Mulder and Scully entered the hospital at a near sprint. Ignoring the entrance desk and the elevators, they headed straight for the stairs.

"I'll check on Walter, you go to Kim." Scully's tone brooked no argument, but she gave Mulder a gentle shove in the direction of the psychiatric ward just to emphasize her point.

Despite his increasing worry about Walter, Mulder had to agree with Scully's quick assessment and decision. They shared one of those quick "be careful-I will-you too" looks that only long time partners and best friends can achieve without words, then split up, Mulder leaving the stairwell on the psych floor, and Scully continuing upwards.

Mulder didn't hesitate as he neared Kim Cooke's room, despite the earlier altercation he'd had with her.

"Sir!"

He turned to see a nurse running towards him.

"You can't go in there."

Mulder waved his ID badge at her and said: "This woman is a suspect in a crime.  Has there been a change in her condition?"

"Yes, sir." The nurse seemed a little awed by the badge. "The doctor's with her now, but-"

That was as far as she got.  Mulder pushed her gently aside and entered Kim's room.

A doctor was standing at the end of Kim's bed, checking something on her chart, and he glanced up, startled at Mulder's sudden appearance in the room.

"Sir, you can't be in here-" he exclaimed, but before he could explain why Mulder couldn't be there, or force Mulder to produce his badge yet again, Kim Cooke's voice, weak but clear, cut him off.

"Agent Mulder?"

He approached the bed warily, hopeful, but apprehensive nevertheless, their last conversation still a fresh wound on his psyche.

She was still tied down, but Mulder recognized the change in her at once. Muscles formerly taut against the restraints were now lax, and her eyes as they tracked his movements were clear and sane.  He realized immediately that whatever Krycek had done to her, shutting off the Palm Pilot had ended it.

"Agent Mulder," she said again in a whisper so low he had to strain to make out the sound. Sudden tears sprang up in her eyes, and her next words were thick with anguish:

"Is it true, Agent Mulder? What he said-" She indicated the doctor with a jerk of her head. "Did I muh-muh-murder-oh god!" She began sobbing uncontrollably, unable to say more.

Barely able to keep his own emotional response in check, Mulder reached for the restraints on her wrists.

"Hey!" The doctor was glaring at him, dropping the chart and taking a step forward. "You can't-"

"Shut up and help me!" Mulder snapped at him angrily.  He freed one of Kim's wrists, then struggled with the strap on the other one.

As soon as her hands were free, Kim buried her face in them, still crying loudly, and a cold thought, thick with vengeance, of Krycek and whoever he was working for, flashed through Mulder's mind, darkening his eyes momentarily and tightening his jaw in an eerie imitation of his lover.  He tossed the thought aside, not without some effort, but knowing in his heart that plans for revenge of any sort would have to come later. At this point, his focus had to be on the hysterical young woman before him; she was his key to the truth, and he had to know what she knew.

He petted her hair and rearranged his expression into something bland and non-threatening.

"Kim?"

She took her hands away from her face and eyed him warily.

"Kim, I want you to listen to me.  I know you're scared-I am, too." He shrugged his shoulders somewhat self-consciously and she gave him a curious look, her tears drying up a little at his words. "But, Kim, something was done to you. And I need your help to understand what that was."

She sniffled uncertainly, and he handed her a wad of tissues from the box near the bed.  Then he poured her a glass of water and only remembered that the doctor was still in the room when he went hunting for a way to raise the head of the bed. He glared at the useless medic, then shoved him aside with uncharacteristic force in order to reach the button at the foot of the bed that controlled it's movements.

"We'll have to run some more tests?" It came out as more of a question than a statement, and when he was pointedly ignored, the doctor turned, pulled a shred of something resembling dignity over himself, and left the room.

Mulder rearranged the pillows under Kim's head, helping her to sit up a little, then gave her a moment to sip water and compose herself while he undid the straps on her ankles.

Finally, he pulled a chair up beside her bed, sat down in it heavily, betraying his fatigue, but only to himself, and asked quietly, 

"Kim, can you tell me what you remember?"

He didn't think she was going to answer at first, but he gritted his teeth and waited with as much patience as he could muster, knowing that trying to rush her would do no good-not to Kim, not to himself.

At long last, she began to speak, and Mulder hung on her every word.

"There was a man in the office when I got there. He said his name was-was-"

Mulder leaned forward eagerly, then settled back, abashed, when he saw her flinch.

"I'm sorry, Agent Mulder." More tears coursed down cheeks already shiny and wet. "I can't remember."

"It's all right, Kim. Just go on, and tell me what you do remember."

"He said he was there to see the Assistant Director.  But I remember that he didn't have an appointment."

"Did you send him away?"

"I didn't have to.  He apologized, said he'd made a mistake.  Then he left. When the Director came in, I-"

"Kim," he interrupted her gently, "This man you saw-does the name Arntzen sound familiar?"

He thought he saw recognition flash in her eyes, but it was there and then gone so fast that it might just have been wishful thinking on his part.  Kim shrugged helplessly, and Mulder's voice got quieter.

"Kim, did this man touch you?"

She paused before replying, and Mulder heard the rising excitement in her voice when she put together a few pieces of the puzzle that had become her life almost overnight. "Yes! He shook my hand and thanked me for my time."

"Then what?"

He watched her concentrating fiercely, and he wished he could offer her the use of his own photographic memory.

"The Director came in-I said that already. I'm sorry-I-" She took a deep breath, and he watched her eyes cloud over, then clear as she sorted out the jumble of memories. "I gave him the mail, and asked if there was anything he needed right away. I remember he asked that I clear a space in his schedule for a meeting with you-" They shared a small smile, and Mulder reached out and took one of her hands. She squeezed it gratefully and continued. "Then he said I had made a mistake with the mail, and handed me a package that was addressed to me at the office."

Mulder snapped up this information like a starving dog with a bone. "And?"

"It was a videotape." Kim's voice had gotten quiet again, and she suddenly couldn't meet his gaze. He felt his own cheeks flush red in tandem with her own, and for a few moments they just sat silently. Mulder was stunned at the depths to which these people would sink, and Kim was warring with the shame of remembering the images she had seen on the videotape. 

"Agent Mulder, I'm sorry. I didn't know…" She faltered, then found her voice again, and continued, seeming to draw some strength from his show of vulnerability. "When the Director went for lunch, I figured it would be okay to use the VCR in the inner office. I didn't go for lunch myself, because by then I was starting to feel kind of-sort of-well, queasy."

"Do you remember what you were thinking when you saw…it?" Part of him was desperate to know, part of him wanted to walk out of the room and never look back. As usual, his quest for the truth won out, and he waited to hear what she would say next, dread and excitement competing for space in his heart and making his stomach feel like it was trying to swap places with his lungs.

"I was thinking about my brother, Kris." She stated flatly, and Mulder gave her a curious look at the tone.

"I didn't know you had a brother, Kim," he said.

"He's passed on."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a few years ago. I'm okay with it now. Or, at least, I thought I was. Now, I-I-" More tears threatened, and she swiped angrily at her eyes with the back of her hand. 

"My brother was gay, Agent Mulder. And he died of AIDS."

"Oh, my god…" Bits and pieces were starting to come together for him now, too. It made sense, in a horrifying way. The easiest way to get Walter killed. Take someone close to him, make her psychotic, then turn her on her target by exploiting her greatest fears, hatreds, weaknesses. He felt sick, and had to turn away from her, trying to compose himself.

"After that, I don't know-things-they get fuzzy."

He turned his attention back to her, and tightened his grip on her hand, although he suspected they'd both have bruising there if they kept up their fierce hold on one another for much longer.

"I seem to remember a phone call in the afternoon, a voice telling me some-something horrible. Or where something was? I can't seem to recall…I don't remember anything after that." Her eyes widened as they captured his gaze. "Did I really do it?"

He nodded dumbly.

"I can't believe-I've never-I would never want to hurt AD Skinner. You have to believe me.  Please?"

"Oh, Kim, I believe you. What happened, what you did-you can't be held accountable for those actions." Even as he spoke he knew that proving what had happened was going to be virtually impossible. Surveillance tapes of the shootout in the office spoke far more compellingly than Kim's testimonial, and chances were, any other incriminating evidence would already be in the process of being taken away. He'd seen this sort of thing too many times to believe it wouldn't happen this time.

"But those people are still dead, Agent Mulder. And I killed them." She had exhausted her tears by now, but her body shook with fine tremors, which bespoke of the emotional war raging within her. A last, breathy whisper sighed out of her.

"What do I do now?"

"We, Kim, and we'll think of something. I promise." He stood up and placed her hand gently at her side. "I'm going to go see him now. He's in a coma-" Now it was his turn to sigh and shed a tear, which she reached up and brushed away with the back of her hand.

"But he might respond.  And he's alive, that's something. Do you want anything?"

"I am so sorry, sir.  So very sorry."

"We will figure something out, Kim. You have my word."

She offered him a tiny hopeful smile and whispered, "Give him a kiss for me, all right?"

"You got it."

He left the room before more tears could fall, and spent several long minutes just outside her door, bent in the middle and gasping for air like he'd just run a marathon. He tried to come up with a plan, an idea, something that he could offer Kim, to save her from this ruin that was no fault of her own, and nothing came to him, except the overwhelming deep need to see his lover, to be near him, and to hear his voice. Nothing else seemed to matter in that moment, and he took off for the ICU at a jog, which became a sprint when he hit the stairwell.