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Chapter 2

The first thing I felt was shock at how cold he felt through the longjohns. I was freezing and his flesh felt colder than mine. His slim, muscular body was vibrating like a tuning fork. My natural tendencies rushed to the surface and all I could think of was how to help him. I began rubbing his arms briskly, then thought of frostbite and stopped, frustrated. Finally I just fitted my body to his as best I could and held him. I didn’t have a lot of body heat to share, but I willed what I did have into him. I pressed closer, suddenly remembering something I had witnessed a few weeks after meeting him.

We had worked a case involving the kidnapping of a young woman in quite an unusual manner. We were getting all the unusual cases, the ones involving more than the usual rote or protocols. Pendergast had gotten a rep for cracking the strange cases, the unbelievable; for asking kooky questions; for expressing questionable opinions and possibilities. He began to be known as Mulder. Enter me, a forensic pathologist interested in profiling, willing to work wherever and with whomever, and it was almost an afterthought that I would become his Scully. I don’t think he’d ever seen the show, but he knew who Mulder and Scully were the way he seemed to know everything else. I realized this one night while we huddled behind a row of garbage cans on stakeout. I heard a strange noise, a sort of hiss-pop, and glanced at him, whispering, “What’s out there?”

He had turned luminous silver eyes on me, one eyebrow raised and tongue firmly in cheek, and replied, “Why the truth, doctor. The truth is out there.” His lips had twitched minutely before he turned to peer around the cans again. I never did find out what the noise was and, to tell the truth, I was too busy trying to suppress a snort of laughter to care. That night stands out in my memory because it was the first time I began to see the real Pendergast, not just the legend who turned heads when he strode obliviously through FBI buildings or the dragon who’d campaigned strenuously against being assigned a partner, if only temporary, part-time, and for teaching purposes. He’d continued to awe and amaze me on a regular basis, but he no longer scared me.

Anyway, we finally found the girl, and I provided cover as Pendergast pulled her from the hole where she’d been for nearly two weeks. She came up sobbing, reaching out to him, and when her feet found solid purchase she’d clutched at him madly, throwing her arms about him. An unnameable expression flitted across his fine features; sort of a mixture of repulsion and terror, and his body had stiffened perceptibly, before, with an obvious effort, he’d put his arms around her, offering the comfort she needed. I saw the cost to him and admired him anew for his strength, wondering if anyone ever touched him. I thought perhaps he would’ve been the loneliest person I’d ever known, had he not been so comfortable with himself. It seemed as though, even when surrounded by a group of people hanging onto his every word, he was alone.

Now I held him tighter, hoping he wasn’t steeling himself to my touch, so desperate for a little warmth that he had to force himself to touch me. I found myself automatically pulling back a little at this thought, and pressed into him again. I thought the action must be warming him, because it seemed to make me colder. A sudden pain hit my back and I sucked air through my teeth.

“C-Cat.” He was speaking into my neck. His breath sent a shiver spiraling down through me. “Th-there is something we can do. A way to get w-warm.”

I felt my eyebrows climb. Surely he wasn’t suggesting... Then I knew it didn’t matter. Hearing his stuttering vulnerability at that moment, I would’ve done anything he asked. I probably would’ve at any moment. I waited.

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