"The Eighth Side of the Triangle"(20/?) by Susan Jameson
(DrBarnBarn@aol.com)
See part 1 for headers, archive info, etc.




~~~~~

Baltimore 
As Daniel Saw It

~~~~~

It was just after midnight when Mrs. Scully dropped me off at the
front door of my apartment building.

The plan had been that I would go to her house, where Fox was staying,
but Mrs. Scully said he'd been called out of town for something ...
she was pretty vague about it, but that didn't surprise me. Fox keeps
a lot to himself where his work is concerned.

I was disappointed; really disappointed. Tired as I was, I invited her
to come up for a while, because I just didn't really want to be alone
with my disappointment, but she declined, with a quick smile that was
almost puzzling, it was so out of character. I didn't think too much
about it, though -- I was tired as hell, and I'd been doing a lot of
traveling in the past few weeks. All I wanted was to get upstairs to
my apartment and be home for a while.

Well -- I guess I did. I'm not really that fond of my apartment.

The lobby of my apartment building, with its polished marble floors,
huge potted plants and starving-artist paintings, annoyed me even more
than usual as I walked through it to get to the elevators, which have
brass doors that -- no matter how they're polished -- always have
fingerprints and tarnish on them. Somehow, after being at sea for
months, where everything's kept just as clean and polished as is
humanly possible, I found the state of those doors more irritating
than ever.

I never really bonded with this building. Until a few months before I
went to sea, I lived at the Severn, a venerable apartment building in
the Mount Vernon district of Baltimore, and I loved it. It's one of
those buildings that's old enough to be really interesting but still
in good enough shape to be pleasant to live in.

I finally decided, however, that living in Mount Vernon was just a
little bit too risky, no matter how much I liked the neighborhood or
the apartment, and I moved to this gleaming, glass high-rise on
Aliceanna Street, nearer the harbor. It's a nice place, but with no
history or personality whatsoever. Everything's gleaming white, and
after a while, it starts to feel like you're living in an ICU.

I'm just not ready to move yet, though. Too much like work, I guess.
Anyway, as little as I'm home, what do I have to complain about? It's
just a place to sleep.

So I was annoyed, depressed, tired and relatively pissed off when I
unlocked the door to my apartment and walked in.

Right away, though, I noticed the light coming from under the bedroom
door, and my heart sped up ... it couldn't be ... I'd just forgotten
to close the blinds before I left last winter.

Sure. That was all it was.

But I was already pulling off my tie when I opened the bedroom door.

And there he was, lying on his stomach on my bed, asleep ... and, just
as he had promised, beautifully, arousingly naked, looking like a
Michaelangelo statue in the bluish light that filtered through the
curtains..

"Fox," I whispered, then, a little more loudly, "Fox."

Slowly, he rolled over and looked at me. He blinked for a moment, as
if he wasn't sure what was going on, but then he raised himself on one
elbow and smiled at me.

"Hey, baby," he said, in a voice gravelly with sleep and hot with lust
.. 

I think it took me all of five seconds to jump his bones.

No ... make that four.

I wasn't one bit gentle with him. I was as rough and direct as I'd
dreamed of being all those lonely nights at sea ... I didn't ask him
what he wanted, I just acted, I took what I wanted from him, I made
him scream my name ...

And then I collapsed beside him in exhaustion, fighting off the urge
to cry with relief, until my eyes began to close, and I slept
peacefully, safe and warm at last in my lover's arms.

~~~~~

It wasn't until we were eating breakfast the next morning that he gave
me a clue as to why he'd arranged this whole surprise -- with Mrs.
Scully's connivance, of course.

I awoke before dawn and made breakfast for the two of us and brought
it to him, and we sat on the bed naked, the sheet pulled up just to
our waists, and ate. It's going to sound silly and girlish, but I even
fed him ... bites of melon, pieces of buttered toast, a forkful of
eggs. I felt just giddy enough to indulge in some of that silliness,
which normally he and I both tend to avoid.

But he seemed all right with it. He even seemed to enjoy it, playfully
biting at my fingers as I fed him and leaning over to kiss me with a
mouth sweet and sticky with strawberry jam.

I was in heaven.

At least, I was until he brought up that damn medal.

I told him I didn't really want to talk about it, but for once, he
wouldn't back down. He said he'd already heard the story from Dana;
now, he said, he wanted to hear it from me.

"I don't want to talk about it, Fox," I said. "I just want to forget
it. It was pretty damn horrible."

"I'm sure it was," Fox said, more quietly. "But you've worked in a
hospital under combat conditions -- you've faced horrible situations
before. Maybe not anything this bad ..."

"I couldn't tell you," I said, with a short laugh. "It's all been
pretty bad."

"But this one's getting to you," he said.

I shrugged. "I don't know," I said. "Maybe. Maybe it was just the
straw that broke the camel's back."

"The camel's back is broken, all right," he said, calmly. "What
happened with Jill, that argument you and I had over Zuckerman -- all
that is a bad sign, Daniel. It's a sign to me that you need something
from me you're not getting."

"Fox, that's crap," I said, emphatically. "I'm doing fine. I'm just
tired. And I don't want to talk about that damn crash, all right?"

You know, I probably could have made that work just fine, just the way
I had so many times before, if my voice hadn't cracked on the last
word.

And there I sat, the breakfast tray still across my lap, blinking and
swallowing and breathing slowly ... it would have been painfully
obvious to anyone that I was trying very hard not to cry.

And Fox isn't just anyone. He's made his living observing people's
behavior and deducing their motives.

My secret was out, whether I wanted it to be or not.

Fox waited for a minute, and then he took my hand.

"Tell me, Daniel," he said, quietly. "Tell me how it happened."

"I can't," I said, almost in a whisper, but I felt my hand clench
almost convulsively around his. He didn't even flinch; he just
squeezed back, firmly, not enough to hurt, but pretty damn hard.

"Try," he said, simply. "Take your time. If it starts to get to you,
stop for a minute."

I didn't want to say it, and yet I did. I needed to. I needed not to
carry this secret alone anymore, and here was my lover, offering to
help me carry it.

I nodded. "I'll try," I said. "But, Fox, I don't know if I can ..."

"Just do what you can," he said, calmly. "We've got all day."

"What do you know already?" I asked, almost dreading the answer.

"The report filed by your XO said that the man who died on the flight
deck was screaming in pain the whole time you were trying to get to
him," Fox said. "It sounded pretty horrible."

"It was ghastly," I said, shaking my head. "His left leg was all but
amputated, and he was bleeding out, but the wreckage was crushing his
abdomen."

"And since you're a surgeon, I imagine that meant something to you,"
Fox said, quietly.

"Yes," I said. "The wreckage was putting pressure on his lower body,
and that was forcing blood to his upper body, keeping him conscious.
That didn't mean there was anything I could do; the minute that
wreckage was moved, the man was going to bleed out. It wasn't just the
leg, you know. The abdominal injuries weren't survivable."



"So when you saw that, you gave him a shot," Fox said, still quite
calmly.

I didn't answer. After a minute, Fox went on.

"Scully said you'd probably give morphine or fentanyl in that kind of
situation," he said, in a conversational tone. "Was she right?"

I nodded. "She was," I said, and then I cleared my throat. Shit.
Getting choked up already. 

"So which was it?" Fox asked. 

"Fentanyl," I said. "And diazepam."

"Valium?" Fox said. "Why?"

"Because diazepam potentiates fentanyl," I said, looking directly at
him for the first time. "In other words, they're synergistic -- the
effect of the two together is like one plus one equals three."

"And the effect of that would be ..." Fox said, and then he stopped.
And he waited. 

And waited.

It was killing me ... my throat was tight, my eyes were burning ... I
was about a millimeter away from bursting into tears. I tried, God, I
tried, to calm myself down, to swallow a few times and take a few
breaths ... but it wasn't getting me much of anywhere.

And Fox was still waiting, still holding my hand tightly.

"Daniel," he said, softly. "Baby, let it go."

"The effect ...," I said, and swallowed hard again. "The effect is
severe central nervous system and cardiovascular/respiratory
depression."

"In other words, anesthesia," Fox said, and I nodded.

"In the right dose," I said. 

"What is the right dose?" he said.

"For diazepam, about 10 mg," I said. "For fentanyl, up to .15 mg per
kilogram of body weight."

"But that's not what you gave him," Fox said, and I could hear his
compassion in his voice. He wasn't judging me.

"No," I said, finally, ripping the wound wide open. "That's not what I
gave him. I gave him about three times that much."

"And then he stopped screaming," Fox said, gently, "and he died in
peace."

I shook my head. "He didn't die," I said. "I killed him."

And that did it. I burst into tears. To my horror and shame, I broke
down completely, crying like a little boy who'd been whipped.

I was only distantly aware of Fox's arms going around me in a tight
grip, of his hands gently guiding my head down to his shoulder ... I
could hear his whispers in my ear, telling me that it was okay, that
it was all right to let it out ... but I couldn't respond. Now that
the floodgates were open, they weren't going to close until I'd cried
out all the tears I'd never allowed myself to shed before... the tears
I should have cried in Saudi Arabia, that I should have cried over
Jon, over all the hurt and pain I'd caused my family and Jill, over
all the loneliness I'd suffered during those long months at sea, over
my own shame at having turned out to be far less than the man and the
physician I'd set out to be ...

There just wasn't any stopping it.



And Fox held me, and lent me his strength, and saved me from falling
all the way into the abyss.

After what seemed like forever, I got myself back under control, and I
lay there in his arms, too ashamed to raise my head and look at him.
He didn't seem to notice; he just kept stroking my hair slowly,
kissing my forehead.

But he knew. He's not the FBI's best profiler for nothing. And he's
learned a thing or two in the years we've been together.

Jill didn't know. Dana didn't know. Even Jon, who came closer than
anyone, didn't know.

But Fox did. He knew there was more.

And he knew that it was time for me to face it.

"Daniel," he said, more gently than I've ever heard him speak, "tell
me about Saudi Arabia."

Cold. I felt so cold.

Strange to feel that way, because ...

~~~~~

As Mulder Saw It

~~~~~

"It's hot in the desert," he said. "Way, way hotter than you can
imagine."

"So I've heard," I said. "I remember reading about the chocolate bars
that weren't supposed to melt in the heat."

"They did anyway," he said.

"I figured as much," I said. "Were you there long?" 

"Depends on how you look at it," he said. "I was in the Gulf for
almost a year, from the end of Desert Shield, but most of that was
aboard the JFK as an air wing flight surgeon. I didn't get orders for
Fleet Hospital 5 until Desert Storm was essentially over. The ground

war was about to begin, but you know about how long that lasted."

"Not long, as I recall," I said. "There weren't a lot of casualties,
were there?"

"Not military casualties, no," he said, but I thought a shadow crossed
his face. "There were heavy casualties among the civilian population,
the refugees, all along. We saw a lot of those. But the Iraqi Army was
about as pathetic as anything you've ever seen. They threw down their
arms when they saw the allied forces coming, for the most part. Most
of them were half-starved and sick, dehydrated, sunburned ... we'd cut
their supply lines with the aerial attacks, you know?"

"That was the point, wasn't it?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "It worked, too. Our guys took them prisoner, but it
was more like a MEDEVAC. The first thing they did was bring them water
and MREs."

"Meals ready-to-eat," I said. 

Daniel snorted derisively. "Better known as meals rejected by
Ethiopians," he said.

"Oh, man, that's cold," I said, laughing in spite of myself.

"Don't laugh," he said. "You should try eating one. They're ... well,
the average store-brand TV dinner is a major improvement, even if you
don't microwave it first."

"I take it the Iraqis didn't reject them," I said.

"Oh, hell, no," he said. "In fact, they not only ate the MREs, they
ate the Vaseline the troops gave them for their sunburned lips."

"Wow," I said. "They really were hungry."

"You just don't know, Fox," he said, shaking his head. "You can't
imagine ..." 

"Tell me," I said.

Daniel went silent for a moment. Then, at last, he spoke, but with
more difficulty than I could ever remember.

"There was one woman ...," he said, "a Kurdish refugee ... she came to
the hospital one day, carrying something I thought was a pig at first,
and then I thought it must be some kind of mummy. It was neither. It
was her baby, Fox. She'd brought her baby to see if we could save it.
It was just so emaciated that it wasn't recognizable as human when you
first looked at it. She was trying to nurse it, but she was
malnourished and dehydrated herself, and she just wasn't producing any
milk to speak of. They always told me in medical school that any
mother who nurses often enough will produce milk, but that's only if
she's not starving herself. I ... I couldn't... I mean, I ..." 

"What happened, Daniel?" I asked, quietly.

"It died," he said, simply, with a helpless kind of shrug. "We gave it
all the IV fluids we could, and we fed it parenterally, but it just
couldn't absorb the nutrients ... it had essentially digested its own
body already just trying to stay alive. It was too late... you know,
Fox, people have said to me that women in third-world countries are
used to losing children, that they expect it, they accept it as
something normal ... it's not true. They weep and mourn for their
children just like any mother anywhere weeps for her child. That was
the fourth child that woman had lost, and I think her grief just got
deeper with each one that died. She collapsed."

"What happened to her?" I asked.

"We treated her for malnutrition and released her a couple of weeks
later," he said. "I don't know what happened to her after that." 

"Do you think she died?" I asked.

"There's a good chance she did," he said. "Food's hard for war
refugees to come by, although we had some Marines working pretty hard
to get it to them. Operation Comfort, it was called. The 2nd Medical
Battalion was part of that. They were in country then, too."

And then he stopped speaking and just looked down at his hands. I
waited, but he didn't speak or show any sign that he intended to.

"Why are you getting quiet on me, Daniel?" I asked.

"It was ... nothing," he said. "No reason."

"Daniel ...," I said. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."

"Fox, you don't want to hear this part," he said, very quietly,
shaking his head. "Believe me, you don't."

"Try me," I said.

"It's not what you think," he said.

"How do you know what I think?" I asked.

"Because I know you, Bozo," he said, trying to smile.

"Maybe you don't," I said. "I think you maybe had someone in the 2nd
Medical Battalion you were pretty close to, and that's what you don't
want to tell me about."

That got him. I mean, that really caught him flatfooted. I was almost
proud of myself, watching his eyes widen and his mouth fly open.

"My next boyfriend is not going to be a profiler," he said, after a
moment, looking out the window. "I have decided that for sure."

"Shut up," I said.

"I mean it," he said.

"So do I," I said. "So tell me about him."

"You just told me to shut up," he said.

"Daniel ..." I said, warningly. 

He shrugged. "This isn't easy for me to talk about," he said.

"And the rest of it was?" I asked.

"It's not getting any easier, asshole," he said, glaring at me with
make-believe sternness, but I could see how nervous he was. I had a
feeling I knew why, too: This was getting to whoever it was he had
cheated on Zuckerman with, and he wasn't anxious to bring that up just
now.

I didn't blame him. But it was time Daniel exorcised that demon. It
was the only hope the two of us had of putting our own relationship
back together.

"Confession is good for the soul, my son," I said, as lightly as I
could.

"I didn't think Jews believed in confession," he said.

"Hey, you're not Jewish," I said. "Talk, bubbeleh."

He still said nothing.

"Daniel," I said, quietly, and he looked at me. "What was his name?"

After a moment, Daniel looked away again. "Jeremy," he said, softly.
"Jeremy Middendorf. Lieutenant Jeremy Middendorf, that is."

"Navy?" I asked.

"Marine," Daniel said, looking at me again. "He was a first
lieutenant, force recon, detailed to the 2nd to help with Operation
Comfort. It wasn't necessarily a safe operation, you know ... they had
recon Marines going into occupied territory and into territories in
rebellion carrying food and medical supplies. Jeremy was not only
recon, he had had EMT training in college ... he worked summers on an
ambulance. So they sent him."

"Recon doesn't sound like the kind of place you'd find a gay Marine,"
I said, reflectively. "But I guess I'm stereotyping."

Daniel shook his head. "No, you're not," he said. "In this case, at
least, you're right on target. Jeremy wasn't gay. He was indulging in
a little situational homosexuality. He had a girl back home he was
very much in love with."

"Jesus, Daniel," I said, feeling a little sick. "You got mixed up with
a straight guy in a combat zone? What the hell possessed you to do
that?"

"I fell in love with him, that's what," he said, a little angrily. "I
have a history of falling in love with heterosexuals, I realize, but
it's just one of my many failings, okay, Fox? Do you want to hear this
or don't you?"

"I want to hear it," I said, quietly. "I'm sorry. Tell me about
Jeremy. What happened?"

Daniel shrugged. "I tried to make him think I was like him --straight,
but willing to try it, or maybe bisexual at best. I used to talk to
him about Jill, and he'd talk to me about his girl, Sandra -- I mean,
you know, not when we were alone, but if we sat together at mess or
something. It didn't work, though."

"He figured out that you were gay?" I said.

"He didn't have to," Daniel said. "I told him. I couldn't stand not
to. I was really, genuinely in love with him. When I finally got up
the nerve to tell him how I really felt about him, we had a huge
argument. He loved me --I know he did -- but he couldn't love me like
that, and he couldn't face what I was implying about him. He told me
to get the hell away from him. I did. I never saw him again."

"He went home?" I said.

"No," Daniel said, his voice getting a little thicker. "He went out
with the Collecting and Clearing team the next day -- the next fucking
day, Fox -- and he didn't come back. Land mine. It blew his legs off
and he bled to death, surrounded by corpsmen and medics. There was
just too much trauma; they couldn't control the bleeding. Someone told
me later that he died screaming his girlfriend's name."

"Jesus, Daniel, I'm sorry," I said, and to my own surprise, I really
meant it. "I can't imagine what you must have gone through."

"I was like a dead thing," Daniel said, flatly, without emotion. "I
walked around like a zombie for the next few days, until they sent me
home."

"You couldn't even tell anyone," I said, almost in wonder. "Shit,
Daniel, when you were shot, I thought I had it bad. At least I had
Scully and her mother looking after me. You had no one."

"No, I didn't," Daniel said, still in that dead, flat voice. "The
other personnel knew we were friends, but no one understood why it was
hitting me so hard, and I couldn't tell them. I had to let them think
I was just burned out, battle-fatigued, whatever you want to call it.
So they sent me home."

"That didn't hurt your career?" I asked.

"No, it didn't," Daniel said, shaking his head. "Remember, I'd been in
country a long time, almost a year if you count sea duty. That was too
long by any standard. So when they told me I was going home, I
volunteered to escort Jeremy's body home to his family. They sent him
home in a C-130. I sat in front, in the jump seats. His casket was in
back, covered with a flag. I didn't look at it once after they put it
aboard. I didn't look at it again until I saluted it when they were
putting it on the hearse at his hometown airport."

Daniel was silent for a moment. "I met his girlfriend there at the
airport," he said, barely above a whisper. "She fell into my arms,
crying. I tried to comfort her. But I hated her, Fox. I hated her at
first sight."

"I'm sure you did," I said, quietly. "That's not pathological, under
the circumstances, in case you were wondering."

"Not pathological, maybe, but not very compassionate and not one bit
in keeping with what I believe as a Christian," Daniel said, bitterly.
"I was hugging her, telling her his last thoughts were of her -- which
they were, apparently -- and all the while, I wanted to hurt her
because he loved her more than he loved me."

"Daniel, I know next to nothing about what Christianity requires of
its adherents," I said. "But as a psychologist, I'd say that those
requirements exist in order to help people transcend the kind of
bitter, unhappy feelings you were having. They're a goal, not a
given."

"Grace is a given, or it's supposed to be," Daniel said. "And grace
isn't given to those in mortal sin. That's what I was taught."

"That's pretty harsh," I said. "And it presupposes that you were in a
state of mortal sin and that that's why you couldn't deal with your
feelings -- which, pardon me, I think is bullshit. You couldn't deal
with your feelings because no one could, under those circumstances.
You're only human, Daniel."

"A human who was committing adultery on a regular basis," Daniel said,
looking at me, his gaze level and his voice steady. "The sex of my
partners wasn't the issue -- not the whole issue, anyway. The point
was that I'd broken my marriage vows, and that's a sin."

"Daniel, I'm not qualified to comment on that," I said, and I took his
hand again. "But if I may offer an unsolicited suggestion, I think you
need to talk to someone who is. I don't have these religious impulses
you do; I don't want to. I don't believe and I'm not bothered by that.
But you do believe, and you are bothered, and it's killing you. It's
tearing you apart, baby, and I can't stand to see it go on any longer.
You need to talk to a priest."

"I've done all the talking to priests I want to do," Daniel said,
emphatically. "I don't need another lecture about the difference
between impulses and behavior, or the sanctity of marriage, or any of
that. I must have done every penance in the book, and not one of them
made one damn bit of difference. I was sorry as hell for what I was
doing, but I kept doing it."

"It was just a suggestion," I said, raising my hands in surrender.
"What the hell do I know, I'm just a Christ-killer, right?"

"Jesus, Fox," Daniel said, with a grimace. "Given how many Jews have
died over that accusation, I don't know how you can joke about it."

"Given how many Jews have died over it, I don't know any other way to
deal with it," I said, with a shrug. "You know me, Daniel. I'd rather
joke about it than face it."

"Jon used to say the same thing," he said. "So did Jeremy."

"Jeremy was Jewish?" I said, and Daniel nodded. "I'm sensing a pattern
here, sailor."

"No shit, Sherlock," Daniel said, with a faint smile. "Why can't I
find a nice Catholic boy?"

"Beats hell out of me," I said. "What is it with you, anyway, Daniel?
You got a thing for Jewish boys?" 

"Not for Jon Zuckerman, I don't," Daniel said, firmly. "Not after what
he did to me."

"Which was what?" I said.

"I flew back to Andrews after I took Jeremy home," Daniel said. "When
I got there, Jon was at the airport waiting for me, along with Jill."

"Why would he do that?" I said, feeling irritated by Zuckerman's long-
ago misdeeds in spite of myself. 

"When it comes to being a doctor, he's as smart as they come," Daniel
said, looking at me again, and his eyes were still red. There were
more tears there, but he was through shedding them. "When it comes to
being in a relationship, he's a real shit sometimes. That was one of
those times."

"So what did you do?" I asked.

"I didn't know what to do at first," Daniel said. "I was too upset. I
saw him standing there next to Jill, and I thought about Jeremy, and I
thought about Jill, and how she had no idea what the hell Jon was
doing to her, and I walked straight to Jill and took her in my arms
and kissed her like I was going to make love to her right there in the
terminal."

"Which pissed Dr. Z off no end, I'm sure," I said, quietly. "So that's
why he's got it in for Jill the way he does?"

"Maybe," Daniel said, with another shrug. "Mostly, I think he always
felt like I was cheating on him with Jill instead of the other way
around. He was always trying to find out if I was having sex with
Jill, and if he thought I had, he'd be furious, and he'd sulk for
days."

"Well, from his point of view ..." I began, but Daniel interrupted me.

"Screw his point of view," he said, angrily. "What went on between me
and Jill was none of his business. He wanted to believe that I didn't
want her or care for her, and that wasn't true. It wasn't true then
and ..."

And he stopped, and looked at me, ashen-faced.

I didn't say anything. I didn't have to.

"I'm sorry," Daniel said, at last. "That last part ..."

"Is the truth," I said, interrupting him. "You still love Jill and
sometimes, you still want her. You can say it if you want to, you
know. It's not like I didn't already know it, Daniel."

"It's wrong," Daniel said, shaking his head. "It's all wrong. Wrong
for me, wrong for her and very damn wrong for me and you."

"Is it?" I said, taking his hand. "You think I'm wrong to love
Scully?"

"That's different," Daniel said. "You don't ... think about her ...
the way I think about Jill."

"No, but if it makes you feel any better about it, I will tell you
that not too long ago, I tried to figure out what I would have done if
you'd asked me to choose between me and Scully," I said. "I couldn't.
I have no idea what I would have done."

"I hope you'd have chosen Dana," Daniel said, and I could tell he
meant it. "You can find a guy at any bar in the District, but Dana is
a once-in-a-lifetime find."

"So are you," I said, and Daniel laughed, but not humorously.

"Not in a good way," he said. "Not at all in a good way."

"Go X-ray somebody's leg and stop working my side of the street," I
said, lightly. "I'm the personality profiler, Reilly, not you. I'll be
the judge of whether you're a good guy or not."

"Aye, aye, sir," Daniel said, with an ironic smile. "Excuse me for
living, but the graveyard's full. I'll make sure to keep my opinions
to myself from now on."

"You are so full of shit," I said, affectionately, and I leaned toward
him and kissed him. Then I sat back and looked at him more closely.

He was exhausted; happier, definitely relieved, but worn out, and he
had nothing left with which to continue this soul-searching.

I made my decision quickly.

"Look," I said, "I don't know about you, but I've about had enough of
sitting around your apartment. What do you say we go get you some new
hiking boots and make plans to join that outdoor group this weekend?"

"You have got to be kidding," Daniel said, with a frown. "You want me
to go hiking with a gay outdoor group? Are you that fed up with my
Navy career?"

"This group is as discreet as they come," I said. "Anyway, you've got
to go. I've already invited Scully, and if you don't go, the other
guys are going to think I'm a breeder."

Daniel burst out laughing. "Oh, please," he said, still laughing.
"You'll get out there with all those boys and you'll go butter-wrist
on me in about five seconds. No way anyone's going to mistake you for
a straight guy."

"Well, sweetie, I have to fulfill my destiny," I said, in my best
Nelly voice. "Come on, say you will," I added in my normal voice. "In
fact, you can bring Jill if she's willing to travel that far -- that
way, Scully will have someone to share a cabin with."

"Are you serious?" Daniel said, frankly staring at me in surprise.
"You want Jill along for this?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "Not especially. But you do -- and you
two have some things still to work out. I don't want that coming
between us anymore."

Daniel fell silent again for a moment.

"Have I told you lately that I love you?" he said, softly.

I shook my head. "Nope," I said. "But if you'll put that damn tray on
the floor, I'll bet you could find a way to show me ..."



END "The Eighth Side of the Triangle"(20/?) by Susan Jameson
(DrBarnBarn@aol.com)