******************************************************



'Paper, floppy discs, a few pens...*good* ones, not the cheap
kind... and something to eat, for goodness sakes.' The words
echoed mercilessly in Mulder's head as he guided the rental car
west along a terminally boring stretch of I-44. A discomforting
pain threatened to overwhelm Scully's nagging words and displace
them from his mind. Mulder groaned, squeezing the bridge of his
nose. His sinuses were throbbing. 'Figures', he thought. 'I *would*
be allergic to this place. Wonderful''. He sniffed and blinked
deliberately, concentrating hard to avoid a potentially fatal case of
highway hypnosis.

He almost started to feel sorry for himself, but then he decided that
it would be childish. Besides, he deserved it. After all, if he had
bothered to book the rooms farther ahead of time, they could've
been staying at the Marriott in Oklahoma City instead of the Econo
Lodge in Broken Arrow. He winced, recalling the silent but deadly
expression on Scully's face when he had informed her that they
were going to be staying sixty miles from the conference. She had
trusted him, on a trial basis, of course, to be mature and handle
their arrangements, and he had failed miserably. On top of that, he
had waited until the last minute to write the mandatory
presentation he would be presenting at the conference. He had
conceded to her that her mere presence was sometimes so motherly
that he reflexively reverted to such juvenile behavior as
procrastination. That admission didn't make her happy, either, for
some reason...

Mulder shook his head. He hadn't even thought to pack the
required office supplies. That had cost him this trip to and from
Tulsa. Everything in Broken Arrow was closed on Sundays. The
trip itself wouldn't have been so terribly boring if he hadn't just
been driving across 1300 miles of the most featureless part of the
country for the past two days. He had even offered to let Scully
drive, but she wouldn't. He just *had* to open his mouth and
mention something about readjusting the driver's seat and
forgetting to bring the Yellow Pages...

His ruminations were interrupted when he looked up at the sky. It
hadn't really registered before, but the thunderheads looked fairly
menacing. Mulder felt slightly intimidated and awed at the same
time as he craned his neck to see black, roiling clouds rising to
form a gargantuan pyramid and stretching back as far as he could
see. Darkness had spread over the horizon slowly before him, but
he was driving west, rushing straight toward the storm. The clouds
had just expanded suddenly and now formed a growing wall of
uneasy turbulence. Mulder could see the lip of the cloud being
sucked toward the ground as the two air masses collided. His
eyebrows rose when fanned out fingers of lightning coalesced and
slammed into a repeater tower just a few miles away. The metal
structure glowed blue for an instant afterwards.

'Scully!' His mind flashed obediently to her. It was a reflex. 'That
storm has already passed over Broken Arrow...It's probably fine.'
He turned on the radio, and was immediately rewarded with a
National Weather Service report.

"...had issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the areas along
the path of Interstate 44 until 5:30pm. At 4:15 this evening,
Doppler radar detected a line of clouds moving..."

Static interference interrupted the broadcast. It persisted for a
while. Mulder couldn't take the noise anymore, so he turned the
radio back off. In the matter of two or three minutes, the sky before
him turned an unnatural green color...a pea soup green that almost
made him nauseous just looking at it.

"Not a good sign." He started to become nervous, tapping his
hands on the steering wheel to the beat of a non-existent song. He
noticed that the pastures along the route were devoid of animals, in
contrast to the trip to Tulsa. The main cloud before him cast a
totally opaque shadow upon the flat ground, and it was moving
toward him rapidly. The edge of the thunderhead seemed to shift
suddenly. Mulder watched as the clouds began to pull downward
in a lazy spiral pattern. "Not good at all." He began scanning his
surroundings for possible shelter. The only visible building was a
maintenance facility at the base of a cross-country electrical tower.

"Hm. No thanks."

He pulled over to the interstate's shoulder and stopped, turning on
the hazard lights. There was a wide, shallow drainage ditch
running diagonally across the middle of a field about 100 yards
away. Mulder got out of the car and stood next to it for a moment,
shocked by the sense of insignificance imposed by the massive
storm. Then, he saw something that made him move a little faster...
The swirling edge of the cell solidified and took on a more defined
appearance. The funnel cloud hovered about halfway to the
ground, arcing to one side. Mulder stumbled, then made a mad
dash for the ditch. His feet seemed to hardly touch the ground. He
could feel the air pressure rise as the stormfront extended forward.

The air seemed especially thick, weighing down perceptibly on his
shoulders and forcing his lungs to work harder. He continued
sprinting through the eerie silence, his own huffing the only sound
for miles. His ears began to hurt again, but he ignored them this
time. A low rumbling to his left piqued his curiosity, and he turned
his head for a moment to look. The funnel cloud swooped down,
then bent back parallel to the ground. The tail whipped around like
that of an angry cat for a few seconds. Mulder could feel his heart
tighten at the sight. He reached the ditch and dove headfirst into it,
rolling down the embankment to splash in the shallow water. The
gravel lining the ditch dug into his elbows, but he barely noticed.
He pulled himself up and peeked over the edge to see what was
going on.

The funnel cloud extended downward, completing its "S" shape as
it reached the earth. Mulder's eyes widened as a sheath of twisting
debris rose around the base of the cyclone. The ground shook
under the touch of the tornado. Mulder could feel the bass
rumbling in his chest as the vortex spontaneously turned the small
grove of trees into a million toothpicks. He began to feel very, very
small. The spinning cloud seemed to hesitate for a second, then it
headed straight for him. Sparks flew and cables snapped at the air
as the tornado began to neatly devour the line of electrical towers.
'An appetizer,' Mulder thought, 'and I'm the main course.'

The deafening roar became unbearable, and Mulder crouched
down on his knees with his hands over his ears, eyes squeezed shut
tightly. The wind whipped at his dress shirt, nearly pulling it off
his body. It was becoming difficult for him to breathe as the wind
robbed his lungs. A sharp pain stabbed at his back, followed by
another and another. The pelting soon became intense. He
cautiously looked up again and saw that he was being pummeled
by hail. Icy spheres the size of a nickel bounced off of the grass in
front of him. A shrieking began to emanate from the countryside,
nearly drowned out by the rushing sound of the tornado. Mulder
had to process this for a moment before he realized what it was.
'Oh. Tornado sirens. Thanks ever so much.' He heard a sudden
crunch that made him look up.

The tornado had veered off to one side, crossing the road close to
him. The windows in the rental car spontaneously popped. A
synchronous increase of pain in his ears confirmed the extreme
pressure change. It hurt so bad that, for a moment, he forgot that
there was a tornado nearby. He writhed uncomfortably with his
forehead pressed against the grass. Finally, the build-up became
too much, and a sickening popping sensation in his head caused
him to yell. Both of his eardrums burst, allowing warm fluid to
drain out. He gasped, surprised by the acute agony.

Mulder's body continued to shake as the tornado drew close. He
glanced sideways just in time to see the rental car spin once, then
disappear into the black mass of destruction. 'Oh great. That's the
third rental I've lost this month! I'm toast now.' He winced, feeling
pain both from his ears and from the idea of what Scully might do
to him when she found him...*without* the car. Again. His feeble
attempt at self-levity was interrupted when the tornado drew up to
the mouth of the drainage ditch. The vibration nearly made Mulder
bounce off of the ground.

A sudden blast sent him sprawling on his back, scraping along the
gravel as the updraft pulled him toward the skittering base of the
funnel. He felt terribly dizzy, grabbing desperately for something
to hang onto. His hands blindly snagged the opening of a tile
pipeline, and he held on for dear life. His feet were sucked into the
air, and everything seemed to turn to a cloud of solid grit. A cold
fear gripped him as he realized that he couldn't hold on like this for
very long. The vacuum pulled at his feet as they floated upwards,
but the tornado passed by the ditch quickly. Mulder's feet slowly
lowered to the ground again, but he didn't let go of the pipe. He
had leaned forward, his sigh of relief lost in the whipping wind,
when something large and hard whacked the side of the head. He
saw the ground, then the sky. There seemed to be a strange
formation of flashing lights up there in the dark clouds. He
squinted. Yes. He decided that he would have to investigate those
lights. Later, though. In the meantime, he had other plans...like
passing out.

******************************************************

Wet. Wet and cold. Not good. Mulder shivered, wishing only to
slip back into the happy nothingness that had felt so comforting
moments ago. He was just about to fall under when one of his
eyelids was pried open, and he found himself staring into the
world's most obnoxious penlight. He groaned. 'Does she *always*
have to do that?' Mulder's other eye was pulled open and violated
by the intrusive light. 'Oh, please, Scully. Stop it.'

"Ssshtop," he managed to mumble. 'Wait a minute. Scully. Scully
is *here*!' his befuddled brain finally realized.

"Mulder? Can you hear me?"

"Mmm. Yeah. Guess." Speaking aggravated his head injuries, and
the pain exploded in his left temple. His ears had quit hurting, but
he felt a disorienting sensation of vertigo with each tiny
movement. "Why're you yelling, Scully?" He could feel her pat
and prod his body. Searching for injuries. Yeah, right. 'Is it a
coincidence that she pokes every single bruise? Is that what they
taught her at the University of Maryland?' He tried to open his
eyes. The right one worked okay, but the left one was more
difficult. It felt like the eyelids were stuck together.

"Don't move, Mulder. I'm not yelling. You have a
concussion...among other things."

He winced as he felt fat raindrops falling on him with stinging
force. Everything before him was a blur. He waited, and Scully's
form slowly took shape.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

He looked at her, but his thoughts were clouded by pain in his
head.

"Yeah. Fingers." His teeth chattered when he tried to talk. She
frowned at him with a concerned look. He saw Scully produce a
capped syringe from her jacket pocket.

"Whassat?"

"This is lidocaine. It will keep your shoulder from bothering you,
hopefully." Scully pulled a pair of bandage scissors from the same
pocket. She tapped the needle, then produced an alcohol swab.
Mulder closed his eyes again. He tried to shrug away from her, but
she held him still against her knees. Something tugged at his shirt,
and he heard the scissors working to his left. The stinging wetness
of the alcohol dabbed at his skin, soon followed by the jab of the
needle. The medicine burned a little, but it barely noticable next to
his headache.

"I've tried to call for help, but the cellphone repeater tower was
destroyed by the tornado. No one is likely to pass by here, either. I
heard on the radio that the tornado touched down on the far north
side of Tulsa. All of the area emergency crews are concentrating
there. We're on our own, it seems."

"Mmmph." He knew he should pay attention to what she was
saying, but the throbbing in his head pushed it out.

"Where do it hurt, Mulder?" She leaned closer, making sure that
she had his attention. He found her wet hair and the concern in her
eyes surrounded by the backdrop of a roiling storm suddenly very
attractive.

"Head. Face. Hands. All over. Unnnngh..." He rolled his head to
his right, trying to still the rollercoaster inside it. "Oh. And my left
shoulder feels...funny."

"Well, at least I got some actual words out of you. You don't
appear to have any broken bones. Do you think you can stand? We
need to get you out of this water."

'Water? What water?' Mulder tilted his head, looking downward.
His legs were mostly submerged in the rushing overflow left by the
storm. No wonder they didn't hurt. They were numb. Scully took a
firm grip on his right arm with one hand and reached across his
back and under his left arm with the other.

"I hate to move you, but you need immediate medical attention.
Let's try it on three. One...two...three."

Scully tugged and Mulder strained to sit up straight. He tried to get
his feet underneath him to take advantage of the momentum, but
they were too numb to control. He slid back onto his butt. The
jarring made him so dizzy he almost passed out sitting there. While
his eyes were still closed, he heard Scully's dubious-sounding
voice next to him.

"What is this on your ear, Mulder?" A pause. He could feel her
warm fingers stroke around his ear. He smiled. "Do you feel dizzy?
It looks like your eardrum burst" He could hear her feet sqeak on
the wet grass as she walked around behind him. "Both of them. Oh,
Mulder... That must feel terrible."

"Yeah. They popped for sure," he said without moving.

"If we can just get you on your feet, you can lean against me, and
I'll get you to the car."

The car! He hadn't told her about the car yet.

"Sorry, Scully. I lost the car."

"It's okay, Mulder. I brought another one. Now, let's try to get you
up. I'll pull and you push."

"Now you're talking," he replied with a sly grin on his face. She
looked at him and shook her head with a grin on her own face.

"You're hurt. I'll let that slide." She supported him under the
shoulders again and counted to three. She lifted mightily, grunting
with the effort. Mulder scrambled to stand up. His cold, numb feet
finally made it to the right place, and he straightened his legs. 'It
worked!' He thought he might even be able to walk to the car on
his own until he realized that he was sinking back down again. His
knees were giving out. He stopped before he hit the ground,
instead leaning hard against his deceptively sturdy partner. She
paused to catch her breath.

"Okay. Now you have to try to walk. Think you can do that?" He
nodded silently, trying to reserve his strength. He shuffled forward
cautiously. The gravel-covered slope made it especially difficult,
but Scully was still supporting him. They moved slowly along the
ditch, parallel to the water. By the time they were halfway to the
road, Mulder had to stop and rest.

"Breathe deeply and slowly. That's it." She held him close. Just her
presence helped chase the cold away.

"I feel better now."

"Good. Let's keep moving." He felt her squeeze him around the
back slightly before gently guiding him forward. 'Was that a hug?
What have I done to deserve that?' He wasn't sure, but it gave him
the energy to continue the awkward trip to the car.

"Funny. It didn't seem this far when I ran out here..."

Scully smiled and patted him on the right shoulder. "Just keep
walking." He stumbled a time or two, but she caught him before he
totally lost his balance.

"Very dizzy."

"I know." He saw her cringe. Her voice was quiet and empathetic.
Finally, they reached the end of the ditch. "Let's go this way...the
slope is more gradual here." He allowed her to steer him to the
right. Ascending the slight incline was more difficult than he had
anticipated. His stiff legs did not want to cooperate, but Scully was
there to make up for his deficiencies...'Like usual,' he realized.

"Scully..."

"What is it, Mulder?"

"You're the best." She blinked and raised her eyebrows, but
recovered her clinically stoic expression immediately.

"I know it. I have a partner who keeps me on my toes." Mulder bit
down on his response to her statement. One more short-person joke
today, and she'd make the tornado look like a gentle spring breeze.
Mulder gazed at her silently instead, soaking up every detail. She
noticed and looked up at him.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"I just realized that you probably thought that I'd ditched you
again." 'Nice save,' he thought to himself. She gave him the
eyebrow.

"I'd say that you ditched *yourself* this time. Don't even think
about pulling the self-guilt trip right now, because it's not going to
work. This was an act of nature, not an act of Mulder." 'Okay, so
maybe not a nice save. Guilt trip? Is it that obvious?' He never
ceased to be amazed by the way she could read him like a book. It
was comforting in a way; it made him feel wanted. Everything she
did made him feel wanted, actually...a feeling that had been very
elusive before her.

"Scully, I want to tell you something." The pain from his injuries
had seemed to fade. All he saw or felt was her.

She stopped and opened the back door of the replacement rental
car and guided him toward the seat before his words sunk in. She
looked up and tilted her head slightly, waiting for him to speak.
Her expression was blessedly neutral.

"I've been waiting a long time for this, but I think you should
know..." She walked around him and positioned herself before and
to the left of him to help with entering the car. His gaze followed
her, and his swollen left eye finally began to pry open as he talked.
She was so perfect, so...

"...that I have a piece of paper sticking out of my shoulder?! What
the heck?" The presentation, Page 33. So *that's* what the
lidocaine was for. 'She's a sneaky one.' She knew he couldn't see in
that direction, and he wouldn't have been worried about it. 'Too
late now.' Mulder felt blood heat rise to his head, and he heard his
heart thumping away in his ears. Scully appeared before his
narrowing vision, guiding his sinking body onto the back seat of
the car.

"Just take it easy, Mulder. Try to stay with me."

"It's okay...I don't need that page. Memorized it." His own voice
seemed to diminish beneath the pounding of his heart. He felt
himself being dragged further onto the seat and his legs were
folded unmercifully tightly before the car door thumped shut. The
jarring made those mysterious lights appear again, and he passed
out while staring at the fuzzy tan felt on the ceiling.

******************************************************

"Hmmmm."

'What was that? Oh. I woke myself up groaning. Great.' Mulder
stayed still for a moment, savoring the warm sensation
accompanying his pain medication. 'Oh yeah. The good stuff.'

"Mulder?" A sharp exhale.

'She's been holding her breath this whole time?'

"Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

'Hand. Sure. I can't feel them but I know they're
there...somewhere.' He sent the appropriate signals along blindly.
He couldn't tell which hand she was holding, so he tried to flex
them both, just in case.

"Good! That's great. Just stay with me. I'm going to push the call
button and get some help in here for you."

'The help's already here,' Mulder thought. He began to feel a
tingling sensation spread through his limbs. The cloud of head
trauma was lifting. Something was in his ears, blocking them up. A
dull ache resided inside his skull, and vague pains seemed to
encompass his body, but he didn't care. All that mattered was that
he could feel Scully's hand holding onto his. Scully. He had to
look, just to make sure she was real. He lifted his heavy eyelids.
His eyes felt gritty and watery at the same time, and it required
some concentration to focus them.

"Glad you've joined us. You had me worried for a while." She
clutched his hand between both of hers.

"Wha.." His voice was too scratchy to work. Scully knew exactly
what was wrong and offered some ice chips that he gladly
accepted. They felt absolutely heavenly as they melted and soothed
his throat. 'Bless you, Scully.' She waited patiently for him to
continue.

"What happened? I remember the storm...then you stuffed me in a
car..."

"You had a pretty serious concussion, Mulder. The swelling didn't
all happen immediately, but it was a cause for great concern when
it did. You were in a coma for two days." She gave him "the look".
Not the look he recieved when he was in trouble, but the one that
said "Please don't ever do that to me again." He could see her eyes
sparkle with controlled tears. She inhaled deeply and continued.
"The hospital took care of everything else in the meantime. They
plugged your ears to prevent infection, but your eardrums are
expected to heal up in another week or so. Your eyes had to be
flushed out with saline several times to get all of the sand particles
out. Also, they stitched up your shoulder quite nicely, and they put
you on some really strong antibiotics, just in case. On top of that,
Mulder, you're basically one big bruise, but I'd say you were pretty
lucky."

'More than you know,' he thought. 'I have you.'

"The doctor's on his way up to do your preliminary post-
concussion mental exam. You know...the usual." She gave him a
half smile.

"You saved my sorry butt. Thanks."

She squeezed his hand. "Anytime, partner." A pause.

"Scully?"

"What?"

"Think the paperwork's trying to tell me something?"


******************************************************

The End

The X-Files and related entities belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox. I write only for the profit of feedback, not money.