Life's Simple Fate
by Ainon (mulangst@hotmail.com)


RATING: 
SPOILERS: Post third season. Events beyond the first episode of the 
fourth season are considered void as far as this story is concerned.
CATEGORY: Angst
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and 
other X-Files characters used herein are the property of Chris 
Carter,1013 Productions, and Fox Television Broadcasting. No 
infringement of copyright is intended.
SUMMARY: Terminal illness forces both Mulder and Scully to accept 
inevitable changes in their lives.
WARNING: Character dies.





Life's Simple Fate 

	

Scully entered Mulder's hospital room and was amused to see that he was, 
quite literally, mooning her.  He was lying on his side with his back to 
the door. His hospital gown had hiked up his back, and his blanket had 
been kicked down to bunch around his ankles. Full exposure.

Scully came up beside the bed and very gently, started pulling his gown 
down, and his blanket up. He was sleeping soundly. He had just had a 
bone marrow biopsy the previous morning and he'd been in pain since. The 
pelvic area of the biopsy was bruised, but no longer swollen. She 
wondered if Mulder had been given something to help him sleep through 
the pain.

Once she had covered him adequately enough, she sat down and watched him 
sleep. She desperately needed sleep herself. For the past few days she'd 
lain awake at night worrying about Mulder. And at the office she was 
bogged down by backlogged case reports. This morning she had a meeting 
with Skinner, who informed her that new and unfortunate developments in 
the Investigative Support Unit may warrant the need to temporarily 
transfer Mulder back to the ISU. If that were to happen, she could 
either stay on with the X-Files until Mulder was transferred back, or 
she could temporarily fill in a teaching position at Quantico for the 
length of time the ISU needed Mulder. The whole thing reeked of a set-up 
as far she was concerned. 

Skinner had insisted on knowing what was wrong with Mulder this time, 
why he had to be admitted into hospital yet again, but she managed to 
avoid giving him a direct answer. She herself was still unsure about 
Mulder's condition, and was not ready to say anything just yet.

"Oh Mulder, what are we going to do about you?" she said out loud.

 Mulder stirred, waking up. 

Scully smiled hesitantly. She hadn't meant to wake him. Mulder shifted a 
little, half-rolling onto his back. He saw her and gave her a wan smile.

"Hey," she said. Mulder rubbed at his eyes with his hands. There were 
awful dark rings beneath his eyes and his face was too pale. He sighed 
heavily. She could see right away that the news was bad.

Finally he spoke. 

"Acute promyelocytic leukemia." He stressed each syllable. There was a 
certain degree of vehement bitterness that rolled off with each 
syllable.

"Confirmed?" Scully asked with a sinking heart. "They're absolutely 
sure?"

Mulder didn't acknowledge her. He kept his eyes averted from hers and 
stared blankly at the wall.

"They are absolutely confident with this diagnosis?" Scully asked again, 
her tone rising a bit.

This time Mulder responded with a derisive snort. "They better damn well 
be. I have been punctured for bone marrow twice already. I do not want 
to be poked there a third time." He scowled and added, "Hurts like 
hell."

Scully stared back at him in silence as he rubbed at his bruised arms. 
He had had so many blood samples taken for testing she was quite sure 
every single large and medium-sized vein in his arms had been punctured 
at least once. 

How he must hate the tests and needles as everyone tried to find out 
what was wrong with him.

Mulder had injured himself five days ago during a stakeout. It wasn't a 
major injury - he had slipped and fallen as he was climbing down an old, 
rickety, slippery ladder. He banged his arm hard against one of the 
rungs, and grazed the skin of his forearm. He had been profoundly 
embarrassed that Scully was witness to his incredible lack of grace, but 
otherwise, it was no big deal.

It turned out to be a very big bloody deal. Very slight injury indeed, 
but he bled all over the upholstery of the car afterwards. By the time 
they got to the hospital, the arm of his shirt was literally drenched 
with blood, and he was feeling a little faint from the blood loss. 

They ran tests of course, and they found out that Mulder was severely 
anemic - he didn't have enough red blood cells. They also found out he 
had low platelet counts - platelets are required to stop bleeding. And 
they discovered he had way too many white blood cells.

The immediate suspicion was that he had some form of leukemia. But she 
hadn't wanted to believe that. Mulder being Mulder, he could have some 
rare infection of some sort, or maybe someone had done something to him 
with a hypodermic syringe while her back was turned. Never could tell 
with Mulder.

But leukemia... no, not Mulder. Mulder wasn't the one due for a terminal 
disease. Mulder got into accidents. Or got infected by alien 
retroviruses. Or got beaten up by morphing aliens. Or stung by 
carnivorous insects. Whatever.

"Dr. Bryant wants me to start chemotherapy next week," Mulder said, 
breaking the silence. Dr. Bryant was one of two hematologists who were 
dealing with his case. The other doctor was a slightly older man, a Dr. 
Sullivan who was also an oncologist. Dr. Bryant was a polite man about 
Mulder's age who allowed Scully to discuss medical matters with him 
without thinking of her as a busybody intruder.

"Good, you should. The earlier, the better," Scully said. 

Mulder continued to stare dully at the wall. 

"You can be treated on an outpatient basis," Scully added. "And there 
are anti-nausea drugs you can take now whenever you receive chemotherapy 
to avoid getting sick. You can continue a relatively normal course of 
life."

"Oh yippee." Mulder responded with thinly veiled sarcasm.

Scully pursed her lips and held her tongue. Of course Mulder already 
knew all these things. He'd received his crash course in all matters 
pertaining to acute myelocytic leukemias from that very first day when a 
fresh-faced intern unceremoniously informed him that he had acute 
leukemia. He knew as much about leukemia and its treatment now as she 
ever would.

Dr. Sullivan had been the one to give Mulder a full-length explanation 
in his brusque, direct way. "Your bone marrow is producing too much of 
this immature white blood cell we call promyelocytes. Normally 
promyelocytes remain only within the bone marrow - the body's blood 
factory. But you have a lot of these promyelocytes in your blood. 
Leukemic immature blood cells are present in your blood when they should 
not be."

Dr. Sullivan had glanced pointedly at Scully as he said that last 
sentence. Scully had refused to accept his earlier diagnosis of leukemia 
and at the time was still expressing doubts over the accuracy of 
Mulder's lab results. In fact she hadn't been happy about Dr. Sullivan 
wanting to talk to Mulder before his diagnosis was properly confirmed. 

Dr. Sullivan continued his lecture while Mulder listened in sullen 
silence. "To rectify this situation we will start you on chemotherapy to 
destroy the leukemic cells. Alternatively we give high doses of 
chemotherapy to destroy the cells of your bone marrow, and then give you 
a bone marrow transplant from a healthy donor. Now, you have to 
understand that your bone marrow has basically gone haywire, hence the 
production of these leukemic white blood cells. And your condition is 
acute, so these leukemic changes are happening rapidly. At the same 
time, your bone marrow is not performing its other functions properly so 
you do not have enough red blood cells or platelets. We can rectify both 
problems, should the need arise, by giving you blood transfusions..."

Mulder had interrupted at that point. "If we are dealing with acute 
leukemia what complications will I have?"

Dr. Sullivan sighed sympathetically. "Well, I would worry about anemia. 
Your anemia is already quite bad now, I can only imagine it getting 
worse. Bleeding complications are a definite concern since your platelet 
counts are so low. Leukemic white blood cells will infiltrate your bones 
and organs so when this happens you have pain. These are the main 
complications. There are other complications which we'll deal with when 
and if they arise."

Dr. Sullivan had carried on, explaining the depressing facts to a very 
quiet Mulder and a stubbornly skeptical Scully. The gist of Dr. 
Sullivan's talk was that acute promyelocytic leukemia is the hardest 
type of leukemia to treat. The remission rate is low. Chemotherapy will 
have to be intensive. 

Scully heaved a soft, sad sigh. Looked like Dr. Sullivan's lecture had 
been well timed after all.

"I got a pamphlet for the American Cancer Society," Mulder blurted out 
absently. "I guess I should read it. My health insurance should cover 
costs of treatment. Everything costs so much. Covers for injury while in 
line of duty so it should cover this too. But it is an FBI policy so 
there might be fine print saying it doesn't cover... I suppose I should 
have bought another policy." He rubbed his arms again. "I swear if I 
never see another needle with a bore hole in it I will be the happiest 
man on earth. I am telling you fate can be so crappy. If I was fated to 
get sick and use up my insurance, couldn't I have just gotten a strep 
throat infection?"

Mulder was jumping from one thing to the other, saying things without 
expecting replies. Scully sighed inwardly. Mulder never confronted 
issues. He sidestepped them, analyzed them. She wasn't any better 
herself, she knew. 

"Mulder," she said carefully when Mulder stopped his rambling. "Do you 
feel you need time off from work? For a little while?"

He thought about it. "No, I don't think so. What was it you said once 
before? I need something to put my back up against." He paused. "That is 
once my back stops aching so much."

"And are you going to tell Skinner?"

"I shall have to," he said reluctantly. "He will find out sooner or 
later. Might as well have him find out from me."

The lines were more or less rehearsed. For the past four days they had 
already discussed what would happen if he really had leukemia, treatment 
options available for him if he really had leukemia, whether he would 
still be able to carry on with his work if he really had leukemia? They 
had discussed the leukemia theoretically, in a distant way as though it 
wasn't Mulder who was being diagnosed, but a third person individual. 
Both of them had clung on to the faint hope that Mulder was actually ill 
with something more mundane. Like maybe a bad case of anemia due to lack 
of iron - although logically, the odds of a previously healthy male 
developing that kind of problem were unheard of.

Both of them had purposely ignored facts that had been so plain to see. 
Mulder had lost weight. A lot of weight. Mulder was frequently tired. It 
wasn't unusual for her to look up from whatever she was reading and see 
Mulder nodding off at his desk. Mulder was pale and gaunt. She had 
noticed how Mulder's suits hung loose. And she had been worried enough 
to wonder aloud if maybe he wasn't feeling well. Mulder had simply 
replied that he was feeling crappy all right, but the flu bug should 
pass soon enough.

And the bleeding problems he'd had over the past month. She recalled how 
he had once asked her if it was normal for his gums to bleed. She had 
joked that maybe he had been brushing his teeth to hard. On one other 
occasion he had pointed out to her the dark bruises on his arms, the 
result of bleeding beneath the skin. She had been a little concerned but 
Mulder never mentioned the problem to her again after that and she had 
simply forgotten. At the time she had assumed that he had probably 
bumped against something.

Just recently he'd complained of joint aches which he had assumed was 
the result of him exerting himself while running. Once he mentioned to 
her that he felt like there was 'tenderness' in his bones but he'd 
mentioned it casually, without any sense of alarm.

Then the blood counts. And the bone marrow slides Dr. Sullivan had 
grudgingly allowed her to see. She was a pathologist for crying out 
loud, and she knew abnormality when she saw it. Mulder's bone marrow was 
not normal. But did she choose to accept the fact? No. Run more tests, 
that was what she'd demanded. So once again in the space of two days, a 
huge needle was inserted into Mulder's pelvic bone to obtain the marrow 
for biopsy. Mulder had not been amused that her zeal to find out what 
was wrong with him should involve so many needles.

The irony of it was that she was the one most at risk for having cancer. 
Two years ago she had disappeared, literally, off the face of the earth. 
No trace of her, no clues for three months. She was finally 'returned', 
barely alive, to a Washington hospital. Her recovery was a medical 
miracle. She was incredibly lucky to still be alive now. 

She had no memory of what had happened to her. She had total and 
complete amnesia of that three-month period. Then last year in the small 
town of Allentown she found out there were other women like her, women 
who had disappeared for months only to be returned later. They claimed 
they were abductees and that they had been forced to undergo horrific 
experimentation. They had had implants removed from various parts of 
their bodies, small metal implants which looked very much like the 
implant she had removed from the back of her neck a few months after she 
was returned.  Then they had claimed that they were all dying, 
succumbing to rare and lethal tumors. 

She hadn't known whether to believe them or to ignore them, but they 
were adamant that she had been one of them - that she was also an 
abductee. Besides there was the implant she had had removed from her own 
body. Under a microscope that piece of metal had looked like a 
sophisticated microchip. What was it doing in her body? She had that 
nagging worry ever since. Cancer. Those women had disappeared, had 
returned, had gotten cancer, and died. She had disappeared. She had 
returned. For now she was still healthy. She hoped.

"I don't want to burden you with this, Scully. I'm sorry."

Scully looked at him in surprise. He still wasn't looking at her, 
preferring instead to continue his perusal of the wall opposite his bed.  

 "What is there to be sorry for Mulder?" she asked gently.

"For getting sick on you." He glanced at her then, gave her a wry smile. 
"Always a lot of trouble aren't I? And you thought when you joined 
Pathology you wouldn't have to deal with live, troublesome patients."

"That was not the reason I chose Pathology as my field of expertise," 
Scully said. She meant for the sentence to come out as a resounding 
retort that might make him laugh but instead her words sounded lame. 
Mulder just shrugged and tried to move into a more comfortable position, 
but he winced loudly when he was jolted by pain in his lower back.

Scully wished she knew what to say or do. Mulder had closed his eyes, 
probably waiting for the pain to subside. She stared at his thin arms. 
He had lost so much weight and yet she had not noticed. He hadn't been 
this thin since the hypothermia, retrovirus infection, and coma in 
Alaska. She had been so scared for him then, he was so sick and she was 
trying every single antiviral drug in existence and worrying that if the 
alien retrovirus didn't kill him then maybe the antiviral drugs would.

What was she going to say to him now? Before they could discuss things 
theoretically. Now, the diagnosis was confirmed. No more doubts. Mulder 
had leukemia. They were going to have to accept that and move on forward 
towards the cure. Still how does one simply accept and move on? What 
could she say? 'Don't worry Mulder, you won't die! Even if you are going 
to die you should at least have another two months to enjoy! Be happy!'?
 
Mulder opened his eyes. "I am sorry, Scully," he said slowly. 
"Seriously, who knows how sick I will get, Scully? How long will I have? 
I don't want to scare mom..."

He stopped in mid-sentence and swiped at his face roughly with his hand. 
She thought he was going to cry, but he didn't. She knew he was scared, 
just as she would be scared if she were in his place. She knew that his 
mother would not know about this. In fact he had refused to allow her to 
inform his mother about him being in hospital. Oddly enough she 
understood. She wondered how she would deal with her mother and family 
if she discovered a tumor. She'd never told her mother about the 
possibility that she may be at risk for cancer.

"There is no need to be sorry for something nobody has any control 
over," Scully told him. "We never know what is going to happen or 
who..."

"No of course, we can't blame fate can we," Mulder interrupted bitterly. 
Scully was once again silenced. Mulder's emotions were a whirled up 
mess. Despondent one minute, angry and bitter the next. Perhaps she 
should just let him be, let acceptance sink in. 

"I've a big problem now, Scully, don't I?" Mulder murmured. He finally 
looked directly at her, his eyes sad and his spirit dismayed. Then just 
as Scully was about to comfort him, he gave a sudden harsh laugh. 

"Did I just say what I said? I have a big problem. Now isn't that the 
understatement of the year?" 

Scully patted his thin, bruised arm as she desperately searched for 
something to say. He was staring at the wall again. She remembered other 
times he had been sick or injured, when she would sit by his side 
waiting for him to wake up and heal.  Each and every time she had never 
doubted that he would recover. Mulder was no loser. She knew he would 
fight this with every ounce of strength he had. She just needed to 
remind him. 

"We'll be all right. We'll get through this." She grabbed his hand in 
hers and squeezed it hard. "We'll deal with the problem, Mulder. We 
always do."

She felt Mulder's fingers squeezing hers back in turn. And she heard him 
reply, in his low soft voice, "I know."


**********


Mulder rested his head against the window of the car and wished 
fervently that the pain in his lower back would just go away. There was 
simply no comfortable position for him to be in, the pain was always 
there. He had painkillers of course, carried them around with him 
wherever he went, but he didn't want to take the pills too often if he 
could help it. 

Pain in his elbows too, and in his arms. Three months after his 
diagnosis and the pain was everywhere. Amazing that he used to have a 
life totally free of pain. How blissful life must have been then.

He was still working is spite of the pain and constant fatigue. He was 
slow on his feet now, and slow in the head too thanks to the medication 
he was on, but he needed to work, even if his definition of work now 
meant him coming into the office for about half a day and then returning 
home exhausted after lunch. He was finding out new meaning to the term 
exhaustion.

Miserably he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel of the car. He was 
parked outside the building, waiting for Scully to finish up her work 
and join him for the arrest of Donald Webster, a pedophile and suspected 
murderer of six young children whose little bodies were found discarded 
in bushes beside major roads. Mulder had written the profile that helped 
the FBI track down the man.

It was close to the end of his second month back with the FBI's 
Investigative Support Unit as a profiler. He hated his current situation 
with a passion. He had never enjoyed his time as a profiler the first 
time around and he certainly wasn't enjoying himself now.

He was supposed to have rejoined the ISU three months ago when the 
division lost three of its agents in a car bombing incident but he 
managed to avoid the transfer by insisting that there was a lot of 
urgent X-Files work to be done. Skinner, as the superior agent in charge 
of the X-Files had seconded Mulder's motion. One month later, the ISU 
lost yet another agent when that said agent swallowed a bullet from his 
own gun. Mulder still held a grudge against that agent - the man may 
have been miserable and clinically depressed and wanted out of his life, 
but his suicide was now making Mulder's professional life intolerably 
stressful. The ISU was short on profilers and profilers were a special 
breed of people. You can't pick any man off the street and train him up 
to write profiles on deranged serial killers and homicidal mass 
murderers. Everyone at the ISU was severely stressed, incredibly 
over-worked and permanently depressed. 

The one little consolation was that when Skinner reassigned him back to 
the ISU he made sure Mulder was allowed to remain in his own basement 
X-Files office. Citing his health and treatment requirements as valid 
excuses, Mulder was not required to physically transfer over to the 
ISU's offices at the FBI academy in Quantico. 

Scully chose to remain in the basement office with him but was not 
working on any X-File either. She refused to teach at Quantico. She was 
now something of a resident FBI pathologist for the D.C. area, spending 
most of her time performing autopsies or viewing slides. Neither of them 
had been out in the field together in two months, although Mulder was 
sadly aware that even if they were still together investigating X-File 
cases, his health would not have permitted him to work in the field 
anymore.
	
Mulder checked his watch for the umpteenth time. Scully was more than 
fifteen minutes late but she hadn't called him on the cell phone. He had 
to assume she still wanted to come along. He certainly wanted her to. 
God, he missed fieldwork. He adjusted the cap on his head then tried to 
massage the ache out of his lower back. Damn, if Scully wasn't planning 
to come then he might as well just go home and sleep.

He had started wearing the baseball cap when he started losing hair as a 
side effect to chemotherapy. Not because he was vain, besides a baseball 
cap doesn't exactly hide baldness - but simply because he got sick of 
looking at himself in the mirror every morning and realizing that he had 
less hair on his head than when he went to bed the night before. 

So one morning he took the cap of the coat stand in his apartment, put 
it on, and never took it off. FBI agents do not wear caps, but no one 
ever said anything to him about it. He didn't know if it was because 
they were sympathetic with his situation or if it was because Skinner 
himself had said nothing about him blatantly flaunting the FBI dress 
code. He still wore his usual suit and tie though, so technically he 
wasn't actually breaking any rules. He just had that extra cap on his 
head. After all in the old days FBI agents did wear hats didn't they?

The door on the passenger side of the car was suddenly yanked open. 
Mulder startled awake. 

"Sorry I'm late," Scully panted as she entered the car. "I had trouble 
explaining some basic facts about decomposing bodies to a couple of 
rookie agents."

"You have to teach?" Mulder asked. He blinked the tiredness out of his 
eyes, then started up the car. He hadn't even realized when he'd dozed 
off.

"No, these are qualified agents," Scully replied. She was slightly out 
of breath. Must have rushed all the way out to the parking lot. "Part of 
a team of agents working on that organized crime case."

She glanced over at him as he drove. "Had your lunch?"

"Yeah," Mulder lied. He hadn't actually eaten anything since he vomited 
what he'd had for his dinner last night. 

"Still working on that case?" 

Mulder nodded and waited for Scully to nag. But she didn't. She just 
heaved an exaggerated sigh and stared out her window.

He was concentrating on a case nicknamed the Christmas Children case. 
Over the past five years five little girls disappeared on Christmas Eve. 
One little girl a year. The girls were all five years old at the time of 
their disappearance. Always the disappearance was during the Christmas 
Eve shopping rush - the mother would be forcing herself through a crowd 
of last-minute Christmas shoppers with her daughter in tow, then 
suddenly the mother would lose her grip on her daughter's hand and the 
girl would be gone. The little girl would turn up again on next year's 
Christmas Eve, in another city, dead. Cause of death was of air embolism 
- the murderer and presumably kidnapper would inject her in the heart 
with a syringe full of air, then lay her body out on a park bench. No 
other signs of abuse. Another little girl would disappear from that 
city, only to reappear in the same fashion a year later in another city 
far away. The pattern remained the same year in and year out.

Assuming the kidnapper kept the girl alive with him all year long, 
Mulder still had several months to track the kidnapper down before he or 
she killed the fifth girl, a beautiful long-haired blond named Samantha 
Ann Rebecca O'Connor.  The name was a terrible coincidence, a 
coincidence which Scully did not find amusing in the least. His own 
sister Samantha Ann Mulder had disappeared at the age of eight and was 
still missing after more than twenty years. Scully was of the opinion 
that having him try to track down little Samantha O'Connor would hit him 
too close to home.  

Scully was right about that of course. But professionally he had a job 
to do, he had to get Samantha O'Connor safely home before Christmas Eve 
regardless of how much heartache the attempt might cost him.

As he waited for a red light to change at an intersection he absently 
squeezed at a gnawing sharp pain in his arm. Scully watched him quietly.

"Just a little ache," he told her. The look on her face told him that 
she understood that his definition of  'little' was not at all the 
literal meaning. He immediately felt annoyed. 

There were times when he didn't mind Scully worrying about him. At least 
that meant he wasn't alone. She was his support, his pillar when things 
were looking bleak. But there were other times when he wished Scully 
wouldn't hover over him so much, wouldn't nag him about taking his 
medication or eating proper meals or about working too hard. Sometimes 
her concern for him could be plain stifling and annoying.

 Scully didn't pity him though. He was grateful for that. He hated pity 
more. Inevitably, for it was difficult to hide the effects of 
chemotherapy, just about everyone at work knew he was ill, and just 
about everyone went out of his or her way to be nice to him. He 
absolutely hated that. After all the years of people snubbing him and 
making derisive jokes about him, he now had to deal with people feeling 
sorry for him. 

And then there was Skinner. He couldn't help but feel that his superior 
could have used his authority and clout to deny Mulder's transfer to the 
ISU if he had really wanted to. Mulder had been honest with Skinner 
concerning his illness. Skinner had in turn expressed genuine concern 
about Mulder's state of health without exhibiting any of the forced 
sympathy that he often saw on the faces of coworkers. However Skinner 
was also the one responsible for keeping the X-Files out of his grasp.

During the first two months after his diagnosis Mulder had gone about 
feeling numb, rarely thinking about his illness. He could still pretend 
things were okay - his pain was intermittent, chemotherapy was only just 
beginning, fatigue wasn't a permanent state of being, he was still 
working with Scully on the X-Files. Then his pain became sharper and 
more frequent, chemo brought physical changes, his anemia got worse and 
he was kicked back to the ISU. 

Lately annoyance and anger were all he felt about a lot of things.  He 
was angry that Skinner transferred him back to ISU, thus preventing him 
from continuing his search for the truth. He was angry that some stupid 
arsonist had the gall to blow up three federal agents - if the three 
agents hadn't been killed in the first place, Mulder wouldn't be so 
desperately needed by the ISU and he would still be working on the 
X-Files with Scully. He was angry that in spite of intensive and 
sickening chemotherapy he was no closer to remission. No indication at 
all that he was winning his fight against leukemia. 

He was angry at his life that seemed now to be in tatters and at his 
future that now looked bleak. He was angry that when push came to shove, 
there wasn't anything more he could do to salvage his own health.  

Scully cleared her throat. Mulder braced himself for her annoying words 
of medical wisdom. 

"Light's changed," she said.

Mulder was forced to snap himself out of his ponderous self-reflection 
and drive.



*******



Twelve federal agents trooped into Donald Webster's front yard. Donald 
Webster lived in a comfortable house in a peaceful suburban 
neighborhood. There were little green shrubs planted along the length of 
the driveway, the yard was neat with the grass mowed down. The house 
itself was well kept. No peeling paint, no dusty windows. There were 
potted plants arranged around the porch. Not at all the stereotypical 
dilapidated hovel serial killers in movies were always living in.

Agent Yothers, a large man three or four inches taller than Mulder was 
the Violent Crimes agent in charge. It was Yothers who would earn all 
credit if they managed to apprehend Webster today. 

Mulder never bothered about who got credit though, and besides his 
position was very clear - he was the profiler who provided consultation. 
That was that, and that was all. He didn't even need to be here for the 
arrest. But Yothers had informed them when they were moving in on 
Webster and had asked would Mulder want to come along? 

The perfect opportunity for him to get out of the office, and for Scully 
to escape her presently mundane duties of performing autopsies. Both of 
them back together in the field.  He always felt a twinge of guilt that 
his illness was also affecting the quality of Scully's work. He was 
reminded again of how dull Scully's life had become when he saw the 
excitement on her face. He felt a little happier to know that at least 
today she would have some outdoor fun.

"Looks like the search warrant is just a formality," Agent Yothers told 
him. "Far as we can tell, nobody is home. He's gone off somewhere."

"Any problems getting the search warrant?" Mulder asked. 

"Not at all. He fits your profile like a glove and we've had him under 
surveillance for more than a week. He's our guy," Agent Yothers replied. 
"Your profile was a great piece of work by the way."

Mulder shrugged absently in a manner that could be construed as modesty.  
The truth was he didn't think of the profile as a particularly great 
piece of work. In fact he knew he could have gotten the profile written 
faster and in better detail if he hadn't been so tired from the 
chemotherapy and his anemia. 

Agent Yothers bounded up the front steps of the porch and jabbed down 
hard on the doorbell.  Matter of protocol and formality. Then he turned 
the doorknob. The door wasn't locked.

"Mr. Donald Webster! We are agents with the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation!" Yothers announced loudly as federal agents entered the 
foyer of the house. "We have a warrant here, allowing us to search your 
premises!"

Silence. The inside of Webster's house was just as neat as the outside. 
Lacy curtains framed the windows, carpets covered the floor. Magazines, 
old newspapers and books lay scattered around, but otherwise everything 
else appeared to be in order.

Federal agents spread out to start their search, some going back outside 
to the yard, others checking the rooms and basement. Mulder nodded at 
Scully as she went off into the den. Yothers came up beside Mulder.

"You want to search the living room?" Yothers asked.

Mulder shook his head. "No, I want to check his bedroom. Where he 
sleeps."

"Oh we can cover that for you," Yothers said. "Stay down here. Should be 
an easy search downstairs."

Mulder could see where this was leading. Yothers wanted to be kind to 
him without actually admitting that he knew how sick Mulder was. People 
like Yothers seemed to think that it was okay for him to spend days 
thinking like a killer to catch the killer, but these same people were 
concerned that climbing up stairs or crawling around looking for clues 
under furniture would make him sick while he was in their company. Like 
these people ever gave a damn about him before when he wasn't wearing a 
cap on his head to cover up the straggly wisps of hair he still had 
left.

"I need to see what he does every day in his room," Mulder said in an 
absent-minded tone. Then without waiting for Yothers' reply he headed 
upstairs to the bedrooms. 

There was another agent who smiled faintly at Mulder when he entered the 
first bedroom by the top of the stairs. Mulder tried to remember the 
agent's name... Agent Wilkins.

"Anything yet, Agent Wilkins?" he asked, looking around the room. It was 
the master bedroom, a very large room with a huge queen-size bed and a 
beautiful oak dresser set. Carpet on the floor. Connecting bathroom. 
Freshly worn shirt thrown carelessly on the loveseat by the window. 
Rumpled sheet with the comforter bunched up at the foot end of the bed. 
This had to be Webster's bedroom.

"Well, I've only just stepped into this room myself," Wilkins replied. 
"I was about to check the closet."

The closet was very big, the type of closet that could pass for a room 
by itself. Wilkins slid the door panel open and stepped inside. Mulder 
decided to tag along.

Lots and lots of dresses, blouses, skirts, slacks, sweaters, coats - all 
belonging to Donald Webster's deceased wife. The woman had died more 
than five years ago but her widowed, childless husband still kept her 
clothes. She had had a lot of clothes. Wilkins ran his hand past the 
dresses and clothes. Then one of the sweaters fell down.

Well actually, when Mulder had time to think about it, it looked more 
like the sweater jumped out.

Wilkins stumbled back against the other side of the closet, falling back 
onto a rack of shoes. Mulder suddenly found himself face to face with 
the number one suspect himself: Mr. Donald Webster, a spry-looking 
middle aged accountant with a bushy moustache and gray eyebrows. The 
suspect gave a snarl and before Mulder could even think of doing 
anything, he was punched in the stomach.

All the wind was knocked out of him. He coughed and tried to bend over, 
but Webster slammed him back against the wall of the closet. He choked, 
because of the punch to his stomach just now, and also because Webster 
had an arm pressed against his throat.

"Sons of bitches," Webster growled into his face. Mulder was starting to 
see purple spots before his eyes. He slammed his hands hard into 
Webster's face, pushing him away. Webster grunted and lost his grip on 
him, but just as Mulder started gasping for breath, Webster punched him 
in the belly again. 

Ignoring the terrible exploding pain, Mulder kicked at Webster as hard 
as he could. Webster grunted - Mulder had gotten him on the kneecap. He 
gave Mulder one final hard shove, then hobbled as fast as he could out 
of the room.

Mulder slowly sank down to the floor. He could hear the commotion out in 
the hallway. Other agents were going to get Webster, there wasn't 
anywhere Webster could run. Webster must have underestimated the number 
of federal agents who'd arrived to search his house. Either that or he'd 
just gotten scared of hiding and decided to chance his luck and bolt for 
it. 

Mulder pulled himself into a ball and rested his head on his knees, 
trying to catch his breath. His chest and stomach ached. Great. More 
pain to live with. He was so glad that Webster hadn't tried anything 
more gung-ho, like grabbing his gun.

"Mulder?" He was temporarily disoriented. It wasn't Scully calling him. 
He looked up and saw Wilkins squatting in front of him, looking 
concerned. That was something new. Wilkins was one of those agents who 
would usually not want to be seen breathing in the same room as Spooky 
Mulder. 

"Just let me catch my breath," Mulder gasped. Wilkins patted him on the 
shoulder.

"Did he hurt you?"

"Nah," Mulder shook his head. "But he knocked the wind out of me real 
good."

"Well, he gave me a good bump on the head," Wilkins said sourly. "I 
think I hit my head on an alligator skin shoe."

"My God, he has alligator skin shoes? I'll say that proves it. He's our 
killer." Mulder was mildly amused when that statement made Wilkins laugh 
out loud. 

Scully entered just then. Wilkins made way for her and she came into the 
closet to crouch beside Mulder.

"I'm fine Scully," he told her before she could say anything. She helped 
him stand up. His stomach and chest still hurt badly but he managed to 
stand up reasonably straight. He was looking around for his cap when he 
realized that it was still on his head. 

I've just been punched up for the hundredth time in life, but that's 
okay, no one saw me bald, he thought giddily. Scully was looking at him 
worriedly. She was going to suggest that he be taken to the hospital. He 
could see it coming.

"I think I'd like to go home now, if nobody needs me here anymore?" 
Mulder huffed. Best way to distract Scully from the idea of 
hospitalizing him was by admitting that he wasn't okay. Weird, but it 
seemed to be the best method to stay out of hospital.

It worked. Scully was still worried but at least she didn't look like 
she wanted to check every single rib in his chest for fractures. He had 
a vague idea that Scully would have done that already if Wilkins and 
another agent weren't in the room. 

Agent Yothers came in. "We have him," he stated simply. He touched 
Mulder's shoulder. "You okay? They say he attacked you?"

"He rushed at me," Mulder said. Oh boy, his chest hurt. "He was hiding 
in the closet."

"Hiding in the closet?" Yothers shook his head in amazement. "Now 
there's a very friendly way to react when federal agents visit your 
home."

"You doing the interrogation later?" Mulder asked. 

Yothers nodded. "There may be some interesting things in the basement 
that I can ask him about. And it will certainly be very interesting to 
find out why he felt it necessary to hide from visitors from the good 
old bureau of investigations. There's you profile to taunt him with too. 
Hey, Mulder, are you okay?"

Mulder couldn't quite keep up his charade of feeling fine anymore. He 
sagged against the wall behind him. Scully was already reaching up to 
feel his face. He managed to hold her hand off.

"You're trembling, Mulder," Scully said, deep concern in her eyes.

"Yes, well, Webster has a very bad effect on me, you know," Mulder said 
calmly. The pain in his chest was constricting, each breath was hurting 
him more and more.

"Where did he hurt you?"

"He surprised me, I fell back against the closet wall. That's all. I'm 
just feeling dazed. A little dizzy." Mulder couldn't help but feel 
impressed with himself. Wonderful liar he was, even under circumstances 
of severe pain. 

The other agents in the room were politely leaving the room. Apparently 
they felt Mulder and Scully needed to be alone together or something. 
Yothers was the only one who remained.

"Hey look, go home," he said to Mulder. 

"Oh, sure," Mulder snorted. "Chasing me off your turf are you? After all 
I've done."

"Yeah, I'm claiming all credit for the capture of Donald Webster," 
Yothers grinned. "Get out of here, Mulder. Get some rest. You sound like 
my asthmatic son. And look at you - you're shaking like a wet dog."

Yothers certainly had an apt way of describing things. Mulder silently 
wished yet again for those good old days when pain wasn't his permanent 
best friend. Scully tugged gently at his elbow to take him home. 


*******
		

The knocking on his door was persistent. Very determined visitor. Scully 
would have used her key by now. Since the visitor wasn't Scully, he 
wished the visitor would quit the knocking and go away.

The knocking stopped. Mulder waited, then heard the sound of a key 
turning in the lock. So it was Scully after all.

She walked in slowly, her heels tapping gently with each step she took. 
He heard her step up near his couch and heard the clunk of keys being 
placed gently on the table. There was silence, he knew she was watching 
him and wondering if he was asleep. He opened his eyes and looked up at 
her. 

She looked exhausted, but her smile brightened up her face. 

"How are you?" she asked. 

Mulder sighed, not moving from where he lay on the couch. "I hate Donald 
Webster."

"Everyone hates Donald Webster," Scully said grimly. "He's threatening 
to sue the bureau, claims he's a decent tax-paying American being framed 
for crimes he did not commit."

"Hmm, well I suppose it is every decent American's precious right to 
hide in the closet if he so desires. Found any hard evidence?"

"There were signs that children had been in the basement," Scully said. 
She took off her coat and sat down, grateful to finally get off her 
feet. She kicked off her shoes and leaned back.

"There was a small cot down there, a few toys, and a washroom. But there 
were no prints at all. Webster must have wiped everything clean. 
Forensics did find hair and fiber but it will take quite a while before 
we know whose hair, and whose clothes. Meanwhile Webster has called his 
lawyer who is apparently some big hot shot with ties to our esteemed 
Director."

"How convenient."

"His lawyer is threatening to have every agent who touched his client 
fired. And he's planning a separate suit for those 'agents who 
physically assaulted and brutalized' his client."

"Those are the lawyers who get to go straight into hell without having 
to line up," Mulder observed dryly.

Scully made a face. "Well, the Director has yet to say anything, and 
Yothers should have something concrete by tomorrow. Webster must have 
suspected that the authorities were onto him - he deleted his computer's 
hard disk, and destroyed his floppy disks but our computer guys might be 
able to undo what he's done to the hard disk. We are also trying to find 
out which websites he frequents, and if he has a homepage of his own 
dedicated to pedophile activity. But smart as he thought he was he 
wasn't able to destroy all his evidence. Our guys found film negatives 
in his trash."

"No kidding? I wouldn't have thought that he would be so careless."
 
"Not so much carelessness as pure coincidence combined with his bad 
luck. For whatever reason, garbage truck never came around to pick up 
his trash this morning. He must have only thrown things out last night."

"He should have known better. He should have burned his negatives. 
Honestly, I thought Donald Webster was a smarter man than that."

"Don't complain. If the negatives reveal pictures of all the kidnapped 
children then we can book him straightaway for kidnapping and murder. We 
can put him away forever and ever. Makes our job so much easier. We've 
also talked to his neighbors, but they claim to know nothing. That's 
amazing apathy for you. He must have kept each child hostage for months 
at a time in his basement but nobody realizes anything is wrong."

"Neighbors are usually the last to know, Scully."

Throughout the discussion, Mulder's discomfort was increasing. The pain 
in his chest kept flaring up each time he took a breath before speaking. 
He had to speak slowly, and had to keep pausing between sentences. 
Scully was staring at him suspiciously. He was still dressed in the 
shirt and pants he'd worn to work, and he hadn't eaten nor had anything 
to drink since he came home. He must look all rumpled up and pale and 
sick.

"Are you still dizzy?"

"No," Mulder said truthfully. His head was fine. It was his chest that 
was killing him.
 
Scully got up and came over to the couch. She felt his neck. "You have a 
fever."

Mulder brushed her hand aside when she tried to remove his cap to feel 
his head. But when he did that the pain made him wince.

"What's wrong?"

"Don't touch my cap. It's mine."

"No," Scully said, exasperated. "Are you in pain?"

Real bad pain actually, Mulder thought. The pain in his chest had gotten 
steadily worse since his little encounter with Webster. From the time 
Scully had dropped him off at his apartment, he had lain on his couch 
keeping as still as possible. That lessened the pain to a gentle 
continuous throb. Painkillers did not work.

Well, time to confess. "He sort of punched me in the midriff... now my 
chest hurts."

"You didn't say anything about him punching you!" Scully exclaimed. She 
tried to unbutton his shirt so she could examine him but he brushed her 
hands aside again and tried to sit up.

Very bad move. He almost passed out. The pain was so bad he didn't want 
to breathe because breathing would move his chest muscles and expand his 
lungs and he could feel his heart thudding in his chest but he wished it 
would stop because the thudding of his heart amplified the sharp 
throbbing pain in his chest. He heard Scully screaming his name but he 
couldn't answer her because he needed to save the air for his lungs.

"Don't," he managed to gasp when Scully grabbed the phone to call 911. 

"Mulder, you are going to the hospital!" Scully snapped as she punched 
the numbers.

"No, no, I've been in hospital enough times," Mulder whined. "I don't 
want to go."  Oh he shouldn't talk too much. He really needed to 
conserve his oxygen.

"You have to," Scully insisted. She relayed the necessary information to 
the emergency unit, then scooted over to his side again. He was turning 
a pasty gray color. She tried to get his pills for him.

"They don't work," Mulder moaned. She tried to make him swallow the 
pills anyway but he gagged. The abrupt jerking motions tripled his pain. 

Scully had never seen him in so much pain but there wasn't anything she 
could do for him, all his painkillers needed to be ingested orally. 
Nothing she could inject to relieve his pain. She wiped the tears away 
from his cheeks and could only hold him as he suffered through the 
onslaught of unbearable pain. 


**********




The night air was cool against his face. He tilted his cap back. He 
missed having soft breeze ruffle his hair. Funny the things you take for 
granted in life. He had never really cared about his hair. Cut it when 
it gets in his eyes, shampoo every once in awhile. He probably inherited 
male pattern baldness, sure, but that wasn't supposed to happen till he 
was in his forties.

The straggly wisps of hair left covering his scalp he covered with his 
cap. Wearing the baseball cap was now more a habit than anything else. 
Skinner had done a double take the first time Mulder went to see him in 
his office with the cap on, but had the discretion not to say anything 
about it. Following Skinner's lead, the rest of the FBI had tolerated 
his breach of protocol too.

He hugged himself to keep himself warm. He had on a double layer of 
clothing and a jacket on top of that. He shouldn't be this cold. It was 
a beautiful night, and despite the brightness from the lights of the 
city he could look up and see the stars twinkling above. There were 
couples strolling about, and couples making out on nearby park benches. 
Mulder sat alone on his bench, noticing for the first time how 
beautifully different the flowers in the park looked under the glare of 
artificial light. 

The last time he'd sat here waiting for someone was after the hacker 
broke into the Defense Department's computer files and stole the MJ 
Files. That was the catalyst that led to his father's death. He pondered 
about what he was about to do now and wondered if he'd finally lost his 
marbles after all. 

Terminal disease can do that to you.

He spent two weeks in hospital following what turned out to be a case of 
internal bleeding. Donald Webster had punched him very hard indeed. For 
the first few days he was in so much pain they doped him out of his 
misery. When he was finally lucid enough to recognize he was in the 
hospital, the first person he saw was his Scully, fast asleep with his 
hand by her cheek. The first thought in his head was, "She's here. She 
loves me after all."

He didn't know where that thought came from.  He was given a week to 
recuperate at home and the recuperation was strongly enforced by Scully. 
In fact he was quite worried that she might call him at home and suspect 
something amiss upon finding out he wasn't in. Today was his last 
'holiday' before trying to start work again tomorrow. He'd have to risk 
her wrath.	

The days in the hospital had forced him to deal with a fact he had been 
purposely ignoring since he was diagnosed with AML. He was dying. There, 
he could say it now. He was going to die. Unless he achieved remission 
through chemotherapy or got cured through a bone marrow transplant or 
unless some miracle kicked in, he was going to be dead before the end of 
the year. 

Never mind the Truth, it didn't care if he died. His sister Samantha... 
maybe she was dead, maybe she was still alive out there somewhere - 
maybe he would die without ever finding out. So never mind that. He had 
been searching for her all his life, but if his life were to end, then 
the search would also end. 

He could deal with not understanding the truth, of dying without 
answers. If he tried hard enough, and cried long enough, he could deal 
with it. But this didn't mean he was giving up. Far from it. He was 
determined to win this fight. He wasn't going to let leukemia kill him. 
He wasn't going to die now. Too much work to do. Scully to think of.

Still, facts were facts. He was dying. No more denial and curiously 
enough, no more anger either. And when one accepts the fact that death 
is no longer a mere rhetorical suggestion one has to make sure that 
things will be okay should the fight for life be lost. No more 
postponements. Time to write the will. Time to get the insurance.

He smelled the cigarette smoke before he felt the presence to his right. 
He didn't bother to turn around. 

"Nice evening."

"I would agree, Agent Mulder," said the man who had come to stand beside 
him. A long pause. "I heard that you aren't feeling well."

Mulder gave a mirthless chuckle. "Amazing the accuracy of the things you 
hear."

"Accuracy is a matter of importance to me." There was a soft smack of 
the lips. "Also I heard through the grapevine that you wanted to meet 
me."

Mulder was mildly surprised. Straight to the point, no beating around 
the bush, no dancing of words.

"Effective vines you have," he said. He hadn't been sure how he could 
successfully arrange a meeting with this man. In fact until the man 
actually materialized beside him a minute ago, Mulder had doubted that 
the meeting would actually take place. 

The man beside him lit a cigarette, but otherwise did not move. Mulder 
didn't offer him a seat. Smoke drifted towards him but he wasn't 
particularly concerned about second hand smoke now. He already had his 
own special cancer, why harp about lung cancer?

The two men remained silent for a long moment. Mulder fidgeted as he sat 
on the bench. Finally the cigarette-smoking man coughed, once.

"Very lovely night, Agent Mulder. But I doubt your health would permit 
you to stay here very long."

Mulder wondered if he should feel angry about the man speaking of his 
health that way, then decided that if he had to wonder whether he should 
be angry or not, then he shouldn't even bother.

He shrugged. "I wanted to talk to you. About truths, and answers."

"There are only answers when there are questions."

"Oh I have the questions. I assure you."

Ring of cigarette smoke floated up into the night. "You are certain that 
I would know the answers to these questions in your mind?"

"Simple questions really."

The man sneered, "So many simple questions still unanswered after all 
the hard work through the years?"

"Real truths are hard to find, sir." Mulder said, finally turning to 
look at the cigarette-smoking man. "For the moment I'd settle for your 
version of the truth."

"There is only one truth, Agent Mulder." The man seemed to be having fun 
with the play of words.

"Is it a truth you would share with me?" Mulder asked. Cancerman simply 
stared at him as he inhaled on his cigarette. "You would tell me about 
Agent Scully? Her truth?"

Mulder noted the incredulous look on the man's face. "Agent Scully?"

"Her abduction. What happened to her. What will happen to her."

"You want to know about Agent Scully?" There was no mistaking the 
surprise in the man's voice. As Mulder stared back at him, the 
realization dawned on him. Cancerman had expected Mulder to ask him for 
help in getting a cure for AML. He expected Mulder to demand to know 
where Samantha was, because if Samantha were alive, she could possibly 
be his bone marrow match and thus donor and savior. The man expected 
Mulder to use this meeting as a way of saving his own life.

"What is there to know about Agent Scully?" 

"I think you know," Mulder said. "I'm sure you know. This matter 
concerns her health in the near future? Perhaps you could be of help."

The man sniffed. "I know nothing about Agent Scully. Besides, why should 
I help you help her?"

"Because you like her. And you like me too," Mulder said as a sarcastic 
reminder. That was what Cancerman had claimed once, as Mulder was 
holding a gun against his head, demanding to know the truth following 
Scully's 'return' after disappearing for three months. He saw the mix of 
emotions on the man's face. Most apparent was disbelief. The man was 
still trying to understand why Mulder wasn't using this opportunity to 
save himself, or to find out something for his own purposes.

"Information like that will require time to..."

"I am afraid I cannot guarantee you the luxury of my time," Mulder said 
rudely. He saw the other man start. "I'm not trying to burden you here. 
I'm merely asking for Agent Scully's life. I would appreciate your help. 
I would pay your price, if it is a price I can afford."

The man wanted to say something, but changed his mind. He dropped the 
cigarette stub onto the ground and for a while just looked at his 
fingers. Then without a glance at Mulder he said quite gently, "Go home, 
Fox. You should rest."

The man walked off. Mulder watched him go, wondering if anything good 
would come out of the meeting. He had expected Cancerman to demand 
something perhaps, or argue the issue further. At the very least he had 
hoped the cigarette-smoking man would drop a hint or two about what 
Mulder had to know. He was certain that Cancerman knew the truth about 
the abductions of so many women, including Scully's. And he was quite 
sure Cancerman was aware of the cancer risk Scully now faced.

He hadn't known what else to do. All he had been sure of was, regardless 
of whether or not he survived AML, he wasn't going to let Scully suffer. 
He wasn't going to allow her to go through the cancer pains he was going 
through. He was going to find her a cure, and keep her safe. That was 
his insurance policy for her. 

			
**********



Mulder was back in hospital three days later. Pneumonia.

Things had been going so well too. After almost a month Donald Webster 
finally gave up his FBI frame-up theory and confessed to the sexual 
abuse and murder of six children over a course of seven years. He even 
disclosed his methods, which were eerily exactly what Mulder had 
described in his profile. It was sweet revenge for Mulder - the man who 
literally caused him so much pain was now going to rot in jail forever.

Then he developed a mild fever, and started coughing. Nevertheless he 
insisted on working. Until the very moment he 'collapsed' in Skinner's 
office. 

He was presenting this profile on the Christmas Children case to Skinner 
and an FBI senior liaison agent from California, a middle-aged man named 
Andrew Thorne. Andrew Thorne was trying very hard to understand Mulder's 
profile.

"You are saying that this man kidnaps all these girls because he misses 
his own little girl?"

Mulder nodded patiently and tried to ignore the tightness he felt in his 
chest.

Andrew Thorne frowned. "He is from a normal family, you say, nothing 
that would indicate he'd grow up to become a serial killer. He married 
young, probably divorced a few years later but had the time to father a 
little girl."

"Bitter divorce, and denied custody of his child," Mulder said. This was 
all in his profile, and they'd gone over this already. He was getting 
restless.

"I say again, why should that make him want to go around kidnapping cute 
little girls on Christmas Eve? A lot of estranged fathers out there are 
denied custody of their children. You don't see them dragging other 
people's kids home to pretend as their own."

"I never said this man was like other people," Mulder reminded Thorne. 
He coughed, then continued, "For whatever reason, his separation from 
his wife and child was incredibly harsh. His wife is likely to have 
remarried and relocated, taking the girl with her. His daughter is 
permanently out of his reach. He misses her, and he wants her back. 
Somehow he thinks by kidnapping these little girls every year, he can 
keep her with him."

"He kills them," Skinner said, joining the discussion. "Why would he do 
that? You suggested that the man cares for the girl as though she were 
his own daughter. Why kill her then, on Christmas Eve?"

Mulder had to finish another bout of coughing before he could answer. "I 
believe his final meeting with his daughter took place on Christmas Eve. 
That was the last time he saw his daughter, perhaps the last time ever, 
literally. She must have been fond of him then, but wherever she is now, 
she no longer remembers him. He is heartbroken about that  - his 
daughter has grown up and forgotten him. He takes a child to keep as his 
own, but he cannot keep her forever. He has to kill her at the end of 
the year because that is the only way he can keep her pure."

"He loves her but he kills her?" Thorne asked incredulously. "And 
explain this pure thing to me again, will you?"

"He thinks the girl can remain his and his only as long as she is a 
sweet young child, innocent and pure. He associates her growth with 
betrayal - he cannot afford to lose her that way. She has to remain 
pure, to remain as his. That is why his method of murder is so quick and 
bloodless. And he lays her body out in her most lovely frock, with 
ribbons in her hair. He cares for the child deeply, but he has to send 
her to heaven. That way she will never grow up and rebel, or forget 
about him. She will, in essence, remain his forever. But then he'll have 
to choose a new sweet angel to care for for another year."

Skinner and Thorne silently digested Mulder's words. Mulder meanwhile 
was starting to feel oddly lightheaded.

"You are certain this man will be in California?" Skinner asked.

"Positive, sir. The nature of his job allows him to travel from city to 
city, relocating every New Year. I surmise he must be a freelance 
writer, or perhaps a photojournalist. He is professional of some sort 
definitely. Male between the ages of thirty to forty-five, married very 
young but divorced before he was even twenty-five. He tries to pass 
himself off as the kidnapped girl's father. I don't know how, but he has 
managed to succeed in pulling that off. The girls accept him, and he 
never mistreats them. I am also positive that this time, with his fifth 
'daughter' he will try to send her to school. He is confident and secure 
in his methods now, and he feels he should provide his 'daughter' with 
all the life he can give. That's how we'll get him."

"I still need to know why you say he's in California," Skinner said.

Mulder coughed a couple of times, then insisted hoarsely, "I just know."

"Look Agent Mulder," Thorne began, shaking his head. "If you say he's in 
California, then maybe he is. If you say that he is crazy enough, or 
confident enough, or whatever, to send this girl Samantha O'Connor to 
pre-school, then I suppose weird things can happen. Why won't the girl 
squeal on him though?"

"As far as she is concerned, he is the one who feeds her, loves her and 
cares for her. She truly does adore him. She still misses her own 
family, but she has learned to live with him. It is possible that he 
keeps promising her that she will meet her family again soon. She won't 
squeal on him. Nor will anyone suspect anything. There are many cases of 
single fathers raising their daughters on their own."

"Therein lies the problem, Agent Mulder," Thorne sighed. "There are just 
so many single men raising children on their own. As there are so many 
single men moving in and out of California on assignment. And there are 
so many little girls with long blond hair who go missing every year."

"I have already suggested..." Mulder was unable to finish the sentence 
because he started a fit of coughing.

"Yes, yes, the face on the milk carton," Thorne said when Mulder 
stopped. "We do that for so many kids already. We simply do not have the 
manpower to comb the entire state in search of this little girl. And for 
all you know, she may not look anything like she was when she was with 
her parents. He might have dyed her hair or something."

"Do it for Samantha," Mulder wheezed. He saw Skinner's worried frown. 
Thorne was getting uncomfortable. "Her face on every milk carton. He 
won't change her. He has to keep her pure, straight through till death. 
Distribute her picture to every single pre-school in the state. Every 
single one."

"Do you realize how much..." Thorne didn't finish his sentence. Mulder 
started coughing and hacking so hard he had to hunch over in his chair. 
In fact Mulder was coughing so hard he wasn't able to breathe.




Skinner panicked when he saw that Mulder was coughing up blood. He 
immediately called an ambulance and then he also called Scully and told 
her, in what would no doubt go down in history as one of the greatest 
innocent exaggerations ever told, that Mulder had 'collapsed'. 

Scully's instinct and imagination immediately supplied her with the 
worst images possible - him dying of respiratory failure or him dying of 
respiratory distress, or him dying of whatever means available. She was 
there at Skinner's office about five minutes after the paramedics 
arrived, an amazing feat considering she was actually in a mortuary at 
the other end of the city. She must have broken every speed rule in her 
haste to get to the J. Edgar Hoover building. 

Anyway, by then Mulder was on the floor, propped against Skinner's desk, 
breathless and sick to the pit of his stomach but feeling very sheepish 
nonetheless about the whole fuss. The coughing fit had passed. The blood 
Skinner had seen him cough out wasn't really blood from his lungs. What 
had happened was that when he started his coughing fit he had clenched 
his pen too hard and somehow, had managed to impale himself in the hand 
with the tip of the ball pen. What one would call a freak accident. 

Outside Skinner's office a crowd had gathered, breaking strict protocol 
for the sake of curiosity. The paramedics were giving him oxygen and 
were waiting for him to feel clear-headed enough so he could follow them 
down to the ambulance. The pair of paramedics were kind and experienced, 
and understood that he still needed to retain a bit of his dignity, and 
that he would prefer to walk if he could, rather than be wheeled flat on 
a stretcher past the crowd of agents outside. Besides, pneumonia was not 
a condition where he was going to keel over and die so soon.

Skinner was unrepentant however, and was convinced that he had saved 
Mulder from the very threshold of death. When a distraught Scully barged 
in, Mulder couldn't help but roll his eyes heavenward and wonder what in 
the world had he sinned in life that would require such cruel 
humiliation as punishment. 

At least she calmed down quickly upon seeing that he was upright and 
conscious. The blood on his shirt, tie and hands alarmed her, but since 
he was still breathing, with a steady pulse and a lucid enough state of 
mind to be stubborn regarding his rights to walking out of Skinner's 
office, she concurred with the paramedics that death wasn't interested 
in him just yet. 

With the paramedics' assistance, he was walked out of Skinner's office 
ten minutes later, quite bloody, but dignity intact. Diagnosis of 
pneumonia was confirmed by doctors at the hospital, and like it or not, 
he was once again a bedridden patient.

Mulder still wondered sometimes what Special Agent Andrew Thorne thought 
of the whole thing. As he recalled, the senior agent had leaped out his 
chair and stayed as far away from Mulder as possible while Mulder was 
coughing his lungs out. He probably thought Mulder had AIDS, or 
tuberculosis. Mulder certainly was pale and sickly-looking. Andrew 
Thorne had looked at him very strangely when he came into Skinner's 
office with his cap on. Mulder couldn't really be bothered though. He 
just needed that agent to help him search for Samantha O'Connor. 
Unfortunately he had yet to hear anything from California. Or maybe 
Skinner and Scully were suppressing the information from him.

Didn't matter. Today was his last day in hospital. He'd been allowed 
home leave. The pneumonia had cleared up after huge doses of 
antibiotics, but on the other hand he was becoming even worse - he 
needed a bone marrow transplant and he needed it quick. His name was 
already on the list for urgent bone marrow transplant and they were 
trying to find a donor for him through the National Registry of bone 
marrow donors. 

There was nothing more that could be done until a bone marrow donor was 
found.  That would probably take quite a while. The donor would have to 
an anonymous, non-related donor since Mulder had no relatives who might 
provide him with the marrow he needed. Well, maybe his sister Samantha 
could have, but well... 

Meanwhile, he had developed ulcers in his mouth and throat. Painful 
white ulcers that made it hard for him to swallow his own saliva, what 
more swallow food. He gave up solid foods. The only reason he drank 
anything was because Scully literally forced the fluids down his throat. 
And if Scully weren't around to do that, the sweet nurses on his ward 
were more than happy to do so on Scully's behalf.

The nurses were otherwise simply wonderful, fun and gentle. They flirted 
with him shamelessly and gave him sponge baths, and shaved him even when 
he didn't need shaving. Best of all, they allowed him to wear his own 
T-shirts and sweatpants rather than hospital gowns. Another unexpected 
source of joy was the company he got from his fellow patients in the 
ward, most of whom he'd gotten to know from the numerous times he came 
for chemotherapy and checkups. 

These new friends knew what life was really like for someone with 
terminal illness. He could talk to them about things he would never even 
broach with Scully. He could grumble about the pain. He could complain 
about his lost freedom. He could compare withdrawal symptoms when nurses 
were late with the drugs. He could crack jokes about death and not worry 
about mortified expressions on the faces of his listeners. Finally, at 
this stage of his life, he had found the perfect ensemble of friends to 
hang out with. Now, if only they wouldn't keep dying on him...

Scully visited him often enough that more than one person had asked if 
she were his wife - now that was among the more amusing propositions 
he'd heard in his life. Scully's mom came to see him once in a while, 
bringing flowers to cheer up the room each time she came. Skinner 
dropped by when he could, and was always sending his regards through 
Scully. The Lone Gunmen came to see him when they were certain there 
were no government surveillance teams at the hospital. His room was 
decorated with more than a dozen 'Get Well Soon' cards, most from people 
he never imagined would care. A few colleagues from the bureau had 
visited him also, much to his pleasant surprise. Even the Director of 
the bureau had sent him a personal Get Well note, as well as a letter of 
commendation that his profile had aided in the capture and arrest of 
Donald Webster. 

So many people wishing him well. When previously so many people just 
wanted him out of the way. While it was nice to have visitors to help 
break the monotony of hospital life, he was oftentimes embarrassed if 
the people visiting him were not close personal friends. They could 
never hide the pity in their eyes whenever they talked to him. He was so 
thin now, and so pale. And weak. He hated that most. Weakness was not 
something you wanted others to see.

His own mother remained naively unaware of his deterioration. He had 
informed his mother about the leukemia the day before he started his 
first round of chemotherapy. Her reaction had been one of severe grief. 
She came to see him twice, and both times she had fussed over him like 
he was a child. She hadn't paid that much attention to him since he 
graduated from high school. While he called her fairly often, every two 
or three days, he would tell her the same reassuring words each and 
every time; that he was feeling fine, that he was responding incredibly 
well to treatment, that he had no problems at work. White lies so his 
mother wouldn't know the painful truth. 

It hurt to have to lie to his mother so consistently but he felt that 
having her know the truth was just as damaging. He had always felt an 
urge to protect his mother, a behavior response that probably stemmed 
from his earlier failure in life to protect his sister. His mother 
hadn't actually seen him since her last visit more than a month ago. He 
had since lost a further fifteen pounds and was now pale as a ghost. The 
last thing he wanted his mother to have to deal with was him looking 
like a wraith. 

			
*******


Scully rapped loudly on Mulder's door before opening it. She made it a 
habit to knock first before entering ever since that day she had walked 
in while he was having his urinary catheter inserted. He hated the whole 
process, the whole indignity of it and he had been mortally embarrassed 
that she had seen him. 

Scully came in carrying a paper bag. Mulder grinned. She hadn't 
forgotten. Since the ulcers in his throat and mouth prevented him from 
eating solid foods, Scully had suggested that maybe she should feed him 
ice cream. 

He was sitting in bed, propped up against a couple of pillows. She came 
up beside the bed and lifted out a small tub of chocolate ice cream from 
the bag. She also picked out two plastic spoons, one for him, and one 
for her. Mulder took the proffered spoon and scooped a bit of ice cream.

"Good?" she asked as Mulder slowly swallowed and licked his lips. 

"Can't tell you if it's good or not, Scully," Mulder said honestly. "But 
I can tell you that I like it." The sweetness of the ice cream countered 
the awful bitterness of drugs on his tongue, and cool ice cream slid 
down his throat without friction against the ulcers. Taste was the least 
of his concerns. His taste buds were pretty dysfunctional after all the 
drugs he'd been consuming.

"That's what a girl wants to hear. That her man likes the ice cream she 
feeds him."  She swallowed her own scoop of ice cream. Mulder chuckled.

"How's work?" Mulder asked. He desperately missed being with her during 
the day. She came to see him during lunchtime only if she were free, if 
she were busy then he'd have to wait till evening for her to visit. By 
then she would be tired and he would be drugged up because his pain was 
always worse in the evenings.

"Oh Mulder, one word," Scully said, rolling her eyes. "Boring. I'm 
turning into the resident forensics expert. Never a chance to step 
outside the office. Simple, routine investigations. Nothing that taxes 
the mind."

"So get an X-File," Mulder suggested.

She was surprised. "Get an X-File? You mean get a new case?"

"Yeah. Skinner has anything against a new X-File?"

"Well, no," Scully said slowly. "You know he doesn't. In fact he asked 
me about it the other day. He jokes that he misses the feeling of 
absolute confusion he used to get after reading our case reports."

"Then go back and pick out a case, investigate. Skinner needs humor in 
his life. Humor him."

"No Mulder, you need rest. You're in absolutely no condition to 
investigate anything. No chasing after alleged alien life forms."

Mulder sighed. Was she being obtuse on purpose here?

"Go get a case and investigate it yourself, Scully. On your own."

"Investigate an X-File on my own?" Scully echoed. She sounded doubtful. 

"Yes, Scully. Skinner will approve whatever case you want. You are the 
other half of the X-Files. And the X-Files have been kept in cold 
storage for long enough, don't you think?"

"But Mulder, I have never investigated an X-File all by myself!" 

"Scully," Mulder said patiently. "Sooner or later, 'they' will shut down 
the X-Files if nothing is going on. The X-Files will be an inactive 
division existing for no known purpose. It would be the perfect excuse. 
Now I don't want them to win on account of my being sick and not being 
able to work in the field. So one of us will have to keep the X-Files 
active, keep producing results. Solve cases."

Scully remained silent so Mulder continued, "Once they shut us down this 
time I don't think there will be an easy way to get the X-Files back. 
Who knows how long I'll be sick? And once I'm well enough to work 
Skinner'll probably assign me permanently to the ISU or Violent Crimes. 
You will be part of the permanent teaching staff at Quantico, or 
assigned a different partner in a different division. It'll be so easy 
for them Scully, to be rid of us without any mess or scandal."

"I have never investigated an X-File by myself." Scully repeated.

"So? Now you can."

Scully opened her mouth, took a breath, then clamped it shut again 
without saying anything. She looked down into the tub of ice cream.

"Tell you what. You choose what cases you think will be worth your salt. 
You can bring the case files home to me. We can still discuss the cases 
together even if I can't follow you around. Then, once I'm strong 
enough, I will follow you around, be your driver. Promise I'll stay in 
the car and keep away from large men with huge fists."

Scully smiled sadly. What she could not say to Mulder was that she did 
not want to investigate an X-File by herself. She did not want to solve 
a case by herself. Maybe there had been times when she wished to be 
recognized as her own person rather than Mrs. Spooky, but now she only 
wanted to work with him. She didn't want to be alone in the middle of 
the night on some deserted stretch of highway tracking down clues. Her 
heart would break if she had to work alone.

"Okay?" Mulder asked gently. 

Scully gave a slight nod, very slight inclination of the head. She would 
have to think about this when she got back to the office. Mulder 
accepted her nod as agreement, and went back to his ice cream.

"So tomorrow you can come home," she said, hoping to lighten the mood.

"Oh yeah," Mulder said dreamily. "And first thing I do when I get home, 
I'm gonna sleep with the TV left on, without anyone waking me every two 
hours asking if I need a sleeping pill." He paused, glancing at Scully. 
"You don't mind me sleeping with the TV on?"

He would be going back to Scully's apartment, not his own. He needed 
someone to be with him should he run into an emergency or become sick. 

"So long as you behave yourself and not watch anything I would never 
watch," was Scully's answer. 

"You mean I can't watch arm wrestling championships?"

Scully snorted. "You know what I mean," she said firmly. She was fully 
aware of Mulder's fascination with naked women prancing around doing 
who-knows what in X-rated movies.

Mulder shrugged absently and maintained his innocent expression. Then he 
asked, "You took my clothes already?"

"Yes." She eyed him carefully. "You realize most of your clothes are 
going to be too loose for you."

Mulder sighed. "I know. You think I can still wear my suits?"

"You aren't thinking of going to the office?"

"Well, you know I can't Scully. I'm too sick. But I do miss the FBI. 
Believe it or not, I miss the smell of exhaust smoke in the bureau's 
basement parking lot?"

Scully chuckled and shook her head in wonder. "I frankly do not 
understand the things you choose to miss."

"Well there are so many other things. I miss being with you, that's 
another thing I miss. And I miss swimming. I miss rain. I miss getting 
wet with you in the rain. I miss wearing my overcoat and walking around 
with you. I miss anyplace that does not smell of antiseptic. I miss you 
not agreeing with me."

He missed her. Scully felt her heart lighten up to know that. He missed 
her, he missed doing things with her. 

"I don't always don't agree now do I?" she chided gently. "Don't you 
miss when I agree with you?"

"You've been agreeing with me a lot lately," Mulder said. He had stopped 
eating although the tub was still a quarter full of melting ice cream. 
She didn't try to force him to finish it.

"You haven't been stubborn lately," Scully said lightly as she put the 
tub aside. She didn't notice the sudden sadness in his eyes.

"It's too tiring to be stubborn now," Mulder said quietly. 

Scully heard the resignation in his voice. She straightened up and gazed 
at him, taking in the pale haggard face, the cap on his head, the 
hollows of his cheeks. There wasn't much of him left, really. How much 
did he weigh now? A little over a hundred and ten pounds? On a six foot 
frame. She made a soft clucking sound at the back of her throat. She 
reached out, stroked his arm.

"You should gain weight, Mulder," she said. "When you come home with me 
I'm going to make sure you eat everything I cook for you."

"Make sure you cook mush then."

"Oh Mulder, you want me to go all mushy over you?" It was a corny 
attempt at a joke, a mild attempt to cheer him up but it worked. He 
laughed. The fleeting feelings of self-pity were wiped away.

Scully gave him a pat on his cap, picked up the paper bag into which she 
had deposited the dripping ice cream tub and stood, ready to leave.

"It's time to go?" Mulder asked, surprised.

Scully smiled and said, "Well, yes. I was hoping to take a little walk 
with a friend of mine before going back to the office. I hope you don't 
mind."

Mulder twitched his lips. "Mind? Now why would I mind if you wanted take 
a walk with someone instead of staying in this room?" He injected a tone 
of indignation into his voice but his eyes were merry.

"Good then," Scully said. "I was worried you wouldn't approve."

"Can't decide what things you ought or ought not to do now can I?" 
Mulder said sulkily even as he accepted Scully's outstretched hand. She 
helped him get out of bed, then helped him with his sneakers.

"So it'll be all right for me to go?" Scully asked once he had his 
sneakers on. She held the walker ready for him.

"Oh sure," Mulder sniffed. "Go ahead. Obviously I can't force you to 
stay."

Scully laughed. She slipped her free arm around his waist and together, 
they walked slowly down to the lobby of the hospital and from there to 
the small garden on the hospital grounds.






Scully knew something was wrong. She stepped out of the elevator half 
expecting shouts of panic and medical staff in chaos. She didn't know 
why the deep feeling of foreboding should haunt her. Mulder was fine. He 
was coming home with her tomorrow.

She was late in visiting him this evening. After spending time with 
Mulder in the hospital garden she had to go back to the office for the 
afternoon, but promised to return to the hospital by dinnertime.  Once 
at the office she found out that she had been saddled with the duty of 
performing an autopsy on a gruesome body left in a drainage pipe for 
more than two weeks. The body stank terribly and the stink permeated her 
clothes and hair. Disgusting. She had gone home for a shower and a 
change of clothes before coming to the hospital. She had gone home, 
ignoring the feeling in her gut that she should go to the hospital 
instead, no matter how much she stank or how dirty her hair and skin 
felt. 

Her stomach growled. Her feeling of unease had been such that she had 
rushed out immediately without having dinner first. She had broken out 
in cold sweat as she was driving to the hospital, it took all of her 
willpower not to break the speed limit.

The corridor was calm, no shouting, no emergency alarms. Everything was 
fine. Mulder was fine.

Scully berated herself for almost giving in to irrational fear.

She walked past the nurses' station. There was only one nurse there, 
bowed over a patient's chart, jotting something down. The nurse didn't 
look up as she walked past. For no fathomable reason Scully started 
walking faster. She had to get to Mulder's room. She had to get there 
fast.

His door was ajar. A nurse aide was leaning against it. She heard voices 
inside the room. Nurses were in there, and Dr. Bryant was beside the bed 
giving orders. 

Oh God, she was right. Something was wrong with Mulder.

"What is this?" She demanded to know in her most authoritative voice. It 
came out sounding high and shrill instead.

Dr Bryant turned around, saw her and came towards her, effectively 
blocking her view of Mulder.

"He had a seizure," he told her. She gaped at him. 

"Why?" She demanded.

Dr Bryant shrugged. "Don't know. He was fine half an hour ago. Was given 
his painkiller and sleeping pill. Seized suddenly. Grand mal seizure. 
Things are under control now. You understand this means he can't go home 
tomorrow."

"No, no, of course not," Scully said, without really caring what Bryant 
was saying. She needed to see Mulder, needed to comfort him. Oh God, why 
the seizure? She tried to push Bryant aside so she could get to Mulder. 
Bryant gave way to her.

Mulder was sprawled on the bed, his limbs limp, his face turned to one 
side. His breath hitched in his chest. He was otherwise silent and 
still. The blanket was twisted around his legs, the sheet was pulled out 
in one corner and someone had removed his pillow. He was bleeding. 
Somehow his IV needle, which had been left in his wrist even though he 
wasn't actually being given anything intravenously, had been yanked out 
while he was seizing. Blood all over his hand and arm, all over the 
sheet, blood on his T-shirt and face.

He was going to loose a lot of blood if nobody did anything about that 
bleeding, Scully thought in a detached clinical way. 

She knelt down beside the bed so that her face was level with Mulder's 
face. His skin was gray. His chest rose and fell with each gasp. She 
touched his cheek and called his name softly.

His eyes flickered open. Glazed eyes, not quite focussed. She could see 
that he was in pain. His lips quivered as he tried to speak.

"Shhh," Scully whispered, stroking his head. "It's okay." Out of the 
corner of her eye she saw someone trying to staunch the bleeding from 
his wrist.

He was trying very hard to keep his eyes on her. His lips moved and she 
heard something, very soft, but she couldn't make out what he said. More 
like a gentle exhalation of air. 

"No, don't say anything. I'm here. You'll be fine." Meaningless words 
that she hoped would comfort him.  Beside her the nurse was finding out 
that he wouldn't stop bleeding. She heard someone order one unit of 
blood and one bag of platelets for transfusion. Dr. Bryant was leaving 
the room.

His lips moved again and this time she read his lips. He was trying to 
say her name. He was trying to say 'Dana'. She realized he wanted to 
apologize to her for causing this trouble, he didn't want her to have 
this new extra burden. 

She placed her finger on his lips, silencing him. She moved closer to 
him and whispered into his ear, "I know, Mulder. It's all right. I 
know."

Her lips brushed his forehead. When she drew back he was still looking 
at her, but he was quiet. She continued to stroke his cheek and whisper 
sweet nothings.

Suddenly she felt his body jerk. He turned away from her and moaned. She 
flung an arm over his chest, thinking he was going into another seizure. 
He jerked again but this wasn't a seizure. She stood up and touched his 
face, trying to get him to look at her.

"Mulder?"

His eyes were wide, vacant, not really seeing her. He whimpered and 
tried to pull away from the two nurses holding on to his arms. It was 
the pain. The pain was getting bad.

"Where's his painkiller?" Scully snapped. The two nurses were still 
fighting to hold on to Mulder's arms, who was fighting even harder 
against them. A nurse aide was standing by the foot of the bed, holding 
a new saline bag.

Scully growled at the aide, "Get him morphine now! He's in pain damn 
it!"

The nurse aide gawked at her for a second, long enough for Scully to 
start yelling again. The aide hurried out of the room, leaving the 
saline bag on the trolley. Scully could not believe the sheer stupidity 
of the night staff to rush in to attend to a cancer patient without 
bringing any painkiller along.

Mulder was thrashing in bed, a sure sign that the pain in his back was 
so bad he had lost all control to rationalize or wait. 

Scully recognized very well the stages of Mulder's pain. At the very 
beginning he would fidget and shift about as the pain caused discomfort 
rather than distress. Then he'd become still and quiet, if he spoke his 
words would be monosyllables with his gaze averted from her eyes. As the 
pain progressed he would start to clench his hands into fists, or take 
to grabbing handfuls of blanket to clench, all in an effort to maintain 
control and stop himself from screaming. 

It frightened her to see how bad the pain was this time. He was 
whimpering, crying. She was trying her damnedest to comfort him and stop 
him from thrashing about even as she cursed the aide for being slow with 
the morphine. The nurse holding on to his bleeding wrist had let go of 
his arm, or maybe her gloves slipped because of the blood on her gloves 
and his arm. He was bleeding freely, yet another thing for Scully to 
curse about. Where was that unit of blood and where was that bag of 
platelets?

The aide finally returned with a syringe, together with two nurses and 
Dr Bryant. It took four people to hold him still long enough for Dr 
Bryant to inject the morphine. Then it was almost five minutes before 
Mulder stopped thrashing and just lay there, spent. 

Scully wiped the tears away from his cheeks. He was still awake, barely 
coherent. But he tried to smile when he saw her. She smiled back and 
furiously blinked the tears from her eyes. She didn't say anything 
because there wasn't anything to say. He was drugged now. That was what 
was important. No pain till morning.

				
*******


The loud rap on the door startled her. She turned around and saw 
Assistant Director Skinner standing awkwardly by the door. 

"Agent Scully," he said.

"Sir," she responded politely. He came into the room slowly, hoping, she 
supposed, not to wake Mulder up. But she already knew that Mulder wasn't 
going to wake up any time soon.

"You applied for emergency leave today," Skinner said as he settled down 
into the chair beside her. "Since I had some time to spare I decided it 
would be best to come and see if everything was all right."

"Thank you for your concern," Scully said quietly. 

Skinner nodded towards Mulder. "I thought he was going home today."

"We both thought he was going home today," she replied as she stroked 
Mulder's arm. "But it looks like he'll have to stay a few extra days."

Skinner frowned. "What happened?"

"He suffered a seizure last night."

Skinner paled visibly. "My God," he exclaimed. "Is he all right?"

"He'll be okay," Scully said. She shook her head sadly. "But it's just 
not fair, you know," she added softly. "He was getting so much better." 
She looked up at Skinner's concerned face.

"There's a bit of a problem with his blood coagulation - the clotting of 
his blood. Disseminated intravascular coagulation. DIC."

"Is this problem related to his... um, illness?"

Scully noted that even after four months Skinner still had trouble 
saying the word leukemia out loud. She nodded in response to his 
question. 

"There is a connection. You see the clotting of human blood is 
accomplished when a cascade of coagulation factors react with each other 
to trigger the blood-clotting mechanism which works in tandem with the 
body's platelets to stop any bleeding. Normally the cascade of 
coagulation factors, which you can think of as chemicals, is set off 
upon injury. In Mulder's case though, leukemic promyelocytic cells are 
releasing the chemicals that trigger the clotting cascade. The clotting 
mechanism takes place in the absence of any injury. So small tiny clots 
form throughout his circulation and within the organs."

"Cascade?"

"The release of one chemical will initiate the release of another 
chemical, that will then initiate the release of yet another chemical, 
so on and so forth. All these chemicals react together to accomplish 
blood coagulation. A cascade of coagulation factors."

"Resulting in his blood clotting even though there is no injury?" 
Skinner guessed.

"Yes." Scully nodded. "And since there is no injury for the clots to 
cover up, the clots lodge within the body's internal organs."

"Is this condition fatal?" Skinner asked hesitantly.

Scully paused before answering his question. She gazed at Mulder as he 
slept his drugged sleep - he had been given more morphine early in the 
morning, and he wasn't expected to wake up any time during the day.

"DIC can be fatal," she said, keeping her voice steady. "But it is 
treatable. He's being given anticoagulants intravenously. Anticoagulants 
will prevent further formation of clots and dissolve the clots already 
present in his circulation. Ironically enough, at the same time that he 
is having these coagulation problems he is also bleeding internally due 
to lack of platelets. His body is not producing enough platelets which 
are necessary for blood clotting and preventing him from bleeding some 
more. We'll need to maintain a careful balance of platelets and 
anticoagulants for transfusion."

"What about the seizures?"

"Probably the result of clots in his brain," Scully answered. She 
sounded professional and clinical but she feared that her calm facade 
might crack at any moment. "Clots can be in the brain, in the lungs, in 
the kidneys. Can lead to organ failure, but since Mulder will be 
monitored very closely from now onwards this isn't going to happen 
again. He'll be fine."

She kept her face averted from Skinner. Tears were brimming in her eyes. 
Everything was crashing in on her. She had willingly accepted the burden 
of being the close friend of a terminally ill person, but she hadn't 
been prepared for the emotional anguish that accompanied Mulder's steady 
deterioration.

In the beginning she had been optimistic and supportive. She learned to 
steer clear of Mulder when he was feeling depressed, but remained by him 
when she felt he needed her company. She checked that Mulder was 
receiving the proper treatments, that he was taking his medication and 
his vitamins. They rarely spoke about his illness, but they both knew 
she was the one watching over him. She was the strength Mulder depended 
on.

But he kept losing weight, and his appetite dwindled away to almost 
nothing. Her heart ached to see him wither so quickly before her very 
eyes. He came to work, but he became weaker and weaker. His pain 
escalated but she could do nothing. Her heart broke that day when she 
walked into the office and saw Mulder wearing his cap for the first 
time, but he had been jovial about the whole thing and she was forced to 
fake her humor for his sake. And her heart was heavy to accept the fact 
that Mulder's gray pale pallor was permanent, that rosy pink cheeks were 
not something she should expect to see in his face in the near future.

She blinked the tears away. Skinner was saying something about the 
X-Files.

"I feel perhaps it would be for the best," Skinner ended. She'd missed 
the earlier part of what he had said.

Scully glanced at him. "Sir?"

"For you to take over at this point."

"The X-Files sir?"

"Yes," Skinner said. "You will officially be the agent in charge as long 
as Mulder is on sick leave. Then once he's ready to come back, he'll 
have to re-qualify as field agent but we can settle that when the time 
comes."

"Did Mulder express this desire to you?"

Skinner looked puzzled. "I beg your pardon?"

"Did he ask you to do this?"

"No," Skinner said, somewhat taken aback. "I thought this would be the 
best course of action. I assumed that you and Agent Mulder would agree 
with this change."

Scully knew for a fact that Mulder would support the change. "Will I be 
working alone?"

"If you feel you need additional hands to help, then you can send in a 
request later. I think you'll be just fine. Mulder handled the X-Files 
by himself for quite a while before you joined him."

"I see," Scully said. So she wasn't going to have a have a rookie agent 
around to debunk her work.

"Is he getting better? I mean, aside from this... problem?"

Scully looked at Skinner thoughtfully. This man had helped them through 
so much. He really did care about them. His concern for Mulder was 
always genuine.

"We can cure his leukemia," she responded vaguely. She didn't want to 
mention the bone marrow transplant until she was certain that it was 
definitely going to happen. Somehow by not talking about it, she didn't 
have to keep her hopes too high up.

"The seizures won't affect him? I mean, no brain damage or anything?"

"It was just one seizure," Scully corrected. "Just a seizure. Not a 
stroke or a major head trauma. He'll be all right, really. We can handle 
this." 

"Well I'm sure he'll pull through. Nothing seems to keep him down for 
long," Skinner observed optimistically. He patted her shoulder 
affectionately. Then he mentioned that he had to get back to the office 
for a meeting, and wished Mulder a speedy recovery.

He left and Scully sat alone beside Mulder's bed, watching the gentle 
rise and fall of his chest. So now she was the one in charge of the 
X-Files. What a day. First her partner suffers a grand mal seizure - bad 
news. Next her boss tells her she's just been promoted - great news, 
even if she didn't exactly cherish the thought of working alone without 
Mulder as her partner. 

Wonderful even balance of distress and jubilation, but no one to talk to 
about it.  She felt so lonely, so sad. She stared at Mulder's gaunt 
face, at the permanent dark shadows beneath the eyes, at the protruding 
bones of his elbows, and wondered idly if she might have cancer one day, 
and become like Mulder, and how she would handle it. Mulder handled 
things rather well, all things considered. He had continued to work for 
as long as he was able, rarely complaining. He didn't speak too much 
about the future, nor did he dwell too much on his past. 

But how would Mulder handle it if she became sick too? She pushed that 
thought aside. After all, there was no solid evidence that said she was 
prone to developing tumors. Might be all pure coincidence - she wasn't 
really an abductee like the rest of those women. She couldn't be.


**********