On Sunday night, as Josh watched the Lakers on television, I was going through my closet, mentally selecting my outfits for the work week ahead, when I heard a loud thud and Josh came into the bedroom, looking gloomy.

"Did you drop something, Josh?" I said, holding up my favorite beige suit. I should have had it cleaned, I thought, absently. And the shoes I'd been wearing with it were beginning to look a little run-down at the heels; I needed to replace them, as soon as I could afford to, but the lack of overtime pay and the extra expenses were forcing me to budget very carefully.

All right, I admit it. I wasn't really paying much attention to Josh. I should have seen what a bad mood he was really in, but I was distracted by the state of my work clothes.

That's why I wasn't prepared when Josh slammed his fist into a wall and began screaming "Fuck!" over and over, at the top of his lungs.

"Josh, for God's sake, what's wrong?" I said, dropping the suit in shock.

"Why don't you just shut your fucking mouth and leave me the fuck alone?" he said, cradling his injured hand. There was blood oozing from his knuckles.

"Josh, you're bleeding," I said, alarmed. "Let me look at that hand; you may have broken a bone."

"I said leave me the fuck alone, Dana!" he snapped. "What part of that didn't you understand?"

"I understood it just fine," I said, feeling my own anger rise, but I immediately tamped it down.

It wouldn't do to get angry; that would just make Josh even more upset.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I was just concerned that you'd hurt yourself and I thought you might need my help."

"I don't need your help," he said, looking down at me contemptuously. "And if I ever do need a doctor, I'll find a real doctor, not a fucking feebie who likes to play doctor."

"Josh, I am a doctor," I said, puzzled and hurt by his angry comments. "I'm not board certified, but I do have a current medical license. But I'm not offering to treat you; you're my boyfriend, it would be unethical for me to do that. I just want to see your hand, or maybe we could ask Daniel to have a look at it."

"It'll be a cold day in hell before I let some goddamn faggot start feeling all over my hand," Josh said, his lip curling in disgust. "I'm not about to let your queer friend get his jollies off me or give me AIDS or something."

"That's ridiculous," I said, losing my temper in spite of myself. "Daniel isn't infected, and anyway, you know you can't get HIV from that kind of casual contact."

"All those queers are infected, and anyway, they really don't know how it's spread," Josh said. "Go on, admit it. Nobody really knows for sure that you can't get it from a doctor. What about that dentist who infected all his patients?"

"All those patients had other risk factors," I began, but Josh interrupted me.

"You just don't want to admit there's anything I know that you don't, Dana," he said, triumphantly. "Go on, admit it: You know I'm right. You just don't want to admit it."

Once again, I felt as though the earth had disappeared beneath me and there was nowhere for me to stand. This discussion, like so many we'd had, seemed to have no real topic, no internal logic, no relation to the accepted facts. As far as he was concerned, he knew the facts, and I didn't.

That was so typical of our arguments: The way Josh saw it, Josh always knew the truth, and you either acknowledged that or you were just refusing to acknowledge it out of stubbornness.

And stubbornness infuriated him.

Of course, this time, there was no question that he was the one who didn't have the facts. This was my field of expertise, and I knew what I was talking about. Certainly, he must eventually realize that; I just needed to give him a careful explanation so he could understand.

But first, I needed to calm him down and get that hand looked at.

"Josh, we don't have to go see Daniel," I said, but I felt my heart sink as I said it. I hadn't realized how much I was hoping Josh would agree. "We can go to the hospital here in Georgetown. But you do need treatment, because the way that hand is swelling, you could have a broken bone."

"Oh, so you've lost the argument and now you want to change the subject, is that it?" Josh said, nastily. "You just won't admit when you're wrong, will you?"

"Josh, for Christ's sake!" I exploded, forgetting all my resolutions to keep my temper. "Will you just go to the emergency department and get that hand X-rayed? I am so goddamn tired of this argument!"

"So why did you start it in the first place?" he said, and a thin smile was beginning at the corners of his mouth.

"I didn't fucking start it!" I said, really loud. I was frustrated as hell at my inability to talk to him, and I was getting angrier by the minute. "I didn't start anything. You're the one who came in here and started banging his fist on the wall!"

"Living with a crazy bitch like you is enough to make anybody lose his cool," he said, and the smile was getting even more noticeable, but it didn't reach all the way to his eyes. They were cold, colder than I could have imagined his eyes could be.

"No wonder you hang out with queers," he was saying. "No real man would ever put up with you."

"Josh, please don't talk about my friends that way," I began, but he interrupted me.

"I'll talk anyway I goddamn well please, lady," he said, leaning against the wall, almost casually. "I'm a man, and you're not going to tell me how to talk even if you are a feebie. You're just going to have to get used to it; real men don't put up with that shit. But you know that already, don't you? You just want to try one more time to get your own way."

"That's not it!" I said, and I could hear how loud I was getting, but this argument was driving me up the wall. "That's not what I'm thinking."

"Yes, it is," he said. "I know what you're thinking."

"You do not," I said, frustrated. "I know what I'm thinking; you don't."

"Maybe you're wrong about what you think you're thinking," he said, and that smile was getting absolutely unbearable. "Maybe I know what you think better than you do."

"That is absolutely impossible," I said, furiously. "I cannot be wrong about what I think, because I'm the one thinking it. You can't know what I think."

"Oh, yes, I do," he said, leaning into my face, his mouth curled up in an almost animal snarl. "I know exactly what you're thinking, even if you don't. You're just too stubborn to admit it."

"Josh, don't do this, please," I said, and I was starting to cry. I was so tired of all this; I couldn't take any more of this Alice-in-Wonderland reasoning of his.

I couldn't even think how to respond to someone who claimed that _I_ didn't know what I was thinking.

"Please, Josh," I whispered. "Please, let's just stop this, please."

"Yeah, that's what you always say when you know I've got you," Josh said, and there was that note of triumph again. He was getting more and more in my face, and his voice was rising with each word.

"You just don't have the guts to admit when you're wrong, do you, Dana?" he said, his face only inches from mine. "Do you? Huh? Do you? Come on, you fucking bitch, answer me!"

"Just shut up!" I screamed, and without thinking, I pounded my fist on the wall -- something I've never done before, and it terrified me. I had never in my life lost control that way.

"Or what?" he said. "What're you gonna do, Dana? You gonna put me under arrest? You know you can't do that. They'd laugh you right out of the precinct house and report you to the FBI for false arrest."

"GET OUT!!!" I screamed, so loudly that it hurt my throat. "JUST GET OUT OF MY HOME!!!"

And that, unbelievably, made Josh smile. He backed away and regarded me quite calmly.

"Damn, Dana, you'd better quiet down," he said, in an ordinary tone. "Anybody who heard you yelling like that would think you'd gone crazy. You've just gotten completely irrational lately; you can't even seem to control yourself anymore."

"SHUT UP!!!!" I screamed again. "JUST SHUT UP!!!!!!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!"

I screamed it over, and over, until my voice nearly gave out and I was almost collapsing from exhaustion and emotional overload. My legs were weak; I slid to the floor, unable to stand up any longer.

I lay there on the floor and cried, thinking that surely Josh would understand now how badly this had hurt me, that surely he would apologize and try to comfort me.

But he didn't. He just stood there and watched me cry, looking like a man whose wife was about to make him late for an appointment or something. No sympathy; no sorrow. Just annoyance.

And, as usual, triumph. Nasty, cold triumph.

He had me where he wanted me.

And I knew then that I couldn't take it one more day.

"I want you to leave," I said, after a minute, when I could finally speak, but I kept having to stop between words, I was crying so hard. "Just leave, Josh. This is going nowhere. I can't stand it anymore. I can't take it."

"You want to try to make me leave?" he said, raising one eyebrow. "You want to put on another show for me with your little temper tantrums? Come on, Dana -- why don't you threaten me again? Why don't you scream and pound your little fist on the wall and let everybody know just how out of control you really are?"

"No," I said, weakly, but somehow that only seemed to enrage him. He grabbed my wrist and jerked me violently to my feet, sending a shooting pain down my arm all the way to my back, and I screamed, as much in fear as in pain.

"Josh, let me go, please," I pleaded, but all I got in return was that cold, cold smile.

"No, Dana," he said, in a terrifyingly soft voice. "You need to learn what happens when you raise your voice to me. You need to learn what it means when you slam your little fists on the wall and get pissy."

Josh curled his fingers around mine, in a gesture that would have seemed almost loving had I not known better. I didn't know what he was planning to do, though, until his hand clenched around mine, forcing my fingers into a fist, and then he slammed my hand against the wall, hard.

Again.

And again.

I was screaming, begging him to stop, begging him to let go of me, struggling to get away from him, but he was just too strong for me.

"Come on, you bitch," he said, almost under his breath. "Come on, hit that wall again, show me how tough you are. You can do it -- just like THIS."

As he spoke the last word, Josh slammed my hand against the wall once more, harder than before. I felt the sickening snap of a bone breaking, and I screamed again with the pain.

"You want me to leave, Dana?" he said, as I slid to the floor, sobbing, cradling my injured hand. "You think you're big enough to make me?"

No, I didn't think so. I'd just had an excellent object lesson in that.

But I did think I had a standard FBI-issue pistol nearby. And I thought it might be time to bring it into this sick game.

I lurched for the night stand, but Josh was already on his feet and got to it quicker. He had my gun, had it out of the holster in a flash and had it pointed --

At his own head.

Once again, everything had turned upside down. Josh had gone from violent anger to suicidal despondency in the blink of an eye.

"You want to make me leave, Dana?" he said, and now I could hear the despair in his voice. "You want me to go? Well, you know what? I'd rather be dead. You want me to pull this trigger right now and just end all this? Is that what you want?"

"Josh, please," I whispered. "Please, just put the gun down. Don't do this."

"Why not?" he said, with a chilling laugh. "Why shouldn't I? If you don't love me anymore, if you don't want me, then there's nothing left for me anyway. I can't go on without you."

"No ..." I said, and I was shaking with terror. How had I not seen it coming to this? All this time I thought he was being temperamental, when he was actually suicidally depressed. Depression is often expressed as anger.

He was going to need medical help; but first, I had to get the gun away from him.

"Josh, give me the gun, please," I whispered, getting up from the floor slowly.

It was hard to stand, and my right hand was practically useless, but I couldn't let him do this.

"Please," I said. "Please, Josh, give it to me. You don't need to do this."

"I don't want to live without you, Dana," he said, and tears were forming in his eyes. "I can't. I can't. I WON'T!!!!!!"

He shouted the last words, and the tears spilled over. "I won't go back to living alone! Do you hear me, Dana? I'd rather be DEAD!"

"You don't have to," I said, and I was crying and shaking all over, but still trying desperately to reach him. "You won't have to live without me. Josh, you need help. We're going to get you some help, and then we're going to get through this. Please, Josh ... please put the gun down."

His hand wavered, and for one terrifying moment, I thought he was going to pull the trigger, but then his face crumpled, and he lowered the gun, shaking in every part of his body, and collapsed into my arms, crying.

"I want to die," he sobbed. "Please, just leave me alone and let me die."

"Shhh," I said, cradling him close, trying to support him although I was near fainting myself. "It's going to be okay, Josh. It's going to be okay."

"Don't leave me, Dana, please don't leave me," he said, still sobbing. "Please."

"I won't, Josh," I whispered in his ear, holding him close. "I'll never leave you. Never."

~~~~~~~~~~~

That night, after I got Josh calmed down and put him to sleep -- the way I always seemed to put him to sleep these days, by making love until he was finally exhausted -- I went to the kitchen and -- awkwardly, using my left hand -- made an ice pack for my hand, which was hugely swollen and painful.

I wrapped a dishtowel around it to hold it in place, then went out to the living room to turn off the television.

The news was on; they were giving the sports report. I reached for the remote control, but I couldn't find it.

Then I saw it, across the room, near the television set. It had popped open, and the batteries had fallen out. I picked it up and tried to put it back together, but it wouldn't work. The casing was cracked, and nothing I could do would make it hold the batteries in place so they would make good contact.

It was broken.

And there was a dent in the wall where it had hit.

Then the announcer came on with the results of today's Lakers game: They'd lost to the Suns, 98 to 97, in overtime.

For a long time, I stood staring at the set, unable to comprehend how so small an event could have so cataclysmically disrupted my life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Josh was still too shaken up to be left alone the next day, so I called Skinner's office and left a message that I wouldn't be in that day, that I was taking a personal day to take care of some business. I asked Kimberly to pass the message along to Mulder when he came in.

Josh was almost pathetically grateful for that. At his suggestion, we drove to West Virginia and found a quiet little restaurant in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains.

We had lunch, then went out into the woods, spread out a blanket and made love by the side of a little brook.

As we lay there afterward holding each other, Josh told me -- for the first time -- the horror story that was his childhood, the story he said he could never tell anyone before.

His father had been an abusive alcoholic, he told me, and his mother had refused to leave, saying that she had married her husband for better or for worse.

"I can remember hiding under my bed at night, listening to him rampage around," he'd said, as I ran my fingers through his hair, trying to comfort him. "I remember hearing my mother's screams, and then just lying there waiting for my turn. Sometimes he couldn't find me ... sometimes he could."

I cried as I listened to Josh's terrible memories, and I held him closer and promised him that I would stand by him, whatever it took, while he got help to work through all this.

That meant a lot to him; I could tell.

"With you by my side, Dana, I feel like I could overcome anything," he said, as he pulled me down beside him again.

We made love again for hours before we finally, regretfully, packed up and drove back to Georgetown.

The day was so peaceful, and I felt so close to Josh -- close in a way I'd never felt before -- that I was able to ignore almost completely how badly my hand hurt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I got to work Tuesday, Mulder was there, and he seemed really glad to see me. I could see how much he'd been worrying about me.

Of course, there was no reason for him to worry. Josh had finally gotten to the root of his problems, and he was going to seek help.

Mulder had no reason to fear for me.

That was harder to explain than I'd thought it would be, though, especially after Mulder tried to take my hand. I cried out in pain and jerked it back.

That was foolish. Mulder is too good an investigator to let something like that go by, and he demanded that I show him my hand.

Reluctantly, I did -- and as he looked at it, and I saw the shock in his eyes, I realized that it actually did look pretty bad. The fifth metacarpal -- the bone in the palm of my hand, connected to the little finger -- was swollen and misshapen, and the flesh was darkly bruised from my wrist to my knuckle.

Worst of all, there were bruises around my wrist in the unmistakable shape of Josh's fingers.

"Oh, my God, Dana, what happened?" Mulder said, looking at me in bewilderment. "What happened to your hand?"

"It's nothing, Mulder," I said, trying to sound casual -- and trying, without success, to withdraw my hand.

"This is not nothing, Scully," he said, his eyes piercing mine now. He was in full investigative mode, and that frightened me, because I didn't want him reading me too closely.

If he knew how badly I'd lost it the other day, he probably _would- think I was crazy, just as Josh had said. I had to come up with something, fast.

"It's really nothing, I promise," I said, smiling -- probably just a little too brightly. "I was just walking through a doorway, and I guess I was swinging my hands too wide, and I hit the doorway with this hand. It really hurt," I added, trying to smile.

Mulder shook his head. "Don't bullshit me, Scully," he said, seriously. "You didn't do this on any doorway. This is the kind of injury you get when you hit someone -- or something. Except that's not what happened to you, is it?"

I didn't say anything.

"Scully," Mulder said. "Scully, talk to me. Tell me the truth. I can see the bruises on your wrist. Did that bastard hurt you?"

"No," I said, quickly. "I told you, Mulder, I just bumped into a doorway. It's nothing; it'll be fine in a day or two. Please, let's just get to work, all right?"

He looked at me silently for a long, long time, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his head, but then he apparently decided to let the subject drop.

"If it hurts too much for you to work," he said, stroking my hand gently before letting it go, "you tell me. All right?"

I nearly cried then, I was so touched by his gentleness and his concern, but I knew I couldn't betray Josh's confidence, not even to Mulder.

"I will, Mulder," I said. "Don't I always tell you when I'm hurting?"

"I used to think so," he said, and turned away.