It's certainly not something she'd suggest at home, though there's a tiny part of her that thinks it would still help with his inability to sleep, not to be alone. Would she insist, if she hadn't been here for six months by herself? Is it the gem, or the world, influencing her to be more permissive, more affectionate, less bound by the rigidity of her own rules?

Who can say. In her own mind it's easy enough to justify: he doesn't sleep, he needs to sleep, it's like prescribing a tranquilizer without the pill casing. She isn't offering anything lascivious.

"Just lay down," she says, shifting to stretch out her own legs and scoot a little closer to the heart of the blanket vortex.

Mulder may have hit upon an instinctual link with his herbaceous abilities but Scully has more practice than he does with synchrony, and certainly more practice with emotional control than most people. She reaches to touch him and this time the thread of synchrony is more obvious: deep and focused, calm and suffused with her drowsiness. It's just a brief brush at first, an example, before she rolls onto her side facing away from him, figuring it will be a little less awkward that way.