I'm Thinking As Loud as I Can

Chapter Two - Treatment

by Mik

The next two hours could definitely be candidates for the most frightening and frustrating in my career.

After his denial, I could only stand there and stare at him for a moment. Then I got angry. I have since been assured it was a normal reaction to the circumstances, but afterward I felt bad. My fingers clenched over his hand and I rasped, "Damn it, Mulder, you know. I know you know. Who did this to you?"

He opened his eye, did not meet mine. He stared up at the ceiling with an expression both resolute and regretful.

"Mulder?" I only barely resisted an urge to give him a shake. "Let me help you. Tell me who did this?"

I saw his throat work, as if he was trying to swallow, then I realized that he might not be able to speak with the tube in his throat. I released him and hurried to the door. Yanking it open, I woke the officer on guard, by giving him the shake I had wanted to give Mulder. "Get Dr. K or Dr. Lemon. He's awake."

A moment later the tall, grey haired, grey skinned Dr. Lemon and the small, dark skinned, dark eyed Dr. K were rushing down the hallway, white coats flapping, snapping orders at one another. Dr. K graciously gave Dr. Lemon the lead, but within moments, they were both working over him, checking the tracking of his eye, looking at his tongue, listening to his chest, trying for flexes in his fingers and toes, and looking for pain indices. The most response they got from him was touching his belly near one of the cigarette burns, when a sound rattled deep in his chest, like a groan wrapped in cotton. It was painful to hear, and even I winced at it.

At some point in the examination, there was a discussion about the NGT, and it was decided to leave it in because with the stitches in and around his mouth, it wasn't likely that he could take anything p.o. for a day or two. My argument that I needed him to speak, to tell me who had done this, was overlooked or perhaps blatantly ignored in all of the process. So I was forced to stand back and watch while they did everything to him except the one thing I needed them to do - which was let him talk. My frustration with the process was cranked up several notches by Dr. Lemon's ridiculous post physical evaluation performance.

Having done everything that was possible to do to a helpless man, some of which I think defied the Geneva Convention, she leaned over him and said, "Do you know your name? Blink if you do."

He blinked.

She nearly looked triumphant. It passed. "Do you know what day it is? Blink if you do."

He gave her a helpless look.

"Do you know where you are?"

Again he looked at her.

Take the tube out! I fumed silently.

Dr. Lemon continued to ask him questions he could only answer if there was no obstruction in his throat. Seeing my impatience, Dr. K gave me another one of his most patient smiles. "We've seen no evidence of brain damage. Let's give him another day to heal before we take the tube out."

I was too aggravated to appreciate his gracious coverage for the outrageous performance of a woman who had done nothing but antagonize him since her arrival. I drew him out into the hall. "Perhaps you don't realize this, Doctor, but there are key points in this investigation that only he can address."

He continued to smile at me. There was even a hint of the smile in his quiet, level voice. "This is a small hospital, sir. I'm sure our ways seem very backward to you. But in this place, it is more important to care for the patient than to assist in an investigation. Which is more important to you, sir? That he lives, or that the man who did this gets caught?" His black eyes pinned mine. "Which is the greater justice?"

I had no answer. I thought I did, but his question blurred the lines for me. So I went back into Mulder's room, and watched, in frustration and fear.

Scully arrived just as they were concluding their evaluations and when they left the room, she took over, not caring if or who she offended with her manner. Her only concern was Mulder.

I wouldn't have believed it, but if there was one person he wanted around him less than me, it was Scully. As she approached the bed, he shut his eye tight and looked away from her, and even from my place, up against the wall, I could see a dark stain of embarrassment come up under the bruises that had become his face.

Scully seemed oblivious to his shame, though. She leaned over him, stroking his hair, smiling at him, making soft soothing sounds, all the while her eyes were taking in every detail. "Hey, how are you feeling, partner?"

"They won't take the tube out, so he can't talk," I complained.

She looked at me, perhaps startled by my irritated tone, and then down at him again. "Hey, Mulder, it's me." Her voice was gentle, coaxing. "Look at me." She took his hand and held it gently.

Mulder was playing dead. He let his hand go limp, he was even trying to keep his breathing low and regulated. She kept cooing at him, stroking his face, squeezing his hand. She wasn't fooled. Nor was she wise.

Finally, I moved from the wall and put my hands on her shoulders. "Let's go outside, Agent," I suggested.

As could be predicted, she resisted, but I did manage to get her into the hall without blood loss or hair pulling. "With all due respect, Sir, that man is my partner -"

"Agent Scully, with all due respect..." I dropped my voice to a hiss. "That man was raped. The last thing he needs is his female partner in there treating him like a helpless child. Grant him a little dignity, please?"

Her eyes welled with tears. "Oh...Sir. I didn't mean...that is..." Then her lower lip began to quiver. "I..."

That made me feel like a bully. A heel. A complete shit. I tried to soften my words with a smile, but I just don't have Dr. K's knack for it. "I know, Agent." I could see I had really hurt her with reality, and I didn't know how to take away the sting. "Why don't you get us some coffee? I'm going to sit with him for a few more minutes." I waited until she had gone down the hall before I returned to his room.

He was still shamming. I moved up to the side of the bed and leaned down to whisper, "Okay, Agent, she's gone."

I saw him relax only slightly. But he did not open his eyes.

"Mulder, look at me," I ordered softly.

He opened his eye, but did not focus on me.

"Are you in a lot of pain? Blink if you are."

He gave me a long, slow blink.

"Do you want some medication?"

He merely stared.

"Do you know who did this?"

He neither blinked nor stared. He turned his face away.

I sighed. "Okay, Mulder. You don't have to answer. But I promise you we are going to find this bastard. Whether you help us or not."

He slowly closed his eye.

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

I found Scully in the small staff lounge, arms crossed tightly over her breasts, backed up against the far wall, head tipped forward, shoulders shaking. I didn't have to think about it much to realize she was fighting her tears. When I took a step toward her, she shifted to her side, pressing her cheek against the wall.

I put a hand on her shoulder. "Let's take a walk, Agent," I suggested. They teach you this stuff in Management Training, but they don't teach it properly. There is no textbook way to console an agent who is suffering for a partner's sake. There are the trite promises and platitudes, there is condescension and even compassion, but there is no real way to bring comfort to someone who is so bonded to another human being that she is actually feeling his pain, and now his rejection.

She moved reluctantly, brushing at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. "I didn't mean to embarrass him, Sir." She lifted her head and those bright blue eyes were laced with diamond-like tears. "He has nothing to be ashamed of."

"No, he doesn't...but he's not ready to accept that." I coaxed her outside, despite the night chill. "It is the nature of the male of this particular species to feel strong, protective and invulnerable. Agent Mulder was robbed of all those things. Don't you think that the first few times he looks at you, he will feel less than a man, and incapable of taking care of you?"

"I don't need him taking care of me," she warbled.

"But he needs to take care of you, Agent," I reminded her softly. "It isn't sexist, it's nature."

She sniffed loudly. "What should I do? I can't abandon him."

"No, but right now you might better serve him up in D.C. You can take the lead on the investigation there. I promise I'll call you the moment he asks for you. Okay?"

She wiped her eyes again. Her sleeve was becoming a mess. "Okay," she agreed, but unhappily.

So she went back to DC and I had the hotel room to myself. After shaming Scully into departing, I felt sort of honor bound to give Mulder some time and space myself, so I spent a great deal of my day coordinating the investigation, which was going nowhere, and hovering around the On Duty office getting in the way of very annoyed staff.

Only Dr. K seemed to take my presence in stride. With the exception of our first meeting, which I believe was driven by his fear of losing a man's life to the insufficiencies of his facilities, he was always placid and pleasant. I marveled at him because it was so obvious that his dark skin made him suspect in that little community, but he seemed to be oblivious to anything but the needs of his patients.

Once, as we shared coffee and reviewed additional requirements for Mulder's treatment, I apologized for being constantly under foot. He answered me with that ever-present amiable smile. "I think your Agent Mulder is lucky to have such a conscientious employer watching out for him."

I looked down into my coffee guiltily. "It's not just that," I confessed.

"I know," he said. "This is a very frightening thing that has happened to him. It frightens all men when it happens. We tend to believe this is a crime against women because they are weak or helpless or frail … or even, because they are women and therefore deserve it." His smile faded slightly. "But when it happens to one man, it seems to happen to all men. It is terrifying, and we, as men, must face our terror. We are like children who know there is a monster in the closet. We want to be certain of what it is we are afraid of." He made a sort of peeking gesture with his hands. "So we must open the door and look."

"So, I'm facing my monster?" I suggested. Yes, perhaps. I had worked on task forces to capture the rapist of a female agent, and while I was deeply sympathetic for the young woman, I was not nearly so touched by her ordeal. "Or I'm being a hypocrite?"

He was smiling again. "Perhaps, sir, that is your monster."

By Tuesday afternoon, they felt Mulder sufficiently recovered to remove the NGT and I was there, hovering like a vulture (or perhaps a bald eagle, in my case) ready to swoop in and get his first words. The only flaw in that plan was that there were no words. None. Despite prompting, coercion and thinly veiled threats, Mulder continued his silence, merely turning his head when the demands got too heated. I sat back and watched as Dr. Lemon, Dr. K, a local police officio, and one of our own investigators took turns trying to pry open his lips. It reminded me of an old term I'd read in one of my favorite detective series when I was growing up; to stand mute. In the book it meant that the hero refused to answer questions while in custody. Well, Mulder was lying mute, but it was the same result.

I sat through one bungled interrogation after another, and finally sent them all away. I don't know if I was showing him mercy, or myself. Or maybe I just wanted to be the one he responded to, confided in. I drew my chair up next to him and sat, trying to smile. "Do you feel as bad as you look?" I asked him.

He blinked.

"That's too bad," I allowed. "Because you look like shit, Son."

He blinked again and I think a tiny corner of his swollen lip curled up.

"Too many questions today?"

Another, emphatic blink.

"Okay, let's see if we can't find something less stressful to do. How do you feel about some television?" No blink. "Okay...no TV. Are you hungry?" This time he made a definite face. "Yeah, hospital food...I hear you. Coffee?" I saw a glimmer of something, maybe hope. "Would you like a real cup of coffee? They have a coffee house down the road that almost looks passable. How would you like me to sneak you a cup of coffee?" A blink and another hint of a smile. "Black? Two sugars?" Another blink, and an expression that was almost melting with gratitude.

I was back within the hour, a cardboard tray with two paper cups cradled under my Wal Mart windbreaker, and a paperback tucked in my hip pocket. His one eye literally lit up when I came back into the room. "Here you go, just what the doctor ordered," I said, setting the cups on the table next to his bed. I admit it, the way he looked when he saw me come in made me feel just a bit like Superman.

He frowned at me as I pulled the lid off his coffee

I smiled. "I'll bet you think I forgot about your mouth, don't you?" Smugly, I produced a straw from my shirt pocket. "This is why I am an Assistant Director and you are only a Special Agent," I explained as I stirred the two sugars into his coffee with the straw, and then carefully held it to his lips.

He sipped. He closed his eye. He sipped again and eased his head back in the pillow.

"Better?"

He blinked.

"Good." I tugged the book free. "Because there was a price for that coffee. You have to listen to me read to you." I opened the book. Then I frowned at him. "Well, there isn't a place in town that sells books on tape. Now..." I turned pages. "I stood and sent my eyes around. It's just routine when leaving a place where you aren't supposed to be, to consider if and where you have touched things, but that time it went beyond mere routine. I made certain..."

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

He was asleep when I left him. But we knew whodunit and why. The book made him almost laugh in a couple of places. I went back to the hotel with high hopes that the next day I'd get the name I so desperately sought. Yes, sir, Walter S-is-for-Superman Skinner was on the job.

By Thursday, I was beginning to wonder if Mulder had ever talked. Nothing Dr. Lemon or Dr. K said could coax anything more than a blink or a slow and clearly painful nod from him. He gave me a little more; smiles, frowns, a very quick blink that I took for a wink. But nothing even remotely like verbal communication. Not even sounds.

Somehow, perhaps in my own sexist perception, I never imagined a male counterpart to our Dr. Lemon, but he arrived that afternoon, in the form of one Dennis Randall, Ph.D. The first male spinster I had ever laid eyes on, small, and prissy from his tiny shoes to his thinning and overly coiffed hair. He had a tightlipped smirk for everything and everyone in his path, and a supercilious air I thought might be well served by an old fashioned swirlie. In short...I did not like him on sight, and he did nothing to improve my opinion from there on. He breezed in, sniffed around, reviewed the chart, spent fifteen minutes with Agent Mulder, and left confident that he knew the diagnosis before he even saw the patient. "Selective muteness," he announced in the hallway for everyone, including Mulder, to hear.

"What?" Dr. Lemon sneered. Oddly, she seemed to dislike Dr. Randall even more than I did. I would have thought they were well suited to one another. "Ridiculous."

"I have never heard of this," Dr. K admitted politely.

"It's more commonly diagnosed in children," Dr. Randall explained smugly. "Generally brought on by abrupt or extreme change in routine, fear of new surroundings, or in some cases, trauma." He nodded in the direction of Mulder's room. "Ordinarily, it is treated with Prozac or Paxil and time eventually resolves it. However, in rare circumstances, it has been known to reemerge in adults who had it as children." I could already see him, writing a paper on this anomaly for American Psychology.

Over his shoulder, I could see Mulder rolling that one eye.

"Selective," Dr. K prompted. "Does that mean he has some control?"

"No. It means that whenever stress or fear overtakes him, he is unable to speak, perhaps not even able to make eye contact, nod or in any other way communicate with strangers or people he fears." He gave Dr. K a patronizing smile. "Think of it as emotional hide-and-seek."

Well, we had already seen he was capable of communication. And I hadn't done anything to cause him stress or fear the night I read an entire paperback to him. In fact, I'd even had him laughing, but he still didn't talk.

So I thanked him for his time and went back in to Mulder's room. "Well, Doctor?" I teased gently. "What do you think of his diagnosis?"

There was a faint twitch to his fingers. I think he was trying to make manual communication with one finger.

"Okay, Mulder." I pulled my chair up again and sat. "What do you think it is? Injury to the vocal cords?"

The helpless look was back.

"Dr. K and Dr. Lemon both seem to feel there wasn't enough injury to keep you from talking. I told them I'd never seen anything that could keep you from talking."

I think I saw that manual communication again.

"Are you just being stubborn?"

Now he looked almost...wounded.

"Can we fix it?"

The look on his face frightened me. It seemed to suggest that he was never going to speak again.

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

I went back to DC on Friday. The investigation was picking up. Someone had seen Mulder's car leave the parking structure, and she was brought in to describe the driver. I hated to leave Mulder alone in the tender care of Dr. Lemon, but I wanted to be where we might get a break. It was becoming personal to me. No one grabs my agent out of my backyard and beats him to a pulp on my watch.

While I was in DC, I was approached by the seventh floor about Mulder's status. Disability was inevitable but for how long? When could he be expected to return to work? Should he be reassigned? Should we consider occupational training to prepare him for another type of work? Would he ever work again?

Their rush to disposition him annoyed me, but the questions they raised were valid, and disturbing. Every test performed on him suggested that, while his injuries were extensive, he would survive them. He would walk again. He would not lose sight or hearing. His ability to handle a gun might be questionable, which would take him out of the field, but Mulder's greatest skills, his profiling abilities, didn't require a gun. Would that be enough to keep him on the payroll?

Dr. Lemon contacted me on Monday, suggesting that we consider a rehabilitation center for him as soon as he could tolerate a wheelchair. There was evident disdain in her voice for the place that had kept him alive thus far. She felt the sooner we got him into physical therapy, the sooner he might begin to talk. She also recommended regular sessions with a rape counselor. They couldn't find one in that area to see him.

I assigned Scully to find him a board and care facility that could provide all the necessary therapies he would need. It would be weeks before he could live on his own, and who knows how long before he could manage that fourth floor apartment with its narrow halls and impossibly small bathroom. She found an excellent program for him in Woodbridge, an easy drive for either of us if we wanted to check on him. And far out of Dr. Lemon's jurisdiction.

The witness turned out to offer us very little. The man she described was stocky, with close shaved head and heavy beard that needed a trim. He wore wraparound sunglasses. That was all she could remember. And he shouted at her when she blocked him at the crosswalk. He didn't have an accent, no evident piercing or tattoos and there was no sign of Mulder in the vehicle when he crowded her back up on the curb. The reason she remembered him at all was because he had used a bad word and her young son had been saying it ever since.

So we had a volatile man with no distinctive characteristics other than poor driving manners. Forensics in West Virginia picked up a partial on the driver's side mirror, but when it was run it turned out to be the kid who filled Mulder's tank that morning and did a lousy job of washing his windows. The DNA provided nothing. I didn't learn until that Tuesday, a full two weeks after the abduction, that there were hair and skin scrapings under Mulder's nails that were collected at the time and then lost. The young man that took them described them as 'a lot', and commented that Mulder must have gotten in a few 'good shots' himself.

Wednesday morning, I got another disgruntled call from Dr. Lemon. Mulder wasn't eating. He was also resisting p.o. medications. I can admit it now, I was grateful for a reason to go back down there, be involved in some way in his recovery. I grabbed my jacket, gave Kim instructions and hit the road.

When I got to the hospital, I had come prepared. I brought coffee, one of those malts Scully had discovered, French fries and a pint of the best ice cream the local grocery had to offer. And another Nero Wolfe paperback … this one from my own compilation. I marched in, set down my collection, and dragged my chair up to his side. "What's this about you not eating?" I demanded, in the same tone I so often used after receiving one of his skillfully prepared and totally unbelievable reports.

He looked a little better. The stitches had been removed, leaving just a couple really red and tender lines on his face. The bandages had been rewrapped, so that his right eye, still swollen and black, was now a part of his expression again. Both eyes flew open with a start when I barked at him. He glared at me.

"Well, you're going to eat today or else." I started by offering him coffee.

He looked for a moment as if he was going to resist my heavy-handed efforts, but his caffeine addiction forced him to give in, and he took a long drag off the straw. I offered him a handful of French fries. He opened his mouth as wide as the newly torn areas around his mouth would allow and I let them drop into his mouth one by one, feeling just a bit like a mother bird with a juicy worm for her nestlings.

For the rest of the night it was a routine: coffee, fries, malt, coffee, fries, malt. Then just coffee, and finally he allowed me to spoon Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey into his mouth. And then I read to him. Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout. When I left, he was asleep. He had not said anything, but he had eaten.

I brought him more coffee and a fruit smoothie Thursday morning before I left to go back to DC. He seemed happy enough to see me, but he avoided eye contact. I knew he was afraid that I'd expect something in return for a cup of decent coffee and palatable food. And I did. I gave him a dispassionate report on the witness and appealed one last time for a name. I left empty-handed.

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

Life went on. New, more pressing cases came in, pushing the hunt for Mulder's assailant lower and lower on the priority ladder. The task force assigned to the case was reduced to one agent part time, from the West VA office. Although I never lost the burning need to find the son of a bitch and pound him into the sidewalk, I knew my responsibilities were more broadly scoped than that single quest. Scully chafed when she was sent out on new cases, but we'd run every fragile lead into the ground. It all depended on Mulder now.

And Mulder was not cooperating. Day by day he improved physically. Day by day his condition bettered, his scars began to heal. He was able to sit up for a little while each day. He had surgery to repair some internal damage, and to have his wrist pinned. He ate, when properly coaxed or coerced. He responded to commands. But he did not speak, rarely made eye contact, displayed little or no animation around others, and seemed to be acutely uncomfortable around the police officers, federal agents and orderlies that tramped in and out of his room like a parade.

I would come down from DC as often as I could, at least once a week. The need in me to find the person responsible had not diminished over time. In fact, in some ways it increased exponentially with each visit. It offended me to see this once brilliant, maddening, articulate man reduced to trembling silence. I was surprised to find that I was becoming more and more protective of him, even possessive. I disliked seeing other agents trying to threaten or cajole information from him. I looked forward to reading to him, and was unexpectedly disappointed the day I realized he could read for himself.

He always seemed happy enough to see me. He always had a lopsided smile for me, his eyes seemed to brighten a bit when I came in. I found myself planning little surprises to make sure I could keep that light in his eyes for a while after I was gone. I started doing silly things. I found one of those ubiquitous beany things in the shape of a fox. I brought him a box full of my Nero Wolfe adventures. I found a thin gold page mark in the shape of a flying saucer. I always brought him coffee.

He never said thank you. At least, he never uttered the words. But his eyes seemed full of gratitude. People had begun suggesting that there might have been some brain damage, that his mental capacity might have been reduced to that of a child. I've realized since that we tend to look down upon and patronize those who, for whatever reason, cannot express themselves as well as the rest of us. We tend to talk down to people with speech impairments, disabilities, even people with accents are treated as less intelligent. I had never realized that bigotry until I watched even his former peers interact with Mulder. But I could see in his eyes that intelligence still burned hot, that there were thoughts raging inside him, though for whatever reason, he couldn't get them out.

Because of the surgery on his wrist, writing was still impossible for him, nor could he manage crutches or maneuvering a wheelchair. But he found a way to prop a book up against his cast and turn pages with a fingertip, so reading became his waking life.

One day I made a comment that he might soon be going home. Of course, I meant back to Virginia, to the facility Scully and I had selected for him. The look of anticipation on his face was shattered when I explained what the next step would be. He shut the book and managed a gesture of such force that the book flew across the room. Now, I'd call that communication.

I tried to be patient, despite his childish response. "Mulder, you know you aren't ready to be on your own yet. You need round the clock care still. But there's no reason you need to do it here."

He turned his head away.

I went to retrieve the book. "Hey, take it easy, will you? This book's older than you are." I tucked a few loose pages back into place carefully and brought it back to the bedside. "Besides, you need some pretty intensive physical and speech therapy if you want to get back to work. I know you, if we took you home, you'd skip the therapy sessions, stay home and become hooked on soap operas. In this place Scully found, they can come to you."

Mentioning Scully was a mistake. There was a dark color in his face. I could see it even though he was looking away from me. "She's worried about you," I said quietly. "She wants to see you, know that you're all right."

He remained silent, but I saw his throat work as he swallowed back feeling.

I decided to be provocative. "How did you manage, in all that happened, not to get your nose broken?"

I was surprised at the look in his eyes when he turned to me. There was heat, anger, and maybe even a little pride. The look was enough to shame me, and I was forced to look away. "Do you … can you remember where you were taken?"

I looked up in time to see him close his eyes. I wasn't sure if it was a blink. "Was it a motel?" How ironic would it be that he was taken to and tortured in one of those little bungalows right next to where Scully and I had been staying? But it wasn't a motel. His expression told me that. "A warehouse?"

A flicker. A little frown. He wasn't sure. It might have been.

"Was it cold there?" I asked.

He looked away and fixed his gaze on the wall.

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

I arranged for the speech pathologist from Anbury, the clinic in Woodbridge, to come and review his records (carefully edited) and to meet with Mulder. She was younger than I expected, early thirties, slight and slim, with strawberry blonde hair, bright green eyes, huge glasses and a tiny overlap in her front teeth, which she showed to endearing advantage because she seemed to always be smiling. She had slim hands and she shook hands willingly. She was open and easy, and supremely confident.

She examined his list of injuries and the chart notes that detailed his refusal or inability to speak. Then she closed the chart and looked at Dr. K and then me. Dr. Lemon had been unable (read unwilling) to attend the meeting. "I realize this is obvious and simplistic, but I need to allow for the limitations of this environment." She tossed Dr. K a smile. "But have we ruled out damage to the larynx or palate?"

Dr. K brought out an oversized envelope and pulled out a series of x-rays. "I do not see any, but my experience is very limited in this area."

She studied the films carefully. "Your experience seems to be sufficient in this area. I don't see any either." She gave him another disarming smile which he returned as he put the x-rays away. "And you say this psychologist you brought in to see him suggested selective muteness?" she asked me.

I nodded. "He was pretty emphatic about it."

She looked thoughtful. "I have to say, I have never seen it in an adult...at least not onset in an adult. Perhaps if he had had it as a child, it might resurface now, but even that is a very remote possibility."

"If that's it, is it treatable?" I asked.

She nodded. "At least, in children it can be treatable. Selective muteness is very common in autists, Asbergers, and P.T.S.D. children. All of these conditions have one thing in common. A need to establish trust. In P.T.S.D. children, we generally treat with a mild antidepressant and some speech and personal therapy. That would probably be the best course for Dr. Mulder, if this is in fact recurrent selective muteness." Her brow furrowed up. "However, I would really need to see that demonstrated before I accepted it." She started to rise. "The reality is, time is the best healer."

Time was the thing we had the least of. "Would you like to meet him?" I offered.

She thought about it. "Has he been told he's coming to Anbury?"

"Yes," we both told her.

She laughed. "Difficult patient, Doctor?"

Dr. K and I exchanged looks. We both just smiled. Calling Mulder difficult would be like calling Aetna's eruption a puff of smoke.

"I believe I'll wait and see him when he arrives. That way I won't spend any time developing any preconceived ideas about treatment." She smiled again. I swear her eyes twinkled. "And neither will he."

- END chapter 02 -
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