TITLE: REGARDING A CURE(1/4)
BY: Ainon
E-MAIL: mulangst@hotmail.com

CATEGORY: Story, Angst
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Little Green Men, Colony, End Game, Blessing Way, Paper Clip,
Herrenvolk, Gethsemene, Redux I & II, Emily.
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and other
X-Files characters used herein are the property of Chris Carter, 1013
Productions, and Fox Television Broadcasting. No infringement of copyright
is intended. Characters that are not recognizable from 'The X-Files' belong
to me.
DISTRIBUTION: Archive at Gossamer. Anywhere else, sure, but I'd appreciate
being notified first.

SUMMARY: When Mulder is struck down by an incurable disease, it is Scully
who must make a choice as to what would be his best chance for survival.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story took a very, very long time to see the light of
day. It's only my second 'real' attempt to write, but it grew from an
original simple concept into something terribly huge. Through it all, I had
wonderful, patient friends who were constantly pushing me and encouraging me
to carry the story right through till the conclusion, and who also beta-read
and edited, and gave me excellent suggestions. They're the best.
Ten, Debbie, Nikki, Carrie - please accept my deepest gratitude.
I thank also all those who sent me feedback after my first story, for
helping convince me to keep trying again. And thanks to Susan, for helping
me that first time.

DEDICATION: To Ten, Nikki, and the international union of continental
bashes.

Any faults or misinformation in this story are mine, and mine alone. I
apologize in advance should any be found. The story is set before 'The Red
and The Black', smack during the time when Mulder has lost his beliefs in
extraterrestrials and UFOs. And Cancerman is still thought to be very dead.

FEEDBACK: Please do. I would really, really love that.
mulangst@hotmail.com

=====================

REGARDING A CURE
PART 1
~
1st day, late morning
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If anyone had bothered to ask, he could have told them exactly when all of
this began. He could have told them that at that one exact moment, fourteen
days ago, while he was getting up out of his chair to move to the slide
projector to add a new slide for Scully to see, he suddenly went weak in the
knees and felt terribly light-headed and that he fell back into his seat
with cold sweat on his brow. Scully hadn't noticed because she was studying
the details on the slide that was on the screen, and he hadn't felt the need
to inform her about the near faint. He recovered enough after a few minutes
to put up a rather convincing charade for Scully and actually managed to
maintain that charade until he got back to his apartment and collapsed on
his couch. By the next day day he felt well enough to travel with Scully to
Michigan, where the case was.

But of course nobody bothered to ask him about when exactly this little
problem began. Everyone seemed to be perfectly content to assume that this
was the perfect example of Fox Mulder working himself too hard, so hard that
he'd worked himself sick. Certainly Scully believed this. Not that he would
blame her. He hadn't mentioned how weak he'd been lately. While in Michigan
he had tried his best to catch up on sleep - even resorting to taking
sleeping pills in his effort to make sure he got some much deserved rest.
Finally the case was successfully solved; Scully was happy because no one
was injured, he was happy because the psychic was, as far as he was
concerned, a genuine one; the perpetrator was arrested and charged. Open and
shut case. They'd both returned to Washington last night.

This morning they were in Skinner's office to present their written reports.
Everything was fine and Skinner was happy about a job well done, then Mulder
and Scully stood up to leave, and Mulder fainted. Damn the timing. He wasn't
sure which way he fell; so long as he knew he hadn't fallen into Skinner's
arms or broken anything expensive on Skinner's desk he could conceivably
live through the embarrassment. Scully managed to wake him up after slapping
his cheeks several times; then he was too disoriented and sick to argue when
she insisted on taking him to the hospital. He couldn't remember if he had
had time to apologize to Skinner. He'd worry about that when the time came
to face his boss again.

Now, four hours after that little 'episode' in Skinner's office, Mulder was
sitting on one of the ER beds twiddling his thumbs. His feet were freezing.
He should have asked if he could keep his socks on when he was changed from
his office clothes into the compulsary hospital gown. Scully had gone off
for a while to make a call. Bless her, she'd been kind enough to wait with
him in a hospital ER for what must be close to the hundredth time.

Only this time they were taking forever to treat him. They took blood
samples twice. A young intern came and briefly recorded his recent medical
history - did he eat breakfast and if he did what did he have, had he ever
fainted before, had he been feeling feverish, did he get enough sleep,
whatever. The same intern also did a pretty thorough physical examination,
taking great interest especially in Mulder's neck, pressing and feeling
around a few times. Then the intern disappeared, not to be seen for the next
couple of hours. Mulder was beyond bored. Then there was a certain
unpleasant odor from beyond the curtain to his right... Mulder really wanted
to get of here.

He was considering just walking out of the ER and dealing with Scully's
wrath later when the young intern returned. Mulder gave him a scowl that
said all about how annoyed he was with the service.

"I think we should get you admitted. We need to run more tests," the intern
announced without ceremony.

"Tests?" Mulder asked warily. "What tests? Why couldn't you have just done
them here, just now, instead of making me wait for hours?"

"Mr. Mulder, you have a pretty serious case of anemia."

"So? Give me iron tablets or something," Mulder snapped. "Don't waste more
of my time."

The intern gave him a stern look. "We can't just give iron tablets, sir.
First we'll have to confirm whether your anemia is due to your diet, or some
other underlying problem. There are so many causes of anemia. Your
hemoglobin level is 9.5. That is really low. Normal is at least 13. Your red
blood cell, white blood cell and platelet counts - all are lower than
normal."

"But what do you need me to be admitted for?"

"We'll have to do several tests, starting with a bone marrow biopsy."

"Bone marrow biopsy?" Mulder echoed. He frowned, very seriously starting to
wonder if he should worry. "But why?"

"To determine what's wrong. All precursor blood cells originate from the
bone marrow so if there's something wrong in the marrow it'll affect your
blood counts. The marrow is the first place to check. Then maybe check your
erythropoietin levels and perform renal tests to determine if you have any
underlying chronic renal dysfunction. Plus determination of the levels of
your coagulation factors, then a platelet function test, etc."

Mulder was lost. He hated it when doctors started speaking jargon without
caring whether or not the person they were speaking to knew the words. He
needed Scully to decipher what the intern was jabbering about.

But the intern continued to speak. "I've already called the clinical
hematologist to handle your case, and he wants you up in a room within a
half-hour. Anyway, we seem to be having some trouble tracking your medical
files from your previous visits here, but don't worry, the attendants are
sorting that out. They'll send everything upstairs once they're done. And
there's some paperwork to fill out so you can save time and do it here." The
intern showed Mulder the sheets of forms in his hand.

Mulder scowled and said, "Fine. Give them to me."

He grabbed the forms and was about to ask for a pen too when the intern
said, "Just a minute. Before you start on that - I need to confirm this now:
have you ever been tested for HIV?"

Mulder's extreme irritation over the intern's brusque attitude was suddenly
replaced by a feeling of confusion and growing fear. "I was tested middle of
last year. Part of the FBI's annual health check. I was negative. Why? You
think I'm..."

"No, no. As I've mentioned your primary diagnosis is anemia. But maybe we
should repeat the HIV test. I have to ask a few other basic questions - are
you currently in any relationship with anyone?"

Mulder shook his head numbly. Relationship? Him, Special Agent Mulder having
a relationship? He'd laugh, except his sense of humor had taken a leave of
absence after hearing the letters H, I and V strung together. The intern
asked about his sexual orientation - wouldn't that be a very private issue?
Oh, but this was now a medical situation. Mulder answered that he was
heterosexual. He was asked about safe sex: oh yes, Mulder practiced very
safe sex - in fact what sex? He used to pick up women once in a while, but
that was so long ago. The intern asked about his lifestyle, and Mulder
stated he never had multiple sexual partners - he never had any sexual
partners of late but never mind that. The intern also noted that Mulder had
had blood transfusions before, but all after a time when HIV screening of
donor blood became mandatory. Then the intern left him alone to fill out the
forms. An attendant would be along to bring him upstairs shortly.

Mulder stared numbly at the forms in his hands, not really seeing the words
on the paper. He didn't realize when Scully turned up again beside him.

"Are we done yet, Mulder?" she asked. "Skinner wants me back at the office
if everything is OK. You can take the rest of the day off. What did the
doctor say?"

He looked at her for a long moment before saying, "I have to stay here a
couple of days, I think. I have anemia. They want to run tests."

Scully frowned and emitted a small "Oh." She reached for the forms and
flipped through them. Mulder had enough experience in ERs to know the forms
would mostly be consent forms to allow the doctors to poke him and prod him
any way they liked. Then came the sudden thought that the consent form for
HIV testing would be there as well - but if Scully noticed she didn't seem
to think anything of it. Instead she asked, "What was that doctor's name
just now? I can go talk to him."

"I don't know. I didn't notice his name. Besides I think I'll get a
different doctor upstairs." And besides, what could Scully possibly get out
of talking to the doctor? They would need to complete all the tests first,
wouldn't they?

Scully seemed to realize this herself because she didn't push the issue. She
lay a gentle hand on his arm. "Will you be all right?"

"I'll be fine. You go on ahead. What does Skinner want?"

"There's some red tape concerning several of the witnesses and a lot of
nonsense to settle with the Michigan FBI folks. I'll tell him you've been
admitted here for a few days. What else did the doctor say?"

"Nothing else," Mulder said quickly, smiling calmly though his heart was
cold inside his chest. He had never realized the fear that could be induced
by three significant letters from the English alphabet. "Nothing else. He
told me my hemoglobin is low. 9.5?"

"That is very low."

"Well. We'll find out why soon."

Scully nodded and smiled reassuringly but Mulder could see the worry in her
eyes. So he invested more effort in convincing her he'd be fine, and after a
while she left. He was left alone with the forms but he still didn't have
anything to write with. He sighed. He should have asked to borrow Scully's
pen.

Beyond the curtain to Mulder's right, the fellow ER mate suddenly retched
loudly. Mulder heard the sound of something splaterring to the floor and
looked down. There was a pool of vomit on the floor adding another new
stench to the place.

Mulder heard the nurse say something quite unpleasant about the mess and the
man who'd created it. The annonymous man meanwhile, moaned aloud. "What the
hell did I do to deserve this? One fucking miserable thing after another.
Can't I just have a life of peace?"

Mulder empathized completely.

~
1st day, afternoon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder lay quietly on his side with his knees drawn up. A nurse was moving
about, sorting equipment out, laying sterile glove packets and needles and
syringes for easy access for the doctor. Then someone, the doctor most
likely, came into the room and another nurse pulled his blanket down. Mulder
suddenly felt cold and vulnerable. He hated this. He'd had to endure several
bone marrow aspirations while he was recovering from the retroviral
infection in Alaska. By the time he was allowed back to Washington, his hips
were so badly bruised he couldn't even sit comfortably.

The nurse yanked his hospital gown up. At the same time, another nurse drew
the curtains around his bed. Mulder didn't have a roommate for the time
being, something he was feeling very grateful for. He really didn't feel
like company right now.

It had taken three hours before Mulder was all settled down in his room.
Then it was another hour waiting for the doctor who hadn't yet finished
doing his rounds. Such heartwarming efficiency. And no one would tell him
anything. By the time the nurse finally came in and told him to roll over
onto his side, Mulder was so disheartened that he obeyed without any of his
usual fuss. Anyway, he did know all the misery he would be in for for the
next couple of days. And the misery would begin with this bone marrow
biopsy.

The doctor finished his discussion with the nurses and walked around the bed
to stand in Mulder's line of vision. He was a pleasant-looking man in his
late thirties, with receding brown hair and kind eyes and round glasses -
Mulder was reminded of that doctor from one of those medical dramas on TV.
The doctor extended his hand a certain angle for Mulder's benefit, since he
was on bed lying on his side, and shook Mulder's hand warmly.

"Hello Fox, I'm Dr. Matthew Shaughnessy. I'm a clinical hematologist and I'm
your doctor. You've been told you have anemia?" He waited for Mulder to nod
before he continued. "Now, we need to find out why you have it, so first
thing I'm going to do to help us find out is a bone marrow biopsy."

As Dr. Shaughnessy spoke, a nurse was placing pieces of sterile paper over
Mulder's hip, leaving only a small area exposed for the biopsy needle.

Mulder said, "It's all right, you don't have to explain. Could you just do
it quickly so we'll have it over with?"

Dr. Shaughnessy gave him a mild disapproving look and said with gentle
admonishment, "I need to explain what I'm about to do."

"I've gone through this before. I know, you want to take marrow fluid and
marrow cells; you want to take a look at the precursor blood cells."

"You've gone through this before? You've had marrow taken previously?"

"Yeah. And I didn't enjoy any of those experiences. So could we just get
this over with? Now?"

"Sure, sure," Dr. Shaughnessy said, looking thoughtful. He moved around the
bed again, and now he was behind Mulder, snapping on his gloves. Mulder
stared at the blue curtain cordoning him away from the rest of the healthy
world and tried not to imagine Shaughnessy preparing the needle for
injection.

Mulder jerked when the sudden cold of the alcohol swab came into contact
with his skin.

"Oh, sorry. Sorry," Shaughnessy said. "Should have warned you that was
coming."

Mulder tried to shrug nonchalantly but that was hard to do while his heart
was thudding wildly in his chest. The part he hated most was the injection,
and that was going to happen any second now.

"Right, I'm going to give you an injection, Fox. This is local anesthesia,
LA. This will sting, but only for a while."

Mulder knew for a fact that that was a blatant lie. But before he could say
so, he felt the needle push into his skin and he had to bite hard on his lip
to brace himself for the hell-awful pain that was going to come when
Shaughnessy depressed the plunger and pushed the LA into his skin and into
the bone. He wasn't disappointed. Shaughnessy was pushing the LA in now and
it did hurt like hell. Some things remained so constant.

Thankfully Shaughnessy did this part efficiently, with minimal fuss and zero
patronizing assurances. Mulder still held a huge grudge against that doctor
in Alaska who used to assure him with each injection of LA that 'this
shouldn't hurt too much'. That particular doctor had also been fond of
recounting how easy it was for kids to bounce around after having people
poke them for marrow - apparently children recovered from these hip
intrusions almost immediately. Mulder knew he was going to ache there for
days.

Shaughnessy gave him several injections, around the skin and deeper into the
bone. Towards the end, Mulder was trying hard to keep his breathing under
control and to stop clenching his fists. His hip was starting to feel numb
even as the tingling bone pain ebbed away.

"Right, we'll just wait a while, shall we? Make sure you don't feel anything
when I go in." Shaughnessy said. Mulder heard the dull clink of the LA
needles and syringes being thrown away into a plastic waste container.

"I was going to ask you about your long term history later, but I think we
can do that now as we wait." Mulder could hear the rustle of pages turning.
"Okay with you, Fox?"

"No problem," Mulder said. He was somewhat dismayed to hear how shaky his
voice was. "But call me Mulder."

"Mulder? What's wrong with Fox?" Shaughnessy chuckled but didn't wait for
Mulder's answer. "I thought the doctor down in the ER took enough of your
personal history, but it seems now that it's not as complete as it should
be. Why were bone marrow biopsies done on you?"

"I had a problem, uh... polycythemia. Over-production of red blood cells
about three, four years ago."

"Polycythemia?" Shaughnessy said, surprised. "That's a serious condition.
You didn't mention this to the ER doctor?"

"He didn't ask about anything that far back and he couldn't wait for my
medical files. Look, I'm somewhat accident-prone... long history. Comes with
the job, you know? So telling him about every single hospitalization I've
had would be a bit too much. Besides wouldn't everything be in my records?"

Shaughnessy sniffed. "Yeah. This is your medical file here - impressive.
Real thick. Reminds me of some of my textbooks." Shaughnessy flipped through
more pages. "And this isn't the only hospital you usually frequent? Oh, I'd
sure like to see your files from those other hospitals. OK, was it
polycythemia secondary to something? Or was it polycythemia vera?"

Mulder had no idea what his doctor was talking about and the spreading
numbness in his hip was starting to make him uncomfortable. "My blood
thickened following exposure to a rare retrovirus," he said simply.

A long silence followed that statement. Mulder blinked a few times and
wondered if something was wrong.

"You mean you are HIV positive?" Shaughnessy asked finally.

"No, no it wasn't HIV. I tested negative for HIV just a few months ago. I
don't think I can have HIV... I'm sure I don't have HIV. I didn't do
anything that would get me infected."

"You are aware of what HIV is? Human Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV is a
retrovirus," Shaughnessy said.

"Yes, I know that. The retrovirus I was infected with... I don't know what
it was. But it resulted in my blood thickening. They kept checking my marrow
to make sure that my red blood cells were still normal and also to check
that the virus had been cleared away."

"A retroviral infection but it's not HIV?" Shaughnessy sounded doubtful.
Mulder squeezed his eyes shut. How in the world would Scully explain this?

"The retrovirus remains unidentified. I was injured and infected while in
the line of duty." Mulder decided that the little white lie was acceptable.
"I was in Alaska and I was treated at a military hospital there. My full
records are there, and there are copies in this hospital too because I had
to come here for follow-ups."

"Fine, if you say so. I didn't have time to read your whole file and I
thought the ER doctor would have given me adequate history. Never mind. I'll
read later. All right, we're going to repeat the HIV test - you've signed
the form, haven't you?"

Mulder gave a jerky nod and tried not to be too pessimistic about the
results of that test.

"Next question - have you had any other acute or chronic episodes relating
to any form of blood disorder?"

"No. Just that once."

"Never any history of anemia?"

"I was anemic for a while after an injury three years ago."

"Would this injury also be in the line of duty?"

"Yes," he answered. This was after he had almost been killed in that boxcar
in the desert. He hadn't been treated for the anemia - it righted itself
out. Scully had surmised that the anemia was due to his blood loss after she
shot him, and due to whatever trauma he had suffered while attempting to
escape the boxcar. But since he wasn't treated for the anemia, it wouldn't
be on record in this hospital. The only reason he'd even known about the
anemia was because his hemoglobin level had been low during the medical exam
before he was reinstated into the bureau.

Shaughnessy didn't press for more details. He said, "Your immediate problem
right now, Mr. Mulder, is that you have severe anemia. Your red blood cell
counts are low. I emphasize the 'low'. So your hemoglobin level is low as
well. Your white cell counts and platelet counts are also low - that's why
we need to check your marrow. Either there is something wrong with the
marrow production of blood or your blood cells are disintegrating too fast
or you are leaking blood somewhere internally. The latter two do not explain
why you should also have leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. You feel anything
when I do this?"

Mulder tried to roll over to see but one of the nurses stopped him. He
didn't feel anything and said so.

"Good," Shaughnessy said. "I'm starting now."

Mulder didn't even realize what was happening until he felt Shaughnessy
applying extra pressure on his hip to screw the needle into the bone. He
knew from experience that any second now Shaughnessy was going to reach that
deep spot within the bone where the LA wouldn't quite mask the pain - and
there it was. Mulder winced loudly and instinctively tried to wriggle away.
Someone pressed a firm hand against him to remind him to keep still as
Shaughnessy quickly started to aspirate the marrow fluid.

Shaughnessy continued to speak as he did his work. "I think we can be done
with all the tests by tomorrow, then we'll wait for the results to come
back. Now, I try to be honest with my patients when I feel like my patients
can tolerate honesty. So Mulder, you're one of those patients whom I feel
should be privy to whatever it is that is going on."

Shaughnessy turned away to fill up the test tubes and smear some of the
marrow fluid onto test slides. Mulder knew this because he could hear the
sounds he thought he would never have to hear again after leaving that
Alaskan military hospital. He could still remember what every little sound
signified. Amazing how his memory could serve him.

Shaughnessy said, "I seriously suspect that the problem is in your marrow.
Your peripheral blood contains normal red blood cells, so I doubt premature
red blood cell disintegration is the problem. Your spleen isn't swollen
anyway. I am waiting for reconfirmation of your blood enzyme levels."

Shaughnessy poked him again, this time to obtain the actual bone marrow, the
trephine. Fortunately, Mulder couldn't feel anything at all now so
Shaughnessy's determined efforts didn't hurt. Then after what seemed like
forever, Shaughnessy was done and the needle was removed. A nurse or maybe
Shaughnessy himself started dabbing the blood away from the hole in his hip.
The site was cleaned up, bandaged - of course that would be a nurse doing it
now - and the pieces of paper covering his hip removed. Shaughnessy was
talking to someone else about what to do with the biopsy samples.

Mulder's hospital gown was pulled down again, his blanket was kindly pulled
up, and then the nurse tried to help him lie on his back. He hoped they were
going to give him painkillers before the numbness provided by LA
disappeared.

Shaughnessy pulled bloodstained gloves off his hands and discarded the
gloves. With both powdered hands held out in front of him, he said, "If this
is what I think it is then I'm afraid you should brace yourself for some bad
news, Mulder."

Mulder blinked stupidly at him for a while. Shaughnessy raised his eyebrows
expectantly and Mulder found himself nodding. He wished he hadn't though. He
was fairly certain he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

"Right. I'm going to give you some facts. Severe anemia can be a life
threatening condition. Based on the simple blood counts and blood morphology
that we already have, I would suspect that you have aplastic anemia. We'll
have to wait for all the test results to come back before this is absolutely
confirmed, but I want to tell you this now, up front, so that you know what
to expect. Aplastic anemia means that there is failure in production of
blood by your marrow. Aplastic anemia is not cancer. I wish I could tell you
that aplastic anemia instead of cancer is good news - but really, aplastic
anemia is no picnic either."

Mulder took a few moments to mentally digest Shaughnessy's speech. Once he
got the depressing facts straight he said, "Your pessimism can be infectious
you know."

"I prefer you to hate me for being a born pessimist of the highest order and
then being able to prove me wrong than to have you pine for miracles from me
when I'm not quite sure there're any to spare," Shaughnessy said,
matter-of-fact.

"Your bluntness can also be a real turn off if you're trying to make
friends."

"Well, too bad. I speak whatever's on my mind. And I'm not your friend. I'm
your doctor. So there. But I do damn good work. That should be a bit of a
consolation."

Mulder stared at him in disbelief. Doctors never behaved this way. Doctors
would either be blunt and dismissive, or polite and cautiously
pessimistic/optimistic.

"Dr. Shaughnessy, do you talk this way to all your patients, or only to
patients you feel should be privy to whatever medical doom estimates you
dole out?"

Shaughnessy had washed his hands and was wiping them on a paper towel. Hands
dry, he threw the towels away, then he grabbed Mulder's very thick medical
file and settled down into the chair beside Mulder's bed. Just the two of
them. The nurses had left the room with the bone marrow biopsy samples and
the biopsy equipment tray.

Shaughnessy grinned casually at Mulder. "Well, it always gives me more
pleasure to have an intelligent dude to chat medical doom with. And Mr.
Mulder - right now you're the dude. Be honored. Okay?" He started flipping
through Mulder's file again. "I want to go over that long illustrious
accident-prone medical history you claim to have. If we know your problem,
we can maybe fix the problem and fix your anemia and you can get the hell
out of here; one less patient for me to bother with. But it's not all bad
news, you know. Even if you have what I think you have, there are methods of
treatment available. This can be a beautiful relationship. We'll even have
the same end goal - to get you out of hospital as soon as possible, alive.
So now, let's start with how the hell you got infected by some unknown
retrovirus in Alaska?"

~
END PART 1
~~~~~~~~~~

REGARDING A CURE
PART 2
~
3rd day
~~~~~~~

Scully silently cursed Dr. Matthew Shaughnessy as she walked quickly along
the corridors towards the Hematology Unit, which was located within the
Oncology Department - a department she'd had to visit quite a number of
times herself just several months ago. A department which she would still
have to visit every few months for the next four years in fact - for the
check-ups to ensure she remained free from cancer. Quite understandably, she
hated this place. It reminded her of her ordeal and the fact that she could
never be confident that she would never succumb to the cancer in the end. It
symbolized the helplessness and hopelessness that came with terminal
illness. But now her best friend was here too.

The Hematology Unit contained the Hematology Clinic for outpatients. There
was a sizeable crowd this morning and it took her some time to spot Mulder
standing way in the back, leaning against the wall, staring at something
near the ceiling. He didn't notice her until she was almost right beside
him. He gave her a tentative smile. She smiled back. He was the only obvious
inpatient here in the clinic, in his hospital pajamas and hospital robe. He
kept his hands in his robe pockets. His hair was messed up and his face was
paler than usual - or maybe that was just the lighting.

Scully suddenly felt so bereft - she hadn't brought anything for him. Her
hands were empty. No presents to pull out of her overcoat pockets either.
She'd spent close to an hour waiting to speak to Dr. Shaughnessy about
Mulder's case; then when Shaughnessy finally showed up for the appointment,
she learned that he had forgotten all about it and had only just remembered.
Waste of her time waiting. And Shaughnessy was so damn conceited: everything
was difficult, everything was close to hopeless. Before Scully even had time
for the bad news to sink in, Shaughnessy claimed he had other patients to
see and simply rushed off, leaving Scully alone without a single parting
word of consolation. By the time she got to Mulder's room, Mulder was
already gone.

Since Mulder didn't seem inclined to be the first to speak, Scully broke the
silence.

"Sorry I'm late. Your new roommate told me that you told him to tell whoever
was looking for you to look for you here." Scully knew she was trying too
hard - she sounded far too fake and cheery.

But Mulder didn't seem to care how she sounded. He nodded, and absently
rocked his body while still leaning against the wall. "Thanks for coming."

"So. What exactly are we waiting for here?"

"Hmm? Nothing. I was waiting for you. I had to come down here to check with
the clinic doctor about whether or not I can go home and stay home and just
come here to the clinic every day as an outpatient. The doctor took one look
at my blood counts for this morning and told me the counts are too low, I
have to stay in. I can't go home. Not that I was optimistic about the
prospects of being allowed out of here anyway, but Shaughnessy did say that
I was welcome to try to get out if I really wanted to. You spoken to
Shaughnessy?"

"Yes, I have."

"So you know."

"Yes, I know," Scully said softly. A heavy silence hung in the air between
them and again Mulder showed no inclination to speak. "Shaughnessy says he's
adding your name to the list for bone marrow transplantation and he's going
to start checking for donors."

"Yeah. Well. He's not particularly confident that drugs will help me live
long enough. My bone marrow is all shot to bits, fat cells infiltrating my
marrow, hypoplasia, whatever. All gloom and doom. He thinks a bone marrow
transplantation ASAP is the one and only hope I have - that pessimistic son
of a bitch." Mulder fussed with the cuff of his robe for a moment then
suddenly he flashed her a lopsided grin. "On the bright side, I do not have
HIV."

"What?" She gave him a puzzled frown. What did HIV have to do with any of
this?

"Apparently the ER doctor thought I might have AIDS because he detected some
slight - what's that word - lymph... lymphadenopathy?"

"Swelling of the lymph nodes, yes. Lymphadenopathy. Where?" This she
preferred. Talk that remained on neutral medical ground where she could
explain things. She really didn't know what to say otherwise in response to
his apparent casualness about his possibly terminal condition.

Mulder rubbed his right hand around his neck. "Neck glands? Whatchacall'em?
In the beginning Shaughnessy agreed with the ER doctor. About the HIV, I
mean. He didn't believe me when I told him about the alien retrovirus from
Alaska. He thought I was one hell of a loony. But now he knows. I don't have
AIDS. He was wrong. But I was worried too for a while there."

Now Scully was annoyed. Mulder hadn't mentioned any of this earlier, but
then of course Mulder would never mention anything like this to her. Mulder
did seem genuinely happy about being HIV negative. Trust him to behave this
way when he was actually in fact dealing with something more immediately
lethal than her cancer had been. According to Shaughnessy, Mulder's anemic
condition was so precarious he would need blood transfusions to tide him
over while waiting for that suitable marrow donor to be found. As to why
Mulder should have aplastic anemia in the first place, no one knew. For now
the diagnosis was idiopathic aplastic anemia - the term idiopathic basically
meaning no one knew what the hell was going on.

"Mulder, this anemia is very serious," she said.

"I know that," Mulder said sourly. "Don't you think I know that? But what
can I do about it? At least Shaughnessy is doing one thing right: he's being
such a prick that I want to make sure I live - just so I can beat him up to
a pulp when I've recovered."

Scully didn't know whether to laugh or not because she didn't know whether
Mulder was joking or not. Mulder's sick sense of humor had a way of nicely
covering for his more sarcastic moments.

She had known how unwell he'd been for the past couple of weeks. She had
been well aware of Mulder's efforts to pretend to be fine. So she played
along. He didn't want to tell her, so let him be. Let him play pretend until
he woke up one morning too sick to come to work. She wasn't going to be his
nursemaid - he should bother about himself for a change. He needed a lesson.

Still, she never expected that lesson to be learned by fainting in Skinner's
office. Just as she never expected the diagnosis to be anything more serious
than a case of chronic fatigue from too many late nights working too hard
poring over grainy photos of alleged secret government installations.

"Um, Scully - when I fainted, what happened?"

She would never have seen that question coming. She answered with a puzzled
tone, "You fell."

"I just fell, straight to the floor, didn't hit anything along the way, like
- I didn't swoon or anything...?"

She shook her head.

"Oh good," Mulder said with obvious relief. "Swooning would have been such a
sissy thing."

Scully really didn't know if Mulder wanted her to respond to that. So she
looked around instead at the other patients in the clinic. Most were easily
identified as cancer patients - they were the ones who were losing hair and
wearing caps or hats to hide the fact. She was so lucky that she never went
for high dose chemotherapy for treatment of her cancer. As it turned out,
none of those chemo drugs could have done her any good anyway. In the end
what saved her life was a dubious piece of metal identical to one that had
been implanted in her neck when she was abducted more than three years ago.
It was ironically the most non-medical miracle she could have ever prayed
for. And now she had a terrible feeling that only a similar miracle would
save Mulder's life.

But that was silly. Unlike her mysterious cancer, aplastic anemia wasn't
totally incurable. Mulder was already on medication. And God willing, a
donor could be found within a week or two. Most volunteer donors were
Caucasian - there had to be at least one match.

Finally Mulder said, "Come on Scully, walk me back to my room. You met my
new roommate, did you? You know, he snores? If I'm going to have to stay as
an inpatient I'm going to bug Shaughnessy into giving me my own room. I have
insurance, I should use it." Mulder took his left hand out of his pocket so
he could use both hands to push himself away from the wall. Scully's mouth
dropped open.

His left hand was slightly swollen and badly discolored - an ugly dark red
patch from just above his knuckles to his wrist. It was obviously painful.
Mulder noted her reaction.

"And they said my red blood count is too low. I bled like the best of them
anyway when some stupid intern poked me the wrong way. Could have bled to
death from a needle prick - now how about that?" Mulder said with sarcastic
pride. But his eyes were sad. And some of Scully's optimism dwindled away.

~
4th day, evening
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"His adverse reaction to Lanovar is, well, pretty adverse."

Scully sighed and her shoulders sagged. Why couldn't anything be easy when
it came to Mulder? Lanovar was one of the drugs of choice for treating
aplastic anemia.

She had suspected something was amiss when she arrived to visit him fifteen
minutes earlier. Instead of griping about why she had to wait till late in
the evening to visit today, he'd just looked at her, muttered a "Hello,"
then lost interest. He didn't ask about her day, which she'd spent studying
up on his disease instead of working, he didn't comment when she told him
that Skinner had put him down for long term medical leave, he only shook his
head when she asked if he'd had dinner.

She knew he'd had a blood transfusion in the afternoon but his color wasn't
much improved. He didn't go back to sleep; instead he remained so dull and
listless that she asked if he was feeling all right. Much to her surprise he
answered honestly: he was feeling nauseous, he had no appetite, he'd vomited
quite a few times during the day, and last but not least, for some reason
his tongue felt 'funny' so he was not the least bit interested in either
food or long conversation.

It sounded too much like a list of bad reactions to whatever medication he
was on. When Shaughnessy entered the private room to check on Mulder one
last time before he left for home, she complained about Mulder's apparent
side effects to his medication. Shaughnessy voiced his full agreement and
named the drug that was the real culprit.

"But is the medication working?" she asked hopefully as Shaughnessy wrote a
few final notes in Mulder's chart. If it was working then the side effects
were worth suffering through.

"Today is only his third day on Lanovar. No improvements so far. Hb dropped
to 7.5 but it rose to 10 after the transfusion this afternoon. I'm quite
worried if he might be bleeding from somewhere we don't know about. By the
way, could you please gather enough people to help donate blood? If we need
to give Mulder frequent transfusions, the Blood Bank would appreciate it if
family and friends can help replenish the supply of blood."

"Yes, of course. I'll see what I can do."

Scully was secretly glad that Mulder had failed in his bid to be treated as
an outpatient. It would be extremely difficult, to say the least, if he were
at home, alone, experiencing all these adverse effects. She glanced at
Mulder and was surprised to see that he was still awake, intently listening
to everything she and Shaughnessy were discussing.

There was actually something Scully wanted to talk about with the two men,
but she had planned on talking to Mulder first before going to Shaughnessy.
However, since Shaughnessy was already here, and since he was proving to be
an incredibly elusive man to track down at other times, she may as well talk
about this to the both of them at once.

"Any news about a donor?" she asked first of all.

Shaughnessy shook his head. "I'd tell you once we find one. For now I'm not
taking him off any of the drugs unless his adverse reactions to any of them
become worse. His adverse reaction to Lanovar was pretty quick. The
anti-nausea medication I gave him didn't really seem to work so I'm changing
it to another one. I'm leaving him on glucose drip tonight but if he doesn't
start eating tomorrow it'll be time to consider a feeding endogastric tube -
but I'm worried friction from the tube can cause bleeding. We'll see. It's
also time to start him on prophylactic therapy."

"What does that last bit mean?" Mulder asked suddenly.

"Huh? Oh, we'll be giving you some medicine to protect you from getting
nosocomial infections," Shaughnessy explained. "A prophylactic measure.
Nosocomial infections are infections that you get within the hospital.
You're vulnerable to infections now that you are neutropenic - that means
your white blood count is much much lower than normal. As a result, your
body's defenses against infection have dropped."

Scully had to admit that despite his lousy bedside manner and pessimist
cocky attitude, Shaughnessy did know how to handle patients and did know how
to explain things simply in layman's terms. But she wanted to move on to
what she really needed to discuss.

"Have you finally determined why he has aplastic anemia?" Scully asked.

"We've confirmed it's idiopathic."

"I refuse to believe that."

"We've exhausted all other explanations. Four hematologists all came to the
same conclusion."

"Well, I've been looking up references and studying the literature and I
believe I now know the etiological factor - the cause of Mulder's
condition."

Shaughnessy sighed and Scully tensed. She could tell that he was
automatically going into his cocky hundred-percent 'doctor knows best you
know zilch' mode. He said, "Believe me, we've considered every single little
possibility already. Every single etiological factor from excess whole body
irradiation to autoimmune disorder has been ruled out. I doubt that you
would have found something I don't already know about."

Scully took a deep breath to calm herself. "Need I remind you that I am also
a doctor?"

"You're a pathologist. You know everything but treat no one. I'm the
hematologist here, I'm the one handling Mulder's case. I've already laid out
the treatment plan and I don't want to have you telling me..."

"What did you find out, Scully?" Mulder interrupted. "I want to know."

Shaughnessy scowled. "Oh fine. Let's go talk outside. Mulder, if you'll
excuse us..."

"No, talk here," Mulder said firmly. "I want to know what's going on."

Scully didn't try to hide her smile of triumph. Shaughnessy rolled his eyes
and folded his arms across his chest, one hand holding on to Mulder's chart.
He tapped the chart against his side impatiently and waited for Scully to
speak.

"I believe Mulder's condition is due to a viral infection, specifically a
retroviral infection," Scully began.

Both men were surprised. Shaughnessy's next reaction was predictably
skeptical. "You're connecting this to that retrovirus he was allegedly
infected with in Alaska in 1995?"

"Yes. You detected lymphadenopathy, but Mulder's proven conclusively to be
HIV negative. I kept considering that fact though. Could the swollen lymph
nodes still be indicative that he does have some sort of viral infection?
The swollen lymph nodes gave me the clue to what we might be dealing with
here."

"We ran the routine tests for herpesvirus, CMV, hepatitis B, A and C, even
Epstein Barr, just in case. Negative for all."

"I'm not talking about other viruses, I'm talking about the retrovirus that
he was infected with previously..."

"Yeah yeah yeah. Unknown, unnamed, possibly 'foreign' unidentified
retrovirus which triggers an immune reaction within the marrow so that the
marrow expels excessive amounts of red blood cells into the peripheral
circulation, resulting in polycythemia with risk of circulatory failure,
plus possible risk of disseminated intravascular coagulation, yada yada
yada. And how do we kill the said unknown retrovirus? We maintain the
patient within hypothermic conditions and flood him with antiviral drugs and
give him massive transfusions. Oh, sure. I buy that."

Scully narrowed her eyes. She said, "What are you suggesting Dr.
Shaughnessy? That you doubt the existence of this retrovirus? You read
Mulder's medical case file for that..."

"Sure I did," Shaughnessy said with an exaggerated grin that was not at all
agreeable. "And I was suitably impressed for about half an hour until I
realized how unlikely the whole thing was."

"You're doubting the whole incident?" Scully asked coldly.

"No," he answered. "I believe Mulder had a bad case of hypothermia and was
affected by something - but an unknown retrovirus? Get real. It's been three
years. The journal article about the discovery of this new virus would be
out by now. That ER doctor up in that military hospital would have written
his own article for the 'Journal of Emergency Medicine' or 'journal of
whatever' considering how unique the treatment for Mulder's condition was.
Would have gotten him the hell out of cold backwoods Alaska, and put him
back in the mainstream of things. The virologist working on the virus would
be a celebrity in the scientific community... immunologists would be working
themselves into a fit to get their hands on this new retrovirus that can be
so easily eliminated by cold temperature and anti-HIV drugs... get where I'm
going?

"Aside from pages of a medical report written by some doctor in some hick
hospital in Alaska there is no evidence of a new retrovirus. Even follow-up
notes from Dr. Helen Parker in this very hospital described Mulder's
condition as 'viral infection of undetermined origin' with a little footnote
stating that 'exposure to toxic chemical substance' as another likely
possibility."

"I was there in that 'hick' hospital, Dr. Shaughnessy. I saw what I saw.
Don't you dare try to contradict the facts."

"I ain't contradicting facts, ma'am. I'm pointing out the lack of facts. How
did you identify this retrovirus in the first place?"

"Electron microscopy."

"In Alaska? Yeah, right."

"We sent samples of his blood and marrow to USAMRIID here in Maryland. You
want proof, you can ask them."

"Already did. They didn't know what I was talking about. I'll be honest - I
was fascinated by the existence of some virus that can trigger a
polycythemic reaction in a patient within minutes post-infection. And sure,
I was wondering if maybe this anemia was a result of a latent reinfection
phase for the virus. It would be incredible if I could connect two very
separate blood disorders together: polycythemia and anemia. I am in a
teaching hospital; I'm always open to new findings, new ideas. But in the
case of Mulder's Alaskan experience, I conclude that it must have been gross
misdiagnosis on the part of the doctors and yourself. Not that I'm assigning
blame to you, since you aren't practicing clinical medicine. Anyway, is
there anything else? I have to pick up my son on my way home; I can't be
late just because I have to stay here and listen to some outlandish theory
about some non-existent virus."

Scully was stunned. She stared at Shaughnessy, totally at a loss for words.
Of course the virus existed. Of course the virus was something you were
infected with once exposed to green 'blood' from those beings that Mulder
was intent on labeling as aliens. Of course the virus killed rapidly by
kicking up an immune reaction in the victim's body, causing the thickening
of the victim's blood. Of course she had seen the virus with her own eyes on
a TV screen connected to an electron microscope.

But only now did the thought occur to her that of course 'They' would make
sure no one else on Earth should ever officially find out about the alien
retrovirus. 'They' could have wiped off all solid evidence of the existence
of such a retrovirus. In fact even in her own formal FBI report she had
expressed doubt over whether or not the virus was of alien origin. She
hadn't wanted to believe it herself back then - how was she going to
convince this doctor now?

She finally found her tongue. "What happened to Mulder in Alaska isn't
unique."

Shaughnessy tilted his head and waited for her to continue.

"Two people in San Diego suffered similar conditions to what Mulder had in
Alaska. They were both treated in a hospital."

"You have their case notes?"

"I can get them," Scully said determinedly. "I was there..."

Shaughnessy interrupted her. "Talk to me again when you get them. For all I
care, it could just be the same mystery toxic stuff going around."

"I'm trying to tell you that I was there! Those two people were treated the
same way Mulder was, based on what I did in Alaska. The doctors in San
Diego..."

"I don't care about doctors in San Diego. I don't know any of the doctors
there. I don't know where they got their degrees. I want reference papers:
either presented at a seminar or published in a journal. Any journal - I'm
not fussy. At the very least, I want proper medical notes. Until I have the
real facts in my hands, rather than hearsay, don't count on me to believe
that hypothermia is the cure for all ills."

Scully was once again too shocked for words.

"Well, fine," Shaughnessy said when Scully did not speak. He slipped
Mulder's chart under one arm and spoke kindly to Mulder, "Sorry about almost
causing a scene, but...." He shook his head. Scully didn't turn to see what
Mulder's reaction was. She feared she would see that he was disappointed in
her. She had let him down.

"Don't worry," Shaughnessy continued sweetly. "I'm sure whatever it was that
happened to you before has nothing to do with what is happening to you now."
Shaughnessy flashed Scully an angry glare and turned to go.

"You said before that you cured me, that the viruses were removed from my
body. So why should I be sick now?" Mulder asked.

It was an obvious question aimed only at Scully. She looked at him; he
looked calmly back at her and she realized that he was helping her, he had
faith in her still and he was throwing her a line so that she could catch it
and pull herself back to solid scientific ground. And she had to pull
herself back quickly before Shaughnessy walked out the door.

"It went dormant inside your marrow cells," Scully answered. She faced
Mulder, but Mulder was looking behind her, watching Shaughnessy's reaction
on her behalf. Mulder nodded slightly, a sign to her that Shaughnessy was
still in the room and would probably stay to listen.

Scully explained, "In the beginning, your hypothermic state following
infection meant the viruses never had time to replicate to sufficient
amounts, so we didn't have to deal with too many of the viruses in your
circulation. We did whole body transfusions - we drained out blood from one
end, we put in fresh blood at the other end so that we eventually cleared
the viruses out of your peripheral circulation and out of your major organs
too. However, viruses have the potential to hide inside the cells they
infect. The antiviral drugs were supposed to eliminate these hidden viruses.
We thought we were successful.

"Early samples of blood and marrow hours after exposure and infection showed
the presence of the virus but in later samples, taken more than three weeks
post-infection, you were clean - no viruses were detected. And there was
also the assurance of a scientist at USAMRIID that retroviruses kept in
vitro and retroviruses re-infected in mice in his lab were destroyed by the
combined effects of cold temperature and antiviral drugs. He was working
closely with us in ensuring your recovery - we sent all your blood and
marrow samples to him for electron microscopy."

"That must have cost a hell of a lot of money," Shaughnessy commented
sarcastically behind her. Scully bit back on her retort. Now was not the
time to get angry. The fact that Shaughnessy was still hanging around
listening meant he was at least mildly curious, even if he didn't believe
her. Yet.

"It did, Dr. Shaughnessy," Scully said coolly. "But as you yourself pointed
out: there were no electron microscopes in Alaska. So samples were sent to a
place where there was one, and to someone who would know what to look for."

"How would he know what to look for?" Shaughnessy asked. Mulder smiled at
her. Scully was slowly but surely snaring Shaughnessy back to her way of
looking at things.

"About two weeks prior to Mulder's exposure to the virus in Alaska, an FBI
agent was found dead; cause of death unknown. Post-mortem revealed that his
blood was 'curdled like jelly' - there were just so many red blood cells
packed into every vessel and into every organ. But no coagulating agent that
could have caused such an effect could be traced. His body was brought to
USAMRIID where further investigation revealed the presence of this unknown
retrovirus, still active within his marrow and spleen in spite of the fact
that he'd been dead for days. A series of experiments were carried out to
determine what the retrovirus was and what activities it exhibited, and one
of the things discovered was that viral activity and replication were
markedly reduced upon lowering of external cellular temperature."

Shaughnessy nodded thoughtfully and said, "Cool theory. What led you to
assume your partner was infected with this same virus all the way in
Alaska?"

"I was in the ER and I observed that he exhibited physical signs similar to
those noted on the body of the deceased FBI agent. It was a decision made to
err on the side of caution - it was safer for me to assume he was exhibiting
symptoms of infection than for me to assume he was not. As it turned out he
was infected. And our treatment procedures for the time were effective."

"How very fortunate. So you think the retrovirus specifically went for his
hematopoietic cells?"

"Well, retroviruses are known to attack the most active cells in the body
and hematopoietic cells are the most active... oh Mulder, hematopoietic
cells are the cells within the bone marrow that give rise to the various
types of cells in your blood." She looked back at Shaughnessy as she firmly
stated, "So yes, it is my belief that the retrovirus went for his
hematopoietic cells, triggering the primary auto-immune effect of
polycythemia."

"What is this auto-immune effect?" Mulder asked. She could tell he was
becoming frustrated about the jargon that everyone else in the room but him
understood.

Scully answered, "An auto-immune effect is when your own immune system
develops a reaction against your own body. When you were first infected,
your body felt it necessary to produce excessive amounts of red blood cells
in response to the presence of the virus in your system. However we brought
the polycythemia under control so you survived that phase of infection. Then
we started you on anti-retroviral treatment. But I suspect now that since we
failed to completely eliminate the viruses, they've been silently
replicating within the hematopoietic cells for all these years, possibly
causing varying degrees of destruction but never enough to result in
disruption to blood cell production or marrow dysplasia...."

"Until now - now all his hematopoietic cells are infected and as a result
production of all three lineages - that's types of blood cells - ceases. So
what we see is indicative of aplastic anemia and marrow failure,"
Shaughnessy finished for her, suitably impressed. "Interesting."

Scully looked at him hopefully. "You've heard my part of the argument. So
now at least try running a few more tests to help me prove I'm right."

"I said what you've come up with is interesting. I didn't say I agreed with
you."

Scully almost screamed in frustration. She looked over at Mulder, but he
just looked sadly confused now, in spite of the both of them trying to sound
as 'layperson-friendly' as possible. She had to fight this one out on her
own - God knew she'd had to fight enough bizarre scientific battles on her
own anyway since joining the X-Files. And this was one fight that had to be
won. She had to save her partner's life.

"One marrow sample, at least," Scully said. "We send it to a Dr. Alan Mason
at USAMRIID. He was the one who discovered this retrovirus. I've spoken to
him, he'll be glad to help."

"Really? He's the one I talked to. He claimed to know nothing."

Scully needed a few seconds for that fact to sink in. Either Dr. Mason was
being silenced from speaking to anyone else about the virus, but was still
willing to talk to her because of their past involvement with the virus
together; or 'They' were laying an elaborate trap for her and Mulder, and
Mason was part of the trap. For the sake of her partner she had to be
cautiously optimistic and opt for the former possibility.

She said, "Never mind; I'll talk to Dr. Mason again tomorrow. I'm sure there
must have been a misunderstanding."

Shaughnessy made a sound that was somehow half a snort, half a snicker.

"Look, Dr. Shaughnessy, speaking as one professional to another, don't you
believe in at least exploring all possible avenues? If I'm right, then the
method of treatment for Mulder isn't what you're doing now. If I'm right,
then Mulder should be treated with anti-retroviral drugs, and
anti-retroviral treatment should commence immediately. Are you not compelled
to give the best to your patients in terms of treatment?"

"Smart argument, Dr. Special Agent Scully," Shaughnessy said slyly. "Smart
argument, flawed in several points, but anyway... it's all up to the patient
in the end, and dependent on how much money he can afford to spend - Mulder,
this what you want? If this is what you want then fine, I can recommend a
virologist for you. Let's see, Dr. Davies is the one doing clinical HIV
research, and there's Dr. MacAfee who's studying retroviruses in general,
but MacAfee doesn't handle patients. Funny, I can't remember if he's an M.D.
or a Ph.D.. Anyway, either one should be interested. And they'll certainly
know more about what they're talking about. I mean, no offence, but your
knowledge of clinical medicine and antiviral treatment sucks, Dr. Scully."

Scully almost snapped at Shaughnessy but managed to control herself. She was
glad because Shaughnessy then asked Mulder, "You're serious about this?"

Mulder nodded. Scully beamed encouragement at him, but Shaughnessy's next
words caused Mulder some trepidation and made him falter.

"We'll need another marrow aspirate."

"You already did that," Mulder said stiffly. The expression on Mulder's face
told Scully that he was going to do this only for her... and so she had
better be right.

"This time for other tests," Shaughnessy explained patiently. "If you want
to prove what Dr. Scully is suggesting, we'll need fresh samples of both
peripheral blood and marrow cells. I wouldn't put you through it again
otherwise. And, we'll also have to look into quarantine procedures."

Scully tried hard to pretend she hadn't heard Shaughnessy's insult and
didn't care about the certain inflection he put to the 'Dr. Scully'; she
paid attention instead to his last sentence.

"Why should you quarantine him?" Scully asked, a split second before her own
brain gave her the obvious answer. Great, to look like a fool to
Shaughnessy.

"Nobody knows what sort of virus this is right? Unnamed, unknown retrovirus.
So no one knows how it spreads. Actually I still don't understand how Mulder
could have gotten infected in the first place... personally I suspect he was
exposed to toxic stuff in that mysterious submarine in Alaska, but okay,
let's say Mulder is infected with such a virus. We have to isolate him from
everyone else. Of course, when one factors in the fact that he's been
walking around, mixing with the general population for years already,
isolating him now is kind of a joke. If he is infected, and this thing is
infectious, well... we'll worry about that later, once we have proof that
there's something to worry about. I doubt there'll be anything though."

Mulder was obviously adverse to the idea of being in isolation. He was
starting to sit up and he was frowning. Shaughnessy glanced at his watch and
inadvertently pre-empted whatever it was that Mulder wanted to say.

"I'll see you both tomorrow morning? I really have to go now."

"Thank you," Scully said with some effort. "For giving me the benefit of the
doubt."

"Actually I'm not giving you the benefit of anything, except maybe my time -
I will have to do the marrow aspirate myself tomorrow. The resident on-call
has too much on her hands already, that poor girl. Anyway, it's your money,
your time, and your pain, Mulder. Don't come blaming me for anything."

Scully was taken aback. "But you've stayed to listen to all I had to say."

"Yeah, because I was waiting for the nurse to come take Mulder's temperature
- I figured it'd be much easier to wait for her here so I can tell her what
to do than for me to walk the opposite way to where I really want to go just
to give her my orders. She was supposed to come in here, per schedule, ten
minutes ago. But she's late, so I'm late. Won't my son be pissed."

He glanced at his watch again and was about to open the door when a nurse
walked in. The nurse gave a small exclamation of surprise about almost
walking into a doctor.

Shaughnessy nodded at the nurse curtly. "You're late." He ignored the
nurse's attempts to explain herself and indicated that he wanted to talk to
her outside the room. Then he closed the door behind them without another
word to either Mulder or Scully.

Scully felt pure resentment for Shaughnessy. He'd treated her like she was
some lazy medical student who had appeared for ward rounds without reading
up on the relevant chapters first. But what was important was that
Shaughnessy had agreed to send samples of Mulder's blood and marrow for
testing - once the proof was staring Shaughnessy in the face, she was sure
she would be able to handle things the way they should be handled, to hell
with Shaughnessy's attitude.

She patted Mulder's left arm comfortingly. His wrist was still a livid
purple color but the swelling was gone. His IV was in his right wrist.

"If you're right, Scully, how do you know I'll be all right?" he asked
quietly.

"The virus did respond to anti-retroviral therapy last time, Mulder. I'm
sure we can accomplish the same thing this time around. It's the virus that
is causing your anemia. We clean out the virus and you'll be fine."

"If the virus responded to therapy last time around, why would I still have
the virus now?"

"Well, my theory is that we didn't kill them all, we didn't get the ones
that hid within the hematopoietic cells. Viruses are tough to kill."

"Your theory is kind of shaky then, don't you think? What's to say the drugs
ever even killed the virus? You said the virus attack the hematopoietic
cells anyway, so maybe..."

"Mulder, I'll worry about whatever there is to worry about, OK?" Scully said
firmly. Actually Mulder was right. Her theory was very shaky. In fact if
Shaughnessy had pressed her harder for an argument just now she would have
probably lost. But she couldn't let Mulder guess that she was still very
much in the dark despite all the studying and reading-up and frantic
research that she'd done. "Go to sleep, Mulder. It'll be all right. Really."

Mulder gave her a strange look that she couldn't quite figure out - was he
doubting her? Was he aware that she wasn't being totally honest? But then he
gave her a small, neutral smile. He was about to say something when the door
opened again.

"Good night, Mulder," Shaughnessy said. He ignored Scully. "The nurse will
be in to give you a little shot, after that you can go to sleep, OK? Take
care."

And with that Shaughnessy was gone again. Scully turned back to Mulder but
he had that look on his face now that said how much he hated the idea of
getting a shot. He wasn't interested in saying anything anymore. Which was
probably just as good. Scully didn't like to lie to him, but nor did she
have enough truths to tell him should he start asking to know more about the
retrovirus. She herself hoped to know more once the presence of the virus
was confirmed - she was at least confident that the retrovirus would be
there, although confirmation of the virus' presence was not something to be
happy about at all.

She suppressed a sigh and resigned herself to sitting silently beside Mulder
until it was time for her to go home.

~
END PART 2
~~~~~~~~~~

REGARDING A CURE
PART 3
~
5th day, morning
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder watched the drops of blood dripping slowly into the IV line that went
into the vein in his right wrist. One drop, followed by another drop,
followed by another drop.... His wrist hurt a bit where the IV needle went
in but he didn't want to complain. If he really wanted to complain there
were other things that would top the list, starting with the damn throbbing
pain in his hip, courtesy of his second marrow aspiration by the good Dr.
Shaughnessy. Today Shaughnessy chose to punch the needle into his left hip
so he was now lying awkwardly on his right side, which was the first side
Shaughnessy had poked and which was fortunately no longer hurting. Mulder
had his right arm stretched out beside his body and his left arm curled
around his pillow. Hardly a comfortable position.

Next on the list of complaints would be the lousy iron or whatever one
called it - copper? whatever - taste of blood in his mouth. He woke up with
that taste in his mouth; now the taste wouldn't go away. Then there was the
matter of him being in isolation.

The proper routine for anyone coming into the room was that he or she would
first have to wash and scrub the hands thoroughly immediately outside in the
decontamination area, then don protective clothing (gown, cap, gloves,
plastic slippers - the works) before stepping into the room and touching his
body and handling his bodily fluids. Upon leaving the room, gown, cap, mask
and gloves had to be discarded into a refuse bag (for incineration later),
and the hands had to be scrubbed and washed again. Usually this room was
reserved for patients waiting for bone marrow transplantation - when they
needed to be isolated from any and all risks of infection. For his case
though, this room was meant to isolate him from everyone else so no one else
would get whatever it was he was supposed to have. Hence the need to destroy
all material that came into contact with him and with his environment.

Fortunately, they hadn't already resorted to full quarantine measures since
it had yet to be confirmed that he was infected with a retrovirus of unknown
origin. He'd hate it if everyone had to wear full quarantine garb each time
they came in to see him. True, he'd been quarantined before; but that didn't
mean that he enjoyed those experiences. Under such circumstances he'd always
felt like a helpless freak - there for everyone to stare at and poke and
prod.

The room itself was a boring white room with one small window to the outside
world, one door on a spring hinge leading to the washing/decontaminating
area, and another door connecting the room to his own private washroom. The
top half of the inner wall was plain glass, quite thick - a window to allow
people to look into the room and see how he was doing. There was one small
TV mounted to the wall opposite his bed, but they had lost the remote
control so he couldn't watch TV. There was nothing to look at outside his
small window aside from blue sky and the occasional cloud. There was nothing
to look at through the other window except nurses' faces peering in to make
sure he was still alive during their shifts. There was nothing to read
because reading made him dizzy. Mulder was going to go nuts if he had to be
isolated in here for too long.

Meanwhile, he still had no appetite, but at least he wasn't feeling so
nauseous anymore. He vomitted only once this morning. He managed to keep the
rest of his breakfast down though.

Scully was standing near the foot of his bed, reading his medical chart. His
hemoglobin - Hb they called it - level dropped again today, he knew that
much. That was why he was having this blood transfusion, so that they could
push the level up. It was scary that he could really feel the effects of the
anemia now - when his Hb level was low he had a harder time breathing, found
it harder to focus and pay attention, and he could swear he could hear the
buzzing of blood in his ears. After a transfusion his chest felt lighter and
his sight became clearer.

And to think that last week at this time, he and Scully were in Michigan,
preparing to apprehend the perpetrator based on what information they'd
gleaned from the psychic. Mulder thought about the psychic for a while.
Looked like she may not have been such a genuine psychic after all - she
never saw his illness coming, did she? Or maybe she didn't want to tell? How
rude of her then.

Mulder cleared his throat and Scully looked up. She was wearing her office
clothes although he was pretty certain she wasn't going in to the office
today. It was funny. When he was sick she would automatically take time off
to accompany him, but she never allowed him to do the same for her when she
had cancer - not that he would have known what to do anyway. Maybe that was
why she never wanted his company.

"When did you say you'll get the results back?" he asked. He sounded
breathless. He felt ridiculous. Here he was lying in bed, no activity
whatsoever and he was breathless.

"Maybe tonight. Dr. Mason promised me he would work on it immediately. He's
quite cooperative about all this, but he hasn't explained why he kept quiet
about the retrovirus. I'm thinking of going over this evening, see if I can
offer him a hand and maybe try to understand his silence for the past three
years."

Mulder nodded, and swallowed. There was more of that copper taste he just
couldn't get rid of. He hated it. He swallowed again and realized that this
time he was actually swallowing blood. Awful taste. His gums were probably
bleeding. He looked over at Scully. She had gone back to reading his chart.
Mulder then sensed some warm wetness near his cheek and his first thought
was that he had drooled. 'Neat, Fox, my man. Drool over your pillow.' The
thought played in his head as he rubbed his left hand against his nose and
cheek. The hand came away bloody.

It took a while for the irony to click. Here he was with a nosebleed. He
could share experiences with Scully now; they could go for group support
discussions together. 'Hello everybody. My name is Fox Mulder and I'll be
damned, I got this nose bleed but I don't know why.' He pressed his fingers
closer to his nostrils and felt the warm flow of blood. Yes, that would
confirm the bleed.

"Scully?"

"Yeah?" She now had her back to him and she seemed to be rummaging through
some stuff for who knew what reason.

"I'm bleeding," he informed her calmly.

She spun around quickly. Her eyes widened in shock and one hand
automatically went up to her mouth. The look of horror on her face was one
Mulder would have been happy to miss. He didn't feel too much alarm about
his own bleeding mess though. Just another miserable problem to deal with.

Scully rushed to jab the nurse's call button then looked around frantically
for tissues or cloth... anything. She found some neatly folded paper towels
and grabbed them. Mulder managed to stop her from ramming the lot into his
face.

"Maybe you should wear gloves?" he reminded her in a somewhat choked voice.
He could feel the slick warm wetness of blood on his cheek and upper lip and
on his pillow. His mouth too, was full of blood. He knew he was going to
start gagging soon if he had to keep swallowing more of it. And it was
getting harder for him to breathe.

Scully ignored his reminder and helped him sit up. He heard her telling
someone who was just coming into the room, "He needs platelets. Stat! And
page Dr. Shaughnessy! Oh God, he's bleeding through his IV too."

Scully's tone of dismay was so great that Mulder wanted to comfort her and
tell her that he was fine, really. 'Just a nose bleed, Scully, you had loads
of those didn't you? What? You think I worried?' And he was pretty morbidly
curious about how it was possible for him to bleed through his IV. But
things were starting to gray out on him. He could still hear Scully's voice
but she was further away now... odd. He could still feel her arms around
him, holding him. He heard her voice in his ear but he couldn't understand
what she was saying. And then everything was very, very quiet. And very,
very dark.

~
5th day, evening
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Mulder, you're awake? Mulder?"

Mulder winced and tried to turn his face away. He wanted to go back to
sleep. But he also felt like he should find out what Scully wanted from him.
So with a little sigh he opened his eyes and allowed some time for things to
swim into focus. The vision that finally greeted his bleary eyes made him
blink hard. He blinked several more times before Scully asked in a voice
tinged with concern, "Can you see me, Mulder?"

She was wearing full isolation room protection gear. Plastic cap over her
red hair, plastic gown over her clothes, and a mask covering the bottom half
of her face. No wonder he'd thought her voice sounded slightly muffled.

'Great, I am now officially a freak,' Mulder thought dramatically to himself
and turned away from Scully's face. Her new look was scaring him.

But Scully reached over with a gloved hand and turned his face back towards
her. He looked into her worried eyes and faked a half-decent smile. Well, he
hoped it was a fake half-decent smile and not a grimace.

"Are you all right? Mulder?" It took some time for Mulder to register the
emotion in her voice as fear. Bad news obviously. He couldn't quite remember
if he should already know what the bad news was. In fact, he couldn't quite
remember how he got here in the first place, but he knew he was in a
hospital isolation room, and he knew that the reason Scully was dressed up
the way she was was so she would be protected from him. Whatever it was that
was wrong with him. He pondered briefly on the fact that he didn't feel too
concerned about this present predicament. Whatever medication he was on must
be really good stuff.

"I'm fine," he slurred after a few minutes of tolerating Scully's worried
frown. Best he could do. He tried to shift his position but managed only to
weakly move his arms. Pathetic. He had this feeling that he was developing
bedsores already; how long had he been in here? He also tried to tilt his
head a certain way - there was something near his neck that was bugging him
but Scully restrained him by placing her gloved hand on his shoulder.

"Don't," she admonished softly. "You'll budge the central line."

Mulder exhaled loudly. Central venous line. Great. One of those. Well, at
least it meant no more IV lines to accidentally pull out of his wrists.

"Can you hear me? Can you understand me?" Scully asked. Mulder nodded and
looked at her, only to catch her holding a glass filled almost to the brim
with fluid. She was stirring the fluid with a spoon. Mulder watched,
fascinated. He knew instinctively that was medicine in the glass. Did she
want him to drink it? Was she out of her mind?

Apparently she was because she then forced the drink down his throat. Well,
she did try some begging and cajoling and pleading for him to drink it
voluntarily first, and he kept shaking his head but really, the outcome was
inevitable. At the moment, Scully was way stronger than him, literally. It
was a given she would win. And she did have the perfect excuse - it was
either have her forcing the medicine down his throat, or one of the
no-nonsense nurses forcing the medicine down his throat. As it turned out,
drinking the medicine wasn't so bad and he didn't vomit, but he still felt
obliged to pout and sulk as he lay back down again.

"Scully?" he rasped at long last. "Um, what am I doing here?"

"You don't remember?" she asked, another new frown knitting her brow.

"No?" he admitted honestly. But just then something sparked in his foggy
mind. "Uh, anemia?"

"Yes," Scully said, relaxing a bit. Mulder was proud that at least he
remembered that much for her. "Combined with some bleeding difficulties
yesterday because your platelet counts dropped too low. We've given you
platelet transfusions. You'll be all right. And by the way, I've called your
mother."

Mulder had to admire Scully's tact. 'And by the way...' She sure knew how to
lighten the blow for some things. Aloud he asked, "What did my mom say?"

"She said 'Oh my God'." Scully replied blandly. "I explained your anemia to
her as best as I could. She said she's coming. She's worried and upset
because she wasn't informed earlier." Mulder smiled a little as he imagined
his mother panicking. Sure she loved him, but she wasn't exactly the kind of
mom one would categorize as a TV sitcom mom; heck his mom would never win
any awards for parenting skills... yet her reaction upon hearing about him
was typical motherly panic. God, he missed his mom suddenly.

"So why am I in here? This is isolation."

He noticed the way Scully's eyes flickered away from his before she
answered. "Do you remember we were going to run tests to see if you had any
of the alien retrovirus still residing within your cells?"

Scully was so polite, Mulder thought. Using the word 'residing' for viruses
that were leeching the life out of his cells. But he was thankfully starting
to remember things again in a groggy, slow motion way and Scully was giving
him all the time he needed to sort his memories out. Finally he understood
what was going on himself.

"You've confirmed that I still have the virus," he stated at length.

Scully nodded. "Mainly in your marrow cells. They went dormant and hid
inside your marrow cells the last time, perfectly undetected. The viruses
replicated and multiplied within the hematopoietic cells of your marrow,
then some of the viruses spilled over into the mature peripheral blood cells
and entered the circulation. So far the virus has been detected only in your
marrow cells and in your mature red blood cells; the virus does not seem to
go for any other type of cell.

"So, we're starting you on antiviral therapy. You just drank your first dose
of didanosine. Afterwards I'll give you your first dose of zalcitabine, then
a dose of AZT. Dr. Pamela Davies is your clinical virologist - she's
planning the antiviral therapy regiment. We're thinking of adding a couple
other antiviral drugs too if we think you can tolerate them all. This is
intensive therapy Mulder, so we will have to watch out for side effects.
You'll have to help us with that. The moment you feel any slight discomfort,
any dizziness or soreness, or if you taste blood in your mouth, tell us.
Don't wait till you get a nosebleed before telling people that you're
bleeding. It might be too late to do anything."

Scully's tone betrayed some bit of worry so he knew she couldn't be all
annoyed with him. And he suspected that Scully wasn't telling him everything
now; she was leaving many things unsaid between the lines. Things like: what
side effects? And things like his basic survival probabilities. Then he
remembered something else.

"Why aren't you lowering my temperature?"

"You won't be able to tolerate the cold. You're anemic so you are already
short of oxygen - it's the red cells that carry the oxygen around in your
body. And because of the anemia, your metabolism and various other systems
are all screwed up too; we can't risk it. Besides, all the viruses are
already inside your cells, lowering your temperature merely slows down their
replication and makes them dormant. We want to kill them."

"Wait. When you use drugs to kill the virus, the viruses are inside my
cells, you'll kill my cells too right?" he asked. He was fully awake now.
Scully's eyes flickered away again as she nodded. "Not that it matters
because my cells are dying anyway. But what I don't get, Scully, is if my
cells are dying either way, killing the viruses still isn't going to help me
in the long term is it?"

"We will clear the viruses out from your body once and for all," Scully said
determinedly.

"So? My marrow is still all shot to bits. I'll still die of marrow failure,
won't I? Unless I get a bone marrow transplantation." Scully kept her eyes
down and didn't look at him. His heart felt heavy. "And there's no donor is
there? There's no marrow donor who is a match for me."

"We're still looking," Scully said.

"How far is there to look? The way I understood it is that all volunteer
marrow donors are already compiled on a database right? So if there's no
match there, then where else can I go for a donor? It's not like I'm waiting
for some guy to die to give me a new heart. Even if my mom could, she's too
old. And I don't have relatives who're suddenly going to pop out of the
woodwork either!"

That was too much to say in one go, even if he had wheezed his way through
the speech. He gasped for a few minutes while Scully carefully averted her
wide blue eyes. His thoughts strayed to Samantha... but he instantly brushed
the idea aside. Samantha - if she really was Samantha - probably wouldn't
care. He wouldn't know where to find her anyway. She'd never bothered to
contact him again.

"Mulder," Scully started to say hesitantly. "Please, let's take this one at
a time. You know I would donate my marrow to you if I could... do you know
that?"

Mulder was slightly taken aback to see tears glistening in her eyes. She
went on. "Byers, Frohike, Langley - they'd do this for you if they could...
you know that? But we can't. Skinner is trying to help too. But all we can
do is donate blood to the Blood Bank and then find more people to donate
blood because today you bled all over the place, and we need to get platelet
donors too now but we're not giving up... we're not going to let this
situation get the better of us... so don't you dare give up!"

The sudden angry rise in her voice at the end was a surprise considering
that for the most part she was babbling. Mulder watched guiltily as she
tried to wipe the tears out of her eyes and off her cheeks with a gloved
hand. She was failing miserably at the task.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her. He'd made her cry, although deep inside he
knew that it wasn't actually his fault. Circumstances sucked, he was sick
and Scully was worried and stressed... unless one started dragging out the
facts of history - then all of this really was his fault - he was the one
who went to Alaska in search of his truth (who as it turned out, was an
ungrateful woman who wasn't even interested in giving him the time of day),
if he had never gone off to Alaska he would never have encountered the alien
bounty hunter and he would never have been infected by the alien's sizzling
blood virus, and neither he nor Scully would ever be stuck here in this
quarantine/isolation room where circumstances sucked.

Scully shook her head and took a deep breath, trying to quell her sobs. She
looked up at a clock on the wall and started to busy herself. "I'm going to
give you your zalcitabine now," she said.

Mulder sniffed but meekly complied.

~
END PART 3
~~~~~~~~~~

REGARDING A CURE
PART 4
~
7th day, evening
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scully was walking slowly back to Mulder's isolation room after having had a
quick and bland early dinner in the hospital cafeteria. She was so very
tired and so very sleepy and so very sick with worry about Mulder. The whole
afternoon had been spent in USAMRIID with Dr. Alan Mason and Dr. Pam Davies,
where the three of them had worked together trying to understand more about
the retrovirus and figure out what would be the best ways to kill it. They
were unable to agree conclusively on anything much, but Mason promised her
that he would work overtime to unravel this mystery.

Then on their way back to the hospital, Pam Davies got a call from Dr. Matt
Shaughnessy. He was shouting through the phone, loud enough for Davies to
wince and hold the phone away from her ear, and for Scully to hear him quite
clearly herself as she was driving. Shaughnessy's hysteria was due to Mulder
apparently suffering severe side effects to the antiviral drugs. Massive
transfusions were needed in order to stabilize him again.

Dr. Pam Davies did ask if there was any little sign that the antiviral drugs
were doing what they'd hoped, which was to kill the damned alien retrovirus,
and had been told instead that as far as anybody could see, the drugs were
directly tormenting Mulder instead of killing retroviruses.

When Scully expressed her dismay about the lack of visible success with the
antiviral drugs, Dr. Davies had said to her, "What were you expecting, Dana?
In just one day? A pharmacological miracle?"

At least Dr. Pam Davies had been kind enough to keep the sarcasm out of her
voice. Pam Davies had a pediatrician's gentle voice, and she was tolerant
and patient, qualities which Scully found lacking in Shaughnessy. Plus, Pam
Davies listened to Scully's ideas and suggestions with genuine interest.

Shaughnessy, who was still Mulder's primary clinician, had been true to his
word. He had introduced Dr. Pam Davies to Scully and Mulder. Davies became
very interested once Scully showed them the newest electron microscope image
as proof that 'alien' retroviruses existed in Mulder's blood and marrow. Pam
Davies was now just as determined as Scully was to treat Mulder, and
discover how the virus spread (now that they knew the virus was real they
had to worry about that aspect too), albeit Davies' desire to achieve
success probably had more to do with the medical and scientific recognition
she would no doubt bask in once Mulder's survival and recovery were
accomplished. Scully was resigned to take whatever and whomever she got.
Being fussy about who was in this and for what reasons wasn't going to help
Mulder in the slightest.

Davies did come with a string of successful research papers and projects
attached to her name. She'd been working with HIV and AIDS patients since
way back in 1984 when AIDS was 'just a gay disease'. Davies was one of those
silent people working in the background, co-writing journal articles about
clinical studies of HIV/AIDS patients, and unless something spectacular
happened, no one outside her own teaching hospital would ever know she
existed. There were just so many acclaimed scientists working in the field
of HIV research already.

So, Mulder just might be Davies' one chance for scientific stardom... unless
Scully had misjudged the whole deal and Davies was working with her on
Mulder and studying the retrovirus simply for the fun and glory of science;
but Scully doubted such scientists really existed anymore. Even Dr. Mason
was dealing with the retrovirus now as though this were his one shot chance
for a Nobel Prize or something. And she still wasn't sure if he was truly
trustworthy.

As for Dr. Shaughnessy, once he had the proof staring at him in the face, he
conceded to Scully's suggested methods for treatment. It was a hollow
victory though, for Scully. She would have seriously preferred Shaughnessy's
scorn if she were proven wrong altogether to having to deal with a
retrovirus that wouldn't go away. Now Shaughnessy was breathing down her
neck for more information about the two victims who had been exposed to the
same 'blood curdling' virus just months ago in San Diego, during the
Emily... 'incident'.

One was the doctor who was overcome after she burst the cyst on the back of
Emily's neck. The other was Dt. Kresge of the San Diego Police Department,
who had the bad luck of running into one of the strange shape-shifting
beings at the Dimsdale Retirement Home, which was where Mulder had found
Emily's 'mother'. But she wasn't going to start thinking about that too. She
had enough on her plate now.

The hospital in San Diego refused to divulge information without patient
consent, not even when she tried to warn them of possible health risks. She
would have to track the victims down first.

Once Dt. Kresge and the doctor were found, and their medical notes shared
with Dr. Shaughnessy, Dr. Davies and Dr. Mason, they could proceed to study
the two victims - to determine their present condition and the types of
antibodies produced. The answers could prove beneficial for Mulder -
providing the two could be found fast enough. But no one would tell her
where they were. Officials she contacted kept giving her the run-around. It
was ridiculous.

She was musing about all these things as she was turning the last corner to
Mulder's room. That was when she spotted the three Lone Gunmen sitting close
together on one sofa in the lounge, which served as the waiting area for the
isolation rooms on that wing of the hospital. Byers was sitting in the
middle, smartly dressed as usual; Langley sat on his right, looking like
some lost grunge guitarist with his scruffy long hair; Frohike, on the other
side, wore his hat even here in the hospital, otherwise he was quite smartly
attired in a simple jacket and neatly pressed slacks. She walked towards
them.

"What are you guys doing here?" she exclaimed. "Visiting hours are almost
over. You should have come sooner!"

Langley shrugged. "We thought it'd be much quieter if we came at this time.
Less people around, you know."

Scully smiled at them. They were not the sort who visited public places
without massive pre-planning, and rarely came to visit Mulder any of the
other times he'd been hospitalized. Which was why she was so touched when
she learned that Frohike had visited her back when she was comatose after
the abduction. They'd even been wary of coming to the Blood Bank two days
ago to donate blood - but they overcame their reluctance out of their sense
of honor to do something for Mulder.

"Have you seen Mulder? He might still be sleeping though. He's not doing too
good today."

"We did see him," Byers said. "We stood outside and waved at him through the
glass."

"Oh? He's awake already? Did he see you guys?" The image of the three so
distinctly different Lone Gunmen pasting their faces against the glass and
waving their hands was actually pretty scary, Scully thought with some
amusement. But Mulder would have been overjoyed to see them.

"Yes, he saw us. At least I think so. Well, he did smile," Byers said and
looked at his fellow Gunmen on either side. Frohike was strangely silent in
her presence. She wondered if it was the shock of seeing Mulder so sick that
was keeping him quiet.

"There was this old woman in there with him," Langley said.

Scully understood that the statement was actually a question. "His mother."

Langley and Byers looked surprised - she supposed they'd never seen her
before - but Frohike chose that moment to speak.

"I was hoping to go in and visit him, but they wouldn't let me."

He sounded upset. He sounded like he believed some conspiracy was afoot. She
had to placate him.

"They only allow me, his mom, his doctors and relevant nurses in the room,"
she explained. "For one thing, everyone is still afraid of how this virus
spreads. We are taking a big risk each time we go in to see him. By right,
we should quarantine everyone who's been in touch with him, but that's not
quite feasible, not until we confirm how the virus is transmitted. For
another thing, the room has to be kept as sterile as possible for Mulder's
own sake - he's pretty vulnerable to infections because of his low blood
counts. The fewer people going in, the lesser the risk that something can
get in to infect him."

"Is he getting better?" Byers asked.

"Not yet," Scully admitted reluctantly. She sat down on the couch facing the
Gunmen. "He suffered a very fast and unusually severe side effect to AZT
just now. AZT is the most common anti-retroviral drug but we'll have to take
him off it. He's having blood transfusions now to help him recover."

"I've never seen him look so sick," Frohike muttered worriedly. Actually
none of the Gunmen had ever seen Mulder really, really sick, but she doubted
they'd want that little detail pointed out to them right now. "He's so
pale!"

"He's sure lost a lot of weight too," Langley said, suppressing a shudder.
Scully concluded that if these guys had seen even a glimpse of Mulder at his
worst worst in Alaska, they would be even more traumatized. Langley carried
on, suddenly in a reminiscent mood, "We saw him a couple of weeks ago and he
was fine. Absolutely fine. Didn't even look tired. He was joking around,
pulling our legs. He will get better, won't he?"

"I'm doing all I can to make sure he will," Scully said. "I'm collecting a
few samples of Mulder's blood afterwards. Dr. Mason will try a few things
tonight, and hopefully we'll know something new by tomorrow."

Byers cleared his throat, glanced at his two friends, then said in a low
voice, "We've done as you asked. We checked out Dr. Alan Mason."

"What did you find out?"

Langley answered her. "Plain Joe. Medical school in Chicago, residency in
microbiology, started work at USAMRIID eighteen years ago. Drives a regular
family Ford sedan, owns his own house, no mortgage. Married with kids. We
spread his name around through our networks and no one has ever heard of
him."

Byers chimed in, "Which can mean that he's either very good at doing his job
and keeping out of the spotlight, or he's not at all working with the
government on any of the government's more 'interesting' microbiology for
warfare research."

"We think it's the latter," Langley said. "We checked out whatever we could
about his finances too. He gets his paycheck from the government, nothing
extra. He's never won any surprise lottery, never inherited one big chunk of
money from a long-lost grand aunt. His pay fits his scale and is enough to
support his family. Career wise he's published a few articles in journals:
Nature, Journal of Medical Microbiology, Science."

"I've already found and read those," Scully said. "Routine articles on viral
and microbiological taxonomy and functional serology research."

"In other words," Byers said. "As far as we can tell, Dr. Mason is clean.
He's not involved with 'Them' and isn't doing any research that is out of
the norm."

Scully nodded and sighed. Frohike, who'd again gone quiet on them all,
reached out to tap her arm with his fingertips in a comforting gesture. She
smiled ruefully at him.

"Do you feel like there's any reason not to trust Mason?" Byers asked.

"No," Scully admitted. "He does his job efficiently. He is interested in
this retrovirus and whether or not he can figure out a way to understand it.
But what keeps bugging me is why he stopped all research on this retrovirus
after Mulder recovered from that first bout? He was a great help to us while
Mulder was sick in Alaska - helping to detect the virus by electron
microscopy. Which is what he's doing again now. Back then he'd mentioned
that he'd like to figure out the antibodies involved, but apparently he
never did. Then a few days ago, when Mulder was diagnosed with aplastic
anemia, Mulder's doctor called him up to ask about the history and to
confirm the diagnosis, but Mason denied any knowledge of the virus."

"A cover up?" Langley asked suspiciously.

"Maybe. But when I called him he did willingly discuss the virus and he
didn't hesitate in offering to help me again."

"So why did he deny it to the doctor?"

"He claims that it's because he never published any data. So he didn't want
to be quoted out of context. And because he hadn't published any data he
wasn't interested in discussing his knowledge on a casual basis without hard
evidence."

"Do those reasons make sense?" Byers asked seriously. "We can dig further.
Something's bound to turn up if we look hard enough."

"No, don't do anything more right now. For the time being I'm allowing him
the benefit of the doubt. I'm accepting that he didn't want his professional
credibility questioned. He's pretty open about that fact anyway."

The three men nodded. She called the shots, they'd do whatever she wanted.
And then an awkward silence fell on them.

Scully could think of no small talk; the Lone Gunmen meanwhile didn't seem
to know what else to say after having divulged what information they'd dug
up on Mason. Scully wished someone would crack a joke - a silly wish
perhaps, considering the time and place, but she felt like it had been ages
since she laughed. Mulder's rapidly deteriorating condition seriously
impinged on his sense of humor; he hadn't cracked a single joke in days, not
even one of his really bad hospital bedpans wisecracks. And Scully's
constant worrying about Mulder and her tension-filled discussions with his
doctors kept her on her toes all the time.

And now the Gunmen were sitting on that sofa, tapping their feet and
twitching nervously at their slacks or jeans. Scully took a deep breath and
reminded herself, 'What to expect? Even under usual circumstances these guys
aren't the smoothest talkers.'

Her deep breath made them look up at her. She managed a smile. "Thanks for
coming, guys. I'm sure you made Mulder happy."

It was their cue to leave and they knew it. They rose hurriedly.

"Well... we better go now. Visiting hours over already," Langley drawled.
"Say hi to the G-man. Tell him to hang tight."

"Give our regards to Mulder," Byers said graciously. "We'll be checking our
contacts tonight too, to ask more questions. Someone must know something."

Scully nodded. All she wanted now was to spend a few quiet minutes with
Mulder before heading back to USAMRIID to run more experiments on fresh
samples of Mulder's blood. Not that the blood would be purely Mulder's
anymore. He received four units of blood today - talk about owing your life
to donations. God knew how he was going to overcome the iron overload later.

Then suddenly Frohike hugged her. "Be good to Mulder," he whispered in her
ear before releasing her and walking away with his two companions.

Scully watched them go, remunerating a regret that they hadn't managed to
cheer her up. Was Mulder still awake for her? She needed blood samples - so
better if he wasn't awake. But she missed him. She wanted him awake, even if
having him awake meant he'd be pissed with her for trying to get precious
tubes of blood out of him. Damned if he was awake, damned if he wasn't.

She sighed again and resumed her interrupted journey to Mulder's room.

~
END PART 4
~~~~~~~~~~