Title: Quis Custodiet
Author: Lee Burwasser
Rating: PG for pregnancy and how it happens mostly noromo-safe, but some bumps Doggett-neutral Category - S Spoilers - Requiem, In/Out, earlier snippets

Archive - anywhere, with the usual provisos Feedback - sure Disclaimer - Kersh and Doggett belong to CC; Skinner, Maggie & tLG ought by rights belong to M&W; CC probably claims Scully and Mulder by right of genesis, but the way he abuses them, custody should go to the Wongs.

Summary - further adventures of Mulder Minus Mouth

AUTHOR's NOTEs: are long-ish -- sorry about that

I don't do WIP, but this time I made an exception, since we're due for spoiled fish -- er, spoilers -- this coming weekend. I do know where this story's going. Promise.

This story follows}It's Me{, but can be read separately. Lines in
}reverse braces{ are verbal descriptions of nonverbal reactions.

A lawyer I'm not, just an InterNet surfer. I know everything goes much faster here than it ever would in real life. If I get something else ludicrously wrong, blame my ignorance of legalese.

Regarding *t*h*e* *P*r*e*g*n*a*n*c*y*: As we all know, Carter and his stable ignore context, continuity and facts, but that's all fanwriters have to work with. Since Scully was not horrified at the pregnancy, we must deduce that there was at least a possibility of it happening the low-tech way. This does not preclude aliens or clones, or off camera lovers either, but complication for the sake of complication is a bad idea. So for this piece I'm keeping it simple. And since I've restored Scully's guts, spine and brains, she had the tests done as soon as possible, quite likely before she was far enough along to show.

DAY ONE

A man could get used to this, reflected Special Agent John Doggett, stretching his legs. Better not, though.

He had, in fact, no work-related reason to upgrade to first class for the flight back, unless he was going to confess a hunch that he might be needed when Agent Mulder got mischevious on the boring flight. He glanced across the aisle and forward a row as Agent Scully got out of her seat for another trip to the rest room, giving her partner a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder.

Partner. She'd never called Doggett a temp to his face, but now that her real partner was back, there was no disguising it. He studied Mulder, sitting up straight in the seat and watching anxiously where Scully had disappeared from his sight. Maybe, with all the trips she'd have to make and the way he worried each time, he wouldn't have a chance to get mischevious after all.

He wore his own clothes. Scully had mentioned in passing that Skinner had brought Mulder's luggage back with him; simple deduction filled in her laundering, repacking and storing it against his return. Very different from her treatment of the temp: a temper to match her flaming hair.

No, that wasn't fair. She'd been a good partner, mostly. She just flared up sometimes. Like when he told her she wasn't going to Oregon. And when he mentioned her condition. OK, he was no profiler, but it was a transcontinental flight, and there was plenty of time to pass.

Start with the obvious: a woman in law enforcement. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you; there would always be local cops and federal agents just waiting for her to fail. It would take time for her to come to trust a male colleague. Seven years, maybe. (Too long to be partnered. The Bureau knew what it was doing when it shuffled personnel around. Only who would you shuffle into the basement? My aching back.)

And let's not forget that first impressions are lasting. Whenever he tried to keep her from going in search of Mulder, he became Kersh's fink in her eyes, the task force leader who'd searched in D.C. for a man gone missing in Oregon, ignoring a mass kidnapping to make a case for voluntary AWOL. No, she wasn't going to forget that he'd tried to make her doubt Mulder and Mulder's trust; a sin against trust was deadly in her catechism.

So what about the other? The way she'd gone on about consulting specialists whose training and experience entitled them to a voice in her decision? OK, she was an MD and didn't like being second-guessed by laymen. There were still hormones in that reaction, whether she admitted it or not. And no matter how many Assistant Directors and male doctors backed her up.

# Cascade of pictures:
}other big cabins, lots of people{
}more cramped leg space{
}Herself{ #

The plane snaked down the Potomac River with its engines on half-power, and Scully tried not to picture it ditching before it ever reached National Airport. Damn it, sheer physics said the place was too small to land these big liners! *Hail Mary, full of grace . . .*

Whether by skilled piloting or Our Lady's intervention, the plane made a safe landing and the three agents piled out to reclaim their luggage and debate transport. A somewhat hesitant "Agent Scully?" brought their attention to what would have been a Poster Yuppie, if his face hadn't matched the uncertainty of his voice.

"I'm Agent Scully," she said, showing her ID. "These are Agents Fox Mulder and John Doggett. And you are?"

"I-I'm John Thompson, of Lippsett and Gregson. Arnold Lippsett told me to find a short redhead with a tall brunette, and tell them that Curtis Danford says their case should be expedited. Mr Lippsett is waiting to expedite."

"Have you a car here?" said Scully.

"Oh, yes."

"Good. Wait one." She got out her cellphone and hit the speed dial. After a moment, she said, "Sir?" Then, "We're at National Airport. A Mr John Thompson, of Lippsett and Gregson, has offered to take us to Mr Arnold Lippsett, who claims the acquaintence of Mulder's family lawyer. May we defer making our report until this is taken care of?" After a bit: "Thank you, sir."

She turned off the cell phone and put it away, giving Thompson a look that a more experienced man would have read as: Someone's expecting us, and knows where to start looking if we're overdue. Thompson clearly missed the nuances, but caught the menace; he timidly waved the rumpled and sweaty agents toward the parking lot.

A silent ride brought them to a stereotypic old-fashioned law office, where an older man waved Mr Thompson back to whatever he'd dropped to go fetch them. This man did indeed turn out to be Arnold Lippsett.

#
}polished wood{
}smell of leather{
}different man, tweeds{ #

Something about the office touched off Mulder's Continental manners. He carefully seated Scully in the chair directly across from Lippsett's, and drew the one beside it closer to hers. Doggett, left to his own devices, grabbed a chair and plunked it and then himself down on Scully's other side.

Mr Lippsett said, "Curtis didn't mention Agent Doggett."

"He doesn't know him," said Scully. "Agent Doggett was in the search team that found Agent Mulder." She wasn't about to mention that she'd rather have him as a witness to this than debriefed alone with Skinner and possibly Kersh.

"I see," said Lippsett. Abandoning Doggett, he glanced briefly at Mulder, then back to Scully, and said, "Curtis tells me that Fox--"

"Mulder," Scully said politely, even if she did interrupt.

"Excuse me?"

"He prefers to be called 'Mulder.' He makes exceptions for old family connections and women old enough to be his mother." Nor was she going to mention the *other* exceptions.

"I see," said Lippsett again. "--that Mulder is going to need more protection than his durable power of attorney for health care, which I understand you hold."

"Yes," said Scully. "Until his condition improves, he's going to need a guardian."

"Ah . . . you expect it to improve?"

"We have no way of knowing. We have to plan on it being permanent, while working to undo it."

"Yes. Contingencies. Yes, well . . . Curtis tells me that you intend to petition for guardianship."

"Of his person. I'm a doctor, I can take care of him. I'm not a lawyer or an accountaint; I hope Mr Danford will be willing to become guardian of the estate."

"Conservator," Lippsett corrected her. "In Virginia, the guardian is the one who looks after the person, the conservator looks after the estate."

"Conservator. Thank you."

Lippsett opened the folder on the desk in front of him and handed Scully a letter from Curtis Danford on the letterhead of StMartin, Danford and Fergusson. It was a semiformal confirmation of a phone conversation concerning one Fox William Mulder.

"Curtis sent the necessary information from his end, so we just need your input and we can make a fair copy and file the petition." Lippsett waited until she finished the letter and handed it back to him, then handed her a typewritten list, and pushed a legal pad and pen across the desk. "Mostly its addresses and the like, so the court can find you."

"Thank you," said Scully again, and studied the list. She began writing her 'input' on the pad. When she reached the 'three relatives' requirement, she said, "I hope Mr Danford was able to locate relatives. I know that Mulder's parents are dead, and his sister is missing and presumed dead."

"Yes," said Lippsett, "there are cousins in New England."

A bit later, she said, "Do you want to copy my copy of his durable power of attorney, or wait for a copy of the original?"

"If it's a photocopy, that will do. Shall I have my secretary copy it now?"

"Yes, that would be good," said Scully. She produced and carefully unfolded the photocopy that had traveled with her so far. Lippsett called in his secretary, a Ms Bennett, and entrusted it to her.

Scully set down the pen and folded her hands on the legal pad. Lippsett came alert, clearly realising they had come to the crux of the issue.

Scully began, "Agent Mulder has lost the ability to communicate his decisions, not his ability to make them. He is incapactitated, not incompetent."

"Perhaps if you would describe his incapacity . . .?"

"Global aphasia. He cannot speak or understand speech, nor can he read or write. He can still communicate nonverbally, and he has been under a speech therapist's care while in Oregon to learn to do it better. One of the first things I will do now that we're home is find a local replacement."

"It sounds as though it would be very hard to ascertain his decision-making ability."

Scully frowned. "It is, but every indication is that his intellect and understanding are unimpaired."

Lippsett frowned at the folder. "Describe his incapacity as precisely as you can. Since the purpose of the hearing is to ascertain just what his limits are, I think we can depend on the judge going into the matter as necessary."

Scully looked at him doubtfully, but picked up the pen and continued writing. It took two sides of legal paper before she glanced at the list again. Native language was simple enough, but: "Mode of communication is going to be troublesome."

"You say he's been under a speech therapist's care?"

"Yes. She recommended some local colleagues to check out."

"We may have to ask whoever you settle on to attend the hearing."

"I'll remember that." Scully finished the list, set down the pen and passed the pad back to Lippsett. The list she put in her briefcase. "What happens when this is filed?"

Lippsett put the pages Scully had written into the folder, pulled out another page, closed the folder, called in his secretary again and passed it to her. The lone page he passed to Scully.

"When Ms Bennett gets the final draft typed, and the signatures are in place, we send it to the circuit court. They set a hearing, and appoint a guardian ad litem to do a preliminary investigation, serve notice, and generally represent Mulder's interests.

"You serve Mulder with notice of the hearing, a copy of your petition, and the order for the guardian ad litem. There's a formula in there--" he tapped the lone page he had given her-- "for some of the things the notice has to say. Somehow, you have to make him understand what it means and how important it is.

"You also mail a copy of the notice and of the petition to every person and every corporate entity mentioned in the petition, at least seven days before the hearing. When you've done all that, you file a statement of compliance with the court.

"Meanwhile, the court has an independent evaluation report made, and then we finally have the hearing."

The agents borrowed Lippsett's washroom while waiting for the fair copy. Still travel-worn, they were not quite as rumpled as when they left the plane.

Scully signed the original of the petition and took charge of her copy and Mulder's, asking Lippsett for a colorful marker. He gave her a bright blue one. Calling Mulder's attention to what she was doing, she drew a blue square on the upper right corner of his copy. He tapped the square and nodded. She showed him where in her briefcase she was putting it.

"I'll put it with the other important papers from his apartment," she told Lippsett. "That should tell him how significant it is."

#

AD Skinner stared at the conference table in his office, where DD Kersch was once more reading Scully's preliminary report. It was a relief to tell Kim "Send them in." Through the door came three decidedly travel-worn agents: Scully in the lead; Mulder with his hand at the small of her back; Doggett bringing up the rear.

Skinner heard his voice say, "Mulder," before he realised he had spoken. Scully moved aside and he put out his hand to the returned agent. A barely perceptable pause, and Mulder took his hand. "Good to have you back." The hazel eyes were searching his face. For what?

He stepped back and waved them to the conference table. They sat on the side opposite Kersh, leaving the head of the table for him. Polite pretence that Kersh hadn't deliberately usurped his turf.

He addressed Scully. "You've got him. And the rest of the . . . captives?"

"All were returned," she said, "spread over a couple of acres of forest. Rescue dogs found them easily. They had clearly been mistreated during their captivity, but rest and food took care of that." She laid a hand on Mulder's arm where it rested on the table and finished, "Only Mulder had additional . . . damage."

"Will he recover?"

"We don't know. Niethier Dr Reid nor Dr Vincent could find any mention in the literature of Mulder's precise condition."

Kersh asked sourly, "Why am I not surprised?"

Scully locked eyes with him long enough to say, *Because you know this is not the usual kidnapping, sir,* before turning back to Skinner. "Aphasia is caused by damage to the brain, usually from a stroke, though a tumor can do it, or of course external trauma. But no test, including CAT scan, MRI and PET scan, shows any damage to Mulder's linguistic areas. They metabolise normally, maintain themselves normally, but they don't activate. Dr Vincent likens it to a metabolic padlock. We have no data on which to make any prediction. We don't even know time of onset, closer than 'some time during his captivity'."

"Might it be connected?" Skinner asked.

"If they did it intentionally, they know far more neurology than we do, and they're a bunch of sadistic bastards," said Scully. "Neither of which is exactly news."

"They?" said Kersh in a quelling voice.

Scully refused to be quelled. "Until now, sir, we have not had enough evidence to argue AWOL versus MIA. But unless you are ready to argue coincidence, or some magical power, by which Mulder not only vanished along with the Bellefleurans but turned up again in the same time and place, the only conclusion is that he was kidnapped along with them, endured captivity with them, and is now returned along with them.

"Now, the Bellefleurans have described the man we know as the Bounty Hunter. A couple of them describe him as twins. The Bounty Hunter has never worked for the Consortium, but they have on occasion been allied, or at least horse-traded. The Consortium's technology is not that far ahead of ours, but we have no idea what technology the Bounty Hunter or his team commands."

"Could it be hysterical?" was Kersh's surprising contribution.

"Like hysterical blindness? Unlikely sir," said Scully. "If that were the case, the linguistic areas of the brain would activate normally. It certainly merits further study, but it's not a very likely candidate."

Kersh nodded dismissively. "What was it you accomplished with . . . Mr Lippsett, was it?"

"Mr Arnold Lippsett, yes, sir. Mulder's lawyer, Mr Danford, told me that he and his partners exchange occasional favors with Lippsett and Greggson, expediting paperwork and filing and so on. With the information Mr Danford sent Mr Lippsett, we put together a petition for guardianship to file with the circuit court."

"You think you're up to it?" asked Kersh, staring pointedly at her swollen belly.

"Yes, sir, I do."

Good for Scully. But that was enough harrassment. Skinner asked, "What else is immediately necessary for Mulder?"

"He needs to see a speech-language therapist to expand his nonverbal communication. His therapist in Oregon gave me some recommendations. He will need a medical ID card, probably custom-designed, since most aphasics are either stroke or brain-trauma survivors. Whatever therapist we settle on should be able to help there. Aside from that, we'll just have to wait upon events."

"All right. You can start on that while Agent Doggett starts the report. You can add the medical material later." He stood, dismissing the agents, who filed out the door.

Kersh remained seated. "And now I suppose you want Mulder's benefits restored."

"Retroactively. Unless you think you can refute Agent Scully's interpretation of the evidence."

"How did Agent Scully keep up the rent on his apartment?"

"His lawyer allowed her access to his emergency fund."

"Hmp." Kersh now stood. "At least that finishes the alien abduction nonsense."

"'Til next time."

"There will be no next time. The Bureau will not get involved in this nonsense again." And Kersh strode out. Skinner returned to his desk and dug out the paperwork for restoring Mulder's leave and health benefits. They needed only the date and signitures.

Scully sighed and leaned against her apartment door to close it. They had grabbed a quick shower and change (and bathroom break) on the way from the Hoover building to Georgetown U, but she still felt like last week's leftovers. And she needed to pee again.

She opened her eyes, to the amaising sight of Mulder actually hanging up his coat, in the closet. He turned to her, coat hanger in hand; she slid out of hers and handed it over with a smile of thanks before breaking for the bathroom. Damn pregnancy -- and gravity -- and evolution.

Mulder waited for her in the living room and followed her into the kitchen. She held up a choice of tea bag and packet of chocolate. He looked puzzled, enlightened, then sympathetic, and chose tea. Yeah, Mulder, she thought as she nuked their mugs in the microwave, I would kill for coffee. Damn pregnancy.

Ensconced on the couch with her own mug of tea (herbal, of course), she looked back over their productive, if exhausting day. Petition filed -- get out Mulder's 'weak box' (it wasn't strong enough to be called a strong box, he'd explained) and put his copy into it -- and speech therapist chosen. Carl Suomonen got along with Mulder, and had a slot free for twice-weekly sessions. Half of which Scully would also be attending; tell Skinner tomarrow. The order for Mulder's medical ID card was in the works, though a custom-designed card would of course take longer than a standard one to arrive. She put her emptied mug on the coffee table and grabbed the cordless phone.

Mulder put down his own mug and unceremoniously scooped her feet up and onto the couch. It felt too good to argue, except for her weapon digging into her back. She pulled it out and tucked it under the cushions, close to hand, giving Mulder time to reclaim his former seat and pat his thigh in invitation. She settled her head in his lap and dialed.

"Lone Gunmen."

"It's me, Byers. Turn off the tape."

"Agent Scully! You-- where are you? Is he with you?"

She heard the click that meant she was on speakerphone. "We're back home. Mulder's with me, and we'll have to talk about -- well, several things --"

"No," said Frohike. "You put your feet up if they aren't already. We'll be over to check security and sweep for bugs, we'll talk after that. You two had dinner yet?"

"Not yet." She had been dreading the need to get up and make something.

"We'll bring it. We're on our way." And the phone clicked off.

Scully stared at her cordless, reflecting why Frohikie's take-charge didn't piss her off the way Doggett's did. Besides knowing Frohike a lot better. He was demanding the Gunmen's place in the investigation, not denying hers. Simple, really.

She made a long arm to replace the phone but couldn't quite reach. Mulder made a longer arm and put it on the table. They both settled back.

She would soon have to cut back to desk work in any case. Now that Mulder was back, she was willing to do it tomorrow, if Skinner asked. Or take family leave; as Kersh had so crudely indicated, looking after Mulder was going to take some work.

She must have zoned out, for the fumbling noises at her door to startle her so. No doubt the Gunmen, testing the security by trying to pick the

lock, but she drew her weapon from under the cushion all the same.

At last the door gave a normal click and swung open. Frohike looked down the barrel of her SIG and nodded approval. As she tucked the weapon back under the cushions, he pushed the door further open to admit Byers and the takeout cartons.

"Langly's checking out the back," said Byers as he carefully transferred

his load to the coffee table.

"Byers made the carryout clerk's day," Frohike said. "He gave her his patented bewildered-innocent smile -- Show them."

Byers mock-glared at him, then turned to Scully with his 'Perhaps you can straighten me out?' look and said with a sort of timid determination, "We're visiting a couple who are expecting. Nothing fried, nothing breaded, no fat meats."

"Whereupon," Frohike continued his narrative, "she got out a menu and went into dietition mode. What she finally recommended is a Caesar salad--" setting a carry-out box in front of Scully -- "with a *light* sauce--" putting the packet on top -- "camomile tea to settle the digestion--" holding up a tea bag in each hand before depositing them next to the rest -- "and a fruit cup for desert." To Byers: "Where's the chill bag?"

"Here," said Byers, handing it to him.

Frohike took it and bowed to Scully. "Might we borrow refrigerator space?"

"Of course," she said, smiling broadly at the performance.

While Frohike was in the kitchen, Langly came in, reporting "All clear out back. As well as a house this old can be," and began to disassemble her

cordless in search of bugs. Frohike came back in and took the back off the TV, while Byers used some gizmo to sweep the walls.

"Your dinners will get cold!" Scully protested.

"Won't take long to do this room," said Byers. "We've been sweeping regularly. We can put on some background music to disrupt anything in the other rooms, sweep the rest of the apartment later."

Scully and Mulder watched the show, which indeed did not take long enough to wear out its audience interest. They settled down to dinner, and Scully

went over the basic story yet again. She was getting downright glib, she reflected. Then she got to the aphasia. The Gunmen's stunned silence brought home to her that for the first time she was telling someone without a professional mask. These were not doctors or lawyers or cops, but Mulder's friends.

They stared at him with a kind of horrified pity. Well, that was involving him in the conversation, though not the way Thorne or Suomonen intended. One of them, she couldn't tell which, said softly, "He'll go mad."

She unconsiously cleared her throat; when she had their attention she continued, "The speech therapists, here and in Oregon, gave me the same basic rules for talking to aphasics: one, they're not deaf; two, they're not retarded."

Three heads nodded as one.

The next bit was harder to tell. She just bulled through it. "I've filed a petition to be appointed his guardian, with his family lawyer as conservitor of his estate."

"It's that bad?" said Frohike.

She nodded. "He can't make out a check, or even ask 'How much?' and understand the answer. In an emergency, he can attract attention, but can't tell what's wrong, or what help he needs." Her voice wavered into silence.

Mulder made that sound she could only describe as a distressed coo. He took her hand and slipped his free arm around her shoulders.

She looked up into his face and made a brave smile. "Come to think of it, I'd better put them away now." She patted his knee with her free hand and got up, saying, "Byers, you're closest, can you fetch my briefcase to the coffee table?"

Mulder on her heels, she went into the bedroom and opened the closet where she kept her own document box, and since his disappearance, Mulder's as well. She picked up the closest, and Mulder got the other.

Back in the living room, they set down their burdens, and she opened Mulder's box. "The weak box," said Frohike.

She smiled and nodded. "Not strong enough to be a strong box." Both were simply fireproof document boxes for things you want to keep at your apartment: lease, renter's insurance and the like. "I brought Mulder's here when he was taken; I don't like leaving important documents in an empty place."

She fished both copies of the petition out of her briefcase and drew Mulder's attention to the blue rectangle she'd drawn that morning. "This one's yours," she told him, handing it over. He took it and rubbed the rectangle. She opened both document boxes and set his in front of him, then started folding her own copy as though for a business envelope. He got the idea and followed suit, putting his copy in his box and closing it.

Meanwhile, Byers had put out a hand to check her own action. "We should do checks on all the people mentioned in that. In fact, everyone closely involved with the case at all."

"Mm, you've got something there. In fact, I'd like to keep an eye on Drs Reid and Vincent; they were talking of doing papers on it, or maybe a collaboration. I didn't warn them off, because such a specialised paper is bound to be low-profile, but it would still be a good idea . . . OK."

She got out a pen and stenographer's notebook and started writing. "Reid . . . and Vincent . . . might as well include Thorne . . . and Suomonen here in DC . . . never heard Gregson's first name . . . Danford's partners . . . Now, the cousins." She turned to the page in her copy of the petition. "Richard Mulder; Mrs Harry Rothenberg, nee Moll Kupier; Leonard Kupier. Anybody else?" She flipped through her copy again. "No. I'll send you the name of the guardian ad litem when I learn it." She sighed. "Now I just have to explain to him what it means, that there's going to be a hearing . . ."

Everyone stared at the boxes. This time she could tell it was Frohike who said, "He'll go mad. Or sheer frustration will drive him berserk."

Byers said, "Has either of the therapists come up with any suggestions? Anything at all?"

"We've ordered a medical ID card for him. And both Carl and Elaine mentioned a library of pictures, people and places that he knows, I'll want to get you three and whatever of your building you think safe. We'll make icons of

things that come up frequently, like a teapot and a glass for iced tea --"

"Icons!" Langly broke in. "Animated icons! Where's his laptop?"

"It was never replaced after the Bounty Hunter took it. Mine's over there."

"Do you have Paintbrush on it?"

"Something like. I tried to use it to sketch crime scenes, but I do better freehand."

Langly fetched her laptop to the table. While it was booting up, Frohike said, "I wonder if he can still recognise pip clusters on dice? That's not exactly verbal."

Langly snorted laughter. "Most computer games aren't exactly verbal. I bet we can tweak them to be completely visual for him. Here we go." He worked on the keyboard and touchpad, muttering under his breath and then sneaking a shamefaced look at Scully.

"I didn't hear you," she assured him. "And I bet I've heard worse."

At last Langly sat back and angled the laptop to give Mulder a view of it. The rest got up to gather behind the two. There was a crude figure in robes and long hair behind a tall rectangle with a shorter one beside it. Langly did something with the cursor that made the robed figure flash. Mulder looked from the flashing figure to Langly, who made a solemn face and mimed banging with a gavel. Mulder nodded.

Frohike muttered, "How to tell him a hearing and not a civil marriage?"

"My kung-fu is the best," said Langly. He drew equally crude but recognisable tables with stick figures behind them, each with a colored geometric figure replacing the head.

When he put in a red triangle, Byers said, "Not red. Or green."

"Right," said Langly, and avoided those colors thereafter. "Now this," he said at last, "is you." He made the figure with the orange square flash and pointed at Mulder.

Scully tapped his shoulder and said, "Make the square blue."

"Right," said Langly again, and changed the still-flashing figure accordingly. "OK, *this* is you." He pointed to the blue square and to Mulder.

Mulder nodded and got his copy of the petition from the document box. He rubbed the blue square that Scully had drawn in the corner. The rest gave him various victory signs.

Langly went on. "And this," making the figure next to Mulder's flash, "is Agent Scully." The figure had a yellow triangle for a head. Langly

pointed at the figure and at Scully. Mulder nodded.

Langly rubbed his hands dramatically and said, "Now the action." He made still another figure at the base of the screen and moved it up into

the smaller rectangle beside the judge. The figure to the other side of

Mulder's, with a black circle, moved out in front of the judge and the new figure.

Langly stood, the better to loom over Frohike, and ask: "Where'd you get

those coconuts?"

When they'd gone through the coconuts and the sparrows, Langly sat down and moved the black-circle figure back to its table. Another figure from the opposite table then moved to take its place. Now Byers got to loom over Frohike and do the bridge guardian routine.

When Byers sat down, Langly restored the figures to their places and glanced at Mulder, who nodded and punched the blond's shoulder. Then he

looked around, finally went over to Scully's desk and brought the desk calendar back to show to Scully. He riffled the sheets and gave her an eloquently questioning look.

Scully spread her hands and tapped the judge figure. Mulder nodded again, shrugged resignation and put the calendar down.

Langly flung up his hands. "Ya got it." Byers clapped his own hands together. Scully clapped Langly's shoulders from behind and shook him slightly, while Frohike punched his arm and said "Your kung-fu is sill the best."

Scully said, "I didn't think theraputic software was going to be any use to us. I should have known you guys would come up with something."

"We're gonna beat this!" said Langly, giving Mulder the high-five.

Byers got up and stretched. "I think we will. But right now, we have the rest of the apartment to sweep."

Scully started to stack the takeout cartons. "No," said Frohike, sternly pointing her to the couch. "We'll find a dumpster for the cartons on the way home."

Mulder seized the document boxes and returned them to the bedroom. The Gunmen finished sweeping the apartment, gathered the trash and departed in triumph.

Scully saw them off and retrieved her SIG from the couch cushons. She collected towels and washcloth from the linen closet, a pair of Mulder's

pajamas and his shaving kit from the guest bedroom, handed the pile to Mulder and pointed him at the bathroom. She turned down the blankets, turned on the bedside lamp and turned off the overhead, and went to prepare her own room.

She kept an ear out, while she set out a robe as well as pajamas and put

her weapon in the nightstand drawer. When she heard Mulder leave the bathroom, she went over to the guest room to see him put his clothes on the chair, climb into bed and hold the covers open in blatant invitation.

"Braggart," laughed Scully; the laugh turned into a jaw-cracking yawn. Mulder indeed subsided, as tired as she was. Nonverbal inuendo, yet. Smiling affectionately, she pulled the covers to his chin, smoothed his hair, and went to claim her turn in the bathroom.

She was too tired for more than a quick shower, then to her own bed. It had been a long day.

She woke to darkness, and Mulder's scream.

Grabbing her weapon and diving into her robe, she pushed the bedroom door open and peered around. She did not turn on any light, wanting to keep her eyes dark-adapted. The wordless scream came again, from the guest room. She hurried over, more concerned now for speed than silence; it was almost certainly a nightmare, but she wasn't going to bet Mulder's life or freedom on it.

No one in the guest room but Mulder, spread-eagled on the bed. She put her weapon in the pocket to her robe and bent over him. "Mulder, it's me. You're OK, Mulder. I'm here." She didn't want to startle him awake until he was calmer. "Mulder, it's a dream. I'm here, Mulder."

Was he calming? There were no more screams. She risked running her fingers lightly along his arm. "I'm here, Mulder. It's just a bad dream. "Hush, you're all right. You're with me." He was gasping now, whimpering softly. She smoothed his hair. "I'm here, Mulder. It's me."

#
}cold!hurt!{
}help!cold!hurt!hurt!{
}cold!hurt!help!{
}warm-voice{
}help!warm-voice{
}warm-voice{
}warm-touch{
}help-warm-warm{
}warm-snug-safe-warm{ #

She couldn't tell if he was awake or not, but he turned toward her. She

settled her awkward bulk on the bed and held him, murmuring reassurance.

He trembled in her arms, his gasping evening out into deep breathing, shallowing to normal. He buried his face against her. She kept talking, reasurring him with her voice and hands. Slowly the trembling died down.

Suddenly he freed a hand, fumbled with the bedclothes, and then he was wrapping the bedspread around her. He gave a sleepy whimper, holding her as they both drifted into dreamless sleep.

DAY TWO

Doggett watched covertly as Scully opened the interoffice envelope and pulled out the papers it contained. As she started reading the first sheet, her face showed a *ferocious* satisfaction that had him hoping it had nothing to do with him. Her expression stayed feral as she set aside the sheet and glanced through the rest of the pages, evidently stapled together.

She picked up the top sheet again, feral look fading into a genuine grin as her glance swept down it. The grin froze and went bleak.

Doggett ventured, "Something Mulder would enjoy?"

She looked up at him and scaled the page to the edge of her -- Mulder's -- desk. He crossed from his to pick it up.

It was a memo to Special Agent Dana K. Scully, signed by Assistant Director Walter S. Skinner. It began:

"Here is the paperwork on Agent Mulder's benefits. You will note they have been restored retroactively."

That would account for the fierce satisfaction. By restoring the missing agent's benefits back to his disappearance, the Bureau was in effect giving up any claim that he had gone missing voluntarily. So much for Kersh.

The memo went on:

"I realise that during the present emergency, Agent Mulder's affairs require your continued presence and accessibility in the Washington area. I am therefore assigning you temporarily to desk duty.

"If you feel that family leave would be appropriate, I will certainly give this every consideration."

Doggett snorted laughter. Desk duty, suggestion of family leave, all without mentioning the ever-more-obvious pregnancy. She had her boss trained.

He was about to pass it back to her when he noticed the scribble at the bottom of the paper. It looked like a couple of paw-prints. A glance up showed Scully watching him. He raised both eyebrows and indicated the scribble before handing the memo back to her. She took it, turned her wrist so that her watch faced him and tapped the two-o'clock position. She then became absorbed in her paperwork.

Two paw-prints: fetch Doggett at two o'clock. Woof-woof.

#

The order appointing Janet Walesa, attorney at law, to be guardian ad litem in re Fox William Mulder arrived in due course on the desk of said Janet Walesa, together with the relevant petition. As was her wont, she promptly checked the petition for the statement of the financial resources of the allegedly incapacitated person. Yes, indeed, enough to be tempting. She then checked the petitioner and the suggested guardian.

Hmm . . . The petitioner was asking to be appointed guardian only. The suggested conservator resided in New England . . . She checked the financial statement again: yes, the same area as most of the onshore capital. Not the picture she expected.

OK, take it from the top. Petitioner resides in DC, respondent in Virginia; let's hear it for the Washington Metropolitan Area. No family closer than cousins, also residing in New England; hm, that could go both ways. Respondent released to petitioner's care from a hospital in Oregon; petitioner holds respondent's durable power of attorney for health care. This was going to be an interesting story -- how believable would be another question.

OK, nitty-gritty. Type of guardianship, plenary. Alleged incapacity, aphasia . . . Dear God, the man had no communication at all! Living with petitioner, who is currently shopping for a speech therapist . . . "Cozy."

"Too cozy?" asked her partner.

"Could be. That's why we meet with the respondent face to face -- fat lot of good that will do this time. How do I tell a total aphasic that there IS a hearing, and when, never mind appraise him of his rights?"

"So it's going to need digging. Why don't they ever give you routine cases?"

"Because I deliver." She looked back at the petition. "Native English speaker, at any rate, and in process of training in nonverbal communication."

"Big help. So he can point to the orange juice or the grape juice to choose which for lunch."

"Hey, that much control over his life could be vital." Jan put the papers back in order and laid them neatly on her desk. "Twelve o'clock. I'll see you this afternoon."

Jan ate lunch at her desk. Her noon break was given to walking Banner. Other strollers avoided them, which in the evening was more relief than irritation, but in the daytime made her feel aggrieved. Especially when she saw other dogs pulling at their leashes, dragging or dragged. Banner's leash stayed slack, her head stayed even with Jan's knee, just where it belonged. She could heel as well off-leash as on, and if let completely off-leash, she would come when called. Except that some uniformed idiot would shoot her, and expect a medal for it.

Now and then, Banner would sniff at something. Jan would pause and ask, "What's there, Banner?" -- a signal exchange they had evolved to ask and give permission to go off heel long enough to investigate. Unless someone was close enough to be scared into doing something silly; then the human's response was "Heel, Banner. Heel." The smell would have to go uninvestigated, because if someone screamed at Banner's approach, there would be yet another demand that she be put down. Damned idiots.

#

At two o'clock, two agents strolling the Mall just happened to run across their AD doing the same. Scully began by thanking him for getting on the benefits so promptly. Skinner responded with much the same fierce satisfaction she had shown earlier, giving "My pleasure, agent" a whole new meaning.

More gently, he asked, "Where is he now?"

"With my mother," she told him. "Tomorrow I'm leaving him with the guys; they'll get him to his speech therapy session in the afternoon, and I'll pick him up there. Oh, you got my note about . . .?"

"Going to the Friday sessions, yes. Paperwork every week, but I foresee no other difficulties." His voice hardened. "Will he need protection?"

"I can't see anyone coming after him just yet, and you can hardly justify a guard until someone does. Aphasia won't prevent his requalifying on the range and in PT. I may not be up to hand-to-hand right now, but I can still shoot. The guys are good watchdogs, though not bodyguards."

Skinner's mouth twitched in a humorless grin. "I suspect Frohike knows which end of a gun the bullet comes out of." Now his gaze flicked to Doggett as he went on, "Do either of you see difficulties with closing the case?"

Doggett expected a Scully eye-roll, but she was narrow-eyed with anger. "If it involved anyone else, he'd have deep-sixed it into the X-files." No need to specify which 'him'."

"There is a certain irony," Skinner agreed. Once again, his eyes flicked to Doggett.

Feeling that he was stepping into quicksand, he said, "I don't see how we can prevent it. The only reason to keep it open is essentially a hunch, and there's nothing we can do with it except wait for the other shoe to drop." He waited for the explosion.

Instead, Scully nodded agreement. "All we can do openly. There are two things we can do quietly: we can pull together all our data on the Bounty Hunter and on the Consortium, including the companies that have been involved with them; and we can look for allies."

Both men stared at her intently.

She went on: "We need to make sure the data is backed up securely, and we need people who have tracked criminal syndicates before. Pendrell can't have been the only honest agent in Washington."

"What happened to 'Trust No One'?" said Skinner.

"What happened to overwhelming manpower and firepower? The Consortium is not an X-file, and a single pair of agents can't bring down an entire syndicate."

Doggett wondered briefly -- and silently -- which pair of agents she was talking about. He'd give odds it didn't include one John Doggett.

Skinner seemed to be debating something with himself. "Agents only. No support personnel."

"The Field Office?" she asked. "Baltimore?"

Skinner nodded slowly.

Doggett decided to get in his own two cents. "What about this Bounty Hunter's twins? Besides blowing their heads off."

Scully went into Doctor Mode. "They can't have so volatile a metabolism and not be vulnerable to catalists. The problem is that we have no way to find them at our initiative, so we have to be prepared to test at any moment." Her voice was becoming ever more abstracted. "A set of probes to test the green goo, and something on the order of a paper chromatograph to test the volatiles. Set it up like a radiation badge. And fluoridated copper; if it can hold flourine, it should hold anything . . . Can't say the same for fluorospar, cover the plug in foil . . ." She was no longer talking to the men, but quietly brainstorming to herself. Or perhaps to Mulder.

#

When they got back to the office, Doggett asked, "Pendrell?"

Scully sighed, her mind running back over the years. "Agent Ross Pendrell. An Eagle Scout in a lab coat. Fast, accurate, never complained, and we never regretted trusting him. He died four years ago, saving my witness. Maybe my life."

"Dulce et decorum est," said Doggett quietly. He walked around his desk and pulled an envelope out of a drawer. "I've done some background work on our acquaintences yesterday."

"Anything tasty?" she asked, grateful for the change in subject.

"Not really. Your Mr Danford is a partner in the veddy Proper Bostonian firm of St Martin, Danford and Fergusson, but he lives in New Bedford. Must be an hour's commute."

"Something like," said Scully, responding to the implied rebuke. "He's been Mulder's attorney since before he went to Oxford. Mulder trusts him with his estate, and I've found no reason not to go on trusting him."

"Lippsett and Gregson are respectable Virginia lawyers, licensed for DC and Maryland as well. Gregson has 'connections.' Lippsett is a paper pusher, with a reputation of being reliable as long as he's *not* under pressure."

"We'll bear that in mind."

"Thompson has nothing against him but a DUI a couple of years back. No one hurt."

If Pendrell's reflexes hadn't been slowed . . .

Something must have showed in her face, because Doggett went on, "You don't like drunk drivers." It wasn't a question.

Distantly, she heard her own voice saying, "I did my Emergency Room rotation, like every other med student."

"So you saw your share of them."

"And their passengers. And the bystanders. And the other drivers. And the other passengers."

#

Maggie was surprised that Fox slept through the doorbell. Perhaps she'd let him overtire himself; he was only just returned, after all. It was Dana at the door, of course, come to fetch him home.

"Hi, Mom. How did you manage?"

"Quite well. We made some of those icons you mentioned, I showed him some simple cooking, and he helped clean up the yard. He's asleep at the moment."

Dana mentally debated something, presumably whether to wake him or not, but was interrupted by Father McHugh's "Good evening, Dana."

"Good evening, Father," she said. By the sidelong Look she gave Maggie, she suspected that the good Father's presence was no accident.

He smiled reassuringly. "I know it must feel like one crisis on top of another, but at least now you have him safe under your care. Which makes it a good time to think about your *other* charge."

Dana's lips quirked slightly in response.

"You two have had very bad luck with timing. Many engaged couples jump the gun, so to speak, without anyone noticing unless they count up the months. That doesn't make it OK, of course, but as sins go, it is rather minor. The kidnapping and aphasia . . ."

"-- Have made the entire question moot. Even if we were engaged, you can't instruct him without words, and he can't make a valid vow that he doesn't understand."

Maggie hadn't intended to get into this, but heard her own voice repeat, "If?" in protest. They both looked toward her. "I -- surely you had some understanding . . ."

Dana drew a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh.

Father McHugh looked grave. "Dana. If the aphasia cleared up tomorrow, enough for instruction and valid vows, what would you do?"

"We would have a serious talk. I want Mulder in our lives, but whether as father or uncle is up to him."

"I'm . . . not sure I understand what you mean." Maggie wanted to second that, but this time kept her silence.

Dana stroked her belly meditatively for a moment. Then: "I trust Mulder with my life. That's because he's demonstrated, time and again, that my life is vital to him. He's gone literally to the ends of the earth to rescue me.

"He has also shown that nothing less than my life is as important as whatever he's obsessing about at the moment. All right, I'm an adult, I can cope. But a child has vital needs besides life itself; needs that cannot come second to convenience."

Maggie could not have felt more astonished or confused had the floor opened up under her. Dana was so fond of Fox, so protective! She never questioned that she would take care of him, if need be, for the rest of both their lives.

Dana continued: "I've never asked Mulder to change for me; he must change if he is to be a father. If he can't, or won't, I don't doubt he will be her favorite uncle, able to convince her that whatever he ran after instead of doing what she was counting on was urgent. But she needs a father she can count on, or no father at all."

"She? You're sure?"

"Yes, the test results have come back. It's a girl. Healthy. I'm naming her Samantha Melissa, after her murdered aunts."

Maggie shivered. "Isn't that a terrible burden . . . ?"

"Neither Sammi nor anyone else is safe until we break the Consortium's power. Mulder and I fought them for seven years, without even seriously inconveniencing them. We have to change our tactics and win, or Sammi will be just another guinea pig. Expendable."

Now Maggie was outraged. "Dana Katherine, you can NOT be thinking of -- of --"

"No field work, no. Paperwork, and lots of it. This is an international syndicate, not the Dillinger gang. Feats of derring-do -- don't."

DAY THREE

Scully and Doggett began their new tactics the next day. He brought in a box, from which he took a pair of small speakers, a portable CD player, an AC adapter cord, and a CD in a jewel box. These he put together to create an ear-shattering noise.

When he tuned the volume down to a dull roar, she said, "I'll bring in Wagner tomarrow."

"You said yourself there's no keeping up with the bugs."

"And Vivaldi isn't loud enough. I know."

"How do we use our computers without waking the watchdogs?"

"We hope Langly's kung-fu is still the best."

"Huh?!?"

Scully got out a CD-ROM and handed it over. "We hope he can still encrypt better than they can decrypt."

Doggett put the CD-ROM into the drive and turned on the power. "I don't suppose you can tell me whether this is PGP?"

"Only the Gunmen know for sure."

While the CD-ROM was installing, Doggett asked, "So what are we doing today?"

"I first saw Spender in Chief Blevins's office, smoking a cigarette. He's been in Skinner's office too; I never asked what hooks he had in, it was enough that Skinner fought them. He was in Kersh's office the time of the Bermuda chase. Fowley was his aide. And I'm certain that he executed his own son."

"So he's our center. How do we track him?"

"Skinner discovered the link between Blevins and Rousch." Now she got out and handed over a floppy disk. "Work only on this disk, save nothing to the hard drive. See if you can find a similar link with Kersh, while I cross-reference every file cabinet in this office."

Doggett's computer screen read: "Cut power, then reboot." He turned off the noisemaker and sat down to work.

Scully left him to it and rough-sorted the files into Definitely Relevant, Questionably Relevant and Not Relevant. Those last she entered into a quick-&-dirty authority list to aid normal memories in finding them again, and returned to their drawers. Questionables went into a pile on her desk. The Definites she cross-referenced by Consortium members, victims, allies, corporations and metabolic oddities.

Three cabinets in, she snuck a look at the Gunmen's report on recent acquaintences. Nothing on Reid and Vincent, but assurance that any publication by either of them would rouse an electronic watchdog. Nothing on Thorne. Their estimates of the Lippsett and Gregson people were much like Doggett's. Carl Suominen's legal name, not surprisingly, was Kaarlo; he hadn't changed it, just used the Anglicised form professionally. Danford not only lived in New Bedford, he occasionally participated in the annual Moby Dick Marathon; he was, however, more taken with Frederick Douglass than Herman Melville.

Still putting off a return to the cabinets, she reconsidered the Questionables and decided they were mostly Tangentials. The Burmuda chase had nothing to do with the Consortium, but the association of Spender and Kersh did. She made a cross-reference sheet on each Tangential, carefully citing casefile number and date, and started a new folder to hold the sheets. The files themselves she relegated to Not Relevant, authority-listed them and put them away. The few remaining Questionables she reclassified as Definites and cross-referenced them with the rest.

Doggett's voice interrupted her. "We need a reliable forensic accountant."

"I'll send a request to supply."

Neither of them expected a knock on the door.

#

Jan Walesa wished someone had warned her to pack for an expedition to find the place. No matter, here she was at last. She rapped sharply on the door. An alto voice called, "It's open!" and she walked into the cabinet-filled office.

At the large desk dominating the room was a petite redhead. A medium-sized man sat at the other. She crossed to the larger desk, saying, "Dana Scully? I'm Janet Walesa." The redhead raised her eyebrows, and Jan added, "No relation."

"I'm Dana Scully," said the redhead, "and this is John Doggett." She gestured at the man at the other desk. "I'm sorry, you must be very tired of that response. Sit down."

Jan grinned and sat, "Yours was more subtle than cracks about lechery."

The redhead rolled her eyes eloquently. "What brings you here, Ms Walesa?"

Jan watched closely as she said, "I've been appointed guardian ad litem for Fox William Mulder," and set the petitioner's copies of the Notice of Hearing and her appointment as guardian ad litem on the desk.

Agent Scully's eyebrows crawled toward her hairline again as she picked up the notices. "That was fast work."

"No comment. The hearing is in three weeks, and that *is* fast work."

"Some of the people I have to notify either don't have fax or I don't have their number. Still, that should be long enough even for Snail Mail. Do I make a copy of these for Mulder?"

She was being quite cool and professional. Jan said, "No, I'll give him his copy when I . . . speak with him."

Now she was quite *intense* and professional. "You realise that he has only nonverbal channels of communication left?"

"Yes, I do. I know this is not going to be an easy case."

Agent Scully took a bright blue marker from her desk. "I would like to mark Mulder's copies. He needs a nonverbal ikon to recognise them."

Jan put the papers on the desk and watched as the agent put a blue diamond on the Notice of Hearing and an interlocking pair on the notice of appointment. She pulled the marked papers to her side of the desk and put her hands flat on the desktop, mirroring Agent Scully's. "I understand that you've been acting unofficially as Agent Mulder's guardian since he disappeared."

"Excuse me?"

"His paycheck is now sent directly to his bank by electronic funds transfer. Both the Bureau and his bank accepted your signiture in place of his."

"Eventually," she said wryly.

"They have a copy of the missing person report in the file. So do the post office, eventually accepting your signiture to re-route his mail to your address, and his phone company, eventually accepting it to temporarily but indefinitely turn off his service. What puzzles me is why the drafts with which you have been paying his rent and utilities are drawn on a bank in Boston, not his bank in Washington."

"The emergency fund, Mr Danford calls it. He arranged for me to draw on it for maintaining Mulder's apartment."

"Why not use his account here? Certainly his salary would cover it."

She hesitated, then said in a flat voice, "I wasn't sure the Bureau would continue to pay his salary."

"Surely an agent held hostage is on duty status."

"There were -- irregularities. They're sorted out now." In a more normal voice, she went on, "If you say that's acting as guardian, I'll have to take your word for it. I'm no lawyer."

"Accountant?" Jan knew that most FBI agents were one or the other.

"Forensic pathologist."

Jan looked down at the strong, delicate hands resting across from hers on the desktop. Surgeon's hands. "What's the medicalese for 'Follow the money,' Dr Scully?"

"'When you hear hoofbeats, look first for horses, not zebras.'"

Jan nodded. "All right. Now, let me show you the horse: The respondent -- that's Fox Mulder -- has a lot more money than his lifestyle suggests. The petitioner -- that's you -- suggests herself for guardian, respondent's own attorney for conservator. The two have worked as a team before, as a result of which the petitioner already has her hands on some of the respondent's money. The petitioner is pregnant and single; the respondent's money must be a temptation." She sat back. "What does your zebra look like?"

Agent Scully said in a low, dangerous voice, "Partners watch each others' backs." Then, surprisingly, she quoted, "'It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him, he was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it.'"

"Bogart as Sam Spade, _the Maltese Falcon_," Jan acknowledged.

"My partner trusts Mr Danford with his estate, and I have no reason to distrust him. If I took on conservatorship, I'd just have to hire someone like Mr Danford to do the same work, then oversee his reports. It makes more sense to let the lawyer do the lawyering while I look after Mulder."

Jan didn't try to be diplomatic or even subtle. "Who's the father?"

"Mulder."

"You can prove it?"

"I can do the tests in the courtroom, if the judge insists."

"You don't see any conflict of interest?"

"None."

"Please elaborate."

"There are two factors here: Mulder's wishes, and Mulder's best interests. We know what Mulder wishes in this case; to support his child. I would like to hear what kind of case could be made that supporting his child is *not* in his best interests."

"If his guardian and his conservator worked hand in hand to inflate that support."

The redhead deliberately relaxed. "As a conspiracy theory, it has the virtue of simplicity. And it's physically possible; Mr Danford and I met to arrange the paper work on the autopsy of Mulder's mother. But why should Danford turn against a client he's known since he was a schoolboy -- and Danford wasn't much beyond one himself?"

"Because the client is now effectively incommunicado."

The agent shook her head. "Too many unjustified assumptions. Your horse hasn't a leg to stand on."

Jan debated continuing the confrontation, decided not to. "My investigation is only just starting. I may come to agree with your zebra, or I may not. Meanwhile, I am required to meet with Fox Mulder, face to face. Where is he?"

Agent Scully picked up the phone. "He's with the Gunmen. They're taking him to speech therapy this afternoon, and I'll pick him up there."

"Gunmen."

"The lone gunman, the grassy knoll . . ."

"Your mentors in conspiracy theory?"

"Mulder's no slouch, either. The guys tend to be more Byzantine, he's usually more, uhm, far out." She dialed. After a moment she said, "Scully. I'm putting you on speakerphone."

A voice came from the speaker. "Agent Scully! To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"I have a Ms Janet Walesa with me. She's been appointed guardian ad litem, to look after Mulder's interests."

"And she wants to see him."

"She's required to see him," said Agent Scully. Then: "Ms Walesa, this is Mr Frohicke."

"Mr Frohike," Jan said, "you sound as though you object to my meeting Mr Mulder."

"That's *Agent* Mulder," said the Frohike voice.

"Agent Mulder," Jan dutifully repeated.

"This is Byers," said a new voice. "We realise that there are procedures, but we're concerned with Mulder's interests, too. He may be legally helpless, but he is not friendless."

The Frohike voice chimed in, "We're not leaving him alone with strangers."

"From what I've learned, I see no reason to be alone with him today," said Jan. "We can discuss future meetings when we are no longer strangers."

The Frohike voice said, "We don't leave him alone with a lot of people we know, either."

Jan shook her head, but kept her voice level. "Vigilance is a virtue, but don't let it escalate into paranoia."

"Ah. And where would you draw the line?"

"I would say the difference is that vigilance makes you eager to see what's there; paranoia predisposes you to see what you think ought to be there."

"Tell you what," said the Byers voice. "We're going to dig them out for lunch soon, anyway --"

"Out of where?" said Agent Scully.

Frohike supplied, "'Doom: the Destiny'" in an announcer's voice, then chortled. "He's whipping Langly's ass."

Jan was surprised not to hear an indignant 'He is not!'

Instead, the Byers voice picked up again. "There's a diner on New York Avenue, near the Washington end of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway." He gave the address and landmarks. "We'll be there around twelve-thirty or one o'clock. You can meet Mulder, we can all size each other up, and we'll take him on to his therapy session. You can come or not, and his therapist can decide whether to let you in or throw you out."

"A date," said Jan. Good thing she'd put Banner on the running line this morning. When she was sure Agent Scully had turned off the speaker, she asked, "Is there an adult in that menage?"

"They do cultivate eccentric manners, but they've known Mulder longer than I have, and they've never betrayed him or let him down."

Jan couldn't help but sing: "What, never?"

Scully did not sing the answer: "No. Never. Once he thought they'd turned on him. He knows now they were trying to help him."

Again, Jan decided not to argue further. Instead she rose and closed the catch on her briefcase.

As she did so, Agent Scully said, "That's a good motto, Ms Walesa."

"Oh?"

"'Don't let vigilance escalate into paranoia.'"

Jan gave her a confident grin and let her have the last word.

The diner turned out to be one of those confused places that can't make up its mind whether to be a truck stop or a mama-papa restaurant. She looked around for four men sitting at one table. As she located a set of candidates, a bearded man in a suit got up and approached her.

"Ms Walesa? I'm John Byers." She nodded, they shook hands, and he escorted her back to the table and intoduced the rest. Langly was a hippie, Frohike a troll. In that company, Mulder in jeans and sweater looked supremely normal; Byers sat her next to him.

In person, Mulder was lanky, brown-haired and long-nosed, with intelligent eyes and an engaging grin. He and Jan had a moment to size each other up before the waitress dropped a menu in front of Jan and vanished. With advice from her hosts, Jan chose her lunch and set down the menu to await another visitation.

Meanwhile, she opened her briefcase and got out the marked copies of the notices. She intended to ask Byers about the marks, but Mulder reached for them. She let him have them, watched as he fingered the marked corners, then looked up at her with questioning eyes.

Frohike said, "Did Agent Scully make those marks?"

"Yes, she did. What do they mean?"

The three didn't take their eyes off Mulder as Byers said, "They mean those papers are connected to the one she gave him day before yesterday." Byers rapped the table to get Mulder's attention, then mimed laying out a hand of cards.

Mulder set down the papers, got a folder from under his chair and pulled out a set of pictures. He spread them in front of Jan.

There were faces -- the three men, Agent Scully, an older man she hadn't met -- and building exteriors. All were rough and grainy, the human portraits off-balance. Jan picked up the photo of Agent Scully, put it on top of the papers and handed the packet to Mulder.

He stared at the photo while fingering the marks again. He started to put them into the folder, then put the photo back on top of the pile and put away only the papers.

With a glance at him for permission, Jan leafed through the pile more slowly. "Surveillance photos?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Langly. "Stopgap while we get something better."

"This is the Hoover Building, isn't it?" she said. "Big as life and twice as ugly."

"Impossible," said Frohike.

"All right, *just* as ugly."

Byers said, "The therapist in Oregon told Scully, and she passed it on to us. Since his memory seems to be intact, he --or we-- can just point to the photo of what or who he wants to convey."

"And thanks to modern memory capacity," Langly picked up, "they can be used as cues in animated scenarios. Flash a picture and an ikon, then use the ikon."

"Who is this?"

"AD Skinner," said Byers. "Mulder's boss."

The only interior in the packet was grainier than all the rest. Jan peered at it for several moments before it resolved. "This is the office. Weird angle."

"Bug tucked in the fire sprinkler," said Frohike.

"Gotta be against fire regs." She closed up the packet and tapped it even, then passed it back to Mulder, who put it away and set the folder back under his chair. All returned to their meals.

When she finished, Jan asked, "Can you draw pictures of rights?"

Langly stopped playing with the remains of his crust. "Well, silence is fairly simple: you can do the Chinese monkey--" he put a hand briefly over his mouth "--or the zip or the button." He made those gestures briefly. "Advice--" he leaned his mouth toward Byers's ear "--should be possible. But how to picture 'legal counsel' . . ."

The Miranda list, thought Jan. Experience, paranoia, or just a lifetime of watching television?

As they left the diner, Jan decided the three were still a point against Dana Scully. Yes, they were bright, and fond of Mulder. Fine for playmates, but to leave him in their charge--!

#

Scully had had a productive afternoon. In between file cabinets, she'd made copies of the Notice of Hearing and a copy of her petition that she'd brought to the office, faxed one of each to Danford and snail mailed one of each to each of the cousins. She sent off a notice of compliance, carefully noting that she had already given the respondent a copy of the petition before this date, and that the guardian ad litem had agreed to give him the notice of the hearing and the appointment of the guardian. She'd also managed to work through a surprising number of the files; another day of cross-referencing should finish the lot.

Her mind thus running back over the day, when she turned into Suominen's office, she met Mulder's welcoming grin at full force. It hammered into her anew: He's back! Up to his ass in alligators, but he's back!

The scrape of the inner door reminded her of where they were. She stepped back and looked at Suominen, cursing her fair complection. Her face must be as red as her hair.

"Don't worry," he said. "It's normal, and there ain't nobody here but just us chickens."

She nodded, groping for composure. "I . . . He's back. He -- he's really back." She gripped Mulder's hand with both of hers and took some deep breaths. At last she felt she could trust her voice. "What did you do today?"

"Ikons," he said. "It's not the usual place for them, but Mulder is good enough at this to skip around a bit, and your three friends have been working up computer animation as a kind of elaborated charades.

"We started with yes/no, based on that magnetic clean/dirty sign they used to put on dishwashers." He showed her a page of sketches. There was a circle-and-slash, a check and X, a smiley face with another curve on the forehead. "The smiley/grouchy isn't distinct enough, but abandoning the magnetic notion . . ." He picked up a stick with a smiley-face mounted on it, twirled it to show a yucky-face on the other side.

"But the real success is the simplest: thumb up or thumb down, according to how you place it." It was a picture of a hand with the thumb extended, glued or pasted onto a wide version of magnetic mounting tape.

"Then we did coffee-tea-or-me. No magnetics, just card stock."

At a nod from Suominen, Mulder shook out an envelope and began turning the rectangles picture-side-up. There was a recognisable teapot, an old-style percolator, a cup with a wisp of steam, a glass with ice cubes, not quite a dozen in all. By combining ikons, he could ask or she could offer fairly complex menus.

With what could only be called a nervous smirk, he set down the last ikon in front of her. It didn't seem to fit the series at all: a log with a hand-saw halfway through it. How did that --

"Decaf!" She touched the coffee-percolator icon and mimed sleep, head pillowed on hands, giving a little snore.

Mulder leaped to his feet, punching his fist toward the ceiling.

As she and Mulder packed up the ikons, Carl said, "Your friends asked if he can visit again tomarrow. Langly wants his revenge."

Once again, she swung by Mulder's place for fresh clothes on the way home. This time she went over his CD collection: Elvis of course; Jimi Hendrix; the Brandenberg Concertos? She hadn't realised he cared for any classical music. There was a recording of the complete set at her place, but he wouldn't recognise the cover. Bring it along.

Rather than hunt in Mulder's apartment for a tape measure, she'd brought hers to measure the dimensions of the fish tank and its gear. Mulder insisted that she also measure the gap between the back of the tank and the wall, so she measured all the clearances on all sides. She recorded it all on a three-by-five card, neatly labeled "Fish Tank."

They piled into the car and went home.

DAY FOUR

*You're committed now, Walter.* Once Scully exchanged information with Harrison, there was no climbing back onto the fence. *Get out of that funk and get some work done.*

Kim unwittingly came to his rescue with, "Ms Janet Walesa to see you, sir."

"Send her in."

Walesa turned out to be a woman about Dana Scully's age, or perhaps a bit older. Skinner waved her to a seat; en route to it, she put a document on his desk.

"Mr Skinner, I'm Janet Walesa. I've been appointed guardian ad litem for Fox Mulder, to protect his interests in the upcoming hearing."

Skinner ran his eyes over the document. All in order. "You've met him since his return?"

"Yes."

"Have you figured how to explain his rights to a man with global aphasia?"

Walesa was unfazed. "We may be forced to ask for a continuation, but from what I've seen and heard, Mr Mulder *needs* a guardian to take his affairs in hand as soon as possible."

"*Agent* Mulder," said Skinner. "He's still an agent of the FBI."

"His three . . . uhm . . . odd friends were equally insistent on that point."

So, she'd met the Lone Gunmen. "No matter the likelihood of his being medically discharged after the hearing, until that hearing we will *not* take its outcome for granted."

"Yes, indeed," said Walesa. With an air of 'let's get down to it,' she asked, "How long have you been Agent Mulder's supervisor?"

"His direct supervisor, half a dozen years. Before that, the unit was in the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders section. He reported to the late section chief, Scott Blevens, who reported to me."

"So you know both Agent Mulder and his partner, Agent Scully."

"Yes."

"Do you know that she is petitioning to be appointed his guardian?"

"Yes."

"Do you approve?"

"Who else is there? His parents are dead, his sister missing and presumed dead. His -- odd friends, as you describe them -- are fine for day care but not for guardianship."

"Have you more . . . more positive reasons?"

"She's guarded his back, patched his wounds and covered his ass for seven years."

"Isn't that a long time to be partnered?"

"The X-files is odd in a lot of ways."

"Odd."

"It's where people send cases they can't make any sense of. Some of them aren't even in our jurisdiction, but the agents have to solve them just to figure where they do belong: Forest Service, Environmental Protection, Center for Disease Control . . . Once we had to dig them out of a giant fungus before it digested them."

"Digested?"

"Chemical burns all over their exposed skin."

Walesa winced and shivered, perhaps in sympathy. "I am informed that Agent Scully acted unofficially for Agent Mulder since he went missing."

"He did not 'go missing,' Ms Walesa. He was kidnaped."

"Kidnaped. As I understand it, she arranged for direct deposit of his paycheck, had his mail rerouted to her address, temporarily discontinued his phone service, and paid his rent and utilities on her own signature."

"That sounds right. The sort of things necessary when someone is going to be gone for a while."

"How did she get all these agencies to accept her signature for these changes to Agent Mulder's affairs?"

"I can only speak knowledgeably of the bank, since I had to sign off on the paperwork. First off, there was the fact that the FBI was on record as hunting for Agent Mulder. Second, he had already arranged for Agent Scully to have access to his safety deposit box on her own signature. And third, the changes were to maintain the established traffic, so to speak, during a crisis. It took a great deal of negotiating, but in the face of the situation, and the clear evidence of Agent Mulder's trust in Agent Scully, it was more a matter of touching bases than serious persuasion."

"But the established traffic is *not* being maintained. His paychecks are still going in, but his rent and utilities payments are no longer coming out. Agent Scully is drawing on funds in a bank in Boston, not Agent Mulder's account here in DC."

"On that, you will have to ask Agent Scully."

"I did. She said she was not confident that the Bureau would continue to pay his salary, owing to 'irregularities' now resolved."

Skinner was mightily tempted to sic Ms Walesa onto Kersh, purely for the nuisance of it, but that would be unprofessional. Instead, he said, "We have never discussed that."

"Does Agent Scully often have such doubts of the civil service in general, or the Bureau in particular?"

"We've never discussed that, either."

"Would you judge her doubts in this case to be well-founded?"

"Agent Scully's considered decisions are always founded in reason."

Ms Walesa took a long breath. "Mr Skinner: As Fox Mulder's guardian ad litem, I have no concern with his relations with his employer, nor with his supervisor. My only concern is how his partner dealt with his finances while he was missing; specifically, why she tapped his emergency fund in Boston instead of his account in DC. My only question for you is whether you regard her concern over his continued paychecks to be a reasonable one."

"That's two questions: whether I knew of -- no, three. Whether I knew of her decision, whether I knew anything about the reasons behind it, and whether I regarded them as reasonable."

"I would of course like as complete and informative an answer as possible."

"I knew she was tapping his emergency fund. We did not discuss why she decided to, but I have never known Agent Scully to make unreasonable decisions."

Ms Walesa sat back. "Mr Skinner," she said, "I have lost count of the number of times I have dug up some minor -- minuscule! -- factor, purely because someone tried to keep it away from me. If this is that kind of minor point, even if it's embarrassing, your best move is to tell me about it so I can note it and shelve it, instead of making me get a subpoena and drag it out to judge its importance for myself."

Temptation was back. How often would he have to say No? More to the point, how long could he resist? "'Minuscule' is a good description. So minuscule that I doubt you can interest a judge in it."

"One way to find out."

#

At twelve o'clock, Agents Scully and Doggett entered a diner not too far from the Washington Field Office. The Muzak was not painfully loud, but would make it difficult to sort out overheard conversations. As the headquarters agents scanned the booths, a man in one of them met Scully's eye. She drifted over, Doggett in her wake.

"Agent Harrison?" she said softly.

"Agent Scully."

The two slipped into the booth and sat across from him.

Harrison said, "I hear you've had some run-ins with the American Quisling."

"If you mean CGB Spender, that's a good description. He sells us out to the Colonists and wants a medal for double-crossing them; he gives up his wife to be a guinea pig, and expects sympathy; and his project will save mankind, but the rest of us are all expendable."

"Yes, you have. Does the name 'Strughold' mean anything to you?"

"Space medicine," said Doggett.

Harrison shook his head. "You're thinking of his cousin, Hubertus, the Dachau experimenter. No, this is Conrad Strughold, the industrialist."

"Strughold Mining Company, West Virginia," said Scully. "Mulder had a photo . . . The original was lost in the fire . . ."

"Backed up, I hope," said Harrison.

"Yes, the Gunmen scanned it. It showed Spender and several other men, including Victor Klemper, another Paperclip scientist. We found Klemper, and he sent us to West Virginia. One of the galleries was filled with files. One was on me, one on Samantha Mulder. We barely made it out ahead of the clean-up squad, and when we went back, the place was rubble."

"When was this?" asked Harrison.

"Five or six years ago."

He scowled at the table. "And in all this time . . . I'm going to have a talk with your boss."

Scully laid a hand on Harrison's. "I don't know what hooks Spender has on AD Skinner, but he's been fighting them. And for the past year, he's been under a death sentence; the man holding the switch has no conscience and no loyalty."

"You make a convincing advocate, Agent Scully."

She chewed on her lip a moment, then asked, "Do you know if Spender is still alive? Still in power?"

"Why?" said Harrison bluntly.

"He's been reported dead before . . . Spender has some sort of obsession about Mulder. He's passed up opportunities to kill him, and he's claimed to have intervened to save him. We have no idea whether this is personal to Spender or if any of his colleagues share it in any degree. And now that Mulder is incapacitated . . ."

"Oh," said Harrison more gently. "All I can tell you is that I have no word of him later than last summer."

Doggett broke in. "You were telling us about Conrad Strughold."

"So I was. The full story will have to wait, but briefly: Conrad Strughold is an industrialist who made Germany too hot for him. Instead of South America, he ended up in northern Africa. Tunisia, to be exact. What evidence I've been able to dig up indicates that he is the head of the international syndicate."

#

Byers growled, "Don't they teach kids to spell any more?"

"Of course not," said Frohike, waving the platter at his friend's face. "That would be regimentation."

Byers sniffed at the platter, grinned up at Frohike, and began shutting down the computer. "E-mailed illiteracy," he muttered. "Do you suppose it's a conspiracy?"

"'Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity'." Frohike quoted, and led the way to the table that was currently clear enough for eating. "Can you decrypt it?"

"I won't even try until I finish with the people who *can* spell."

Frohike served Byers and himself, then set out to corral the last of the company. In the event, it was Mulder who first caught the smell. His hands stilled; Langly looked up and said, "What--? Hm!" Both followed Frohike to where Byers was already digging in.

Over seconds, Frohike asked for the game scores.

"Just about neck and neck," said Langly.

"What have you done to the programming?"

"Distractions." Langly got up and started to turn away; after a sharp look at his partners, he took his plate with him. Back at the terminal, he slaved in the conference monitor and said "This is yesterday's quick-and-dirty."

On the big screen was an appaloosa centaur with Scully's head.

"Not too subtle," said Byers.

"Quick-and-dirty, like I said. But there's a lot of footage of cats online. They move pretty, I guess." A cougar replaced the centaur. "So there's no need for extensive mods. Just a little suggestion." The cougar's head changed ever so slightly toward human. "And only in repose; when the face is in motion, it's all cat."

The cougar in turn was replaced by a typical videogame scene, complete with corpse lying in the middle of it. No, corpses don't breathe: casualty in the middle.

Now the cougar leaped down into the scene, standing over the casualty and staring at the viewer. Momentarily, Scully stared out of the cat's eyes.

The cougar bent her head to sniff the casualty, then jerked to attention again. Then she crouched, tail lashing, all snarling cat.

Frohike looked at Mulder and tapped Byers on the arm.

#
}Herself{
}fierce!protect{
}take!charge{
}velvet!paw{
}safe-snug-safe{ #

Sensing that he'd lost his audience, Langly took his plate back to the table, leaving the cat on the screen.

#

Dana Scully ran out of steam just over her threshold. Good thing they'd stopped to eat on the way home; she was ready to melt into the floor, or any other surface. Dimly, she felt Mulder slip her coat off, heard his footsteps and the opening door of the closet.

Suddenly he nudged her off-balance, guiding her in a sort of semi-controlled fall to her couch. Fine, she could melt here. Off came the shoes from her aching feet; oh, very nice. A bit of fumbling and off came the knee-highs. What was -- OOOhhhhh!

Warm, strong fingers pressed against the tendons of her foot and ankle, up to the muscles of her calf. Aaahhh. Then the other foot. MMMmmmmm. Now the serious massage. Oooohhhh. Puddle on the couch, never move again. (Til you have to pee again. Shut up! and let me enjoy this.) Can you have an orgasm just from getting your feet rubbed?

Ahhh . . . Oooo . . . Mmmm . . . Bring!Bring!Bring!

DAMN the telephone!

Somehow she fumbled the cordless to the general region of her mouth. "Scully."

"Agent Scully, this is Curtis Danford. How are you and Fox getting on?"

"He's cosseting me. If you want to make a woman your lifelong slave, rub her feet."

"I'm sorry, it sounds as though I interrupted something. I'll make this as quick as I can." Yet he paused a moment before apparently changing the subject completely. "Confidentiality is not always simple. What my partner's client tells me is not confidential; my duty is to my own client's legitimate interests. Yet, I would not trumpet my partner's affairs up and down the coast."

"I understand that."

"Dare I enquire what dark secrets your brothers in arms have dug up on us?"

"Your firm has been the Kupiers' family lawyers for some generations," she said. "You've been handling Mulder's estate ever since he received a legacy from his grandparents. His Kupier cousins are actually cousins once removed, his mother's cousins. Mr Kupier is Mr St Martin's client. Mrs Harry Rothenberg, like Mulder's mother, now goes mostly to her husband's attorney, but hasn't entirely deserted Mr St Martin.

"The firm offices are in Boston proper; you commute in from New Bedford. You've taken part in the annual Moby Dick Marathon, but you're more taken with Frederick Douglass than Herman Melville."

Danford gave an exaggerated sigh. "Well, I deny everything, but I recognise the portraits."

"And your not-quite-confidential issue?"

"Forgive my bluntness, Dr Scully, but are you pregnant?"

"Yes, why?"

"Are you and Fox engaged, or handfasted, or whatever New Age rigmarole they do these days?" He pronounced it 'newage.'

"Nothing formal, no."

A soft sigh came over the line. "I was hoping . . . You may know that it's easier for a wife or fiancee to secure guardianship. Especially if the petition is contested."

"I see."

"What I don't understand is how the word got up here so fast. I understand that you sent your own notifications by registered mail -- and believe me, I appreciate your keeping me in touch by fax -- and in any case hardly include such irrelevant matters as your physical condition, obvious though it must be to anyone in your presence."

"It might of course be something quite innocent," said Scully. "Janet Walesa, the guardian ad litem, might have phoned someone up there in the course of her investigation. Though she didn't strike me as a casual gossip."

"I trust not. I'm going to be blunt again, Agent Scully. Is the baby Fox's?"

"Yes."

"Can you prove it? Have you the paperwork?"

"I had all the tests done. She's human, healthy, Mulder's and mine."

"Aren't the first and last of those a given?"

"With today's medical technology, a woman can carry a fetus who is no genetic relation to her." No point in explaining why 'human' wasn't a given, either.

#

Byers picked up the phone. "Lone Gunmen."

"It's Scully, Byers. Turn off the tape."

"Wait one." He turned on the speakerphone, without stopping the tape. "Go ahead."

"Guys, have you dug up anything else on Mulder's cousin Kupier?"

"He's a ferocious little snob," said Frohike.

"The Kupiers are old money," Byers elaborated, "and the Mulders are not."

"Nothing nouveau, you understand," said Langly in an affected, campy voice. "But not quite *quite*."

Byers continued, "To add insult to injury, the average Mulder nowadays is better off than the average Kupier. Leonard Kupier never spoke to his cousin after she married Bill Mulder."

"So . . ." said Scully, "he doesn't know Mulder from Adam."

"Probably not. Why"

"Apparently, someone plans to contest my petition. Someone with rapid and efficient communication to the Washington area."

"We'll get on it."

"Thanks, guys."

#

Now he had the coffee brewed, Skinner debated spiking it. *Thus negating the whole point. What kind of candy-ass am I turning into?*

When the knock came, he checked through the spy hole. Harrison, sure enough, standing a good arm's length back from the door. He opened it and nodded the agent into the room. Not until he'd poured him a cup and refreshed his own did he reflect that he'd expected him, as surely as if he'd issued an invitation. *I did.*

Harrison was not letting the hospitality soften him. As far as he was concerned, this was office coffee, offered as common property to anyone on the squad. "How long were you planning on keeping her under your hat?"

"Until she asked."

"Until she somehow divined what was completely left out of her training? What were you thinking of?"

"I have some idea what Blevins was thinking of when he assigned her to the X-files. If I knew who decided to start her right in teaching without even a year at a field office, I'd ask him what he thought he was doing."

"Meanwhile, an agent nearly a decade in the Bureau has never yet been the principal investigator in a normal case."

"She's been doing a job on the X-files -- including a few blows at the Consortium."

"Pinpricks!"

"Which is more than you or I have accomplished."

"And nothing to what we could have done working together."

"So write up a memo. Be sure to include your personnel requirements." His cell phone chittered. "Skinner," he barked into it.

"It's me, sir. I've run across something odd in regard to my petition. I'd like to take personal time tomorrow to talk to a few people before I take Mulder to therapy."

"Problems?" There was literally no one else who could take proper care of Mulder.

"I don't yet know, sir. I'm hoping to find something out tomorrow. I almost wish Gibson Praise hadn't done his disappearaing act again, though I cert-- Oh, my God, Gibson! The other non-Bellefleuran!"

*What the hell?* "What is it, Agent Scully? What's going on there?"

"They were trying to take Gibson, too! Gibson and Mulder, the only targets NOT from Bellefleur! Telepathic tests! And then jus' -- j-just d-d-dump them!"

Her voice was going strident, wavering out of control. *Now what, boss-man?* "Agent Scully are you --"

"But NOT Gibson!" she continued unheeding. "Just M-Mulder! Jus' d-dumped him!"

*Get her attention, first.* "Dana Scully! Where are you? Your place?"

A choked-off noise, like a strangled sob. "Yes, sir."

"I'm on my way."

He closed and pocketed the cell phone, glaring at Harrison. The agent checked and reholstered his weapon, wordlessly declaring himself in.

"You drive here?"

"Yes."

"Stay on my tail."

En route to Georgetown, Skinner did a little preventive work to keep anybody else off Harrison's tail. Most of his mind, though, was on the situation awaiting him. *Nobody can be strong forever.* But how to convince a vertically challenged woman who'd shouldered, elbowed, and kicked her way into two male-dominated professions through sheer brains and guts?

On the chance that the phone display was not what it seemed, they flanked the door and drew their weapons before Skinner knocked. The door flung open, and he looked down the barrel of a SIG. Following the gun to the hands and up the arms, he faced a too-pale but resolute Dana Scully. A glance to one side showed Mulder, standing well out of the door's swing and equally out of Scully's line of sight.

Scully lowered her gun and said, "I'm sorry I worried you, sir. I was . . . I - I'm . . . "

"I know, you're fine. Bullshit." Holstering his own gun, Skinner walked into the apartment, giving Harrison clearance to come in and shut the door. Scully had patched herself up again in the time it had taken to get over here, but it was a makeshift job. Besides her palor, there was enough tremor in her hands to make her try twice at holstering her weapon.

"I-I am very sorry, sir, to have brought you here on a fool's errand--"

"DAMN it, Scully!" He gripped her shoulders and gave her a shake. "Will you stop playing Iron Man! I am not one of the hyenas. Nor am I going to forget seven years of strength because you're shell-shocked now." The old-fashioned word had more bite than the bloodless modern phrase. "You've been through hell, and now someone's trying to separate you again. But you're not under fire just now, so cut yourself some slack!"

Now he was close, he could see and feel signs of physical shock as well: skin cold and sweaty as well as pale, breathing shallow and rapid. *Nobody's strength lasts forever.* He startled slightly as Mulder came up behind her and wrapped her in an afghan, presumably from the couch. Skinner gave him a grateful smile, but addressed Scully: "Sit down before you keel over."

She sat. Mulder tapped Skinner's shoulder, mimed pouring from a coffee pot, and headed into the kitchen. Harrison, weapon also holstered now, stood at the end of the couch. Scully pulled the afghan closer around her.

"Now, slowly," said Skinner, "tell me what hit you just now."

She shivered again, and said in a flat voice, "The Bounty Hunter tried to get Gibson, too. He didn't have to test the Bellefleurans' encephalographic anomalies; he and his side caused them. But Gibson has had his since birth, and Mulder got his by accident, from that artifact. They wanted to test them both, but they only got Mulder. And whatever they were testing for, they put that metabolic padlock on his brain. And didn't bother to put him right again -- just dumped him in the forest."

Her tears, he would bet, were as much rage as grief. "They just left him that way! Helpless, cut off -- This is THE REST OF HIS LIFE!"

"But you said before that there's no brain damage. Isn't that still reason to hope?"

"Because we don't know anything about what they did to him? Because we haven't a clue what caused the aphasia, only that it's like nothing else we've ever seen before?"

Mulder, bringing in a tray with coffee, stopped and stared at her tears in consternation. Skinner took the tray from his hands and set it on the coffee table, while Mulder sat beside Scully and held her, making a sort of distressed cooing noise. She gave him a brave smile. It was a tossup, Skinner decided, who was comforting whom.

"If you're right," he said, "we do know more than we did. And when we find Gibson, he may be able to tell us more."

Scully spoke at a complete tangent. "Decaf for the duration." Her hand, perhaps unconsciously, smoothed her swollen belly.

Harrison took his cup, and with it, apparently, permission to join the brainstorming. "It works as deduction, but where are we going to find evidence?"

"Maybe we'll ask Strughold," said Skinner. "Or drag it out of Krycek."

They drank in meditative silence. Scully poured seconds.

Finally, Skinner said, "But that wasn't what you called for."

Scully took a moment to catch up. "Oh. No. Mr Danford called. He was careful not to say anything explicitly, but what he talked around was that someone in Boston intends to contest my petition for Mulder's guardianship. I deduce that it's Leonard Kupier. Mr Danford has no idea how he learned about the petition so soon -- it's too soon for snail mail to have brought him my notification -- or how he learned that I'm pregnant."

"So you're going to talk to the people who know?"

"Mr Lippsett helped me write it up, and Ms Benson typed the final draft. Mr Thompson may or may not know officially, but he brought us there, and could easily find out about what. All three of them saw me, and could pass THAT word on as well."

"You expect them to admit it if they did?" said Harrison. "None of them has any business 'passing the word'."

"I expect it to shake them up. And of course Ms Walesa might have phoned whoever it was in the course of her investigation. Though I don't see her as a casual gossip."

"Nor I," said Skinner. "I was tempted to sic her onto -- My God, Kersh! He knows!"

"How would he even know Kupier exists?" asked Scully. "Much less how to get word to him."

"If Spender is alive, don't you think he knows?"

"Spender, yes. But if he's not alive, we're left with the question of how personal was his obsession with Mulder."

"And how personal is Kersh's obsession with Mulder."

After a bit, Skinner and Harrison left their hostess and her not-yet-ward to find their beds.

#
}blood{
}bone splinters{
}torn{
}crushed{
}blood{ #

Scully was reaching for her gun when she realised that the shadow next to her bed was whimpering. Instead, she turned on the lamp on the bedside table, to show her Mulder with tears running down his face. She reached out to him, and he seized her hand avidly in both of his.

Now sobbing openly, he studied and stroked her hand, rubbing it against his cheek. Then he released it to capture the other, stroking and studying it the same way. She lifted the covers in invitation. Mulder crawled in beside her, and held her much as a child would hold a teddy bear.

Nightmare: brilliant deduction. But why hands? Something the Bounty Hunters did to him? She put aside speculation and concentrated on comfort and reassurance, murmuring and stroking . . . Both Thorne and Suominen emphasized the importance of touch . . . Hm, maybe that was it, fear of losing touch . . . Ask Suominen tomorrow . . .

DAY FIVE

No one at Lippsett and Gregson admitted to gossiping. They were inclined to be stuffy, but mollified by the explanation that a thorough investigation has to touch all bases. By the time Scully was done with them, it was close enough to lunchtime that she called to see when Janet Walesa would be available. A receptionist informed her that Ms Walesa was walking Banner, and where to find them.

Banner turned out to be a pit bull. Unlike most of the other dogs on the green, he (or she) did not pull at the leash, but walked sedately at Walesa's side. Scully found a strategic parking spot, and she and Mulder intercepted the pair.

After greeting and handshakes, Walesa said, "This is Banner."

Now they were closer, Scully could see that Banner was a bitch. She gave her a hand to sniff, and Mulder followed suit. Walesa nodded along the track, and the four continued to stroll.

"Where did you get her?" asked Scully.

"A couple of my . . . business associates decided to give Pit-Bull Walesa a pit bull puppy as a joke."

"Joke!? They couldn't find a stuffed dog?"

"Just about what I told them. But it took a long time to find her another home. Couldn't take her to a shelter, she'd be put down. And 'free to good home' doesn't work with a pit-bull; you have to check out that it's not someone who thinks it's 'manly' to have a 'fighting dog,' and either neglects it or abuses it to make it 'fierce.' Vicious dogs come from vicious owners." Walesa visibly dismounted from her hobby-horse. "The long and the short of it is, she grew on me."

"What did your neighbors say?"

"What you'd expect. I used them for target practice."

Scully grinned wryly. "Can they cite *one* time that Banner misbehaved? Do they know any other pit bull besides Banner? Do they know anything at all about pit bulls?"

"Do they know that pit bulls are related to British 'nanny dogs,' called that because they're so good with children? Banner is a certified Schutzhund Two; that makes her *less* dangerous than a dog with no training at all, because she's confident. She won't bite from fear." Again, Walesa checked herself. "But you didn't come out here to talk about Banner."

"No. I was wondering whether you've talked to Mulder's cousins yet."

"Not yet. I'm hoping to finish the medical side next week. I've got an appointment to see Mr Suominen, after Agent Mulder has been to a couple of sessions. I want to re-do the tests done out in Oregon as well, and I'm in process of lining up a speech pathologist."

"And you want another amniocentesis."

"I can hardly insist, but it is relevant."

"Tell you what: I'll talk to my OB. If and only if she thinks it's safe, I'll ask her to do ONE more. You can bring along an observer. We'll take the sample around in person, so we can all swear to the chain of custody and the results."

"Sounds good." After a moment, she went on, "I don't suppose you can see your way to sparing me the time and unpleasantness of a subpoena?"

Scully grinned, "Pit-bull Walesa." Then she sobered and shook her head. "I'm sorry. There are aspects of the kidnapping that I'm under direct orders not to discuss. They . . . well . . . impinge on those irregularities that I mentioned earlier."

"Mm. Whose orders?"

"Deputy Director Kersh."

"Maybe I can persuade him to loosen up."

The humans took their leave. The agents petted Banner good-by and returned to their car. On the way, Mulder looked back at Walesa and then at Scully. No telling if he was comparing the two, or wondering if he should get Scully another dog.

#

Ed Harrison came to Doggett's turf this time, a place near the Hoover Building with much the same eavesdropper discouragement as the one near the Memorial Building. He waxed philosophical. "Life was simpler in the Bad Old Days: a dissident was a Commie and a Commie was a traitor. Ergo, they got what was coming to them. Illegal taps, bag jobs, they deserved it all, because we did it to them."

Doggett wondered what the other man was fishing for, but played up. "Spender's project to save as much of mankind as he hasn't used up."

"And the Nazis, with their urmenschen and ubermenschen."

"Strughold?"

"Very likely, though we don't know as much about him as Spender."

Was he going to propose something illegal? He made a gesture as though putting a lid on something and moving it aside, and changed the subject.

"Congratulations on pulling out the numbers on Roush."

"That's what computers are for."

"Provided we give them the right data." Yep, Harrison was a born accountant. "It begins to look as though Roush has learned to cover its tracks. We need to find the links between Roush and the ephemeral Consortium plants, Lombard and Prangen and the rest. And check for links with Pinck."

"Hardly ephemeral. It's older than Roush."

"And not the Consortium's creature. I wager that the connection has been severed, or else arranged for instant separation at need."

"I should think Strughold has learned not to put his name on companies, too."

"I've found a pretext for nosing around failed mines in West Virginia. It's very slow, and I'll have to go out and blow the dust off hard-copy before I'm done --"

"Take backup," said Doggett. "Take a SWAT team."

"I couldn't hide a SWAT team, but I'll certainly take more than a single pair of agents." Harrison hesitated, then went on at a tangent. "Speaking of backup . . . What is there between Skinner and Scully?"

"Damned if I know," said Doggett. "He still feels guilty over Mulder, and it's fairly clear he's protecting her in Mulder's place, but I'll bet it goes farther back than the kidnapping."

"I thought at first she was his protege, but now I've seen the three of them together, I wonder if they're a menage a trois."

"Not yet, I don't think."

"Yet?"

"She won't admit it, but she knows Mulder's not going to get well."

"Barring a miracle."

"And for all her 'he's not retarded,' he's about as much companionship as the baby. Only babies grow. I think she's making room for Skinner, but won't let herself realise it."

#

At Suominen's office, Scully took Mulder's sports bag out of the trunk and brought it in with her.

This session centered on an old-fashioned Identikit. This too was out of order, but it was familiar to an agent, at least in its computerised form, and with Mulder's visual memory the chances were he'd be good at it.

After practicing with the faces in front of him, Mulder began building faces from memory.

Scully took advantage of his concentration to quietly tell Suominen, "I suspect you of benign mendacity last session."

"How so?" said Suominen equally softly.

"The yes/no ikons. The page of sketches. You were giving him an assured success. It worked, too; he went on to come up with the decaf ikon, and he'll be fondling that memory for weeks to come."

Suominen smiled enigmatically, but whatever he might have said was lost in Mulder's "done" rap on the table. Scully and Suominen came around to admire his picture of Skinner.

"He's going to kick your ass," said Scully in a creditable copy of Skinner's expression and intonation, an octave or so higher than her model.

Mulder grinned triumphantly and laid down the transparency he'd been holding, a jar-head haircut.

Scully gasped at this younger Skinner. Just as she'd been struck anew with the realisation of Mulder's return, now she realised Skinner's past with an intimacy it had never had before. AD Skinner, their compromised protector, had grown out of a young, idealistic marine.

Caught by her silence, Mulder looked up at her. Evidently what he saw reassured him, for he smiled and sorted the transparencies back into their boxes for the next effort.

Scully and Suominen went back to the other side of the table. Few enjoyed having people breathe down their necks, especially while mastering a new skill.

"Oh," said Scully, "has anyone from Mulder's family called you?"

"No," said Suominen. "Ms Walesa and I have an appointment for next week, when he's had a couple of sessions, and that's all."

Toward the end of the session, Suominen booted up the workstation and put in a CD-ROM. "Don't ask me whether this is programmed learning or a video game, because I can never decide."

With Mulder occupied, he sat across a table from Scully and looked inquiring. She gave him a resigned and somewhat wry grin, and told him about the nightmare, or rather its aftermath, which was all she saw. "It might have been something they did to him," she concluded, "or it might be a memory of one of our cases. He got a broken finger once during interrogation, and on another case a victim lost both hands at the wrist. But neither of those are the sort of thing that normally sets off his nightmares."

"Are nightmares normal for him, then?"

"Frequent, anyway. Considering how you and Elaine both emphasise the importance of touch, could a dream of hand injury reflect fear of being starved of touch?"

"Could be," said Suominen. "By it's nature, aphasia makes psychoanalysis just about impossible. If this can wait until he's more proficient at computer graphics, or learns Blissymbols . . .

"Does he, ah, react inappropriately to touch? Get aroused at what shouldn't be arousing?"

"If anything, the opposite. Our first night home, he held the covers open -- trust Mulder to make a nonverbal innuendo! -- though we were both ready to crash and burn. But since then, I've been in his bed and he in mine after nightmares, and . . . nothing. No sign of arousal at all. It's almost a relief, one thing less to deal with, but is it healthy?"

"Well, it could be that he doesn't find a pregnant woman arousing, or considers pregnant women off-limits. His behavior might change after you deliver.

"Or, the effect of physical and mental trauma can go both ways. He can't do his old job, he can't live on his own -- he can hardly help feeling that he's not the man he used to be. He might go from there to 'not a man,' or he might set out to prove that he *is* still a man." Suominen frowned thoughtfully. "At least you don't have the added problems of stroke or traumatic brain injury. If you had to take care of his physical needs, there could be some role problems."

Now it was Scully's turn to say, "Mm."

"I would say, wait if at all possible. Wait until you deliver, until he's more proficient at computer-assisted communication, until his post-stress symptoms are over. If there's still nightmares, or if impotence or lack of interest persists, or if it changes to inappropriate flirting, we'll deal with it then."

On the way out, they stopped outside the rest rooms. Scully opened the sports bag she'd brought in and ignored all session, and pulled out a running shoe. She showed it to Mulder and raised an eyebrow. He grinned and reached for it. She put the shoe back, pulled out a shoe bag and passed the sports bag to him. The watching Suominen clapped his hands and gave Mulder a thumbs-up. He returned it, and the partners vanished into their respective ikon-marked doors.

Minutes later they came out again, Mulder dressed for running and Scully in walking shoes. They tossed both bags into the trunk of the car, piled into the front seat and headed off.

Not far from Scully's apartment was a green with a jogging track. Mulder jogged; Scully walked. When he passed her he turned around, dancing backward long enough to give her a grin, then faced forward and picked up the lost speed.

After about half an hour, he slowed to a walk next to her. They went once more around the track to cool off, then went home.

#

"Mr Danford, an Agent Brown and an Agent Eccles to see you."

Agents. Curtis Danford drew a pen and legal pad toward him and wrote their names and the time at the top. "Send them in."

FBI: the look hadn't changed since Hoover's day. They flashed their IDs at him and started to put them away, when he held out his hand imperatively.

Of course they wouldn't let the IDs out of their possession, but the one of whom he made the silent demand placed it on the desk, leaning on the cover flap with one hand. Curtis checked the photo against the living face, and copied the name (Eccles) and badge number onto the legal pad.

"Thank you," he said, and turned to the other, who must by elimination be Agent Brown. He imitated his partner, and Curtis got his data, too. He drew a line under the names and numbers and said, "Well, gentlemen. What can I do for you?"

"You've heard about Agent Mulder's disappearance?" asked Eccles.

"The mass kidnapping. They were returned recently, somewhat the worse for wear." He noted 'kidnap' on the left side of the legal pad.

"You've got good sources."

"Fox's partner is an M.D." He jotted 'MD' on the right side.

Brown put in, "You understand that medical stuff?"

"The Web has pages aimed at patients and their families. They keep the technicalities to a minimum."

"So do you, I hear," said Eccles.

"Excuse me?"

"Arranging for her to dip into Agent Mulder's emergency fund."

Curtis shook his head. "'Rumour painted with a thousand tongues,'" he quoted. Then, "I have no idea what Dr Scully did in Virginia, but Fox made his emergency fund joint in both their names several years ago. She has every right to make use of it." 'Joint fund' on the right side of the pad.

"That's not how she tells it," said Brown.

"Hardly surprising; she has no legal training beyond what she got in the Academy. And from what Fox has told me, she may well have felt she had no *moral* right without at least checking in with me." 'Moral right' on the right.

"Do you know she's knocked up?"

"Try that again in standard English," he said sternly.

"Pregnant."

"I've heard the story. She confirmed it." He jotted 'pregnant.'

"It doesn't bother you?" asked Eccles.

He stared at him with affronted dignity. "My *dear* sir! That is no more my concern than it is yours."

"Wouldn't you say it affects your client's interests?"

Curtis sighed and sat back. "Is either of you a lawyer?"

"I never practiced," said Eccles.

"Then perhaps you've had no occasion to realise that the effect of accurate DNA typing has been as profound in *every* field that involves blood kinship as it has in forensics. We can ascertain paternity, and maternity too. Maternity can also be vital in an inheritance case, and of course hospital mix-ups. Which can happen. Immigration: people want to bring their families over, and officials sometimes suspect a scam. Today we can *prove* who is and is not genetically related to whom.

"Now: the only way this pregnancy can affect Fox's interests is if he is the father, or if he is alleged to be the father. And that can be proven conclusively." 'DNA testing' on the left.

Brown changed the tack. "You're OK with a pregnant woman flying all over the country?"

"Pregnancy is neither a disease nor a disability. Toward the end it can be a temporary incapacity, but often is never more than an inconvenience. Not only can you *not* say, 'She's pregnant, so she mustn't fly,' but she can sue you for trying." 'preg disabl' on the left.

"You get that sort of case?"

"Our clients tend to the conservative, but there's nothing like a man trying to take control of a woman's estate to make an instant convert to feminism."

"Not permanent, I'll bet."

"Sometimes. Sometimes not."

"So is Agent Mulder the father?"

Curtis frowned at Eccles, the one with legal training. "Perhaps, sir, you will tell your partner about confidentiality. It would be illegal and unethical for me to gossip about my client's affairs."

"What are you doing now?"

"I am trying to instruct you in the law and legal ethics."

Brown cut in. "Maybe you'd like to instruct a grand jury?"

Gloves off. Curtis smiled. "I am quite used to instructing juries," he said. "I flatter myself that I'm good at it." He rose. "But I must not keep you gentlemen from your paperwork. Relentless taskmaster, I know."

He saw them out of his office, gave a real smile to Abby, and returned to his desk. There he expanded his jottings into something someone else could understand. The notes on the right-hand side of the pad he gave the heading 'specific confirmation'; those on the left went below them, headed 'generalities.' Then he phoned his senior partner.

"Curtis!" said David St Martin. "What was that?"

"FBI."

"Hmp. What did they want?"

"A clumsy fishing trip about Fox Mulder's partner." He smiled again as he had to the agents. "I suspect that they never did fully agree whether to concentrate on information or intimidation."

"Mmm. What now?"

"I'll leave my notes in the safe. I'm cleaning up my desk over this weekend and flying to Virginia Monday."

WEEK TWO

(Monday)

After a quiet weekend, Scully decided to take up Skinner on family leave. She had thought to continue going to work until she could no longer reach the steering wheel, but her feet decreed differently, even with Mulder's sybaritic foot rubs. And she couldn't keep imposing on her mother and the guys for day care.

While she was at it, she asked permission to see the medical record of his encounter with the Bounty Hunter. He agreed to take it to her and asked if she had the report on the "clean-up" of the "toxic spill" in the hospital. Was he that eager to sic her onto the nearly nonexistent biological data, or just hoped to keep her quiet by giving her a bigger fix of puzzle?

Returning from the sedate exercise of a walk around the block with Mulder, she found a message from Curtis Danford. He had just arrived at National Airport, and had an appointment with Janet Walesa and Banner at noon. After that, he would like to call at her place and talk about something that probably needed attention.

###

"If I keep on having appointments here," said Jan, "I'll have to train Banner to carry a dictaphone,"

"I've heard of training them to pull carts," said Danford.

Curtis Danford was spare, medium-tall, more salt than pepper in his hair. The Vietnam War generation. He wore well-tailored tweeds and stout, well-made shoes. He seemed unafraid of Banner.

"So," said Jan, "what brings you to Virginia?"

"First off, this." He handed her a folded sheet of paper.

Jan unfolded it, seeing that there was longhand on both sides. Starting with the side that had been folded inward, she saw "The attached" with "attached" lined out and "reverse" neatly printed over it.

"[Date and time.] The reverse is a photocopy of my notes of a visit from Agents Brown and Eccles [full names and badge numbers in parentheses] to my office in Boston, set down immediately after the visit. [signiture] The above signiture was made in our presence on [date] at [time]. [signiture] [signiture]"

Jan went over the notes, admiring how little specific information Danford actually gave out. Though the common wisdom was that *nothing* you tell the FBI is innocuous, he had kept it down mostly to what anyone could learn, filling in with generalities.

She focused on the specific information that had been bedeviling her: "Joint account?"

"I thought she was requesting assistance, not permission. Never occurred to me that Fox might not have told her about it, and it's too late to ask Fox."

Jan handed the paper back to him, but he waved her to keep it. "I've made another copy for Agent Scully."

"And the other reason?"

He took a pipe from his pocket, gazed at it and replaced it unlit. The pipe was well-seasoned; Jan wondered if he was breaking himself, or didn't smoke in front of ladies.

"A seemingly innocuous question: how did word get to my partner's client in Boston so fast? Leading to a few more: If he got it from the FBI, why did the Bureau hold off an extra day before tackling me? And why tell him at all? Is he their stalking horse? Does he know it? And if so, for what?"

"How did it get to you?"

"Faxed. With a note that she was sending the rest of the notifications by registered mail, and would I confirm that I got mine OK."

"Can I expect communication from your partner's client?"

"Ah." His hand went back into the pocket with the pipe, but came out empty. "I certainly hope wiser heads will prevail."

"We can always hope."

###

Skinner brought the Bounty Hunter data to Scully over his lunch hour. After coffee (decaf) they got down to business.

"How do we zap them with whatever you come up with?" he asked.

"The army is working on non-lethals, but we should aim at something that will go in a standard animal-control dart. Known technology, and a large pool of potential instructors. But first we have to work on taking samples."

"You mentioned probes."

"Yes, but we also want to carry tongs, to pull cloth or other material away from the corpse before it gets completely dissolved. Both design and material will need thought, because we can expect to lose a bit off the end each time we use them."

Something tickled the back of Skinner's head. "The fumes from the live one burned like hell," he said slowly, "yet you and Doggett weren't even marked by the dead one. But there's bound to be some sort of fumes if the thing's corroding into a puddle . . ."

"Yes," said Scully. "There are definitely two separate processes. Autolysis doesn't release enough volatiles to damage a person, but there must be enough to show on delicate enough instruments. A chromatograph, like the ones for detecting toxic vapor, mounted on a stand to keep it over the body without touching it."

Then she said, "Oh," and looked contrite. She stood, pulled Skinner to his feet and placed them so Mulder could see what they were doing. She made a gun of her hand, 'shot' Skinner, and clapped hands over her eyes, miming pain. Skinner mimed pushing her forcefully, and she flung up her arms and mimed being flung to the floor, where she used both hands to 'shoot' him again. "Stand still, now," she called.

Skinner stood instead of dropping. Scully scrambled to her feet, only slightly hampered by pregnancy, and traced the trajectory of the bullet from her position up under Skinner's chin and presumably out the back of his head. He felt her touch at his nape. Then she was turning Mulder so she could trace on his head the position of the brain stem.

Mulder nodded, mimed a rifle, grabbed Scully and pressed a finger to the back of her head. He pushed her away from him and posed for a moment ready for a racing dive.

"Yes, he remembers," said Scully, clapping Mulder on the back. "The sharpshooters tried to get the Bounty Hunter while he tried to trade me for Samantha. The Samantha clone."

Skinner was thinking about something else. "All this will make you more dangerous, and more of a target," he said, "than desk work."

"I can still shoot, and so can Mulder, though we should spend some time at the range soon. And who'll watch the watchmen?"

"There have to be at least three more reliable agents in the Hoover Building."

Scully spread her hands, then smiled wryly. "I've been thinking about moving the fish over here," she confessed. "Get everything vulnerable under one roof."

"Good idea; fewer predictable journies."

#

A knock at the door brought both of them to their feet, weapons drawn. Mulder went to the door, checked the spy hole, and opened it. As he did so, he moved out of Scully's direct line of fire, but not Skinner's.

A carrying baritone said, "Hello, Fox," and Curtis Danford stepped into the apartment.

At the sight of Scully's SIG, he stopped still until she put it away, then turned to Mulder to shake hands. After a curious look at Skinner, he turned back to Scully and said, "You're more vigilant than when I saw you last."

"I've got three to protect, now," she said, "and Mulder's incapacity is no accident." She gestured at Skinner. "This is my boss, Assistant Director Walter Skinner. Sir, this is Curtis Danford, Mulder's attorney."

Danford stiffened, one might say bristled, at the introduction. He handed Skinner a folded sheet of paper, another one to Scully.

They read both sides and looked at each other. Both looked at Danford, who said, "I am curious about why Fox didn't tell you. So is Ms Walesa."

"Whan did he do this?" she asked

"Nineteen ninety-five."

"Mm." She nodded. "He's improved since then at keeping me in the loop."

Seeing that she had nothing more to say on that, Danford turned a more challenging look on Skinner.

The AD was studying Danford. "This is a dangerous business, Mr Danford," he said.

"If it weren't, the Famous But Incompetent wouldn't be trying to intimidate me. Clearly it's more than making arrangements to look after a disabled agent."

Scully slapped the paper down on the coffee table and surged to her feet. "If those bastards had any sense, they'd let us alone! Do they think I'm going to drag Mulder on the trail of their damned conspiracy when he can't even call for help?"

Skinner said slowly, "Didn't you say there are ideographic or pictographic systems of nonverbal graphic communication?"

Scully nodded. "Mr Suominen mentioned C-ViC and the Blissymbols."

"Which you are going to explore, one after another, until you and Mulder can communicate complex and concrete ideas as well as you did with words. Even if you have to be his interpreter for the rest of us, he will eventually be able to discuss the cases."

"Yes. It's going to take time, even once we settle on a suitable system, but yes, eventually."

"So they don't dare leave him in your hands. First because they can't stand not controlling people; second, because they don't dare let him develop full communication; and third, because they want him in some sense-deprived institution instead of living at home and being as independent as he can be."

Scully was apalled. Then she was enraged. "Those bastards!" she exploded. "Yes, I bet you're right on all three, whether Spender's alive or dead."

Danford studied his pipe again. "Are these the human experimenters that Fox was fighting?" Into the sounding silence that resulted, he asked Scully, "Do you trust him?" with a nod toward Skinner.

"I trust his intentions. I wouldn't expect him to withstand torture, unless other lives were on the line."

Danford nodded. "Did Fox ever tell you what he did with what he inherited from his father?"

"I know that his father worked with the Consortium, at first willingly and then under duress. When he got up the nerve to confess to Mulder, the Consortium murdered him." She exchanged grim looks with Mulder, then turned back to Danford. "From your question, I deduce that he dedicated his father's money to fighting the Consortium, specifically their human experiments."

Danford nodded. "Good deduction." He turned to Skinner. "I know these are dangerous men. And while I'm not a gun-toting peace officer, neither am I a helpless weakling."

Skinner nodded in his turn. "There's only one explanation that makes sense of what's happened," he said. "The Consortium learned about Scully's petition from a mole in the Hoover Building. Someone in Boston, or somewhere in New England, knew that Mr Kupier could be used as a stalking horse. Someone, the same or another, feared you enough to send in a pair of bullies. As bad a mistake as sending Scully in to debunk Mulder, going on eight years ago. "

"What will you do?"

"To start with, I'm going to play 'Bad Cop, Bad Cop' with a pair of clumsy agents."

(Tuesday)

Jeeze, the things some people ask! No, lady, nobody teaches first aid for fish. Spend as little time in transit as you can, and keep the temperature as constant as you can. Shows her heart's in the right place, anyway. (Along with everything else: handsome woman.) And she bought a supply of food and a small bowl for moving them. Not all loss.

###

Scully set up an appointment with her OB. She was lucky to get a cancellation slot.

Then she called Walesa, and they spent an hour fitting schedules together. Walesa had arranged evaluation and an observer, and was in the midst of setting up imaging sessions. PET scan, as expected, was a scheduling nightmare in itself.

###

Skinner turned back to the summary sheets of the files on Agents Brown and Eccles, and had Kim call the Boston office and get him the SAC.

"I've been handed a written allegation that Agents Eccles and Brown, presumably from the Boston office, attempted to intimidate one Curtis Danford, a lawyer. And did a rotten job."

"Uhm, do you want to wait, sir, while I see if they're in the office at present?"

"Do that, thank you."

In record time, the voice was back. "I'm putting you on speakerphone now, sir." There was a click.

"Agents Brown and Eccles?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," came two out-of-synch voices.

"What the hell did you do at Danford's office?"

"He was ready for us, sir. Insisted right at the start on taking down our names and badge numbers."

"And knowing his wariness, you told him -- he has this in quotation marks -- 'Perhaps you'd like to instruct the grand jury.' He didn't put down his response, but I deduce that he loved the idea."

"He said he was used to it, and thought he did well."

"And you nailed down exactly one fact -- the joint account -- that couldn't have been picked up by any janitor at the Hoover Building."

"Sir, our assignment was to pick up anything on Agent Mulder and his partner, but he doesn't have any connections in New England any more. And she never did. Just that lawyer. Who is a goddamned paranoid."

"Maybe he taught Mulder. Did you by any chance check him out *before* you strolled into his den?"

"Family lawyer, some pro bono work. The usual legal publications, plus a few papers on the Underground Railroad in New Bedford and a couple on his family. Whalers. Belongs to that Boston human rights group, Global Lawyers and Physicians."

"All right, you did some homework. Get your report out pronto, and send a copy to me. AD Skinner, CID."

"Yes, sir."

Skinner hung up and noted the time. He'd give Kersh fifteen minutes to think up a pretext to call him, then go in himself.

#

Walesa did not like being jerked around the Metropolitan Area, but since Skinner was doing her a favor, the least she could do was make the appointment on time. And pick up Agents Scully and Mulder along the way. AD Skinner was happy to add them to the mix. DD Kersh was not.

"What is this all about?" he asked, scowling impartially at all four of them.

Walesa set a folded sheet of paper on Kersh's desk and said, "I'm hoping we won't need this, sir." Wouldn't hurt to start off polite. "I have been appointed Agent Mulder's guardian ad litem; it is my duty to protect his interests. Owing to his incapacity, I'm having a hard time figuring out what his interests are. However, since Agent Scully has petitioned to be appointed his guardian, one factor will obviously be the quality of decisions she makes in his behalf. And since she has acted for him unofficially since he was kidnapped, we have in her past decisions the best evidence for the quality we can expect of her future ones. But in order to ascertain the quality of those past decisions, I need to know the circumstances under which they were made."

"Why not ask Agent Scully?"

"I have. She feels that those circumstances are so entangled with what you have ordered her not to discuss that she needs your permission to tell me."

Kersh glared at Scully. "Very well, Agent Scully, tell her."

"Thank you, sir," said Scully. She continued, to Walesa, "When Mulder and the Bellefleurans were kidnapped, there was of course a manhunt for him. It failed, as you know. The captives were returned when their kidnappers felt like returning them. More accurately, I should say that the Oregon end of the manhunt failed. There was also a hunt on the east coast for evidence that Mulder had willfully gone AWOL. Enough suggestive evidence was brought in that the Bureau froze his leave and health benefits. This, naturally, worried me. Rather than draw on his salary, which might also be frozen at any time, I tapped his emergency fund in Boston."

"I see," said Walesa. "You mentioned that the irregularities were resolved?"

"Yes. His return with the other captives rendered the AWOL theory untenable, and his leave and benefits have been restored retroactively."

"So all's well that ends well." Walesa turned back to face Kersh, picked up the folded paper from his desk and returned it to her pocket. "I'm happy we could work this out amicably, sir."

Kersh stood abruptly. "So am I. Skinner can show you out."

They all took the hint and left the office.

#

Walesa offered Scully and Mulder a lift home, which Scully declined with thanks. "We're going to take some exercise on the Mall," she said. Meanwhile, Mulder shook a frizbee out of his leather jacket and handed it to Scully before donning the jacket and engaging the bottom few inches of the zipper. She handed it back, and he tucked it away under the leather.

Skinner checked his watch, turning the face toward Scully and unobtrusively tapping the numeral three. Scully nodded.

Sure enough, Skinner, Harrison and Doggett converged on the Mall to find Scully and Mulder tossing the frizbee back and forth. Mulder had amaising control over the thing, keeping its trajectory from touching down long distances beyond Scully. She had less accuracy, and as the three men came up, Mulder levitated to catch it. When he threw it back, it looped away from Scully and passed close enough to Skinner for him to take two sidesteps and grab it.

Scully smiled at him. "Dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

Skinner, who was indeed an amateur boxer, grinned wryly as he handed the frisbee to her. She handed it off to Mulder and glanced inquiringly at the three.

"Confession and apology time," said Harrison. "I thought the evidence tampering would have a fairly quick fix. That basically, you were screwing up on evidence security. But the Mafia really have taken over City Hall. The one most effective measure, sending in a team big enough and armed heavily enough to stand off a car-and-helcopter ambush, couldn't be hidden from moles."

"Why do I get this feeling that you're about to suggest something illegal?" asked Scully.

"Because we're both FBI, tarred with the same brush. And a lot of Hoover's illegal tactics were not *inherently* illegal. They would have been legal if he'd gotten permission first."

"Wiretapping the Consortium is hardly practical. Nor is a mail cover. Hacking their systems, maybe." Skinner saw her glance guiltily and Mulder and away again. "In fact, the only thing with any good chance of working is a bag job, and that *is* inherently illegal."

"But not inherently immoral," said Harrison. "Not against a multinational that systematically abducts and abuses American citizens, that has corrupted and bought the American federal government and the American military service --"

"I KNOW what the Consortium has done!" she cried. "When I signed up, I was assured that Hoover's abuses had been reformed. I was pretty green to have bought it, but I live with the knowledge. I will not live with becoming a Hoover myself."

Doggett nodded. "Camel's nose," he said.

"There are two significant differences between us and Hoover," said Harrison. "First, we are not trying to silence dissenters; we're trying to stop physical abuse of innocent civilians. Second, we have none of Hoover's immunity; if we get caught, we get thrown to the wolves as 'rogue agents.' No one will automatically take our word against Joe Citizen's."

"Agent Scully," said Skinner, "suppose I broke into Krycek's rooms and stole the trigger for the nanomachines? Could that be justified?"

"Yes. Effectively, Krycek has you at gunpoint 24/7."

Skinner exchanged a grim look with Harrison, who finally nodded. "Since we can't ask a judge for a warrant, we need a substitute. We don't do a bag job without consulting you that we have probable cause to believe the target is in fact a member or minion of the Consortium. If we can't convince you, we don't do the job. And to make assurance doubly sure, another review after the job. If you decide the man wasn't Consortium after all, we destroy what we took and never use it."

"You want me to be your conscience."

"What else are you now?"

She closed her eyes in a face now deathly pale. Skinner saw a sheen of sweat on her brow. At last she nodded. "Yes," she said.

Just before the counter-conspirators split up, Scully asked Skinner, "Sir? Do you know if Mulder ever profiled a sexual sadist?"

"No, why?"

"It struck me recently that Spender's head games, the pleasure he takes in dominating people, is very like a rapist's motives: dominate, humiliate, control. And his claim to like Mulder, to have saved him, is very like a rapist's claim that his victim needed to be violated and enjoyed it. Spender is simply sophisticated enough to prefer psychological to physical violation."

###

When the partners were alone, Mulder made guns of his hands and 'fired' right-left-right to show he wanted to go to the Gunmen's place. Scully had no objection. The guys made no delays unlocking their door. Langly, smug in his nonverbal kung-fu, gestured to one of the computers and raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

Mulder nodded, and mimed putting down Identikit transparencies. Langly brought up the Identikit program and turned the mouse over to Mulder, who made Agent Henderson's face and looked inquiringly at Scully.

"That's Agent Henderson, from the Field Office," she said.

"Ah-hah." Langly rubbed his hands and took over the mouse. He did something with the picture that let him move it as a single figure into one corner of the screen.

Then he brought up a map of downtown DC and zoomed in on the address of the Hoover Building. He pulled from the image archive a picture of the Hoover exterior and set it on the map at the building site. Skinner, Scully and Mulder's faces went below the building.

At this point he turned the mouse over to Scully, who slowly and carefully 'walked' the cursor along the streets to the site of the Memorial Building and the Washington Metropolitan Field Office. She turned the mouse back to Langly, who put Harrison's face on the map.

Mulder nodded in comprehension, then turned to Scully with an exaggeratedly puzzled look and mimed talking with his hands. She turned back to Langly and said, "Bag jobs and other illegalities."

Langly nodded, put Harrison's face back in the corner, and wiped the map.

He brought up what looked like a magazine cover, with a man climbing in a window carrying a black bag. After a bit of -- well, it looked like he was rummaging in memory -- he replaced the man's face with J. Edgar Hoover's. When Mulder nodded confirmation, he replaced Hoover's face with Harrison's. Mulder made a face, but nodded confirmation again.

He turned to Scully and took both her hands in his, staring into her eyes with a concerned, worried expression. Clearly he wasn't happy with the idea of getting her involved in illegal action. She squeezed his hands reassuringly as she looked toward Langly.

"Your kung-fu is still the best," she said.

(Wednesday)

Walesa finally settled on a speech pathologist with the unfortunate name of 'Bowser' to do the evaluation. Clearly, Agent Scully was unhappy about leaving Agent Mulder alone with him. That could be for the usual reason, or for, well, the other usual reason: cops hate to leave their partners' backs unguarded.

Agent Scully did not stall or complain. She showed her partner on the face of her watch how long she would be gone. Agent Mulder was *very* unhappy when he worked out that it would be over two hours.

Agent Scully then stalked over to Dr Bowser. "I fully understand," she said, "why I have to leave my partner alone with someone whom I haven't been allowed to know long enough in advance to do a background check. You had better understand this: Mulder is still an agent of the FBI. If you're working for the Black-Lunged Bastard or his successors, if I find Mulder in any way traumatised or brutalised, physically or psychologically, you will discover that the Smoking Bastard is not all-powerful. Whatever he told you, the fix is NOT in. Clear?"

"Quite clear, Agent Scully," said Bowser dryly.

"Where will you be for the duration?" Walesa asked her.

"At Mr Danford's hotel."

"You might want to share this," said Walesa, and handed Agent Scully a piece of paper. "One Mr Leonard Kupier, of Boston, is contesting your petition."

###

Danford's hotel room turned out to be a suite. Evidently, Danford did not receive guests in his bedroom. A table with paperwork and stray cups and saucers showed where he and Lippsett (of Lippsett and Gregson) had been conferring, and a much-depleted cart was the apparent source of everything but the paperwork. The conference was either over or deferred.

Danford welcomed Scully into the room, saying, "You remember Arnold Lippsett, of course. The house caterer has sent up a recommended selection, guaranteed caffeine-free. Where's Fox?"

"Thank you. Hello, Mr Lippsett. Mulder is in psychological evaluation. They told me to come back in a couple of hours." She frowned briefly before she could banish it and pay proper attention to the rack of teas and a couple of decaff coffees.

Lippsett put in, "If Janet Walesa's there, you needn't worry. She's not called 'Pit-Bull' for nothing."

Scully forced a smile. "If she were armed, I'd trust her to watch his back, but the purest heart is no substitute for a SIG Sauer and time on the range."

"I'm Curtis's figurehead," Lippsett went on, chattily. "He can't practice in Virginia without a resident associate."

"Speaking of practice . . ." Scully told them about the new development, and handed them the official notice.

"Race Benbow," said Danford, disapprovingly.

"Not a referral?" asked Scully.

"No. Oh, no. David advised Leonard to drop it." He got his well-seasoned pipe from his pocket and stared at it, then said, apparently out of the air, "Teena Kupier had class."

Scully said nothing. She was not going to argue about a dead woman.

He put the pipe away and went on, "So do you. Entirely different style, but the same class. Maybe that's what draws Fox. Teena was a Brahman, even when she was serving Bill's guests. You're a Marine, even pregnant."

"Navy," she corrected him.

"Navy," he smiled back. "Walesa's a pit bull," he went on. "Benbow's a hired gun, a hit man. This is going to be something to watch."

###

Suominen was pretty good at nonverbal communication himself. Especially reading body language. "Dr Scully, you have to take care of yourself, too," he said as she led her partner into his office.

She made a wry grimace. "It's been a stressful day." They both sat down, and she went on, "I just want the hearing to be over."

"If you win, that will cut down the stress, but caring for an aphasic is not an easy job. Eventually, you'll have to hire a professional caretaker to help you. Putting that off until both your lives are calmer is a good idea, but not if you put it off too long."

"Moving him clean out of his own home is not making his life any calmer."

"Moving him to a familiar place with good memories and associations cuts down the stress of disruption. You've been doing the best you can. You must not let yourself feel that you've let him down, because you had to make compromises. Or because you can't do it all yourself."

"How do I tell him that his mom's cousin Kupier is contesting my petition?"

"That sounds like a job for Mr Langly's program," Suominen said. "He's used to the style.

Booting up the workstation and loading Langly's program, Suominen set up an articulated stick figure and put Mulder's head on it, slightly oversized. Mulder stared at it and pointed to himself. Suominen nodded, and drew a short line up from the Mulder-figure, then a horizontal one across it. Two primitive stick figures, one with a skirt, went on either end of the crossbar.

Suominen looked up and asked, "Was she a Kupier?"

"Yes."

A series of vertical and horizontal lines with bare male/female icons, and at last another articulated stick figure. Suominen put the male-ikon arrow on the figure's head.

Mulder snorted laughter. Scully said, "I think you just called Cousin Kupier a dickhead."

Suominen stared, laughed himself, and replaced the male symbol with a blue circle. Scully forbore to mention blue balls.

Mulder recognised a family tree, and counted up from the Mulder-figure and down to the other articulated one. Scully counted up and then down herself; generations and sexes both right, making the blue-circle figure a Kupier and Teena Mulder's cousin.

A nod of comprehension from Mulder. Suominen pushed a function key that wiped out everything but the two articulated figures. (Ah, that's why the Bill and Teena figures were more primitive.) He put a third articulated figure next to the Mulder, and put Scully's head on it. Mulder nodded comprehension again, stroking Scully's hair.

The next figure was a distant descendent of the primitive judge-figure in Langly's first stick-figure picture. This one was recognisable without miming use of the gavel. Mulder frowned worriedly at Scully; clearly he realised now that this had something to do with the hearing.

A paper went into the hand of the cousin-figure. A line slashed down from it to the space between the Mulder-figure and the Scully-figure. Suominen turned from the workstation to push the two of them apart.

Mulder tapped Suominen on the chest, then the Cousin Kupier figure. Suominen nodded and stepped back to let Mulder take Scully's hands in his.

"He won't succeed," said Scully. Mulder gave her a feral grin. He squeezed her hands, then released them to wipe the computer screen and dust his own hands together.

"As long as he doesn't get complacent," said Suominen.

"Thank you," said Scully. "I'm sorry to have disrupted the session."

"Think of it as occupational therapy."

#

The hearing room was a huge echoing hall. She couldn't hear the judge's words, only the sound of his voice. The gavel cracked, echoing throughout the hall.

Two men grabbed hold of Mulder and pulled him away. A mob of strangers crowded between them, carrying the three men off and pushing her away from them.

"Mulder!" she cried. "Mulder!"

She could see a disturbance in the crowd as Mulder tried to fight free of the men. The crowd was ever thicker, the disturbance receding behind the human mass.

"Mulder!"

A sterile, institutional room. Mulder trying to follow her out the door. Orderlies holding him back. Mulder's cries of rage dying to hopeless whimpers.

"Mulder!"

Scully jolted awake to a scene of deja vu: Mulder was a whimpering shadow beside her bed. The difference was that this time he was timidly stroking her. She fumbled at the bedclothes with hands shaking from the adrenaline slowly ebbing from her system. At last she got the invitation across, and Mulder slid in with her. They ended with him spooned up behind her, his arm protectively across her and their child.

She interlaced her fingers with his. Slowly, the whimpers subsided into his distressed coo. We have to win this one, she thought; losing is not an option. Mulder's wordless crooning carried her back into sleep.

#
}Herself-warm-snug-safe{
}belly-big-bigger{
}spooned-warm-snug-safe-safe{ #

(Thursday)

The next day began imaging: EEG and CAT. Since her presence could hardly affect the machines, Walesa allowed Agent Scully to be present as long as she said nothing and stayed out of Agent Mulder's line of sight while the imaging was in process. She thanked her for the indulgence, clearly realising that she could just as easily have been excluded from these sessions, too.

The EEG tech frowned at the result and then at his equipment. He did some tweaking and checked over the electrodes and ran everything again. Then he frowned at the new results the same way.

"Something wrong?" asked Walesa.

"This," said the tech, pointing at a line of squiggles. "It looks almost like alpha rhythm, but it's in the wrong place, and his eyes are open."

"Is it a what-do-you-call-it, artifact?"

"No artifact I've ever seen."

The two went into a huddle, then the tech started the printer spewing out hard-copy of the digital file. Walesa, more used to pen-on-paper graphs, stared at the output bin as the technician sat at another table and began writing a short notice of the problem in longhand.

Walesa gathered up the hard copy from the bin and brought it to the technician. She witnessed his signature on the notice, and on each page of the hard copy. She looked up at her respondent, and saw him playing Owl Eyes with the petitioner. Turning back to thank the technician, she met an amused headshake, which she returned, also shaking his hand. She collected her charge -- or charges -- and headed for the CT scan.

While waiting in the CT observation room, Scully asked Walesa softly, "Why so long to get evaluation and imaging? What were you waiting for?"

"The records from Oregon," said Walesa without taking her eyes from the observation window. She hesitated before continuing, "I want to talk to you after this is over." Her lips twitched in a wry grin. "My horse is growing stripes."

"Enough of them to drop in at my place? I'd like to get him to a less stressful environment after all this."

"I think so."

The CAT technician reported all normal. "A mostly-undamaged brain," he said. "I wouldn't know it from any other normal brain except for this old contusion in the right temporal lobe."

Again, they waited while the technician hand-wrote a short notice of the results, including the identification of the copies of the image.

As they headed out to pick up their observer, May Bennett, from Walesa's chosen DNA lab, Janet noticed Scully frowning in abstraction. She also noticed Mulder staring worriedly at his partner and stroking her arm.

"What is it?"

"I don't recall anyone in Oregon noticing that old contusion."

"Would they have mentioned it? -- or you have noticed? -- with your attention on your partner's troubles?"

"Hm. Maybe not. But I think I know what it is. A couple of years ago, the Consortium forced a completely illegal and barely competent surgical procedure on him. The target was his 'god module,' the right temporal lobe. He was lucky to have survived, let alone recovered."

"God module?"

"A highly controversial concept. But madmen with power are still madmen."

On the first leg of their round trip to Georgetown University Medical Center, Ms Bennett asked why the extra security precautions. Walesa and Scully looked at each other; Scully fielded the question.

"Law enforcement officers make enemies, many of them violent and some of them clever. Agent Mulder has made some very powerful enemies, who have been known to tamper with evidence."

At the center, Scully's OB did an ultrasound. "You realise that this is crowding the window," she said as she brought up the fetal picture. "Twenty weeks is the outside limit." She peered at the screen. "Still, the placement is good . . ." Finally, she said, "All right. You're fortunate that we now have ultrasound guidance, and small needles with atraumatic tips. A few decades ago, this would have been too much of a risk."

Positioning took about twenty minutes. The procedure itself took about five. Minor cramping subsided in a few minutes, but the OB insisted on her patient resting another half-hour.

Meanwhile, Walesa and Bennett prepared the first steps of evidence security and recording the chain of custody.

Next stop the center's lab, to get a sample of Mulder's blood. As Walesa had come to expect, he hammed it up, holding out his arm, turning his head away and screwing his eyes shut. At Ms Bennett's suggestion, they took a sample of Scully's blood as well; the mother's blood was not necessary for a paternity test, but it was the usual procedure at her lab. More security and custody precautions, and they headed back to the lab where Ms Bennet worked.

The routine security was impressive. Legal cases, and sometimes a good deal of money, often rode on their results. But it was routine, not designed to hold off a practiced black ops team of evidence tamperers.

Walesa produced a small lockbox with a number pad. "The samples should fit in here," she said. Sure enough, they did. "Set the combination (we'll go over the instructions), lock them into the box and put the box inside the vault. There's a screamer that will go off at the third failed attempt at the combination, or any attempt to break the lock or break into the box."

"What if they just take the box?" said Ms Bennett. She was clearly familiar with security precautions, as a tech in a lab like this should be.

"A lot more difficult than getting a single vial out. Much more conspicuous on any detector, including bare eyeballs."

At this point, Scully asked Ms Bennet, "Can you do anything to shorten the turnaround time?"

"I think we can cut it down to a week. I'll start the culturing, and a PCR instead of an RFLP on the adult samples, this afternoon."

#

As the three entered the Georgetown apartment, Mulder took everyone's jackets and turned toward the closet. When he had it opened, he looked back at Scully and pointed firmly at the couch. Scully folded her hands, put on a demure face and led Walesa to the couch while Mulder finished hanging things up.

"Mulder is the guardian of my feet," she told Walesa. "Take your shoes off."

Walesa took a chair and pointed as firmly to Scully's feet and then to the empty couch cushion. When Scully obediently put her feet up, she said, "If he's amenable, you might get him lessons in back rubs."

Now Mulder turned on the CD player and brought a card to the ladies. With what now seemed typical hamming, he played up the maitre d'hotel in presenting them with a card of pictures or ikons.

"Coffee's decaff for the duration," said Scully. "And the tea is herbal."

Right, ikons of beverages. Walesa touched the old-fashioned percolator. "I can take caffeine pills." Scully touched the teapot with some sort of herb painted on it. Mulder bowed, flourished the card, and betook himself to the kitchen.

Walesa looked after him, then at the CD player. "What's that?" she asked. The music?"

"Second Brandenburg Concerto."

"You know them by number?"

"That one went along on the Voyager. It's one of Mulder's favorites."

"Mm," said Walesa, glancing back toward the kitchen. "Letting him feel useful?"

"Close. Giving him control over part of his life. Mr Suominen is quite emphatic about that. He must feel as much in control as he can, and he must *not* feel that he's completely lost control, that he's helpless and has no say or vote."

"That's . . . not a good way to feel," agreed Walesa.

Scully looked into the distance, and her mouth quirked in a grimace that was nothing like a smile. "That's why I was ready to shoot Doggett. He was just going to take charge, take control away from me, lay down the law and dismiss anything I had to say about it. I bit his head off. He might have dismissed that, too, but Skinner came in and held him for me."

"So you put Mulder in charge of the mood music and the 'coffee, tea, or milk,' and you give him control over your feet . . ."

"Things well within his capabilities, and important in their way."

"Yet the ultimate control is yours. You decide what he's permitted to be in charge of."

"He's still recovering. After he's over the trauma of captivity, he'll still be learning to cope with aphasia."

"Mm," said Walesa, and finally launched into Topic A: "When did you learn just how much money Mulder has?"

"When . . .?" Scully mused. "Well, I always knew he had something beyond his salary. You don't get Armani suits on clothing allowance. And his parents' real estate . . ." She stared off a minute. "The Antarctic run, I guess. Kersh is such a goddamned bully . . . Cancer didn't leave me much of an economic safety net, and he really enjoyed twisting the knife . . . I hate people who hit me to hurt Mulder . . ."

When it was clear Scully had run down entirely, Walesa asked gently, "Why keep to the civil-service lifestyle? Fooling the parasites?"

"Not really. He doesn't want what most people spend money on. Expensive suits, but nothing else, and the expense is in quality, not flash. His work -- his quest is his indulgence." After a few moments of silent staring: "He'll go mad."

"Why so?" said Walesa as gently as before.

"They could win. He'll go mad if they stuff him into an institution. All they have to do is set off the screamer and get out. Who's going to believe it wasn't me? Sure, I can prove after the birth, but by then Cousin Stalking Horse will have won, and the Consortium will have him."

Mulder sat next to her on the couch, stroking her and making little distressed cooing sounds.

"Kupier doesn't care for him, doesn't even know him. He'll hire professionals, each one of them a target for the Consortium to suborn, or kill to make room for an easier one. Even if they let me visit, it's going to be hell when I leave . . . each time I leave . . ."

Mulder was whimpering now.

Walesa lowered her voice even further. "What happens then?"

"He tries to leave with me. The orderlies hold him back. He fights them, crying out in anger, but they drag him away. He's helpless, he just whimpers. And I stand still. I call after him, but I don't move."

"Paralysis dream," said Walesa. "You must have been waking up."

"Yes. I was hearing Mulder. He was . . . He . . ." She shook her head sharply and sat up. "What was I saying?"

"I think you hypnotised yourself, and remembered a dream, a nightmare."

"My nightmare yesterday. I don't need hypnoregression to remember that."

"Have you got any evidence against this Consortium?"

"Just my experience. And Mulder's, and Skinner's."

(Friday)

More imaging the next day, this time the MRI. It went as well as the CT scan, and with the same all-well report, in writing. This technician too mentioned the old contusion in the right temporal lobe.

Walesa had looked up the 'god module' the night before. She agreed with Agent Scully: madmen with power are still madmen.

###

One thing Curtis Danford liked about convention hotels was the suites. No way was he about to let the likes of Benbow into his bedroom, nor was he going to break bread with him. A chair in the public room was quite enough hospitality for a hit man. But a call to room service would turn the public room into a civilised sort of place to entertain Fox's Dana Scully. Though no doubt FBI agents had to eat in every sort of place from greasy spoons to four-star restaurants, a lady deserved tea in a civilised setting.

"That the slut?" said Benbow.

"No, these are Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder of the FBI. This is Horace Benbow, who enjoys the reputation of a hired gun."

"And I'm hired to see that no Irish Catholic navy brat gets hold of Kupier money."

Scully turned to Danford and said mildly, "Here I thought the Danfords were English whalers."

Danford smiled appreciation at her comeback, then turned to Benbow. "You're going to have a hard time discrediting Agent Scully."

"A bimbo who gets herself knocked up? She's discredited herself already."

Danford shook his head in disappointment. "Believing your own propaganda is dangerous." He turned to Scully. "How long have people been taking you and Fox for a married couple?"

"Almost as long as we've been partners."

He turned back to Benbow. "And they still do. If Dana were ashamed of her pregnancy, everyone would make the assumption you expect. Since she acts quite pleased with it, and with herself, everyone who sees her alone assumes she has a husband somewhere, and if they see her with Fox they assume that he's it."

Danford smiled at Dana Scully smiling up at Fox and stroking the swell of her belly while Fox smiled down at her. A glance at Benbow showed the hit man thinking hard. "You really ought to listen to her."

"I'm always listening," said Benbow.

Dana took him at his word. "Your client has been deliberately frightened into becoming the stalking horse of a criminal syndicate that Mulder has been fighting for years. We don't know if they had any part in rendering him aphasic, but they certainly know about it, and are determined to bring him under their control. They know enough about Mr Kupier to psych him out, get him to front for them, probably without even realising it."

"Quite a story," said Benbow. "No little green men?"

"Grey," said Scully, with a suspiciously innocent expression.

"What's that?"

"Not green. Grey."

Danford gave a slightly exaggerated sigh. "Back in the Sixties, there were all different kinds: Nordics, Giants, Greys -- sounded like a league of baseball teams. And there were goodguys as well as badguys. Now it's all Greys, and all invading. Dull."

Benbow shrugged him off, and told Scully, "I'll pass on your warning to my client, but don't expect him to pay attention."

She was all seriousness again. "Despite having disowned his cousin for her marriage, Mr Kupier might still have some feeling for her son. I wonder if he realises the work and stress involved in caring for an aphasic. Or the paperwork involved in guardianship. If he's planning to dump the guardianship off on some professional and the care on some nursing home, he might as well withdraw now, because I will not abandon Mulder even if I lose this round of the fight. If he is an any way neglected or abused, I will raise a stink you can smell in Boston.

"And I won't wait that long to check out everyone involved. I will not be satisfied by an association's reputation; I will check the people who actually work with Mulder. I will especially check to see if anyone has hooks into them."

"Isn't that misappropriating the taxpayers' money?" Benbow sneered, and left.

Danford shook his head. "Put your feet up, my dear," he said. "I still have that rack of teas here, and I'll ask them to send up something light, shall I? How does a salad sound?"

###

In the obligatory deserted warehouse, Race Benbow looked about with undisguised disdain. "A pity our masters can't seem to show any imagination."

"Open spaces are easier to guard and easier to sweep," said Kersh. "What was so important as to demand a meeting?"

"They're onto you."

"By name?"

"Not quite: 'a criminal syndicate that Mulder has been fighting for years'. Apparently they've no evidence yet, which would make naming names actionable."

"That's one thing the bosses are good at."

"And I need ammunition. There's a limit to how much I can do with her pregnancy; it's working almost as much for her as against."

"Little green men?"

"Grey."

"What?"

"I tried that. She has too much sense of humor."

"Humor? Her?"

"Lessons, perhaps. She's a quick wit, and a quick study."

"She's an insolent bitch!"

"Not going to help the case."

"I know. I'm working on it. But they're bound to call Skinner for character witness, and he'll put their spin on whatever he can."

"Hmp. Have you got an associate for me?"

"Yes." Kersh handed over a business card.

Benbow read it over and pocketed it. "I hope he can keep his mouth shut. How did you let this hearing get away from you from the beginning?"

###

Suominen tried not to feel cowed by the intensity of Agent Scully's determination. She was a lioness standing over her one remaining cub.

"It's better to take precautions and not need them," she said, "than to need them and not have taken them."

"I still don't understand why it will matter."

She drew a long breath and spoke slowly and carefully. "If we lose at the hearing, Mulder is bound to end up in some sort of institution. Cousin Kupier doesn't know him, and never did make peace with Mrs Mulder. He probably won't even ask for guardianship himself, but select some professional guardian and let him call it. And if I am judged unsuitable, there's a good chance of his guardian or the institution keeping me away from Mulder to prevent my bad influence.

"But if Mulder can insist on seeing me, that gives us leverage against the guardian and the institution both. Once I find him, we can work from inside and outside simultaneously." She gestured with both hands, miming clawing or digging toward each other.

"But that brings us to the old problem," she went on. "How's he going to ask or insist on anything?"

Suominen finally nodded. "You figure that somewhere in an institution that takes aphasics, someone will know one of the commonly used graphic vocabularies."

"And if Mulder can write 'take me to my partner' in all of them," said Agent Scully, "or better, 'take me to my partner, the pregnant redhead,' and if I can get to him and demand that a court or a court's investigator determine whether he has been writing this, unambiguously, we have a case with a chance of countering the original ruling against me."

"Why should the ruling go against you?"

"You consider me suitable as a guardian?"

"I haven't seen you in the long haul, yet. You begin well."

"But there are a lot of people still for whom a pregnant single woman is automatically 'immoral.' And most judges are not exactly young swingers."

"I thought you were getting a jury."

"For the first part of it: whether he is in fact incapacitated. I have to be deemed suitable by 'the court'."

"So, if you lose at the hearing, you search for him and make them at least let you visit. What if you win?"

Her mouth turned up wryly. "Know anyone who can teach Lamaze nonverbaly?"

###

Returning from the kitchen with two mugs of cocoa, Scully saw Mulder still in front of the fish tank, following the placid track of the fish with his fingers against the front glass. Had she read him right? She'd worked out where in her living room the tank would have the same clearance as in Mulder's apartment, and asked with a big fish ikon if he wanted them there. He'd signaled "yes," but had he really understood?

Mulder turned from the tank and smiled at her. Pointing at the couch, he circled the room and turned off the rest of the lights. In the soft glow of the tank, he joined her on the couch and pulled her to him.

*I guess it was a good call,* she thought. Leaning forward, she picked up the mugs, gave him one and settled back with the other to nestle in the circle of his arm. In silent contentment, they listened to the gentle burble of the aerator and watched the swimming fish.

WEEK THREE

(Sunday)

At dinner, Maggie Scully let Fox set the table, deciding that regaining control over part of his life outweighed not making a guest sing for his supper. The experiment pleased both of them. When she brought in the casserole, Fox sniffed dramatically, leaning out of his chair and looking, if not like a hungry fox, like a wistful puppy.

"Flatterer!" she smiled at him. Setting the casserole onto its rack, she took off the lid and handed Fox the ladle to serve it.

Over coffee, she turned serious. "Dana, is he ever going to get well?"

Dana sighed softly. "We don't know if the aphasia is going to improve. But there are graphic vocabularies that people with speech disorders use to communicate with each other and their families, and there is computer software designed for global aphasics. He may never be able to live independently, but he *is* learning to communicate."

(Tuesday)

The PET scan session was more of the same. Mulder was feeling bored, not to mention claustrophobic. He was cranky and clumsy, and eyed the metal cave like a colt being led into its first horse-trailer.

The technician was patient. Agent Scully said, "We're not supposed to treat him like a child, but this time he's asking for it."

Now alerted to the nuances, Walesa realised that the two of them were treating him just like a timid child. At last they got him positioned in the scanner, and except for grabbing Agent Scully's hand as she left his side, he settled down to act his age.

As with the EEG, the technician scowled at the results, tweaked and fiddled with the equipment and ran the test again. As with the EEG, the second results were no different from the first.

"It's preposterous!" she said. "It's flat-out impossible! Everything going fine, tissue metabolising normally, but it will not activate. Goes right on resting and maintaining itself when it should be doing its job. Ridiculous!"

Again, Walesa calmed down the technician and persuaded her to write and sign a short notice of what had happened, including the film IDs.

All in all, the medical evidence was piling up nicely. Which was of course the lesser part of the job.

###

That afternoon, the partners took the normal contents of their respective 'weak boxes' to their banks and stashed them in their strong boxes there. Only the documents related to the hearing stayed at the apartment.

That evening, they went to the gunmen for the initial pre-hearing backup of Scully's entire hard drive. They would do it again the day before the hearing. In addition, they scanned all the documents related to the hearing, plus all the Oregon images and Scully's preliminary report on Mulder's condition, into their own secured storage, and set the images and report to be dumped onto the Internet in event of emergency.

(Thursday)

Sure enough, Ms Bennett got the DNA results within a week. Samantha Melissa was Agent Mulder's daughter.

No one had thought of triggering the screamer just to accuse Agent Scully of doing it. But now she was worried about use of the PCR instead of the RFLP or ROFL or whatever the other one was. Jan was beginning to think Agent Mulder's reputed paranoia was catching.

"Why," she asked, "should anyone question using the only method that will give results in time for the hearing?"

"Because it's less accurate. Normally, the only reason for PCR instead of RFLP is an old or contaminated source, or a sample too small for the more accurate test."

"Well, here's another reason: no time for the more accurate test. It's not just movie producers who don't want it good, they want it Wednesday."

"I understand. After all, every forensic sample is contaminated by clinical standards. I'm just . . . Danford pegs Benbow as a hit man, a hired gun. And he knows him, they work in the same turf. If the Consortium is at all involved in Benbow's contract, he'll be as vicious as Kersh."

"Unless he's a fool, he also knows what will fly and what won't. Look, if this does get to actual testimony, I'll ask Ms Bennett first off about accuracy and speed. Before I ask the results. That will cut the ground out from under Benbow even if he does try to make it fly."

###

The partners plus their backup team took Scully's laptop to the gunmen for the final pre-hearing backup. They also took their weekend bags and the hearing-related documents, for none of them would return home until the hearing was over. Trusted agents from HQ and the Field Office would keep watch on all their homes; one of them was Ed Harrison, who would feed the fish.

At whatever hotel Skinner had picked, he and Doggett would guard the partners. He wanted the gunmen under his wing as well, but they trusted their own security over any hotel's, and wanted to get to Virginia on their own, or rendezvous with their escort on the way. Skinner was stubborn.

"Look, I know you've got portable security gadgets to supplement hotel security -- *and* portable bug-sweepers -- and I know you've set up your files to vanish into the cyber-alleys if your hardware is assaulted.

"You have all been subpoenaed, even though it's by the wrong side, and you will all by damn report to the courthouse. If Walesa can get your testimony declared immaterial, no doubt you can go home, but you *will* be physically available until then.

"And I do not want you uncovered while you chase down a rendezvous in inside-the-Beltway traffic. We have the rifles racked, and will escort you to Virginia *now*."

###

Wonder of wonders, they actually got two adjoining rooms and one directly across the hall. No one had to discuss room assignments, or that the door between the partners' room and Skinner and Doggett's would be left unlocked. They all put their luggage away and met in Mulder and Scully's room for a brief council of war.

There they found Scully stretched out on one of the double beds, shoes and knee-highs off, Mulder rubbing her feet. "One word out of any of you and I'll strap you into an empathy belly. The nine-months version!"

Doggett smiled in wistful reminiscence. "I wore one when my wife was pregnant; the seven-month plus ankle weights, for about ten minutes. Ooof!"

"Does it work?" asked Langly

"It works."

The men sorted themselves out. The guys perched on the bed not occupied by the foot-rub session, making that end of the room look like a science fiction convention. Doggett commandeered the chair nearest the door. Skinner prowled the little open floor space.

"If all we're dealing with is a snob," he said, "we pack up and go home, with no harm done."

"Unless Kersh fusses," said Doggett.

"I hope he does," said Skinner with a feral grin. Rather than elaborate on that, he went on to the next contingency. "Walesa has a good reputation, which includes not accepting security or anything else from people who are part of the petitioner's case -- no matter how many stripes her horse grows."

He paused to glare at Scully's giggle, then went on: "Fortunately, her own security is not bad, provided her partner and associates deserve the trust she has in them. They have fairly good reputations, too."

Skinner stopped his pacing and turned to look at Doggett and then at Scully. "Danford?"

Doggett shrugged and spread his hands.

"I'm inclined to trust him," said Scully, "if only because Mulder does. That could go both ways; he seems to have formed his opinion of me from what Mulder's told him."

Skinner nodded. "Benbow."

"Hit man. Hired gun and proud of it."

Doggett snorted derision. "But who hired him?"

"And why does he want us?" said Langly.

"Because you're weird," said Scully. "After your phone conversation with Ms Walesa, she asked me if there was an adult in that menage."

To which Skinner added, "And she referred to you to me as 'Agent Mulder's odd friends.'."

"So how does that help Benbow?" said Byers.

"Because for the past few months you have been Agent Scully's odd friends," Skinner explained patiently. "And for the past three weeks, she has not hesitated to leave Mulder in your care. If Benbow can successfully maneuver the judge into connecting you to Scully and not Mulder, he can make her look irresponsible."

"Provided the judge is a very superficial judge of character," said Scully. "But if not, there's still no real risk."

When the council broke up, Scully grabbed her toiletries bag from the bedside table where Mulder had put it, her pyjamas and robe from her opened suitcase, and headed for the bathroom. She indulged herself in a bath rather than a quick shower, but not so far as a kitchen-sink (or bathroom-tub) Special. There was still hot water for Mulder's turn.

Barefoot, she turned on the lamp on the table between the beds and turned off the rest of the lights, turned down the bedclothes on both beds, and made sure everything was off the floor and solidly settled. She had just fastened the dead-bolt on the door to the public corridor when Mulder came out.

He saw what she was up to and nodded, glanced around the room and hesitated. He didn't actually frown, but Scully knew him well enough to know that all was not 'fine.' He padded into the aisle between the beds and turned to look at her. His whole face was a question-mark.

"What is it, Mulder?" she said.

She crossed to him and put her hands on his chest. He gathered them gingerly between his own, as if they might shatter or break off if he was too rough. He stared into her eyes, imploring -- what?

*If we lose tomorrow, it may be months or years before we sleep under the same roof again.*

She tugged him toward her bed. He slid in after her and turned off the light.

#
}Herself{
}warm-snug-safe-safe-safe{ #

(Friday)

The next morning they convoyed to the courthouse, found parking close to each other and headed for the entrance. The gunmen for once were meek as mice, trying not to attract attention. Not that Doggett and Skinner were being exhibitionistic, but courthouse regulars recognised the FBI uniform and the Marine spine. They stayed out of the party's way, but they stared, and no doubt speculated.

A policeman was hustling a homeless man away from the door of the courthouse as they came up. Doggett looked after them, reflecting that Mulder could all too easily have ended up just such a nameless beggar. Or only slightly better off in a home.

Skinner seemed to read his mind. "Don't you think Mulder knows how lucky he is?" he asked quietly.

"No, I don't," Doggett returned just as quietly. "I can see he's devoted to her, but he takes her as a given. Once he got out of enemy hands, she'd be there to give him a home." Make a home for him: more than cooking his meals and doing his laundry -- *care*.

Inside the courthouse they split up to find their appointed stations. Scully and Mulder were the principals, petitioner and respondent; the rest were subpoenaed witnesses. Privately, Doggett wondered what he or the gunmen had to offer the case.

#

There were no separate tables. Theoretically, they were all here to help Mulder. They were, however, sorted into a spectrum. At one end sat Janet Walesa, the court-appointed guardian ad litem. Next to her was Mulder. Instead of Danford, his attorney of record, Scully sat next to Mulder, and Danford next to her. Lippsett, Danford's local associate, sat next to him. Race Benbow and his local associate sat at the far end.

"All rise."

Let the show begin.

The judge addressed the jury. Six jurors for a competence hearing. All the normal instructions. Jan was glad to hear her emphasise that the respondent was alleged to be incapacitated, not incompetent. He was presumed to be sane, stable, and capable of making rational decisions, but he was cut off from communicating them, or gathering information to make them.

Jan rose to her feet. "Your Honor, since the petitioner was present and involved from the time the respondent arrived at the Oregon emergency room, I wish to call her first, to recount these events."

The judge merely nodded. Agent Scully was called to the stand.

Agent Scully told her well-worn tale of events in Oregon. As usual, she said as little as she could manage about the case that called them there, and about the failure of backup. Jan was willing to let her get by with a bare summary. When she got to the second trip, she went into more detail, starting with the signs of abuse on all the captives before centering on Mulder's aphasia.

Clearly she was used to testifying, or else writing reports. Now and again she had to be brought back to clarify some technical matter, but she forged on through the release of the patient to her care, the pause in Portland for the PET scan, the flight back to DC.

"With Mr Lippsett's help, I filed the petition for guardianship. Then we reported to our boss, AD Skinner. Then Mulder and I went shopping for a speech therapist, among those recommended by Ms Thorne in Oregon. We spoke to a group of Mulder's friends who needed reassurance, then we crashed and burned."

Jan thanked her and retreated for Benbow to take her place.

"Weren't you worried, Miss Scully," he asked, "flying across the continent in your condition?"

"No, sir."

"No further questions."

Hm, perhaps she owed Agent Scully an apology; this guy must have learned his trade terrorising rape victims.

Danford took the re-direct. "Dr Scully, was there any particular reason that your . . . condition . . . did not figure in your decision?"

Scully: "Pregnancy is not a disease, or a disability. For some women, it becomes a temporary incapacity toward the end, for others it's never more than a nuisance. My condition at the time of Agent Mulder's return precluded joining the search teams in the forest, and of course required me to be extra careful around radiation sources. It did not preclude an airline flight, nor normal pathology work in a hospital setting."

"Isn't blood work dangerous?"

Scully: "No more so than for any technician. That's why we all wear gloves and masks and follow procedures; not only to keep the results reliable, but to prevent exposure to toxic or infectious material."

The technicians from the imaging facilities were repetitious in the extreme. She took the structural images first, the CAT and the MRI. They each identified Mulder, their signed longhand reports, and the images. Each mentioned that the only distinguishing mark or scar on the latter was the old contusion on the right temporal lobe. Each set of images was placed in evidence. Neither Benbow nor Danford had questions for them.

With the functional graph and images, the EEG and the PET, things got interesting.

"It's more than unheard of," said the EEG technician, "it's preposterous." Jan led him through his explanation yet again for the jury.

Benbow's cross-examination was at least civil, and he actually brought out a significant point. "By your account," he said, "the brain did in fact respond to speech and writing, just not the way anyone expected. Correct?"

The technician stared at him. "A response? Strictly speaking . . . Yes, I guess you could call it that."

"It responded by going to sleep, or whatever that squiggle means."

"Not sleep, but more than relaxation."

"So, when presented with speech or writing, the parts of the brain responsible for dealing with it stuck their hands in their pockets and strolled off whistling?"

"Something like. Explaining that electrical activity is going to generate a lot of dissertations."

The graph was placed in evidence.

The PET scan technician agreed as to the preposterousness of the readings, in this case the metabolic activity, but could not call it a response. Metabolically, the brain ignored speech and writing. The image was placed in evidence.

Next, Jan called Dr. Bowser, speech pathologist. He identified himself, Jan, Mulder, and the day he had done the evaluation on the latter. "He was alert, oriented, and reasonably cooperative; the tests are tedious, and he got bored, but we're use to coping with that." Certainly the annotated list of tests he recitedwas tedious enough.

"And your diagnosis?" asked Jan.

"Global aphasia: the most complete case I've ever encountered."

On request, he then identified the images and graph that Jan had informed him had been sent from Oregon. A careful man, experienced in court testifying. The set of images and graph were entered into evidence, but retained at the witness box.

Jan handed him the exhibits identified by the various technicians. "Will you compare these images with the ones you have just identified?"

Bowser did so meticulously, then sorted them into three piles. Raising the first, he said, "All the CAT and MRI images show an old contusion on the right temporal lobe. There are no other distinguishing marks or scars, but the contusion is the same on both the images taken here and those allegedly from Oregon."

Raising the second: "The PET scans have no distinguishing marks or abnormalities. I cannot say whether they are of the same subject or not."

Raising the third: "The EEG graphs both show the same previously unknown abnormality. According to the labels on both, these abnormailities occur in the readings of the same areas of the brain, Wernke's area and the angular gyrus. Barring some sort of clerical error or flim-flam, these are of the same condition, probably in the same patient."

Careful as ever, though Jan, and asked "Do these images and graph support your diagnosis?"

"They are impossible," he said. "Aphasia is caused by brain injury. Global aphasia would require severe and extensive trauma. These images show the entire linguistic region normal and uninjured. The graph shows something very strange going on in the linguistic area, but not the record one would expect of damage that results in aphasia?"

"And in the light of all this, would you reconsider your diagnosis?"

"No. The man has aphasia. Whether these anomalous records are a medical or legal issue I couldn't say without further study by several specialists."

Danford had no questions. Benbow did.

"Dr Bowser, do you recognise anyone else in this room from that visit?"

"Dr Scully, the woman next to Agent Mulder."

"Was she present during evaluation?"

"No."

"Did she speak to you beforehand?"

"Yes."

"Did she threaten you?"

"No."

Benbow frowned. "No? Then what *did* she say?"

"That if I harmed her partner, I would find that the Smoking Bastard was not all-powerful, and the fix was not in."

"And you don't consider that a threat?"

"Since I don't work for her Smoking Bastard, and had no intention of harming her partner, why should I?"

"You claim you were not frightened?"

"Only of her Smoking Bastard. She was afraid of what he might do to her partner, and clearly considered him capable of coercing professionals to harm their patients. I certainly hope I do not make his acquaintence."

Next, Jan called Carl Suominen, speech therapist. He identified her and Muler, and stated that Dr Scully, whom he also identified, had been bringing Mulder in for twice-weekly sessions for three weeks, and attending the Friday sessions herself.

"He is very lucky: he's good at nonverbal communication, and so is his partner; and he has friends who are very much at home with computers. They have recreated primitive forms of C-ViC and Blissymbols with ikons and computer graphics."

He got out a pile of snapshots and said, half to Jan and half to the judge, "May I demonstrate?"

The judge nodded, a bit warily.

Suominen clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention. He caught Mulder's eye and rose, beckoning Mulder to him. He told the jury, "These are the shots that I asked permission to have taken in the jury room, plus one of Mulder himself."

He sorted through the snapshots, holding them so Mulder could see them, pulled out one and handed it to him. Then he gave Mulder the photos and gestured toward the jury.

Mulder sorted through the pile. One at a time, he gave each juror his or her own picture.

Suominen clapped him on the shoulder and started laying out another deck of cards on the rail in front of the jury box. "If the members of the jury will rearrange these cards?"

They did. Suominen shuffled the remainder of the deck and handed it to Mulder, who riffled through the cards and then checked the cards on the jury box. Some were pictures, some swirls of color, some geometric figures. Mulder laid out the cards he held to match the ones on the rail.

Once again, Suominen gave him an approving clap, then gestured him back to his seat. Suominen himself returned to the witness box. "Agent Mulder is fortunate in having none of the symptoms of stroke or brain trauma that so often complicate aphasia. He has no problem with motor control, his hearing is unimpaired and his vision nearly so; like so many of us, he needs reading glasses. He also has an excellent memory, which will be very useful with pictographic and ideographic symbols. About the only thing he can not do is speak, understand speech, read, or write."

Jan was not about to step on that line. She paused two full breaths, then thanked Mr Suominen and turned him over to her colleagues.

Benbow's first question sounded innocuous enough: "can you expand on 'at home with computers'? Are we talking operator, programmer, what?"

Oh, shit! he's laying preparation for calling the gunmen.

Sure enough, Suominen innocently said, "All of Agent Mulder's friends that I have met are sophisticated users. Mr Langly is the programmer. He does a sort of semi-animation, using simple graphic applications, and he's mentioned 'tweaking' animated interactive programs to make them purely graphic; as he says, they're almost purely graphic to start with."

"With all this touchy-feely in the communication department, do you find that your patient and his partner indulge in public display of affection?"

Suominen frowned and said, "If you mean sexual fondling, say so."

"Why should you think I mean that?"

"Because that is the common euphemism. Speech is my specialty, Counselor, don't try to bamboozle me with schoolboy conundrums."

Benbow backed off from this very different Suominen from the genial enthusiast Walesa had seen before this. A glance at the partners showed them just as startled.

"Very well," said the somewhat subdued Benbow, "have you observed any sort of sexual fondling between them?"

"None." Equally startling to those who had known him for three weeks, he made no effort to elaborate.

"Would you expand on that, please."

"I have never seen either of them touch themselves or each other -- or indeed, anyone at all -- on the genitals, or erotic areas, or other publicly inappropriate places. They touch each other for the most part on the most public areas: hands, arms and shoulders. Less often, they touch each other's faces and hair, somewhat more intimate areas that are nevertheless considered appropriate to touch in public."

"No further questions."

Now it was Benbow's turn to call witnesses. Sure enough, he called Langly. After the preliminaries: "How long have you been looking into aphasia programs?"

"Since Mulder came back."

"Three weeks?"

"Just about, yeah."

"With help from Mr Suominen?"

"Hey, if it's software, I can find it, but a head start never does any harm. A lot of aphasia software is for partials, which does us no good. The doc can tell us which is the stuff we want."

"By 'the doc,' you mean Mr Suominen?"

"Yeah."

"And you also search out graphic vocabularies?"

"Yeah."

"Do you study them?"

Langly shook his head. "They haven't settled on one yet."

"They?"

"Mulder and Scully."

"Not Mr Suominen? The doc?"

"I guess they'll consult with him. Or Agent Scully will."

"You just do the computer searches and the animation?"

"Computer stuff generally," he said. "My kung-fu is the best."

Benbow ignored the brag. "What else do you do for her?"

"Hey, whatever we can. Last week we moved his fish."

"Fish?"

"To her place. Their place. Whatever."

"And before that?"

"We look after him sometimes. While he was gone, we listened out for John Does. Fed the fish when she was out of town on a case. Just . . . just be there generally."

Benbow moved on: "Do you expect this software that you've found and your own inventiveness will restore the patient's communication?"

Langly shook his head. "It'll be a big improvement, but he'll always need a translater."

Neither Walesa nor Danford had questions. That was the last witness.

The jury took little time to agree that Fox William Mulder was currently incapacitated, not incompetent, and needed a guardian during his incapacity, however long or short that might be. That his incapacity was his loss of effective communication, not his medical condition per se, and that sufficient restoration of communication, irrespective of his medical condition, would be enough to cure his current incapacity.

The judge thanked and excused them. Now the fight began.

Curtis Danford found Ms Walesa a competent and congenial colleague, but this half of the hearing would be tricky in the extreme. Curtis was convinced that Fox's wishes and his interests were in this matter the same. Ms Walesa was not concerned with Fox's wishes, only for her best judgment of his interests.

Ms Bennett was the first character witness. At Ms Walesa's request, she identified herself and her employer. "We do DNA parentage testing. Mostly paternity, but maternity and grandparentage, too."

"Please describe your activities the afternoon of Thursday before last."

"I observed an ultrasound-guided amniocentesis on a fetus already bearing the name Samantha Melissa; I also observed the taking of a blood sample from the mother Dana Scully; and taking a sample of the man accompanying them, Fox Mulder. I observed the labeling of the samples, then I convoyed the samples to our lab."

"Do you see either of the adults you observed in court today?"

Ms Bennett pointed. "The man sitting next to you and the woman sitting next to him."

On further request, she described the security and chain of custody precautions at the lab, ending with: "One lockbox which our security head says is no help, but does no harm either."

"Can you say what tests were used on those samples?"

"A test known as the RFLP is the most accurate, but it can take over a month for the results. The PCR is not as accurate, but it's faster, needs a smaller sample size, and is not as fussy as to sample freshness. I used the PCR polymarker test -- 6 markers, to be exact -- which is nearly as accurate as the RFLP, and offered the only chance to get the results in time for this hearing."

"You, personally?"

"Best way to keep track. I did the tests on all the samples and did the comparison."

"And your conclusion?"

"Samantha Melissa is the daughter of Dana Scully and Fox Mulder."

"How certain are you?"

"99.9 percent."

Walesa thanked her and returned to the table. The judge called for other questions. There were none; no one had any desire to tangle with a witness so clearly in command of her material. The judge also thanked Ms Bennett and excused her.

Curtis nodded, smiling to himself. That gun might not be spiked altogether, but with the obvious evidence that she had been active now evidence she'd been active with her desired ward, it would have less impact.

With the underbrush cleared out of the way, Walesa called Agent John Doggett. He played the stone-faced G-Man through identifying himself and his assignment. "I was seconded to the X-Files some months ago."

"And what are the X-Files?"

The stoneface cracked slightly into a wry twist of a smile. "My boss said he was going to assign me cases that somebody else has already given up on. It's a pretty fair description."

At Walesa's "Do you know Agent Dana Scully?" the stone cracked a bit further, not with a smile.

"I met her after her partner was kidnapped. That's pretty stressful. And getting him back disabled is pretty stressful, too. I've never seen her except under stress."

"What's she like under stress?"

"Obsessed. Running flat out, like a machine with its safeties disabled."

"Doing what?"

"Searching. Turning over rocks. Setting up a network to find any John Does that fit Mulder's description. Emergency room, morgue, drunk tank. Even checking with MUFON, they made something of a cult of Mulder's investigations -- like I said, turning over rocks. She was over at Fingerprints so often, somebody suggested setting up an annex in the basement so she could look for Mulder matches herself. She said, 'When?' The idea was a non-starter, but she would have done it."

"And the assigned cases? Did they suffer from her obsession?"

"No. She didn't neglect them or let herself be distracted. She did up very complete field reports, like she knew it was all going to fall out of her head once the case was closed."

"And after his return?"

"Then she accepted desk duty, and soon went on family leave, so I didn't see a lot of her."

"What did you see?"

"Mostly preparation for this hearing. And Mulder's speech therapy sessions. Meetings with the guys about computer-aided communication. Moving his fish."

"Is there some significance to Agent Mulder's fish?" Walesa sounded honestly puzzled, as was Curtis himself.

Doggett spread his hands. "Somebody has to feed them when he's gone. Agent Scully if she was there, but on a case she would be with him, so it would be his, uhm, cyber pals."

Benbow again started with a seemingly innocuous question: "What was your first impression of Miss Scully?"

"That's *Agent* Scully," said Agent Doggett. "Or Dr Scully."

"Agent Scully, then. What was your first impression?"

"Way off. I was going by reputation, and the least accurate."

"She has more than one?"

"To those who actually work with her, she is thorough, meticulous, polite to the support staff, and supportive of her partner. To the powder-room and coffee-stand crowd, she's Mrs Spooky the UFO chaser."

"And you opted for Mrs Spooky?"

"Yeah."

Something about Doggett's tone seemed to catch Benbow's attention. Instead of asking his next question right away, he held off and looked inquiring.

"I deliberately antagonised her," Doggett admitted slowly. "I treated her as a suspect's accomplice, trying to shake her trust in him, shake her confidence in his trust of her. Not the way to treat a fellow agent whose partner was just kidnapped. She couldn't very well see me as anything but an enemy."

"And how did you get around that?"

"Did my job."

"No flowers or candy?"

"That's not what we're there for. She was assigned to guard my back, so she owed it to herself to do the job right. Like guarding a valuable witness in a mob case. She had a kidnapped partner to find, and no time to keep up a feud. Eventually it . . ." He fumbled a bit, then shrugged. "It washed away."

Give it up, Horace, Curtis thought, before you elicit any more testimonials. Evidently, Benbow was telepath enough to pick this up; he had no further questions for Agent Doggett.

After Assistant Director Walter Skinner identified himself and Special Agent Dana Scully ("the redheaded woman sitting next to Agent Mulder"), Walesa asked him how long he had known her.

"I've known *of* her for seven, going on eight years, ever since she was assigned to the X-files Unit. Back then, the Unit was part of the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Section. The Unit Chief reported to the VCMO Section Chief, he to the Deputy Assistant Director for Financial Crimes, Corruption, Civil Rights and Violent Crimes, and he to me. I probably would not have heard of her in the ordinary course of events, but part of her job was to assess the validity of the X-file investigations, so of course I read her reports."

"Did you ever get to know her personally?"

"Half a dozen years ago, the X-files Unit was made part of my office, and I became their direct supervisor."

"How would you assess Agent Scully?"

"She often gets overlooked, due to her partner's flamboyance. She is honest, meticulous and thorough, takes her responsibilities seriously. She is protective toward her partner, the sick and injured, and children. She is usually respectful toward authority, but not at the expense of justice.

"I learned to look to Agent Scully for . . . grounding . . . balance. Between his obsessions and his enthusiasms, Agent Mulder did go off half-cocked. Agent Scully is methodical, concerned for procedure and evidence . . ." He hesitated, as though sifting through phrasings, before settling on, "keeps her backup more in the loop."

"All the boring but essential virtues?"

"Some non-boring ones. She's a crack shot with rifle and handgun, knows field aid and life-support, and will bite your head off if you get in the way of a rescue."

"I see," said Walesa. "You mention 'her partner.' How many has she had?"

"Agent Mulder has been her partner from the time she joined the X-files to the time he was kidnapped. Agent Doggett was assigned to the X-files within a week of the kidnapping, and has acted as her partner from then to the present."

"How did she respond to the kidnapping?"

Skinner's jaw clenched. "She forgave me," he got out. He consciously relaxed both his jaw and his shoulders, and went on: "Agent Mulder left her in D.C., and I agreed, because we were afraid she was ill. I went with Mulder to Oregon, and I lost him. He was standing in front of me, and he disappeared. Scully forgave me, and concentrated on finding him."

"Exclusively?"

"That's not possible. I kept her caseload as low as I could, but the badguys don't keep business hours." For some reason, he locked eyes with Walesa before adding, "As her . . . physical condition . . . progressed, I cut her caseload further; I could not eliminate it."

"And on news of Agent Mulder's return?"

"Off to Oregon with reagents and records, leaving footprints on anyone silly enough to get in the way."

"Thank you, Mr Skinner," said Walesa. Turning to Benbow: "Your witness."

Benbow first asked, "How well does Agent Scully get along with her colleagues?"

"Polite if a bit reserved. The unit is physically isolated, down in the old copier room in the basement, which does not contiribute to socialising. And the nature of the X-files is another barrier, from both sides. For one thing, people do not want to think about the X-files seriously; they would rather dismiss it all as 'little green men.' So they take her lightly as well, and their ribbing is far from friendly.

"The other side . . ." He paused a moment and eyed Benbow with an air of sizing him up. "You may be aware of the problems that law enforcement people have in connecting to those who haven't been there. It's a notorious destroyer of marriages; you don't want to bring your family into the sewer you wade in daily, but their lives and concerns seem . . . not a fantasy, but protected from the gritty side of reality. Agents Scully and Mulder are even more isolated; not even other agents have been where they've been. Hell, I don't really understand them, and I've had to wade in and pull them out. Ultimately, it's just them."

"So when Agent Mulder vanished, it was just Agent Scully?"

"To a great extent."

"And you? The one who pulls them out? Weren't you there to comfort the widow?"

Skinner's eyes narrowed dangerously; his jaw tightened, the veins in his temples throbbed. His voice remained calm, but went ominously flat. "If you mean trying to seduce her, no. That's not my style, and she would have put a bullet through me. If you mean being there for her, offering what little comfort I could, then yes."

"No more nor less than you would do for any other agent?"

"More than most. Partly because I lost him. Partly because I owe her my life, two or three times over. Partly because, if only she were a little taller, she'd have made a damned fine Marine."

Benbow cleared his throat. "No further questions."

Walesa rose and said, "Your Honor, I would like to put Mr Curtis Danford on the stand."

Though he half-expected this, it was still a jolt.

The judge merely said, "Explain, Counsellor."

"Though Mr Danford has spent relatively little time with Agent Scully, that time includes the period during which the two unofficially performed the functions of guardian and conservator. Since these are the functions requested for them in the petition, it seems only fair to put this time on record.

"Second, we have too few sources of evidence for Agent Mulder's feelings about Agent Scully to ignore any. Mr Danford is especially significant in that his interactions with Agent Mulder have been in a very different social millieu than colleagues and fellow hobbyists."

"Very well," said the judge. "Mr Danford."

They quickly got the preliminaries out of the way, and Walesa asked, "Let's begin with when you first met Fox Mulder."

"Mmn, well, my first encounter was not in person."

"Start there."

"I made partner in Garrison and St Martin late in 1974. When the Joshua Kupiers set up a trust for their grandson, Mr Garrison was kind enough to suggest me for trustee. I didn't learn until much later that this was shortly after Fox's parents divorced."

"So your association was a purely business one."

"At first. When Fox reached 21, and I informed him that the money was now under his control, he asked if I would be willing to go on looking after it, and I agreed. He went off to Oxford the next year, came back, joined the FBI and settled in Virginia. He was almost never home after that."

Curtis couldn't suppress a brief smile as he said, "At Bill Mulder's funeral, I noticed a striking redhead talking to Teena Mulder. Of course I had no idea that it was Agent Scully, until I saw her again some years later. No premonition whatsoever, I'm sorry to say.

"Probating the will was of course complicated by thinking that Fox was dead, but all got straightened out in good time. Fox instructed me to keep his share of his father's estate separate from his grandparents' legacy, but it was some time later that he gave me more detailed instructions for both."

Here Curtis paused, thinking what he could ethically reveal about his client's activities -- in effect, what was already known, or as good as known, to anyone who cared to look.

Finally, he said, "That was when he made his grandparents' legacy into his emergency fund, and made it joint with Agent Dana Scully. And no, I have no idea why he never told her he was doing it, nor how he got her signiture for it. His father's estate he dedicated to thwarting illegal human experimentation and aiding the victims of it. About three years later, he tapped the dedicated fund for an expedition to rescue his partner."

Once again he paused, sorting the claims on his conscience. "During these various discussions he of course mentioned Agent Scully, and spoke, rather obliquely, of their work and his feelings about their partnership. I got the distinct impression that they were very unlike, and that it surprised everyone, including themselves, that they worked so effctively together. I gathered that Fox flushed the game and Dana brought it down." Dear God, had he really used her Christian name without permission? Don't do that again! "He also spoke most forthrightly of his trust in his partner."

He had to pause a moment. "Then Teena Mulder died. Fox insisted that his partner do the autopsy. He trusted no one else. When I met her over the paperwork, I realised that Fox's partner was the redhead I'd noticed at Bill Mulder's funeral. I now learned that she was thorough, meticulous, professional, and deeply concerned for Fox's well-being.

"I learned of the kidnapping when Agent Scully phoned me about paying the rent and utilities on Fox's apartment. She wasn't sure how long his account in Washington would cover it. At this point we were at cross purposes without realising it. I assumed she knew about the emergency fund, and was asking my assistance in tapping it for the first time. In fact, she was asking if Fox had any resources to bring into play if the Bureau froze his salary.

"All those months we were in perfect misunderstanding: I took it as a courtesy that she was keeping me up to date; she was accounting for her expenditures to the man she assumed to be in charge. The simple fact is that she accounted for every penny. She spent it *only* on Fox's rent and utilities."

Walesa, who had let him tell his story without further prompting, thanked him formally and stepped away. Benbow closed in for the kill.

"You consider Agent Scully suitable as a guardian?"

"Yes."

"Based on your client's regard, plus your few meetings with her?"

"And our long-distance dealings in regard to Fox's property."

"Meaning the emergency fund?"

"Meaning all the property she was aware of: his account in his D.C. bank, the property in his apartment, and the emergency fund when she learned about it."

"By your own account, she had no idea that she could make off with the emergency fund. This hardly speaks to her integrity."

Well, at least he was off sexual innuendos. "You're having a consistency problem. You assume that a thorough, methodical, meticulous person with designs on Fox's estate would allow herself to remain in ignorance of its extent and condition. An FBI agent could find all this out, and one that Fox trusts as he does Agent Scully wouldn't even have to abuse her official connections. She has access to the papers in his lockbox at his bank."

"She's certainly succeeded in wrapping you around her finger."

"Now you've got a successful FBI agent so clueless about her partner of over seven years that she hatches an elaborate scheme to cozen me out of what Fox would give her for the asking. If he'd known about his daughter, he'd have made arrangements for her, or told me to make them, before he left for Oregon."

"But he didn't, and now he can't give instructions."

"And if Agent Scully came up with this plan only when she realised that Fox was completely -- What's the word? Global. -- globally aphasic, her behavior during his captivity cannot have been part of the plan. Really, if you were writing this as a script, the continuity editor would be all over you."

This time, Benbow didn't have the sense to leave it alone. He said, "Who says *she* came up with the plot?"

Curtis kept his voice calm. "You did, Horace. When you stopped suggesting improper relations, you began twisting her actions to fit into some Byzantine plot against Fox's money. You have no evidence for either, just your orders to keep Fox's closest friend from becoming his guardian."

The judge belatedly banged her gavel. "This courtroom is not the place for your personal quarrels. Are there further questions?"

Benbow said, "No further questions."

"Then the witness may stand down."

Suominen, now back in genial-enthusiast mode, had of course already identified himself in the first part of the hearing. Walesa asked his opinion of Agent Scully as a caretaker for Fox Mulder.

"Clearly I haven't known them long enough to evaluate long-term suitability, but she begins well. She comes to family sessions, takes an interest in everything he learns, and applies it in his everyday life. She is determined to find a channel of communication which can handle abstract and complex concepts. Her memory is not as good as his, but she applies herself to learning the symbols he knows."

"Then you consider her determination to be caretaker as well as guardian to be a reasonable one?

"Home-care is generally best, if it's possible at all. She will have to hire a professional caretaker to help her out fairly soon, if only to get them all through the extra demands of late pregnancy and early infancy. But her desire not to introduce strangers into his life until he's had time to get used to the other disruptions is basically sound. Provided she doesn't put it off too long."

"Thank you, Mr Suominen," said Walesa. She glanced at Benbow, but he was not eager to tangle with the Feisty Finn again.

In civil procedure, there was no discovery. Curtis had no idea what witnesses Benbow would call.

"Special Agent Thomas Colton."

(Friday concluded)

In civil procedure, there was no discovery. Curtis had no idea what witnesses Benbow would call.

"Special Agent Thomas Colton."

Curtis heard Dana's breath hiss between her teeth. Had Fox ever mentioned a Tom Colton? Curtis studied the man as he approached the witness box; he looked the typical G-Man. A quick glance aside showed Dana's stony face, an icon of implacable concentration.

Colton identified himself. He was assigned to the Washington Metropolitan Field Office, in a white-collar crime squad, but available for drug busts. He knew Agent Scully, she had been in his class in the Academy.

"If I believed in curses, I'd say the X-Files was cursed. We all heard about Spooky Mulder, bright boy headed for the top -- until he found those files in the basement and he just went down the tubes. Then Dana Scully: did great at the Academy, sent directly into teaching -- then she was assigned to the X-Files, and she went right down the tubes after him. Chasing mutants and little green men."

"Did the two of you stay in touch?" asked Benbow.

"It was just Spooky and Mrs Spooky down there. She just about stopped socialising with the other agents. Though I guess no one was offering much after Pendrell died. Poor geek had a crush on her, and when she got in a shootout at the watering hole, he got into the line of fire. All Mulder's former partners are dead, come to think of it, and Dana's old lover from Academy days. Talk about a curse."

"Lover?"

"She had an affair with one of the instructors, Jack Willis. Evidently they parted friends, because they were together on the Dupre case. Willis died twice on that one, or at least his heart stopped. They got it going again the first time, but that used up all his luck."

Agent Scully passed him a note, slipping it under his hand like a girl passing notes in school. He drew it to him and glanced down.
_He was in South Dakota by then.
_ Curtis wrote
_Specific times?
_ and passed it back. Meanwhile, Benbow asked Colton, ever so delicately, about any disciplinary actions.

Scully passed their note back to Curtis:

_Lamana & Jack 1st yr 1993
_

_Pendrell abt 4 yrs ago
_

_Fowley last yr
_

"Well," said Colton with equally exaggerated delicacy, "everyone heard about her spending the night in jail for contempt of Congress, but nobody heard what for. And there was the suspension about something hush-hush a couple of years earlier. And that really confused mess not long after the Dallas bomb scare."

Scully scribbled another note and passed it over:

_Sen Subc about 4 yrs ago
_

_suspens 3d yr '95
_

_confused 3 yr ago
_

"Your witness," said Benbow smugly.

Walesa, noticing the activity beyond Fox, let Curtis take the cross-examination. "How long have you been in the Metropolitan Field Office?" he asked.

Colton wasn't eager to answer, but got out, "About a month."

"And where were you before then?"

"Salt Lake City."

"For how long?"

"About three years."

"And before that?"

"Sioux Falls, South Dakota."

"For how long?"

"Four or so."

"Now, do you remember when Jack Willis died?"

"Not precisely."

"Do you remember where you were when you learned about it?"

"I was in Sioux Falls."

"And Agent Pendrell? Do you remember where you were when you heard about his death?"

"Sioux Falls," Colton muttered, barely audibly.

"Agent Mulder was not your old classmate, but do you remember the names of his former partners? Late former partners?"

"Fowley."

"Do you recall when you heard of his death?"

"About a year ago."

"And you were where at the time?"

"Salt Lake City."

Curtis glanced at the judge, who wasn't giving anything away. "Agent Colton, what is your professional assessment of grapevine accuracy across half a continent?"

Colton didn't pretend to misunderstand. "Stories grow, even in the Bureau. Like the one about Willis, the story said the doctors were ready to give up, but Dana insisted on one more try, and it worked. Now that's just too good. But the kernel is bound to have something in it."

"Do you know how many Bureau agents die each year?"

"I could look it up, but I don't have it memorised."

"Do you know how many of your own connections and former connections in the Bureau have died since you transferred to South Dakota?"

"No."

"Can you say whether 'Spooky and Mrs Spooky' have lost more or fewer than the nationwide average?"

"No."

"Have you had occasion to . . . refresh your memory of these deaths and disciplines since your return to Washington?"

Colton shook his head. "I'm in the Field Office. The X-file Unit is at Headquarters."

"No further questions."

No more witnesses, either.

###

The judge tapped with her gavel and fixed her gaze on Scully.

"Special Agent Dana Scully," she said.

Scully rose to her feet, not sure whether she should approach the judge or just stand. Fortunately, the judge spoke to her before she could make a fool of herself.

"When you made the petition to become Fox Mulder's guardian, were you familiar with the duties entailed?"

"No, Your Honor. I just knew that it had to be done."

"Have you since then read the relevant section of the Virginia Code?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Do you understand that a guardian is responsible to the Department of Social Services for the ward's well-being? That he or she will be expected to file an annual written report of his or her decisions and actions?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"If a guardian needs help with the forms and regulations, the department will advise him or her. It is, however, entirely up to the guardian to ask for their advice in good time."

"Yes, Your Honor."

The gavel tapped again. "This court finds you, Dana Scully, suitable to become the guardian of Fox William Mulder. The rest is up to you."

"T-thank you, Your Honor."

A sharp crack of the gavel. "Adjourned."

###

In the post-adjournment milling, Tom slipped as unobtrusively as possible toward the exit. He slid his eyes carefully toward AD Skinner. Oh, hell, the man was watching him. No help for it; he donned his poker face and walked over.

Skinner said quietly, "I'm not asking for names, agent, just a yes or no. Were you under orders, implicit or explicit?"

Tom thought fast. Skinner was no dope. "Yes, sir."

"Hm. Well, you might remind him, agent, that witnesses are not always sequestered, and very seldom after testifying."

"Yes, sir," he said again.

Skinner nodded and turned away. Effectively dismissed, Tom headed for the exit, with his best confident stride.

At the door, however, he couldn't help but look back. No danger of Skinner noticing; the man was engrossed in something else. Following his gaze, Tom was unsurprised to see a blatant Public Display of Affection. Dana's hands were on Spooky's shoulders, and her head rested against his chest. He was stroking her hair and her back simultaneously.

Tom turned back to the exit. At least Spooky was out of the Bureau. And he always did need a keeper.

FINIS

AUTHOR's NOTEs

Sioux Falls, SD - This is an actual Resident Agency, under the Minneapolis Field Office (which covers both Dakotas and Minnesota). The "Minor Characters" section in Pellinor's Deep Background says only that Tom Colton was reassigned to South Dakota. The "Script Differences" section of Laura Witte's X-Files In-Jokes List quotes the lines cut from the episode-as-aired, which specify Sioux Falls. I gave Colton a second transfer just for the hell of having him at Salt Lake City when the Bureau was trying to send Scully there.

Quotations: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347 :
"Who shall guard those guardians?" or "Who'll watch the
watchmen?" Monty Python and the Holy Grail - coconuts gig from Scene 1;
The Bridge of Death from Scene 23 Maltese Falcon, Warner Brothers, 1941, from the novel by
Dashiell Hammett, starring Humphry Bogart as Sam Spade.
No, I don't think Scully's a Bogart fan, but that line she
would know. "Follow the money" : check out the commonest motive -- money --
before the less common "benefits" (and leave the Twinky
defenses to the defense counsel) "When you hear hoofbeats, first think horses, not zebras" :
check out the simple, common, obvious possibilities before
the exotic "What, never?" - the Captain of the Pinafore," Gilbert &
Sullivan,
_HMS Pinafore
_ : the next lines go "No, never!"
"What, never?" "Well, HARDLY ever." "Do not attribute to malice what is adequately explained by
stupidity" - Heinlein's Razor "Rumour painted with a thousand tongues" - allegorical figure in

_King Henry IV, part 2
_, Shakespeare, telling the audience
that he will report the battle inaccurately All's Well That Ends Well : English saying, used for title of
Shakespearian play "dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee" - Muhammad Ali camel's nose : if you let the camel put his nose into the tent,
you're going to have all of him in there with you "I don't want it good, I want it Wednesday!" - attributed to
most well-known producers of the 40s and 50s

Who Janet Walesa is not related to: Lech Walesa, head of the Solidarity Party in Poland.

Bag job: "Slang for surreptitious entry into an office or home to obtain files or materials illegally. Such break-ins dot the history of U.S. intelligence agencies, especially the FBI . . . . Break-ins were also staged to install bugs and telephone wiretaps." see also "The logistics of a black bag job" by Wes Swearingen, FBI http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/bagjob.htm

empathy belly: a device originally designed to give expectant fathers an idea of what pregnancy feels like, later used to educate teens of both sexes

FINALLY! THE END!