From: Thespis Date: 13 Jan 2002 06:52:17 -0800 Subject: [all-xf] FIC: Another Day In Cwaduline 1/1 (BFtES-2) Source: atxc Title: Another Day In Cwaduline Author: Brittany "Thespis" Frederick Series: Brittany Frederick, Emergency Slayer Rating: G Category: Humor E-Mail: baltimorelt@yahoo.com Disclaimer: Standard Summary: It's a long night when you're trying to overcome being paranoid at the last minute, and then some. Second in the Brittany Frederick, Emergency Slayer series, after "This Moment In Downer History." Another Day In Cwaduline A Brittany Frederick, Emergency Slayer Fiction I met him at the restaurant. We'd agreed on the place. Gustavo Santonella's "Iguaza" drifted over the speakers. He insisted on paying for the wine. I looked at him over the rim of my glass. He had that wry, dashing smirk at the corner of his lips. It made me chuckle. No wonder why Moira Kelly had found him so attractive in a past life. "To still being alive," I murmured and raised my glass. He nodded. "And to not yet being done," he intoned as we toasted. Always, he came up with something eerily appropriate. Hell, I'd sensed his vibe. Eerie kind of went with the package. What's more, he liked it that way. Or at least, had gotten used to it. Like a second skin. "I was so scared," I said, playing with the rim until it made a faint noise. "Sounds kind of paranoid now." "Self-preservation's a heady hand to play," he said with a slight shrug. "No harm, no foul." I exhaled. "It just feels so cool not to worry anymore." "Which is precisely the entire point of us being here," he said, lounging back and scanning the menu. "Any idea what you're after?" "I don't know," I said, "if I order the pasta putanesca, does Jon Favreau cook it?" "Right," he said, elongating the word. I rolled my eyes the way he'd rolled the word off his tongue. I think he got a sardonic amusement out of that. "Chance," I said half-flatly, half-amused. "Brittany," he said in the same fashion. "You were dropped on your head once." I made it a statement. "Oh, you'd love that, wouldn't you?" His eyes flashed mirth reflected by the candlelight. I sipped politely. "I'd like Nick Van Owen and a complete collection of Macross." Another chuckle. "Well, you got me instead. Live with it." "I am. Quite contentedly actually." Quieter then, "Yeah, I can tell by the lockup in the muscles at the back of your neck." I reached a hand back and felt the tie-up. "Probably stress induced." "Know what you need?" "If you tell me 'a good, uncomplicated...' He cut me off from adding the F-word to the Laurell K. Hamilton quote. "You need to eat, and if you get drunk, it comes with the package." Ten minutes later I wrapped pasta around my fork. "So how drunk are you?" I blinked, "I don't know. How drunk are you?" "Not really sure." "Okay then," I said with an amused shake of the head and a pasta swallow. Pointed my fork at him. "Let's try another one. Why do you care how drunk I am?" "'Cause I've not yet seen you drunk." "Not *yet*?" I blurted. "Is this 20 Questions?" I swallowed and did a Dana Whitaker. "Right now? Yes." "Here's one for you: number of times you've seen 'The Cutting Edge'." I tossed out a general number. "38." "I rented it." I reminded him, "I own it." "Want to watch it later?" Chance offered. "Yeah, if I don't pass out first." He laughed. "I think you're over the paranoia now." My cell phone rang. Unlike the home phone, it was still its natural black. I looked at Chance as if to say 'it's not my fault,' then answered it. "What's up?" "Brittany, it's Elliot Stabler. Are you busy?" "I'm kind of having dinner right now. Why, what's wrong?" "We're falling into the sequel trap." "You poor, overlooked middle child," I deadpanned. "Let me finish up and I'm on my way." I hung up and went back to eating. Chance looked at me. "Who was that?" "Duty calls," I said. "What exactly is your job description?" "Fixer of television emergencies. They call me the 'emergency slayer'." I sighed. "And my friends over at the SVU need my help." "Is it bad?" "I don't know. It's serious. But I've had to deal with a script disaster, an angry mob of Bradley Whitford fans, and casting complaints all in the same day before, so I don't know if it compares to that." "Want some company?" "Do I need a sidekick?" "It would just be a shame to cut this short, is all I'm saying." "You can come if you play by the rules. And keep your luck in check 'cause I don't want to have to go rescue David Duchovny." We took care of business and made our way to my car. I hope he understood that I meant that last part. The last thing I needed was people getting on David's case for abandonment of William and Dana Scully. I felt different about this day. Since my dinner date had been interrupted, I wasn't in my usual emergency-slayer dress -- black leather jacket over a long-sleeved, slightly stomach-baring colonial blue t-shirt and jeans. I'd even left the trademark Phantom skull ring at home. It was the first time I'd responded to a call in semi-formal attire. But I thought that wouldn't be where the differences would stop. "That was quicker than I expected," Elliot said when I walked in the door. His partner, Olivia Benson, was with him. The others were all about. "I make my living by it," I said. "Elliot, this is Chance Harper, a friend of mine. Chance, these are Detectives Benson and Stabler, Special Victims Unit." I didn't pause for clarity. "Sequel trap, huh? I can't say I'm surprised, Elliot." "How does it look?" Benson asked me and I bit my lip. "Honestly, this is going to be hard. You're not getting much of the attention anymore. Dick Wolf has a deal to keep you on the air for a few more years so he doesn't have to put the effort in like in other shows where you have to earn renewal. To my knowledge, there's no standing deal like that for Criminal Intent. He's focused on seeing that through to a second season, and the first show of a franchise always has clout, so you're trapped between an eleven-year rep and a ratings squeeze. It's kind of lose-lose." "Is there a solution?" Elliot said, face grim but eyes hopeful. I was fond of him. I didn't want to say what I had to. "For some people it may be fatal." "Which people?" Fin Tutola asked from across the room. Off the top of my head, I said, "Weaker supporting cast members. Clich characters brought in to couch you more in the style of the original series. Not any of the people in this room, but other people may have to go. As a viewer, my first instincts are ADA Cabot and the shrink." Munch chimed in, "I never liked her anyway." "Okay, I have some support." I glanced at Munch. "How are you, John?" "Just crystal, and how are you, my dear?" "Razor." "Still missing Tim?" "You know I am," I said with a tinge of regret. John had been with me for one of the only two times I'd ever failed -- and it was my first. He was part of the Homicide group, which had finally been cancelled despite my best efforts. He'd been there when I'd had to say goodbye to Tim Bayliss at the Waterfront, and knew it was still painful. I promised myself I'd never do that again. "He still mentions your name every now and then." I just nodded. "Listen, we'll talk later," I said, turning my attention to my real job at hand. "Optimally, we also need stronger stories and a few stronger guest cast members. Paige Turco and Andrew McCarthy, that was a start. For writers, I have a few names. Optimally, Anya Epstein, Julie Martin, Jim Yoshimura, anyone you can find with police drama experience. This place needs an overhaul." Realizing I sounded pessimistic, I looked at Benson and Stabler. "You have a strong cast here. Unfortunately, you're all kind of unsupported. I think, primarily, it's because this place is an SVU for a marketing reason only. Sex is a marketing item and I think they're playing this show that way. If we get past that we'll be fine." "How do we get past that?" Captain Cragen said as he joined us. "We have to write a script that redefines what this show is about. Thankfully I'd been thinking of it for a long time. I have a spec TV-movie draft in my house, called 'Year Two.' But I'm going to need all of you, especially you, Elliot, Olivia, to play it hard." "You got it," Elliot said, "What do we do?" "The plot is that the parents of one of Maureen's friends are murdered. So you have to take care of this teenage girl while investigating the crime. And it's not a sex crime so you really have no jurisdiction, and you're left looking for skeletons in the closet to hang on to the case. It's much more personal and there's nothing sordid about it at all." "How soon can you get it to us?" "From here to my house it's about an hour's drive. I can e-mail it to you. How long do we have?" "We start shooting tomorrow." "You'll need to switch all the scripts once I get it to you." "It'll be hard, but we can do it," Fin agreed. "Okay. Let me go back and I'll take care of this." I stood up from the desk and reached for my car keys. "Let me know how it goes." The one pitfall of my job -- an 'emergency slayer' never sleeps. Chance and I said our goodbyes and left the squadroom for my car. "That's your job? It's that simple?" "This is not simple," I said. "Far from it. We have to get that script, make all the copies, switch out the intended script with this one, relearn a whole batch of new lines and prepare to start them from scratch, all by tomorrow morning. It's a little after ten now. That's about ten hours. Now do you want me to drop you off or do you want to stay in the car?" We ended up at my house, which was basically where I worked out of. I opened the file on Special Victims Unit from the filing cabinet in my study while Chance admired my entertainment center. This was not the first time I'd had to come down there. Then I had to go to another cabinet and find the script, a hard copy that had a specific number which corresponded to a number-labeled, encrypted, password-protected file on my computer. Jotting down the number, I flew back down the stairs and turned on my computer, logging on to the Internet. At the same time, I searched for the numbered file, which popped up almost instantly. When Chance wasn't looking, I typed in my password and hit decrypt, then copied the massive file to my clipboard. My e-mail account opened up when I clicked on the little envelope logo. I searched through my massive address book for Stabler's work e-mail address, attached the file and a quick note, and sent it on its way. Chance, looking over my shoulder, glanced at me. "What happens now?" "He'll call when he gets it, for confirmation. And then we plan, sidekick boy." "'Sidekick boy'?" "Sorry. I picked it up from Tom Paris." I pushed back from the computer and rested my chin on my hand, waiting for the phone to ring. He sat on the arm of my white leather couch, eyes boring into the back of my head until I finally spun the chair around. "Can I ask you a question?" he asked. "Yeah, sure, go ahead," I mumbled in Richard Schiff-esque fashion. "The one detective, what was he talking about, this other guy?" I blinked. Direct little tart, Chance Harper was. Hadn't saved *his* show, but direct he was, indeed. No wonder why Moira Kelly had also found him abrasive in a past life. "Detective Tim Bayliss," I explained, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. "Formerly of Homicide, at least until about a year or two ago. I..." I ran a hand through my hair and blinked. "Honestly, Chance, it's kind of personal and I don't really like to talk about it." He nodded. "Okay," he said as the phone rang. I reached backward and grabbed it. "Verify." "We got it. Looks good." "Okay. Are you good with the switch or do you need a hand?" "I think we're good. I'll page you otherwise." Stabler and I hung up on each other and I felt the wine and my fatigue suddenly catch up with me. I didn't fall asleep then, but not too long after we finished 'The Cutting Edge' and called it a night. I headed upstairs thinking about what had been said and stared at the ceiling. I was a rookie to the emergency slaying profession, with my license about a year and a half old. But I was also the only currently available one for the West Coast, or at least the L.A./Southern California area, where most of these major overlooked dramas that were my specialty were filmed. I'd made it my ability to turn tricks to help out 24, The West Wing, The X-Files, and other shows. I didn't think about my two failures, and I didn't think about how I broke the rules. I'd helped out Homicide a few times over the years, and had essentially cut my teeth in the business on that show. I couldn't save it from cancellation four years ago, because everyone -- from me watching at home to the cast -- had been blindsided by the preview that proclaimed the next week's episode as the series finale. Two years later, despite my practically raising an army, I'd also lost Sports Night. With both those shows I'd lost some special people. The general rule is that you don't get involved with the people you work with. It's kind of the glass wall that separates cops and victims, though in our business there is no practical reason for it that I can see. I'd technically broken it with Detective Tim Bayliss, my favorite homicide detective. He was honest, quietly analytical, privately romantic, sensitive to me. And I was partial to him, believing in the long journey they'd all walked, passionate about it, even. We never really went anywhere. It was like being unofficially involved. We spent some private moments together but our relationship was just kind of there. It reached its head when he kissed me goodbye. As much as we would have liked to keep in touch, my job keeps me on the run. And he was searching for something. We couldn't even get together for the reunion TV-movie. It was my only rule infraction to date and I kept it close to my heart. Chance, even, had seemed kind of envious, though our relationship was to this point strictly platonic. Though I supposed if I were to date him it would be within the rules since he no longer had a series of his own and I didn't deal with that former series. John was right, though. The constant reminder that SVU was in Homicide's time slot still hung over my head. I answered the phone. "Verify." "It's Munch. How do we tell Cabot and the shrink they've just been given walking papers?" "I'll send down an official Notice of Hiatus in the morning. I'd do it myself but I'm also due for a couple of follow-ups ... 24, West Wing, X-Files." "You sound different." "You kind of made me think of him again." Munch paused. "No one's heard from him, Brittany. Not even Frank." "I know. It's best if I just consider him gone. It's just harder that way." I paused and moved on in my mind. "Oh, and if you see Goren from Major Cases, tell him he needs to call me back." How drunk was I? Pretty drunk. I learned later it wasn't good to get an 'emergency slayer' drunk and morose. "I've got a really big hangover, Agent Doggett," was the first thing I said upon walking into the basement of the Hoover Building the next day, with still no page from either Stabler or Goren. "Out late?" Agent Reyes asked and I nodded. "I had a late-night emergency over at the 2-7." "Special Victims Unit or Major Case Squad?" Doggett continued the questions. "Special Victims, so how are things here?" I said. "Did this brilliant last episode reaffirm the faith of the fans?" "I'm afraid not," Reyes said, a note of sadness in her voice. "What? But that was a perfectly brilliant monologue by Scully, excellent performance by Terry O'Quinn, Allison Smith, the dear departed Mrs. Landingham..." I nearly started off on a mini-rant just thinking about the situation. "There are still a bunch of people thinking Mulder's the X-Files," Reyes said with a shrug. I blinked. "I've seen almost the entire series and I don't think that!" "Yeah, but you started with Season 8, and you've also got a really good ability to appreciate the big picture," Doggett said levelly. "A lot of these people, Mulder and Scully is all they know. Or all they want to know." I was getting frustrated. "I don't know what else to do. I really DON'T know. Where's Scully?" "She's coming in late." "And the whole Kersh-might-be-Mulder's-savior-in-a-backward-way, that didn't do anything either?" "Don't think so. Not the redemption of Follmer either." Reyes studied me. "You're really taking this personally." "Of COURSE I am! I just started watching last season! I'm not going to let this show get cancelled now! That would mean we only had two good Doggett Years and one good Reyes Year ... that's just, it's just universally wrong." "Well, I hate to push you, but next week I'm losing my memory and somewhere down the line they're reinstituting the Forbidden Law of Sexual Tension," Doggett inserted, almost pained in a way. I blinked. "They're not." "They are." "I find that so hypocritical." Now I was really a little abrasive. "It's not that I don't mind shipperness, not at all. It's just that it's funny, in the beginning of the series Chris Carter insisted there would be no UST, he even fought against it. And now they're promoting it as this staple of the series. Totally, totally backward." I sat down hard in a spare chair. "Guys, I really don't know what I can do. X-Files fans are harder set in their ways than any other contingent I've ever had to deal with." Reyes and Doggett were taking this information better than I expected. "What we need to do," I said slowly, "is find out what made Season 8 so great, outside of the performances, and find that and grab it and utilize it." "Is this going to involve coffee cups, batteries, gum and a stapler?" Doggett asked me. He'd seen Ground Control. I chuckled, but shook my head. "Think about it," I prompted. "There was a reason why I got hooked on this last year and never before. Something transformed this series from something I didn't take seriously into my new It Series. If we find out the 'why' we have the answer." "Didn't you keep saying you only ask why when people tell you the truth?" I put up a hand. "Actually, John Munch said it first." About fifteen minutes and a couple of pencils into the ceiling later that was one strange habit I'd picked up from Mulder when I started going into the back seasons of X-Files we hit on it. "It wasn't like a movie of the week, not an isolated installment each week," Reyes said. "The whole season had one central plot. Like a really long movie, viewed in pieces until it all came together. It kept your interest. It kept you moving because it wasn't one and done, you were locked in longer, deeper, there were more layers." I practically beamed and wanted to hug her. "That's it, then. We need a subplot or something that will be a central theme that will keep people interested through all the one-and-done episodes." Doggett looked a little confused. "I thought we had the 'where's Mulder and why?' thing." "Are we doing it well enough? Pushing it? Honestly, 'Trust No 1' was the first episode to deal deeply with and only with it." I leaned forward like I usually do when I think pretty hard, perhaps too hard. "We could use it as a launching point to make that subplot a little stronger, more aggressive." "How?" "I don't know how. It's up to the writers. My suggestion would be to put Spotnitz on the case. But I think it's the only clear solution I see." I hate seeing only one solution. My catchphrase is 'There's always another way.' When I first started writing my own drama series, that became my lead character's catchphrase, too. For a very good reason. I feel singleminded if there's only one answer and I don't like it. I started pacing the room. "Scully's going to have to take charge. It's her story, hers and Mulder's." "We can deal with that when she comes in." My pager went off then. Okay, somebody had finally called me back. It was either Stabler and the covert ops detectives, Goren and his own problems with Nash-like genius, or the man I'd semi stood-up last night by refusing to comment to. "Call me when she comes in," I said and was gone. My one brief thought was if the whole chain would break long enough for me to start over again. End. ===== "Oh, for God's sake, please be somebody else." - Lewis Black Natalie: Two guys have ascended 5 miles into the sky. They walked up a wall of ice and are preparing to knock on the door of heaven itself. There's really no end to what we can do. You know what the trick is? Dan: What? Natalie: Get in the game! - "The Quality of Mercy at 29K", "Sports Night"