Hey readers, this is a longer one. I felt like Scully and Doggett needed some bonding time and its got some juicy science stuff to give us a clue about different methods of colonization. As always, thank you for reading! Drop me a review, please. Don't make me bed, its not pretty.
I filled Doggett in on the chase and how Agent Mulder had come to be injured. I was changing in the locker room and still talking to Doggett when I had a break though.
"Alex Krycek is a long time pain in our collective asses at the FBI. He was an agent, but after the Cigarette Smoking Man, I still forget that he has a name. CGB Spender got ahold of Krycek and from there on out he was a gun for hire, no loyalties except to himself. His main purpose is to protect his own skin and try to scrape up a living by selling information."
Doggett had his back turned to me but was listening intently. I was in trouble and trailed off my explanation in favor of searching my bag and surroundings for the rubber band I had been using to keep my pants 'buttoned.' Though I wasn't in danger of my pants falling off of me, the bottom button on my black shirt didn't reach either. I had no cover for my unbuttoned pants.
"So, when did this Krycek guy last show up before today? It seems to me he pops up at the most inconvenient times." I cast a glance at Doggett's back and found he was trying not to turn around to address me. I opened the locker door nearest me to put something solid between us.
Ha! Good luck, finally, I thought as I spied several hair ties hanging on the hook inside the locker. I grabbed one, looped it around the button, through the hole and around the button once again before I replied.
"He contacted me the other day and wanted to meet up to give me some information. That's a long story. The time before that was just before Mulder was abducted. It was his information that led Mulder and Skinner to the location of the ship. He showed up with this..." I stopped again. That's who that was! "Covarrubius, I'll be damned. I didn't recognize her, the blond was Marita Covarrubius. She was with Krycek when we had a meeting with the Lone Gunmen to pinpoint the location of the crash."
It wasn't a great surprise I hadn't recognized her. Immediately following that meeting, Mulder had left, I found I was pregnant and then was told that Mulder had disappeared along with the alien craft he had been searching for. Not exactly conditions conducive to storing faces and names in long term memory.
"Where does this Marita woman fit into all this, then? And what did Krycek want with you the other day?" Doggett, digging for answers as always, had stumped me.
I fished out a white cami from my bag and spoke as I put it over my head and smoothed it down.
"You know, I really don't know where Miss Covarrubius fits into this. She said she was keeping tabs on Krycek, which suggests they work for the same people, but Krycek isn't trusted."
I swung my black button up on over the tank and began doing up buttons. Over my breasts wasn't going to happen either, so I settled for three buttons, from ribcage to navel, instead of six. "If they both fell in the with same group, its a group that he, Krycek that is, claims has allied themselves with the alien rebels who are fighting against the colonization of Earth."
Doggett broke in again, "wait, wait, alien rebels? Colonization? Are you suggesting that there are not one, but two different kinds of aliens fighting over this planet? Agent Scully, I told you I would keep an open mind, but that's just a little too fantastic for me to swallow whole."
I sat on the bench between the rows of lockers to put my shoes back on and the button at my navel gave way, pinging off the metal locker in front of me and clicking as it hit the floor. I let out an exasperated, "Dammit!" which Agent Doggett assumed was directed at him.
"Hey, I'm not saying you're making this up," he began but interrupted himself, "are you descent yet? I like to look at people when I talk to them." He turned to see that I was, in fact, dressed and continued, "I just need a little more evidence to go on than the word of a man you yourself say isn't to be trusted."
I picked up the offending button off the floor and threw it, in a perfect parabola, into the trashcan on the far wall and turned to face Doggett so he could look at me while I talked to him.
"I know, Agent Doggett, but you have to trust my word. I had eight years to come to the conclusion that such things are possible. And that was after countless experiences and countless denials. We don't have the luxury of time as far your doubts are concerned. I need for you to believe me faster than I believed Mulder."
I walked to the mirror situated over a row of sinks and took pains to only look briefly to be sure I had shaken all the glass out of my hair. I hazarded a glance at my waistline. As good an investigator as Doggett was, he didn't seem terribly observant, but I wasn't going to be fooling him much longer. I ran my fingers through my hair again, sent a prayer up in hopes that my black shirt would do my secret justice and turned back to Doggett.
"You should know," I said in a very serious tone. "Krycek knows who you are and knows that you're here."
Doggett's brows drew together and he rested his hand, unconsciously, on the weapon at his hip. "How do you know that?"
Putting my holster in my second favorite spot, my right hip, I smiled a little wickedly, "he told me to call off my Doggett." I smiled wider and stifled a laugh.
Agent Doggett rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner and replied, quite dryly, "yeah, like I've never heard that one before." He grabbed my ID and badge from the counter where I had put them and tossed them both to me. "C'mon, Agent Scully, you have a date with a blood sample."
...
As blood samples go, Ray Hoese's wasn't anything exceptional at first glance. There hadn't yet been time to analyze the contents beyond rudimentary white and red cell counts. The white was elevated, indicating an infection. Whether viral or bacterial was yet to be established. I suspected, given the circumstances and the history of our cases involving alien abductions, that it was a viral infection.
There was a possibility that the syringes Krycek carried contained some kind of synthesized anti-viral. The white cell count from Hoese's initial blood draw had shown a much higher elevation that the most recent one. While the lab tech worked to separate the components of the sample, I explained these things to Agent Doggett.
"I'm gonna need a medical dictionary to keep up with you," he said as ran a hand down his face. "So, in plain terms, this Krycek character may actually be helping these people, rather than harming them?"
"Its possible, yes. But, his motives are always open for question," I warned.
"So, in order to find out whether he's helping or hindering, we need to wait and see if Mr. Hoese's condition improves dramatically. But, regardless, you want to try to isolate what he was injected with from his blood sample."
This situation was awkward for me. Mulder had always known what I intended before I told him and there was rarely a need for such explanations. I was going to have to get used to explaining myself rather than having my actions read through my tone and body language.
"Exactly," I said, but it came out as a whisper rather than the affirmative indication I had meant it to be. I was being rapidly reminded that I hadn't eaten for some time and took a seat on the stool near the microscope station. Once seated, I cleared my throat and went on, "I want to know the origins of the substance, if it can be traced."
Leaning toward me, Doggett peered at me, a strange look on his face. "Origins? As in earthly or otherwise? How do you determine that?"
"Through isolating it, analyzing it and knowing whether or not medical science has the capabilities to manufacture whatever it is. If its not possible to make it in a lab here on earth, well then..." I trailed off leaving him to complete the sentence on his own. I needed food and badly and the occupant of my expanding abdomen let its agreement be known with quick, short taps. I put a hand to my stomach and was honest about my needs. There's a time and place for stoicism, but this wasn't it. "I'm starving, Agent Doggett. Would you mind...?"
"Oh, yeah sure, no problem. Hey, Mike," he addressed the lab tech overseeing the workings of a small centrifuge. "What's on at the cafeteria?"
...
While waiting on my roast beef and extra mashed potatoes, I assisted as much as Mike the tech would allow me. He, quite obviously, was used to working alone. I busied myself with preparing slides and Petri dishes and tried to be patient. Doggett had offered to check on Mulder on his way to the cafeteria. I was grateful for his concern, but didn't think Mulder would be up for answering questions about how he felt for quite sometime. I, on the other hand, would be feeling nauseous if I didn't get something in my stomach soon.
I wasn't in a position to complain about the inconveniences of pregnancy, but I wasn't above wondering if I had it worse than other women. I had seen other female agents, generally married ones, work throughout their pregnancies with what seemed no trouble. I, on the other hand, was more often than not feeling sick, light headed, or otherwise affected. How did they do it? I wondered. But, then again, I was there, in the field, doing my job. Regardless of ill-fitting clothing, which was my own fault, morning sickness, or all day every day sickness in my case, and amazing fatigue, I thought I was making a decent show of it. Or at least a decent show of not showing how tired, ill, and bloated I felt.
If my mother knew what I had been up to today, she would have had a fit and stepped in it. I began to feel guilty about my no doubt jarring impact with the pavement when Krycek's car had collided with the one I had jumped behind.
"Sorry," I whispered to my unseen companion. I prodded my belly wondering if I could elicit a response. "You okay in there?" I snorted a bit as it seemed my question rather than poking was rewarded with a series of flutters. Without any immediate work or threats, I let my mind wander and sat at the microscope station. Eventually, which really was probably all of five minutes, I put my head down on crossed arms atop the counter and took the opportunity for a quick snooze.
I woke slowly to a prodding at my elbow and Agent Doggett's voice, "... food's here. Hey, Agent Scully. Rise and shine, its food time."
I raised my head off my arms and quickly wiped away saliva that had collected in the corner of my mouth and had run onto my cheek. Rubbing my hands over my face and trying to fit my brain back into my head, I asked,
"How's Mulder?Any word on the MRI?" I thought probably not yet, based on my observations of the traffic in the ER.
"I didn't actually see Mulder, but a nurse told me he was down at imaging. She wasn't sure when he'd be back or when they would have results." Doggett doled out the food he had carried in on a utilitarian plastic tray. I immediately dug in, plastic fork loaded with meat piled with mashed potatoes. There was also something that may have, at one point it its earthly journey, been broccoli. I stayed away from the greenish mush.
"I think he's probably torn a tendon, based on the location and angle of the break. What I could see of his bicep looks like it." I took another mouth full and gave it a cursory chew before continuing. "If the distal bicep tendon is torn, he'll need surgery." I swallowed and was digging in for another mountain of potatoes.
"What's the recovery time on something like that?" Doggett asked around his own mouthful of meat and potatoes. I shrugged, thinking and chewing.
"Full recovery? Six months, but he can regain..."
"Agent Scully," Mike the tech hurried over with a slide and I moved my plate away to give him access to the microscope. "I think I have something here. I haven't had enough time with the sample to really get down and dirty with it," Doggett's eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling and he converted a laugh into a choking that I hoped was put on. Mike didn't seem to notice and went on talking. "But what I do have here looks like a virus but, well I think you should see it."
I shoved some more food in my mouth and bent over the microscope to see what Mike had brought me. "Its a virus alright," I said and increased the power a hair. I blinked, stepped back from the counter, blinked again and bent to look again. "I'll be damned. I take it you haven't seen anything like this, Mike?" I stepped back again and addressed the tech.
"No ma'am, not like that. Sometimes they have funky looking proteins, but I've never seen a variety like that." Mike shook his head and leaned in for another look as if to reassure himself that what he saw was still there.
"Keep working with it, Mike. Do an analysis on the genetic material, I'd like to know if its viral or retroviral." Mike nodded and started for the back of the lab. "Oh, hey, keep at the sample to isolate the other foreign material. It may provide us with some insight into this little bug." I indicated the slide with my fork.
"And you and I need to get out of here with our food," I addressed Doggett who looked down at his plate with some distaste. "Its okay, I don't think its the hopping kind. But, we really shouldn't eat in here anyway."
Occupying hard plastic seats in the hallway outside the lab, I started an explanation of what Mike and I had seen. Doggett was attentive and nodded and murmured, "I see," a lot.
"Rather than having one key protein that allows the virus access to one specific type of cell, this little guy is equipped with different ligands. It has many keys, so in theory, it can infect many kinds of cells. The body is a virtual smorgasbord for this virus."
I thought Doggett must have been a pretty decent student in his school days, he didn't miss a thing and the assumption he made based on the information I gave him was spot on.
"And you want to know if its a virus or a retrovirus because that'll tell you how fast it reproduces?"
I was tempted to give him a high five, but restrained myself. Maybe things would work out better with this strange partnership than I thought.
"Exactly. But not only that, I'll also be able to tell how fast it mutates. Its possible that it mutates and forms different ligands that attack more cells than the original version did. It also means its unpredictable and hard to treat." I had finished my plate of food, with exception of the past-its-prime broccoli. Taking Doggett's and my plates, I found a trash can in a nearby office and disposed of them. When I made my way back to Doggett, he had his head in his hands, clearly thinking.
"Agent Doggett, I know all this is hard to believe, but the only part of this that's out of the realm of normalcy is the ligands on the virus." Doggett looked up at me a smiled.
"I hear ya, Agent Scully. I'm just wondering, it took how many years to develop an effective anti-retroviral medication for people with HIV? From what you've told me, we don't have that kind of time on our hands."
I was fairly astounded that he had made that connection and my respect for him immediately rocketed several notches up. I realized that I truly hadn't given him a chance to prove his worth before now and I felt guilty again.
"I'm going to check on Ray Hoese. Come with me, Mike isn't the chatty type," I offered.
"Oh, sure, you get a nap in the lab, but I gotta keep running around this hospital." He smiled and vacated his seat with alacrity, though.
