Title: FINE CONTROL
Author: Jean Robinson (jeanrobinson@yahoo.com)
Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property 
of Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Television 
Network. All others are the property of the author. No 
infringement is intended. 
Rating: PG-13
Classification: S
Archive: Please ask permission.
Spoilers: Up through "Irresistible"
Summary: Emotions and tempers flare during the events 
leading up to and following Mulder and Scully's 
encounter with Donnie Pfaster.
Feedback: Make my millennium at 
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com
Author's notes at the end
*****************************


FINE CONTROL (1/5)
By Jean Robinson


I've just learned that my partner is a control freak.

Oh, I know what most of you are thinking. Something 
along the lines of, Gee, Agent Mulder, exactly how thick 
are you? There's a reason they say hindsight is 20/20, 
and for the first time I can fully comprehend the true 
meaning of that phrase. Because I'm actually starting to 
understand my partner for the first time. And part of that 
understanding is realizing that it should have been 
glaringly obvious from Day 1 that Special Agent Dana 
Scully had this little thing about control.

But it wasn't obvious to me. For a very simple reason, 
one that most of you are going to hate me for. Yet it's a 
reason that some of you are probably familiar with and 
can relate to, no matter how much you don't want to 
admit it.

I didn't care enough to notice.

I didn't care about her, and I sure as hell didn't want her 
around. When she first waltzed into my basement hovel, 
my private hideaway, my personal sanctuary, I pulled out 
all the stops. I insulted her intelligence, her education, 
her integrity and her profession. I showed her every 
discourtesy, expressed every male chauvinistic platitude 
and employed every condescending tone in my extensive 
repertoire with the full intent of making her blush, 
stutter and eventually flee in humiliated tears back to 
the safety of her Quantico lab, to live out her FBI career 
slicing and dicing stiff, cold corpses while generations of 
Academy geeks alternately threw up and took prim, 
proper notes as she droned on about death.

Except that didn't happen.

Instead, she verbally slapped back with an audacity that 
floored me. The little Einstein-bashing brat had the nerve 
to tell me that I didn't know where to look for answers. 
She had the gall to flaunt her pitiful faith in science – the 
same field that brought us the Hubble Telescope and 
Skylab as well as such helpful things as sticky notes – as 
the ultimate tool for discovering the truth in any given 
situation. Over my experience as a profiler. Over my 
years of plowing through the X-Files. Over everything. 
Science is the answer, no other wacky theories need 
apply. 

The expression on her face said she thought this 
assignment would be a cinch. That she could name that 
tune in three notes and give me a rational explanation for 
anything in my file cabinets without even breathing hard. 
I dare you, Agent Mulder, it said. I dare you to scare me. 
Because I'm a scientist. I double-dare you, even.

I've never wanted to hit a woman so badly in my entire 
life as I did in that moment.

But I knew why she'd been sent, even if she didn't. And 
kicking her out of my office and out of the X-Files, 
satisfying as it may have been, was out of the question. I 
knew that even in a fit of pique. So I had to find a way to 
deal with the short red-headed Madame Curie disciple 
that would now dog my footsteps and impede my work 
with all the zeal of a pit bull.

The first step was to pretend to like her.

That was the easiest, because she was definitely likable. 
What was there not to like, at least by the standards of 
the average male? She was pretty, intelligent, diligent, 
and although I hated to admit it, more open to new ideas 
and new ways of thinking than I had expected from such 
a hard-core science grind. There were days I had to 
remind myself she wasn't what she seemed; that no 
matter what I thought I was feeling for her, I had to 
remember she was reporting to others about me. About 
my work. About my judgment. About my worth to the 
Bureau. About my sanity, for all I knew.

I kept reminding myself she was nothing more than a 
mole in a matching skirt and blazer. An attractive mole, 
but a mole nonetheless.

Okay, so sometimes it was hard to keep that in mind. 
Especially on the first case, when the mole in question 
came flying into my motel room practically in hysterics 
because she thought she was targeted for an alien 
abduction that she didn't even believe in. When I got my 
first good look at Dana Scully Unplugged, so to speak. 
Unplugged, unnerved, and best of all, unclothed.

It was an opportunity too good to pass up, so I milked it 
for all it was worth. On later reflection, it couldn't have 
worked out better if I'd actually planned it. The storm, 
the power loss, the strategically placed mosquito bites on 
her back, just below the top edge of her panties. I 
remember saying, "Thank you, Jesus!" in my head when 
she dropped that robe, because I couldn't believe how 
much fun this was going to be. The possibilities for 
torturing her stretched out in front of me like an endless 
highway, the only limitations being the length of the 
power outage and my own imagination.

"What are they? Mulder, what are they?!" 

Panic. There was definite panic in that voice, which only 
forty-eight hours earlier had been so annoyingly 
confident in her abilities and her science. I debated 
asking her why she didn't have a rational explanation for 
this, then decided to string her paranoia along a bit 
more. You dared me, Scully, and now I'm picking up the 
challenge. Ready or not, here it comes.

So I took my time. Stood there as if confused for a 
minute, then closed in. While I hadn't yet cottoned on to 
the control thing, I wasn't completely blind to all of her 
personality quirks. In our short acquaintance, I'd already 
noticed she had issues with the invasion of personal 
space, and now I had a golden chance to make her 
squirm horribly on so many different levels. It just 
doesn't get any better than this, as the commercial goes. 

I crouched down slowly behind her, enjoying the way the 
candlelight flickered across her back, holding the tiny 
flame close enough for her to feel it singe the sensitive 
skin as I lowered my hand to get a better look at what 
was upsetting her so. Drew out the agony, making her 
wait for my next move and the ultimate verdict. Making 
her dread them both. Very gently, very lightly, touched 
her.

I'll give her credit; she held her ground. The flinch was 
minimal. She was scared, but determined. When I finally 
released her with my smile and the pronouncement of 
harmless insect bites, the result was even better than I'd 
dreamed.

She threw herself into my arms. 

I was a little alarmed at the intensity of her relief, 
wondering if I'd taken the charade a step too far and 
really damaged her in some psychological way. "You're 
shaking," I said, feigning concern. I didn't have to work 
too hard at it; if she came home a mental wreck from our 
very first case, there were going to be some very pointed 
questions directed my way. I could have just done their 
work for them and joked myself out of my own job.

But I'd underestimated what I then thought was her 
ability to bounce and roll. What was really, now that I 
look back, her first display of what I, in true Bureau 
acronymic fashion, call SIC – Scully In Control. The 
famed Dana Scully iron will. Within five minutes she was 
okay, asking intelligent questions, listening to my sad life 
history with interest and a touching amount of empathy. 

I played on it shamelessly. It was hard to keep from 
laughing out loud when she denied being part of any plot 
to discredit me. I managed it only because I knew she 
was sincere; she really didn't believe there was such a 
plot or that she was part of it.

So I was a pig, a jerk, a slimeball. Pick your pejorative, I 
won't argue too hard with you about it. I was all those 
things and more. We came back from Oregon, and moved 
on to other cases. You know about all of them. The 
things I did to her. The ways I belittled her. Because 
although I didn't hate her as much as I did that first day 
in my lonely basement cubby, I still didn't want her 
around. She was still a spy. She was still sending out 
little coded missives on my crusade, couching my 
intangible efforts in her scientific techno-babble, where it 
inevitably came out sounding like a bad pulp fiction 
novel. Simply put, she was still the enemy.

I delighted in finding new, creative ways to frustrate her. 
Childish? Very. But nobody has ever accused me of 
acting my age. Quite the contrary. Most people see me as 
someone locked forever in the mind of a twelve-year-old, 
staring catatonic at an empty bed, a vacant room, and 
then at the stars above. Searching the constellations for 
an answer that will never be revealed. Oh, yes, there are 
many who are convinced my mental development ceased 
the moment Samantha vanished, and that the only 
reason I have attained the level of functionality I 
currently enjoy is that I am so deranged I can fake even 
an Oxford education.

After I scared Scully, I started to test her limits, to see 
just how far I could push her before she'd complain 
bitterly to the powers above or just walk out on her own.

My favorite trick, as you all must by now be aware, even 
bears her own initials – the DS, otherwise known as the 
Ditch Scully. It was simple, effective, and best of all, it 
was so goddamned easy to do. Why she ever let me get 
my hands on the rental car keys after the first few times 
was always an X-File in itself, but she did. Time and time 
again. Who was I to argue with fate? The memories of 
seeing her angry, hurt face in my rearview mirror as I 
roared off to nowhere were priceless. They had to be, 
because there were also those wonderful times when my 
ditching didn't work as planned and she had to come 
running in with the cavalry to save my sorry butt. At 
least it made her feel worthwhile, as if she was earning 
her salary instead of just eating my road dust all the 
time.

The odd thing was she never complained. Not to Blevins, 
not to Skinner, not to me. If it had been me, I would have 
said, "Screw it," and left my partner to whatever fate he 
or she encountered after being abandoned. But no, 
Scully was like those blow-up punching bag clowns, 
always popping back up for more. Far from discouraging 
her, it made her more determined to work the whole 
situation out. She wanted to find the Truth even more 
than I did at times.

Actually, she rarely complained about anything. They 
could have stuck me with a real turkey of a partner, I 
know. Instead, I got Wonder Woman. Well, maybe not 
Wonder Woman, since Scully was the most nervous 
airline passenger I'd ever come across. For a scientist, 
especially one with a degree in physics, she seemed to 
have remarkably little faith in the mechanics of flight. We 
traveled enough that it was an increasingly difficult 
problem for her. When the unfortunate Bear the Bush 
Pilot flew us in that little winged buzz saw up to the 
Arctic Circle, I thought she was going to lose it for sure. 
But no, white-knuckled and tight-lipped, she remained 
SIC. For a while I thought she tried to postpone our 
departure just so she wouldn't have to get back in that 
plane, alien worms or no alien worms. 

She worked in wind, rain, sleet, snow, no sleep, no food, 
anything I wanted. For that, I could put up with a little 
aviophobia.

To survive, Scully developed her own little dig at my 
expense. She had a routine opening for any conversation 
with me. It was, "Are you suggesting that. . .?" and then 
she'd fill in the blank with a recap of the theory I had 
just imparted on her, only when she rephrased it back, it 
came out sounding not only immature, but insane, even 
to me. 

It was mostly that patronizing tone, the crossed arms 
and the raised eyebrow that accompanied it, but God, it 
ticked me off, and she knew it. She was no psychology 
expert, but she wasn't stupid, either. She knew how to 
play the game, and her specialty was the subtle 
approach, a defensive contrast to my outright, full-speed 
ahead blind charge.

Now, before you all continue to vilify me, let me state that 
I have changed. I did change. And you can probably 
guess what triggered that, the same way you knew how 
much I really enjoyed pushing her buttons.

Yeah, that little incident. The one where she disappeared 
for three months and almost died.

We'd been separated because she wasn't really doing her 
job. She wasn't being a good spy; she was being a good 
influence instead. I was just beginning to get that 
through my thick head, and I was just beginning to miss 
her a little. So I would visit her at Quantico, talk to her 
about my latest cases, and make fun of Krycek to make 
her smile. I still didn't completely trust her, but I sure as 
hell trusted her more than I did the grinning, preppy 
pretty boy they gave me to replace her.

Then came the night I got home and heard her voice on 
my answering machine. Or rather, the night I came home 
and heard her screaming for me to help her as something 
in the background crashed into her apartment and 
dragged her away by force. Screaming. That's what really 
got me. My ex-partner, SIC, did not scream like that. 
Ever.

That's when I realized there are some things you 
wouldn't wish on anyone, whether they are your worst 
enemy or not. Scully was far from my worst enemy at 
that point, although the niggling little voice in the back of 
my head still insisted she wasn't really part of the team.

The days and nights became weeks, then months, and I 
started wondering if she'd ever really been there at all. As 
if the Flukeman, the fluorescent tree mites, the liver-
eating guy and even the whole Scully-in-her-underwear 
scene had been part of a very detailed, very elaborate 
dream that I was only now awakening from. But only for 
a moment, until I got a call from her mother, who timidly 
asked me to accompany her to pick up her daughter's 
headstone.

I hit rock bottom then, that's for sure. For three months 
I'd survived by convincing myself that she was 
Somewhere Else. Just not here. Now her mother wanted 
me to help her accept the fact that Somewhere Else was 
a place Scully would not be returning from. That Duane 
Barry had bought her a one-way non-refundable ticket 
on the train to eternity.

I didn't know it then, but the worst was yet to come. As 
bad as I felt standing next to her mother staring at a 
marker for an empty grave, it was infinitely more 
devastating standing next to her mother staring at 
Special Agent Dana Scully wired up to a dozen or so 
beeping, blinking machines, one of which was forcing air 
into her lungs because they would not function on their 
own. Knowing she didn't want to live like this. Knowing I 
was the one who had agreed and it was my signature on 
her will that would make her death legal in the District of 
Columbia. Knowing I was the reason she would die in 
more ways than one.

She was just supposed to snitch on me, not give up her 
life because of me.

I firmly believe no one should have to go through what 
she did. I don't care what you've done in your miserable 
life, if that's what it was. No one deserves to be abducted 
from their home, tortured and left to die like some kind 
of raccoon roadkill. No one deserves that, and no one's 
loved ones deserve to go through the agony of watching it 
happen.

So I changed my attitude toward her. If she was going to 
die, and it seemed both clear and inevitable at the time 
that she would, I could at least repent some of my sins. 
Not that I thought she would wake up and forgive me, 
but maybe she'd know I didn't hate her, and I was truly 
sorry this had happened to her, and that it had never 
been my intention to have her come to this end. I'd 
wanted to drive her away, but I'd never said I was looking 
for a permanent solution to the problem of her presence.

But she did recover, and that's an X-File I believe may 
never be solved. All I can think of is that SIC was a hell of 
a lot more determined than I ever bargained for.

Although my attitude toward her had changed, I can't 
say I gave up my old habits completely. That would be 
too noble, and I'm far from a noble person. I'm a 
stubborn, selfish, egotistical person; I'm the first to admit 
it. When I want something, nothing gets in my way, 
especially not a diminutive voice of reason with arched 
eyebrows and skeptical blue eyes. And teasing her, 
testing her, was something I enjoyed too much to 
completely give up.

There was something else going on, too, something I 
recognized from my childhood experience with 
Samantha. I think the technical term is survivor's guilt. 
Since Scully wasn't dead, it may not fit exactly, but it's 
close enough. Basically, I was upset at what had 
happened to her. Who wouldn't be? And it was kind of 
galling that she refused to lay blame for it on me or 
anywhere else. 

I wanted someone to blame. I needed someone to blame. 
I was already busy blaming myself, and it just wasn't 
enough to satisfy me anymore. Not when my ultra calm, 
ultra rational partner would look me squarely in the face 
and declare, "Mulder, it wasn't your fault," in a very firm 
voice whenever I broached the subject.

So I started to blame her. Scully, how could you let this 
happen? You're a trained federal officer, for Pete's sake. 
How could you let this idiot – an idiot who had just come 
through surgery for a gunshot wound, mind you – just 
overpower you like that? Didn't they teach you anything 
in all those personal defense classes at Quantico? Did 
you spend so much time in the lab that you forgot how to 
punch someone hard enough to disable him? Barry was 
just a guy, Scully, why didn't you kick him in the groin 
and run for it? What's the matter with you?

Once I let my mind wander back down that track often 
enough, the earlier doubts would come back. She was a 
spy for the government; if they're the ones who took her 
and experimented on her, it was nothing less than she 
deserved.

Poor Scully. There I was ping-ponging between being the 
solicitous partner and the raving lunatic, and she never 
even knew it. But she was busy herself, trying to 
reestablish her former SIC mode, which was noticeably 
tarnished and tattered.

The Pfaster case, the one we just finished, brought 
everything to a head. 

I was still happily not noticing anything wrong with her. 
You all know her two favorite words in the world: "I'm 
fine." What could be better than that? A partner who is 
always fine, no matter what's going on, no matter how 
many worlds are crashing down around her. For the 
most part, despite everything that had happened to her 
and everything I personally had done to make her life a 
living hell, she was fine. So who was I to realize that this 
time was different? Even when she was broadcasting 
signals powerful enough to be received by ham radio 
operators in Australia?

I played football in high school, and my mother always 
moaned it would be my downfall. She was thinking I'd 
get hurt, and after Samantha I could understand her 
point, although I disagreed with her. But ultimately, 
Mom was right. Football was my downfall, except it 
wasn't really mine. It was Scully's, and I was too blind to 
see it coming. Let's just say I was blinded by two tickets 
to the Redskins/Vikings game, prime seats for a royal 
battle of testosterone and sweat.

I never noticed the not-so-subtle surges of estrogen and 
adrenaline walking beside me. Never thought twice why 
my partner, the forensic pathologist who had previously 
dissected the most disgusting bits of decaying tissue at 
my behest with nary a twitch, was suddenly and 
inexplicably backing away. Had to leave the room after 
viewing what were some relatively innocuous photos of 
the victims, considering others we'd dealt with in the 
past. Literally stood at the crime scene and told me, "I 
need a minute," when we both knew time was of the 
essence and she was the body expert, not me. Tiptoed 
hesitantly into the autopsy bay as if she'd never seen 
such a place before and was wondering what the hell to 
do first.

Maybe if she had stood right in front of me and yelled, 
"I'm not fine, Mulder, I'm having a breakdown, okay?" I 
would have gotten the point sooner. Sometimes you need 
to be blunt with me. But she didn't; it wasn't her way. 
She was torn between trying to salvage what was left of 
SIC, and knowing that it wasn't much and she really 
needed to admit she needed help.

So you had the two of us, each pretending like crazy that 
we were functioning as a normal unit, just like old times, 
before she was snatched away and returned as damaged 
goods.

I asked her if she was all right, and told her that she 
didn't have to hide anything from me. She said she was 
fine. I let it go. I let =her= go, back to Washington to 
pursue what I privately thought was a flimsy chance at 
getting more forensic evidence, but what the hell. If it 
would get her out of my hair for a few hours, so much 
the better. Her behavior and her expression were finally 
starting to scare me a little. It was as if something had 
sucked her personality away and left me with a walking, 
talking mannequin that bore only a passing resemblance 
to the bossy, eyebrow-raising, dryly sarcastic partner I 
had grown accustomed to seeing in the passenger seat of 
our rental cars or hogging the armrest on our flights.

To illustrate the depth of my insensitivity, I actually 
attributed all of her sudden uncharacteristic mannerisms 
to "that time of the month." Not that the inconvenience of 
a female anatomy had ever, in our two years of 
association, ever put her off her focus or dimmed her 
enthusiasm. I can tell you with all honesty, beyond my 
initial surface inquiries, it never occurred to me that 
Pfaster's twisted psyche bothered her on such a deep, 
visceral level. She said she was fine, she said she wanted 
to try her luck with the lab in DC, and I sent her off with 
the body and didn't give it a second thought.

End part 1/5
________________________

FINE CONTROL (2/5)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


I was glad when she announced she was coming back; 
Bocks was a nice enough guy, but all that midwestern 
charm grates after a while. Scully was my buffer. I 
listened to her on the phone, and she sounded different, 
more alive. More normal. So I agreed that I needed her 
back in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes and made a 
note of her flight time.

When it became obvious that she was not just late, but 
that something had happened, my survivor's guilt kicked 
in again. Scully, how could you let this guy, any guy, run 
you off the road? I know you must have been tired, but 
you're a better driver than that. I know you are. What's 
the matter with you?

By the time we found her car, we'd pieced together 
almost everything else. The print belonging to Pfaster. 
The cell-to-cell conversation he'd had about Scully with 
our first suspect; it was almost too unbelievable that 
we'd stood barely five feet away from our perpetrator and 
not known it. 

We knew he had Scully, that her life was now in mortal 
danger, and we were running out of time to find her. 
Judging from the crumpled wreck of her rental car, it 
might already be too late. The accident might have done 
Pfaster's work for him; possibly the best we could hope 
for was to retrieve her body before he mutilated it for 
another set of grisly trophies.

I didn't want to think about that. I didn't want to think 
that I might be headed back to DC to explain to Skinner 
how I'd let my partner be killed, and I sure as hell didn't 
want to face her mother and tell her that her daughter's 
remains had been violated by a maniac with a penchant 
for hair and fingernails.

But we did find her in time, thanks to the miracle of 
today's computerized systems of records. Births, deaths, 
wills, real estate transactions, car registrations, 
addresses, phone numbers, we raced through them all 
until we got the information to move.

I'll never forget the scene when we crashed into Pfaster's 
boyhood home. Yeah, I know, I never forget anything, but 
believe me when I tell you this was burned into my 
memory in a way few images are. Pfaster, straddling my 
partner's body, fists raised to strike her. Scully, flat on 
her back on the floor, struggling with him, hands tied at 
the wrists in front of her.

Hands tied in front of her.

In front of her.

As the cops yelled and pulled Pfaster off her, as Scully 
frantically rolled away to her knees, all I could see was 
her bound hands.

Scully, why couldn't you get away? The guy tied you with 
your hands in front of you. You could use them. Your 
legs aren't even tied. Why didn't you run? Why didn't you 
unlock a door, break a window, smash him in the face 
with your fists? Why do you keep ending up in situations 
where you seem so incredibly helpless, when I know 
you're not? You could have taken this guy. I know you 
could. I've seen you take on others twice his size. What's 
wrong with you?

All evening long I'd been running on adrenaline-fueled 
panic, and now it gave way to anger. Again. Anger at her 
because she became the most infuriating contradiction at 
the most inconvenient times. Like now.

She was twisting her arms ineffectually, trying to free 
herself. I knelt down next to her. "Let's get some 
paramedics in here now!" I shouted. It came out a little 
gruffer than I intended; it had been a long night.

"I'm okay," she panted breathlessly. I could hardly hear 
her. "Just help me get my wrists untied."

I fumbled with the knotted black cord. Her wrists were 
rubbed raw, but the wounds looked superficial. She got 
her feet under her and stood up, swaying slightly. "How 
did you find me?" Her voice quivered.

This, friends, was about the time the light began to dawn 
inside my head. For it was now that I finally realized 
something was seriously wrong in Scully's world. That 
she was anything but fine. She was trembling, her arms 
shaking so badly I could hardly undo her bindings while 
I explained. 

But the big kicker was her eyes. She wouldn't look at me. 
Not at all. Instead, she kept cutting her gaze over to 
where Bocks and the rest of the cops were dealing with 
Pfaster. Cuffing him. Hauling him to his feet. Reading 
him his rights. Frog-marching him out of the house. As 
the little procession passed us, Scully shuddered 
violently.

I kept my voice level and even found some of the 
compassion that I hadn't really had the opportunity to 
use since she'd come back to work. "Sure you don't want 
to sit down, Scully, and have someone take a look at 
you?" Her face, what I could see of it, was a mess. 

She kept her head and her eyes down as she resolutely 
insisted yet again, "I'm fine, Mulder," in an unfamiliar 
wobbly singsong that utterly belied the surface meaning 
of her words.

I saw Dana Scully Unplugged on our very first case. I 
sensed suddenly that I was on the verge of seeing 
something totally new: Dana Scully Unglued. Completely 
unglued. 

I put my hand under her jaw and carefully pushed her 
chin up, forcing her to look at me. What I saw shocked 
me – fear. I saw her terror at what had happened to her. I 
didn't have the whole sick story of what Pfaster had or 
hadn't done to her. I only knew that the experience had 
rocked her to her very core, and despite her best efforts 
she couldn't stop that fear from showing.

Oh, she was trying, all right. Those big blue eyes were 
swimming with tears that she was holding back, and her 
chin shook with the sobs that she strangled down. I just 
looked down at her without saying anything, and 
something she read in my expression knocked her 
remaining defenses flat to the ground.

She buried her face in my shirtfront and burst into tears; 
it was an eerie re-enactment of our time in Oregon. 
Except then she hadn't cried, and I hadn't yet learned 
that crying was something Dana Scully simply didn't do. 
At least not in front of other people, she didn't. Now, of 
course, I knew that; she hadn't shed a tear in my 
presence to date. Not when Tooms had attacked her, not 
when her father died, not during that horribly stressful 
time in the Arctic, not even while she recovered from her 
abduction.

Now she was weeping uncontrollably, one step from total 
hysteria. Her arms slid around my back and she 
clutched me like a drowning swimmer holds a life 
preserver.

The paramedics were still hovering nearby; I signaled 
them with my eyes to back off and hold position. My 
arms went around her of their own accord, and I rested 
my cheek on the top of her head, murmuring soothing 
words of meaningless comfort while rocking her gently. It 
was a gesture I dredged up from a long-dead memory, 
some vague recollection of comforting Samantha in times 
of childhood distress. Skinned knees. Broken dolls. 
Unkind words on the playground. Our parents shouting 
and slamming doors. An action almost thirty years 
dormant, yet still instinctive given the proper stimulus. 
And the sight of Scully, my stolid, stoical partner Scully, 
crying her eyes out was definitely sufficient stimulus.

The tempest didn't last long, partly because she was just 
too physically and emotionally drained to keep it up, and 
partly because she refused to let herself show such 
weakness for any length of time. I rocked her for a few 
seconds after the last muffled sobs had ceased, and then 
shifted my hands to the curve of her shoulders to push 
her back slightly and see what was going down.

She released her hold on me immediately, but I got yet 
another nasty surprise as I moved her away from my 
chest.

She sucked in a sharp breath and her eyes started to roll 
back in her head. Her knees buckled, and suddenly I was 
supporting her entire weight and had to take a staggering 
step back to compensate.

I desperately shifted my hands to get a better grip on her 
arms and keep her from crashing to the floor, and she 
gave a small, soft cry of pain. She wasn't quite out of it, 
and somehow I'd hurt her, although I couldn't fathom 
what I might have done.

The paramedics jumped forward as if they'd been 
expecting this moment from the instant Scully had 
broken down; I learned later that indeed they had. They 
had a lot more experience with this kind of trauma than I 
did, and they knew as soon as the initial shock wore off, 
the pain moved in. I hadn't realized Scully was hurt. 
They, on the other hand, correctly assumed she was from 
the outset.

They took her from me while I was still babbling, 
"Scully?" in a confused fashion.

"We've got her, Agent Mulder. We've got her now." They 
then ignored me and began a medical dialogue between 
themselves.

While I watched, numbly trying to process what had just 
happened, one of them supported her while the other 
removed her suit jacket. They lowered her carefully onto 
the waiting gurney and their bodies blocked my view of 
her as they started their exam.

Agent Bocks came over to finalize the details. Pfaster was 
on his way to the station already, but Bocks needed to 
clear up how the paperwork would read. How Scully 
should be written up in all this. I talked with him, 
distracted, half of me still occupied with my now 
unconscious partner.

". . . tell them ETA in twelve minutes," I heard next to me, 
and whirled around to find the paramedics raising the 
gurney, preparing to roll it – and Scully – to the 
ambulance.

"What the hell are you doing?" I practically shouted. In 
my head, she'd just fainted. Passed out from exhaustion 
and stress. Nothing that needed hospitalization.

Both paramedics froze. They exchanged a glance with 
each other, and then with Bocks. Who is this lunatic? 
that glance said. The older EMT cleared his throat. "We're 
taking Agent Scully to the hospital, Agent Mulder. For 
treatment of her injuries." His tone was careful, 
respectful, with just a hint of an unspoken question – if 
that's all right with you, sir? And if it's not all right, could 
you explain why? Because we see someone who is badly 
banged up, and we'd like to know what you see.

"Injuries?" I knew I sounded like the village idiot, but I 
couldn't help it and I was beyond caring at this point. 
"What injuries?"

Another glance flicked between them – they couldn't 
believe I hadn't known my partner was a walking train 
wreck. The man who had spoken began to catalog 
Scully's woes to me. "She has a broken arm, a dislocated 
shoulder, and at least two, possibly three, broken ribs, 
Agent Mulder."

I could see now that they'd inflated a clear plastic balloon 
splint around her right forearm, and a strap was holding 
that same arm against her body. The paramedic wasn't 
finished, however. "She's also probably got a 
concussion."

"What?" The word jumped out of me before I could stop 
it.

"Agent Mulder, is there a problem with transporting your 
partner to the hospital?" the first paramedic asked, 
impatience now leaking through his polite, professional 
facade. "If not, we need to go. =Now=." He leaned on the 
word for emphasis.

My brain was in overdrive. I simply couldn't comprehend 
the notion that she was so severely hurt. That less than 
ten minutes ago, she'd been standing upright, insisting 
adamantly that she was fine, she was fine, she was fine.

And I'd believed her.

I'd believed her words because it was easier and less 
messy to do so than to search for a deeper truth in her 
actions and the situation in general. I wanted her to be 
fine, so we could close this case, go home and move on.

I couldn't believe how close I'd come to letting her walk 
away with potentially life-threatening injuries.

Could I possibly be that callous?

Seems I was. And that realization was an ugly shock in 
itself.

The paramedics were shifting from foot to foot, and I 
shook myself out of my self-recrimination and back to 
the here and now. "Can I ride with her?"

At first I thought they'd refuse, but they didn't. Maybe 
there were special rules for government personnel, or 
maybe they thought it would be less trouble to bend a 
policy than to deal with another outburst from me. "Sure. 
Come on."

The trip, although it took less than fifteen minutes, felt 
endless. Scully seemed to be having trouble breathing 
and I watched as the paramedic slid an oxygen mask 
over her face. She looked so small. She looked so young. 
Despite the businesslike shell top and slacks, she looked 
more like a teenager who had been hit by a car while 
riding her bike than an FBI agent who could beat my 
best score on the firing range with her worst one.

"She was holding onto me," I said. For some unknown 
reason I felt compelled to exonerate myself and my 
actions to these total strangers. "She was using both 
arms, she was talking and she was standing by herself. 
How could she do that?"

The paramedic shrugged. "She probably didn't even feel 
it. We had a guy last week who broke his leg in two 
places in a car wreck and walked half a mile to a phone 
to get help, because his wife was still stuck in the car. 
Never knew it until later."

Scully came around when he inserted an IV into the back 
of her left hand to run in the fluids necessary to combat 
shock and dehydration. Her eyes opened and focused on 
the ceiling of the vehicle, her gaze sliding slowly around 
until she found me. She tried to say something, but it 
was obliterated by the mask.

I took her hand, mindful of the IV line. "Shh. It's all right. 
Just relax."

I might as well have been telling the wind not to blow. 
She tried again to speak, and I finally pulled the mask 
down to allow her to say her piece once and for all.

"Mulder. . ." It was a faint whisper, nothing more. I 
leaned in closer to hear her.

"What, Scully?"

". . . sorry. Should have seen him."

"It doesn't matter. It's okay. Just relax," I repeated 
stupidly, because I couldn't think of anything else to say 
to her. My partner the spy, lying in an ambulance with 
multiple fractures and assorted other injuries, was 
apologizing to me, the person who put her in the path of 
her attacker in the first place. Apologizing as if she'd 
actually done something wrong. As if Pfaster's sadistic, 
perverted inclinations were somehow her fault.

If she wasn't so seriously hurt already, I would have 
slapped her myself for even suggesting it.

The paramedic replaced the oxygen mask; Scully had 
begun to wheeze for air. He was afraid one of her broken 
ribs would puncture a lung. He told her not to talk. He 
told me not to question her. For once, I did as I was told. 
For once, she did, too. She squeezed my hand and closed 
her eyes again.

They rushed her into surgery; apparently too much time 
had elapsed since the original injury and they couldn't 
just reduce the dislocation by mechanical means. In a 
way I was glad to know she was under general 
anesthesia. Scully had already shown me in a million 
different ways that she was more than equal to the task 
when it came to suppressing and withstanding huge 
amounts of pain. Whoever said women were the weaker 
sex has clearly never met my partner. I knew by now, 
though, that there was no way =I= could have dealt with 
the knowledge that someone was yanking her arm back 
into alignment while she was conscious.

Five hours later, I was sitting by her bed in a private 
room, waiting for her to wake up. My partner didn't have 
much color on a good day; now she looked whiter than 
the cast that ran from her fingers up to her right elbow.

Moe Bocks had been busy while I wore a hole in the 
hospital linoleum during Scully's surgery. He came to me 
with a theory that was only slightly comforting. Their 
preliminary examination of Scully's rental car indicated 
that her seatbelt had malfunctioned. If that was indeed 
the case, it was quite possible that all of her injuries 
could have been sustained in the car crash.

I hoped with all my heart that it was true. It meant 
maybe Pfaster hadn't hurt her after all – at least not her 
body. We wouldn't know until she woke up just what 
he'd done to her head.

I ended up having to wait until morning to hear the full 
story. Scully regained consciousness about an hour into 
my bedside vigil, but the remnants of anesthesia perking 
through her system precluded any coherent conversation 
on her part. 

When I woke up the next day, my neck aching and my 
back cramping from a night on a molded chair meant for 
sitting and not sleeping, she was awake and watching 
me. 

She looked better. Not great, but better. I probably looked 
like hell, and for a moment I couldn't remember who was 
supposed to be the patient. Then my vision cleared and 
settled on the bandages and bruises on her face, the cast 
on her arm, and the immobilizing slings and straps that 
held her arm in a fixed position against her body, and 
the entire wretched night came back to me.

"Morning," I greeted her inanely. "Sleep well?"

"Not really." Her voice was hoarse and rough, not much 
more than a croak at best. I didn't want to know how 
much of that vocal damage had been caused by the 
respirator during the operation, and how much she'd 
done herself screaming in terror at the abusive hands of 
her captor.

"Want something to drink?"

She nodded mutely.

I poured some water from the bedside pitcher and held 
the paper cup and straw to her mouth. She couldn't 
move her right arm at all, and her left was hampered by 
a multicolored tubular snarl of IV lines and system 
monitors. She took a couple of small sips and lay back 
against the pillows, as if the minute activity of sucking 
and swallowing had exhausted her.

"What happened?" she asked.

"What do you remember?" I countered. To be honest, I 
didn't know where to start.

I got lucky; turns out she was primarily interested in her 
current medical status. She wanted to see her chart. I 
lifted it off the edge of her bed and helped her hold it. She 
squinted slightly, trying to decipher the doctor's 
handwriting, and I remembered that her reading glasses, 
if the lenses weren't smashed to bits, were somewhere in 
the jumble of belongings we'd retrieved from the rental 
car trunk. All of that was presumably down at the police 
station, meaning we'd have to sweet-talk the local law 
enforcement folks out of holding it as evidence.

And Skinner wonders why our travel expense accounts 
are so high and read like a holiday shopping spree for a 
destitute family of twelve. I can't recall a case where 
Scully or I, and sometimes both of us, haven't had to 
replace two or three sets of clothing from the skin out. I 
guess it's something about chasing down things that go 
bump in the night that so often involves running through 
muck and mire over hill and dale. Neither one of us 
formed personal attachments to our outfits anymore; 
we'd realized a long time ago that if we professed to "like" 
a particular ensemble, we'd be destined to ruin it beyond 
any hope of salvation within a week. My dry cleaning 
bills are astronomical. I can't imagine what hers are like.

Scully's eyes grew wider as she scanned the lengthy 
outline describing why she was swathed in enough gauze 
to entomb most of the Egyptian dynasty. Moderate 
concussion. Dislocated shoulder, right side. Broken ulna 
and radius, right arm. Two fractured ribs, right side. 
Assorted lacerations and contusions. Mild dehydration. 
Shock.

"Seen enough?" I had.

She let go of the metal clipboard. "Yes. When are they 
letting me out of here?"

Letting you out? Letting you OUT? Scully, are you crazy? 
You're not going anywhere!

I tamped down on the thoughts before they could escape 
into words I'd regret. For once. "I haven't seen your 
doctor yet this morning. You were pretty out of it last 
night after the surgery on your arm. How do you feel?"

Don't say it. Don't say it. Please don't say it, Scully.

"I'm fine."

End part 2/5
________________________

FINE CONTROL (3/5)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


Hell. Now I knew I couldn't hold my temper in check. I 
didn't want to blow up at her, I really didn't. It was very 
poor form to stand over her bedside berating her when 
she couldn't muster the physical or mental strength to 
defend herself properly. I know that. But neither could I 
let this little charade of hers go on any longer.

"You're fine," I repeated through clenched teeth.

"Yes." She looked at me, confused, catching a faint 
mental whiff of what was about to come. That eyebrow 
started its familiar upward path as she tried to continue. 
"Mulder, what. . ."

"YOU ARE NOT FINE!!" I yelled in her face, and she 
recoiled back against the bedding in sudden shock. 
"DAMMIT, YOU ARE NOT FINE, SCULLY, YOU WERE 
ALMOST KILLED LAST NIGHT!!"

Silence.

I leaned over her, hovering, pressing home the 
psychological height advantage, the in-your-face 
intrusion of her bubble of personal space. She had 
nowhere to retreat; for once she was going to have to stay 
and listen to me rant and rave.

God, did I rant and rave.

"You are lying here with broken bones and a face full of 
bruises because our psycho suspect tried to make you 
his next victim and almost succeeded so =don't= tell me 
you're fine, Scully, because you're a rotten liar and I'm 
not buying that line of yours anymore! Just stop it, 
okay?!!"

I didn't think it was possible, but she turned a shade 
paler in the face of my unexpected and uncharacteristic 
wrath. For all the disagreements we'd ever had, for all the 
times we'd ever argued over everything from paranormal 
theories to dinner entrees, I'd never yelled at her in that 
tone of voice before. Not even when we were pointing our 
weapons at each other and shouting our heads off in the 
Arctic over alien creepy-crawlies.

She breathed rapidly and shallowly through her mouth. 
Only three things distinguished her from the sheets and 
the pillow: that red hair, the ugly abrasions across her 
face, and her huge blue eyes.

The blue eyes that had been hazy and unfocused just a 
few minutes ago in the aftermath of her awakening were 
suddenly blazing with an inner fire.

Fire, nothing. Inferno was more the word, because SIC 
was back. I don't know how she did it, but she found the 
words to wound and the strength to wield them like a 
sword, and she went for the mortal blow.

"As if you'd even =notice= if I =was= killed," she hissed.

I actually felt that statement in my gut, as surely as if 
she'd embedded a knife in my stomach and twisted it 
counterclockwise a couple of turns. It was an interesting 
sensation. For a second I literally couldn't breathe, and it 
was déjà vu back to wondering just who was the victim 
here.

"What?" It was all I could manage.

She turned her face away. "You heard me."

My fury evaporated as quickly as it had come, taking 
with it my remaining shreds of energy. I dropped back 
into the chair in a graceless sprawl as my knees sagged, 
still stunned at her pronouncement.

Last night I'd discovered for the first time that I was a 
callous bastard.

Apparently it had been obvious to my partner for a long 
time. Something she'd had the opportunity to consider, 
ruminate over and ponder, probably late at night after all 
those times I'd ditched her, denigrated her, or otherwise 
brushed her off.

"Scully, I. . ." I what? I'm sorry? I'm stupid? I'm 
insensitive?

She looked back at me. Her expression was unreadable 
but her eyes were glacial. "Get out, Mulder. Just get out."

I went.

Moe Bocks was waiting down in the lobby. I'd forgotten 
all about him. He was here to get Scully's official 
statement, to add whatever assault charges were 
necessary to Pfaster's already extensive list of misery. 
Even without Scully, this sociopath was going away for a 
long time. He might never see the light of day again if the 
case included the attempted murder of a federal agent.

Bocks had expected me to take Scully's statement; he'd 
really only come to collect the notes from me and pay his 
respects to the injured. I don't know what he thought 
when he saw me stumbling toward him, but he sensed 
immediately that something hadn't happened according 
to the previous night's game plan.

"How is she?" he asked.

It was a question I truly didn't know how to answer 
anymore, not even on the simplest, most literal level.

"She's awake." Not the most informative utterance, but it 
was the best I could do under the circumstances.

Bocks considered it, and me, and came to his own 
decision. Maybe he was thinking Scully was still 
physically unable to undergo the stress of recounting the 
events that had landed her here. Or that what Pfaster 
had done to her was too painful and personal for her to 
divulge to someone close to her. That it might be easier 
for her to recount the details to a neutral third party. I 
don't think he realized that Scully and I could no longer 
be called "close," but he could clearly see my hands were 
empty.

"Is she up for more visitors?"

Of course, Agent Bocks. She'd love to see anyone, as long 
as it isn't me. I reined in the urge to laugh out loud at my 
own foolish wit and said, "Yes, I'm sure she'd be happy to 
talk to you."

Bocks caught my drift but played it safe, to be sure I 
meant what he thought I did. "Shall I see if she wants to 
give me a statement about last night?"

"That would be fine. I'll wait for you down here." 
Permission granted, Agent Bocks.

He nodded, looking a trifle uncertain, and went by me. A 
thousand questions were probably raging through his 
head, but he refrained from asking any of them. Nice 
guy. Had good instincts.

I waited. And waited. And waited. I counted the blue and 
white floor tiles, the acoustic ceiling tiles, the number of 
screws in the waiting area chairs, first the dead and then 
the live leaves on all the potted plants, and averaged out 
the number of times the phone at the nearby admitting 
desk rang before someone answered it – eight rings . 
While I waited, I tried with a notable lack of success to 
ignore the arguing voices in my head.

She actually thinks you wouldn't care if he'd killed her.

I would care. How could I not? She's my partner.

Partners don't run off and leave each other without a 
word.

I'm trying to keep her from getting hurt.

Yeah? Well, you did a great job last night. Besides, that's 
bullshit. You still don't trust her, that's why you keep 
picking on her. You keep hoping she'll just go away one 
of these days.

That's not true.

Now who's the liar, buddy-boy?

She was sent to spy on me.

That was over a year ago. You really think she would let 
them abduct her and experiment on her just to keep her 
cover intact? You think that time she spent in a coma 
was some kind of incredible hoax to throw you off the 
scent? Her family took her off life support! They call it life 
support for a reason, namely that without it, you die!

She should have said something.

You spent all that time studying psychology and you 
can't figure this out? Scully doesn't SAY things. Since 
when has she EVER said something? The one time she 
tried, you brushed her off in your usual pigheaded 
fashion and chastised her for using your given name. Of 
course she's going to tell you she's fine. She's not about 
to give you any more ammunition to fire at her. If you'd 
taken five seconds to pay attention to her instead of 
those stupid football tickets, maybe this wouldn't have 
happened!

I. . .

"Agent Mulder?" It was Bocks, back from his little 
interview. Thank God. The voices backed down for a 
moment. "I have Agent Scully's statement. Looks good. 
We've got a lot more to add to his sheet. It's gonna be a 
good bust. The prosecution shouldn't have any problem 
with this."

At least someone was going home happy. I didn't want to 
read it, but I had to know. "May I see it?" I held out my 
hand.

Bocks gave me a sideways glance as he handed it over. 
"It's just a rough draft," he cautioned. "It'll have to get 
typed up and signed later today."

"I know." I sat down in one of the waiting area chairs, 
and forced myself to concentrate on Bocks' scrawling 
penmanship and somewhat clumsy prose.

By the time I was halfway through, I thought I would be 
sick. By the time I'd finished the three-page document, I 
was sure of it.

My only redemption was that I hadn't voiced my 
survivor's guilt issues during my earlier tirade. Scully 
had been gagged and trussed like a calf in a rodeo roping 
contest. When Pfaster cut her legs free she had tried to 
fight back, to find an escape route, to incapacitate him 
somehow. The car crash injuries had been aggravated 
further by a headfirst tumble down a full flight of stairs 
during her struggle with him. She managed this level of 
resistance despite a concussion severe enough to cause 
hallucinations; she reported seeing Pfaster's nondescript 
face blur and change as her vision and her 
consciousness faded in and out during her captivity.

I wanted to kill Pfaster for doing this to her.

I wanted to kill myself for helping him.

"Agent Mulder?" Bocks' voice brought me back from the 
land of violent thoughts to reality. I was clutching his 
pages in one scrunched fist, wishing mightily that the 
yellow sheaf of paper was Pfaster's throat instead. "Agent 
Mulder, I need that back."

I slowly relaxed my hand and gave him the crumpled wad 
describing the agony my partner had endured. "You'll 
bring it back for her to sign later?" I had no idea when 
Scully would be discharged, but I was sure she was 
spending at least one more day here, no matter what she 
might think.

"Yeah. You can tell her I'll be back this afternoon." Bocks 
tucked the precious notes into his pocket and nodded his 
dismissal.

I fought down the churning nausea in my gut. As much 
as I wanted to, this was not the time to go running for 
the bathroom to waste half an hour dry heaving bile and 
spittle.

This was time to face the music, which in this case would 
be the 1812 Overture, complete with cannon fire. It had 
to be now, because Bocks would know if I hadn't made 
my peace with her by the time he came back with her 
statement. And then he wouldn't just let me off the hook 
so easily. It was way too obvious that something had 
gone terribly wrong between us apres Pfaster, and it 
surely couldn't be the fault of the tiny feminine redhead 
currently in residence two floors above. When you were 
the one lying in state, nothing was your fault.

The hell of it was, this time it was actually true. This 
wasn't Scully's fault. Not even when you took into 
account her own leanings toward silent self-martyrdom. 
She could have said the case was getting to her, yes. She 
certainly should have.

But I should have noticed the problem long before we got 
to this point.

Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. Pfaster had spotted her 
and probably would have stalked her anyway. But if she 
hadn't felt the need to conceal her discomfort and stress 
from me, maybe she would have seen him sooner when 
he followed her from the airport. Maybe she could have 
avoided crashing.

We sure as hell wouldn't be where we were now, with me 
attacking her full force and her slashing back, both of us 
swinging verbal rapiers with the intent to wound and 
cripple.

So I went back upstairs to settle things if not for good, 
then for now.

End part 3/5
________________________

FINE CONTROL (4/5)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


I walked in on an argument between my partner and her 
doctor. Scully was losing.

This would not put her in a good mood for reconciliation 
with me. I could absolve myself fairly quickly in her eyes 
by coming to her defense and siding with her, but the 
gist of the quarrel centered around the length of her 
hospital stay. The doctor wanted her there two more 
days, citing the extent of her injuries, the need to allow 
the bones to set and her shoulder muscles to rest.

Scully wanted out now. Immediately. This afternoon at 
the very latest. She didn't seem bothered by the fact that 
earlier this morning she had been too weak to manage 
hefting a Dixie cup without assistance.

Before I could warn him, the doctor, a kid who looked 
like he'd been out of med school for all of about thirty 
minutes, brought up the issue of pain management. He 
stated in blissful ignorance that in his humble opinion, 
the minute she tried to move out of bed Scully was going 
to experience agony of a previously unknown scale and 
then she'd be sorry.

Oh, buster, you don't know what kind of mistake you 
just made.

Scully stared at him with the blistering glare that had in 
the past been reserved exclusively for my benefit. I'd seen 
her use a much milder version of it on uncooperative 
suspects, snide co-workers and patronizing law 
enforcement officers both male and female, but never the 
full-blown, Mulder-You-Are-So-Full-Of-It blast she 
unleashed on this alleged colleague. She opened her 
mouth and God only knows what she might have said to 
him when I leaped in to ward off World War III.

"How about if you release her tomorrow morning, 
Doctor?" It seemed safer to address this to him, not to 
Scully.

He spun around fast. I'm not sure he even realized I was 
standing there; his attention had been entirely focused 
on his recalcitrant patient. "I'm sorry. You are?"

He'd been introduced to me last night, but I let it pass. 
I'd learned that Scully was the exception in her 
profession, probably due to the nature of her work as a 
pathologist and an investigator. Most of the plain old 
doctors that I met rarely remembered faces, names and 
ailments of their patients, let alone the patients' extended 
support system of family and co-workers. "Fox Mulder. 
Agent Scully's partner."

"Oh. Yes. What were you saying?"

I risked a glance at Scully and decided to proceed. "I was 
suggesting that you release her tomorrow. As you know, 
Agent Scully is a doctor herself. I'm sure she's capable of 
continuing any treatment protocols on an out-patient 
basis."

That was a bald lie, but only Scully would recognize it as 
such. Doctor or not, the past few days had proven exactly 
how willing the Empress of "I'm Fine" was to disclose a 
mental or physical failing. Her eyes narrowed as she 
delicately sifted through all the nuances in my words to 
extract the hidden sarcasm, but she still held her tongue.

"Are you planning to fly back to DC soon?" the doctor 
inquired.

Scully started to say something and I overrode her. 
"When the investigation is concluded," I responded 
smoothly, a deliberately vague statement meant to cover 
a lot of ground. "I can't comment on it any further, you 
understand, as it's still an open case."

Technically true, realistically another lie. Our role in 
Donnie Pfaster's little three-act play was over; we didn't 
have to stay for the curtain call and we'd never planned 
to do so. But I could tell this guy was getting ready to 
forbid Scully to board a plane in her condition, and it 
was a safe enough bluff for now. The possibility of 
prohibiting her from flying was his last-ditch effort to 
hang on to her, and I'd just shattered his illusions. At 
this point, he was more than ready to wash his hands of 
both of us.

The doctor sighed and made a note on the chart he held 
like a shield in front of him. "All right. Tomorrow 
morning. I'll make sure you have a prescription for some 
painkillers before you leave. You're going to need them."

Scully favored him with a saccharine smile. "Thank you."

He left the room, and Scully and I were alone. I 
disregarded the chair this time and simply sat on the 
edge of her bed, even with her hip. She was sitting up 
now; we were more or less at eye level with each other.

Equals.

I let her have one more victory by providing the opening 
gambit. In Japanese business dealings, the person who 
makes the first move has already lost face and is at a 
disadvantage. I figured I owed her one. I probably owed 
her about ten, but who's counting?

Especially since the question I was going to ask was 
something I knew she would not want to answer. My 
opening bid might be the end of the auction.

"Why, Scully?"

She hesitated, those blue eyes searching mine for a 
meaning she didn't want to find. She elected to 
deliberately misunderstand me. "There's nothing they 
can do for me here, Mulder. I've got a broken arm and a 
sore shoulder and a bump on the head. You don't stay in 
the hospital for three days with those kinds of injuries."

You forgot the ribs, Scully. You forgot that you could 
barely breathe when they brought you in here. And how 
about the fact that your face looks like you've gone a few 
rounds with the latest WBA heavyweight champ? You're 
good at ignoring the inconvenient details, aren't you?

This time I didn't say precisely what came to mind; I was 
trying not to derail the conversation before we even got 
close the heart of the matter. "That's not what I meant," I 
argued, trying to drag her back to the original track. 
"Why go through this at all? Why didn't you just say this 
was bothering you?"

"It wasn't bothering me." She was working her anger 
back up to its former level. "You think I just let him 
kidnap me and tie me up and threaten to kill me and 
throw me down a flight of stairs just to prove I can take 
it? Is that what you think?"

Alarm bells were blaring inside my head, but I pushed on 
anyway. "No. That's not what I think, Scully. But you 
obviously don't think I care about your welfare. And 
because of that, you're putting yourself at risk in the 
field. And me."

"What?!" She shoved herself fully upright with her good 
hand, wincing as the sudden movement jarred every 
abused muscle and bone in her battered body. "I'm 
putting you at risk? What the hell are you talking 
about?"

I decided to take this one issue at a time, starting with 
the less lethal one. "Scully, when you are hurt, you'd 
better tell me. You're the doctor, here, and I respect that. 
You stood in Pfaster's house last night insisting you were 
fine, and it was extremely clear you were anything but. 
You refused medical treatment. If I'd pulled something 
like that, you would have decked me. You can recognize 
shock, even in yourself. The next time someone beats you 
up on the job, you damn well better not say you're fine."

She gave me a smoking blue glare. "I don't intend to get 
beaten up as a regular course of my job." Venom dripped 
from her tone.

"That's good, because I expect more from you. But I won't 
ignore the possibility that it may happen. You're only so 
strong, Scully. Someday we're going to run into another 
suspect who can take you down. And if that happens, I 
don't want to find you lying in a puddle of blood telling 
me to cancel the ambulance because you're fine. 
'Physician, heal thyself' does not apply to you. 
Understand?"

She didn't answer; I think she was simply too furious at 
my brusque approach. No one, it seemed, had dared to 
speak to her in such a fashion for a long, long time. 
Maybe her father had, during the emotional upheavals of 
adolescence. Considering that she'd apparently gone 
against his wishes when she joined the FBI, she was 
adept at rejecting authority when it went against her own 
instincts. So far, she'd mostly toed the line with Skinner 
and the Bureau hierarchy; I briefly wondered what she 
might do if provoked enough by the powers above.

"You don't trust me."

Ouch. I'd been hoping to approach the second theme of 
today's dialogue with a little more finesse. Scully had 
other plans. Before I could even think of anything to 
defuse this potential landmine to our partnership, SIC 
was plowing forward, fire in her eyes and two years of 
bottled fury in her voice.

"You don't trust me. You never have. You =never= wanted 
me here, you've made it perfectly clear how you feel 
about having me around. Nothing. . . nothing I ever did 
was good enough for you. Not even when they took me 
away. You said it didn't matter that I didn't remember 
anything. But you were lying, Mulder. It did matter to 
you. I was your best shot at finally proving a  conspiracy 
between the government and the military to hide the 
existence of alien life, only I couldn't come through for 
you." She paused to draw a breath, and I realized with 
some shock that SIC was, for the second time in two 
days, poised on the edge of tears.

Only this time I was the cause, not insignificant Donnie 
Pfaster and his warped death fantasies. Her partner. The 
person she was supposed to trust with her life.

Instead I seemed intent on ruining it.

Today she refused to give in, blinking back the 
waterworks and rechanneling them into renewed rage. 
"I'm sorry, Mulder," she mocked sarcastically. "I'm so 
sorry I disappointed you and spoiled your big validation 
party. The next time the aliens haul me off for three 
months of torture, I'll try to do a better job at staying 
conscious so I can report back like a dutiful subordinate. 
Is that good enough for you? Is that loyal enough for 
you? Is it?"

"Scully, don't."

"Why? That's what you want, isn't it? Proof of your 
theories at any cost?"

"Scully, STOP IT!"

She flinched back and it was only then that I realized 
that not only was I shouting, I'd also raised one hand as 
if I was finally going to make good on all my previous 
impulses to slap her.

Jesus. How did we get here, again?

My hands were trembling, especially the traitorous right 
one I'd just yanked down out of the air. I fought to keep 
my voice from shaking, too. "I do trust you, Scully. I 
know I didn't when they put us together. I know I've been 
horrible to you at times, and thoughtless, and more than 
a little stupid. But I never said I was perfect." 

She ran her tongue over her dry lips, eyeing me with the 
same kind of caution she used in approaching a 
potentially contaminated corpse, but didn't say anything.

Taking this as a marginally encouraging sign, I plunged 
on. "But I do trust you. And I'm only angry at myself that 
it took all this," I waved a hand to indicate the hospital 
room, her injuries and the situation in general, "to make 
me understand how you felt. If I could take back every 
bad thing that's happened since you walked into my 
office and every cruel thing I've done to you, I would. But 
don't ever think that I don't need you or don't want you, 
because I do. I know now that I do."

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth and 
maintained her silence. I hoped she wasn't just paying 
out the line until she had enough slack to hang me with 
it.

"But I also need you to help me. I may believe in psychic 
abilities, but I'm not a mind-reader."

Her forehead creased; she could see where this was 
leading and she wasn't going to allow me to open a 
debate about how much of this might be her own fault. 
"You're a profiler," she said bluntly. "It's almost the same 
thing."

"Maybe, but I've never profiled =you=, Scully. I would 
never. . . invade your privacy like that. If you're bothered 
about something, I need to know. Even if I can't help you 
at all, I just need to know so I'm at least aware there's a 
problem."

She looked away. "You don't have to protect me." It 
sounded rote, like something she'd said frequently to 
someone else not too long ago. It also sounded shaky; 
SIC was reaching the end of her currently limited 
endurance. Normally she would have been perfectly 
capable of arguing with me for hours on end, but she'd 
been through the wringer in the last day. Between the 
showdown with Pfaster, the surgery, the interview with 
Bocks and the confrontation with her doctor, Scully was 
scraping the bottom of the barrel for her last reserves of 
strength to deal with me.

"I know I don't." I swallowed hard and came out with my 
own personally painful confession. "And I can't. I wish I 
could. But my track record is less than stellar in that 
department, and I don't see it getting any better in the 
future. I think we both know the people we deal with are 
very skilled at getting what they want from us no matter 
how hard we try to prevent it."

She turned back, looking at me steadily with those 
amazing blue eyes. "They didn't do this, Mulder."

"I know."

I figured that was the end; I had run out of things to say 
to her and Scully seemed worn out. Any second now I 
expected a nurse to arrive and intervene with 
admonishments and scoldings about tiring the patient.

But as I stood up to leave, muttering something about 
Bocks coming back with the statement for her to review 
and sign, she dropped her eyes to the white cotton 
blanket, the fingers of her good hand tugging restlessly 
on a loose thread, and murmured something I didn't 
quite catch.

"What?"

She didn't raise her voice very much, but I could hear 
her this time.

"I saw myself."

I sat back down on the bed. "You saw yourself?" I 
repeated softly. "Where, Scully?"

"The crime scene pictures. The first ones we looked at in 
Agent Bocks' office. I was looking through them and. . . I 
saw myself in them."

I remembered that. I'd been talking with Bocks, most of 
my mind still occupied with my useless tickets, when 
Scully brushed past me. I found her sitting on a bench in 
the outer hallway a few moments later, staring 
sightlessly at the far wall.

Was it then that she'd started behaving strangely? 
Probably. I just wasn't sure; I'd been too annoyed that 
the inefficiency of the Minneapolis office staff was 
causing me to miss one of the best football games of the 
season to focus on anything else.

While my partner had been suffering distressing 
flashbacks, I'd been moping about a sports event like 
some grade schooler who'd been benched for the big 
game.

Somehow the description of "callous bastard" no longer 
seemed even remotely adequate.

"Scully. . ."

She refused to look up from her ferociously intense 
contemplation of the hospital linens covering her. The 
rest of the story came out in bits and pieces, interspersed 
with long silences when I simply sat and waited, 
pretending not to notice the occasional tear that slid 
down her face and dropped to the blanket, making a 
random pattern of tiny dark polka dots on the light 
fabric.

By the time she finished, her lunch tray had arrived and 
been removed, mostly untouched, and Bocks was back 
with her formal statement. Scully glanced up for the first 
time in about three hours and hastily grabbed a tissue 
from the box next to her bed.

Bocks stood in the doorway, waiting hesitantly with a file 
folder tucked under one arm and a small bouquet of 
yellow roses in the other. I got up and went over to him, 
beckoning him away from her room. "Give her a minute," 
I said.

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah. It's just been a rough day."

We chatted about inconsequential things for about ten 
minutes, allowing Scully time to compose herself and put 
a brave face on the world for Bocks. Bad enough that 
she'd wept again in my presence. To show such emotion 
in front of another agent would be unthinkable.

Bocks didn't stay long; he might not be the sharpest tool 
in the shed but it would have taken someone with all the 
sensitivity of a hedge trimmer only a second to see Scully 
was fading. He left, and when visiting hours were over a 
short while later, I did, too. Scully didn't notice my 
departure; the doctor came in not long after Bocks' visit 
and she spent the rest of the afternoon in a sedated 
slumber.

Hospitals rank second behind the federal government in 
terms of generating reams of senseless paperwork. Never 
mind protesting nuclear power plants or whaling vessels. 
The green activists should be lining up outside 
institutions like this one to wave placards and shout 
slogans about killing trees for idiotic reasons. By the time 
I was done signing and dating the forms necessary to 
extricate Scully the following morning, I'd probably given 
the hospital the rights to my bank account, my left 
kidney and my first born male heir, assuming I ever had 
one. I suspected the doctor had slipped a few more forms 
in just to spite us because Scully was leaving against his 
advice. 

She couldn't sign for herself; my partner's left hand 
might be poetry in motion acting in concert with her right 
to perform an autopsy, but put a pen in those fingers 
and it reverted to useless status. She had to content 
herself with scrawling a wavering X next to each of my 
scribbled John Hancocks.

How fitting, right?

The afternoon talk shows were almost over when the 
hospital finally released Scully from its clutches. I took 
her back to the motel dressed in oversized green scrubs 
under her coat, and fetched us a fast-food dinner from a 
nearby diner. Vegetable soup for her, a burger and fries 
for me. Under her direction I packed most of her 
belongings so they'd be ready for our departure in the 
morning.

Scully was either too tired or too modern to be 
uncomfortable with me handling her intimate apparel; I 
couldn't decide which. I merely congratulated myself that 
I could stand there in her presence tucking and folding 
lacy bits of feminine satin and silk without making an 
ass out of myself by spouting a running commentary of 
lewd innuendoes. Progress.

End part 4/5
________________________

FINE CONTROL (5/5)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


I woke up the next morning to the sound of my room 
phone. "Hello?" I mumbled, wondering in my muddled 
state why I was getting a wake up call when I hadn't left 
instructions for one.

But the voice on the other end of the line wasn't a 
disinterested motel employee, or even the impersonal 
computer-generated tones of the automated calls you get 
in some of the more upscale places. It was Scully.

"Mulder. . ." she began hesitantly, and stopped.

Amazing how I could go from the sandman stage to full 
alert mode in less than a heartbeat with nothing more 
than that softly spoken, tentative word. "I'm here. What's 
the matter?"

"Nothing."

There was a pause long enough to raise my anxiety level 
significantly. "Scully?" I asked, keeping my tone neutral, 
non-threatening. No pressure, partner. None at all. But 
would you please let me know why we're on the phone 
breathing in each other's ears at six in the morning if 
everything is just peachy?

"I need. . . Mulder, do you have a spare undershirt?"

If someone had asked me to predict what Scully had 
been going to say at that moment, this particular 
sentence would have ranked somewhere around number 
12,497. Immediately after "I believe in alien life" and 
immediately before "Mulder, you're right!" My brain 
sputtered and fizzed trying to translate her bizarre query 
into something remotely sensible, and then it hit me.

The cast. The black short-sleeved blouse she'd been 
wearing when Pfaster grabbed her was ruined, and she 
probably didn't have anything else that would fit over her 
arm now that its diameter had been significantly 
increased with plaster of Paris. Not unless she wanted to 
travel home in her pajamas.

That was certainly an entertaining thought.

"Mulder?"

Now I was the one holding up the conversation. "Sorry. 
Yeah, I do. Let me get dressed and I'll bring it right over."

"Thank you."

I hung up, and the thought of clothing suddenly brought 
up a whole host of other potential problems that she 
hadn't hinted at during our brief talk. Such as how was 
my oh-so-independent partner going to fasten her bra or 
put on her pantyhose without the use of her dominant 
hand? For that matter, how'd she get herself undressed 
the night before? 

Digging out my last clean white Hanes, I manfully tried 
to block out images of Scully wearing it without a bra. If 
it had been a v-neck instead of the traditional crew, I 
don't think I could have succeeded in banishing the 
tantalizing visions of cleavage.

She answered the door immediately to my knock, 
wrapped in her white terrycloth robe. Items from the 
suitcase I had so neatly packed scant hours ago were 
strewn over her bed and the chairs, indicating the fierce 
battle SIC had waged to make do from her own wardrobe 
before admitting it was a lost cause and calling for help. 
"Thank you," she said softly, taking my underwear with 
her good hand and addressing the courtesy to the third 
button on my dress shirt. "I'll be ready to leave in about 
an hour." She started to close the door, but I stopped 
her.

Two days had made a very large difference in her 
appearance, and not for the better. The bruises on her 
face were brighter than a Hawaiian sunrise and twice as 
colorful. Underneath all that congealing blood she was 
ghostly white, and she didn't look well enough to walk, 
let alone take a plane ride.

"Did you eat already?" It wasn't exactly, "Are you all 
right?" and she let me get away with it.

"Yes." She gestured behind her, and I saw covered dishes 
on a room service tray sitting on the table. "I've been up a 
while. It was hard to sleep."

"Scully, that's why they gave you the painkillers when 
you were discharged."

"I know. I took them this morning."

"Oh." She might be lying about the whole thing; for all I 
knew there was a bowl of cold coagulating oatmeal under 
that silver cover or nothing more substantial than a cup 
of black coffee. But this time I sensed she was telling the 
truth, at least about the medication.

There was no other reason for me to stay; Scully 
obviously had some wily chick trick up her sleeve for how 
to dress herself, because she wasn't following up her 
request for clothing with one for assistance to don said 
clothing. So I nodded okay, and went back to my room to 
pack.

Sixty minutes later I knocked again, and there was 
Scully, fully dressed in her beige pantsuit, jacket 
buttoned over my undershirt, ready to go. The roomier, 
lined suit jacket sleeve made it over the cast, and she 
had even managed to strap herself back into that 
contraption that supported her mending shoulder by 
pinning her broken right arm to her waist.

If I'd known our flight was delayed I wouldn't have 
checked us out so soon, but we didn't learn about it until 
we reached the gate area.

After fifteen minutes of waiting, I couldn't stand it. The 
flight was overbooked and every seat around us was 
taken. We were surrounded by irritated, bored 
passengers with nothing to do but stare.

Scully simply sat with her head slightly bowed, a crimson 
curtain of hair swinging forward against either cheek to 
hide her face. But it was an imperfect shield at best. 
Everything – the swelling contusions marring her 
features, the rigid posture from the broken ribs, the arm 
brace that even her overcoat couldn't completely hide – 
made her look exactly like what she wasn't, a victim of 
some kind of serious domestic abuse. Not a soldier 
worthy of a Purple Heart, but a battered wife who was 
probably traveling with the very man who beat her to a 
pulp.

I didn't really care what our fellow travelers thought 
about me, but I decided Scully didn't need to sit on 
display like some kind of rare zoo exhibit while Northwest 
Airlines dithered about their mechanical problems.

For the first time ever in my career as a government 
employee, I pulled rank for personal gain. 

"I'll be right back," I said to Scully. She nodded slightly 
without looking up. I went up to the gate agent at the 
ticket counter and flashed my ID. "I need to speak to 
your supervisor, Kim," I announced quietly, reading her 
name tag. "Right now."

Kim gaped, as if being accosted by FBI agents was 
something that only happened in Mel Gibson movies. She 
swallowed and asked nervously, "Is anything wrong?"

"No, Kim. Nothing at all. I just need to see your 
supervisor." I smiled reassuringly. No, honey. There are 
no terrorists in the boarding area carrying bombs and 
plans to hijack your faulty 727 for an unscheduled trip 
to some country made up of desert and not much else.

Kim picked up a phone and spoke briefly into it. "She'll 
be right here," she informed me.

"Thank you." I moved to the side of the desk to wait for 
the next round of bureaucracy, which arrived in short 
order.

"Sir? You asked to see me?" The woman in the official 
airlines blazer was older than Kim, older than me. Under 
her sensibly short sandy blond hair she wore that calm 
expression that only comes after years of dealing with an 
unreasonable and sometimes volatile public. If there was 
a terrorist in the boarding area, I was willing to bet she'd 
be more capable of handling it than I would.

I showed her my badge. "Thank you for coming, Ms. 
Wyant." I moved behind the ticket kiosk for a bit more 
privacy, and she moved with me.

"How can I help you, Agent Mulder?"

I pointed at Scully, who was still sitting with her head 
lowered. An elderly man had taken my seat beside her 
but was leaning away from her, as if he thought she 
might be contagious. "Do you see that woman with the 
red hair?"

Ms. Wyant followed my finger. "Yes."

"That is Agent Scully. She's my partner. We've just 
finished an extremely difficult case here in Minneapolis."

Ms. Wyant fulfilled my high expectations of her 
intelligence by putting the pieces together immediately. 
There hadn't been much press coverage about Pfaster's 
escapades because Bocks hadn't wanted to scare the 
city, but this particular lady had had no trouble reading 
between the lines of his carefully worded press releases. 
"The person who was desecrating the corpses," she stated 
without hesitation.

"Yes. Agent Scully apprehended him."

"I see." The inflection of those two words spoke volumes.

"I need two things from you, Ms. Wyant. First, you must 
have some kind of VIP lounge nearby, where Agent Scully 
and I can wait in private until the flight is ready. Second, 
I need two seats together in first class, on the right side 
of the plane. Agent Scully sustained a number of serious 
injuries during this case and she would not be 
comfortable in the coach section. I am prepared to pay 
full fare for those seats, of course."

I don't think she expected that; she was thinking her 
employers were about to get stiffed by the big bad 
government regulators. I saw her mull over my request in 
her head, then she simply replied, "Please wait here. I'll 
be right back," and vanished down the hallway back 
toward the main terminal.

Scully hadn't moved. I wondered if she'd possibly dozed 
off from the painkillers.

Ms. Wyant was back in less than ten minutes, with a 
sheaf of paperwork in one hand. "If you'll follow me, I'll 
take you and Agent Scully to our Executive Lounge." She 
handed me the paperwork. "These are your new tickets." 
Then she issued what I considered to be a major public 
relations coup, one I was certain had been her idea and 
the reason she'd had to check with her superiors rather 
than just giving us a different seat assignment. "There 
will be no additional charge. Northwest Airlines is 
pleased to assist our country's law enforcement officers 
in any way we can."

We wended our way over to where my partner still sat. 
"Scully, come on." I put my hand under her elbow and 
helped her up.

"What is it, Mulder?" Her eyes were glassy; she sounded 
exhausted and more than a little confused.

"We're going to another waiting area." I steered her 
through the milling crowds of passengers, following Ms. 
Wyant to a blank, unassuming door marked "Executive 
Lounge" in small gold script. She unlocked the door and 
ushered us in.

"Please make yourselves comfortable. One of our gate 
agents will be along when it's time to board. If there's 
anything you need, please let one of the attendants 
know."

I helped Scully sit in one of the plush, padded maroon 
armchairs and walked our hostess back to the door. 
"Thank you."

Ms. Wyant nodded crisply. "I'll see that you board last, 
Agent Mulder. No need for her to be on the aircraft longer 
than necessary."

"I appreciate it."

I went back to where Scully was reclining, her eyes 
closed. The room was empty aside from us and a tall 
black man tending bar along the far wall. The place was 
cushy and well-equipped; each little grouping of sofas 
and chairs had two or three telephones, fax machines 
and computer hook-ups on little tables nearby. Copies of 
the local paper, as well as several national and big city 
rags, were close at hand, along with the big-time 
magazines such as Forbes, Fortune, Time and 
Newsweek.

Scully's pallor and sudden frailty were too pronounced to 
be the product of the medication alone. Maybe she really 
hadn't eaten breakfast. I hoped it was just low blood 
sugar and not another onset of shock. Maybe I shouldn't 
have let them discharge her so soon.

Although I was sure if I snapped my fingers and spoke 
the words aloud I could have summoned anything from 
cornflakes to Eggs Benedict, leading the horse to water 
and making it drink were two different things. 
Concluding that liquid refreshment was my best option 
for getting a few calories into her, I got up and went over 
to the bartender.

He presided over a display of alcohol that most big city 
bars couldn't have matched. I suppose they had to be 
prepared on the off chance that Tom Cruise and Nicole 
Kidman might pass through on their way back from 
some exotic filming location and demand a sloe gin fizz at 
five in the morning.

It was heading toward eleven now, which was almost a 
respectable time to start downing cocktails, but alcohol 
was the last thing either of us needed.

"May I help you, sir?" the bartender asked.

"Two orange juices, please."

He paused, one hand on the glasses, the other hovering 
over a champagne bottle. "Mimosas?" he questioned.

I smiled at the thought. "No. Just plain OJ."

The bartender returned my smile. "Of course, sir." He 
poured generous tumblers of a bright orange, pulpy 
liquid that looked freshly squeezed. My mouth started to 
water. "Anything else?"

"Nope. What do I owe you?" I reached for my wallet.

The bartender looked vastly amused. "There's no charge 
in here, sir."

Well, of course, stupid. What was the point of being a VIP 
if you had to pay for your privileges in places like this? I 
stuffed a couple singles in the glass on top of the bar and 
mumbled, "Thanks," as I picked up our beverages.

Sitting back down next to Scully, I nudged her gently 
with my elbow. "Hey." 

She turned toward me and I cringed a little at the 
expression on her face. It =had= been a mistake to let her 
leave the hospital. Codeine tablets or not, she was 
suffering and it showed. Feeling more than a little 
helpless, I gave her the drink.

"Thanks." She managed a weak smile and sipped it 
slowly.

By the time Kim poked her head in to fetch us, Scully 
had finished the juice and nibbled a few pretzels. Some 
color had come back into her face. She looked a little 
steadier on her feet; I kept one hand on her arm to 
prevent her from being jostled by people rushing by us, 
but I no longer felt as if she'd fall down if I released her.

Our seats were in the first row of first class, right side, as 
promised. I put Scully by the window so her arm would 
be out of the way of any overzealous flight crew, top-
heavy service carts or roaming passengers. She sank 
down onto the leather seat and allowed me to fasten her 
seatbelt.

I sensed the fine hand of Ms. Wyant in the reverent way 
the first class flight attendant treated us. He instantly 
handed me two pillows and two blankets, took our coats 
and asked if we needed anything else. I thanked him and 
told him no.

Scully made no comment as I tossed a blanket across her 
legs. Tucking one pillow against my right shoulder, I 
suggested, "Lean on me and try to get some sleep, 
Scully."

I honestly didn't think she would actually do it. I kept 
expecting SIC to make a firm reappearance, shaking her 
head and making an excuse about needing to keep her 
body straight to support her ribs, or just outright 
denying any fatigue. Instead, Scully let out a small sigh 
and slowly relaxed against my arm, closing her eyes. By 
the time we were airborne, she was asleep.

The nightmare started about halfway through the flight. 
The signs were obvious; her respiration jacked up, her 
eyes twitched rapidly under her closed lids, her left hand 
curled into a fist and she uttered one or two soft moans 
that were probably blood-curdling shrieks in whatever 
horrific scene she was re-enacting in her dream.

But I didn't wake her up. She had already been forced to 
surrender too much control to me in the last forty-eight 
hours. The very least I could do was allow her to fight 
this enemy on her own terms. As much as I wanted to 
rouse her gently and rescue her from the dark places in 
her mind where evil people like Pfaster and Duane Barry 
chased her down endless black corridors of terror, I knew 
she wouldn't thank me for the gesture. Not Scully. 
Definitely not SIC.

She jerked against me and woke herself up, her breath 
hitching in her throat and her left hand involuntarily 
clutching my thigh as she tried to focus her eyes and 
reorient herself. "Wha. . ." she gasped.

I covered her hand with mine and stroked it soothingly. 
"It's okay, Scully."

She jumped again when I spoke, glancing around a little 
frantically until she pinpointed the source of the sound.

"It's okay," I repeated. "You're fine, Scully. You're fine 
now."

Completely awake at last, she locked gazes with me. Her 
breathing smoothed out to a more normal rhythm and 
she loosened her grip on my leg.

"You're fine," I told her one last time.

She nodded, then curled her fingers around mine and 
settled back against me for the rest of the flight.

For once I was right. SIC was fine.

End


Author's notes: This story started as a result of one of 
those times your mind suddenly says, "What if. . ." and 
then goes on a mental field trip without a permission 
slip. Hope you enjoyed the journey; don't forget to stop at 
the souvenir shop before you board the bus for home. ;-) 
Thanks to Jill for stalking. . . er, I mean asking me to 
finish it.

Feedback: Is cheaper and more long-lasting than the 
trinkets at the souvenir shop, and can be sent to 
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com.