See Part 1 for Notes and Disclaimer... 
************************************************


An orderly, who was placing fresh sheets into a linen closet down the hall, 
caught Scully's eye.  With a fierce determination spurred on by her eagerness 
to see Mulder, she persuaded the elderly woman to grant her entrance into 
Mulder's room.  She took a fleeting glance at the monitors and readied 
herself for what else she might discover about her partner's condition.

Scully wasted no more time, and pulled open the cold, metal door.  Mulder 
stood up so quickly that he had to grab the wall to maintain his equilibrium. 
 A huge smile then broke out across his face as he recognized his visitor.  
"Scully," he whispered. 

"Hi there."  Scully granted Mulder a small smile, but remained cautious.  She 
leaned against the closed door and waited for him to speak again.

"I'm not crazy, Scully," Mulder said with conviction.  He studied her 
carefully, then looked satisfied.  "I'm glad you know that."  He took a seat 
on the hard linoleum floor, and Scully followed his lead.  

"Mulder, I have a lot tell you.  So much has happened and I--"  

Mulder shook his head and offered his hand to her.  She accepted it with a 
small squeeze and drew close to him on the floor.

Suddenly Scully was overwhelmed with a rush of emotions, thoughts, images and 
sounds.  Pain, pleasure, joy, guilt, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love 
consumed her being.  She threw her head back and closed her eyes.  The 
sensations were not all necessarily unpleasant, but were contradicting each 
other and drowning her with their massive quantity.  Like an electric 
current, her hand was unable to draw away from his, and the rush continued.  
Panic surfaced, and immediately vanished when everything decreased in 
intensity.  

Scully slowly opened her eyes and looked at Mulder.  He shared an 
understanding look with her, filled with compassion and amazement.  "Oh my 
God, Mulder.  I . . ."  She allowed a tear to fall, and closed her eyes 
again. She felt as though she had just been allowed a glimpse of something 
deeper than she had ever experienced. Brief, but unfathomably powerful. They 
sat in silence, willing to let this moment between them transpire without 
comment. Scully felt his grip on her hand tighten, and she leaned to pull him 
into her embrace. She moved her hands softly across his back, letting her 
head be supported by his right shoulder. They remained this way for several 
moments, Scully reluctantly pulling back in order to organize her thoughts. 
She still felt slightly dizzy from the range of emotions she had experienced 
after entering Mulder's proximity. She noticed that these same emotions had 
returned to a stable level, and wondered if this was due in part to his own 
new found tranquility. She decided she needed to know exactly what was going 
on in that head of his. "Mulder..."

"Scully." He replied, moist eyes betraying the wry grin crossing his lips.

"How are you feeling?" She asked lamely, at a loss to figure out the tactful 
way to ask if her partner if he was legitimately insane.

"Well, despite residing in a padded cell and feeling as though I have a mass 
transit system inside my head, not bad. They feed me my meals through that 
slot on regular intervals, and I martian mind meld sports trivia questions to 
the guy in the next room. I could get used to it, actually."

That earned a full grin from Scully. Mulder was definitely still in there. 
"Do you win?"

"He never answers."

"Ah."

"You need to get me out of here, Scully." Mulder stated with no hint of 
equivocation. "I don't need to be confined. We have to figure out exactly why 
this is happening to me."

Scully sighed, crossing her legs in front of her. She didn't know how to 
respond. Ten minutes ago Mulder had been rocking and mumbling incoherently. 
She wasn't at all certain that another spell wouldn't occur outside her 
presence. Short of strapping a toddler harness on him she was at a loss about 
how to make sure he wouldn't have another violent episode. "The staff here 
would never allow it. They want to make sure this is...taken care of...before 
your release." 

Mulder placed his hands on her shoulders, pinning her with his eyes. "I don't 
want this to be 'taken care of.'  I want to pursue it. What if this holds 
some of the answers, Scully? What if I was meant to have this reaction to the 
artifact?"

"I still don't know what this reaction is, Mulder! Telepathy? Psychic 
transference? schizophrenia?" Scully stood up and paced several steps toward 
the wall. "All I know is that you rotate between what appears to be acute 
anxiety and a heightened state of lucidity. Can you control this at all? Are 
you in my mind right now?"

"No. It's almost as though I  can *sense* your inner emotions, but I can't 
read your thoughts. At least I don't think I can. There always seems to be 
some kind of interference. Like heavy static of some kind." He shook his head 
lightly as if to clear it.

"Why have you been so resistant to the doctors? By their description you have 
been a threat to anyone who has been within ten feet of you in the last three 
days."

"It's not..." 

Scully lept forward as Mulder grasped his head between both hands, kneeling 
slowly in quiet agony. He fell on his side, uttering a series of low moans. 
Her countenance lost all semblance of composure as she reached desperately 
for the door handle. Finding it locked, she pressed the black emergency 
button to the right of the frame. A loud buzz was quickly followed by the 
sound of an attendant on the other side. The door swung outward.  Scully 
grabbed the attendant's shoulders and directed him out of the room.  "Get the 
doctor in charge. NOW."

"But ma'am, the doctor's not --"

"Go now!  If he's experiencing some sort of abnormal hypertension, it could 
lead to an aneurysm.  I don't care what you have to do to get the doctor 
here, but make it happen.  Fast."  

Scully made sure the attendant was on his way, then returned to Mulder.  
"Mulder.  Mulder, can you hear me?  If you can hear me, I need you to try and 
relax.  I know it hurts, Mulder."  Mulder's complexion only turned a deeper 
shade of red, and his face tightened further with pain.  He showed no outward 
signs of comprehension, other than grasping her forearm.

Luckily, Mulder's specialist must have been inside the building after all.  
He barged into the room with a small bag, rather than a whole cart of medical 
equipment.  Scully backed up from her partner and let the doctor examine him. 
 She looked on as he extracted a syringe and injected something into Mulder's 
arm. He gradually went limp, and his short and labored breathing smoothed 
out.  The doctor began checking his vitals, and Scully took the opportunity 
to reflect.  Although she was relieved, both curiosity and suspicion prompted 
her to ask what exactly he had just used.

"Do you mind me asking what sedative that was?"

"Barbiturate.  You a doctor?"

"Yes.  What kind of barbiturate?"

"Phenobarbital."

"Has this happened before?  Do you know exactly what causes it to happen?"

"Yes, twice.  And . . . I'm sorry, Miss . . ."

"Agent Scully.  I'm his partner."

"I'm sorry, Agent Scully.  But I'm afraid I can't release this much 
information about my patients under these circumstances.  If you'd like to 
make an appointment . . ."

"No, I understand.  But his charts might help me out a lot.  Do you mind?"

"No problem, they're beside the monitors outside.  And Agent Scully, don't 
wake him tonight.  Sleep seems to be a rare occurrence for him, and it might 
be an important factor in his recovery.  We would help him out, but if I keep 
administering sedatives in such high dosages we run the risk of inducing coma 
or addicting him.  So the rest he does get is precious."

"Well, that's certainly nothing out of the ordinary.  Thanks for your help."  
Scully smiled warmly at the doctor as he left her alone with Mulder.  She ran 
her fingers through his hair before leaving him alone for the night.  
Hopefully his charts would give her some insight as to why he collapsed three 
times from such an elusive pain. 

She closed the door as quietly as possible, and scanned the outer room for a 
clipboard with the necessary information attached.  However, there was only 
an abandoned nail on the wall -- lacking any chart.  Scully then saw the 
fresh cigarette-butt on the ground.  Under the "No smoking" sign.  How 
typical and utterly annoying.  That really is a disgusting and unstimulating 
calling card.  Now she'd have to do this the hard way.  Naturally.  Could 
nothing be simple in their lives?


Georgetown Memorial Hospital
22 May 1999
2:17 AM EST

After two hours of printing medical charts and consulting with Mulder's 
physician, Scully had indeed come to the conclusion that in fact nothing 
could be simple in their lives. Since most of the handwritten documentation 
made by the doctors and nurses had vanished with the original, it required 
much input to piece the details of his stay together. Fortunately the most 
vital information was kept in the computerized files; the only thing missing 
was the observations of the off hour attendants. Since the common censensus 
was that change in his demeanor was minimal, Scully was able to let herself 
relax in the knowledge that she had a fairly decent grasp on the situation. 
Bidding the staff goodnight she poured herself another cup of coffee from the 
stale carafe in the lounge. Sipping the hot liquid she let her thoughts drift 
again to the situation at hand. She felt confident that Mulder was protected, 
for now at least.

However...

What she wasn't so sure about was the reason for it or the people behind the 
attempted coverup. She was almost positive that C.G.B had been there; she had 
seen too much to doubt his motivations or his presence. But why? She couldn't 
seem to correlate in her mind how this could be connected to what they had 
experienced before. Again her mind ran through the gamut of possibilities. 
She would be naive to think there wasn't some kind of connection to Gibson 
Praise. Increased brain activity, the apparent telepathy-like ability...It 
all added up. She couldn't, however, begin to understand it rationally yet. 
Glancing at the PET scan even briefly she found it easy to recognize areas of 
heightened activity near his cingulate cortex. From a chemical standpoint she 
could see definitively that this was in part a physical reaction, but 
telepathy?

< ...more human than human.> 

Scully returned to full alertness as Mulder's statement of a year ago rang 
back in her head. That had to be the key. The artifact must have had some 
kind of physical effect on him that essentially turned on a part of the brain 
not generally activated in a normal physiological state. She had heard 
Mulder's theories, but not until now did the implications of them really hit 
home. Someone, somewhere must know the secrets behind this. Why it happened. 
How it could be controlled. Someone had gone to lengths to steal the 
charts...To steal *Gibson*.  She had to find some truth behind this, and 
although C.G.B and his acquaintances might be unattainable, she had a pretty 
good idea where to find someone who was.

She had to pay a visit to Diana Fowley.

*****Continued in part 3*****