Chapter 10: Boston and St Johns

The room swam into focus in a rolling high seas way that caused Skinner to retch and cough as he came awake.

“Steady, sir.”

A glass was lifted to his lips and the cold water made his taste buds cramp in a delicious way. All too soon the glass was pulled away, and a warm blur passed his eyes as Scully placed a hand on his forehead in a gesture more maternal than professional.

With a groan, Skinner pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“My glasses?”

Scully handed him the wire-rimmed glasses and when he put them on and his vision was clear he realized with some amazement that he was in his own bed.

“Where’s Mulder?” he demanded. He ignored the placating hand that Scully put on his arm. “What the hell happened?”

He saw Scully recoil from the growl in his voice and tried to rein in the fear-based temper. “Sorry,” he muttered, “Looks like I woke up on the wrong side of…of the wrong bed.”

That earned him a tentative smile and he asked again, “Mulder?”

“He’s fine, Walter,” Scully assured him. “A little bruised, but that’s hardly anything new for him.”

They shared a quick smile at that, and then Scully continued before Skinner could ask.

“He’s still in the city, waiting to get a lead on what happened.”

“And what exactly did happen?” he demanded.

Scully told him.

***
Security had shown up after the fact. Mulder held the still struggling orderly pinned to the floor after he had caught him trying to squirm out the door. Scully was trying desperately to wake Skinner, who lolled senselessly on the hospital bed, threatening to slide right off it at any moment.

Security was followed by a bevy of medics, a flock of nurses and a gaggle of curious onlookers, all trying to find out what was going on.

Two burly security guards took hold of Mulder’s prisoner and hauled him to his feet.

“Where are you taking him?” Mulder asked sharply, swiping at the blood on his forehead—the result of his fight with the orderly, or whatever he was.

“We’ll hold him downstairs and call the police,” on of the guards told him. “Do you want to come with us and tell us what went down here?”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Mulder promised, glaring at his enemy. Then the anger was replaced by something smoky and panicked in his eyes as he turned towards Scully and Skinner.

Like the world’s smallest she-bear, Scully was standing between Skinner and far too many intentions, possibly bad, useless if good. One nurse who got too close with nothing more helpful than a bedpan in her hands got a quick shove back for her efforts, and another one when Mulder pushed past her.

“You okay, partner?” Scully demanded, giving the cut on Mulder’s head a critical eye.

“I’m fine, Scully,” he said. “Walter--?”

“I think he’s been drugged, Mulder,” Scully replied, glaring off another nurse. “With this.” She held the needle, half empty, in a tissue. “We’ll need to test—“

“No,” Mulder declared.

“But Mulder—“

“Take him home, Scully.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

The doctor who had originally seen Skinner had arrived.

“Obviously we’ll need to take care of your—your—“

“Shut up,” Mulder told him in a quiet voice. “We’re taking him out of here and you’re going to let us.”

“Don’t be a fool,” snapped the doctor, “You don’t know—“

“Listen, you stone brained quack!”

Even Scully looked startled at the fury in Mulder’s voice.

“In case it escaped your notice, ‘doctor ,’” he sneered over the man’s title. “Your little fiefdom here has been seriously fucking compromised. God only knows what one of your staff just tried to do to my lover, but unless you want to be up to your ass in lawsuits, I suggest you take said officious little ass out of here and make yourself useful, if that’s even possible. I want a stretcher up here and all the files you have on him.”

The doctor looked ready to protest further, and Mulder took a step forward.

“This is completely improper,” he muttered, obviously defeated, but unwilling to go quietly. When no response was forthcoming from Mulder, he turned to the nurse next to him to get Mulder’s ‘request’ underway.

The speech seemed to drain something out of Mulder, and he turned a miserable frown back to Scully, who was noting Skinner’s pulse. Mulder put his hand over the one she was holding Skinner’s wrist with.

“Can he be moved?” he asked almost too softly for her to hear.

“I think so,” she replied just as quietly. “But Mulder---“

“No buts, Scully. Get the files and get him gone. Take him home. You know? ‘Home’?”
He emphasized the word with what he hoped was a meaningful look. Scully understood.

“There’ll be records in the computer…” she murmured.

“I’ll get the guys on it. And I’ll find out who this bastard is. Just, you know—“another stricken look at Skinner’s unconscious form.

“I will.”

Scully turned to the few people left in the room. “Who’s helping?” she demanded loudly. “Get me a kit here—it’s a hospital, people, you don’t have a damned bandage?”

Mulder almost grinned as he slipped from the room.

***

“I’m glad I was out of it—you on a rant is a terrifying thing,” Skinner said, smiling gently. Then, more serious: “So, what’s our best guess here, Scully?”

“I haven’t got the resources to pin down the substance you were injected with, but based on observation of your reactions to it, I’d have to say something heavily Demerol-based, maybe.”

“Ah, a nap. Do you think this was a nap that I was supposed to wake up from?” Skinner glanced around the room. Scully read his mind and she handed him the glass of water.

“Again, I’m speculating—Mulder would be so proud—“; a smile; “—but the way you’ve come out of the unconscious state suggest to me that the perp wasn’t trying to kill you, he was trying to immobilize you.”

“What on earth for?”

“I wish I could say, Walter.” Scully shrugged and looked momentarily defeated. “Transport, maybe?”

“That suggests something a little more far reaching than just hospital staff with a grudge,” he replied. She nodded agreement, and Skinner noticed for the first time how tired she looked.

“Have you slept?” he demanded.

“I’m fine,” she replied.

“That’s not what I asked,” Skinner bit back the urge to add ‘Agent Scully’ to the end of his sentence.

“I know that…Walter.”

He smiled when he realized she’d almost given him back his FBI title as well. Old habits, he supposed, and he wondered if they’d ever get over them. Well, if the nanocytes in his brain did their job, he guessed he’d never have to worry about calling Scully Agent, or anything else for that matter.

“If I promise to wake you if I feel so much as a sneeze coming on, would you do me a personal favor and just crash for a while? We’ve all been on short sleep rations, but you’re well and beyond that, Dana.” And he added for emphasis, “and you know it.”

“Okay, okay!” she exclaimed. “You’re right.” She laughed suddenly. “Mulder has always wanted to hear me say that.”

She touched the bandage on his arm. “Maybe I should just check—“

“No! Go! Rest! Watch cable or something—God knows we pay enough a month for Mulder to have his pay-per-view; somebody ought to be using it.”

He realized he’d barked at her like the old days only when she sketched a comic salute at him, heel click and all, and said, “Yes sir!”

That made him laugh.

At the door, she turned back to him and said, “Call me if you feel anything unusual, or if you need anything at all. I mean it Walter. We don’t know enough about what’s going on to screw around with this.”

He nodded solemnly, and she seemed satisfied with that. In fact, she had already taken another step out of the room when she turned back again.

“Walter…”

“Dana…?”

Another patent-pending Scully psychic moment: “Mulder’s okay. I’m sure of it.”

And then she was gone, leaving Skinner to wonder what was happening with his lover, and just where this latest attack left them, in terms of safety, security, and life of course. A twinge of pain in his arm made him look, and he realized it wasn’t the arm that had received the amateur version of acupuncture. His left arm was aching, and as he looked at it, the veins in his bicep rose to the surface of his skin, black and pulsing, and then receded.

He hoped that whatever Mulder was doing, he was doing it fast.