"The Call" 

By Ten 
kristena@ocean.com.au 




CATEGORY: V; heavy UST/borderline MSR; ST & MT; Angst;
sort of an X-File
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: It has been six weeks since Mulder has vanished,
apparently of his own volition. Desperate to find him,
Scully finds herself on a terrifying odyssey.
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: Set sometime during season six,
post "One Son". Mentions previous seasons.

ARCHIVE INFO: It goes to Gossamer through xff. Can be
archived anywhere as long as my name, addy and disclaimer
stay intact.
FEEDBACK: Love it. Brings joy to my world!
THANKS TO: Debbie, Suzi, Gerry, Mac, Mary Lou, Judie,
Sally, Suzanne and Cynthia for everything you all did.

NOTE: This vignette was inspired by two great fanfics:
"Canvas Bag" by Brandon D. Ray and "After the Rain" by
Imajiru.

My website for all my X-Files fanfiction, thanks to the
wonderful Skyfox, is at http://tenxffic.iwarp.com

DISCLAIMER: The X-Files, the episodes referred to, Mulder
and Scully and all other characters from the show belong
to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox
Broadcasting, and are used without permission. No
copyright infringement is intended, no profit will be
gained. Characters not recognised from the show are mine.

The X-Files: "The Call" (1/2)
By Ten, February - March 2000. Posted May


xXx

I hurt.

I hurt even more now than I did six weeks ago. I was
probably too busy rushing around to notice the pain as much
then. And I still had hope. But now, now as everyone is
telling me to accept it, that he is gone, and as avenue
after avenue yields no clues or slams permanently shut in
my face, I find that I can't breathe. My lungs and heart
ache. My throat is tight with tears, those I have shed and
those I am holding back.

He is gone.

But I have to keep my hope. He kept his when I was
abducted. That was for three whole months. I can't just
give up after forty-four days. Or even a year. If there is
no body, then there is a chance that one day that body will
walk into the room. Simple logic.

However, a large part of my brain and heart agrees with
the findings of the official investigation. Mulder
disappeared of his own volition. The last substantiated
sighting of him was at the Gunmen's headquarters while
having a poker game and cheese steaks. "He seemed more
distracted than depressed," Byers said. "We asked him what
was up and he said he was just mulling over some things.
Wouldn't say what. Then by the end of the night he seemed
to have come to a decision. When he left, he didn't do
anything strange or that set off any alarm bells."

Langly added, "We thought he had finally decided to, you
know... Tell you how he felt about you."

Did Mulder strike a deal? They did offer him one when I
was on my deathbed from the cancer.

Did he fall and suffer amnesia?

Was he kidnapped?

In my heart, as much as it pains me, I'm fairly sure what
did get to him was internal, not external. The darkness.
The burden he has carried and struggled with every day of
his adult life, as it grew and grew. Everything became too
much for him and he couldn't take it anymore. Breaking away
or committing suicide may have seemed like the only options
available. He could have gone away to commit suicide, not
wanting me to be the one to stumble across the results.

I'd still have to go and ID him.

There was no note. His mother hasn't heard from him. His
basketball buddies are at a loss. Even the Gunmen can't
produce any leads. Mulder must have used all of his
training, all of his knowledge of the Gunmen and their
capabilities, to avoid detection. I keep checking the mail,
my email, Mulder's email, both office and personal... I
feed the fish, as if by keeping them alive, I keep their
owner alive too. His credit cards have not been used. He
drew two hundred dollars out of his bank on the day of his
disappearance, and that was all. His rent gets taken out
automatically by the bank - he set that up a long time ago
because of his lifestyle on the X-Files, and I have made
sure that this continues while I look for him. I search his
apartment and the office from top to bottom, the cases, the
computer files. Nothing has led to a solid clue.

Three weeks ago Skinner and I had a visit from Cancerman,
who - on outward appearances at least - seemed as genuinely
out of the loop as us in regard to what had happened. He
assured both of us that he had channelled as many of his
resources as possible into finding Mulder.

"And what if he doesn't want to be found? What if he wants
to get as far away from you, from me, from all this, as
possible?"

Cancerman smiled at me like I was a silly child. "Can YOU
just let him go, Agent Scully?"

I had a very vivid image of where I wanted to shove his
cigarette. "You could be just throwing up a smokescreen
yourself. For your own purposes."

"Agent Mulder disappearing suits none of my purposes." He
turned and left.

xXx

The TV is on. Some impassioned heroine is crying out: "No!
He can't be dead! I would have felt it!"

Would I have felt the Fates cut his thread, seeing it was
so intertwined with mine? Perhaps it is why I am feeling
this way. The pain - the severed cords flailing blindly,
cutting my soul, or is it my awareness as they irreversibly
unwind? This lightheadedness - am I so used to being bound
to another, part of him, that now I am unable to keep my
balance on my own?

My logical side tells me that I might improve my cause if
I at least ate something. I listlessly spoon some ice cream
into my mouth, about all that can work its way past the
lump in my throat. I hope I can keep it down. I lie on my
sofa, arms wrapped around myself, using one of his
trenchcoats like an afghan, and let my thoughts wander.

I have exhausted logic in my search for him. I feel no
embarrassment now in considering other possibilities.

Melissa gave me a lovely hardcover book in the year before
she died. It was full of blank pages and decorated on the
outside with starscapes. She said that it was a 'wish
book'. A place to write down my dreams and desires, to
focus them, and then, as she said, "You will be more likely
to bring them into existence."

That was the book I wished I had with me when I was first
diagnosed with the cancer and was writing a diary to
Mulder. It would have been more fitting on many levels in
that book. However, I ended up destroying what I wrote
because I realised that I was leaving him a message to read
after my death, when I was determined to fight, to live. It
seemed at cross-purposes.

By accident, he did get to read a little of it in the
hospital the night before I burned the book, and he said he
had only read the lone paragraph on the page before
hurrying off to the nurses' station since I wasn't in my
bed and he was fearing the worst.

I regret destroying my words. Because I don't think I then
adequately expressed to him in spoken words what I had in
those pages: that my condition wasn't his fault and that if
I did die, I knew he had tried everything in his power to
save me. I *know* I couldn't have gotten my message across:
when he vanished I found some of his own journals and read
them, searching for some clue to his mind-set, his location.

The journals were not from this year. One told of how, in
the hours after I had told Mulder that I had been given the
cancer to make him believe, he came to the brink of
committing suicide. That body I pretended to ID as Mulder
hours later could so easily have been him after all. I had
no idea.

And if I had no idea back then, and if I wasn't the one
who prevented him from killing himself, then how can I
expect to feel it if he does anything now, or has done? I
feel like I have forfeited my rights. How could I have said
that to him? How could I have not realised how much pain he
was in? I was too distracted by my own, by the stark news
my doctor had delivered on my condition.

I gulp in a painful breath and rest my cheek against the
coat. I will find the wish book and write my dearest wish
in it. Over and over.

The phone rings. Mom. When I talk, she's not sure if I'm
crying or if I have a cold. Perhaps both. Who cares?
Minutes pass, then I am back with my thoughts.

I will phone the psychic whose ad I saw in the Post this
morning. What about some of the others that I have
encountered on cases? Not the Stupendous Yappi though.

Will Mulder come to me in a dream, saying that he has
crossed over the bridge that spans two worlds? Will Missy
phone me up and give me his location? 'She needs your
help.' Surely, if anyone needs my help, he does.

Or, as I said to Cancerman, I may be the last person he
wants to see. But I don't know that for sure. Until I can
find him and hear him say so and can see that he is
speaking the truth, I can't give up.

What was the final straw that broke his back? There are so
many choices.

Cancer Bill Emily Haley Folie a Deux Diana Closure of the
X-Files

Me.

And that's just within the timespan of a year and a half.
Every year there have been so many losses and so few gains.
Each day is the anniversary of something painful.

I have gone over and over the last time I saw him, those
last few weeks he was still a part of my life -physically
at least - and I have tried to autopsy every second, every
nuance, every word and situation for some kernel of
revelation. Should I have been more supportive of his
theory in our last case? Was I just disbelieving by habit?
Did his manner seem resigned or detached?

Contemplative and quiet, perhaps. But because things had
been quiet in the X-Files division over the last few weeks,
I'd been shunted to give some lectures on pathology at
Quantico. So we were apart. We spoke on the phone.

There is no evidence I can find that he received a lead or
a cryptic clue on Samantha or conspiracies or anything.

Did I sound too enthusiastic about the lectures? He may
have thought that I wanted a career change.

I am hurting.

The ice cream was not a good idea. I feel hot, then I feel
cold. It feels like it is congealing in lumps in my
stomach, which I know is impossible.

The pain stabs through my heart and lungs and I can't
breathe.

I feel like I'm dying. It goes on and on.

It eases with cruel slowness. Was that a panic attack? I
try to study what happened, to make a diagnosis, but my
thoughts are jangled like someone has struck a heap of
piano keys all at once. Shaken and panting, I reach for the
phone and dial for a cab. I'd better go to the hospital and
be examined and sort this out. Being sick will only hinder
my search.

I put on shoes and Mulder's trenchcoat for expediency and
just because I want a part of him close to me, and check
that I have my cellular. It is charged. I don't want Mulder
to not be able to reach me if he should try.

The pain has left me, and I am feeling out of kilter in
its wake, but I manage to get out of my apartment building
and into the cab. The driver looks at me. He says that I
look pale and asks if I'm okay.

But his voice is coming down a tunnel and he seems to be a
vast distance away from me. I hear myself say something. My
breathing is loud in my ears and is all effort and I have
to force myself to keep doing it.

My God, you really can die from a broken heart.

The cabbie is moving through the traffic. I lean my head
back and tell myself in my head that he will get me to the
hospital soon. I just have to hang on.

Everything runs together: the light, the colours, my
thoughts, the noise.

Then everything is suddenly back to normal, like a snapped
rubber band.

"Here you are, ma'am."

I blink. I stare out the window. This isn't Georgetown
Hospital. This isn't a hospital at all. It's National
Airport.

What the hell is going on?

The driver is just looking at me calmly, just a guy
looking for his fee, not at all the look of a man with a
deathly sick person in the back of his cab.

"I - I don't remember the trip..." comes lamely from my
mouth. I can breathe again, but I still feel sore.

"I'm not surprised. You seemed really tired. You fell
asleep." He tells me how much I owe and I find myself
paying it and tipping him and stepping out onto the
sidewalk before I know what I'm doing.

Someone else steps past me into the cab, and within a few
seconds, it pulls away.

What am I doing here? Was that man part of the Consortium?

I scan the surrounding area. I can't see anything amiss.

Then next thing I know, I am in the airport itself,
walking towards a ticket purchase desk. I feel unsteady. As
I wait in line, I am aware that the back of my neck is
aching but I can't raise my hand to rub at it.

My neck.

I haven't felt like this since that day the chip
supposedly induced me to take a one-way trip to Ruskin Dam.

Panicked, I try to turn around and walk away, but my legs
will only move in the one direction. Forwards.

If I had a penknife and control over my arms, I think I'd
perform a chipendectomy on myself this very minute.

At the desk my brain cannot stop my mouth from opening and
asking for a ticket to New York City. One way. I watch
myself hand over my credit card. Who is pulling my strings?
New York City... Years ago the 'Well Manicured Man' asked
to meet Mulder in Central Park, back when Skinner was shot,
but the Englishman died last year after giving Mulder the
vaccine to save me. Mulder was sure that he died. Perhaps
one of his other cronies, if there are any left now apart
from Spender Senior, wants to have a chat. Or more than a
chat. What famous city landmark am I going to be immolated
on?

My scream is poised on my vocal chords, hoping to leap out
when I am next made to speak. I have to alert someone. I
have to be stopped. I am sick of being controlled and
stolen and used. Surely there is nothing left of me for
them to take?


xXx

I have no memory of the plane trip or which airline I was on. Just
that I am now sitting in a cab on the other end, and the scream is
still there, in every inch of me. Someone MUST be able to tell
from my body language that something isn't right?

No challenges, no questions, no concerns. None that I remember,
anyway.

It is daylight. The driver is weaving expertly through the
traffic. I want to ask him where I'm going, what I said. Or
whether he's another Consortium plant.

Manhattan landmarks go by. I must be dreaming. Or hallucinating.
I'm going to wake up and find myself in a hospital, and, if there
is any justice in the world, Mulder will be sitting by the bed and
the last six weeks will have been a dream after watching too many
repeats of "Dallas".

The pain strikes again. This time it is even more intense.

I think I'd welcome immolation. I just want this to stop.

Perhaps something has gone wrong with the implant and the
Consortium are recalling me like a defective toy so that they can
put things right? Or use me as a guinea pig again?

What did Cassandra say? That when the time came, we - academics,
doctors, people with special skills - would be gathered together
by "Them" for the advancement of the human race...

Is this how Mulder vanished? Summoned?

Clarity comes back to me again. I am getting out of the cab. I am
standing outside a building that looks like it should be
condemned. I stare. Is this part of the Bronx?

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" the driver asks dubiously. "You
sure about being dropped here?"

Whatever comes out of my mouth appears to appease him, or make him
give up. I do have my gun, don't I?

I am in the apartment building. I have vague impressions of
dilapidation and peeling paint, but it's not an abandoned
building. People rent and live here. Just.

Hallway. Smell - garbage, urine? Both? Stairway. Several doors. I
am at one of the doors. I watch myself pick the lock, even as the
pain is building up into a crescendo.

I open the door and manage to step inside.

The room is in dimness. A strip of sunlight provides further
confusion to my adjusting eyes, coming as it does from between the
window and the almost-fully closed blind.

There is a noise. I am not alone. My frantic gaze hones in on
something large that is on the floor under the window. A mattress.
The noise is coming from there. Distressed breathing.

I step forward of my own volition and as a doctor, to assist, even
as my hand goes behind me for my gun. I realise I can breathe
again, but what I see robs me of all air.

Mulder.

I drop my gun and turn back to the door. I fumble frantically for
the light switch. It doesn't work. Figures.

Dammit, I need light. I rush over to the mattress. My eyes have
grown a little more accustomed to the dimness in the room, but I
still need to properly see what I'm dealing with. "Mulder? Mulder,
it's me. Can you hear me?"

He is lying curled up on his side, facing me. His breath is coming
in constant shallow puffs. On his face is a reasonably established
beard.

I touch his hand and face. Oh God. If that's not a temperature of
at least 103, I'll be surprised. "Mulder, I have to open the blind
a bit more. I'm sorry, but I need the light."

The increased sunlight immediately elicits a groan from my
partner, and he screws his eyes tightly shut, but I have no idea
if he knows that I'm there. His face is flushed and dry, with a
slightly blue tinge. Cyanosis... His pulse is rapid.

Mulder is only wearing boxer shorts. A few blankets are scattered
on the floor as if tossed off. I put my hand to his forehead and
stroke my fingers through his hair as I bring my cellphone out
with my other hand. I find myself telling the dispatcher the
address without conscious thought.

I have found my partner, but I still might lose him. No, that is
not an option. Pneumonia is something tangible that I can fight on
his behalf. It IS curable. Defeatable.

Usually. But if he is too weak, or if it is one of the
increasingly-common strains that is resistant to antibiotics...

As I wait for the ambulance, I whisper to him. His eyes are half
open, glazed, and that fast, agonised breathing is chipping pieces
from my mended heart all over again. I survey the room as I talk.
One small room with a tiny bathroom. Minimal furniture. Nothing
personal that I can see. No TV. How on earth did he survive here?

Clearly, he wasn't.

It isn't until after I have filled out the admittance forms at the
hospital that it occurs to me that Mulder might not be using his
real name anymore. I have no idea whether he has an alias. What if
he was undercover and I've blown it?

Dana, if he was undercover, then things had clearly gotten out of
control well BEFORE you showed up.

I phone Skinner and my mother, but they are as peripheral to me at
the moment as the flight to New York was.

I sit with Mulder and swallow as his lungs are suctioned and pray
as I wait for the antibiotics to work. He still doesn't recognise
me or anything, really. All there is to the world is his illness.
The struggle.

And even though he doesn't recognise me, the one word he does say
when he manages to speak is my name.

Local police make some enquiries for me and check through Mulder's
apartment. He had signed the lease under the name of 'Eric
Loughery'. The same name was in his wallet, along with ten
dollars.

He worked in a factory in the garment district. Mulder had been
hauling big bolts of cloth all over the place - the lint and dust
can complicate lung conditions. He hadn't show up to work for
days. His co-workers were not surprised that he got sick. "He was
working so many shifts, driving himself like a demon. Never saw
him eat much." I wonder if that is because he couldn't afford it
or was getting ill or just couldn't be bothered? Sure, he had been
working a lot of shifts, but it was still a low-wage job. A
struggle to make ends meet.

Perhaps he wanted that struggle. It would require a large
distraction to bury his past and his memories. Or at least to get
away from them for a while to regain his bearings. So many
possibilities. Since he couldn't run off and join the Foreign
Legion to forget, this may have been the next best thing. Keep
busy, then at night work out where to go from here. If anywhere.

One co-worker said, "He'd share a joke and be friendly enough
about sport and stuff, but otherwise that guy was a closed book."
Then 'Eric' caught a cold and couldn't seem to shake it. "Nasty
cough. Kept going though. Guess he ran himself into the ground."

The deputy who is imparting this information to me suddenly sniffs
the air. "Sorry, Agent Scully. I don't mean to sound... Um, the
perfume you're wearing - is that White Musk?"

I bristle, but I'm caught off-guard and find myself answering.
"Yes. And what on earth does that have to do with anything?"

He blushes. "It's just that...well... There was almost nothing
personal in the room whatsoever, despite him living there for five
weeks, according to the landlord. What we did find was a tiny
bottle of White Musk. I just..."

"I see. Thank you..." My 'signature scent'. Unlike photos or
anything written down on paper, it could evoke memories but not be
traced.

Skinner arrives two hours later and finds me crying into the
mattress, my hand still holding my partner's.

xXx

I haven't had the pain since I found Mulder. I haven't had to -
just witnessing it wracking my other half is excruciating enough.
Perhaps our threads didn't break - they just stretched and
stretched until finally they snapped back?

Or perhaps they were seeking each other out blindly, like
tendrils.

Or did Spender Senior guide me here like I was a character in a
computer game? But why not just tell me where instead of going
through all this? I don't think it was him. Or Them.

Again, I have to make myself eat.

A nurse shaved his beard off because it was touch and go whether
to intubate him or not, to aid his labouring lungs. That did not
eventuate, but I'm glad the beard has gone.

What if Mulder doesn't want to go back to his old life? To me?
Yes, he is regularly gasping out or crying out my name with
desperation that even brought tears to the eyes of an embittered
matron yesterday; however, when he comes back to reality, all bets
and wishes may be off. Do I want to hear him say, "Get out of my
life."?

Thinking about wishes sets off another thought. Then I phone Mom
and ask her to please do me a favour. She does. My wish book
arrives by express courier. And in the quiet moments when Mulder
is sleeping, I write in that book with one hand while holding his
in my other.

xXx

The antibiotics have worked. His lungs are clearing and his
temperature is going down. It's like the factory churning out the
pneumonia in Mulder's body has suddenly had its production line
thrown into 'reverse'.

Thank God.

That's one wish fulfilled.

"Scully?"

And I hope another will be fulfilled now. His eyes are open and
they seem aware. Hopeful. Surprised. "It's me. I'm here." I smile
my relief and lift his hand and raise it to my cheek, pressing it
there.

His fingers move, testing my reality. He stares. His voice is
barely audible.

"You're real..." It is part statement, part question.

"Yes."

His fingers lie limply against my cheek. "Why?"

Why am I real, or why am I here?

I feel like I am going to cry. "You called me, Mulder."

"I did? How -?"

There wasn't a phone in his room. Or in any of the rooms in that
apartment building. He's probably wondering if he babbled into a
payphone in his delirium. "Not on a phone." I squeeze his hand.
"Somehow I just knew or was told where to find you. And I wanted
to find you, very much." I gently rub his hand.


But did you want to be found? I can't ask him that, not yet. And I
think I know. It's the answer I feared all along. Memory has come
back to my partner and he is not looking at me. The hope has
leeched out of his features. He murmurs that he is tired and I
reply gently that he should sleep. He doesn't look at me.

He wasn't undercover. He did leave of his own volition. No string
pulling. Or perhaps there were strings: pulling him into the
darkness.

As he sleeps restlessly, I sit. Sitting and thinking, to quote
Mulder from so many years ago. Back when we could still joke and
banter. This man kept calling out for me, pleadingly, all through
the last four days while in here. And before that too, somehow
tugging me back into his sphere.

However we did it, and however much we try to block it out now,
our inner selves have just given us one hell of a message.

xXx

After I get some lunch and eat it all, I come back into the room
in time for the doctor's visit. He assesses Mulder and says what
post-hospital care he requires in order to make a full recovery.
He needs therapy like he has been undergoing, including deep
breathing exercises and general physical exercises to regain his
strength.

"You're a very lucky man, Agent Mulder. Lucky that you were found
in time and that the antibiotics turned things around so quickly,"
the doctor says.

"I know." Mulder lies still and quiet in the bed. The pneumonia
waged quite a war in him before it was halted. He is outwardly and
inwardly listless, and how much is from the illness or from his
attitude towards life since he fled D.C., I don't dare guess.

Doctor Sumners says that he should be able to be discharged in a
few days. "What are your plans?"

Mulder flicks a look at me. I say, "I've booked you an adjoining
room at my hotel. We'll stay there for now. Then I can take you to
PT and OT as needed, or help you with the home exercises."

The doctor nods approvingly. "Six or more weeks to recuperate,
during which you will gradually find the energy to do more and
more for yourself." He leaves.

I try not to shuffle nervously. "I hope you don't mind, Mulder.
It's just that where you were staying probably isn't best for your
health at the moment. And I think you have to gain more strength
before we catch a flight back to -" I halt myself. "I mean, if you
want to go anywhere else, of course."

"No. That's okay. Thanks. I appreciate it. I'll reimburse you for
my room. From my D.C. accounts." He looks down at his hands. He's
sweeping this all under the carpet, just like our interrupted kiss
in the hallway. A classic 'It didn't work, so let's just forget
about it' scenario. We'll go back to normal.

We've been very good at doing that over the years. Going through
events that should irreversibly alter our lives - deaths, huge
revelations, moments where we could easily have expressed our
feelings - then submerging our reactions and soldiering on. I know
that I should have at least some anger and resentment to vent from
what has happened recently. Perhaps it is coming, or perhaps my
sense of relief is so strong that the negatives have been
cancelled out.

Though I have had an outlet for my feelings... The wish book.

"I'm sorry about blowing your cover, Mulder. When I found you, I
didn't even think to check if you were under another name. I just
got on the phone."

"It doesn't matter. No loss." He rubs a hand over his shaved chin.
"Same with this. It was driving me nuts."

"Is there anything you want from your...place? I've kept up the
rent on it. Or rather, on Alexandria AND here." He looks startled.
"I didn't know your plans." I still don't. And it's time to stop
dancing around the issue.

"No. Nothing. Thanks."

"Mulder, when you're better... What do you want to do? Where do
you want to go?"

"Home. I guess. D.C. Well, Skinner and Co will want me to explain
a few things, won't they?"

"Yes. But what about after that?"

"I'll take some leave. Decide. Bureau probably doesn't want me
back."

"Yes, they do. And I do too."

His look is unreadable. "Scully."

"Yes?"

"You haven't asked why I left." He looks down.

"I know you had your reasons. I'm pretty sure I know what they
are, or the essence of them at least. I can understand; I just
hope that they're under review."

He gives a slight nod and looks up. "I was going to leave a note,
but I couldn't... I just didn't know what to... Or what I was
going... Whether -" He swallows, then coughs.

Whether he was going to come back to D.C. or not?

"And I still don't know how you found me."

"Well, you certainly went to the last place any of us would think
to look."

I feel nervous, but mostly there is a calmness in me. A balance
restored, whether on some unseen scale or thread or whatever, that
overrides all else now that we are back together. Mulder must be
feeling a variation of that too, which explains his behaviour
since he has woken up in the hospital, or perhaps the illness has
left this as the path of least resistance. But where from here? I
don't want to dismiss these events and just carry on.

I reach down into my bag and pull out the wish book. I hold it so
he can see it. I explain what it is and my regret at destroying my
cancer diary. "I did this for you. It's taken me longer to do than
I thought. Once I started writing down what happened, so much came
pouring out. Everything from the last two months is in here, and a
lot from before that too. Not just my wishes and hopes. Though
those are in there too. I'd like you to read this, Mulder. Just
when you can, however long it takes."

He accepts the book quietly, intensely, actually reaching out for
it. I can see a curiosity in his eyes, the first sign of 'life',
of my Mulder.

His eyes widen when he sees that one of the first pages of the
wish book contains the words: 'I want my partner safely back.'
over and over. It is a wish I had when he was missing, when he was
in the throes of pneumonia, and it is still a wish I have now.

When I come back from catching some sleep at the hotel, I find
that Mulder is asleep with the book on his chest, spine up. His
hands are lying protectively over it. One of the nurses confirms
that in the times he has awakened or been awakened by the nurses,
his first action is to clutch at my book, making sure that it is
still there and that no one will take it off him.

Skinner is back in D.C., but phones to ask what is happening. "I
don't know yet. He needs more time." We talk about Mulder's sick
leave and the leave I'm taking, and a tentative date is set for
the hearing into why my partner went AWOL.

xXx

Mulder and I are settled in the hotel now, and he is still
reading. I look through the open connecting doors into Mulder's
room. His progress through the pages is slow, which I know
frustrates him, as his body keeps betraying him by demanding
sleep. He hasn't made any mention of the contents yet, but
sometimes I catch him looking at me in surprise or sorrow or more,
then he quickly looks away. I'm sure that once he was checking my
weight, because he was then very alert about how much I ate during
our next meal. When we talk, it is about safe things, chatter.
Occasionally we slip into the old banter, and I don't want to
point that out in case that makes it vanish.

The book is closed. Mulder is sitting up in bed against pillows,
his hands clasped over the cover. I recognise the look on his
face. Absorption mode.

I hesitate. It is time for his medication, but I don't want to
disturb him. He looks over. He has seen me. I step into the room.
"Hey, partner." Then I stop. It just slipped out.

Mulder smiles. How long has it been since I've seen him do that
and at me, not at something on the TV? He picks up the wish book
and puts it on the nightstand. "Yes, I am still your partner,
Dana." And he holds out a hand to me and waits for my response,
eyes hoping.

My heart is tight with shared feeling again, with what he is
feeling now, but this time it is not pain. Togetherness, a desire
to rebuild our relationship - and in a healthier, much deeper way.

I drop the medicine and then we are holding tightly.

My dearest wish is coming true.


THE END.