************
Chapter 12
************

Tillman residence
November 6, 2000
11:50 p.m.

Sounds penetrate his light slumber, teasing him awake.  He
stirs and they skitter like mice to hide in the dark corners
of his consciousness.  Unidentifiable, yet familiar and
unsettling.  Janine must be home, Tillman thinks, sprawled
on his back across the living room couch, forearms shading
his eyes.  About Goddamn time, too...

His mind lurches awake in the dimness.  Creak of the stairs,
the floorboards.  A nearby rustle of clothing.  Opening one
bleary eye he peeks, hoping to catch her mid-sneak and drive
the nail of guilt deep into his prodigal spouse.

Instead, Benjie's diminutive body comes into focus.

"Hi, Champ."  Though surprised by the boy's unexpected
presence and close proximity, he whispers so as not to scare
him.  "You okay?  Do you need a drink of water?"

The child drifts past him toward the kitchen, oblivious.
Sleepwalking.  He doesn't do that, never has.  Nightmares,
yes -- even the ones they call 'night terrors' that make him
shake and sweat.  But never these slow, controlled, robotic
movements that make him appear caught in some sort of alien
tractor beam.

"Benj?"

He jerks upright when he sees that his son walks fully
clothed, coat stuffed under his arm, tufts of bed hair
sticking up like antennae.  On his feet are the old grass-
stained sneakers with Velcro closures he'd worn all summer.
At the kitchen door he turns and vanishes with purpose,
ghostly and silent.

Sudden fear smothers all other sentiment and makes Tillman
harsh in his reaction.  Mulder's words return to haunt him
with their weird claims of Benjie's crafty prowess in the
dark, of his son's familiarity with the nooks and crannies
of Aubrey.  That he responds to invisible messages sent by
an unknown force.  Ridiculous, yet --

"All right... stop right there!"

Leaping to his stocking feet, he strides to the kitchen and
catches the boy at the back door, yanking the small hand
from the doorknob and spinning him around like a top on the
slippery linoleum.

Blankness.  Benjie's expression has the eerie vacuity of a
zoo animal held captive too long or of a classic horror film
zombie.  Tillman examines his glazed eyes, the set jaw of
his child, now so foreign and threatening that he seems
almost a stranger.  His flesh crawls when the boy suddenly
growls and struggles against him.  Small wiry muscles are no
match for his stronger adult grasp on the celery-stick arms
and shoulders.

The boy strains, his eyes bulging and wet, then collapses
with a cry at his father's feet.

"My God --" Bending, Tillman scoops up Benjie's feather-
light form and carries him into the living room, gaining the
couch with the boy slung limp as a fish across his lap.  The
child blinks and stirs.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, Daddy's here, Benj..." He hugs his son to his chest,
rocking him against a heart that pounds from rapid-fire
beats.  "Tell me what happened."

With his father's help the child sits upright.  Again the
moist lower lip distends and trembles, stubborn and pink.
Benjie shakes his head, blue eyes swimming with fear and
confusion before the tears spill and he begins to wipe at
his face.

************

On route to Aubrey Memorial Hospital
November 7, 2000
12:03 a.m.

It could prove to be a very long night.

The brain, Scully knows, is essentially a precious, fragile
yolk within the skull's firm shell.  Protected, yet helpless
against whatever concussive forces slam against its prison,
jarring it within its womb.  During the race to the hospital
she mentally examines every contingency, every possible
avenue Mulder's injury could take.

It's been a short year since his recovery from the Smoking
Man's hack surgery, so the direst of prognoses come rushing
through her mind like a flood of debris.  Subdural hematoma.
Brain damage with resultant, progressive motor impairment.
Neurological disorders.  Migraine headaches, vision
problems.

Then again, maybe nothing.  He's been struck on the head
many times before, as she has, and been fine.

Halfway there he groans for her to pull over, falling out
the car door in his haste to retch along the curb.  Dry
heaves, because they've had no dinner, and both painful to
watch and overhear.  Her throat tightens in empathy, her
chest and diaphragm constricting in vicarious tension with
each spasm from his crouched form.

She notices a bright blood smear on the plastic headrest.
Digging through the glove compartment she finds a few more
tissues for his mouth and gashed head, helps him back in,
and continues on toward the hospital.  Vomiting, indicative
of a grade two or three concussion.  Yet he claims no memory
loss, insisting he can recollect all details of the attack
and what preceded it.

This ability, if true, would be atypical.

In the clinical atmosphere of Aubrey Memorial, Mulder turns
irritable and pugnacious, another symptom of head injury.
She presses for him to get a CT scan, which he refuses, as
well as the recommended MRI.  His stubbornness in front of
medical personnel is an old story and still cause for
embarrassment, worry, and frustration.  The emergency room
physician, looking from one adamant agent to the other,
finally orders his lanky patient to sit down and shut his
mouth so he can sew up the damage without delay.

Her cell phone trills just as the local anesthetic is
administered to Mulder's second wound.  Holding up a
forefinger, she moves toward the door for a breather and
presses the button.  "Dana Scully."

"Agent Scully?"  It's Tillman, his breathing ragged, voice
tight from anxiety.  "Sorry to use this number, but there
was no answer at your motel room.  I need to talk to you."

"What about, Lieutenant?"

"Benjie.  He's..." He breaks off and she hears him speaking
to the child in muted, calming tones.  "Something's wrong,"
he resumes.  "He's been in some kind of trance.  Got up and
dressed himself and was going outside when I caught up to
him."

Dear God... Another cumbersome weight for her to undertake,
another burden to bear.  She hasn't dared to admit it until
now, but because of the late hour and the hospital setting,
thoughts of Emily have slowly begun to percolate to the
surface again.  Everything bleeds of children tonight or of
loved ones in distress.

She closes her eyes in weariness, phone imprinting the side
of her cheek.  "Is he cognizant now?"

"Yeah, he's doing better.  Kind of restless and upset.  I'd
like you to check him out as soon as possible -- to see if
this is connected to something Agent Mulder said the other
night.  I don't believe in any of that hogwash, but..."

... But, you never know, she finishes in her mind.  Join the
club, Lieutenant Tillman.  She opens her eyes and spots
Mulder's patented glower from across the ER.  He's already
guessed the caller.

"Listen," she says, "As much as I hate to disappoint you,
it'll have to wait until morning.  I'm at the hospital with
Agent Mulder now.  He was injured by an unknown assailant
when we were checking out the intruder call-in across town."

"Bad?"

"No, superficial... but a head wound nonetheless.  There's
nothing to connect it with previous attacks other than the
fact that he was bludgeoned from behind.  And because of a
probable concussion I need to keep him under observation
tonight."

Tillman doesn't reply to this admission; she resents that
she's made to feel compromised, as though edging a moral
line of demarcation.  As if this disclosure suggests a more
personal investment than simple partnership...

"I trust that's amenable to you," she finishes.

"All right," he concurs.  "Tell him I'm sorry it happened.
And please come by as soon as you can in the morning.  I'd
really appreciate it, Agent Scully."

Mulder's pupils seem dilated to owlish proportions despite
the bright lights.  Lying down on an examining table, he
sweeps out a hand toward her when she returns, then squares
his jaw when the doctor begins serious stitching.  His eyes,
however, continue to track her face like radar.

"Everything's fine," she fibs, downplaying Tillman's call.
"We'll discuss it when you're done here."  Their fingers
touch, tips twining briefly, and then separate.  Still in
medical mode, she crosses her arms and edges toward the head
of the table to oversee the doctor's handiwork at close
quarters.

Three small stitches to the front, four to the back.
Awaiting the okay for release, they sit together in a small
area near the ER, surrounded by framed prints of flower
bouquets and pastel-colored English gardens.  Rather than
projecting a peaceful aura in a place of pain and fearful
uncertainty, it has the opposite effect on Mulder.  He
rifles through a pile of dog-eared magazines in
perturbation, his elbow brushing hers as he flips pages and
discards one periodical after another.

"So, why should he want *you* -- when I was the one who
opened my big mouth to the kid?"  His words are quiet, but
blustering.  "I put those thoughts, those suggestions, into
Benjie's head."

"I can't answer that," she says quickly.  Mulder can stay
ignorant about her impromptu gift to the boy; in truth,
she'd prefer that the subject sink like a stone, never to
resurface.  "But the fact still remains, you're injured and
I'm not.  *I* won't have the mother of all headaches
tomorrow morning, like you will.  It just makes sense."

"How'd he get your cell number?"

It's another question she can't readily answer without a few
dicey moments of introspection.  "From Darnell, I would
imagine.  I remember giving it to him the night of the
DiAngelo murder, when I left the crime scene to join you
over at Tillman's."

He grunts, unconvinced, and flips aside an older issue of
Farm Journal magazine.  This caveman routine of Mulder's --
she's not used to the possessiveness he displays tonight,
the accountability he demands.  She decides to chalk it up
to lack of food, exhaustion, and the beaning he took behind
Nieslanick's shed.  It lays a rebellious bruise on her
spirit, another burden she must shoulder at a time when her
patience wears thin as the white gauze covering his
stitches.

Head injury or no, he seems aware of her unease.  "You're my
doctor, Scully," he mutters, dabbing his forehead with a
grimace, pulling for her attention.  "My partner.  You watch
my back, know all my quirks... like Goethe says..."

His rambling prompts a quizzical, indulgent smile and she
shoots him a look.  "Goethe, Mulder?  The German poet?"

"'Certain flaws are necessary for the whole.  It would seem
strange if old friends lacked certain quirks,'" he quotes
slowly.  "Intriguing that he was a scientist as well as a
poet..."

Beneath the red, swollen abrasion and the cottony bandage on
his forehead, his eyes are tired and pleading, gray circles
beneath.  It cements her decision to resume care for him
back at the motel.

"You're right on all counts," she says, glancing from his
face to her watch and squeezing his hand.  "Let's get the
hell out of here, Mulder.  It's time for me to take you
home."

************

Conestoga Motel
November 7, 2000
1:28 a.m.

Scully knows the drill.  Never permit someone with a
concussion to sleep for long periods of time.  Wake him,
check his pupils, ask questions.  See if nausea persists
beyond the first few hours after injury.  Monitor his
responses, equilibrium, and speech.

Mulder still shows mild signs of dizziness, his footsteps
slow and shuffling.  Some of it she attributes to plain
weariness from the late hour and adrenaline letdown, but she
knows the hard blows have had their effect as well.  Parking
the car close to their rooms, she helps him out and steers
him across the dark asphalt to her door.

"Whoa, cowgirl... you must think I'm easy," he jokes, arm
draped heavily across her shoulder.  "What do you have in
mind?"

"Not what you're hoping," she says, the dryness evident in
her voice.

Walking with careful steps and her assistance, he sits down
on the edge of her bed while she clicks on the bedside lamp
and helps him off with the coat.  The wash of golden light
lends a comforting glow.  Tidiness rules, thanks to
housekeeping.  Fresh bedding and towels, the faint scent of
furniture polish and bathroom cleaner make the place homey
and acceptable in Scully's mind.  Now she can channel all
her effort toward monitoring Mulder.

"Something wrong with my room?"  He sounds puzzled and looks
toward the connecting door.

"No.  But any calls from the department will probably come
to my phone tonight.  I want to make things as easy as
possible on myself, since I don't anticipate getting much
sleep anyway."

"So... we're sleeping together."

Both his anticipatory tone and impish smile nudge her brow
to an arch.  "Essentially.  I need to keep an eye on you and
your quirks.  It won't be a picnic, Mulder."  She drapes
their coats over an armchair, hers lapping his.  "I have to
wake you up throughout the entire night and you're going to
hate me for it."

Chuckling, he leans between his knees with the intention of
untying his shoes, but the effort required elicits a deep
groan and grimace.  He tries a second time, with the same
result.

"Here, let me do that."

She dispenses with her own shoes first, then kneels on the
carpet to attend to his needs.  Ignoring the submissiveness
of the posture, it strikes her that she's doing Mulder an
especially intimate favor right now.  One at a time she
peels the socks down his ankles and heels to reveal feet
well-shaped and handsome for a man.  Thinly-veiled emotion
makes her appreciative and magnanimous; her fingers, in
tandem, knead his long, warm toes for another minute,
inching up the smooth skin of his arches to finish.

Above her head he moans in contentment, eyes reduced to mere
slits.  "Shit, Scully... I bet vulval massage doesn't hold a
candle to that."

"Shows how much you know," she says, busy with his rumpled
socks and footwear.

"Just joking.  I know exactly what you like.  Intimate
details... and the night's still young."

"Unfortunately, you're right about that."  Gaining her feet,
she's about to step away when his arms enfold her in a
spontaneous, affectionate hug.  Her breasts press and
flatten against his throat and shoulder as she finds herself
sighing over his head.  Blinking back fatigue and a bristle
of impatience, she relents long enough to absorb the warmth
and closeness he offers.  The soothing, familiar weight of
his hands settle over her hips, trail across her back.

"Scully, I'll be okay," he whispers and her eyes flutter
shut in response, startled by how well he reads her thoughts
and fears.  It disturbs her that walls weaken and tumble
down between them now without her conscious awareness.
Perhaps she's being stretched in far too many directions
this week, feeling the stress more than she should.  At
least Mulder has eluded danger once again... or so time will
tell after tonight.

Returning the hug, she nods and pulls back, her emotions
cloaked once she gains physical distance.  She urges him to
stand as well.  "You should use the bathroom first, so you
can get settled.  Will you need any help in there?"

"With what?"

His open-ended question catches her unprepared, brings color
to her face.  "With... I don't know.  You seem unsteady on
your feet..."

"I doubt it's affected my aim."

He's in rare form, for a casualty; invading her space as of
old, he stands close, grinning down at her in order to
prolong the discomfiture while he peruses her face.  She
can't suppress a reluctant smirk and wills her blush away as
she returns his stare.

"Maybe I should try for a shower," he muses, turning away to
clutch at the doorjamb.

"Tub bath only," she says, countermanding.  "And you're on
your own there."

"Then, forget it.  Um, 'scuse me a minute."  He scuffles
forward to station himself in front of the toilet, lifts the
lid, and pushes the door almost shut at the last second
before relieving himself.  The over-familiarity of this
close encounter, while not the norm, seems acceptable under
the circumstances.  Especially for two people who have come
to know one another's bodies as well as they have in recent
months.

"Jee-SUS, I've had to do that for hours," he laments, more
to himself than for her benefit.

"Well, you should've said something at the hospital."

"Right... and have one of those male nurses escort me in and
stand at my elbow?  Fuck that."

"You could be a much better patient, Mulder."

He snorts behind the door, preoccupied with who knows what.
"I've been *too* patient with the interruptions around
here," he points out.  She hears a blast of water scour her
sink, then the muted rattle of her toiletries being
manhandled.  "I'm gonna kick Tillman's ass, though, if he
calls again tonight.  Mark my words."

"What did you expect?  We *are* on a case.  Hey..." She
slaps the door in warning.  "Don't you dare think of using
my toothbrush... I'll go get yours.  Do you need anything
else from your room?"

"Nothing comes to mind."

Opening the connecting door, she flicks on a light and
checks his bedside phone on the fly.  No messages, a good
thing.  Despite the work of the housekeeping staff, she can
still catch his scent in the closed air of the room.  His
brown leather travel case gapes next to the sink, bulging
with manly supplies.  Zipping it shut, she returns to her
room and passes it through the gap he's left in the bathroom
door.

While he's occupied she has time to undress... and to think.
Not about sad, unchangeable things, she reminds herself.
Far too dangerous right now.  This case, this town, this
time of year -- all accentuate the feelings of grief and
loss that still plague her at night.

Mulder knows.  Reflecting on that in spite of herself, she
strips off her pants and straightens to unbutton the white
work blouse, then to shed her bra.  He's taken it with such
serious intensity, this self-appointed mission to care for
her each autumn when she sinks into the quicksand of her
crisis.  Though his concern stays constant year-to-year, his
methods have evolved and kept pace with the changes in their
physical relationship.

On the anniversary date of Emily's birth they've graduated
from ice cream cones to walks to... well, overt sexual
contact in keeping with their recent status as lovers.  This
year, when he shared his 'antidote' for insomnia, she
couldn't think of one other man who would have done such a
thing for her.  Only Mulder, showing his heart in his hazel
eyes, his devotion manifest in the tender, unique attentions
he lavishes on her in the bedroom.

Mulder, who dares to speak aloud of her long-lost child with
dignity, forthrightness, and honest affection.  Mulder, who
professes an unconditional love for her.

("We love one another no matter what... no matter what.")

Without conscious thought she slips on her silky pajama top
and bathrobe, pulling the sash tight just as he opens the
bathroom door.  Dark, damp hair toward the back of his head
bristles up like a punk rooster's comb; alone, he's been
checking out the damage.

"How are you feeling?"

"Considering I sport an uncanny resemblance to Frankenstein,
not too bad."

He stops her progress toward the bathroom with a hand to her
waist.  "I'll be out in just a minute," she assures him,
turning away.  "Get some sleep while you can.  I meant it
when I said I'd be waking you like clockwork."

When she emerges later he's an indistinguishable, motionless
lump under her blankets.  How different it used to be in the
not-so-distant past, when they'd retire to separate rooms
and spheres of existence.  Thinking private thoughts,
hauling with them the emotional baggage that had accumulated
over time.  Thankfully, the personal limits they imposed
through force of habit had become outworn and ludicrous.

And the walls that kept them apart, she knew, were mostly of
her own making.  Thank God he's patient.  Mulder isn't the
only one in their partnership with abundant quirks.

His respiration seems soft and steady when she sets an alarm
clock and slips into bed, supposing him to be asleep.
Instead, strong arms snake out to seize her under the
covers.  He's a tangle of warm, naked, sinewy limbs and
masculine spice.  A combination both perilous and
stimulating as his hands roam everywhere at once, exploring
her minimal attire and the curves and slopes of her body.

"Looky what we have here," he murmurs.

Nibbling her ear the way he did earlier, he makes her squirm
and titter.  His hands cup and trace her breasts, her belly,
the tender vee of her panties.  With his front spooned up
against her ass, she can feel the semi-hard evidence of his
arousal.  He strokes against her with intent and
persistence, as though honing himself in preparation,
sending excitement through her body.

"No boxers tonight, Mulder?"

"Don't fault me for being an opportunist when the woman I
love creeps into my bed."

"Correction... this is *my* bed."

"Semantics."

"No, plain fact."  With a gasp and twitch she pinches her
eyes shut.  Deliberate fingers have now invaded her panties
from behind, burrowing under the elastic to slip between the
moist, sensitive lips of her sex.  They prompt a surge of
pleasure so strong she parts her legs and arches her spine,
driving them deeper.

"God, you're wet," he whispers into her ear, fingers slow
and steady, like his breathing.

"I'm supposed to be taking care of you... remember?"

"I'm all for you taking care of me.  I wanna experience the
Big Bang first-hand, Scully."

Her medical books, training, and experience mentioned
nothing about the irrepressible horniness of the male of the
species.  The old adage persists that a man, while on his
sickbed -- or even deathbed -- will still want sex.  Tonight
she's seeing him through a new lens, this man she calls
friend and lover.  She finds it strangely exhilarating,
primal, and freeing.

She strips off her panties, along with hesitation and better
judgment.  Her patient is awake, cogent, articulate in the
extreme, and reacting in a normal manner to sexual stimuli.
His burgeoning erection is testimony to that.  The
realization dawns that she can give him, not what she thinks
he should have during this night of observation, but what he
truly needs.  Even better: what he wants, what he craves.
She's not merely Mulder's concerned partner and emergency
caregiver, but also his lover.

His loyal discernment has granted her space to grieve, to
wrangle with him and volley opinions, no matter how
contradictory and disheartening.  He's lent her his
shoulder, run interference when she stumbled, watched her
back.  He's urged her to confront the demons that haunt her,
calling upon the trust they share as a springboard toward
healing.

All the more reason to please him now.

Inspired, she sheds her top, twisting behind her to push
against the bare knob of his hipbone, pressing him to his
back on the mattress.  The change of position and attitude
permits her to take control of the seduction.  She straddles
him, knees thrown wide to accommodate his legs, the proud
curve of his penis a thing of beauty in the swathe of light
from the bathroom.  Her tongue flutters over the broad head,
hands and lips playing him in skillful accompaniment until
he groans in an agony of pleasure.

His appetite has long been his undoing.  In their work he
has the tenacity of a bloodhound, the mind of a genius, the
passion of a zealot.  In bed he's aggressive, unstoppable,
and so hell-bent on satisfying her needs that he often
forfeits the benefits of allowing her to grasp the reins.

"Scul-ly --"

Desire peaking, he tries to shift her aside with hips and
legs, one hand squeezing her shoulder.  She shoves it away,
undeterred, bending to the task at hand.

Using her mouth she brings him headlong to the precipice
before spreading her thighs above him and engulfing his cock
inch by sweet, slow inch until she rides him with grace and
impunity.  Soon he's biting his lips in time to her thrusts;
long hands reach up to mold and knead her breasts in a
synchronous rhythm as she rocks them both inexorably toward
orgasm.

************
End of Chapter 12