Title - Bardo
Author - Darwin
Email address - Darwin_xf@yahoo.com
Rating - R
Category - MSR
Spoilers - all things, SR 819
Keywords - MSR
Summary - Fills a gap.
Feedback - Please. Note new email.
Archive - Anywhere, just let me know so 
that I can visit.
Disclaimer - Not mine.  
 
     He was dawdling in that bardo that 
divides waking consciousness from sleep, 
vaguely aware of his surroundings: his 
junky bedroom, dartboard, back issues of 
UFO Casebook, stratum of dress shirts 
draped over an uncomfortable chair. He 
was tired, but reluctant to let go of the here 
and now, her leg hooked over his hip, how 
salty and complex she smelled, the scritch 
of her pubic hair on his thigh where she 
opened against him like a wound, like a 
flower. She was immediate and real and 
he wanted to stay for a bit longer, but he 
was drifting out the window, moving out 
over the city, watching it decelerate and 
dim for the night. He climbed higher until 
the land was indistinct, then higher still, 
kicking out toward a beyond he couldn't 
completely imagine, as often as he'd tried. 
Next to him, Scully's breathing deepened 
as she too slid toward sleep, midnight.  

     It was where he had been dwelling that 
night a few weeks before, teetering 
between worlds, when he became aware 
of a presence in the bed next to him 
exerting a gravity all out of proportion to 
her mass, pulling him back toward where 
she was. He opened his eyes. Scully lay 
top of the covers, propped up on her 
elbow, watching him.  

     He had tucked her in with his ratty 
Navajo blanket on the couch a while 
before, which she'd shed. He figured 
she'd wake up with a stiff neck and head 
home without so much as leaving him a 
note dashed off in her doctor's script 
saying bye. Yet here she was, if he could 
believe it, slashed with moonlight filtering 
through the blinds, equal parts riddle, 
green cashmere, invitation. She blinked 
slowly. Once. Twice. The stillness she had 
grown to inhabit lately was palpable, 
somehow animal, the opposite of his 
frenetic speed. It grounded him utterly.  

     "Hello earthling," he said. 

     "Hey," she said back.
  
     As she had moved toward him, he 
moved toward her. He closed the gap that 
remained between them, crooked his 
elbow behind her neck, found her mouth 
and sealed it with his own.

     Monday, two weeks later, back at 
work after a weekend spent mostly in bed, 
working next to her but not being allowed 
to touch her for ten consecutive hours had 
been akin to some arcane, draconian 
deprivation torture. Since returning to his 
place they had remained in more or less 
constant contact, not bothering even to eat 
the burritos they had picked up on the way 
home, barely noticing their phones when 
they chirped. He was spent, just about to 
tumble into oblivion when he heard a 
tapping at his door. Soft, but unmistakable.  

     He suspected the downstairs 
neighbor. What was his name? Frank. A 
few minutes before his headboard had 
been slapping violently against the wall 
during one particularly vigorous and goal-
oriented moment in their intimacy, one 
more thing to which they had remained 
oblivious. The guy, never the friendly sort, 
was probably still peevish in the wake of 
the whole waterbed thing. Mulder held his 
breath and hoped whoever it was would 
go away. 
 
     Then another knock, slightly more 
insistent. Not going away. He'd have to 
say sorry to this guy. Even though he 
wasn't. Not that he was glad to be 
disturbing the neighbors, but, you know. 
Worth it. He climbed out of bed, tucked the 
covers around Scully who was beginning 
to stir, kissed her ear. He pulled on some 
jeans, wedged his holstered gun between 
his waistband and his spine because you 
never knew, and went to see what was 
what.  

     He peered through the peephole 
and immediately recognized the set of the 
shoulders inside the overcoat, 
simultaneously apologetic and 
authoritative, the thick neck and blunt 
profile as he swiveled his head, casing the 
hallway. Skinner.

     He opened the door.  
	
     "Sir?"
	
     "Agent Mulder."  

     They regarded one another for a 
moment. Mulder knew he should be 
alarmed, what with the very off-limits 
Scully a post-coital, ectoplasmic tangle in 
his bedroom, the door to which was not 
even closed, the air fogged with the tang 
of their sex, him still shirtless, their boss at 
the door. They were, quite possibly, 
busted. Yet Mulder stood there, not quite 
processing, sporting an expression not 
unlike that of an exsanguinated cow.

     "Can I come in?"  Skinner finally 
asked.
	
     "Sure," Mulder said mildly, 
apparently recovering his capacity for 
speech as well as action.  He opened the 
door and Skinner brushed by him.
	
     "What's going on?" Mulder asked 
as he groped toward the end table where 
he set down his gun, switched on a lamp.
	
     "I may be involved in a bit of a... 
situation," Skinner said, sinking down into 
the leather armchair.  
 
     Mulder slid onto the couch and 
discovered, wedged between the 
cushions, his undershirt Scully had peeled 
from his frame a few hours before. He 
pulled it on. At the moment his head 
popped through the neck hole, it occurred 
to him to wonder where her clothes were. 
He looked around, trying to be casual 
about it, and then he remembered: she'd 
undressed in the bedroom that evening. 
Dumb luck.  But. Her purse was underneath 
the coffee table. Her coat hung companionably 
next to his on his coat rack. Whatever Skinner 
wanted, it wouldn't take Herculean leaps of 
deductive reasoning on his part to figure out 
at least that Mulder hadn't been passing this 
evening alone. 

     Fortunately Skinner eyeballing 
some printouts he'd brought with him. He 
seemed too preoccupied to have absorbed 
much of the data contained in his surroundings 
as of yet. Whatever Walter wanted, Mulder 
hoped to get rid of him before that changed.

     "Do you happen to know where 
Agent Scully is?" Skinner asked, looking 
up from the file he was holding.

     Shit. Questions were supposed to 
start easy and get harder. That was how it 
worked on quiz shows. Mulder looked at 
Skinner levelly and carefully selected the 
next words that came out of his mouth. "I 
can't say that I do, Sir."

     "Because I've been trying to reach 
her.  When I couldn't get her on the phone, 
I went by her place. She didn't seem to be 
there." 

     "Could she have been sleeping?"

     "I made some noise. Woke a 
neighbor. I really need to find her."

     "Is it something I can help you 
with?"

     "I don't know. I need to talk to her 
first." 

     "What's going on?"

     "Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. I was 
having a beer with a friend tonight. A man 
who possesses a high security clearance 
in the NSA and sometimes serves as a 
contact for me. We share information, as 
necessary. Have for years. He's someone 
I trust. We served together in Vietnam."   

     Mulder nodded.   

     "We were watching the Redskins 
get beat. When he got up to go to the 
bathroom, he fell back onto his barstool, 
dizzy. He seemed okay, but when he 
came back, he was having trouble seeing 
the game."

     "Was he drunk?"

     "No. Never has more than two 
beers."

     "I see," Mulder said.  He was 
beginning to see. "You're worried he's 
infected with the same virus that you were 
last year?"  

     Skinner nodded.

     "Those were your initial symptoms 
exactly." Mulder's speed of cognition 
seemed to have been restored. "What 
happened next? Where is he now?" 

     "I took him to Memorial Hospital. 
They examined him and admitted him, did 
some preliminary blood work and an EKG. 
The EKG was fine, but they said there was 
an issue with the way the blood was 
clotting." 

     Skinner's chin was tucked and he 
was shaking his head ruefully as he 
spoke. Mulder knew that feeling, the 
helpless one you get when the people you 
love get badly hurt and you're vaguely 
certain that it's your fault somehow. And 
just when it would seem that you're just being 
grandiose or paranoid, but it turns out it 
is your fault. Sort of. Mulder himself 
liked to bitch out medical professionals, 
insult family members of the afflicted, plot 
revenge, and/or throw stuff around at a 
moment like this. He admired Skinner's 
restraint. 

     "Is that the blood work?" Mulder asked, 
gesturing the folder 

     "Yes. I have no idea if this clotting 
problem my friend is having is anything 
like the clotting problem I was having. I 
don't know enough about medicine to 
decipher what this says, even. Since 
Agent Scully followed my case so closely 
when I was sick, I was hoping she might 
take a look. I'm going to try her again." 

     He pulled out his cell phone and 
placed the call.   

     Mulder's mind whirred. Even if this 
man had been infected with the same 
stuff Skinner had, how could they help 
him? It remained a mystery how Skinner 
had recovered, after all. He wanted to quiz 
Skinner about that some more, but the 
problem of Scully, contraband Scully, 
happily snoozing in his bed a few short 
feet away, occupied him completely. He 
needed two contradictory things:  to keep 
their secret, and to get these test results 
into her hands, ASAP. On the one hand, 
what would Skinner do if he found out? 
Split them up? Mulder had no idea. The 
other? No small thing, a man's life.  

     Skinner left another message on 
Scully's answering machine.

     "Not home," he said, slipping his 
phone into his overcoat pocket.

     Mulder sat there silently, nodding, 
tapping his fingers on his knee.

     Skinner had relaxed a bit after 
spilling his story. He looked around the 
room for the first time. His eyes lingered 
on the coat rack, wandered back toward 
the couch and noted the purse on the 
floor. There were two water glasses, one 
smudged with lipstick, on the coffee table. 
And next to the water glasses, cell 
phones. Two. Side by side. Skinner 
leveled Mulder with a cool stare.  

     "Maybe I should try her cell again." 
Skinner said evenly, pointing almost 
imperceptibly with his chin toward the 
coffee table. 

     "Maybe." Mulder said in voice that 
sounded very far away, even to him, and 
studied his bare feet.

     "That won't be necessary, Sir," 
Scully said, having materialized at the 
very moment Mulder most wanted to 
disappear, his anti-matter, his love, he 
couldn't help but greet her with a grateful 
smile. She sat down next to him on the 
couch and shot him one wide-eyed, 
incredulous look before doing her best to 
assume a professional posture. She had 
managed to pull on most of her work 
clothes, but her hair, hastily tucked behind 
her ears, was unmistakably sexed up. 
Skinner suddenly seemed intrigued by 
Mulder's fish tank.  

     "I think I got most of that." Scully 
said, addressing Skinner.  "Are those the 
lab reports?"  
 
     Her voice was thick with sex 
and sleep, but her movements were crisp 
as she accepted the file Skinner handed 
her. Her neck was red where it had been 
abraded by Mulder's late night stubble. 
Her lips were looking very, very kissed.    

     As Scully reviewed the results, 
Mulder's curiosity overcame his 
embarrassment and he peppered Skinner 
with questions about this contact, and just 
what kind of information he provided 
Skinner with, who might have a reason to 
want to hurt this man. Scully interrupted 
his questions with her own.

     "Were you there when the Doctor 
examined your friend?"

     "Yes.  I stayed with him."

     "Did you notice a bruise of the sort 
that you had on your ribcage when you 
became ill."

     "No.  And I looked him over pretty 
carefully, too. I was dreading I'd find one."

     "Good," Scully said.  That bruise 
and the veining that emanates from it 
seems to me to be the hallmark of the 
condition you developed."

     "Uh huh.  But what about the 
dizziness, and the vision problems?"
 
     "Those symptoms can be caused 
by a myriad of problems, one of which is 
an ischemic stroke.  The clotting problems 
indicated in this blood work can cause this 
type of cerebral event, which might occur 
when the blood has trouble clotting. The 
problem you had was that your blood 
clotted too readily, became sticky.  
Furthermore, your condition was caused 
by a contaminant in your blood, a foreign 
pathogen. That's a very different 
phenomenon from what I'm seeing here." 

     "So, you don't think my friend is 
infected with this thing?"

     "I think your friend had a garden 
variety stroke, and if he didn't lose 
consciousness probably a mild one. They 
are pretty common among men in his 
demographic. Did they order an MRI?"
 
     "They're doing that right now," 
Skinner said. 

     "I think they will find a subdural 
bleed. It's quite serious, but there are 
good ways to treat for this. I can't say for 
sure, but I suspect his prognosis is 
reasonably good." 
	
     Skinner leaned back in his chair 
and exhaled.  "That comes as quite a 
relief."
	
     Mulder realized he was smiling 
idiotically, like a kid on his birthday, and 
ordered his face to resume displaying its 
customary deadpan expression.  
	
     "Do you want me to head down to 
Memorial and examine him, just to be 
sure?"
	
     "No.  Not if you're pretty confident in 
what you're seeing there.  That shouldn't 
be necessary.  And thank you, Agent 
Scully. I can't tell you how relieved I am."
	
     "You're welcome, Sir. I'm glad to be 
of help."
	
     An awkward silence settled among 
the three of them. 
	
     "Well," Skinner said, standing up. 

     "I'm going to get going. It was fortunate for 
me to find the two of you together.  
Working late."
	
     "Yes, indeed," Mulder said.  "That's 
us.  Always workin'"
	
     Scully pinned him with a sharp 
look. She was right, of course, a gift horse 
and all that. Still, he couldn't keep himself 
from gloating a little. He shut up.  

     Skinner stood up and Mulder rose 
to accompany him to the door. Scully 
followed close behind them. 
	
     "Are you going back to the hospital, 
Sir?"
	
     "Yeah, I think I'll head back over 
there, see how he's doing."
	
     "Give me a call if they didn't find a 
brain bleed on the MRI." Scully said.
	
     "Yeah, I will." Skinner said, opening 
the door and turning around to face 
Mulder and Scully. "I'll call your cell 
phone."
	
     "That might be the best way to get 
in touch with me," she said, nodding.    
Skinner gave them a bemused look, pursing 
his lips and shaking his head.  

     As soon as they closed the door 
and Skinner was out of earshot, Mulder went to 
grab her, but she shoved him in the chest.

     "Always workin'?" she said.

	He tried to smile apologetically, but 
kind of shrugged in the end. 

     They sat at his rarely used table 
and ate their burritos, Scully making 
sour faces and plucking shards of 
cilantro from her food, mumbling about her 
Nordic anscstors and Gregor Mendel.  
 
     "Did you the name cilantro comes 
from the Greek word for bedbug?" Mulder asked.

     "Are you coming on to me?" Scully said.

     Soon they were back in bed and 
Mulder was drifting again, swimming 
pleasantly in space and time. This liminal 
place between awake and asleep used to 
unsettle him. He'd finally quiet his 
galloping mind and twitchy body sufficiently 
so that he might start to nod off 
in front of the TV, and in a flash become 
aware that he was, in fact, moving, a 
single, singular dot among many in a 
whirling, inchoate universe. Feeling dizzy 
and hopelessly lost, he'd jerk awake 
myoclonically, pulse pounding, and have 
to start the process of falling all over 
again. 

     He liked it there lately, though, in 
the in between, feeling free to explore 
this place where questions were more important 
than answers, where the past, present, 
and future seemed to collapse and spin, 
where nothing was truly lost to him, or 
found. It felt good. It felt like his natural 
habitat.