided to get lunch before continuing. Scully groaned when Mulder pulled in to a convenience store parking lot.

“Let me guess,” she said. “Your turn to buy.” Their little game of “who’s buying” predated their personal liaison, and Scully wished they would drop it. When they were on their own time, Mulder would dive for the check like Patrick Ewing going for a loose ball. On the job, he would pull stunts like this. She decided to wait for him in the car.

“Get me a yogurt, any normal flavor,” she told him, “and a diet soda, Sprite if they have it, but don’t get Seven-Up. If they don’t have Diet Sprite, get root beer or cream, but not Dr. Pepper…” One time when he went for soda, she had asked for “something sweet.” Generally she was not superstitious, but she would never do that again. She was more specific now.

He opened her door. “Come get it yourself,” he said. “You think apricot is a normal flavor.” She followed him out, remembering that he thought granola choco-crunch was a normal flavor.

They ate in the car.

“My turn to buy means buy lunch,” Mulder said. “I expect you to eat that Chapstick.”

“I was going to let you eat it,” she said, examining Mulder’s choices. “Look at this, Mulder, generic Twinkies, too vile to pass for real Twinkies. But it is amazing the way you can eat that chili dog without getting any on— oh, well.”

“You had to say it, didn’t you,” he said, rubbing his tie with a napkin. To an outside observer, Mulder thought, they would have looked and sounded as they did before. The camaraderie and the banter were the same. What was gone was the longing and confusion. Dana Scully, he thought, you are the light of my life in every sense of the word. You light up the darkness and you lighten the burden. Enlightenment and clarity. *Chiaro*.

“Scully,” he said as they drove to Korsakov’s house, “since we now practice open communication even to the point of ichthyicide, tell me about you and Alexander Korsakov.”

“Ichthyicide? Oh, yeah, your fish. Sandy Korsakov and I were friends. We spent a lot of time together my first two years at Maryland, then we drifted apart. He was older and he was in grad school, but I got tired of him telling me what to do. He was dead set against me going to medical school, but then when I graduated and joined the bureau, he was totally opposed to that too.”

* * *

Mulder watched Korsakov intently as they entered his small house. There was no doubt that he recognized Scully at once. He and Scully stared at each other, leaving it to Mulder to make the introductions. Finally, Scully extended her hand and they shook stiffly, still locked together by the eyeballs.

“Oh, what the hell,” Scully said at last, and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the embrace.

“I guess we’re still friends,” Sandy said. “Come on in.”

Scully and Korsakov began to reminisce feverishly, oblivious to Mulder, who listened in fascination. It sounded like Scully used to do some big-time swinging.

“Those strait-laced Haverford boys! You taught them a thing or two,” Sandy said.

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Coach.”

“And Georgetown,” Sandy said. “They were glassy-eyed in the end.”

“Well, I think Susan and Satomi have to get some of the credit,” Scully said. “By the way, are you seeing anyone… in particular?”

“What you’re really asking is, am I still picking up guys in bars. That scene is gone, Dana. Not that it’s any of your business,” Korsakov said. “Are you seeing anyone special?”

“I’ve got a great idea,” said Mulder. “Tell us about the night Gabriel Gilka died, and then I can leave you two here to catch up.”

Korsakov looked at him as if he had forgotten he was there.

“I don’t have anything new to tell,” he said. “Tommy Schoen and I went over to Glenn’s around ten-thirty. Glenn was standing in his doorway. He told us that Gabe was dead. I thought it was a set-up for a practical joke or something, until he actually let me into his living room with my shoes on. I went in and did CPR until the rescue squad got there, but it didn’t help.”

Questioned by Mulder, Korsakov denied seeing a blue light. Mulder asked him about Project Activator.

“Look, you guys, I had to sign about fifty statements that I’d never tell anyone,” Korsakov said. “I don’t know what I’m allowed to say. Can’t you just go back to the Defense Department and get it from them? You work for the same government, don’t you?”

“Yeah, great idea,” Mulder said. “Scully, if you want to stay awhile, I’ll go talk to Dr. Schoen. I’ll give you a call when I’m done.”

“He might even tell you what you want to know,” Sandy said. “But don’t call him Dr. Schoen. Everyone calls him Tommy, even the undergrads.”

Mulder had driven only a couple of miles when Scully phoned him. A judge had ruled that the autopsy on Gilka should proceed. He swung back to pick her up.

“I think he’s lying,” Mulder said when she got in the car.

“I hope not, Mulder. It drove me crazy, the way he’d be with a different man every night. I couldn’t stand it if he got AIDS.” “I meant he was lying about the blue light. He saw it, all right, or he knows something about it,” he said.

“It looks like we’re up against the Pentagon again,” Scully said. She didn’t have to mention their sorry track record in that situation.

“My little buddy at DOD says they’re cutting out of all the suspicious programs, all the bio-weapons projects,” he said.

Scully started to laugh. It was the desperate, almost hysterical laugh that overcame her very occasionally.

“I got it, Mulder,” she said when she could speak. “The Defense Department hired the alien bounty hunter to get rid of the scientists from their illegal programs.”

“Very funny,” Mulder said.

* * *

To Have It All 2/4

Schuyler Medical Center Schuyler, New York

Mulder was in the familiar position of watching Scully do her thing, dressed up in a gown and cap with a clear shield over her face. She looked beautiful like that. Whenever she was really concentrating on something, Mulder found her totally enticing. That was the main reason she’d no longer did her own income tax.

She pulled something long and red and squiggly out of her patient and dropped it in a steel basin.

“This is totally different from what we saw with Agent Weiss,” she said. Her relief was immeasurable. She knew she shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but everything in front of her indicated that the alien virus was not involved. “I think we can rule out the alien virus.”

Mulder felt the fear dissipate from his jaw and neck.

“Thank you,” he said, as if she had personally disposed of the alien bounty hunter. She began to explain her findings.

He liked her hair pulled back that way. He could do without the gown. It hid her shape completely. How would you describe her shape? Well, shapely. Magnificent. Her breasts were so terrific. You really couldn’t tell until she undressed, and then, Surprise! So full and generous, he really didn’t deserve them. Scully was at war with her breasts, though. She didn’t like how they flattened out when she was on her back. When she was on top, she thought they sagged too much. She spent as much time thinking about her breasts as he did, although she probably wasn’t thinking about them right now. In fact she was talking to him.

“So I need to be in Stockholm by Friday or the first runner-up gets the Nobel Prize for Mathematics,” she was saying.

“Scully, there is no Nobel Prize in mathematics.”

“As I was saying, Mulder, these coiled blood clots are unlike any I’ve seen before. Definitely unlike the polycythemia and emulsification we saw with the alien virus.”

“Any idea what could have caused it?”

“I’ll have the hematology lab check for unusual clotting factors, but I don’t think they’ll find any. The differential white count doesn’t indicate any viral, bacterial, or immunological aberrations. The tox screen was negative. I don’t think this clot formation would occur naturally.”

* * *

Roosevelt Hall Schuyler University

Tommy Weiss’s office was in Roosevelt Hall, on the main quadrangle of the campus. Mulder had to park in the far end of the parking lot. They followed the asphalt path to the quad, skirting the few patches of ice. They stepped off the path to let a large group of boisterous students surge by.

“Were we ever that young?” Scully asked.

“Apparently you were,” Mulder said. “I’m not sure I understand this thing you had with Sandy.”

“They call it friendship, Mulder. We’d go to a club or two, or see a concert, that kind of thing. Or stuff with his family. He’d told them he was gay years ago, but he still found it easier to drag me along than show up with a man.”

Tommy’s office was on the second floor, and he waved them in when he saw them through his open door.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “Whom do you represent?” They took out their credentials and made their introduction.

“Oh,” he said. “FBI. No free pens, mugs, or tote bags.” He had taken them for salesmen or publisher’s reps. Mulder gave him some plastic pilot’s wings, which he refused, but Scully had her “Five Years” employee pin rattling around in her pocketbook, and he accepted that happily.

“Now, what can I do for you?” he asked. Scully wondered about the mental status of this childlike old man, but she knew Mulder would plunge right in with questions. As Schoen spoke, Scully concluded he was eccentric and uninhibited but unimpaired. Mulder’s questions elicited the now familiar account of Schoen and Korsakov dropping in on Castelano at ten-thirty. Then Mulder asked him if he’d seen the blue light.

“Wrong question,” Tommy said. “Try again.”

“What is the significance of a blue light?” Mulder asked.

“Okay, close enough,” Tommy said. “A blue light is produced when the Clot Activator is in operation.” Mulder and Scully masked their excitement at this tidbit. Maybe Tommy didn’t realize he was dropping a bombshell.

“The Clot Activator… That’s your development project, right?” Mulder said.

“That’s my baby. I invented it four years ago, but I didn’t have a way to direct it. Our project now is to develop a way to focus and control it,” Tommy said.

“Now, what does this little gizmo of yours do?” Mulder was trying to sound casual.

“Little?” Tommy laughed. “You’re picturing a ray gun, aren’t you. No. Think of a medieval catapult, you’ll be a lot closer.” Tommy was talking to Mulder but staring at Scully.

“What do you think a clot activator would do, Fox?” Tommy asked him.

“I suppose it would activate the clotting mechanism, causing blood to form clots,” Mulder answered.

“That’s what I hoped it did,” Tommy said. “Unfortunately, the clots it causes are outside the normal clotting cascade. They are different in appearance, and they do not respond to the clot-busting enzymes. Fortunately for me, they do respond to heparin.”

They were getting into Scully’s domain, but neither agent wanted to disturb whatever chemistry was keeping Tommy so informative. Scully just smiled and smiled.

“Why is it fortunate for you that the clots respond to heparin?” Mulder asked.

“Because when I invented the ‘gizmo,’ the first thing I did with it was give myself a stroke. Unintentionally. I was not planning to be my first guinea pig,” Tommy said.

“What’s different about the clots formed by the Activator?” Mulder asked. With each question, he was expecting Tommy to clam up.

“They are coiled,” Tommy said. “They look like fat, bouncy springs. These clots don’t make use of fibrin at all, which stands out when you look at the lab reports. But you already knew that.”

Scully was practically holding her breath. Tommy Schoen was giving them everything they wanted, one question at a time. She hoped Mulder didn’t notice how he was looking at her.

“Where is the Clot Activator now?” Mulder asked.

“I can tell you where it isn’t,” Tommy answered. He dropped to a whisper, and as he hoped, the female agent leaned forward to hear him better. “It’s not where it belongs. It’s not in its crate. It’s not in our laboratory.”

“Tommy, how did Gabriel Gilka get to Castelano’s house that night? They didn’t find his car there,” Mulder said.

“I don’t know. I never gave it a thought, but you’re right, we didn’t see his car. And I doubt if he came on that big motorcycle,” Tommy said. Tommy wished Scully was like that sales rep from Albrecht-Chandler, who would open another button when she found him eyeing her like this.

“Why did you and Korsakov go to the house that night?” Mulder asked.

“Just dropped in,” Tommy answered. Apparently there were some questions he wouldn’t answer.

“What happens to the project now that the Defense Department withdrew their support?” Mulder asked.

“Dammit, Fox, I’m a medical doctor, not a financier!” Tommy said.

“Who’s the financier?” Mulder asked.

“The grantsman, and master of grantsmanship, is Glenn Castelano,” Tommy said.

“Did that cause any conflicts?” Mulder asked.

“Glenn and Gabe were always more concerned with the economic implications of our work. Glenn has a daughter in college, and Gabe had three kids. The two of them worried about money a lot more than Sandy and I. Our needs are relatively simple, and we don’t have anyone depending on us.”

Tommy hated himself for doing it, but he nudged a pencil to roll off his desk in front of the female agent, Dana. Come on, sweetheart, he thought, lean over and pick it up. Oh, damn. She caught it.

“I’ve given you everything you need,” Tommy said. “It’s time for my seminar.” The interview was over.

* * *

They took the same asphalt path back to the parking lot. Scully realized suddenly that her arm was across Mulder’s back, with his arm over her shoulder, and she jumped away from him.

“Spender!” she said.

“I didn’t even know I was doing it,” Mulder said.

“Maybe I would have my arm around Spender,” Scully rationalized, “if we’d just hit a gold mine like Tommy Schoen.”

“I’d probably jump his bones when we got to the car,” Mulder said, “after a great interview like that.”

“Well, maybe after we bring in Castelano. If he’s not the murderer, he knows who is,” Scully said.

They drove to the courthouse to brief Sheriff Schmidt on their plans regarding Castelano. Their plans for Spender remained private.

Schmidt recommended waiting until the evening, when Castelano would be at home.

“It’ll be a lot simpler when he’s all alone. If we try to get him from his office, he might put on a show of bravado,” Schmidt said. He agreed to call the agents when he was about to proceed.

They drove to the Holiday Inn, where they had booked rooms. Mulder got his laptop on line.

“I realized I’ve been leaning on you for all the medical information,” he said. “I have to get myself up to speed.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Scully told him. “It will be so much harder to bullshit you.” She went into the adjoining room to make a phone call. He continued surfing.

“They have a pool here,” she told Mulder. “And a gym with a track.” She flipped through the TV listings without finding anything promising. “Langley is probably in his private chat room now.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I’ll be back by nine. Do you want me to order you something from room service?”

“No thanks. Do I have to put on my pajamas now?”

“Call me when you get the call from Schmidt. I don’t think it will be before nine,” Scully said.

“This is a bad idea,” Mulder told her. “Be careful or you’ll mess this up.” She must be going to see Sandy, he thought.

“If you do go swimming, don’t leave your wet towel on the bed, okay?”

“Scully! Just ditch me already,” Mulder said.

* * *

Schuyler University dominated the town of Schuyler, and university nightlife centered around places like Johnny’s and the Pub. But the Holiday Inn, where Mulder and Scully were lodging, was the center of “town” life. The restaurant/bar was called the College Grill.

Mulder found the name of Glenn Castelano’s housekeeper in the file. Lucy Voorman. He called her and arranged for her to meet him at the bar.

The bar was fairly full for the middle of the week when Mulder went down to wait for Lucy. People looked up when he entered, and he heard a murmur of “FBI” pass through the room. Sandy Korsakov was sitting at the bar; he came here specifically to avoid the student hangouts. He went over to Mulder’s table and Mulder nodded for him to sit down.

“Agent Mulder,” Sandy said. “The man Dana will grow old with.”

“Been there, done that,” Mulder said. Now he really wondered what Scully was up to.

“How is she? Can she really handle all the garbage you have to deal with?”

“She’s fine,” Mulder said.

“Oh, she’s always fine. Tears streaming down her face, puking her guts out, covered with blood, doesn’t matter.” said Sandy.

“Gee, it sounds like you two had a lot of fun together,” Mulder remarked.

“We did. We had some wonderful times. She was one crazy kid when I met her,” Sandy said.

“Yeah, what were you saying about Haverford and Georgetown? Something about showing those boys a thing or two?”

Sandy looked blank, then smiled.

“Haverford and Georgetown were the teams we beat in the Trivial Pursuit finals,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you. If you want to get a reaction from her, you can ask her about the greenhouse and why you should never hang your formal gown from a sprinkler head.”

“When did the good times end?” Mulder asked.

“When she found her calling,” Sandy said. “When she set out to save the world.”

“She said you didn’t think she should go to medical school,” Mulder said.

“I didn’t. Being a doctor requires some detachment, some reserve. You know how Dana is—no inhibitions, jump right in.”

“Miss Spontaneity,” Mulder said.

“Yes, that too,” said Sandy, “but it’s deeper than that. You know what I mean… how she totally embraces new ideas. How open she is about her feelings. I knew she would get hurt.”

“What happened?” Mulder asked. He was thinking, Tell me more about Bizarro-world Scully.

“Once she decided to go to medical school, she started working at the hospital. Stepped right into the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. You remember what it was like back then? No effective treatments and plenty of open hostility and prejudice. She’d work her shift in the lab and then she’d stay half the night to help ‘her guys.’ And they kept dying on her.”

“I was out of the country during the eighties,” Mulder said. “When I came back, everything had changed. AIDS was all you heard about. No more free love. Condoms were back—hadn’t thought about those since high school.”

“Dana was overwhelmed. She saw so much suffering and all she could think about was trying to help. She’s lucky she graduated,” Sandy said.

“What are you talking about?” Mulder challenged him. “She graduated with high honors.”

“It was April of eighty-six. We were barely speaking by that time. All I ever heard from her was about my dangerous lifestyle,” Sandy said. “Her academic advisor was a friend of mine, and he mentioned that Dana had not even started her senior thesis.”

“Her senior thesis was brilliant,” Mulder said.

“Now I know you’re in love,” Sandy replied. “Anyway, I couldn’t reach her by phone so I camped out on her doorstep. She came home around three A.M.—blood all over her, by the way. She looked like shit. I told her I was worried about her. Do you want to guess what she said?”

No need to guess. Mulder knew.

“Well, I just took her car keys. Daddy bought her a car when she agreed to go to med school,” Sandy said.

“Fun, fun, fun,” said Mulder.

“Right. Of course it wasn’t a T-bird, you know how she hates Fords. So I took her keys, told her she could have them back when her thesis was done. Then I drove off with her car.”

“So you stole her car and she sat down at her desk and wrote her thesis?” Bizarro-Scully, he thought again.

“Well, she didn’t have a desk, but yes, basically. Took her four days to crank out that piece of drivel you find so brilliant. That little squirt has me to thank for her degree,” Sandy said.

“How did you feel about her joining the Bureau?” Mulder asked.

“She couldn’t go on in medicine,” Sandy said. “She was burned out. She thought medicine itself had let her patients down, that doctors were doing as much harm as good.”

“She lost her faith,” Mulder said.

“She was going to work in research for a year, but then the FBI approached her. She was nuts about guns, so it appealed to her. She said she wanted to take on an enemy that she could shoot,” said Korsakov.

Mulder shook his head. He’d always wondered how he’d gotten through the Bureau’s screening process, and now he wondered about Scully as well.

“Ask her about Greg,” Korsakov said. “You’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Sandy was looking past Mulder at a slender blond woman entering the bar. She approached the two men.

“Lucy, I thought you were going on vacation,” Sandy said.

“I have a flight from Syracuse at midnight,” Lucy said. “I got a call from the FBI man, so I figured I’d see him first. Is this him?”

Sandy put his hand on Mulder’s arm. “I need to talk to you. Privately.” Mulder followed him out of the bar into the hotel lobby.

“Look, Korsakov—” Korsakov’s fist in his face landed him on his back. Korsakov’s foot over his throat kept him there.

“You son of a bitch,” Korsakov said. “I tell you all that and you’re sitting there waiting for a hooker? Dana does not deserve this. God, she thinks you’re all integrity and honesty, and you’re just some low-life bastard.” Mulder twisted Korsakov’s leg, bringing him down to the floor. He felt himself reaching for his gun, but stopped. Lucy Voorman had followed them out.

“Stop it, both of you. And Sandy, you’re a low-life yourself. You make it sound like I’m a pro. The fed just wants to talk about Professor Castelano. And don’t even think of telling the professor about this because you were talking to him too.”

Mulder and Korsakov were both on their feet by now. Mulder was used to getting pounded and didn’t feel too bad physically.

One punch, he thought. I must be getting old.

After the fracas, Mulder guided Lucy back to his table at the bar. She ordered the surf and turf and a pina colada. He got a burger and a draught, which was quite restrained, considering it was Scully’s turn to buy.

“I really shouldn’t stuff myself like this,” Lucy said. “I don’t want to get airsick.”

She told him that Glenn Castelano had surprised her with this vacation, which he’d arranged and paid for out of the blue. She’d been working for the Castelanos for a couple of years and they’d never done anything like this for her before.

She wasn’t working the night of the murder, but she confirmed what others had said: it was unusual for the Castelanos to have guests.

“Gilka died in the living room, right?” Mulder asked. “Has that room been cleaned since then?”

“No one’s even been in there,” she said. “Mike Schmidt said to keep out. Mrs. C. will have a fit if those footprints aren’t gone before she gets back.” The footprints in question were from Sandy Korsakov. Anyone else would have removed their shoes.

Lucy kept a boot tray lined with newspaper by the front door for guests. The Castelanos didn’t use it; they usually came in through the garage.

“How often do you change the newspaper?” Mulder asked.

“Once a week. When the Sunday paper comes I pull the want-ads section and stick it in the tray,” she said.

If Mulder was lucky, he’d find residual shoe prints on the newspaper. Maybe even the killer’s.

The tab came to $37.00 including the tip; Scully was a generous tipper. Lucy told him what he could have for another $50 but he wasn’t interested, even if it was Scully’s turn to buy.

After Lucy left, Mulder switched to Cokes—iced tea was not in season in upstate New York. He was waiting for a phone call. Everyone else was waiting for ‘Frasier.’ He wondered again what Scully was up to.

Scully was doing something she never expected to do: meeting the future Mrs. Alexander Korsakov. She’d had about fifteen minutes alone with Sandy when Mulder had set out to talk to Tommy by himself. After she’d dropped her guard and told him about Mulder, Sandy had given her his big news. He was getting married, and he was going to be a father. He described the arrangement as being mutually beneficial. Scully decided she’d better investigate.

So Scully ended up having dinner with Laura Hayden.

Laura listened attentively to Scully’s descriptions of the Korsakov family parties she’d been to. She said very little about her arrangement with Sandy or why it appealed to her. She did mention that Sandy had helped her land the position of Glenn Castelano’s research assistant.

Mulder, meanwhile, had been buttonholed by a man who wanted his ex-wife arrested for copying videotapes. Mulder told him how to contact Jeffrey Spender. He was rescued by Sheriff Schmidt’s phone call. Schmidt agreed to pick him up at the hotel on his way to the Castelano house.

* * *

Holiday Inn Schuyler, New York

The foray to the Castelano home was not entirely successful.

Glenn Castelano was not at home.

The Clot Activator was not there, or at least they couldn’t find it.

Mulder did come away with an old, wet classified section from Sunday’s newspaper, an oil-stained carpet fiber, and a long brown hair.

Scully was sitting cross-legged on top of the still-made bed, eating a big green apple and watching TV. Mulder opened the door with his key. She wouldn’t have the nerve to say anything about being ditched. She wouldn’t have been ditched if she hadn’t ditched him first.

“I brought you something to read,” he said, holding up the classified section.

She nodded without looking at him.

She was wearing panties and a bra, and a half-closed bathrobe. And something else. She had the look, that predatory look she got occasionally. Scully on the prowl. Scully the hunter. When she got really horny, he loved to play dumb and make her work for his attention. Funny, but when she was really hot like this, she looked as cold as ice, she looked like an assassin.

Any minute now, she would ask, “Are we working?” That would be her overture. She would say, “Are we working,” and he would say, “yes.” Well, maybe he shouldn’t say yes. Saying yes meant saying no, and he didn’t want to say no when he meant yes. It was complicated enough without that. So maybe he would just say, “What?” He’d act preoccupied, and she’d start climbing on him. And he would be obtuse as long as he could, and then maybe a second before she was ready to scream and start pummeling him, he would grab her, do his caveman thing. She wouldn’t even care if the light was on.

Scully was still fixed on the television. If he’ll just wait until ER is over, she thought. He could go to his own room, he could sharpen pencils or something, and she’d be ready for him. He was staring at her trying not to smile. He was with her practically every minute of every day, he really could spare her an hour a week.

Mulder was reassessing the situation. Why was she sitting there obviously racked with hormones and completely ignoring him? That must be some apple.

“Give me a bite?” he asked. She didn’t take her eyes off the screen as she passed him the apple. He took a bite, then moved next to her to return it. He circled her shoulders with one arm and brought the apple to her mouth to feed it to her. She kind of liked the feel of his suit jacket where it touched her neck, but why couldn’t he wait fifteen minutes? She pushed the apple away.

And then it clicked. Scully was the predator, but he was not the prey.

“Dana Scully,” he said, “I never again want to hear even one word from you about those videotapes that aren’t mine!”

The show broke to a commercial, but she would probably have responded anyway.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re sitting there lusting over that actor when I’m right here in the room! Yes you are, you’ve got the look! You have a prurient interest in this show. You’re so smug about my video collection, and look at you. Scully, I’m so hurt! I feel like I’m not man enough for you.”

“Just because I’m watching TV? If you don’t like this show, why don’t you go to your own room and watch something else?”

“This is my room,” he said.

“Since when? Your room, be definition, is the room with your toothbrush in it.”

Mulder wondered whose toothbrush he had used before he went down to the bar.

“You marked your territory in the other room,” he said. “You left your boots there. That means it’s your room. My mousse is in this room, that means it’s mine.”

“I took my boots off while I was on the phone, while you were using my phone for your computer. And it’s not your mousse either. You took it from me last time we were in the field when you were having a bad hair day. If you check the bathroom you’ll find my pantyhose hanging there. That’s how I mark my territory. Now be quiet and watch the show.”

“This is the guy you like, isn’t it? And you talk about me having a bad hair day!”

“Who cares? He’s a great doctor. Do you know how long it would take a real doctor to crack open a chest?”

“I’m sorry to be the one who has to tell you this, but he isn’t a doctor. He’s an actor. And he’s leaving the show because he wants more money.”

“It’s not just the money. He’s tired of playing that same part.”

“Now what’s he doing? Oh, I get it, that’s his girlfriend. Look! Their eyes meet. Wow, how poignant, how meaningful.”

She tried clamping her hand over his mouth.

“Hey, Scully, next time I’m hurt, take me to this hospital.”

“You’re going to be hurt very soon if you don’t shut up.”

“Oh, look! The camera pans out to show you how alone he feels. Scully, this is art!”

“Thank you, Tom Servo,” Scully said. She turned off the TV.

“I think I know what it is with this guy. It’s those pants. I think you have a thing for drawstring pants.”

“So convenient. I could just pull the string.” She hooked her hand into the waistband of his pants.

The look has returned, Mulder thought. Time to back off and make her come get me.

“Look at the newspaper,” he said. “It’s almost as good as a guest book.” He explained how the papers had been used for wet shoes, and how they could expect some kind of print from every visitor. He said the oil on the carpet fiber might be from the motorcycle that Tommy had mentioned. The hair might be significant; it didn’t match up with anyone known to have been in the house.

Scully felt as if she’d just lost at three-card monte, and she hadn’t even agreed to play. She traced the steps in her mind: She was minding her own business, watching HIM on TV… Yeah, maybe she was getting a little turned on… Mulder came in and started to bug her… Mulder continued to bug her… something about pants… then Mulder started playing detective, which really turned her on… and now, suddenly, THEY WERE WORKING.

“That’s great, Mulder. Maybe there are some nice biker-boot footprints on your newspaper.” she said. She grabbed her sweats from the drawer and took them into the adjoining room, even though it was his. She locked the door behind her. She changed and went down to the health club, where she beat up the heavy sandbag for an hour.

* * *

It was past seven when Scully awoke. She opened her eyes enough to see Mulder next to her, in shirtsleeves, his shoes on the bed, reading “Hematology Abstracts.” He handed her a Styrofoam cup of coffee and the newspaper.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I got you breakfast,” he said. There was a bag of croissants.

Great, she thought, fifteen grams of fat before I even get out of bed. She skipped the croissants. Mulder would eat them later.

She drank the coffee and read the paper, stopping frequently to admire Mulder.

It would be great if they could manufacture a Mulder android, she thought. It would look just like Mulder, but it would have to do what you told it. Maybe Sandy and Tommy could make one. What would Sandy do with a Mulder android? Probably nothing. Sandy doesn’t like pretty boys.

“Mulder, you’ve got something on your shirt.”

He looked down at his shirt, then back at her. The shirt was clean.

“No, get it off,” she told him. He put the journal on the bed and continued reading as he took off his shirt. He had on a ribbed V-neck undershirt. Mulder was the only guy on earth who could look good in one of those dorky shirts.

“Let me fix that for you,” she said. She tugged the undershirt out from his pants. “Your shoes don’t belong on the bed.” She untied and removed them. He wasn’t reading anymore.

“Scully, I’m sensing a pattern here,” he said.

“We can do this nice and easy or nice and rough,” she said.

“Hmmm. Maybe a little of both.”

“All right then. Remove all your clothing.” Mulder got off the bed. He flexed for her and pulled the T-shirt over his head. He was watching her intently, watching her watching him. He tried a few Chippendale moves, gyrating as he unbuttoned his pants. Scully clapped and hooted in appreciation.

Mulder gave her an arrogant leer as he unzipped his fly, letting his trousers drop.

In the average day, Mulder did at least twenty things that reduced Scully to breathless, brainless desire. Things like walk, sit, type,and talk. Watching him now with his pants around his ankles reduced her to one anxious thought:

Mulder’s going to break his neck.

She sprang out of bed and grabbed the small armchair by the window. She pulled the sheet off the bed and threw it over the chair before pushing the chair up behind Mulder. The chair bumped against the back of his legs, knocking him into it.

“Hey,” he protested. “The show’s not over yet.”

“You got that right, pretty boy!”

* * *

Sheriff Schmidt noticed something in the Holiday Inn parking lot as he drove by, so he turned in at the next entrance. There was GabrielGilka’s white Saturn, which he’d been looking for. That wasn’t there yesterday. And there was the FBI agents’ rental car. He thought of going in to find out what their plans were, but he had a funny feeling about them. He shuddered at the thought of surprising them at some awkward time. Well, if he didn’t hear from them by ten, he’d call them. He radioed to get Gilka’s car towed and secured.

* * *

To Have It All 3/4

“I love you, Scully.” His words were barely audible. They were still in the chair but they had already shifted around so that she was sitting across his lap and not astride him. Her arms were around his neck and she never wanted to let go. But she would have to, and soon.

They had never done it in a chair before. There had been couches and beds and floors and bathtubs and shower stalls. There was the handicapped restroom on the Metroliner. Working late one reckless night—no, they didn’t use the desk, but Mulder did bash his head on the open desk drawer afterwards.

Scully thought it was wonderful how everything lined up in the chair, with the friction exactly where it was needed. Amazing how it contained Mulder, somehow, so that he didn’t grab her ass and try to control the rhythm. Fortuitous how her breasts kept their contour, didn’t sag or flatten out.

Mulder thought, Wow, this is good.

“Did you plan that, Chiaro?”

“No,” she murmured. “When you dropped your pants the way you did, I just knew I wanted you in a chair.”

She skootched a little more, so that her weight was off him, and indulged herself in the desultory exploration of his body. Resting her head against his chest, she felt completely at peace. He basked in her attention. When she got up, he seemed to be asleep. She went to the adjoining room to shower. Mulder had showered an hour ago, after his run, and being male, had used all the towels.

He was in the shower again when she came back to the room. She could hear him singing. ‘Honky-Tonk Women.’ How romantic.

Mulder came out of the bathroom with a towel over his arm, another one wrapped around his waist, and a couple more around his neck. He was trying out new lyrics as he got his clothes back on.

“I met a sex-crazed G-woman in Schuyler, She said she thought she knew me from somewhere, She told me I would have to take my clothes off, And then she fucked my brains out in a chair. Hey, Scully, you know I did find those biker-boot footprints.”

“Wait,” Scully said to him. Before they started working, she planted a last kiss on his mouth. She wanted to kiss the back of his damp neck, too, but she didn’t, because he would have misunderstood. She let herself play with his hair, which she loved and he didn’t. He broke away to finish getting dressed.

Then the phone rang and she answered it.

“Agent Scully,” said Sheriff Schmidt, “you’d better come right away. Glenn Castelano is dead. We found his body in Gilka’s car.”

* * *

The white Saturn was still in the Holiday Inn parking lot. Castelano was on the floor in the back seat, part of his face blown off by what would turn out to be an exit wound.

After a cursory assessment, Scully knew he had not been killed in the car. There was nowhere near enough blood for that. She found ligature marks on his wrists and ankles, and the palmar surface of his hands and fingers were burned and puffy.

Castelano’s body was removed from the car at last and loaded in the coroner’s wagon. Scully was not hopeful about finding useful evidence. The car was full of burger wrappers and other trash; it would be impossible to pick out what was significant. The fingerprint situation was likely to be similar.

Mulder was in a mood. He didn’t speak. He didn’t scramble into the car to dig for evidence.

“Mulder?” she said. He looked up. He might be angry at her, or he might just be angry.

“What is it? We should have foreseen this? We could have prevented this?”

“I don’t know. Where were you last night?”

Now she was angry. “After I killed Castelano I went back to the hotel and tried to watch ‘ER.’ Then you played with old wet newspaper while I stuffed Castelano in the car and drove him here.”

“Where were you?” His voice had that edgy catch.

“What’s on your mind, Mulder? You need to tell me what you’re thinking,” she said. She didn’t want to feed the anger but she didn’t want to be bullied either.

He turned away.

“Mulder, I didn’t see Sandy. Are you listening? I was not with Sandy last night,” she said.

“I know. I was.”

What a stupid comeback, she thought. It leaves him wide open.

“Then his taste has improved,” she said.

“Yeah, I heard he used to hang out with a little squirt from Maryland,” Mulder said.

“Little squirt? That’s what Sandy used to call her. Mulder really was with Sandy yesterday. What was he doing, checking on her? Checking to make sure she didn’t give information to Sandy? Or just digging around for embarrassing stuff to use against her?

“Excuse me. I have to conduct a postmortem exam.”

Damn it, he thought. She’s going to take the car again.

“I’ll drive you,” he said.

“No, thank you.” He wants to strand me at the medical center, she thought. That way he can be sure I’m not out hiding the killer. Does he really think Sandy did this?

Mulder thought it through. He couldn’t get the keys from her without making a scene. He’d have to go with her, as he frequently did. Once she got started, he’d be able to leave if he wanted. She wasn’t going to race him to the car with her hands full of entrails.

“Okay, you drive,” he said.

* * *

Scully had never seen Glenn Castelano alive. What would he tell her in death? Before she’d begun her exam, he’d told her he’d been shot in the back of the head and dragged through the dirt. She collected three very distinct soil samples from his back. There was a jumble of dirt and plant matter that had forced its way under his clothing when he was being dragged. Collecting the varied specimens was time-consuming and boring.

Mulder was not even watching. His chair was turned away from her, and he seemed to be listening to his CD player. He really wasn’t interested in what she was doing because the cause of death was obvious, and to Mulder the identity of the killer was equally obvious.

Maybe it would have been obvious sooner if he didn’t spend so much time thinking about sex. It was as if he devoted half his brain to getting laid, and the other half to pleasing Scully. What part of Scully’s brain was working on pleasing him? Maybe a tenth. Then again, he was easy to please.

So what are you saying? he asked himself. You want to give up sex?

No, that wouldn’t be necessary. When they were between cases, they could be imaginative and silly. But when they were actively investigating, Scully would have to forego her coyness and whimsy. He would summon her with a simple, “Agent Scully, you’re needed.” She would be thrilled and hurry to him. She would of course leave the lights on, because that would be more efficient. Oh, goddamn it. He was doing it again.

Scully had finished collecting evidence from Prof. Castelano’s back. He was not a large man, but she was not going to be able to turn him over by herself. She could ask Mulder to help. How snotty would he be? Was it worth it?

Before she did that, it was time to tell him where she was last night. That was part of the reason he was pissed off. She was sure there was more to it than that, but that was a place to begin. He had a reputation for being moody and erratic, but she knew it was largely undeserved. So many times when he sounded schizophrenic, he turned out to be right.

“Mulder, I went to meet someone yesterday, but it had nothing to do with what we’re working on,” she said. “Sandy Korsakov is getting married. I wanted to meet his, uh, intended.”

“He’s getting married to a woman?” Mulder asked.

“Yes. A pregnant woman,” she said. “Neither of them would tell me why they’re doing this, or if he’s the father. But she seems okay. Anyway, I wanted to meet her.”

“Who knows about this, Scully? Does Tommy know?”

“Tommy doesn’t know yet. I don’t think anyone around here does. They just decided.”

“Did they decide before or after the murder?” Mulder asked. “I know you don’t understand this, Scully, but homosexuals are capable of murder.”

“HELLO! He got to Castelano’s after Gilka was dead, remember? And you’re his alibi for last night,” she said.

“That’s amazing, Scully, you haven’t even got the corpse turned over and you’ve got a time of death. Was the killer thoughtful enough to smash his watch or something?” Mulder knew who the killer was, and it wasn’t Sandy. He wanted Scully to see that she wasn’t being professional, wasn’t giving the investigation the attention it required.

“Excuse me, Sherlock, Castelano’s secretary said they worked until eight. The security guard noticed the car at eleven. I don’t think forensic science is going to pin it down much tighter than that,” Scully said, wishing she had let Mulder drop her off.

“I saw Sandy Korsakov for about fifteen minutes, right around seven. Not much of an alibi,” Mulder said.

“You know it wasn’t Sandy,” Scully said. She knew he knew. “Look at his back, Mulder. Someone dragged him through the dirt, inch by inch. Sandy’s strong. The person who did this could barely move him. We’re looking for a small person who works alone.”

Sandy is pretty powerful, Mulder thought. He knocked me on my ass with one punch.

“I don’t suppose Castelano told his secretary he was meeting someone,” Mulder said.

“Lucky one of us was paying attention,” Scully said sourly. Sheriff Schmidt had passed them this information, but apparently Mulder’s mind wandered unless there were aliens or freaks involved. “Castelano and his secretary were supposed to work very late on the quarterly budget for the department. But Castelano changed his plans and sent the secretary home at eight.”

“Castelano had a date to meet his killer, probably at eight-thirty,” Mulder concluded. He felt absolved. He would have hated it if Castelano had been killed while he was trying to lure Scully away from George Clooney.

“Schmidt thinks the killer might be using Castelano’s car now,” Scully said. “It seems possible. What do you make of the burns on the victim’s hands?”

“The killer is a sicko. He’s into a little torture before the execution. A weak little sicko in biker boots who works alone.” For Mulder, this was a positive ID. He knew the name that went with it.

“That’s great, Mulder,” Scully said. “Next time my nephew visits, you’re invited over to play Carmen Sandiego with him.”

* * *

Mulder helped Scully turn the body over. Then he ripped off his disposable gown, ungloved, and headed for the sink.

“Mulder, please tell me the killer isn’t someone you profiled who’s sworn to kill you,” Scully said to his back.

“He isn’t,” Mulder said. “I’m taking the car.”

Mulder phoned Sheriff Schmidt from the car, but Schmidt asked him to comes to his office. Schmidt said he would just as soon discuss the case on the CB radio as on a cell phone.

There was a pizzeria by the courthouse and Mulder ordered some pies delivered to the sheriff’s office. If he was still there when they came, he’d get lunch. Otherwise he’d have to write it off as a goodwill gesture to the local police. He ordered a couple of pies for Scully at the medical center. Give her something to work with if she needed favors. And she hadn’t eaten breakfast.

Schmidt was on the phone with Scully when Mulder got to his office. She wanted him to pick up Korsakov and Schoen as accessories, for obstruction, for questioning—for “whatever,” as she put it. She asked him if Castelano’s car or the Harley-Davidson had been spotted, or if any other vehicles were reported stolen since last night. No to both questions. Mulder got on the phone with her and told her to expect the pizza.

“Thanks, Mulder, that was very thoughtful. How much will I owe?” she asked.

“You don’t owe the pizza guy anything, I took care of it,” he said. “You owe thirty-seven dollars for last night. That was your turn.”

The sheriff told Mulder he’d send a couple of guys out to pick up Sandy, but Tommy was already in custody. He had turned himself in that morning, admitting he’d lied about the night of the murder.

“If Korsakov had any sense, he’d do the same thing,” Mulder said.

“If I had any sense, we would have gone to Castelano’s office right away and taken him into custody. He’d still be alive,” Schmidt said.

Mulder gave the sheriff a detailed description of the killer and went to talk to Schoen in jail. He brought a couple of slices with him.

“Where’s Dana?” Tommy asked.

“She’s busy with Glenn,” Mulder said. “You can stare at my chest if you like.” He passed a slice of pizza to Tommy. “It’s time to come clean, Tommy. Give me the whole story.”

“I’ll tell you everything, Fox,” Tommy said.

Tommy told him that he and Korsakov had gone to Castelano’s that night because of something Gilka had let slip. That they’d found a “backer” for the Clot Activator. They needed to find new financial support since the Department of Defense had cut them off. If Castelano and Gilka were working on a deal, Korsakov and Schoen wanted to have a say in it.

When they pulled up at Glenn’s, they saw the blue light and they knew what it meant. The Activator had fired. When they found that Gilka was dead, they knew what had killed him.

Glenn told them it was an accident. Since one of their biggest problems with the Activator was its hair-trigger, they believed him. They agreed to keep quiet about the Activator; adverse publicity was the last thing they needed.

“Glenn asked us not to tell about the meeting or the blue light. In return he promised he’d only sell to a benign party,” Tommy said.

“A benign party who wants to kill someone,” Mulder said.

“Spare me,” said Tommy. “Or don’t you carry a sidearm? We’ve seen the perfection of weapons of mass destruction. I am not ashamed to be associated with a weapon of limited destruction. Do you think the world would be a worse place if Khaddafi suffered a fatal stroke? When a terrorist leader is murdered, you know his followers are going to retaliate. Can’t you see the advantages of a device that brings these monsters down without starting a war?”

“Murder by natural causes. Is that what Castelano offered his buyer?” Mulder asked.

“The buyer wanted a demonstration. Gilka was the test subject. The buyer was happy until you rolled into town. He wasn’t looking for a murder weapon that would bring in the FBI,” Tommy said.

“When did Castelano tell you this?” Mulder asked.

“He never told me. I heard from the buyer early this morning, and he told me. He offered me a lot of money to fix the Activator, make it the undetectable weapon he wanted. Get rid of the blue light, give it a reliable trigger. I told him that would take time, and he hung up on me.”

“When’s the last time you talked to Sandy Korsakov?” Mulder asked.

“I called him right then. He told me I’d blown it. He said I should have said anything the buyer wanted to hear, so he’d bring the Activator back to us. He said the most important thing was getting the Activator back.”

“If your Activator misfires so much, why aren’t you all dead?” Mulder didn’t have time for tact.

“Shielding. It takes about three minutes before it fires, and that’s plenty of time to get behind something. The wave doesn’t have much penetration, really,” Tommy said.

“Three minutes,” Mulder said. “Gabriel Gilka had three minutes to contemplate his death. I wonder how they made him sit and wait for it.”

Tommy didn’t answer.

“Do you want to know who your buyer is?” Mulder asked before he left. “He’s a self-employed hitman with a hair-trigger of his own. Just thought you’d want to know.”

* * *

Mulder called Scully from the sheriff’s phone. She’d been discussing security—and eating pizza—with the director of the blood bank. Schmidt’s deputies had been unable to find Korsakov so far, and Mulder wanted a home address for Korsakov’s fiancee. All Scully could give him was Laura Hayden’s name and phone number.

Mulder picked Scully up at the medical center, the brakes squealing as he pulled over for her. Once she got in, though, they sat there.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“I wonder if they have some kind of agricultural project, or a greenhouse,” Scully said.

Mulder couldn’t resist. “Keep your clothes on this time.”

“I’ll kill him,” she said, blushing furiously.

“Sounds like an interesting story,” Mulder said.

Scully had waved over a woman in a red blazer and was getting directions to the Model Agronomy Station.

“Castelano had so many unrelated kinds of soil on him,” she said. “I was thinking about where you would find different soil samples all in one place?”

Mulder phoned Schmidt to send a car to the agronomy station. There was a pause before Schmidt answered.

“Agent Mulder, I’ve got a dozen officers on this, and that’s all I can give it. I’ll see if the State Police can send a car while I try to get some of my people here freed up.”

The agronomy station was on the other side of the large campus. It wasn’t technically in Schuyler at all, although it was in Clark County.

“Okay, Scully, tell me about your wild time in the greenhouse.” Mulder was passing the time by being obnoxious.

She looked at him as blankly as she could. “What are you talking about?”

“Stonewall me all you like, I will learn the truth. I’m with the FBI, you know.”

He was still working on her when they reached the agronomy station. The empty fields were covered with crusty dry snow, with a few bare patches. There was a large greenhouse. Three vehicles were parked there: Korsakov’s old Pontiac wagon, Castelano’s gold Volvo, and a massive Harley-Davidson touring bike.

Mulder parked a distance from the greenhouse, but with the fields bare the car was plainly visible. He said something that made Scully’s jaw drop.

“Let’s wait for back-up.”

But after a few minutes they could see two figures stepping out of the greenhouse: a skinny little guy with long hair and a leather jacket, and his hostage, Sandy Korsakov. The little guy had a shotgun aimed at Sandy’s head.

“FBI man? Are you the FBI man? Get in here right now, Mr. FBI. We need to talk.” The little man had a surprisingly deep, resonant voice.

“Get down,” Mulder whispered. “I don’t think he knows you’re here.” Scully slid down in the seat. Mulder opened his door.

“Take it easy, Harry. I’m coming out nice and slow,” Mulder shouted.

“You promise this isn’t someone you profiled?” Scully whispered.

“I didn’t profile everyone,” Mulder said. “This is one of our ten most wanted. Don’t you keep up on those things?”

“How long have you known who it was?” Scully asked. She really wanted to throttle him. Not everyone had a photographic memory.

“Come on, Mr. FBI, I’m through waiting. Just drop your gun and march yourself in here before I blow this man’s head off,” the gunman shouted.

“Okay, Harry, I’m coming in.”

Mulder got out of the car slowly and left the door open. If Scully got a clear shot this would be over quickly. After a few feet he let his gun fall. Harry was behind Korsakov, using him as a shield. Mulder wanted to draw him away from his hostage so Scully could take him out.

Instead of heading for the greenhouse door, Mulder went to the big Harley.

“What are you doing,” Harry called. “Don’t touch that.”

Mulder ran his hand over the leather saddle.

“It’s nice,” he said. “What is it, a Honda?” He hoped the gunman would move closer to him and away from Sandy.

Harry did not walk over to the motorcycle, as Mulder had hoped. Still shielded by his hostage, he backed into the greenhouse doorway.

“You’ve provoked me, FBI man,” he said. Mulder hurried in after him.

Next to the car, hidden by the open door, Scully reholstered her weapon. No clear shot. Nothing even close. She pulled out her phone and called the sheriff. She wanted backup now. Then she ran toward the greenhouse until she could take cover behind the Volvo. It was impossible to see inside the greenhouse, at least from where she was. The glass walls were almost like mirrors. She would have to get right up to the glass to have a chance of seeing inside, but she would be easily visible.

She drew her gun again and began the undignified task of crawling to the greenhouse. She could hear a voice inside— the gunman. His taunting tone was easier to make out than his actual words. Then the voice stopped. Her automatic was aimed at the door. The gunman emerged and turner her way, toward the vehicles.

“Federal agent, drop your weapon,” she bellowed. He swung his shotgun toward her and she fired, hitting him squarely in the chest. He dropped. She was running toward him when Sandy emerged. As the bright blue light came blazing through the glass of the greenhouse, she skirted the fallen biker and charged for the door. Sandy blocked her.

“He’s okay,” Sandy said. “Wait for the light to stop.” She shoved him aside, knocking him over with a hip check. The light was gone when she got inside. Sandy was right behind her.

“Mulder! Mulder!” No answer. Not a sound. Sandy grabbed her hand and pointed to a pile of dirt in the wide center aisle.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get him out.” She saw the edge of a black plastic sheet, but she and Sandy were unable to lift it until they’d pushed aside the dirt that covered it. There he was. His face and hair were soaked in sweat and his lips were light lavender, but he was alive and breathing.

“Get an ambulance!” she barked at Sandy as she loosened Mulder’s tie. “How ya doin’, Mooch?” she asked Mulder.

“I’m… fine.” He was gasping for breath and did not sound fine, but at least he could talk. He’d been handcuffed around the base of the long table and when she freed him he tried to sit up.

“Lay down, Mulder,” Scully told him. She knew he’d breath more easily sitting up, but she wasn’t worried about his breathing. With the dirt and plastic off him his breathing would return to normal by itself. She was worried about blood clots. She wanted to keep any clots from traveling to his lungs and head.

“Scully, I’m okay, just let me sit up.” As she expected, his breathing was returning to normal. She lifted his feet onto a sack of peat moss to elevate his legs. She started checking his pulses.

“Scully, leave me alone!” Mulder said Being buried in topsoil had reduced his tolerance for confinement. Sandy reappeared at Scully’s side.

“He’s okay, Dana,” Sandy said. “He had plenty of shielding. It didn’t get to him.”

“Shut up!” she shouted, probably to Sandy. “Go get the black airline bag from the trunk.” That was definitely addressed to Sandy. She gave him the car keys.

“I want you to tell me if this hurts,” she said to Mulder, taking hold of his foot and bending it up toward him.

“No. Now stop it.” He got to his feet. “What about Harry Bouton? Did you get out an APB?”

“I shot him. He’s outside,” Scully said. Sandy came back with the airline bag. He shook his head.

“He’s gone,” Sandy said. “The cars and the bike are still there.”

“I’m going to check in the woods,” Mulder said. “If he went the other way, along the road, he’s probably looking for a ride.” He thought Scully would take the car and check the local road. “He would probably head for the main highway.”

“Lie down, Mulder,” Scully commanded. “I’m not done checking you out.” She was getting stuff from the black carry-on bag. “I’m going to start you on some blood-thinner. You’re going to need an IV. You can call the sheriff while I’m working on you.”

“Scully,” he said. His look said, We’ll talk about this later.

Her concern for his life and safety was mixed now with hurt feelings. He would let a dangerous charlatan drill a hole in his head, and he wouldn’t let her take care of him. He’d been reading up on blood clots. He knew they were the mechanism behind heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary emboli. He knew they could kill. Why didn’t he trust her anymore?

The sirens outside announced the arrival of their back-up and the ambulance. Mulder went out first. Scully and Korsakov joined him. It was a ragtag posse, with the sheriff, two state troopers, a Schuyler University safety officer, and the two-man ambulance crew.

Scully listened like a dutiful sidekick while Mulder and Sheriff Schmidt discussed the search for Harry Bouton. They agreed he couldn’t get far on foot. They presumed that he’d been wearing a bulletproof vest, but the shot to the chest must have bruised him at least.

Schmidt was as angry as Scully that Mulder hadn’t given him the killer’s name earlier.

Korsakov agreed to dismantle and crate the Clot Activator, which would be seized as evidence. He was indignant that he was still going to be arrested.

“I saved your life,” he said to Mulder.

“You lied about Gilka’s death, you handcuffed me to a plant table, you buried me in dirt, and you shot a clotting ray at me,” Mulder said. “Tommy’s in jail for lot less.”

“Tommy was in jail,” Schmidt said. “He’s in the hospital now. Heart problem.”

“You sent him from the jail?” Mulder asked. “Then you have guards on him.”

Schmidt looked annoyed. “Now I know how the federal deficit got so big. Agent Mulder, that would be two guards, round the clock, in three shifts. That’s six men to watch a harmless little old man lay in bed. No, I released him first. Saves me a lot of overtime and saves him the embarrassment.”

Mulder nodded. The ambulance driver asked Schmidt if he could head back to the medical center. He could see that no one here needed them, and they were due back at the hospital for a transport in half an hour. Schmidt turned to Scully, expecting her to make the decision.

“It is my opinion that Agent Mulder needs intravenous heparin and some diagnostic procedures to check for blood clots,” she said. “It is his decision to forego these treatments.”

“I’ll go,” Mulder said. The driver and the EMT looked him over without enthusiasm. He looked totally intact but he was really dirty. His hair had clods of soil in it. His coat was caked with dirt. If he was sick or injured they wouldn’t have hesitated, but he looked as if the only emergency treatment he needed was from a dry cleaner.

“Maybe he’d be better off if you took him,” the EMT said to Scully hopefully. She wasn’t buying it. She wanted him flat in the ambulance with his legs elevated, a running IV, and maybe some oxygen. Mulder was picturing the same thing.

“Scully, he’s right,” Mulder said. “You take me. I’d really feel better about that.” He wondered if he looked cute. Sometimes when he was a complete mess Scully thought he looked cute. He’d have to look really cute, though, angry as she was at him.

“Okay, get in the car,” she said.

He got in the passenger side. In a couple of minutes she got behind the wheel, readjusted the seat, and took off.

“You know, Scully, I’m filthy. You think I could get cleaned up first?”

“If you’ve got a clot somewhere, we want to treat it before it migrates. This is nothing to fool around with,” she said.

“We don’t know what’s in this soil,” Mulder said. “I’m concerned about the introduction of pathogens during invasive procedures.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Scully said. She was hoping to spare him anything really invasive. She would not let them cannulate his femoral arteries. The gunshot wound from the Luther Boggs case had been repaired with great skill, but she had no wish to test the repair. She had some doubts about the region below his left collarbone, too. The bullet she’d put there herself had traveled through him leaving no damage. But there had to be adhesions, and the area was best left alone.

He’d have to put up with a chest x-ray, some intravenous lines, an EKG, and a nuclear scan. Nothing too awful. He didn’t love needles, but he could handle it. Bedrest would be ideal, but she had no illusions that he’d cooperate. No one else did.

“I don’t want to get tetanus,” Mulder said.

“You had the booster just two months ago,” she said. How could he possibly think she’d let him get out of date on something like that?

“There’s something crawling around in my hair,” Mulder said. Surely that would move her. And it was true. “I’m going to try to get Tommy on the phone.”

Scully found it almost impossible to be objective about Mulder’s medical care, but this was a situation where she couldn’t just pass him on to someone else and step back. Anyone managing his care would have to understand about the Clot Activator. Otherwise they’d find nothing to treat him for.

Mulder’s call was getting passed around the hospital. He’d been cut off a couple of times and had to redial. From time to time she heard him agree to hold or explain again that he was trying to find out about Thomas Schoen.

“Any pain, Mulder?” she asked. “Any difficulty breathing?” He shook his head. His call connected at last. He was talking to Tommy in cryptic fragments. Probably trying to get Tommy to tell her to let him wash up. Mulder handed her the phone.

“So nice to talk to you,” Tommy said, wondering what she was wearing. She could hear people talking in the background. Tommy was surrounded by his adoring students.

“You sound pretty good,” Scully said. “What’s going on?”

“I’m in a-fib,” he said. “They’re trying to control the rate. What are you planning for Fox?”

She told him what she had in mind. He gave her the name of the doctor who had treated him for his stroke, someone who would know about the Clot Activator. Scully agreed that she would be the best one to treat Mulder.

“What do you think, Tommy? Is it safe to let him stop off at the hotel?” Scully asked.

Tommy was certain that Mulder had been totally protected from the Activator ray. He had a different reason for wanting Mulder to be admitted to the hospital.

“Do you have any medical supplied with you?” Tommy asked.

“A few,” Scully said. Her regular arsenal was extensive and she’d added some specialized items in preparation for the alien virus.

“Since he’s feeling fine, I’d let him. Why don’t you draw some blood for baseline studies, then give him five thousand units of heparin sub-Q. I’ll call Dr. Patel and have her meet you in the ER.”

Scully agreed to the plan.

* * *

To Have It All 4/4

Schuyler Medical Center Schuyler, New York

Dr. Patel met Mulder and Scully in the ER as promised. She agreed to most of Scully’s plan. She accepted the blood tubes Scully had drawn and ordered the appropriate tests.

Mulder had been admitted to hospitals before, but this time he was awake and well and able to observe. He noticed for the first time that Scully kept a huge manila envelope filled with the details of his medical history. She had the unit number of every blood product he’d ever received. She had the serial number of the Dacron graft on his femoral artery. She had EKGs and X-rays and CT scans.

Dr. Patel looked at the CT scan of his head and did a double-take. It was the most cartoonlike, bug-eyed double-take Mulder had ever seen, and it was unsettling, given the circumstances. She took out an ophthalmascope and looked into his eyes. She put on gloves to feel where the bullet had grazed his parietal lobe. She found the now-healed drill hole at his hairline.

“Is this going to take much longer?” Mulder asked. He wanted to get settled and figure out how he was going to keep Tommy under surveillance.

“Another fifteen minutes,” Dr. Patel said. “It would be a lot longer if your significant other hadn’t provided this data base.” Scully made a mental note to be sure to tell Mulder exactly which uncomfortable, embarrassing procedures she had saved him from by recording when they’d been done last.

Dr. Patel arranged for the EKG and chest X-ray. The lung perfusion scan would be more difficult to schedule. Dr. Patel said she expected all the tests to be normal and that she’d see him later. Scully stayed with him until the EKG was done.

“I’m going to see how the search for Bouton is going,” she said. She gave him an overnight bag. “This should have everything you need.” He’d seen this bag before. Hell, he’d been loading it into trunks and carrying it off airport luggage carousels for at least a year. He looked inside. New pajamas, sweat pants, T-shirt, robe, toiletries, some books, and a new pair of Topsiders.

“Boating shoes?” he asked.

“They were out of bunny slippers,” she said. “I promise they won’t make you seasick.” She was picking the EKG leads off his chest. A few of them made him flinch.

“Scully, am I to understand that you always travel with my medical records, a bag of medical supplies, and this overnight bag?”

“Of course not, Mulder. Only when you’re with me.”

He slid off the exam table to kiss her good-bye. He was working, but she wasn’t, and she didn’t know that he was.

She took his holster and gun from the chair where he’d left them.

“Anything else you want me to take?” she asked.

He would miss that gun. Lucky he’d picked up his revolver from the hotel. It felt like a toy, compared to the automatic, but it was accurate and easy to conceal.

Should he tell her about his plan? It was now or never. Harry Bouton had eluded capture for eight years. The Bureau had gone after him with all its resources and always come up empty. How did this explosive psycho do it? He had an uncanny ability to know what was happening around him. Mulder didn’t know how Bouton would find out that Tommy was here but he knew he would.

Scully would never go along with his plan. As it was, she’d probably be on the phone with Washington and the Syracuse office before she started the car. The cavalry would arrive—he pictured Eliot Ness and the Untouchables pouring out of their big black sedans. Either Bouton would get away again, or Eliot would catch him.

No, Eliot would not capture him, because Mulder was in the right place. Bouton was going to come back to Tommy. Mulder and his shiny new six-gun would get the bad guy. Of course he would. He already had the girl.

“You might as well take my wallet,” he said.

* * *

Mulder was admitted to room 1013. I should play that number, he thought. It always seems to turn up. He changed into the sweat pants and T-shirt and instantly felt miserable.

Mulder had the bed by the door. His roommate was a man only a little older than him recovering from a heart attack. He was attended at all times by his immediate family, which consisted of fifteen people.

When a nurse came in to complete the admission process, she pulled the curtains to give Mulder at least a little privacy. He found himself flooded by memories of pain and indignity preceded by the sound of those curtains. Dressing changes, debridements, suctioning, lumbar punctures, bone marrow aspirations. Getting shot in North Carolina had been bad, but a picnic compared to the alien virus.

“Are you claustrophobic?” the nurse asked.

“No.” He consciously relaxed his shoulders. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Check your pulses, listen to your breathing, ask some dumb questions… the usual. You seem nervous,” she said.

“I’m okay. Just do what you have to do,” Mulder said, and she did.

“I’m going to see what your doctor has ordered. My name is Donna Damico, but you can just call me Damico. There are four other Donnas working here.”

“Okay,” he said. “Just call me Mulder.”

She left him with the call bell/TV control in his hand, and went to read his doctor’s orders.

He’d asked to be admitted to the tenth floor, but it had never been an issue. Dr. Patel always tried to admit to Ten East. Mulder went out to reconnoiter.

Tommy Schoen’s room was 1019; quite close to Mulder’s but very different. Tommy was on telemetry. Wires connected him to a heart monitor in his room that relayed his cardiac tracing to a monitor at the telemetry station. There was also a video camera in the room, with a video monitor by the tele station.

Tommy was overjoyed to see Mulder. Mulder pulled a chair into the corner of the room closest to Tommy. ~From here, he would be able to see anyone coming through the door long before they’d see him.

“How are you?” Mulder asked Tommy.

“My heart is still misbehaving,” Tommy said. “They’re trying to make it slow down without shutting it off altogether. Today I get digitalized.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun,” Mulder said. “No sign of Harry yet?” Tommy shook his head.

Mulder’s eyes narrowed as he heard someone at the door, but it was only Donna Damico.

“Oh, there you are,” she said to Mulder. “Did your doctor tell you you’d be getting intravenous heparin? I’m going to have to start an IV on you. Let’s go back to your room.”

“Can you do it here?” Mulder asked.

“Well… are you going to pass out?” Mulder promised not to pass out. She checked his arms.

“Mulder, you’ve got great veins,” she said, getting her equipment lined up. “You know, it hurts less if you don’t watch.”

“This isn’t the part I hate,” Mulder said. “It’s when you tell me I can’t bend my arm.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Donna said. She put a rubber tourniquet around his upper arm and swabbed his forearm with alcohol. Then she poked in a green Angiocath, pulled out the steel needle, connected the hub to some tubing, and taped it in place. She snapped off the tourniquet.

“There. You can bend your arm,” she said, pushing a little saline through the new IV to clear it.

“You’re good,” Tommy said.

“I’m the best,” Donna said. “But he really has great veins.” She brought in an IV pole with a pump and hooked it up to Mulder’s IV.

“Donna, could you check my IV while you’re here?” Tommy asked. She buttoned the top button on her uniform and went over to look.

“It’s fine, Tommy,” she said.

When the nurse had left, Mulder asked Tommy, “What’s this heparin going to do to me? We both know I don’t have any blood clots.”

“Your blood will take longer to clot, that’s all. Try not to bleed,” Tommy said.

There was a high-pitched beeping sound.

“I think my IV pump is being paged,” Mulder said.

“Bring it here,” Tommy told him.

Mulder unplugged the pump and started pushing the pole toward Tommy.

“The wheels on this pole don’t seem to turn at all,” he said, dragging it over. Tommy pushed the “start” button a couple of times and the beeping stopped.

Mulder was developing serious misgivings about his plan. He hadn’t realized being a patient would make him feel so awful even when there was nothing wrong with him. The IV was going to be a much bigger problem than he had calculated.

He laid the pole on the floor to seen what was wrong with it. There was gunk all over the little wheels. He’d have to tell Scully to add some gunk solvent to her admission kit. He uprighted the pole again and dragged it to the other side of Tommy’s bed.

Tommy’s IV pole was wobbly, but it rolled freely. Mulder decided to switch poles. He took the pump off his pole easily enough, but Tommy’s pump was frozen in place.

“You can leave the pumps where they are and switch the solutions,” Tommy said.

Tommy directed him on how to remove the IV tubing from the pump. Mulder had to take the bag of solution down from the pole to get enough slack to take out the tubing. Just as he got the whole thing free a different alarm sounded. Donna Damico came back in the room followed by a tall, dazed kid in green scrubs.

~Busted,~ thought Mulder.

“Out of the way, hon,” Donna told him as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Tommy’s arm. “Tommy? How are you? Can you cough for me?”

Tommy coughed a few times.

“His blood pressure is holding, but we need to give him something to slow down his heart rate,” Donna said to the resident. He was watching the monitor.

“We’ve been using Lopressor,” she said. “Look, I have some right here. Would you like me to give it?”

“I’ve never done a cardioversion,” the resident said.

“Young man, I’m sure you will get many chances to use the defibrillator, but you will not use it on me today,” Tommy said firmly.

“Let’s page Mitch,” said Donna. “He’s more familiar with the attending cardiologists. He knows what drugs they prefer.”

“I’m going to perform a carotid massage,” Jim announced. He wanted to apply pressure to the side of Tommy’s neck to stimulate a heart-slowing reflex.

“Contraindicated in elderly patients or with a history of CVA,” Mulder said. Everyone stared at him. “Or so I hear.”

“Clear the room,” the resident said to the nurse. Donna motioned toward the door, and Mulder left, still free of the IV pump. He stuck the solution bag in his pocket and headed for the nurses’ station. He wanted to get someone competent to help Tommy.

Behind the nurses’ station he found a bank of cardiac monitors under a row of video screens. A man in white pants was watching the monitors, but he turned when he noticed Mulder.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“I just came from room ten-nineteen,” Mulder said, “and they wanted to page Mitch.”

“No problem,” the man said, picking up a telephone and placing the page. “You’re the coagulopathy?”

“I guess so,” said Mulder. He didn’t know what his admitting diagnosis was, but coagulopathy would make sense. A clotting disorder.

“I’m Larry Lewis,” the man said, extending his hand.

“Mulder,” he said, accepting the handshake.

“Just Mulder?” Larry asked. Mulder nodded. Larry returned his attention to the cardiac monitors.

“Looks like your friend broke,” he said.

“What?” Mulder asked.

“His heart rate is back to normal. The rapid rhythm broke,” Larry said.

Mulder pulled up a chair. With the video monitors, this would be a decent place to watch for Bouton. Larry didn’t object. Donna Damico passed by the nursing station.

“How’s ten-nineteen?” she asked.

“A-fib around eighty to a hundred,” Larry answered.

“Are you watching ten-thirteen for me?” she asked. “Could you recheck his pedal pulses?”

Feeling like a horse with a veterinarian, Mulder picked up his feet and let Larry check his pulses.

“You have great pulses,” Larry said.

Great pulses and great veins, Mulder thought, looking down at his IV. Something was wrong with it. The IV tubing was full of blood. He pulled the IV bag out of his pocket. The solution looked pink.

“Uh, Larry, could you have a look at this?” he asked. Larry turned from his monitors and took in the situation.

“I don’t know if I can fix that,” Larry said. He turned up the volume on the monitor alarm and got some supplies from a small room near the tele station. He glanced at his monitors before going to work on the IV. After a while he shook his head.

“You’re clotted off,” Larry said. He flipped a switch on an intercom and spoke to Donna Damico.

“Ten-thirteen clotted off his IV. Do you want me to place a new one? I really need the practice.”

“How could he clot off with heparin running?” her voice sounded over the intercom. “Go ahead and give him a new one.”

Larry managed to set Mulder up with a new IV, a new bag of heparin, and a new IV pump. The new IV was in the back of his right hand. It hurt, and the IV pump alarmed repeatedly. Larry told him not to move his hand. They sat for an hour, Mulder staring at Tommy on the video monitor, Larry watching his cardiac monitor and chatting nonstop.

Larry was happy to give his views on anything or anyone. His favorite topic was the incompetence of the residents.

“I know they’re here to learn,” Larry said, “but they have peoples’ lives in their hands. It takes them a while to get the knowledge to handle it. They don’t even know when they need help.”

Mulder noticed a young man wearing an open-backed patient gown over his blue jeans. He had been pacing in the hallway, but now he stood rocking back and forth, conversing with something on the ceiling.

“Look at him,” Mulder said. “I think he’s hallucinating.”

Larry picked up the phone again.

“Jim, come by the nursing station. Ten-oh-eight is about to go off… yeah, the kid with the bagel injury.”

Larry poked around in a drawer and found a pack of graham crackers.

“Are you hungry, Keith?” he asked the young patient. “You can sit in that chair and have some cookies.”

“Don’t mess with me,” Keith said, but he accepted the crackers and the chair.

Jim Caldwell came up and hunkered down in front of him.

“Hey, buddy, what’s the trouble?” he asked.

“No trouble. No trouble. Don’t want trouble,” the patient said, his eyes darting back and forth.

“Come on, Jim,” Larry said. “This is alcohol withdrawal. Would you order the detox protocol, or does the kid have to hurt someone first?”

“You nurses,” Caldwell said to Larry as he stood up. “You want to drug everyone. This guy’s okay. Just stop getting him stirred up.”

“Look out!” yelled Mulder. Keith had gotten up and was swinging the chair around in front of him. He clipped Caldwell on the chin, knocking him to the floor. Then he raised the improvised weapon as high as his head, ready to smash it down.

Mulder elected to surprise him from behind. He stepped onto the counter and vaulted over the divider that separated the nurses’ work area from the corridor. Grabbing the patient around the back, Mulder spun him away from his victim, then tripped him onto the floor.

Larry had initiated some kind of signal, and as Mulder got Keith under control, swarms of people arrived ready to intervene. Mulder and his opponent were pulled apart, and Mulder submitted patiently as his arms were pinned.

“That guy’s the hero,” Larry told them. “You can let him go.”

“Yuck, he’s bleeding,” said one of Mulder’s captors as he released him. The IV was out, and his right hand was bleeding freely. Caldwell’s cut lip was bleeding too, but more discreetly.

It was half an hour later when Mulder and his IV pole shuffled into Tommy’s room, his bloody clothes replaced with the silk pajamas Scully had bought him. They were lovely pajamas, but they really made him appreciate the sweat pants.

“What happened out there?” Tommy asked. “They said you were like a rodeo clown.”

Mulder described the incident. Tommy was indignant on two counts.

“There is no reason anyone has to go through the DTs,” he said. “We have drugs for that. And if you’re going to spend your time doing acrobatics, I suggest you get your partner up here to protect me.”

“I hope she’s packed some turtlenecks,” Mulder said. “How’s your heart doing?”

“Been okay since that last episode. Poor Doogie seems a little shaky, though,” Tommy said.

“Poor Doogie? That kid is a menace.”

“He’s fairly typical,” Tommy said. “He’s learning his craft on the job. Ever make pancakes, Fox? The first one never comes out right.”

“That’s fine for pancakes,” Mulder said. “I think you doctors forget that patients are people.”

Tommy’s door creaked open and Mulder saw the fear in his face. He drew his weapon and waited.

“Hello, doctor,” a familiar voice said. “Maybe you want to change your mind about helping me. My friend Sandy is in jail, so I’m in need of a new mad scientist.”

“Yes, I would like to help you,” Tommy said. Poor Tommy was an atrocious liar.

“Have they autopsied the Fed yet? Sandy promised me they would rule it was natural causes,” Bouton said.

Tommy didn’t answer. He was staring straight ahead, afraid to give away Mulder’s position.

Mulder yanked out his IV, aimed his gun, and advanced on Bouton.

“Autopsy’s been postponed,” Mulder said. “Put your hands behind your head.”

“Nice jammies,” Bouton said. “Your mama buy those for you?” Bouton was reaching for his gun.

“Of course. Who else would?” Mulder continued to advance.

“You have a lot of nerve, FBI man,” Bouton said. “You don’t have the courtesy to die, and then you have to rub my nose in it.” His fingers touched the grip.

“Freeze! Federal agent! Hands in the air—NOW!” Scully’s voice boomed from the doorway. She had Bouton face down on the floor and disarmed in twenty seconds. Mulder waited for the click of the handcuffs to click his safety on, then put his gun back under his shirt. Maybe Scully hadn’t noticed it. She didn’t turn her attention to him until a pair of Schuyler University Campus Police officers removed Bouton from the room.

She got a gauze pad from a shelf in the room and gave it to Mulder. She had to push up his sleeve before he understood her intention and used it to stop the blood oozing from the former location of his latest IV. As he held the gauze to his left arm, she removed his gun.

She checked on Tommy.

“I’m not hurt,” said Tommy. “I want to thank you both. It took me too long to realize what I was dealing with. I don’t know what you’ll need from me, but I promise you every cooperation from now on.”

Scully had a great deal to say to Mulder, but this wasn’t the place. His arm was still bleeding because he kept lifting the gauze to check underneath. She got new gauze and pressed it down herself, and led him out of the room by his arm.

He followed her, feeling more than a little stupid. She held his arm extended with one hand around his wrist and the other against the inner surface opposite the elbow. She led him into a small room with a set of bunkbeds and little else. There was a pile of shoes and books by the door. X-rays were stacked against the wall. The stench of mildew and sweat was intense.

Mulder wanted to wait Scully out, make her be the first to speak, but he gave up.

“What is this place?” he asked, practically gagging.

“It’s the on-call room,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you alone.”

Here it comes, he thought. How I didn’t tell her who the killer was, didn’t inform the bureau, kept my gun, jeopardized a manhunt…

“Mulder, you knew the killer was on the Ten Most Wanted List, and you didn’t tell me. You decided to catch him single-handed. I will make you suffer for that.” She lifted the gauze on his arm. The bleeding had stopped.

“We are in uncharted territory, Mulder. We’ve done something good. I would like to report that we were engaged in a cooperative effort with the Clark County Sheriff’s department, the State Police, and Schuyler U’s finest. But if you insist, I can state that you were trying to be a hot dog and I took advantage of your arrogance.”

“Aw, come on, Scully,” he protested. “This wasn’t arrogance. I was just trying to keep it simple. I knew he’d come after Tommy and I knew I could be ready for him.”

“A little gun play is always welcome in the acute care setting,” Scully said.

“There was no gun play. It was nice and clean,” Mulder said.

“It was nice and clean because we had two guns on him. But have it your way, Mulder. You had it all covered. I interfered with your boyhood dream of catching a most-wanted fugitive in your pajamas.”

“And they’re lovely pajamas, too. What if I get dressed while you get me checked out of here?” Mulder succeeded in looking cute, but cute didn’t cut it this time.

“You’ve got a lung perfusion test in an hour. And I’m sure someone here can find you something to replace those bloody pajamas. I just hope your cute little butt doesn’t freeze in the breeze.”

* * *

At two A.M. Scully gave up on trying to fall asleep and went back to the hospital. She walked into Mulder’s room as quietly as she could and closed the door. A sign on the door warned: DO NOT ENTER IF YOU MAY BE PREGNANT. No chance of that. He was in bed, his back to her.

Mulder’s room had been changed at the request of his roommate. The staff was baffled by the request at first because Mulder was never in the room. Turned out the problem was Mulder’s phone, which rang and rang, unattended. Now Mulder had a private room.

Dr.Patel had changed her mind about intravenous blood-thinner for Mulder.

“It is not safe for this man to be on heparin,” she said. “I believe he is accident prone.”

The lung perfusion scan had finally been accomplished. The official report would take a day, but the results were obvious. The scan was normal. The blood supply to the lungs was perfect, unimpaired by blood clots.

Dr. Patel wanted him in the hospital overnight because the radioactive dye used in the perfusion test posed a potential hazard to others. Hence the sign on the door. Mulder’s motivation for staying overnight was to give Scully time to cool off. Scully wanted him there overnight as punishment.

So why was she here now? To watch Mulder sleep.

Mulder was okay. Bouton was in custody. The Clot Activator was safe in an evidence locker. The Director himself had congratulated Scully by telephone. He told her to relay his thanks to Mulder, whom he had been unable to reach. Sheriff Schmidt was getting a gubernatorial commendation.

The door opened and someone walked in. It took a moment for Scully to recognize him in the semi-darkness. Jim Caldwell, the first-year resident.

“Can I talk to you?” he whispered. She nodded. “He says you gave up the practice of medicine. I’m thinking of doing that. Dr. Scully, I’m just no good at it.”

“Please call me Dana,” she said. “What makes you think you’re not good?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I know what’s in the books, but when it gets down to applying it I can’t put it all together,” the resident said. “Everyone yells at me, everyone thinks I’m a big joke. When I ask for help the senior residents say I should be more independent.”

“I skipped my residency,” Scully said. “But as a fourth-year med student I found myself practically in charge of the AIDS patients. Many doctors flat-out refused to take care of them, and I ended up filling the vacuum. I was in over my head.”

“What did you do?”

“I kept it simple. I kept a notebook with complications matched with their interventions. It gave me something to start with,” Scully said.

“A notebook? I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” Caldwell said. “What I’m really worried about is making a mistake.”

“You’ll make mistakes, Jim. There’s only one thing to do with a mistake. Learn from it and move on.”

“Why would you skip your residency?” Caldwell asked. “That’s like throwing away your four years of med school.”

“It’s a long story,” Scully said.

“I’d really be interested,” he said.

She sighed. “I got attached to those AIDS patients. They were so alone. No one cared what happened to them, what I did to them. One professor asked me, ‘Ms. Scully, why would you place a chest tube in a terminal patient?’ I blew up at him. ‘Because he doesn’t have to die right now from a treatable tension pneumothorax!’ I got warnings about my temper. I learned to control myself.” She paused.

“Please go on,” Caldwell encouraged her.

“There was one patient in particular. Greg McGrath. He reminded me of my little brother. I used to take him out on leave, when he was strong enough. I had a T-top Camaro, I’d take him for drives with the top down. I cooked for him.”

“They say you shouldn’t take your work home with you. That’s what you were doing, literally.”

“Greg got lymphoma, a complication of AIDS. He told me he had made his peace, he was ready to die. I went berserk on him, and he agreed to get the chemo. And that’s what killed him.”

“He died from the chemo?” Caldwell asked. “Dana, you know that happens sometimes.”

“First, do no harm,” Scully said. “I killed my friend Greg.”

“You just told me what to do with a mistake,” the intern said.

“That’s what I did. I found my niche among the most forgotten patients of all,” she said.

“Why didn’t you take a residency in pathology?”

“You know how that residency begins, don’t you?” she asked him. “With a one-year general internship. I wasn’t ready for it. Then I got an offer from the Bureau, and I joined.”

“You found a back door into forensics. I guess that’s good.” Caldwell’s hand was on the doorknob. “Thanks for talking to me. And could you check his arm when he wakes up? I kind of forgot to take off the tourniquet after I blew his vein.” Out he went.

Mulder lay still, breathing evenly, but he couldn’t have slept through all that.

“Mulder?” He turned. “Hey, you stole George Clooney’s pants,” she told him. He was wearing green scrubs like Dr. Ross.

“Not everyone appreciates my cute little butt as much as you do,” he said.

“They’d better not,” she said, lowering the side rail and perching on the side of the bed. He pulled her in next to him.

“Hold it, cowboy,” she said. “They’re going to be checking on you.”

“No, I’m on autopilot,” he said. “My nurse told me. She’s spending the rest if her shift writing incident reports. Now gimme a kiss.”

It was a nice, long, wet, playful kiss. She kicked off her shoes, settled her head on his shoulder, and lay her arm across him.

“Are you okay? Those were some painful memories,” Mulder said.

“But nothing new. Nothing I’d want to forget, either. Show me you arms, Mooch, I want to see what that kid did to you. Oh, you are a mess. How many times did they stick you?”

“Scully, I stopped counting. A lot, okay?”

“We’re giving a press conference in the morning,” she told him. “You feel up to it?”

“I can handle it. I’ll emphasize how unorthodox techniques allowed us to apprehend a psychopath who eluded capture by more conventional means for almost ten years,” Mulder said.

“Do it if you want. Mike Schmidt is dropping a bigger bombshell. He’s coming out of the closet,” Scully said.

“That takes a lot of guts. I wonder when he’s up for reelection,” Mulder said. “Scully, we should come out too. Just tell the world.”

“And then we can all join hands and sing ‘We Are a Gentle, Angry People.’ “

“Forget it, then,” Mulder said. “Not if it involves singing.”

Scully slipped out of the bed and pulled the curtain. That sound again.

“What are you going to do to me?” Mulder asked.

“Poor Mulder,” she said, stroking him through the scrubs. “I’m going to perform some arduous tests of your peripheral perfusion. How are those femoral pulses?”

“You better not be… Uuh… Oooh,” No, she was not checking any pulses. “Oh, Scully,” In a perfect world, Scully would not be wearing clothes. He ripped at her pants, trying to make the world more perfect. She pulled off her jacket and hurried to undo her slacks, slapping his hands away. She didn’t want her buttons flying around the room.

“Just a minute,” she said, giggling over his inane urgency. He struggled out of the scrub shirt as she grabbed his much-appreciated little butt. She mashed herself against his chest and ran her hand against the tissue-thin cotton of his scrub pants.

He had tried opening her bra from the front and the back, and was now just pulling and twisting at random when it gave up and popped open. He felt her knee between his thighs and her breasts against his chest. She was doing something over his belly, but it wasn’t one of her better moves. Now it was her mouth on his chest and her breasts by his belly, the busy hands still by his waist.

He slid her panties down over her hips and she wriggled cooperatively. Then, unexpectedly, she pressed her knee into his right thigh while pulling his left arm out from under him and succeeded in flipping him on his back. Take me, beast woman! he thought. And there she was, naked and above him, why, with a little effort he could, Mmmmm, yes he could, oh, how yummy, just a tiny nibble, she didn’t like teeth, but again she was scrabbling around his stomach, so annoying, what was she doing?

“Mulder!” she screamed. “What kind of knot did you put in this drawstring?” She’d been working on it forever. She grabbed the pants and started to pull. Goddam George Clooney. These pants had been laundered a thousand times and the fabric was about a molecule thick. They should just rip into bits if she found the right place to start tearing. She probed a little, trying to find a weak point.

“YOW!’ Mulder said, pushing her away. He started to tug on the drawstring as mindlessly as she had. Relieved of her task, she started writing little notes to him with her tongue. I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U. She traced little circles on his ribs and chest, working her way north. O-O-O-O.

The obstinate drawstring now held Mulder’s total attention, but Scully slid her hands past the obstacle. Oh, hi there, big fellow, how warm and hard and well-perfused. Too bad you can’t come out and play. She stopped the tongue circles long enough to lick her palms. Then the wet hands went back to glide against the captive penis and the mouth surrounded a nipple.

“Scully… “

“Mmmm, you like it rough, don’t you, baby?” she murmured. Most often he wanted it harder and faster than her instincts would have told her. She let her teeth nibble at him, and her hands increased the pace and pressure. Her nipples rubbed on his belly. She’d need more spit soon.

“Scully… “

She moved onto her side, with her pelvis grinding on his hipbone. She stretched her neck to nibble on his ear, then down to his throat.

“Scully! Stop!” Desperate, he was shaking her by the shoulders.

Scully exhaled loudly but wordlessly. She found the pull-chain to turn on the light and surveyed the enemy. An ordinary knot in a frayed woven drawstring on an old pair of green scrubs. She picked at the knot with her nails. Every time he moved the knot would slip back inside the top of the pants. She tried biting through it.

Mulder grabbed the drawstring and tugged it away from the garment, holding the knot a couple of inches above his body. “Scully, shoot it.” He was serious. She caught her breath. There had to be something in the room that would cut through the string; scissors, a scalpel, broken glass, anything. She checked the bedside stand. A plastic knife. It would have to work.

Mulder was grinding his teeth. She kneeled next to him and began to saw at the drawstring, thread by thread. And then it gave. She fell sideways, landing on her elbow. Mulder’s face broke her fall.

Miraculously, she had missed his nose.

“Are you okay?” she asked. He turned his back to her, his hands over his face.

“Mulder, if you were really injured you’d say you were okay. And if you were slightly hurt you’d say what was wrong. So I know you are not hurt at all.” She started climbing over him. He was waiting for her to get within striking distance. Now her hands were on the waistband of his vanquished pants. “But if you really don’t want to play, I might as well tie these again.”

“Noooo!” He lunged, and now she was under him, pinned. Not a bad place to be. She struggled against him so she could savor the feeling of him holding her down.

“Let me go, you brute,” she said, locking her knees around him. This was bliss. Except the light was on. Oh well.

* * *

FBI Headquarters Washington, DC

Mulder and Scully had apprehended a high-profile fugitive. The phone call from the Director and the press conference the next day were only the beginning. There was a banner across their office door when they got back. The information office issued a slick press release that quoted Mulder as saying, “Teamwork and organization are the keys to a successful manhunt.”

There was an invitation to a photo-op luncheon with Robert Stack as the keynote speaker.

Eliot Ness, thought Mulder. It reminded him of something. Contrary to his expectations, Scully had not notified the FBI that they were in pursuit of the notorious Bouton. Maybe she was a bit of a hot dog herself.

One person did not join the general wave of praise and flattery. AD Skinner. He summoned them the day they got back and kept them waiting outside his office a good five minutes.

“No need to be seated,” he said. “This will be brief. Agent Mulder, you have been castigated officially and informally many times, sometimes unfairly. Therefore I will allow this episode to pass without adding another reprimand. However, I am not an idiot and do not accept the official version of your escapades. It is quite obvious to me that you failed to notify the Bureau when you located a dangerous fugitive felon.”

Up yours, thought Mulder.

Then Skinner turned on Scully.

“Agent Scully, it would appear that you had to cobble together an extemporaneous constabulary to effect the capture of Bouton. Only you know whether this was due to your shortcomings, your partner’s, or both.”

I’m glad his hair fell out, thought Scully.

“Your unspoken resentments do not trouble me,” he said to both of them. “I am trying to forestall the day when your grandstanding costs one of you their life. Dismissed.”

Scully had told Mulder in Schuyler that she would make him suffer for his “solo act.” A few weeks after the meeting with Skinner, she made good on her threat. Mulder found out about it from Skinner, who kept him waiting for only a couple of minutes.

“Have a seat, Agent Mulder,” Skinner said. “I’m concerned about your working relationship with Agent Scully. Is everything all right between you?”

“Yes, sir. No problems at all.” Mulder wondered what this was about.

“This morning Agent Scully informed me that you would like to serve on the Safety Committee. I was wondering why she would do that.” Skinner said.

“I thought it would be a good career move,” Mulder said.

“Then you must be aware that the Safety Committee meets twice a month for two to three hours. They discuss and implement ways to improve safety in the Hoover Building. Those new signs in the cafeteria are their doing,” Skinner said.

The signs in the cafeteria said: CHEW FOOD THOROUGHLY BEFORE SWALLOWING.

“I thought Agent Scully might be settling a score with you,” Skinner continued. “But you confirm that you want to serve on the Safety Committee.”

Mulder nodded. He couldn’t make himself say it again.

“Well then, consider yourself appointed.”

“Will that be all, sir?” Mulder asked.

“Not quite. Kim Cook has kindly agreed to be the coordinator for the United Way drive again this year. She still needs a co-captain to cover the basement level. Another excellent opportunity for you. She has the materials all ready.” Skinner definitely had a sadistic streak.

Mulder nodded again. This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening, he told himself.

“One final point.” Squirm, you hairhead, Skinner thought. “Agent Scully’s birthday is coming up. As you’re aware, there’s been friction in the past when you’ve failed to acknowledge it to her satisfaction.”

“I’ve already taken care of it,” Mulder said.

“Excellent,” said Skinner. “What are you giving her?”

Mulder stared at him.

The nosy bastard. I’m not telling him about the sterling silver belly chain or the strawberry-flavored body paint. Shit. That leaves door number three.

“A chair,” Mulder said. He had tracked down the manufacturer of the Holiday Inn armchair and ordered two.

“An interesting choice,” Skinner said.

Mulder had his hand on the doorknob when the inspiration hit him.

“Agent Scully was wondering if they’d found anyone to chair the blood drive this year,” he said.

“Agent Scully wants to chair the blood drive.” Years of practice kept Skinner’s face impassive. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

And Mulder strode back to his office humming “Honky-Tonk Women.”

* * *

end

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