Chapter Eight

San Juan Medical Center
Farmington, NM
Thursday, 8:40 am

Scully woke with her heart in her mouth to the frantic shriek of alarms going off in the next cubicle. Mulder's life support machinery beeped tranquilly before her, but the adrenaline rush refused to let go. She had to get up and check his vitals herself before she could begin to calm down. It was a hell of a way to greet the day.

"Rise and shine, Mulder." She leaned down and kissed his forehead, resting her cheek against his cool skin for a moment. He needed another blanket, she decided, and headed out to find one.

All hands were busy with the patient next door, so the nurses' station was empty. As she made her way to the supplies closet down the hall, her bladder made its presence known. She took a few extra moments in the restroom to wash off the remnants of her makeup and make a stab at finger-combing her hair. Continuing on to the closet, she found a thick blanket, then started back to Mulder's room. The tantalizing scent of fresh-brewed coffee prompted a second detour to the nurses' lounge.

She set the coffee down on the shelf just inside the door of Mulder's room where the nurses kept his chart. When she looked back at Mulder, she dropped the blanket at her feet.

His eyes were wide open and his heart monitor was climbing into the stratosphere.

"We need help in here!" She called back out to the empty station as she dashed to Mulder, pressing the call button for good measure before she grabbed his shoulders. "You're on a vent, Mulder. You know the drill. Calm down and we'll get you off of it as soon as possible. Let the machine do the work."

She knew he was trying, but his body had other ideas. The cardiac monitor began to wail as his pulse rate passed 150 on its way to full arrest. Scully pressed the call button again and kept reassuring him with words and touches.

She was on the brink of pulling the damn thing herself when the flurry of activity moved from next door to Mulder's side.

The room filled up quickly and she had no choice but to step out of the way.

The machine was detached immediately, but they left the tube in place to assess his ability to breathe on his own. She could hear him trying to talk around the tube, but her view was blocked by the crash team.

The alarms went abruptly silent, and she heard Mulder gagging. They were pulling the tube, thank God. A moment later, the crowd parted and she could see him again, red- faced with exertion and panic. His eyes were darting frantically over the faces crowding his bed. When his gaze found hers, he mouthed her name, and she all but knocked the others to the floor getting to him.

"You're okay, Mulder. Try to relax. I'm right here." She took up her new mantra, repeating it as the crash team gathered their equipment and filed out of the room to await the next crisis.

"What am I doing here?" His voice was scratchy, and it obviously hurt him to talk.

"Save your voice, Mulder. I think I can anticipate your questions." She filled a glass and held it to his lips. "Small sips. Go easy."

He took one good drink and turned his head away. "What happened?"

She sighed and set the glass down on the bedside table. "I woke up in the desert last night. You were lying a few yards away, unable to move. I got you into the Jeep and we came here by helicopter. You had--" It hit her with the force of a physical blow. "Mulder, your face... " He gave her an odd look, but all she could see was the evenness of his mouth. She grabbed his hands. "Squeeze my hands as hard as you can."

He squeezed, and his grip was equally painful on both sides. "Okay, that's good. You can stop squeezing." She extracted her fingers from his and moved to the end of the bed. Whipping the blankets out of the way, she pressed her hands against the soles of his feet. "Now, push against my hands with the balls of your feet."

Equal on both sides, and strong. She knew she must be grinning like an idiot.

"Wanna tell me what's going on?" He returned her smile with perfect symmetry on both sides, but his forehead wrinkled in confusion.

She came back and sat down on the bed. "I have no idea how, but you seem to have recovered completely in the space of six hours."

"Recovered from what?"

Before she could answer, a man's voice drew their attention to the door. "Well, this is a pleasant surprise." It was Dr. Warren, and his smile was as puzzled as Mulder's. "Mind if I check you over?" He came into the room and repeated Scully's exam, shaking his head in wonder each time Mulder performed as requested. Finally, he tucked the sheets back at the foot of the bed and folded his arms over his chest. "How do you feel?"

"My throat's sore, and I'd like to know what I'm doing here. Otherwise, I'm fine."

"You're here," the doctor began, "because you couldn't breathe on your own, among other things. You presented in the ER early this morning with--"

"Dr. Warren, if it's all right with you, I would like to tell him myself." She gave him a conciliatory smile and hoped for the best.

Warren nodded. "No problem. I'll be in my office if you need me, writing up my journal article." He looked at Mulder for a moment, then walked out of the room, still shaking his head.

Mulder was looking at her when she turned back. "So, tell me."

"What do you remember?"

He huffed impatiently, then winced at the stress it put on his abused throat. It pleased her to no end when he reached over and got the water glass himself. After a long sip, he handed it to her. "I remember standing in front of the bar, loading the Jeep. Reading the map while you drove." He squinted, searching his memory for more. "It was a dirt road... " He shrugged. "That's it."

It was more than she'd expected. "You were showing signs of neurological trauma, Mulder. Paralysis on the right side, slurred speech, vision problems, pain on the left side of your head."

Mulder dropped his chin and zeroed in on her eyes. "That sounds like a stroke."

"It does, but it wasn't. And before you ask, I don't know what was really going on. I can only guess that we had another encounter with whoever took your memory."

"It must mean we were close to finding Eric, or the ring. Or both."

"I would have to agree."

He studied her face. "And you're okay?"

"Other than a headache that doesn't want to let go, and a few hours of my memory that seem to be missing, I'm fine."

"Like before."

"I don't remember a headache last time..." And suddenly she was faced with a whole raft of questions that should have occurred to her long before this. "We woke up back in D.C. How did we get there?"

"I assume that's a rhetorical question. Because if it's not, you are really asking the wrong person."

"Maybe it didn't even happen out here." She saw the stricken expression on his face, but kept following the thought. "It could have started here, but maybe we were followed back to D.C. and attacked there."

"Or anywhere in between," he said softly.

"No, Mulder. The only reason I'm considering D.C. a possibility is that I can't imagine how we were transported that distance after the... procedure. I don't think we have to include everywhere in between."

He sighed. "Then we have twice the area to cover, and we can't afford to waste any more time. I need to get out of here."

It shouldn't have surprised her, but somehow did. "Mulder, I don't think you realize how serious your condition was just an hour ago. We don't even know what caused--"

"Yes, we do," he cut in. "The answer is out there, not here." He gave the mattress a frustrated thump.

She found Dr. Warren in his office a few minutes later. Not surprisingly, he thought she'd taken leave of her senses, but he listened to her reasons. He agreed to discharge Mulder within the hour. Her cynical side pointed out that continuing to treat a patient in Mulder's current condition would demand long, fruitless battles with the managed care nazis, and Dr.Warren had no doubt taken that fact into consideration. Regardless, it was a refreshingly painless process.

Mulder's clothing had been unceremoniously cut from his body in the ER, which left the practical problem of what he was going to wear out of the hospital. "I'll go to the motel and pick up a change of clothes for you. I'll be back in half an hour."

"I'd rather not give them time to change their minds. Can't I just wear what I had on?"

Scully extracted the plastic bag marked "Patient's Belongings" from the closet and dumped the contents on the bed.

His eyes widened. "Get back here as soon as you can, okay?"

She didn't remember that the Jeep was still in Nageezi until she started looking for it in the parking lot. When she headed back inside, feeling like an idiot, there was a standard issue blue sedan idling at the curb in a 'no parking' zone just outside the door. The driver's side window hummed down as she approached, releasing a blast of cooled air that smelled of Old Spice and stale cigarette smoke.

"Agent Scully?" The man behind the wheel was middle-aged with close-cropped light hair. He flipped open the familiar black ID wallet. "I'm Special Agent Alan Gillespie with the Bureau agency office. My SAC sent me here to talk with you."

She stepped back and Agent Gillespie got out of his car. "I called ICU a few minutes ago and they said you were on your way back to the motel. Has... anything happened to Agent Mulder?"

"He's being discharged. I was going back to the motel, but I just realized the Jeep is parked in Nageezi."

"That's over an hour from here. I could give you a lift to the motel and send someone after the car, if you like."

She heard the passenger door lock click open. "Thank you." She walked around the car and got in. "I appreciate this."

Gillespie put the car in gear. "SAC Stonecross in Albuquerque sent me to help out until reinforcements arrive. He said you and Agent Mulder had been assaulted, and that Agent Mulder was in critical condition. That's obviously no longer the case."

Reinforcements. Of course. Skinner would have contacted the local field office to assist them until his arrival. She should have called him. "He's much better."

The car moved out onto the highway, heading for the Red Mesa without her having to tell him. "You haven't asked where we're staying."

"A.D. Skinner called me from somewhere over Kansas. He told me I'd probably find you at the hospital, but that you were staying at the Red Mesa." After a moment, he added, "I'm a little surprised that you didn't contact me yourself when you came to town. I think I could have saved you a lot of grief."

Scully turned in the seat to look at him. "How's that?"

"You're here on the missing persons case, right? Eric Hosteen? Well, he's just the most recent in a long line of similar cases I've been accumulating data on for the past eleven years. I could have helped you avoid what apparently happened to your partner, for starters."

"We didn't know there was an agency office in Farmington." It probably wouldn't have mattered if they had. Following protocol would have been very low on Mulder's list of priorities. "And it was more of a personal investigation, to be honest."

Gillespie's eyebrows went up. "You have a personal interest in this case?"

She did a quick assessment of the man's trustworthiness and decided she didn't have enough information. "We've met Eric Hosteen."

"So, someone contacted you?"

"Yes."

The man frowned. "Look, Agent Scully, I'm on your side, okay? No matter what you have to say, I promise that it's not going to surprise me. I've heard about the cases you and Agent Mulder work, and I think I know where this is going." He checked his mirrors and changed lanes for the next turn. "I'll let you decide how much you can tell me after you see my files."

The rest of the ride passed in silence. When they reached the motel, he asked her the specific location of the Jeep, then got on his cell phone. Scully left him in the car and went on to the room. When she came back to the car, Gillespie was standing next to it, smoking a cigarette. He immediately donned an apologetic wince and jettisoned the butt.

"I've got someone bringing your Jeep back to the motel. Should be here in about two hours." He seemed to be making an effort to exhale the excess smoke away from her direction.

"Thank you. That should work out fine. If Mulder's still feeling up to it, I know he'll want to stop by your office and see the files."

When they walked into Mulder's room twenty minutes later, the bed was not only empty, but stripped down to the mattress. Scully stopped so suddenly that Gillespie ran into her.

"What--?" Gillespie wondered aloud, but Scully had already stepped around him back to the nurses' station.

She found a familiar face from this morning. "Where have you moved my partner? Fox Mulder, he was in that bed when I left less than an hour ago."

"Dr. Warren sent him down for another CT. I imagine they'll just discharge him from Imaging." Her tone was exaggeratedly calm in counter to Scully's.

Scully took a breath. "I'm sorry. I thought something might have happened to him."

The nurse smiled apologetically. "Housekeeping got a little ahead of themselves this morning, but he won't be needing that bed, even if they keep him another day. He's fine." She touched Scully's shoulder gently and went back to her paperwork.

They found him fidgeting in a chair outside Diagnostic Imaging. Someone had found him a robe, but underneath was the too-small hospital gown he'd been wearing when she left.

"Have you seen Dr. Warren?" was his first question. "I need to get out of here before they think of something else to irradiate." His hair was still damp, smoothed flat to his head from a recent shower, but he hadn't shaved.

"Not yet, but I'm sure he'll be here shortly. Mulder, this is Agent Gillespie from the Farmington agency office."

Mulder stood up and offered his hand. "Agency office?"

"I'll explain later. Find a restroom and get dressed. I'll look for the doctor." Scully handed him the clothes. Mulder went off in one direction, Scully in the other, leaving Agent Gillespie to fend for himself.

When Scully returned, Mulder was dressed and talking with Agent Gillespie. Dr. Warren had been reviewing the scans when Scully found him. Apparently he'd been satisfied with what he found, because he finally signed Mulder out. At least, there would be no insurance hassles from an AMA discharge.

"Scully, we have to stop at Agent Gillespie's office," Mulder pre-empted her question. "He has some files I'd like to take a look at." There was some residual gruffness in his voice from the respirator, but he was otherwise disturbingly normal.

"I thought you might."

The trip to Gillespie's office was so brief that she wondered why they hadn't walked. The office itself was a storefront, one-room affair with a couple of desks behind a low wood railing, a unisex bathroom at the rear and a line of chairs out front for customers. Scully imagined that the majority of those chairs were usually empty, which might explain why Agent Gillespie found the time to compile folders on eleven-year-old cases that had already been resolved.

Gillespie set them up on either side of the spare desk and plunked a stack of folders between them. "Any questions, just holler. Most of my notes are typed, but you might have trouble with my shorthand." He grinned, then pulled up a chair to watch them read.

The cases were impressively documented, Scully soon discovered. Photographs, interviews, even some bits of evidence taken from the subjects' clothing and the areas they last recalled. The more recent cases contained the most data, but even the earlier ones had been given a great deal of attention. "Agent Gillespie, I--"

"Alan, please," he interjected.

"Alan, then. I was wondering how you managed to get all of this old case information. None of them were FBI jurisdiction."

He sat back, chest puffed out a bit. "I put it together myself. No one in this town pays any attention to these kinds of cases anymore. Been going on for more than fifty years. Every four or five years, give or take, somebody wanders off and then reappears a few days or a week or a month later, thinking it's only been a few hours. Nobody even blinks."

Mulder looked up from his file. "This woman, Helen Minton. She was the first?"

Alan nodded. "She's quite a character, too. The last time I talked with her, she was on her way to a white water rafting vacation with her grandsons." He chuckled at the memory.

Mulder put down the file. "You talked to her? When was this?"

"Four years ago, just after the last disappearance. She's got insights into the cases that nobody else wants to hear. She said I'm the first one who listened to her without suggesting psychiatric treatment. Believe me, the lady doesn't need it."

"Is she still alive?" Scully calculated dates. "She'd have to be in her late seventies."

Alan Gillespie laughed out loud. "Seventy-two, but don't let her hear you talk like that. She'll drag out her competition shooting medals."

Mulder's eyes lit up. "Could we talk to her? Is she still in the area?"

"She's the only one who is, except for Eric Hosteen. All the rest have moved away or died."

Not surprisingly, Mulder wanted to call her immediately. "I think we should read the rest of the cases, Mulder. We also don't have a ride yet." She looked to Gillespie for confirmation, but he was holding out his car keys.

"You go on ahead. Your Jeep will be back here in an hour or so. I'll call you when it shows up and you can either come back here or I'll meet you at the motel. Either way, I can walk home from here."

He was smiling a little too broadly for Scully's taste, but she accepted the keys. "You think she has something useful to add?"

Mulder was on his feet, heading for the back door. Alan Gillespie jerked his head in Mulder's direction. "Your partner thinks so. I think you will too, once you talk to her." He wrote down directions on a piece of scratch paper. "I'll give Helen a call and let her know you're coming. She'll probably grill you at the door, but I promise it's gonna be an experience you won't want to miss."

Helen Minton lived in a small log home with a porch that spanned the front and faced the San Juan River just across the road. As Mulder and Scully came up the wooden steps, she opened the front door but made no immediate move to open the screen door. "You the folks Alan called me about? I'd like to see some identification." Her voice was strong and steady.

They each flipped open their badges, and Helen peered at them through the dark screen as Scully introduced herself and Mulder.

"Alan said you two would appreciate hearing my story. I'll talk to you, but the first time either of you says the word 'crazy' or anything close to it, you're out the door." She unlatched the screen and stepped back, letting them in. "And you have to promise that you'll stop looking for Eric."

They both stopped and looked at her. Scully said, "We can't do that until we find him. Are you saying you can tell us where he is?"

"I'm saying that if you really listen to what I'm going to tell you, you won't want to go back."

* * *

Continued in Chapter 9