Title: "The 'I' in FBI"
Series: 'School Ties'
Authors: Carrie Verkman carebear1025@juno.com and Anna Rousseau annadelamico@yahoo.co.uk

Fandoms: ER/The X-Files
Genre: Humour/General
Rating: U
Category: XF (DS/FM) ER
Spoilers: None so far
Set: XF (S5) ER (S7)
Summary: Mulder once again loses his gun and ends up in the ER causing quite a stir among the doctors and nurses.

'THE 'I' IN FBI

==========

"Ah the Windy City." said Fox Mulder. He spit out another sunflower seed shell as he talked. "It's about time Skinner sent us some place worth seeing."

Dana Scully nodded as she sat reading a case file. "But don't you think you'll have a hard time searching for UFO's with all these tall buildings around?"

"No, that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to solve a crime and take in a Bulls game." Mulder said.

The EL train came to a sudden stop and Mulder and Scully picked up their bags and exited the car. Assistant Director Skinner had sent them to Chicago to track down a wicked gypsy who was responsible for two murders within the past two weeks. Mulder believed it was a satanic cult, Scully being sceptical as always, thought maybe it was a psychiatric reason. After the two agents checked into a hotel, they got to work right away and decided to stake out an alley where the last murder happened.

"This is where the last murder took place. The gypsy is described as a white female, age 50, with dark hair and eyes. She used to work at a tarot card shop and hasn't showed up for work in a month. There-" Scully was cut off.

"Do you know how boring you sound?" Mulder said. "Reading information from a police report? You must have gotten bad grades for public speaking."

Annoyed, Scully shut the folder and sat back in her seat. "Now you know how I feel whenever I have to sit and listen to your rants about finding the truth."

"But it's out there!" Mulder said.

"Don't start."

"We are so not alone! There are supernatural beings in the galaxy that have come here and our government is covering it up! We need to let the truth be known. We need to uncover the horrible conspiracies. The truth is out there!" Mulder said.

Scully stared at him blankly. "I think I heard a noise. Let's check it out."

Mulder and Scully exited the car, with their guns drawn. Scully carefully and cautiously walked, while Mulder darted around, hiding behind garbage cans and empty boxes. He started to sing the theme from Mission Impossible.

"You're doing it again." Scully said.

"Sorry." Mulder said. "Look, up there. There's an open window." Mulder started to climb on a garbage dumpster.

"Do you think you can get up there?" Scully asked.

"I think so. Hey, does this act of boyish agility turn you on Scully?" Mulder said, with a smile.

"Not really, because your fly is open!" Scully snickered.

"What?" Mulder looked down and saw his pants wide open. He began to zip himself up when he dropped his gun. "Dammit!"

"What?" said Scully.

"I dropped my gun. But I think I can reach it." He saw that it had safely landed on a crate just a few feet below him. Mulder steadied himself on another crate before slowly bending over to reach it. He wobbled and Scully flinched.

"Be careful Mulder!" Scully called.

"Almost got it." Mulder kept reaching for it, but the crate he was standing on gave way and Mulder tumbled to the ground.

"Mulder! Oh my God! Are you okay?" Scully rushed to his side.

Mulder winced in pain. He swallowed to keep from screaming out loud. He was holding his leg, which was bent in the wrong direction.

"Mulder we need to get you to a hospital. Your leg is broken." Scully said.

"Maybe I should have just left my zipper open." Mulder said.

***

Scully had, as usual, ended being the one to pick the pieces up after Mulder did something extremely idiotic and infantile. That's what the 'I' in FBI stood for as long as Fox Mulder was working in the Bureau. So here she was, helping Mulder limp into the Emergency Room at County General Hospital in Chicago.

"Really, you get us into more trouble than it's worth," Scully sighed as Mulder lurched forward, dragging his broken leg.

"Well, if you hadn't told me my fly was open when I was on a very tall object-"

Scully's mouth dropped open. "So you're blaming your clumsiness on me, Mulder? You were the one on the dumpster in the first place and it was your moronic remark which made me say what I did and I wasn't the one who can't remember to do their fly up in the morning."

Mulder looked on in astonishment, not knowing where Scully had learnt this amazing trick of speaking for minutes without taking a single breath. "Y'know, Scully, you're totally hot right now."

Sighing, Scully dragged Mulder to the admit desk, dodging a boy scout who was projectile vomiting. "Shut up, Mulder. I can't tell you how pissed I am right now, never mind how 'hot'."

"I really couldn't tell by the tone of your voice," Mulder shot back, yelping as Scully 'accidentally' let go of him so he fell back onto his bad leg.

Scully rapped the bell on the desk and a brunette popped up, snapping gum. Her hair was piled up on top of her head and big hooped earrings hung from her ears. Mulder grinned foolishly at the young woman and so his partner elbowed him, earning another girlish cry of pain.

Pulling out her ID, Scully flashed it at the woman. "Special Agent Dana Scully, FBI. This is my partner Agent Mulder who has, I think, broken his leg."

The woman stared at the two agents and then stammered, her face flushed. "Uh... let me get you Dr. Kovac, our attending, I'm sure he'll be able to help you."

With that the desk clerk ran as fast as she could down towards the trauma rooms.

Scully raised an eyebrow. "She probably heard you were the agent who likes to expose himself, no wonder she couldn't get out of here quick enough."

"More likely," Mulder replied, shooting his red-head partner a look, "she's on parole and she's done something which would endanger her freedom if we were to find out."

"Very perceptive," came an abrupt voice from behind them.

Scully's stomach went queasy as she turned around, fixing a false smile on her lips and putting on a cheery voice. Mulder raised his eyebrows as he saw a short, bald man in a lab coat that looked very much like Leonard Betts.

"Robert," Scully breathed, more a sigh of despair than a sunny hello to a former classmate.

Dr. Robert Romano smirked at her broadly. "Why, Dana! Long time, no see."

Nodding Scully bit back an acid remark which would express how much she wanted to prolong the status of 'long time, no see' between her and 'Rocket'. "Yeah."

"I see you decided not to enter the wonderful world of medicine." Robert said, noticing the FBI badge Scully was holding. "How are things in violent crimes?"

"I don't work in violent crimes. My partner Fox Mulder and I work on the X-Files. Paranormal cases." Scully said.

"Well you definitely came to the right place! Things don't get much weirder around here." Robert said.

"Not as weird as you Rocket." Scully said triumphantly.

"Why do you call him Rocket?" asked Mulder.

"It's a long story." Scully said.

"No it's not, and she'd be happy to tell you." Robert said, with a wicked grin on his face. "Oh damn, surgery needs me. Well, see you around sweet cheeks!" Robert said as he playfully slapped Scully's behind.

Scully jumped and began to chase after him, but couldn't, realising she was still supporting her limping partner. She helped Mulder to a chair as they waited for Dr. Kovac.

"Is it just me, or did that guy look like Leonard Betts?" Mulder asked.

"I think it's just you."

"How come you called him Rocket? I thought his name was Robert." Mulder said, itching to hear some gossip from Scully's past.

Scully sighed and sat down next to Mulder. "Well you're not going to let me get away with not telling you, so here goes. When I was in med. school, Robert and I dated. One night we went to an amusement park and ended up making out on a ride called The Rocket Coaster. I don't really remember this, but I guess at one point I called him Rocket, like the coaster, instead of Robert."

Mulder began to laugh, but stopped as soon as he saw the stern look on Scully's face.

"Since then he wanted me to call him Rocket. I guess it made him feel like a big shot, I don't know. A year later we broke up." Scully said. "He cheated on me."

"With who?"

"I don't know. Some chick named Shirley. I hear she's a surgical nurse now."

Mulder nodded. He felt sympathy for his partner and felt bad she was treated that way. "When is the doctor going to come? My leg hurts!"

"Stop whining Mulder, you sound like a little boy." As soon as Scully said that, a doctor with dark hair and a thick foreign accent came up.

"Fox Mulder?" he asked.

"That's me." He said, struggling to get up. "And this is-"

"Hi I'm Dana Scully, FBI agent, my partner Mulder here might have broken his leg." Scully said breezily. She smiled sweetly.

"Hello. I'm Dr. Kovac. Did you say you were an FBI agent?"

"Yes, and I'm a doctor too. Just like you!" Scully said, flirting with the Croatian man.

"Okay. Well, um...Chuni here...uh, will take you and your partner and get you all set up in Exam Three. I'll be there in a minute." Dr. Kovac nervously started to walk away. "Excuse me!"

"What's his problem?" Mulder asked, while Chuni helped him into a wheelchair. "Hey, Scully?"

Scully's eyes were fixed on the tall man. She sighed like a teenage girl. "Maybe it was a good thing you broke your leg Mulder."

"Oh everyone likes Dr. Kovac!" said Chuni, agreeing with Scully.

"Girls!" Mulder said to no one in particular.

As Chuni lead them away, Dr. Kovac ran to find his girlfriend Abby Lockhart. She was in the lounge drinking coffee.

"Abby!" Dr. Kovac said out of breath. "FBI...agents...here...male...broken leg...I...need...to...catch...my...breath!"

"Slow down!" Abby said. "The feds are here?"

"Yes. One of them is injured. But that doesn't mean they won’t find out!"

"Oh my God!" Abby said.

Luka tried to stop himself hyperventilating, but when Abby saw this wasn't going to happen without assistance, she pressed a brown paper bag to his mouth.

"Breath, Luka, breathe!" Abby said calmly. This did the trick and the pace the air entered and left the bag slowed considerably.

After a few moments Luka took the bag away from his mouth and looked down seriously at his petite girlfriend through the strands of greasy hair he called his fringe. "They are going to find out."

"Well, we took a risk and this is the price we pay," Abby replied in acceptance.

"They will lock us up," Luka wailed, banging a hand on the counter.

"No."

Luka looked up hopefully, a puppy dog look on his face. "They won't send me to jail?"

"No," Abby explained slowly and carefully, "*you* will go to jail, *I* won't."

He looked extremely confused, really a medical degree didn't count for intelligence these days: Dave Malucci was a testament to this fact. "How come?"

Abby's forehead furrowed. "You're the one who brought it back from Croatia!" she hissed menacingly.

"I didn't know!" Luka moaned as if they had gone over this conversation a billion times before.

"You could have gone without it!" Abby scowled.

Luka looked at her incredulously. "It's the best in the whole of my home country!"

"It's a federal crime! You can't bring a whole salami into the US! Remember the trip we took to Olympia, and we decided to take a day trip to Vancouver? Remember how I had to throw away all those pastrami sandwiches we bought in Canada before we got back to the American border? What were you thinking bringing meat from Europe to the States," she retorted, grabbing a doughnut from the box behind Luka, the stress giving her terrible cravings for sugar. "You, Luka, are felonious."

He looked at Abby as if he had never heard the word. Come to think of it, Abby started to think about whether 'felonious' was a proper adjective.

"Well, there's only one thing we can do," Abby said quietly, munching at her second doughnut.

"Eat it?" Luka offered, envisaging a large salami sandwich just like his mother used to make in the old country when he was only a boy.

"No," Abby looked at Luka as if he was the most idiotic human alive; "we have to hide it."

Luka stared at her suspiciously. "Where?"

Abby looked at her boyfriend, while munching nervously on her on her doughnut.

"So what should we do?" Luka asked.

"Sprinkles." Abby said.

"What?"

"This doughnut doesn't have any sprinkles." Abby said, while inspecting the half eaten piece in her hand.

"The feds are here and all you care about is your doughnut?" Luka said, waving his hands in the air.

"I'm sorry! I'm just nervous that's all!" Abby said. "You've got the salami in the refrigerator right?"

"Yes."

"You go and fix the broken leg while I stuff it in Malucci's locker. It might get a little rotten but that wont stop him from eating it." Abby said.

Luka looked at Abby nervously. "Just go!" Abby demanded as she began to pick the lock on Malucci's locker.

Luka headed toward exam three, much calmer than he was before. "I'm sorry for the wait. But I had to take care of something."

"Oh we didn't mind waiting." Scully said sweetly. "Tell me was it some big emergency?"

"Well actually-"

"Hello?" Mulder called. He was now wearing a hospital gown and hooked up to an IV. "Did you forget about me and my leg?"

"No." said Luka. "How did this happen?"

"We were in a pursuit of a criminal and I fell from a high building." Mulder said.

"Wow!" Luka said fascinated. "Did you catch him?"

"That's not what happened at all!" Scully protested. "Mulder was standing on a high garbage dumpster and he went to zip his fly. He dropped his gun and fell trying to get it."

Mulder groaned. "Yeah, she's right."

Luka nodded. "Well it does seem to be broken. We need to get an X-ray of your leg. Chuni can bring you up to radiology and your partner may come along if she wants too."

"Okay." Mulder said. Scully nodded to say she would be coming with Mulder. Chuni helped Mulder in a wheelchair and they left the room.

Luka pulled off his gloves and sighed. "That was close."

Just then Dr. John Carter entered the room. "Hey Randi said you were working on some feds."

"Yeah, one of them broke his leg."

"Where are they?" asked John.

"Radiology."

"Okay, let me know when they come back. I've got some good dirt on Chen I'd like to report." John said with an evil look in his eye.

***

Scully rolled her eyes as she walked alongside Mulder as he was wheeled back to the ER. He was making a fool of himself, as usual, by thinking of outlandish explanations for the reasons why the staff at County General were acting so nervy around the FBI agents.

"They're cloning humans in the lab, Scully," Mulder insisted. Chuni, the nurse who was wheeling him around, giggled slightly. "I bet 'Rocket's' behind it, he's cloning mini-versions of him to take over the world."

Scully whacked him upside the head and hoped this would shut her partner up for a while. Unfortunately, it only egged him on. "And when they take over the world, which they will as this is a global project, a conspiracy even-"

"Oh, like I didn't see that line coming," Scull exclaimed, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Mulder ignored Scully and was about to open his mouth and explain how giant fluke worms came into the equation when he heard footsteps falling quickly behind them.

"Are you the two FBI agents?" A tall young man with brown hair asked, his breathing showing signs of exertion from running to catch them up.

Scully nodded curtly, wondering where the weirdness in this place would end. "Agent Scully, this is Fox Mulder."

"Fox?" The man replied, his eyes wide. "Weird name... but then again, my cousin's called Chase, so I-"

"What do you want?" Scully asked impatiently, wanting to get out of this hell-hole as soon as possible, preferably before she ran into her old college 'buddy' Robert Romano.

The man indicated to himself. "I'm Dr. John Carter, I'm a senior resident in the ER."

Scully tapped her foot. "Yes." She was almost positive that Robert was going to jump out from behind a gurney and slap her on the ass again, but if it was Dr. Kovac doing the slapping she wasn't sure if she'd mind as much-

"Agent Scully?"

Her head snapped up and she realised that not a single word of what Dr. Carter had just said. "Sorry?"

"Jing-Mei Chen, she's a resident in the ER too," Dr. Carter explained. "She was the one responsible."

Scully must have missed that part of the conversation whilst she was daydreaming about a certain tall, dark, Croatian attending. "Responsible for what?"

Mulder rolled his eyes whilst smiling with amusement as Scully shook all thoughts of doctors from her head. Dr. Carter continued: "The FBI website crashing last March... y'know when there was the hacker, but you couldn't find out who did it."

Raising her carefully shaped eyebrows; Scully looked straight into the resident's eyes sceptically. "You're telling me that one of the most secure institutions in America had their website and databanks hacked by an ER doc in Chicago."

Dr. Carter smiled bashfully at her. "It was late one night, a whole load of us were at her house for an impromptu birthday party... y'know, we'd been drinking and started a game of truth or dare... one thing led to another-"

"Well, usually people go get some, not hack into the FBI's network," Mulder smirked as he was wheeled into the elevator.

Blushing profusely, Dr. Carter looked from one agent to another. "So, what are you going to do?"

"With Dr. Chen?" Mulder asked. Dr. Carter nodded. Mulder looked to his red-headed partner. "What'cha say Scully?"

Scully looked at Mulder, then to Dr. Carter, then back at Mulder. She let out an exasperated sigh. Dr. Carter eagerly awaited her reply before the elevator doors shut. "I don't know. Give her a time-out?"

Dr. Carter held open the doors as they tried to close. "Please do something. I mean I'd love to get her back for all the crap she gave me in med school. You know, she's single, and from the looks of it Mulder, you haven't gotten some in a long time. Work with it."

Scully chuckled to herself as Mulder blushed. The elevator doors slammed shut. "Okay, okay, okay." said Mulder. "When we get back to the ER I'll have her come in and examine you for something simple, like stomach pains. Then-"

"Why do I have to be examined?" Scully asked.

"Because your boyfriend Dr. Kovac is too busy fixing my leg to examine you." Mulder said. "Let me finish. Anyway, with a name like Chen, she must be Asian, so it will be easy to find her to come and take a look at you. While I distract her with my severe concerns about your condition, you call the police on your phone. Then I'll arrest her and the FBI website will be safe!" Mulder clapped his hands with excitement.

Scully nodded. She had to admit that Mulder had good plans and was devious like that. But something else puzzled her. "Now if I really did have stomach pains, would you be severely concerned?"

"Um, no." Mulder said. "You've survived situations worse than a couple of stomach pains."

Scully felt no sympathy from him. "Thanks, Mulder. Glad to know you'll be there."

Mulder gave Scully a thumbs up sign as Chuni wheeled him into an X-ray room.

After their trip to radiology, Scully and Mulder settled back into Exam Three to have Mulder's broken leg in a cast. Dr. Kovac and Abby put Mulder back together with shaky hands, hoping neither one of them wouldn't slip out any info about the salami. This resulted in a less-than-perfect cast that left Mulder to depend on crutches for six weeks.

Meanwhile at the admit desk, Dr. Dave Malucci was eating a ridiculously large sandwich made with salami. He saw Abby and Luka approaching. "Hey, Kovac! Abby! You guys want some salami? I found it in my locker, it's excellent!" Abby and Luka both shook their heads no.

Mulder watched from Exam Three for Dr. Chen. Scully took her position as "patient" on the bed.

"I see her." Mulder said. "Short hair, about 5' 8", long legs, nice figure, tight butt, big bouncy-"

"Okay!" Scully said. "I'll start moaning, you get her over here."

Mulder nodded and hobbled to Dr. Chen who was with another patient. "Excuse me, Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"My name is Fox and I came in here for a broken leg. I'm fine, but it appears that my friend is having some pretty bad stomach pains. I'm really worried, could you take a look at her?" Mulder stuck out his bottom lip like a child pouting.

Dr. Chen swooned for Mulder's boyish looks. "Of course I'll help you. Where is she?"

Mulder led her into Exam Three, where Scully was doing a bad job pretending to be in pain.

"Oh! My stomach!" Scully whined.

"When did the pain start?" Dr. Chen asked, being professional.

"Just now." Scully said, giving Mulder a look.

Dr. Chen nodded and continued her exam. "Well, we won’t know anything until we run some tests."

"Dr. Chen? Could I talk to you for a minute?" Mulder asked.

"Yes, of course."

"Please, don't hide anything from me." Mulder said. "She is my dearest friend."

"It's too early to tell." Dr. Chen explained. "We're going to need an abdominal series, a surgical consult, and possibly an ultrasound. It could be appendicitis, or just the stomach flu."

"Oh my God!" Mulder said, dramatically. "I can't bear to lose her. Not after she saved my life!"

"You two must be very close." Dr. Chen said as she touched Mulder's shoulder gently.

"We are. Dana, saved me from that awful shark attack. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here now." Mulder sniffed, and wiped a tear from his eye.

"Oh you poor thing!" Dr. Chen wrapped Mulder in a hug. "I'm so sorry to hear this!"

Mulder looked to Scully who was just turning off her phone, signalling to Mulder that it was time for her arrest.

"Hold me Dr. Chen!" Mulder said.

"Everything will be okay! I'm not going to let anything happen to your friend."

"That wont be possible." said Mulder leaving her embrace.

"What?"

"Dr. Jing-Mei Chen you are under arrest for hacking into the FBI website." Mulder slapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. How he did this while on crutches is surely a mystery.

"How did you know about that?" Dr. Chen said worriedly.

Scully jumped up, flashing her FBI badge. "We were told by Dr. Carter that you were the hacker who crashed the site. And since we work for the FBI, well...we're just not too happy about that."

"Dr. Carter told you!? That was just a dare!" Dr. Chen shouted. She struggled to get out of the handcuffs. Scully began to lead her outside where police were waiting.

"I was set up! That Carter is getting his ass kicked!" Dr. Chen yelled. "It was a scam! I'm innocent!"

"Yeah, well you can tell that to a federal judge." Mulder said. "And by the way, thanks for the hug!"

"You can't do this to me! I know tons of secrets!" Dr. Chen's voice began to fade. "Carter has a drug problem! Peter Benton makes counterfeit clothes! And Elizabeth Corday pulled the tags of her mattresses!" Dr. Chen was finally led outside. Still yelling at the top of her lungs.

Scully and Mulder's eyes widened. Mulder was the first to say something. "That is a major offence!"

"Let's go find Dr. Corday." said Scully.

Elizabeth Corday was in the Surgeon's Lounge, eating a large bar of Cadbury's chocolate her cousin had sent from Britain (no Hershey's nonsense for her!) when the door burst open and two suited figures entered the room.

Presuming that it was just the IRS after Romano for illegally selling his sperm under more than one name, she continued to leaf through her Hello! Magazine (another British import) generally checking out the Royals and whilst covertly drooling over Prince William.

However, the couple moved over towards her and hovered over Corday for a moment or two. Guiltily she took her feet down from where they rested on the coffee table and placed her precious Fruit & Nut bar down alongside Hello!.

"Yes?" she squeaked apprehensively, wondering if this was about the new labcoat she had bought and claimed as a tax deduction.

The red-haired woman flashed an identity card at Corday. "I'm Agent Scully, FBI. This is my partner Fox Mulder."

The man called Mulder raised his hand in salutation.

"What can I do for you?" Corday asked, racking her brains for reasons why the FBI were after her. The mattress tags, she realised, God damn it was the bloody mattress tags.

Scully opened her mouth, but paused as her eyes rested on the chocolate bar. "Is that British candy. Illegally imported British candy?"

Corday grabbed the foil wrapped packet protectively, "Actually, it's Cadbury's Fruit & Nut and we like to call it 'chocolate'... really, this gross generalisation you Yanks make when it comes to confectionery practically astounds me. Sweets are candy, chocolate is chocolate."

"Well excuse me," Scully huffed. "I didn't realise the British were so shirty when it came to naming *candy*."

"I didn't realise that two women could get into a bitch fight over naming chocolate," Mulder interjected. He turned to Corday; "We're here about the mattress tags."

"Bloody hell," Corday cursed under her breath. She looked at the two agents pleadingly, "I didn't know you had to keep them on, I asked my husband and he said it was OK."

"What's his name?"

Corday turned to Scully, "My husband?"

Scully was staring at an article in Hello!, "No, this *hunk*."

The British surgeon peered at the magazine and laughed. "Please tell me you're not pointing at Prince Andrew. For God's sake..."

"Your husband's name?" Mulder prompted, ignoring the two women's idle chatter.

"Mark Greene, he's an attending in the ER," Corday replied, mildly distracted by Scully's love for Prince Andrew.

Mulder grabbed Scully's arm and dragged her out of the door, "Come on, Scully. Get those little legs moving."

"Like I haven't heard that one before."

Elizabeth chased after the two agents nervously. "You're going after Mark?"

Scully nodded. "Didn't you think to stop him from doing that?"

"I didn't...well...Mark had a brain tumour!" Elizabeth said.

"What?" asked Mulder. He wasn't ready for another story.

"Mark had a brain tumour, and since his surgery, he hasn't been quite right. I did think it was weird that he ripped the tags off, but I just thought that was something that you Americans did. Like when you guys talk on cell phones in the car, or use weird slang like that awful 'wasssup' word." Elizabeth said.

Scully felt sympathy for Mark remembering her own brain tumour. "Well I guess we can let it go this one time."

"Scully, are you crazy?" Mulder asked.

"No. Mark had a severe medical condition. We can't take him away from his wife like that just for a simple mistake."

"And we have a baby girl too!" Elizabeth said, drawing all the attention on her.

"Okay," said Mulder. "I've seen enough. Elizabeth, we'll let Mark go. This has been such a crazy day! First, that tall Croatian doctor keeps sneaking around with that nurse like he's hiding something, then we catch the hacker who hacked into our website and I swear to God I've seen Leonard Betts today!"

"What?" Scully asked.

"That Romano guy. I think he's Leonard Betts." Mulder hobbled off on his crutches in the other direction from Scully.

"Mulder where are you going?" Scully asked.

"I saw his office a few doors back. I have to check it out." Mulder said.

"Can't we just go home already?" Scully looked at her watch.

"Please? Just this one thing and then we'll leave."

Scully sighed and followed Mulder. "We're not going to find anything."

Mulder ignored her and opened the door to his office. It was cluttered with files, medical charts and a big black three-ringed binder that Mulder took special interest in.

"What is that?" asked Scully.

"I don't know. Let's find out." Mulder said as he opened it up.

Mulder was flicking through the binder when there was a loud bang. Scully whirled around and drew out her handgun, ready to shot down any mad axe-man or green (or grey, she wasn't really that fussy) alien that had made that noise.

To her relief, she found nothing out of the ordinary; Mulder had closed the door with his foot and had made a bit of a noise. Nothing to get all worried about, after all.

Mulder didn't even bother to look up from his reading. "I shut the door Scully, don't get your panties in a twist."

"You never have any sort of effect on my panties, Mulder," Scully replied, her voice void of any tone of amusement.

Mulder chose to ignore the last comment and turned his attention back to the ring binder. "Oh my God!"

"What?" Scully asked, moving over so she could look at the album.

Mulder pointed at a picture stuck into the folder. "Pictures of Romano, on holiday."

"Oh God," Scully wailed.

"In trunks," Mulder added, feeling slightly nauseous at the sight of Romano in his swimming garb. No way did this guy look good in red Speedos... Mulder, on the other hand, could still carry off tight lycra, he thought smugly.

Scully continued to flick through the album with a sort of morbid fascination whilst Mulder glanced around Romano's plush office, letting his eyes roam around the room as he leant on Romano's executive-sized desk.

A TV, DVD player, state of the art sound system: no expense spared here. Leather chairs, antique china, bottles of iodine, a computer....

Mulder's head snapped around and he did a double take of the bottles of iodine lined up neatly along a sideboard next to a decanter of an expensive looking port.

"Uh, Scully, y'know when I said Romano looked like Leonard Betts," Mulder started, his eyes still fixed on the bottles of iodine.

Scully was chuckling at a photo of Romano body boarding. "Yeah, Mulder," she replied dismissively.

"Well, uh, look."

Scully turned and looked in Mulder's direction. She looked at her partner in exasperation; "Just because a guy has iodine in their office doesn't mean-"

Her voice trailed off into silence.

He looked at her in concern, "Sc-"

"Oh my God, Mulder," Scully finished, her eyes wide with realisation. "He *is* Leonard Betts."

Mulder was about to reply when there was the sound of breaking glass behind them.

Scully and Mulder jumped at the sound of the glass breaking. Scully grabbed onto Mulder's shoulder so he could protect her from any thing bad about to enter the office.

Mulder drew his gun, while still on his crutches, to a tall figure slowly entering the room.

"Federal Agent! I'm armed! Geez, Scully, let my blood circulate a little." Mulder said, as Scully loosened her grip on Mulder's shoulder.

"Sorry." Scully looked at the approaching figure. Something was geometrically incorrect about the person. It had a very round head, like a sphere. As a doctor, Scully knew that no one had a head like that. But she did know one person who did.

"Robert!" Scully shouted.

"Now, now Scully, now is not the time to be worrying over ex-boyfriends. I know Robert cheated on you, and I feel for you, but that's not important." Mulder said.

"No! It's Robert at the door!" Scully pointed in the direction of the door. Mulder turned and saw Robert standing there.

"What the hell are you two doing in my office?" Robert demanded. "Did you touch my CD player?"

"You're Leonard Betts!" Mulder said.

"What? Who's that?" Robert asked smugly.

"You!" Mulder started to argue his case when Robert stopped him.

"That's it!" Robert said. "I want you two to leave this hospital immediately. You've already arrested one doctor and the last thing I need is my whole staff in jail!"

Mulder put his gun down. "Come on Scully, let's go. We sure caused a lot of trouble and all I needed was a cast."

"Finally." Scully said under her breath.

"Wait a minute Dana." Robert said.

"What?" she asked.

"I'm sorry...but you've got something I need."

Scully's eyes widened. It was a line all too familiar for her. Her eyes flashed back to a few years ago when she had first heard it. It brought back horrible memories of her cancer.

"No. No! NO!" Scully yelled. "I don't have anything you need!"

"Dana, you've got my office key with you. I had to break the glass just to get in here. Can I have it back?" Robert asked, holding out his hand.

"Oh. I'm sorry." Scully scooted off behind Mulder, feeling sheepish.

Mulder and Scully walked off together with sullen looks on their faces. They didn't seem to accomplish anything during their stay at Cook County General other than cause trouble and paranoia among the doctors and nurses. And even worse, Skinner would be mad that they didn't complete their original assignment.

As the walked to their rental car parked outside Mulder had to interrupt their silence. "Why didn't you get Dr. Kovac's number?"

"Shut up Mulder." Scully said.

*

The End

Feedback to annadelamico@yahoo.co.uk and carebear1025@juno.com