NOW:

Scully was scrutinizing one of the machines next to Walter Skinner's bed with a practiced eye when the doctor walked in. He didn't bother with formalities, just simply announced, "He was awake earlier."

Scully turned a surprised face on him, which he ignored as he checked the I.V. bag hanging next to the bed and continued talking. "It was hit or miss there, for a while-we repaired as much of the damage as we could, but, well, if I had been a betting man…" His voice trailed off, and he finally looked at Scully and gave her a crooked grin. "I'd be going home poor. He's a fighter."

"Yes, he is," she agreed wholeheartedly, gazing fondly at her supervisor and her best friend's lover, and thinking he looked like he was breathing easier. Of course, she might have just been projecting, but she chose to go with her heart this time, and not her analytical side. She realized in that moment just how much Walter Skinner meant to her, not just for all the obvious reasons, but because of what the doctor had said. He was a fighter, and all too often it was for her that he fought. He had crossed lines at work and away from it, not just for his lover, but for her as well, and she thought that when he woke up again, the first thing she was going to tell him was a long overdue ''thank you".

"I have to finish my rounds," the doctor told her, interrupting her reverie. "You can stay with him, if you like."

Scully nodded absently, her eyes never leaving Skinner's sleeping form.

The doctor left and Scully approached the bed.  She sat down in a terribly uncomfortable chair, had a stray thought about the maliciousness of hospitals in general, then put one small hand over Walter's large one.

She jerked back suddenly when his fingers twisted under hers, shocked and a little frightened.  But she got a hold of herself quickly and leaned forward as he turned his face towards her.  His eyes flicked open, but just barely.

"Sir!" she exclaimed, a warm smile flashing across her eyes, then settling in on her lips, turning the corners of her mouth up.

He tried to focus, tried to smile back, tried to speak, but was far too exhausted for any of it. 

"You're going to be fine, sir," Scully assured him, wondering briefly at the number of times she'd said this affirmation, not just to Walter Skinner, but to her partner, to fallen comrades, even to herself.  It ought to have sounded contrived by this point, but she still felt comforted by the words.  And she thought Skinner did too, as his eyes slipped shut and his body seemed to relax.  She thought he might even have gone back to sleep when he stirred a little and sighed out a single word:

"Mulder?"

The smile resurfaced on her face, and though not prone to harlequinesque melodramatics, she felt tears prick at her eyes.  She blinked them away, determined not to do anything to alarm Skinner, and injected a positive, soothing tone into her voice.

"On his way, sir.  He just had something to do."  She thought maybe that sounded a little cold, and a lot lame, so she added, "for you.  But he'll be here soon.  You had him worried, you know."

The tic in his jaw would have been a grin if he hadn't been so busy trying to heal several assorted gunshot wounds. That sort of thing really took a lot out of a person.

Scully took his hand again, and again he squeezed, his grip light as a newborn's.  Another sigh and he really did fall back asleep this time. Scully let go of his hand and brushed the back of her fingers lightly over his brow.

"Everything's going to be okay," she whispered.

"How sweet-I think I got a cavity," A voice sneered derisively behind her and she whirled, reaching for her gun.

Krycek already had his out and pointed at her.

"Uh-uh, Dana, don't even try it."

The part of her not entirely focused on the large gun held unwaveringly at chest level dimly noted that Alex Krycek looked like hell.  She saw crusted blood on his temple, and a swelling that seemed to extend well past his hairline and to the top of his head.  His white-tee shirt was stained and dirty, and a large bruise was a dark blot on the pale skin of his neck, just below the jaw line.

"What do you want here, Krycek?" Instinctively, Scully moved a little to put herself between Skinner and his would-be-assassin.  The gun tracked her.

"Not your issue, Dana," he growled, and his voice made her shiver. It sickened her to realize that there was a hint of desire as well as revulsion in that shiver.  "I'm just here to take care of some unfinished business."

"Haven't you done enough to this man already?"

"Apparently not.  He's still drawing air." Almost to himself, he added, "Guess that's what happens when you send a woman to do a man's work."

Scully heard him, though. "Bastard!" she hissed at him, all erotic thoughts about emerald green eyes and full red lips burning up in the heat of her anger. "Is he that much of a threat to you, Krycek?  To your keepers?" She paused, and when she resumed, her voice was as frosty as her eyes. "Or are you just jealous?"

"Jealous?" Krycek laughed harshly. "Of that old closet case? I don't think so."

"Closeted or no, he's got Mulder, and you don't." She chose to bait him, hoping to take his attention from the helpless man still asleep in the bed. "Maybe Mulder just likes to have more than one option when he asks for a handjob."

The words were so crude, so not Dana Scully, that for a moment, Krycek was stunned. His shock soon gave way to blistering anger, however, and he took a menacing step forward.

"I don't want to kill you, Dana, but I won't feel bad about it if it happens, so why don't you just be a good little fag hag and walk out of here while you still can. Then we can all get back to our lives, and then maybe you can give Mulder his next handjob." Another step, and he was nearly on top of her, but she didn't back down.

"She'd probably do a better job than you, you rat bastard!" Mulder growled from the doorway, gun in hand.

Everything happened fast after that. Krycek whirled at the sound of his ex-lover's voice, and Scully took advantage of the distraction to shove him back, hard, hoping he'd fall. He didn't, but he lost his balance just long enough for her to get her gun out of its holster and point it at him.

"This is the end, Alex. If you don't drop your weapon now, I will put you down. I don't care how many times you sucked my dick!"

"Mulder!" *Life or death situation*, Scully admonished herself even as she cried out his name in shock, *and you pick now for a maidenly blush?*

Krycek held his gun on Mulder now, and for a long moment they glared at one another over their respective barrels. Both of them saw a hint of sadness in the eyes of the other, and while Mulder wondered just what the hell had happened to bring them to this place and time, Krycek simply wondered if his last earthly sight would be his ex-lover putting a bullet into him. 

Then, like steel shutters over a convenience store window, Krycek's emotions were gone from his eyes, and he dismissed Mulder, focusing his mind only on taking care of the Skinner issue, and maybe the Scully thing, too, just for his own personal amusement. He knew he didn't have a chance against a crack shot like Fox Mulder, especially at close quarters, but he was determined to finish his last job with a bang.

"Fox?"

Walter's weak voice seemed to break the spell for all three of them. Krycek turned towards Scully suddenly, and fired his pistol. Scully felt thin heat burn across the top of her shoulder as she ducked and the bullet just grazed her, scaring her more than harming her, but travelling with enough velocity to knock over the I.V. stand when it embedded itself in the bag of nutrients currently being dripped into Skinner.

Before he could fire again, he heard the roar of Mulder's much larger gun, and it was like someone had punched him hard in the arm, just above where his prosthesis was attached.  Dimly, he saw Scully lining up her own shot with his other shoulder, then he looked over at the window, and, seeing no other option, took a running dive at it.

Scully rushed to the window, and Mulder rushed to Walter's side.

"Walter? It's me, Mulder. I'm here." He took hold of Skinner's hands and pressed his lips to Walter's, just as what appeared to be half the population of the hospital ran into the room. Doctors, nurses, random interns, a security guard or two, and even three agents who were just coming up to visit their assistant director.

Mulder had no time for them. Walter had opened his eyes, and was looking up at him with a sweet and completely confused expression that made Mulder want to weep. Instead he just kept kissing his lover, pressing his lips to his cheeks, chin, forehead, lips, relishing the fact that Walter was alive, if not whole, when he had been so sure he was going to lose him.

Scully took one last look at Krycek's still form lying broken and bleeding on the hospital lawn, then turned to face the platoon of spectators in the room. 

"What the hell is this, a circus? Unless you are a doctor or a cop, get the hell out." She knew she was being excessively rough, but she hadn't missed the stunned look the agents were giving Mulder and Skinner, not to mention the barely concealed contempt in one of the security guard's eyes, and she wasn't about to add homophobia to the list of problems currently facing her. "Like, today!" she added sarcastically, and the crowd started to disperse.

Only then did she feel the pain in her shoulder, and a cold trickle of blood running down the inside of her sleeve. When she winced and put a hand to her arm, the doctor who had been checking Skinner earlier approached her, but she waved him away, and turned to the security guards, who were still watching the two men kissing on the bed.

"Hey! Show's over. Now get the hell outside and arrest the man lying on the front lawn. You can't miss him-he has one arm, and might be dead!"

The security guards retreated in the wake of her command, and she returned to the window.

"Mulder?" she called softly after a moment. When she got no response, she called his name again, louder, and he reluctantly let go of his lover to join her at the window.

"What is it Scully?"

She simply shook her head and walked away from the window, with the doctor trailing behind her.

Mulder looked outside, and saw nothing but three very confused security guards staring down at a patch of lawn stained dark with blood.

He and Scully exchanged a look, the gamut of emotions running across their faces; fear and anger, hope, and faith in one another, love and grim determination to pursue this thing to the end, to the truth. Then Scully offered him a very tired smile and jerked her chin in the direction of the bed.

Mulder didn't need to be told twice. He was back at Walter's side in a flash, hugging his lover carefully but with intent, almost trying to shelter him with his body.

They stayed locked together like that long after the room was empty.