From: "robert manista" <cmanista@worldnet.att.net>
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 16:51:23 -0400
Subject: In Any Other Lifetime

Title: "In Any Other Lifetime"
Author: C. Roberts
Rating:R
Classification:SH
Spoilers: Never Again
Keywords:Alternate Universe
Summary: What if Mulder and Scully, through a freak paranormal accident,
traded places with Duchovny and Anderson?

Disclaimers: Standard copyright stuff.  We all know that the X-Files--and
all the characters living, dead and undead contained in that fine
television series--are the intellectual property of Chris Carter and Fox
television.  My name ain't Chris Carter.  I'm not making a dime off this,
so sue me and you'll get custody of three very unruly kids.  I borrowed the
plot device of the elevator from another fanfic author YouKneek, whose
story "The Round File" is hilarious.  You really should read it.  No
disrespect is intended, this story was written with tongue firmly in cheek
and if you can't take a joke bail now.  All comments can be sent to:
cmanista@worldnet.att.net

IN ANY OTHER LIFETIME

I

   Mulder and Scully rode the same silver-gray government elevator they
always rode to their basement office.  Mulder pretended to watch the
numbers, tapping a file folder against his thigh, but Scully had been
around him just long enough to know he was just dying to go into another of
his patented conspiracy rants.
   "Why don't you just say it?"  Scully offered, breaking the silience.
   "Say what?"
   "Come on, Mulder.  You know how this always goes.  You say 'Those
weren't just cattle mutilations,'  then I say 'What were they then?' And
you go off on an impassioned  monologue about how since the 1950's the
government has supressed stories of everything from cattle mutilations to
kidnapped elephants in the Congo to keep us in the dark."
   Mulder gave her his crooked wiseass smile.  "Scully, have you been
swiping my copies of the National Enquierer again?"  
   The elevator chimed for their floor. Scully was just about to answer him
when a blinding blue-white light flared through the elevator.  The lift
seemed to quake slightly, just enough to make Mulder drop his file.
   It stopped almost immediatly.
   Leave it to Mulder to be excited by a malfunctioning elevator.          
   
   "Scully, did you see that?!!  Check your watch, has it stopped?"  He was
busy checking his own.  "I make it 10:13, what time do you have?"
   Scully groaned, picking up the papers from the floor and stuffing them
back into the folder.  "Mulder, it was nothing.  Probably a burst light
bulb."
   "We've both experienced missing time before and you've never been able
to explain--"
   Scully cut him off with a cocked eyebrow.
   "Okay," he corrected himself, "sometimes you can explain it.  Well you
can offer a possible explanation, but even you can't explain it all the
time, that's my point."
   The door opened and they stepped off the elevator into the hallway.  She
shook her head, handing him the file back.  "I just don't see why
everything has to be an X-file with you."
   They both froze, aware of an unusally high amount of light in the
normally energy efficient corridor.
   The crew and cameras and klieg lights were definately not government
issue, and neither was the runt in the folding chair yelling, "CUT!!  CUT!!
That's not the line!  Somebody give her the line and lets try this again !"
   Scully and Mulder stared in amazement at the lights, cameras and crew.
   They exchanged a glance, seeing that the end of the hallway opened into
what seemed to be a dimly lit warehouse, as if someone had taken a chainsaw
and hacked off the end of the building and replaced it with the shipping
department of a Walmart.
    A cute young woman hurried up to Scully, and plucking a pencil from
behind her ear, indicated some typing in the middle of a half inch thick
binder with a patternless rainbow of pale colors.  This particular page was
pink.  "Gill, the line is 'So what makes you think this an X-file, Mulder?'
 You know how Mister Carter hates it when you ad-lib. So, you got it?"
  Scully just stared, open mouthed.
  "Got it...Gill?"
  "Uh...sure...sure."  Scully gave Mulder a glance.  She could tell he
didn't have any more of a clue of what was going on than she did.
   A young guy, maybe in his early twenties, clapped his hands together. 
"Okay people, places!  Let's get ready to shoot!  Take fifteen!  Howie,
watch that boom mike this time alright?"
   "Go screw yourself, Jimmy," drifted somewhere from above.
   Scully gawked at the massive camera, the pulleys and cables that snaked
overhead to the rafters and catwalks.
   Jimmy stepped up.  "Places, Miss Anderson."
   She looked at Jimmy, suddenly aware that he was talking to her. 
"Places?"
   Mulder grabbed her shoulder.  "I got it, Jimmy, keep up the good work. 
There we go," he told the kid as he firmly nudged her back towards the
elevator.
   Once inside the little room, he pushed the button.  Nothing happened. 
"Lemme get that for you, Mr. Duchovny," a fat guy in a t-shirt five sizes
too small offered, shoving the door from the outside.
   Scully touched the wall of the elevator, looked around.  "Mulder, whats
going on?"
   He was deep into his ultra-cool investigator "nothing surprises me"
mode.  "I don't know, but lets try another floor."  His finger stabbed at
the buttons.
   "I don't think that's going to work."
   "Why not?"
   She reached out, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and prodded his
head up.  "This ain't a real elevator."
   Mulder looked up, and the fat guy, with a big rope in his hand, waved
down at him.  There was no ceiling in the tiny room.
   Mulder sheepishly waved back.
   "Action!"  Someone shouted from outside.
   "Mulder?"  Scully whispered.
   "ACTION!!"
   Mulder shook his head.  "Let's just try to get through this and get
outta here."
The runt director was screaming.  "While we're young people!  Ready any
time you are!"
   Mulder shrugged.  "It's show time."
   "Mulder?"
   "Just play along," he whispered, then looked up and smiled at the fat
man.  "Go for it, Zeke."
   Zeke--if that was, in fact, his name--yanked the rope and the doors
opened.  Scully took a deep breath, stepped out into the hallway, and
froze, staring at the camera like a deer caught in the headlights.
   The director jumped from his chair, ripping off a set of headphones and
yelling, "Cut! Cut! CUT!!  For Christ's sake just cut!"  He stomped away
from the cameras.  "That's it.  I've had enough of this horseshit!  We'll
try again Monday."  He turned and yelled back at Mulder and Scully, "And
you two better know the freakin' lines by then.  LEARN THE DAMN WORDS! 
This is a contract year y'know.  Ain't either one of you couldn't get your
asses abducted off the show until you wise up!"
   Mulder and Scully stood still as the crew started tearing down the set
around them.
   Jimmy rather meekly stepped up.  "Don't mind him.  He's just pissed
because the espresso machine was down today."
   Mulder gave him a little nod.
   Jimmy leaned in toward Scully.  "Y'know, Miss Anderson, if you...uh, you
know, need any help...you know, with going over your lines--"
   Scully nodded.  "I think I'll be alright on my own....Jimmy."
   Jimmy backpedalled.  "Sure.  Well of course you will."  He let out a
nervous laugh, already backing away.  "Okay.  Great.  Well, see you
Monday."
   Mulder whispered, "I think you've got a fan, Scully."
   She gave him a "don't go there" look.  "Now what?"
   Mulder just shrugged.
   Another teamster-type, this one pushing a shopping cart filled with all
kinds of junk--boxes of rubber gloves, a stethescope, clipboards--rolled up
to them.  The guy must have chewed gum by the yard, because his whole face
was misshapen by a wad of the stuff.  He grabbed the folder from Mulder and
unceremoniously dumped it in the cart.  "Guns and badges," he managed to
say around the chewing gum.
   Mulder didn't move.  Scully looked the gum chewer in the eye and said,
"I don't think so."
   The prop guy looked at Mulder, "Look I know that you and your little
girlfriend like to play secret agent, but the last time I let you borrow
this stuff I got into trouble.  So please....." He held out his hands.
   Mulder sighed and reached into his jacket.  He pulled out his automatic
and ejected the clip and jacked the chamber--surprised to find no bullet
there.
   "Yeah." the prop guy said, popping a bubble.  "You're real cool.  Gimme
the gun."
   Mulder handed it over.  And his badge.  The case didn't feel right, and
he frowned, popping the leather open.  "Jeez, looks like I grabbed yours by
mistake,"  He told Scully.  "Let's see."
   Scully opened hers.  It was her picture, her ID, only...not.  The pose,
the hair, it was different.  "Well, I think this is--"
   Mulder gave her a quick elbow in the ribs, shutting her up.  "Let's take
a peek, here."  He made a quick inspection.  "I'll be damned..."
   "Yeah, yeah," the prop master snatched the cases away.  "Who cares?  I
mean you guys didn't flip the American Express at all today anyhow.  I'm
tired of this 'gettin'into charater crap."  He tossed the guns and the
cases into the cart and wheeled off, popping a bubble as he went.
   Scully rubbed her ribs.  "That hurt."
   "At least you know you're not dreaming."  He nudged her into the
warehouse.  "Man, those badges wouldn't fool my grandmother."
   "What now?"
   "I'm thinking, I'm thinking," he told her.
   "Yeah?  Well think while you get those clothes off, Dave," a woman said
behind them.
   Mulder turned to her.  "Parden me?"
   "Costumes?  If you go change now,"  she nodded at two trailers through a
massive hatchway leading to the parking lot, "we might even get home before
dark.  And, hey, I don't need to be ironing first thing Monday, so you get
'em on hangers this time, you hear me?"
   She stomped away.
   Mulder turned to Scully.  "After you."  They walked outside.  Mulder
stopped.  He sniffed the air. "It dosen't smell like D C."
   She stood there.  "You're right, Mulder.  It's...clean.  More like..."
   "Canada?"
   They stopped in front of the trailers.
   "I'm Anderson, right?"
   "Yeah I guess so,"  he said, frowning.
   "What's up your ass?"
   "That makes me...Dutchoveny.  David Dutchoveny."
   "So?
   "David's so...ordinary."
   "Live with it.  Meet me out here when you're done."
   "Okie-dokie."  They stepped towards their respective trailers. 
"Scully?"
   "Yeah?"
   "Do you think zippers work the same way here...where ever here is?"
   She gave him a look.  "Want me to go find the wardrobe lady to help
you?"
   "No, no," he quickly said. "She's got it in for me as it is and I think
she carries  needles.  Maybe even scissors."
   Inside the trailer Mulder changed into the jeans, t-shirt and flannel
shirt that were laid out for him.  He heard a dismayed groan come from the
other trailer.  He finished dressing and went outside to look for Scully. 
She emerged from her trailer wearing tight jeans and a midrift top that she
stubbornly tried to tug down over her stomach.
   Mulder looked her up and down.  "That's a new look for you, isn't it?"
   "Just give me your shirt."
   He couldn't take his eyes off her bare belly.  "I always figured you for
an outie...."
   "Give that shirt before I turn your colon into an outie,"  She hissed.
   Mulder peeled off the flannel shirt.  She put it on, making sure to
button all the buttons.  She let out a relieved sigh.  "Well I guess we
should try to find out where we are."
   "Maybe we should try to find out  who we are, Gillian."
   Scully grabbed his arm, looking off towards the building.  "Mulder, it's
the Cancer Man."
   Only....it wasn't.  It  was his twin, strolling up with a duffle bag in
one hand, script in the other.  He wore flipflop sandals and swimming
trunks, a fresh towel slung over his shoulder.  He smiled, waving as he
stepped close to them.  He looked at Scully's shirt. 
    "It's not that cold out tonight, Gill."
   Scully was confused. "Excuse me?"
   "New outfit?"
   "What the hell do you want from us this time?"  Mulder bristled.
   Cancer Man looked confused, then grinned a little, dropping his bag on
the pavement and flipping through the script.  He frowned, flipping back
and forth.  Looking.  "I don't see that..."  he muttered, still flipping. 
"What, are you working on next week's show?" He blanched, lowering the
script. "Did they forget to give me the blue sheets again?  God damn it! 
I'm gonna kick that script girl's ass halfway to--"
   "No,no,"  Mulder eased.  "Sorry, I was only...staying in character."
   "Well, cut it out, Dave.  I mean, hey, I know you make more a show than
anybody else in the cast, but you put in your day."  He shook it off.  "I'm
going for a dip.  Wanna come?  Hotel pool's nice and warm."
   Mulder just stared.
   Scully stepped between them, folding her arms across her chest.  "We had
a really bad day, blew the last scene and the director just about had a
stroke."  She tapped the side of her nose, out of Mulder's sight, rolling
her eyes to assimilate what she thought a coke user would look like.  "He's
got a...you know...headache."
    The Cancer Man--or whoever he was--shrugged.  Scully couldn't tell if
her pantomime threw him off track or just spooked him enough for him to
want to get away from them.    
    He picked his bag.  "Uh..okay.  Well, back at it Monday."
   Mulder waited until the man was out of earshot.  He rubbed his eyes. 
"Scully?  I think my eyes are bleeding."
   "I could have lived without that, too.  Naked fifty-plus isn't my
demographic."
   "Apparently, everybody around here shows more skin than me."  He
frowned.  "This is crazy..."
   His eyes flashed.  "Unless--"
   He had that look in his eyes again.  "No, Mulder. Don't--"
   There was no stopping him. 
    "Nerve gas.  They could have slipped it into the elevator shaft,
rendered us unconscious, got us out of the building and transported us here
in disguised delivery trucks and dumped us into this scenario--"
   "Do you have a headache, Mulder?"
   "Not really, no."
   She looked him up and down.  "Vertigo,"  she asked, "sore muscles?"
  "No and no."
   Scully shook her head.  "Then I think we can rule out any toxins,
inhaled or injected."
   Mulder eyed the Cancer Man across the parking lot.  "That's just what
he'd want us to believe."
   "Why would they bother to construct this elaborate scenario?"
   Mulder shook his head like it was the most obvious answer in the world. 
"To discredit the X-Files.  To discredit us, our work."
   "You don't need nerve gas and a camera crew to do that."  Scully found
her hands on her hips, as usual when she unwillingly found herself in the
middle of one of her partner's paranoid delusions.  "I don't pretend to
know what's happening here, but that man was an actor."  Mulder started to
open his mouth.  She talked right over him.  "He's just an actor.  Don't
most actors live in trailers or something?"
   "How would I know?  The closest thing to acting I've ever done was being
a peach in grade school in the Health Day Play."
   "Okay, I'm no Scarlet O'Hara, either."
   "I was a good peach,"  Mulder insisted.
   "Let's walk around and see what we can find."
   They started walking.  Scully was having a tough time in
pumps--especially spiked heels--she was so used to regulation flats.
   "My mom has pictures...." he offered.
   "Forget the peach!" she barked.
   They started walking across the blacktop outside the huge white
building.
   "Wanna hear my theory?"  Mulder asked.
   "As long as its not about peaches--or any other fruit."
   "No I was thinking that--"
   Scully couldn't stop herself from interrupting.  "That the flash of blue
light transported us to an alternate universe where we are only actors
portraying ourselves in a movie or something?" 
   "I've said it before: Should we be picking out china patterns?"
   Scully laughed.  "No, it's just that I used to watch Star Trek, too. 
The one where Spock had a beard."
   A guy in jeans jogged up beside them.  "Dave, I walked Blue, but I think
she really misses you."
   "Uh...thanks."
   The stagehand trotted off toward the front of the building.  "No
problem, Blue's great."
   Mulder watched the guy go.  "Scully, what's a Blue?"
   Scully shrugged, "Don't know, Dave, but generally dogs get walked, don't
they?"
   Mulder scowled.  "Great."
   "What's the matter?  Don't you like dogs?"
   "I don't even like pictures of dogs playing poker."  He stopped walking.
 "Scully what are we even looking for?  I mean it's not like we're gonna
find crop circles or--"
   Scully was still walking, aimed at a line of cars parked in front of the
building.  Mulder came up behind her.  She beamed at him.  "A Corvette!  I
always wanted a 'vette."
   "Uh, look again Anderson that space is reserved for David Dutchoveny,
that's me."
Scully looked to the next slot, eager as a kid opening a box of cereal for
the secret toy surprise, and found it was occupied by a lumbering Land
Rover.
   There was another group of trailers parked close together on the far
side of the lot.  A smaller one was one of those stylish 1950's chrome
Airstreams with DD on the door.      
   The other was bigger, more modern.  The kind you see on the freeway
wearing the WIDE LOAD banner like it won a vehicular beauty contest,
usually at the head of a traffic jam.
   Mulder looked over the huge trailer.  Anderson was on the door.  "How
come yours is bigger?"
   Scully cocked her head back.  "Maybe I'm the star."
   "Naw, Cancer Man already said I make more.  Maybe you sold out cheap on
wardrobe and a bigger--"
   The door of Scully's trailer opened and an absolute knockout of a woman
leaned out.  She looked overjoyed to see Scully.  "Gill, thank God you're
back.  She's been screaming for half an hour."
   "Be right there."  She went back into the trailer.  "Screaming?"
   Mulder looked at the trailer as if he could x-ray the walls.  "If the
screamer looks anything like her, just call me."
   Scully gave him a look.
   "Well, hey, what are partners for?"
   "I don't think I'm that liberal."
   "Maybe Gillian is," he flirted.
   "Not tonight she's not,"  She mounted the little staircase to the
trailer door.
   "Just try to find out where we are and meet me here in an hour okay?" he
whispered.
   Scully checked her watch and nodded.
   Mulder saw a guard smoking a cigarette outside his trailer.  The guard
gave him half a nod, really bored, and shuffled off.  The door was unlocked
and Mulder went inside.  A dog--a Border Collie mix--came bounding at him,
eager and sloppy and happy, but stopped short, giving him a confused,
suspicious look.  The dog hung her head and padded away, curling up around
the chair in front of a desk in the little trailer.
   Mulder shook his head at the dog, wandered over, and, almost in spite of
himself, scratched lazily behind the dog's ears.  The dog barely seemed to
notice.  "Look I'm just as upset as you are, pal.  I don't suppose you know
where daddy keeps his wallet and keys?"
   Blue gave Mulder a look that seemed to tell him that, in fact, she knew
exactly where everything from keys to wallet to birth control devices were
kept in the trailer, but she wasn't about to show him anything.
   Mulder tapped the key on the answering machine on the desk,only half
listening to the drone of messages as he poked around the trailer, starting
with the downsized closet.  There was a dark suit, a banded collar shirt. 
"Not too bad, Dutchoven, whatever the hell your name is--Whoa! Shit, man,
is that real Armani?"  He wandered  to a mini CD player and rack of discs. 
Not a bad selection.  It had the virture of being...eclectic.  He made his
way back to the desk.  There was a line of books on top.  He pulled one out
at random.  Bulfinch's Mythology.  A collection of Shakespeare and Thomas
Hart.  He started to put the Bulfinch back and the whole pile slipped,
spilling a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's with a bullet through it.  "I
don't even want to know."  He collected the books, stacked them back more
or less in order.  There was a cabinet of sorts hanging from the ceiling
over the bed and he found a few neatly-ordered files and stacks of scripts.
 He sighed.  "No porn?  What kind of loser is this guy?"  Something
crinkled behind the scripts and he reached around, coming back with a big
handful of papers.  Some were typwritten, others off a PC printer, still
more scrawled with notes.
   He sank to the bed with the papers and without meaning to, without
feeling tired, he was soon asleep.
   A sharp knock at the door woke him.  Either that or it was Blue licking
his hand where it leaned over his bed.  He sat up, nearly nicking his head
on the cabinet above.  It took him a moment to orient himself.  Then he
petted the dog.  "Sorry, Blue, it's still me."  The knock came again,
louder this time.  "Coming!"
   Mulder opened the door,  Scully entered carrying a small girl and a
diaper bag.  Scully had on a ballcap and sunglasses.  
   Mulder eyed the child.  "Gillian, what have you been doing with your off
hours?"
   "My daughter, Piper."  Scully put the girl down and she immeadiately ran
over to the papers on the bed.  Mulder had scattered them in his slumber.
   "What?"
   Scully lowered her voice, speaking only when she was sure the child was
occupied.   
   "Don't start.  I'm a little overwhelmed myself," she said.  "But be nice
to me.  I'm having marital troubles."
   "Okay, but...Piper?"
   Scully shook her head.  "I know it's a little New Age-ish...."
   "I kind of like it."
   "You would, Fox"
   He shook his head.  "What's the word from Mary Poppins?"  She gave him a
confused glance.  "The nanny?"
   "I'm supposed to be Gillian Anderson--actually Gillian Klotz--but I'm in
the middle of a divorce."
   Mulder flashed genuine sympathy.  "That's too bad.  What happened?"
   Scully almost yelled, then quieted herself.  "How the hell should I
know?"
   Piper whined.  "Piper want to play!"
   Scully leaned down.  "Uncle David and I need to talk, sweetheart."
   Mulder rolled his eyes.  "Uncle David?"
    "Piper color?"
   Mulder waved his hands over the papers scattered on the bed.  Scully
bent down and found a title sheet on the floor. "Magic and Technology in
Contemporary Poety and Prose.?" she read.
   "Yeah. Interesting idea, but it's lacking something in the execution."
   "Are you sure...David...won't miss it?"
   "Doesn't look like he's doing anything with it, at least not in the last
few years."   He watched the girl hauling an giant economy sized box of
crayons from the diaper bag.    
   "Find out where we are?"
   "Yeah, Vancouver.  I found a script,  apparently we're on a show called 
The X-Files."
   "That figures."
   Scully looked around.  "I think we'd better go to my house and try to
figure this all out."
   "What's wrong with my house?"
   "I know where mine is.  Gillian must be bad with directions, there was a
map in my trailer.  Between that and her driver's licence, I think I can
get us there.  Besides, look around.  I think David is a bachelor.  He
wouldn't have the necessary baby stuff in his house."
   "Is Mary Poppins gonna be at your house?"
   Scully shook her head.  "Sorry to disappoint you.  She's gone until
Monday."
   "Even in someone else's body I never get to have any fun."
   "I didn't know her name and I couldn't go around calling her Hey You all
weekend.  Besides, how hard can it be?  Let's go.  I don't know how long
real actors hang around the lot, but I have to figure we've been around
here too long already."  A baseball cap and jacket hung from a rack on the
door.  "And put that on, the cap.  I've seen some photos in my trailer.  He
likes baseball  caps."
   Mulder pulled the cap.  "It says....Kalifornia."  He turned it to face
her and pointed.
   "Who cares?  Just get it on your head."
   Mulder took the jacket, almost an afterthought.  It jingled.  He dug
through the pockets, found a big ring of keys and a dull brown wallet. 
There was a wad of cash inside.  "Cool.  Looks like I've got running money.
 But then, you know, I make more than anyone else on the show.  That's what
they tell me."
   Scully rolled her eyes and turned to Piper.  "Okay, we're gonna go home
now, so get your things together.  Come on, put the crayons away."  Scully
noticed the flashing answering machine.        "You have messages."
   "I already listened.  One from his mother, one from an agent--I think it
was an agent, anyway.  And it looks like the hotel pool is being drained
and Cancer Man--whose name is Bill, from what the tape says--wants me to
come over for a poker game with somebody named Mitch and somebody named
Nick.  There's also a billion calls from some chick named T`ea.  Now her,
she sounded kind of frantic."
   "Did you call her back?"
   Sometimes Mulder was so bland he made Scully want to scream.  Only it
wasn't bland,  exactly.  There was a smugness to him when he explained
anything that didn't have to do with extra-terrestrial visitors or
goverment cover-ups (in those discussions, he just had the impassioned
sheen of a madman in his eyes).  So you either got passionate or smug-bland
with him.  Almost nothing in between the two, unless you count flirting and
smartass.  But no, this was the pseudo-smug voice.  "I have no idea what
kind of relationship they have.  What if he broke up with her?  What if
she's a stalker?  No, the best thing I can do is get us back to our lives
and let him get back to his."
   Scully shook her head, smirking.  "You could be ruining his love life."
   "He'll live."  Mulder scooped up Piper and an armload of the scrap
paper.  "Ready, Piper?"  He carried her toward the door.
   Scully leaned back in.  "Here, Blue."  The dog trotted over to her
easily.  And Scully patted her neck.  "Let's go, sweetie."
   Mulder watched her flipping the door shut, holding the collie by her
collar.  "Oh the dog?  Do we have to?"
   Scully was shocked.  "Mulder, we can't very well leave her in this
trailer the whole weekend.  Besides wait 'til you see what's outside...."
   Between the two trailers, tied to the stair rail, was a huge dog.  It
looked like a small rhino in the dark, but it was just a really big dog. 
It snorted at Mulder.
   Mulder jumped back, reflexively putting Piper down behind him and
reaching for a gun that wasn't there.  "What the hell is that?"
   Piper got around him and stepped close to the big bull mastiff.  "Cleo! 
Good doggie!"
   The dog sort of snorted at the girl as she petted clumsily, but it was a
mildly happy snort.
   Mulder sighed.  "Wonderful."
   They walked back to the cars.  Scully couldn't help but notice that
Mulder seemed to be keeping a distance from the dogs as he piggy-backed
Piper towards the vette.  The sun was going down, painting everything red.
   Scully loaded the dogs into the Land Rover.  "Okay Piper."
   "Piper ride pretty car."
   The child clearly leaned towards Mulder's Corvette.  "What can I say? 
The kid's got taste."  
   Scully gave him a cautioning look.  "You'd better be exceptionally
careful."
  "Relax Scul--,"  He caught himself.  "Gillian."  He loaded the child into
the passenger seat through the slot in the T-roof, snapped out a pair of
Ray-Bans, and slipped them over his eyes in a smooth motion, ultra cool,
then hopped through the roof on the other side.
   He could feel her look of disapproval as he gunned the engine, jammed
the car into gear, and took several thousand miles off the tires in one
screaming smokecloud as he rocketed out of the parking slot and across the
lot toward a gate.
   She shook her head as she opened up the door to her truck and got
inside.  It didn't take her long to catch up--after all, Mulder had no clue
of where he was going.  He finally got smart and let her and the dogs swing
ahead of him.  Scully took particular joy in cruising just under the speed
limit just to iritate her partner.  Then again, driving a little on the
slow side may have saved a couple of bumpers when Scully tapped the brakes
and swung the truck into a parking lot in front of a mini-mall.  She
wheeled into a  slot and Mulder followed her, finding a spot nearby.  He
carried Piper along, and Scully could hear him saying, "It's called a 'turn
signal' sweetie, and people who drive without using them are called
'idiots.'  Can Piper say idiot?"
   "Mulder?"
   Mulder looked around, played it confused.  "Who are you talking to,
Gill?"
   Scully started walking toward the collection of stores.  "Come on."
   Mulder looked ahead.  Immediately in front of them was a lingere store. 
"Feeling frisky tonight, Gill?"
   Scully nodded to the left.  There was a big bookstore next to the
teddy-clad manniquins.  "Maybe they'll have magazines, TV Guide.  Who
knows?"
   They went inside.  It was a roomy, comfortable place, decorated in pale
woods.  Signs over the racks showed the subject sections, but the back wall
was dominated by stuffed animals and oversized displays.  "I'm gonna take
peanut over to the kids' stuff."
   Scully nodded and steered herself toward an information desk.  The guy
behind the counter was absolutely living the Quantum Physics book in his
hands.  He glanced up saw Scully, and immediately pushed up his pop bottle
bottom glasses, sucked in his ample gut, and smoothed down his dark hair. 
"Uh," he giggled a little.  "Hi.  Um. Miss Anderson." 
   Scully looked aside for just a second, the little sidelong glance she
always gave to keep tabs on her surroundings or to hide disbeleif.  "Hi,"
she managed.  "Do you have any books on a show called...."
   The clerk just about jumped out of his skin.  "X-Files section?  Sure." 
He smiled.  "I'll just walk you over.  Uh, okay?"
   Scully nodded, a little confused.  "Section?"  She asked as the clerk
came around the desk.
   "Yeah, sure.  We can't keep up."  He led her off between the racks, past
a small coffee shop that was part of the place.
   "Uh-huh."
   The clerk led her through the Sci-Fi section to the back of the store. 
"Right through here...."
   "Thanks."  Scully walked around the corner and stopped in her tracks. 
Mulder's face and her own stared back at her from an amazing assortment of
items.  Books, sure, but not just books.  T-shirts.  Coffee mugs. 
Neckties.  Scully just gawked for a minute, then started scanning the
covers.  Two books on the series seemed to jump off the racks.  She found
one unauthorized biography of David Duchovny, a cheap paperback, then one
on Anderson.
   Mulder was sitting in a rocker with Piper, reading from a book with a
rabbit on the cover.  "...And so the little bunny never ran away again. 
The end."  He held his fist up, a mock victory salute and closed the book. 
"Yeah!"
   Piper mimicked the gesture.  "Yeah!"
   Scully stepped up, whispering, "Mulder, you have to come and see this."
She led him back.  "I picked out these two books for Piper, and I think
she's getting hungry."
   "In a minute. I want you to come here first."
   In the X-Files section, Mulder picked up an action figure.  "Wow.  I've
got Slime-fighting Action."  He picked up another.  "On the other hand, you
have--"  He made a little choking sound and put the figures down.  
   "What?  What do I have?"
   "Nevermind,"  he said, looking at the books, "this is just too weird."
   "No, what?"  she looked at the little collection of toys.
   "Scully,"  he said in a hushed voice as Piper poked around at the books,
"your breasts just ain't that big.  I mean, you'd fall over.  Whoever made
these toys has an active and rich fantasy life."  
   Scully found herself tugging her appropriated shirt a little tighter
around her.  "Let's just get this stuff and go."
   "....No, Chuck, now.  Right now.  They're here now.  If you wanna see
her, you have--"  The clerk slammed the phone down fast as they stepped up,
and, to his credit, he seemed to control his drooling problem a little
better when Mulder and the girl were with Scully to check out.  "We get
lots of families that visit just for the show....Visit the locations, try
to get tips on where they can watch a filming."
   "You don't say,"  she said, pulling out some money.
   "Not that we can tell 'em anything.  I'll bet people like that drive you
nuts."
   Mulder nodded.  "Yeah. Fortunately we've got a closed set."
   "Well, sure, unless you're shooting in the street,"  the clerk said.  "I
remember this one time--"
   Scully wasn't in the mood for any stories.  "Any video stores around
here?"
   "There's a Blockbuster right down the strip."
    Mulder chewed on his lip for a second, then whispered something to
Scully.  "Oh, no.  That you ask him yourself."
   Mulder leaned over the counter and whispered something to the clerk, who
giggled again.  "What, are you kidding?  That's a family chain.  All the
adult book stores and strip joints are  out by the airport."
   Mulder winced.  "Thanks."
   The clerk bagged the books and they stepped away from the counter. 
"Excuse me,"  he said, calling them back.  "Look, I'm sure you get this all
the time, and I'm almost embarassed to ask..."
   "No."  Mulder said, "Ask away."
   The clerk held up his Physics book and plucked a pen from the counter. 
"Could you?  Please?"
   Mulder grinned.  Scully just rolled her eyes.  "Sure, why not?"  Mulder
shifted Piper around, signing the first blank page FOX MULDER, then
catching himself, added DAVID CUCKINEY.  He passed the pen to Scully, who
scrawled an almost straight line.
   They were outside the store, the clerk still gushing his thanks behind
them, when Mulder spied a green and red awning in front of a restaurant. 
"You up for Chinese?"
   Scully made a vague gesture.  "Sure."  She started towards the
Blockbuster.  It didn't take her long to find a boxed set of collected
episodes, buy them from a --thankfully-- female clerk who just took the
money without seeming to recognize her.  As she headed back for the car,
she took the tapes from the bag and began reading the box as she walked.
   "Scuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
   Mulder ran, Piper under his arm like a rather squirmy sack of potatoes,
sprinting down the sidewalk at full speed, chased  by a half dozen women,
bearing little bits of paper and pens--or merely eager, open arms.
   Scully ran for her Land rover, yanked open a door--
   The dogs leaped from the truck, barking and snarling, rushing past
Mulder and taking a defensive posture, cutting off the crowd of ardent
admirers.
   "What the hell did you do?"  Scully demanded as he shoved past her.
   "I heard someone shouting It's HIM.  And then they were all over me," 
Mulder reported as he shoved Piper through the roof.
   "Whatever."  Scully sighed.  "Let's get outta here.  Think you can
manage to get out of here without running any of them over?"
   Mulder glanced over his shoulder.  "Couldn't we just leave the dogs? 
They're doing a great job--"
   Scully gave him a look.
   "Alright, alright."  He loaded himself into the Corvette and took off,
this time feeling completely justified in letting the tires scream all over
the parking lot.
   By the time Scully whistled for the dogs, the women had given up.
  She caught up with Mulder at the next traffic light.  He followed her a
couple of miles down the street before they found another Chinese
resteraunt.  Scully leaned through her window. "Wanna try again?"
   "This time you do it,"  Mulder suggested.
   Scully managed to get the food without too much trouble and they were on
their way again.  It took them about half an hour to make the twenty minute
trip to Anderson's house, but that wasn't too bad considering a couple
wrong turns and one full boat "Turn the car around in whatever driveway you
can find and go back the way you came" manuever.  The house itself was a
fairly nondescript place with a couple trees in the middle of a quiet
suburban neighborhood.
   "Bright girl,"  Scully wiseassed as she read the security code off a
slip of paper she had found in her wallet.
   Scully busied herself with the books while Piper scribbled on the wad of
papers from the trailer.  Mulder banged around in the kitchen for what
seemed like forever with the dogs yapping at his heels the whole time,
apparently quite interested in whatever he was doing.
   Scully's patience reached an end after about fifteen minutes and she
called out,  "How hard is it to throw the food onto plates?"
   "I'm making Piper's dinner," he called back.
   "Give her some of the noodles."
   Mulder carred Scully's dinner in.  "Are you nuts?  It's loaded with MSG
and salt and fat."  He saw Piper was looking at him, curious.  "Yucko
stuff."
   "Yucko stuff,"  she repeated making an appropriate face.
   "No, I'm making her some spaghetti."
   Scully looked at the girl.  "Think she'll eat it?"
   Mulder rolled his eyes.  "Mommy, all kids eat spaghetti."
It didn't take  too long before Piper was covered head to toe in sauce,
and, having gorged himself on Chinese food, Mulder was content to take bath
duty while Scully immersed herself in the books.
   Sleeves rolled up, squatting next to the tub, Mulder thought about real
fathers, and decided that it was a job he might like to have one day.  And,
remembering what it was like to be a kid, he decided that he would like to
have all girls.  He didn't have to argue with Piper to actually get her
into the tub, nor did he have to explain what the soap was for or that she
actually had to get her face and hair wet, all of which he could distinctly
remember was an ongoing education for him.  He didn't have much time to
think about it before Scully was slipping into the room with them.  "Find
out anything?"
   "The show is a big hit on the Fox Network."
   "The  what?"
   Scully shrugged, flipping through a magazine.   "Yeah.  Fox network. 
It's got searchlights like the movie company, y'know?"  She showed him an
ad.
   Mulder frowned at the glossy page.  "We're on right after a fat yellow
bald guy and some crackers in Texas?"
   "At least we're not cartoons."
   "Not as far as I can tell."  He held up his hand, "One, two, three--Yep.
 Still five fingers."
   Scully gave one of her skeptical smiles and took the magazine back. 
"Anyway, we're a big hit."
   He grabbed a towel from the rack.  "Really?  What was your first clue? 
The coffee mugs or the overendowed action fleet?"  Scully stuck her tongue
out at him.  Piper immediately stuck her out her tongue, too.  "Watch it. 
You know, monkey see, monkey do?"
   "Sorry, mother.  Anyway, you're the star, you make almost twice what I
do."
   "How much would that be?"  He motioned for Piper to get out of the tub
and wrapped the towel around her.
   "About 100,000 per episode."
   "Really?"
   "At twenty episodes a year..."  She looked at Mulder.  She could tell
right away that he was way ahead of her.  She could almost hear the adding
machine ticking off in his head, but there was a dreamy look in his eyes. 
"What?"
   "We want to get back to our own lives, right?"
   Scully nodded.  "Right."  Mulder gave her a 'suit yourself' shrug and
got to work on drying off Piper.  "Like I was saying, we're currently
working on our fourth season."
   "Whose twisted mind did this come out of?"
   "Someone named Chris Carter."
   Piper beamed at the name.  "Piper's godfather!"
   Mulder looked at Scully.  "You are such a brownnose."  He carried Piper
toward her room, which was easily distinguished by a ton of stuffed animals
arranged in piles around the snow white furniture.  "Ex-government man?"
   "Not likely.  I'm gonna take the dogs for a walk, then I'll start on the
biograpies."
   Mulder nodded.  "Fine."  He left the girl standing by the bed and began
rummaging through the drawers.  "The blue footie pj's or the pink
nightgown?"
   "Pink!"  Piper shouted.
   It was beginning to disturb Scully how easily Mulder slid into the role
of parent.  "I'm taking that walk,"  Scully told him.
   The dogs were eager to get out of the house--and easy to find, thanks to
the trail of red noseprints they left pressed into the kitchen cabinets. 
Mulder must have left the spaghetti where they could get into it, because
both of the dogs' muzzles were covered in the stuff.  She took them
outside, found a hose, and sprayed them down a little before leading them
off onto the sidewalk. 
   A few cars passed, headlights strobing through the trees.  It reminded
her of the light in the elevator, the flash that altered everything.  She
considered that maybe she was in the middle of some sort of seizure, that
it was some kind of twisted hallucination, then decided that she wasn't
that lucky.  She followed the dogs, watched them bark at a squirrel's nest
in one of the bigger trees on the block, then nudged them along.  A porch
swing swayed in the breeze, its steady creak sounding cold and lonely in
the early night.
It just struck her how incredibly normal and mundane everything was.  No
leech men.  No aliens.  No psychics.
   It was so normal it scared her into going home.
   She found Mulder and Piper watching TV.  The books about the show were
open near him, and Scully figured he must have been reading them while
Piper was watching the tube.  "Mommy, look what Uncle David did!"  She
proudly displayed freshly painted fingernails--pink.
   She could have sworn Mulder was blushing.  "She asked.  A little polish
won't hurt her."
   "Shouldn't she be in bed?"
He nodded at the TV.  "After this show.  The babe in the lead is kinda
hot."
   "What's it called?"
   "The Naked Truth."
   "Oh, that figures."
   Scully sat on the floor beside them.  A commercial came on and Piper
began to nod off, snuggling against Mulder.  He turned to Scully.  "Listen,
I've been thinking...."
   "No," she said firmly, "we are not staying, I don't care how much money
you make."
   "I want a meeting with this Carter guy."
   "Why?"
   He glanced down to make sure Piper was asleep.  "If we are in some kind
of alternate universe, which do you think is the real one?"
   Scully frowned.  "I can't explain this, but I'm not willing to believe
we're living out an episode of Star Trek."
   "Just hear me out, Scully."
   "That's usually where my troubles start."
   Mulder ignored her.  "Let's assume for the moment that we've had some
kind of--personality transfer--between ourselves and two alternative people
in another continuum.  Would you say that the chances are more likely that
the reality is Mulder and Scully are two agents investigating the
paranormal or the reality is that two actors are portraying Mulder and
Scully as created for a television show?"
   Scully gave him a disbelieving look.  It wasn't the first time.  "I'm
not going to debate alternative realities with you."
   "But what is easier to believe, that are two agents paid by a government
to investigate talking trees or that there are two actors paid by a TV
company to impersonate two agents paid by the government to investigate
talking trees?"
   "I don't find either scenario very likely," she dismissed him.
   "Fair enough," he said.  "Answer this:  When was the last time you made
a car payment?  Stood in line at the bank?"
   She looked at him.
   "Did you ever have to unjam a garbage disposal?"
   "What are you talking about?"
   "How about clipping your fingernails?  Taking out the trash?"
   "Mulder?"
   "When's the last time you did anything boring?"
   "Does this conversation qualify?"
   Mulder got that intense "I know the truth" look in his eyes.  "I know
I've done any of those things.  I know I have a mother and a dead father
and I remember going to high school, but I can't remember what street it
was on.  I don't remember any phone number that doesn't start 555.  Do you
see my point?  Movies are supposed to be like real life with all the boring
parts taken out.  I think that maybe my consciousness--and I have to figure
yours, too--is an invention.  We know what we have to know to be convincing
characters, but nothing more."
  "What does any of this have to do with Carter?  Are you going to pitch
this as a story idea?"
   "He knows where Samantha is," Mulder told her with absolute certainty. 
"He has to know where she is.  What happened to her.  He could answer all
our questions.  He can tell us who Cancer Man is."
  "Mulder, that's crazy."
   "He could tell us what really happened during your abduction."
   "You're not meeting with him," she assured him.
   "If I could talk to him, even on the phone, and find out anything--and
if we could retain that information--it might get me closer to finding out
the truth about everything we've ever been involved with."
   "Mulder, even if what you're saying is true, maybe he...makes this stuff
up as he goes.  He might not know what happened to your sister any better
than you do.  He might never have to decide at all if the show gets
cancelled."
   "Naw, he has to know."
   "No, he dosen't.  Dickens didn't know from week to week what would
happen to his characters in Great Expectations because he was constantly
going by what the reader reaction was to the previous week's chapters."
   "I don't think this guy qualifies as Dickens."  
   "That's my point."  She nodded at the TV.  "Show's over."  She started
to pick up Piper.  
   "No, I've got her."  He lifted the girl up and carried her away.  
   Scully started reading the biographies, selfishly picking up Anderson's
first.  She almost hoped for a migraine as she speed read the pages,
looking for important information, anything useful.
   She was on page 50 before she realized that Mulder hadn't come back. 
She yawned, stretching her back a little, and got up to check on him.
   Piper was in his arms.  Both were crammed in the toddler bed, both
asleep, both quietly snoring.  For a moment she found herself wondering as
to the exact extent of her partner's sexual perversians, with his frequent
references to porno tapes and magazines--rumour around the water cooler
back in Washington was that Spooky even found a way to sneak his 900 calls
on to Uncle Sam's credit card, although she personally found it difficult
to believe that Mulder would lower himself to misappropriating funds,
especially in such a conspicious pursuit.  No, she decided, as much as he
flirted with just about any female they encountered who was even reasonably
attractive and/or available, Mulder was no pedophile.  She covered them
with a blanket, and went back downstairs to finish her research.

II

   Saturday.
   Scully woke up to the sound of Piper giggling in the kitchen.  She
crossed into the room to find Piper in her high chair eating cereal, with
Mulder behind the child, smiling wide with tight teeth holding bobbi pins
he was using to help braid the girl's hair.  "Good morning," Scully said,
steering herself toward the steaming coffee pot.
   Mulder seemed a little too well-practiced talking with a mouthful of
bobbi pins.  "A very good morning."
   Scully inspected the braids.  She had to admit it--he was pretty good. 
"I didn't know you had so many hidden talents."
   Mulder shrugged, looking a  little sad and embarrassed at the same time.
 "I used to do Sam's hair.  I even told my father that I wanted to be a
hairdresser once."
Scully couldn't help smiling.  "What did he have to say about that?"
   "He beat the desire right out of me."
   The phone rang.  Scully picked it up. 
"Scu...uh...Hello....Okay....Fifteen minutes, half an hour.  See you then."
 She hung up, checking her watch.  She stood there, one hand on a hip, the
other on the counter, deliberately not facing Mulder.  A dozen ways to
handle the matter sprung to mind, but none seemed appropriate.   She found
a mug rack screwed into a cabinet and poured herself some coffee.
   Mulder finished the last of the braiding,  "Well?"
   "Well, what?"
   "Who was that?"
   Scully took a deep breath, already knowing this wouldn't go well.  "That
was Piper's father.  He's coming to get her in half an hour."
   Mulder didn't panic.  "Why?"
   "Because this is his weekend."
   Okay, so he didn't panic right away.  Mulder's face took on an
expression he usually saved for when security guards socked him the gut
when he violated secrect government installations.  His pain was almost
tangible.
   "Mulder?"  Scully put her hand on his shoulder.  She tried not to touch
him too often, but the look on his face brought out the need in her to
offer comfort.  "He is her father, you aren't."
   "Couldn't she be sick or something?  Can't you cancel?"
   Scully nudged him aside, toward the counter.  She made sure Piper was
more interested in her cereal than the conversation before she began again.
 "Look, this woman is in the middle of a divorce, potentially a custody
battle.  I will not give any ammunition against her."
  Mulder nodded.  There was no use arguing with it.  He had to give her up.
 "I'll get her things  together."
   "I'll feed the dogs."  She turned to Piper.  "Wanna help me?"
   "Piper feed the dogs!"  The child eagerly agreed.
   It occured to her then that maybe she shouldn't have stolen a few
moments from Mulder and the girl, but then thought he'd better get used to
the kid not being around.  Scully took the bowl and spoon from the girl and
ditched them in the sink, then tried to open the tray on the highchair. 
"Mulder?  How does this work?"
   "Jesus," he sighed, popping the tray off the chair and lowering Piper to
the floor.
   Scully scanned the kitchen.  "Piper, where does Mommy keep the dog
food?"
   Mulder slowly climbed the stairs to the girl's room, already feeling the
stillness.  He found a purple and pink overnight bag on the floor in the
closet, and he began wandering the room, neatly folding things into the
satchel.  He stopped to look out the window, watching the dogs run circles
around the girl and her mother in the yard as    Piper put the bowls down
on the end of the driveway, near the patio.  Kids grow on you, he told
himself.  I understand that.  But...This is just too weird.  It's not like
she's the first kid I've ever been around.
   Why does this hurt so much?
   Mulder heard a car in the driveway.
   He sat on the edge of the bed.	
   This isn't right.
   This shouldn't hurt.
   I just met this kid yesterday.
   She's a cute kid, sure, but that's all.
   Why does this hurt?
   "Hi, Gill.  Is she ready?"
   He could hear them below, in the driveway.
   "Just a minute, she needs her bag."
   Mulder steeled himself, picked up the bag, and forced himself to walk to
the door.
He saw Clyde.  Not a bad looking guy.  Actually, pretty normal all the way
around.  He was holding Piper.  "Did Mommy put braids in your hair today?" 
he was asking the girl when Mulder bounded out of the house with the
satchel.  
   Mulder jogged up, keenly aware that Clyde had not expected him to be
there.  "I packed six outfits, her blankie and her teddy.  Do you think
that'll be enough?"
   Clyde took the bag, giving Mulder a nod.  He watched Mulder go back into
the house.     
   "Gill, can I talk to you?"  He put Piper down, squatted to talk to her. 
"Is Piper big enough to put the bag in Daddy's car?"
   "Piper big girl!"
   Scully watched the girl lug the bag along.
   Mulder peeked from the house, not showing any stealth whatsoever when he
moved the living room curtians back to watch.  Clyde nodded at the window. 
"What is he doing here?"
   "I work with him remember?"
   Clyde took a mocking tone.  "But you don't hang out with him, remember?"
 He shook his head.  "It's none of my business, so long as Piper is
alright, but I don't want to see you really screw yourself up."  He looked
away, waving at the girl as she shoved the bag into the back of his car. 
He didn't look at Scully when he asked, "You're not sleeping with him are
you?"
   "That's none of your business."
   "No, I guess not.  But, like I said, I don't want to see you screw up
again.  I heard a juicy little rumor about that his girlfriend of his and
if it's true, you do not want to be caught up in the middle of it."
   "I'm not sleeping with him," she said.  "If you must know, we screwed up
royal at work and we're spending the weekend together to try and get
ourselves back in sync."
   Clyde nodded.  From what she'd read, he was supposed to be a reasonable
man.  "Fine, but remeber what I said."
   Scully kept a reasonably civil tongue in her head.  "Take good care of
Piper."
   "You don't have to tell me that."
   She waved to Piper as Clyde picked her up, shut the back door, and
loaded her into the passenger side.
   Mulder came back out onto the porch.  He watched them back out, keenly
aware that   Clyde was glaring at him from inside the car.
   Scully stood there until the car pulled away, then turned to Mulder. 
"Did you have to do that?"
   "Do what?"
   "You know perfectly well what.  Did you have to stare at him like that?"
   Mulder stuck his hands in his pockets, tried to look innocent.  "I
didm't want to intrude.   Family stuff, you know."
   "Bullshit, Mulder.  You--"  A neighbor came out of his house across the
street, giving a little wave as he unrolled a garden hose from the side of
his house.  Scully waved back, then went up to the stairs, tugging Mulder
back inside.  "You were deliberately trying to intimidate him."
   "Maybe I was."
   "Do you mind explaining yourself?"
   "Not at all."  He walked away from her, moving toward the kitchen.
   She followed.  "Well?"
   "I said I didn't mind, not that I could.  Scully, I don't understand why
Piper had this effect on me.  I really don't.  Believe me, I wish I could
explain it, but I can't.  It just isn't there."
   "Is that your best explanation?"
   "It's the only one I have  at the moment.  How about you?  Any strange
emotional swings?"
   "No, not really."
   "Well," he poured himself some coffee, "let me know if you do have any,
because it could be significant."
   "In what way?"  She found the mug she had poured for herself and sipped.
"If we are only characters in a television show--"
   She rolled her eyes on cue.
   "--that means that we only have sixty minutes to develope the emotional
attachments that might take shape over months normally.  Time is
accellorated, possibly even irrelevant.  Long-term relationships--our
parents, for instance, are invented for us.  I have a natural sympathy for
young girls, because that was installed into my character, but you can't
even fake empathy or motherhood even when the child is your own."
   "Agent Mulder are you suggesting that I lack the necessary...maternal
instincts?"
   "It's not your fault, Scully.  They weren't written in."
   He walked away.  She couldn't decide whether to feel insulted or just
laugh at the ludicrous theory, so she opted for just plain put out.  "So
you're saying that, coming from a male-dominated family, that my
relationship with my mother taught me nothing?"
   "No, that's not what I'm saying."  He sat on the sofa and picked up one
of the biographies.  "I'm saying that they must not have written it into
your character."
    "I'll bring it up at the next story conference."
   Mulder picked up a legal pad.  "So what did you find out about me?"
   "You were a golden boy, great student."
   "Of course."
   "Grew up in New York."
   "Yuck."
    "Got your bachelors at Princeton, masters at Yale and were working on
your PhD, when you dropped out to become an actor."
   Mulder made a face.  "I don't want to be a Yaley.  What were his degrees
in?"
   "English."  She sat on the floor amid the books.
   "Yucko.  I wonder what his thesis would have been about?"
   "Apparently he almost finished it."  She looked for a book, moving some
of Piper's crayon-riddled scrap paper to find it.  She pulled out
Duchovny's bio, thumbed the pages, and when she moved more of the scrap
paper crumpled under her leg.  "Here it is."  She frowned.  "Uh-oh."
   "What?"  
   "Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry...."
   "And Prose?"  He asked.
    "...And Prose."
    Mulder jumped up from the sofa, scrambling to scoop up the mess of
papers.  "Crap! Crap!Crap!"  He grabbed handfuls of the manuscript, trying
desperately to put them in some kind of order.  "Scully help me!"
    "You're kidding."
   He bent down and yanked an inch of paperwork out from under her ass. 
"Help me!"
   Mulder began arranging the sheets in piles, apparently according to how
badly defiled the sheets were.  There was a mound of paper balls, a stack
thickly coated on both sides with crayon.  Scully gathered what she could
find in the living room, went into the foyer where there were more.  "It
jumps from page fifty to about sixty-two," she called back.
    "Check the fridge."
    "What, were you trying to keep them fresh?"
    "I put some of the better ones on the fridge this morning.  If you had
any maternal instincts, you'd know why."
   Scully found half a dozen on the fridge, all decorated with random
sketches that would have made Piccasso proud.  She unstuck them, tried to
smooth them out, and took them to Mulder.  "Mulder?"
    Mulder was in a sweat, dripping on the pages as he frantically tried to
sort them out.  "Yes?"
    Scully squatted there.  "He's gonna come back across time to kill you."
   "Tell me something I don't know."
   Scully reached up and grabbed the legal pad.  "From what I can tell, he
doesn't seem to believe in UFO's and government conspiracies, none of the
stuff they cover on the show.
    Mulder went on.  "Great I'm a paranormal investigator being played by
an actor who doesn't believe in the paranormal playing someone who believes
in the paranormal.  Wonderful.  What about you?"
   "Mine was sort of a punk in high school, then got into acting.  I'm four
years younger now--"
    "The magic of TV."
   "Gillian having been born in 1968.  She was a waitress, appeared in a
couple of plays.  Won some kind of theatre award.  Moved to LA, then got
this pilot for the X-Files and here we are."
    He sat back up giving up on the papers.  "What about Piper?"
   "Gillian and Clyde were married and New Year's day 1994 and Piper was
born nine months later."
   "Must have been some honeymoon."
   "My whole..."  she paused, "abduction expierence was a plot device to
cover the pregnancy."
   Mulder laughed, then "Sorry.  This is just too weird, to think your life
is just a figment of someone's overactive imagination."
   "What kind of person would invent a missing time episode, throw a total
stranger into a coma, all this kind of crap?"
   Always the one ups man, Mulder smirked.  "What kind of a person takes an
eight year old away from her family?"
   "I wanna know who came up with that fluke thing....or Tooms?"
   "Those are documented cases..." Mulder trailed off.  "Maybe someone
reads the same newpapers I do, Scully.  I have to figure that what I know
came from them, the same with you.  We're working with the same base of
knowledge, but we can't be any smarter than they are, collectively."
   "Monday morning, first thing, I'm gonna have a little chat with whoever
gave me cancer to let the character 'grow'."
   "Do you still have the tattoo on your butt?"
   "Hip," she corrected.  "No, Mulder, this body does not have a tattoo."
   "Butt."
   "I'm not dropping my jeans to prove what isn't there."
   "Yeah, well, you do have a cute mole over your lip."
   "What?" she touched her face.
   "Other side."  She groped her face until he laughed at her, then hopped
to a mirror on the wall.  "Didn't you uncover the mole in your research?"
   "I only knew about the pierced navel."
   Mulder stood up, feigning boyish excitement.  At least she hoped he was
pretending.        
   "Oh..oh...Can I see?  Please?"
   "Not in this or any other lifetime.  Are you gonna shave today?"
   He rubbed his chin.  "If I could find a razor I would."
   "There was some Nair in there."
   "No wonder you're getting a divorce."  He found his jacket.  "If I
decide to dehair my legs, I'll keep that in mind.  No, today I'm gonna try
to find David's house."
   "Then what?"
   "Maybe go sightseeing.  I don't know, I've never been a David before."
   "In that case you definitely shouldn't shave."
   It didn't take them long to find David's apartment.  Scully was
developing a knack for reading the strange Vancouver maps and deciphering
the Canadian/Indian/ French/American names of the streets.  It was a plain
place, a brick building on almost the exact oppisite end of town from
Anderson's house.  Mulder keyed the door and walked in like he owned the
place, which, Scully had to admit, he sort of did.  There wasn't much in
the apartment.  It was almost antiseptic, it was so Spartan.  "Does he
actually live here?"
    Scully shut the door.  "Maybe he has a service."
    "One that cleans out personalities as well?"
    Mulder found the answering machine and hit the button.  Most were the
same as the one's in the trailer.  He turned the volume down for the calls
from T`ea.  Then, he slid the volume bar back up and motioned for Scully to
come closer.  "Dave?" the machine buzzed with the Cancer Man's voice. 
"Bill here.  We missed you last night--well, to be honest, we missed you
and your money.  
   We decided to have a fresh round tonight, so meet us around nine,
alright?"  Bill left his number and the tape plunked off.
   Scully watched as Mulder shut off the machine.  "You really should call
this Bill person back.  I mean it's one thing to ignore a girlfriend, but
you shouldn't piss off his poker buddies."
   "Are you suggesting that I actually should try to play cards with them?"
   She smirked, using his own twisted theories against him.  "It has been
written into your character, you know.  Who knows?  You might even win."
   "They know him, Scully.  I mean, these could be this guy's closest
friends on the planet."
   "Pretend you're staying in character," she suggested.  "How hard can it
be?  You might actually have fun.  Besides do you have anything else to do
tonight?"
   "Does this mean you're cutting me off from sex again?"
   "Absolutely."
   "Alright, I'll go.  But he didn't leave an address.  How can I show up?"
   "Call him back, get directions."
   "Right.  These goons could play poker every night for all we know, but
tonight I can't remember how to get there?"
   Scully pondered the thought, wandering a little around the living room. 
"Why not get directions from someplace else?"
   "What, like Cleveland?"
   "No..."  She picked up a business card that had been left on an end
table.  "How about this?"
   She passed Mulder the card.  "Hobbins Bookstore?"
    "That address is on the south side of town.  When we met him in the
parking lot yesterday, Bill said he was at a hotel didn't he?  I doubt he'd
pick one far from the set."
   "I guess not."  Mulder picked up the phone and started to punch in a
number.  "But if I end up looking like an asshole, I get to see the belly
button thing."
   Scully waited for the line connect, then let Mulder get on with the boy
talk and wandered into the kitchen.  There were some notes and pictures on
the refridgerator and she stopped to look at them.  A photo caught her eye,
and she plucked it from under its magnetized post on the utility.
   "So the bookstore is right across the street from the hotel, huh?" 
Mulder was saying into the phone when she came back.  "Uh-huh....Well, sure
that's how I found it."  He turned to her long enough to lift his shirt and
show her his navel, motioning for her to do the same.  She turned her back.
 "I might be just a little late....Fine."  He hung up.       
   "Come on, Scully.  Just like when you were a kid.  I showed you mine,
you show me yours."
   "I know somebody you might have better luck with...."
   She showed him the photo she took from the fridge.  "So?  It's a picture
of that hot babe from the show last night.  He's got good taste."
   "Let's not go into his dining habits.  Look.  On the bottom, see?"
On the bottom of the picture was written, 'David--remember I love
you.....T`ea.'
   "It appears that serial killers and actors both hunt in their own status
groups," Mulder sighed.  He stared at the photo.  "I would really hate to
ruin the guy's love life....."
   "It'd be a crime."
    "Maybe I should, um..."
   "...Give her a call?"  She nodded.  "I'll wait in the car."  She moved
for the door.       
   "Mulder?"
   "Hmh?"
   "Take your time, get cleaned up.  Bring a change of clothes."
    Scully scrunched down as much as the Corvette would allow, reading her
biography.  She had barely cleared thirty pages--which was barely a blink
of the eye for her--when    
Mulder jogged toward the car, carrying a duffle bag stuffed with clothes. 
He looked more like a fugative, a man on the run, than her partner.  He
still hadn't bothered to shave.  As he got closer, she could see that he
was flushed, almost dazed.  It was enough to make her get out of the car. 
"Mulder?"  He ignored her flipping the bag into the trunk. 
   "Mulder, what's wrong?"
   "We have to get back to our own lives.  The sooner the better."
   "What happened?  What did she say?"
   Mulder slammed the trunk.  "She wanted to know if the wedding is still
on."
   "What?"
   "Scully.....I'm getting married in two weeks."
   The announcement hung in the air for a minute.  "Let's get back to
my--Gillian's  house and try to sort this all out."
   "Okay, but we have to stop at McDonalds.  I need comfort food."
    Scully loaded herself back into the car.  "Did I mention that you're a
vegetarian?"
   Mulder revved the engine.  "A little grease never killed anybody."  He
threw the car into gear with no respect for the transmission and sent it
rocketing out of the parking lot.
   "You're also into yoga."
   "If I had a gun I'd kill myself."
   "That's this seasons cliffhanger."
   "I shoot myself?!"
   She laughed.  "Relax.  You just signed for a fifth season and a feature
film.  You're not dead."
   They drove for a while.  Mulder whipped the car into the parking lot of
a convenience store.  "What, Ding Dongs are comfort food too?"
   "You need bread and milk."
   "Gillian needs bread and milk," she corrected.  "You noticed.  You go
shopping."
   "Rules of engagement would suggest that it's your castle, you shop." 
She was about to protest.  "Hey, there are bound to be nubile teenage girls
in there.  Do you really want a repeat of last night?  We don't even have
the dogs with us today."
   "Oh, spare me.  I'll go."
   Mulder smirked as she stomped toward the store.  He found her biography
and flipped to the photo section.  He whistled at the gown the book said
she wore to something called the Golden Globe Awards, found himself
wondering if she won.  Scully came stomping out of the store, bag in hand
and got into the car, slamming the door.  "Your mood hasn't improved," he
noted.
   Scully pulled a magazine out of the bag and threw it at him.  Anderson
and Duchovny were on the cover.  "She's licking his face!  Licking mind
you!  What was she thinking?"
   "Jealous?"  He flashed his warm eyes at her.  "Y'know if you want to get
back at her, I could use a bachelor party about now...."
   "Your best charms haven't worked in four years. What makes you think
they'd work now?"
   Mulder sighed.  "Unusual circumstances get the juices flowing sometimes.
 I remember this girl in Vermont, we got stuck in this cabin, and--"
   "Mulder?"
   She plucks the magazine from his hand.  He gets the car moving again. 
She finds the page and shows him a photo of Anderson in a suit and Duchovny
in a dress.  "Subtle, huh?"
    Mulder looked at the picture and almost sideswiped a semi.  Horns
blared and he righted the vette.  "That's not fair.  You look better in a
suit than I do."
   "Didn't I tell you?  You're a real authority when it comes to dresses."
   "No more photos, Scully I'm warning you."
   "No.  You were on another show before this one.  Twin Peaks."
   "Yeah. Was I any good?"
   "It's what got you this gig.  You were another FBI agent."
   "Oh."
   "You were a transvestite FBI agent.  Did I mention that?"
   The car swerved again.  No horns this time.
   "He must be nuts."
   Scully got a slightly dreamy schoolgirl look in her eyes.  "Oh, I don't
know.  An artist, sacrificing for his craft."
   They were nearing Scully's house.  He cut the 'vette into the parking
lot of the same  mini-mall they had visited the night before. He pulled up
in front of the Blockbuster.
   "What are we doing here?"  Scully asked.
   "I want you to rent every movie I've been in."
   "How did I get elected president of your fan club?"
   "I have a fan club?"
   "Several dozen, it seems."
   "Oh.  Anyway, it has to be you.  I don't think David Dutchoven should be
seen renting his own films, do you?"
   "It's Dew-cov-knee," she corrected him.
   "My memory is photographic not phonic.  Just get the tapes."
   By sunset, Mulder was very sorry he pushed her to rent the Duchovny film
library.
He despondently munched on his Quarter Pounder between bites of Burger King
onion rings and Jack in the Box Supershake, barely watching the television.
 Scully sat beside him on the couch giggling at every frame.  "Oh, Mulder! 
Look at your hair."
   "What's this one called?"  He burped, swigging more of the shake.
   Scully picked up the video box.  "The Rapture."  She dropped the box. 
"Whoah!  Where's the remote?  I need a rewind!"
   "Trust me, you missed nothing."
   "I saw something, I think--"  She drew the device from between the
cushions and fiddled around.  "Oh!  Uh-oh!  There it is!  Butt shot--"  She
rewound the tape again.     
"More than a butt shot!"
   Mulder choked.  Scully was polite enough to whack him between the
shoulder blades.  As soon as he puffed in a breath, she rewound again, this
time hitting 'pause,' then running it frame by frame.
   "Oh, please!"  He wheezed.
   "I didn't see it all.  You distracted me."  She howled, victorious. 
"There it is!  Agent Mulder's Mister Happy on the big screen!"
   "I was written much bigger than that."
   "I don't think your theory applies to--"  She squinted at the screen. 
"Yow! I take that back...."
   Mulder got up and ejected the tape.  "I liked the dog one.  Can we watch
that one again?"
   "You hate dogs and you were only in it for ten minutes."
   "Scully!  Please!"
   Scully reached back into her Blockbuster Bag of Torture.  "Which one do
you want to watch now?  Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead or Julia Has
Two Lovers?"
   "That's a choice?"
   Scully checked the bag.  "Here's another one.  Kalifornia."
   Mulder picked up his baseball cap.  "A must-see.  But let me order a
pizza first."
   "Fine.  Extra cheese on this one."
   "I'll order two."  Mulder went to the phone.  Over the course of 
Dutchovenfest, as he dubbed the day's viewing, they had accumulated a lot
of fast food restraurant numbers, especially those who delivered.  He found
the pizza place's number, placed the order, and came back to find Scully
fast forwarding the tape. "Hey, don't skip anything good."
   "Oh I won't."  She stopped scanning and laughed out loud.  "Look!"
   Mulder groaned.  "He must have a thing against pants." He took the
remote from Scully and shut the tape off.
   "I was watching that!"
    "I can't take any more of this."
   Scully patted his arm.  "You're just being too critical of yourself.  We
all have our...shortcomings."
   Mulder hissed, "It's not me!"
   They sat in silence for a while.
   "What are we gonna do Mulder?  If we can't get back?"
   "Don't talk like that.  Don't even think like that."
   "It's a very real possibility," she said.
   Mulder frowned, thinking.  "Well...I guess I'd go back to Princeton."
   "Yale."
   "I'll transfer.  I could finish my PhD and get a job teaching..." he
almost spat out the word "English."  He got up, gathering food wrappers. 
"Someplace like Alaska, where I won't have to show my face or other body
parts again.  What about you?"
   "Well I'm a little old for med school.  Probably go back to school and
get a teaching degree, too."  She frowned.  "Of course, I've got Piper to
think about."
   "You know I'd help you out with her."
   Scully gave him a smile.  "I know you'd want to, but she's really not
your responsibility."
   "She's really not yours, either."
   "Yeah?  How you gonna explain the care and feeding of an almost three
year old to your new blushing bride?"
    Mulder got up.  "Maybe we need to think about sticking to this acting
thing, at least for a while."
   "Mulder, I can't act."
   "How hard can it be?"
   "Pretty damn hard, judging by my performance yesterday."
   Mulder thought for a moment.  "Look, so you turn in a few bad
performances.  Cash the checks.  These people seem to be paid ungodly sums
of money.  With what you make off just a few episodes, maybe a movie, you
can move off someplace quiet and--"
   She shook her head.  "It won't work."
   "Why the hell not?"
   "Mulder, weren't you with me in the hallway?  I couldn't talk, much less
fumble through a scene."
   Mulder nodded.
   "Besides, you may have made a great peach in grade school, but it seems
to me like acting for money, they'd expect more."
   Mulder laughed a little.  "Have you been watching the same movies as me?
 This guy practically lives in a monotone.  The way I see it, so long as I
keep my ass in good shape, I'll have work until I die."
  The doorbell rang.  Scully leaned back, pulling the drape to look
outside.  "Speaking of keeping your ass in shape, there's the pizza."
   Mulder went to the door and came back with the two white pizza boxes. 
He sniffed the boxes, sighed happily, and carried them to the dining room. 
He opened a box and put it in front of one of the chairs.  "Double cheese,"
he told her as he steered through to the kitchen.  "Is there any Coke
left?"
   "Should be.  What did you get for yourself?"
   "Something called a Carnivore."
   She opened the lid on his box and was stunned to find the pie brimming
with every kind of meat imaginable.  Ham, sausage, pepperoni, chicken.  
"Mulder," she told him as he carried the big cola bottle and a huge glass
of ice back to his seat, "if you keep this up, they're gonna have to roll
you down the aisle." 
   "It's not my body, Scully."
   "We're gonna get back," he said as he poured the coke, watching the foam
rise up.     
"We have to."
   "How?"
   Mulder dug into the pizza.  "I have no idea.  How did Kirk get back to
his ship in that episode where Spock had a beard?"
   "You're the one with the photographic memory.  It was  years ago."
   Mulder wolfed the pizza.  "Come on Scully.  You must have seen in reruns
or something.  Think."
   "You're hanging your hat on an old episode of Star Trek?"
   "Do you have any better ideas?"
   "Not really," she admitted.
   Mulder ate, Scully worked her memory.  "I think it had something to do
with the transporters," she said around a mouthful of pizza.  "I can try to
rent it, check it out."
   Mulder picked up what was left of the pizza, closing the box.  "It's
time for me to go lose Dutchoven's money."
   "Oh, sure.  Leave me all alone."
   "Hey, this poker night was your idea.  Do you want me to stay here? 
Keep you company?"
   "No, I won't be lonely."
   "You have a hot date or somehting?"
   Scully gave an evil grin.  "Just me and the VCR."
   Mulder groaned on his way out.  
   Scully grabbed her pizza and went back to the couch, hitting the play
button on the remote.
   She had to admit some relief when the phone rang.  Kalifornia was
largely boring and she dealt with far too many yokels who also happened to
be murderers in her day.
She picked it up.  "Hello."
   "Scully..."
   "Mulder is that you?  I can hardly hear you."
   "I am playing cards with 'Bill,' Skinner, Krychek, a cameraman and
somebody named Chris."
   "They're just actors, Mulder.  Buck up."
   "You could at least show me some mercy and tell me who's who."
   Scully grabbed one of the books.  "Okay, listening?"
   Mulder was speaking loudly.  "Love you too, T`ea!"  He dropped his voice
back down.  "Okay.  Go."
   "Skinner is Mitch, Krychek is Nick, cameraman, can't help you and
Chris....Discribe him."
   "I don't know. He wasn't around the other day.  Silver hair, jeans. 
Tennis shoes.  Maybe he's another crew guy."
   She flipped the pages.  "Chris--Oh, my God!"
   "What?  He's the Flukeman?"
   "Mulder.  Listen to me.  Listen very carefully.  Do not do anything
stupid.  Really. Do you hear me?"
   "So who is he?"
   "Promise.  I swear, we're only here temporarily, and if you screw things
up, you could doom these poor actors--and if we're stuck here, they're
liable to lock you up in Betty Ford if you say anything out of line."
   "I promise, okay?"
   "He's Chris Carter."
   "The creator of the show?"
   "I told you that you were a good student.  Yes.  The creator of the
show.  Now don't ask him about Samantha or cancer or why you shoot
yourself.  Okay?"
   "Wonderful."
   "Mulder don't do anything stupid.  He'll know."
   Mulder hung up.
   That worried her.
   Scully settled back to the video.  Another few scenes of Brad Pitt
looking scummy and Mulder doing his drop pants manuever.  The doorbell
rang.  She sprang up, half expecting it to be Mulder, chickening out of the
game.
   Instead, the Tattoo Man was at the door.  
   The Tattoo Man from Philadelphia.
   The one who tried to seduce her, then stuff her into a furnace.
   The Tattoo Man who almost burned his right arm off.
   She opened the door, keeping the chain on.
   "Hey beautiful."  Tattoo Man smiled at the chain.  "Aren't you gonna let
me in?"
  "Sure."  She tried a weak smile.  "Just a second."  She shut the door and
leaned her head against it.  "He's just an actor.  He's just an actor." 
She worked the chain, popped the door open.
   Tattoo Man leaned in to kiss her.  She ducked away.  "Hey," he
whispered, taking her into his arms.
  "Hey yourself."  She pulled away from him.
   The Tattoo Man shrugged.  "What?  Is something wrong?  I know I'm a
little early, but--" he caught up with her in the living room and pulled
her close again,  "I can't resist you."
   He kissed her again.  Deeply, knowingly.  This time, Scully let him, and
slowly, she found herself responding to him, letting her hands wander up
his back, fingers tangling in his dark hair.
   Fact was, she had flirted with the idea of making love to him in that
tiny apartment during the snowstorm.  
   "I missed you," he said nuzzling her neck.
   "Yeah, I missed you, too."
   She felt his hands squeezing into her jeans.  "No," he whispered.  "I
really missed you."
   Scully felt her knees going weak, as if she weren't quite herself,
having what Mulder would have called an "out of body experience".  She
sagged, melting to the couch.  He shoved the books out of the way.  She
moaned a little as her jeans slid off in his expert hands.
   About one o'clock in the morning, the doorbell rang and Scully opened
it, holding her bathrobe shut.  Mulder was there--or more accurately, what
was left of Mulder was there, being supported by Krychek and the camerman. 
Mulder's hair was a mess and he smelled like a beer truck had leaked  all
over him.
   Krychek smiled a little.  "Sorry, Gill. We were gonna take him back to
his place, but he insisted we bring him here."
    Mulder wagged a finger.  "I insisssssssssed."
   Scully smirked.  "No, it's okay, really."
   The cameraman puffed under Mulder's weight.  "Where'dya want him?  And
don't say 'upstairs'."
   They dragged Mulder over to the couch and unceremoniously dumped him
there. "Thanks, Nicky-Nick-Nick,"  Mulder called.  "Thanks, Pete.  Sorry I
got you for your last ten man."
   The camerman mumbled something about what Mulder could do with his
apology and the ten bucks.
   Nick--Krychek--whoever--looked back at Mulder.  "You should tell him to
drink more when he gambles.  He made a killing."
   Pete nudged Nick out of the way.  "No, don't tell him nothing."
   They went out and she shut the door, then looked over at Mulder.
   "Bye, Mitch!  Loved ya in that 'lectrocution muvvie!"
   Rodney--The Tattoo Man--appeared beside her, wrapped in a sheet.  She
had discovered his name a little earlier when she snuck downstairs to check
his wallet. "What's with him?"
   "Our performance has been a little off lately, we were spending the
weekend together."
   "I thought you were spending the weekend with me.  You Know.  While you
didn't have to play mommy."  Scully drilled him with a look.  "No, not that
there's anything wrong with Piper.  She's great."  He touched her shoulder.
 "I just thought it would be us this weekend."
   "Look, I am not sleeping with him.  We were spending some time
together-- platonically-- to try to get ourselves back in sync."
   "Nobody said you were sleeping with him," Rodney objected.
   "That's funny, it seems like everybody around here thinks I'm the
biggest slut on the planet."
   Rodney pulled the sheet around her, wrapped her in with him.  "Well,
there were a few times tonight you could have won first prize."
   She blushed a little.  "I don't recall any complaints on your end."
   "Nope. No complaints here."  He kissed her.
   Mulder flopped off the couch, landing hard on the floor.  "Scully?"  He
mumbled.
Rodney looked at the lump o'Mulder.
   "Maybe I should go."
   Scully tugged the sheet toward the stairs.  "I'm not finished with you
yet."
   "You act like you haven't had sex in years."
   Scully spoke under her breath.  "Four, to be exact."  Then, she turned
back and kissed him hard.  "Race you to the bedroom!"

III

   Drunkeness looks a lot easier on TV than it does in real life.
   So do hangovers.
   A glare of sunlight blasted through the window and burned through
Mulder's eyelids.   The birds outside made him wish again that he had his
gun.  He dragged himself up off the floor and coughed, feeling the first
glaze of pain in his head.
   He sat there, wincing, holding his head.
   Burping.
   But that was all, thank God.
   He forced himself to his feet, trying to breathe through his mouth to
clear the sensation that it had been loaded with wadded cotton while he
slept.
   He found the aspirin in a kitchen cupboard, dumped half the bottle down
his throat, put his face under the tap and flushed them down.  
   Oh, that was a mistake.  He sat down, let the churning in his stomach
settle down.  It took him a while to feel well enough to make coffee, then
he sank back into the chair and sprawled across the table, hoping the
aspirin would do it's job.  Even the drips of coffee seemed especially
loud.  
   Then, the dogs barked outside and he was convinced he had skipped
straight to Hell.  No Judgement Day, no Last Rites.  Hell.  Only instead of
fire and brimstone, it was a pounding headache and waves of nausea.
   All he could do was lay there and moan.  And he cut down on the moaning
because it made his head hurt more.
   Scully just about bounced into the kitchen, cheerful as she could be. 
And, unless his condition was effecting his eyesight, Mulder could've sworn
she was walking funny.  She wore a man's t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. 
"Whose shirt?" he asked.
   Before she could answer Rodney came in, buttoning up a dress shirt. 
"There's my t-shirt."
   He didn't seem to notice Mulder at all as he slipped up beside her while
she poured coffee and hugged into her from behind.  "If you want it back
you'll have to take it off me."
   Rodney backed away a little.  "Gill, you're gonna kill me.  Keep it. 
I'll get it back next time."
   "Look,"  Mulder rasped, "can't you two have a little respect for the
dead?"
   "Coffee?"  Scully was asking.
   "Yes, please,"  Mulder mumbled into his armpit.
   "I wasn't talking to you, but I'll be gracious."  She kissed Rodney and
handed him a cup.  "I can afford it today."
   Rodney sipped the coffee, pulling a chair out so that its legs screeched
on the floor.  He smiled, taking another slurp of coffee as loudly as
possible.  "Morning, Dave."
   "Huh?"  Mulder wasn't up for playing Dave that morning.  "Yeah.  Right. 
Morning."
   "Tied one on with the boys last night, huh?"
   "I could handle tying one on.  I think it was--"  he belched as Scully
put a mug of coffee in front of him, "--significantly more than one."
   "I've heard those poker games get pretty rough,"  Rodney said.  "That's
why I avoid them.  Well, that and the fact that I've never been invited."
   If it was a hint for an invitation, Mulder didn't take the bait.  "I
remember a game.  Not poker.  Something else."  He dragged himself off the
tabletop and sipped the coffee, wincing as he swallowed.  "Something with
high cards, take a drink.  Low card takes a drink.  Something with cards
and drinks....."
   Mulder went on mumbling about his confused memories of the drinking game
while Scully's foot traced a path up Rodney's calf under the table.
   Rodney drained his cup.  "I should go.  Next weekend?"
   Scully nodded.  "Should be okay, but I'll call you."
   She walked him to the door.  He kissed her.  "I'll be waiting by the
phone."
   Mulder stumbled up, found his jacket, and fished out his sunglasses.  He
put them on, drank more coffee.  "Was that Ed Jerse?"
   Scully had a faraway look in her eyes.  "The actor who plays him."
   "Why was he here?"
   "He's her boyfriend.  He showed up last night, apparently they're
dating."
   He smirked.  "Apparently they're fucking like rabbits."
   Scully didn't get defensive, to his surprise.  "Well, we had to do
something to pass the time.  Actual sleep was out of the question with you
doing an imatation of a human buzzsaw ten feet below us."
   "I don't snore."
   "I knew I should have made a tape."
   Mulder sat on the couch, drank more coffee.  "I can't believe you slept
with her boyfriend."
   "I...I enjoyed myself on her behalf.  Unlike you, I refuse to ruin all
her relationships."
   "This isn't fair. I spent last night in my vision of Hell made real and
you had sex?"
   "Correction: Great sex."  She stetched her back.  "When we get back, I'm
booking the first flight to Philadelphia."
   "I'm going back to bed."
   "Not a bad idea.  You aren't going to be of any use to me with your head
in the blender."
   "Please.  No references to anything that goes in circles right now."  He
stumbled through the living room toward the stairs.  "Oh, thanks for
getting Eddie to help me off to bed, I'm sure this crick in my neck will go
away in a week or two."
   "I had better things for Rodney to do.  Besides in our world I tend
faithfully to you and all your needs.  In this world I don't have to."
   Mulder started up the stairs, stopped to double over.  "My stomach is
killing me." 
   "You're hung over," she reminded him.
   "I know what a hangover feels like.  This is more than a hangover.  My
stomach is just churning."
   She shook her head.  Mulder, you've packed more grease and booze into
that body than he probably has in the last ten years.  It's a wonder you're
still standing."
He stumbled up the stairs.  She shook her head behind him, poured herself
more coffee, and went to the back of the house.  There was another room
there, mostly used for storage.  Curious, she crossed the path between the
stacks of boxes and found herself facing a makeshift desk, which was little
more than an old kitchen table covered with a sheet.  There was a PC on
top, draped with a bathtowel to keep the dust off, and when she pulled the
towel away she found that it was hooked to a modem.
   She switched on the computer, managed to get to the Internet site--and
got stopped cold by the password.
   She typed in GILL.
   No good.
   GILLIAN.
   ANDERSON.
   Nothing.
   She frowned, biting her lip.
   X FILE.
   X FILES.
   Nothing.
   She found herself wishing that she could ask Mulder to call Danny or the
Lone Gunmen, promise them tickets to whatever ballgame was hot to come up
with the password.
   Only those people didn't exist.
   Not here.
   No, Starbuck.  This time you're on your own.
   She typed STARBUCK.
   TRUSTNO1.
   So this Anderson chick had no appreciation for in-jokes.
   Come on.  She's no rocket scientist.  She had a map to her house in her
trailer.  She had the security code to her house in her wallet, for
Christ's sake.
   Scully was beginnig to think that the computer gods were laughing at
her.
   Mulder popped up beside her, startling her.  "Try Piper."
  "Piper?"
   He reached around her and tapped at the keyboard.  "Pets and kids.  Most
popular passwords on the Internet."
   PIPER.
   The modem chimed and buzzed and bleeped in squawks of computerese.
   "I thought you were gonna sleep it off," she said as she typed at the
keyboard.
   "I puked.  I feel better."  Mulder looked around the cramped room,
nudged some boxes and found an old loveseat.  He pulled the boxes and
cartons from the seat and sprawled on it.  
   "You can't feel that much better," she told him.  "You should rest."
   "You wanna know the truth?"
   "As long as it doesn't involve more detail about your bathroom habits."
   "It's your typing."
   "What?"
   He pretended to type.  "Tappity-tap-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap-nothing.    
Tappity-tap-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap-nothing.  It drives me nuts.  Who could
sleep with that racket?"
   "It never bothered you before."
   "I never mentioned it before."
   "You were never hungover before," she told him.  "Besides, it's called
staccato typing."
   "It's called annoying."
   "It's supposed to prevent carpal tunnel."
   "It prevents sharing an office."
   "Sure, fine, whatever," she went back to typing doing searches.  It
wasn't long before Mulder was snoring on the loveseat.
   A little while later Mulder awoke.
   "Morning, Angel."
   Scully was still sitting at the PC.
   "Find anything interesting?"  He asked as he stood and stretched.
   "The X-Files are real big on the net."
   "Our X-Files or just the show?"
   Scully shook her head, looking somewhat excited.  "The show and
everything associated with it.  I saved some things for you to read."  He
picked up her mug.  "That's two hours cold," she told him.
   He drank some anyway.  "Yucko."  He found some sheets near the printer. 
"This it?"
   She nodded, getting up.  "I'm gonna take the dogs for a walk."
   "Uh-huh," he mumbled, taking the pages back to the loveseat.
   She went out of the room.
   "Oh my God."
   She poked her head back in, a witch's smile on her face.  "Problem?"
   Mulder stared at one of the prints.  "Scully, I'm wearing a teacup.  If
that's not a problem, what is?"
   Scully left him to his humiliation and walked into the backyard.  She
was beginning to think the dogs must have been trained by the same method
or maybe the same school, they behaved so much the same.  They were happy
to see her, and she knew it was probably because no one had let them out
for more than twelve hours.  "Sorry, sorry," she said as she opened the
gate and let them run out to the front yard.  She ambled after them,
letting them take their time, letting them walk her around the block.  She
didn't rush them at all.  She was busy thinking.  Thinking about bearded
Spocks and flashes of light on elevators.  
   When she got back to the house, she poured  herself more coffee and
found Mulder still sitting on the little couch, piles of papers in his
hands.  "Having fun?"  She asked as she took the seat at the terminal.
   "God, these people want us to get together really badly."
   "Not everybody."
   "Okay, admittedly, not everyone on the planet, but--"
   "There is the odd few that see me and Skinner knocking boots."
   "Or me and Skinner.  Maybe that's the really odd few."  He put the
papers down.  Flashed his best seductive smile.  "So what do you say?"
   "You want to screw Skinner go right ahead.  You don't strike me as his
type, though."
   "I meant you and me.  You know, just please the masses."
   "If I've said it once I've said it a million times:  Not in this or any
other lifetime."
   "I would have never figured you for an anti-shipper."
   "Let's just say you aren't my cup of tea."  Mulder stuck his tongue out
at her.  "Mulder, on my walk I was thinking."
   "I was hoping you weren't gone that long because you enjoyed watching
dogs pee."
   "I like to think when I walk."
   "That explains the pacing."
   "Anyway, I was thinking, is the point--" she said, getting fustrated
with his interruptions.
   "If it's about Eddie, I don't want to hear about it."
   "It wasn't about Rodney, if that's what you mean.  Well, it wasn't all
about him."
   "I should hope not."
   "What's your problem with him?"
   Mulder looked away.  "I don't have a problem."
   "Yes, I believe you do."
   "Okay, maybe I do have a problem with you sleeping with this guy, but
whatever problem I've got is probably caused by whatever problem makes you
giggle whenever you find yet another picture of my pee-pee."
   "Are you suggesting that there's some sort of unresolved sexual tension
between us?"
   Mulder lifted the printed pages.  "They would agree with me."
   "Let's just say I don't feel it and leave it at that."
   "Let's not."
   "Mulder, do we have to talk about this?"
   Mulder frowned, thinking.  "No.  I guess I can give you Jerse.  But not
Skinner.  If I ever find out you slept with him I'll have to hang myself."
   "Shoot yourself," she corrected.  "You'd have to shoot yourself."
   "Fine."
   "And I guess I can find it in my heart to let you have a fling with your
TV lady."
  "Great, it's settled then."
   "Yep."
   Mulder smirked.  "Just remember, in our world, Jerse is practically
minus a right arm."
   "Fine," she said.  "It wasn't his arm I was interested in anyway."
   "So what were you thinking about on your walk?"
   "If we're caught here, what are they doing?  Duchovny and Anderson? 
It's one thing to pretend to be an actor, but how do you pretend to be a
FBI agent?  Or a doctor?  What if she has to do an autopsy?  Or if he has
to fire his gun?  If they screw up, it could cost us our careers."
   "I've been trying really hard not to think about that.  Shit, if they
piss off Skinner, we'll be on wiretap duty or--"  he shuddered, "leading
Bureau tours until the next century.  We've got to get back."
   She nodded, agreeing.  "If I remeber my Trek correctly, we have to be in
the same place we are--they are.  You know what I mean."
   "The elevator.  But we got back in the elevator and it didn't work,
remember?"
   "Maybe it's because that guy was there."
   "Maybe you could try to seduce somebody besides Eddie for a change." 
Mulder suggested.  "Show him your belly button.  It'd work for me."
   "I get the feeling he's already seen it, along with everyone else in the
crew."
   "He opens and shuts the doors.  How else are we gonna get rid of him?"
   "Tell him there's free doughnuts?"
   "I think you're dismissing the sex idea way too quickly.
   She shook her head.  "Not fast enough.  We have all night to think of
something else.  Use your head."

IV  

   Mulder wheeled the Corvette into the slot next to Scully's truck.  He
got out and ran his hand over the sleek curves of the car.  "I'm gonna miss
her."
   Scully got out of the Land Rover, followed by Cleo and Blue, not
particularly interested in the loss of the vette.  "Think of anything?"
   Mulder looked around.  Where's Piper?"
   "Her father will drop her off around noon.  I figured by then this will
all be over and either she's stuck with me or her real mother will be
back."
   "I wish I could have said goodbye."
   "Why?"
   Mulder didn't have a good answer for that.
   She started towards the front doors to the studio, but Mulder pulled her
back.  "Wardrobe," he told her.  "Let's just do this backwards from Friday
and hope we don't run into Bill the Cancer Man on his way back from the
pool.  Deal?"
   "Deal, but did you come up with anything?"
   He lead her towards the trailers.  The dogs followed them.  "I got a few
ideas."
   Scully looked....concerned.  Mulder couldn't quite call it 'frightened.'
 But it was close. "What if they want us to do another scene first?"
   "How hard can it be?  Say my line, drop my pants."
   "Mulder!"
   He smiled.  "Just kidding."
   "Well I'm not.  What do we do?"
   "We fake it.  I don't know," he reached the stairs to his trailer.  "I'm
making this up as I go."
   Scully mounted the stairs to her wardrobe trailer.
   Mulder became aware of Blue, whining on the pavement behind him, tail
sadly sweeping the asphalt.
   Mulder looked at the dog.  "Look, just sit there, okay?  With any luck
your real daddy will be home soon."
   Mulder went through the door to the trailer and froze.  There must have
been six women there, all saying something.
   "Ice water, Mister Duchovny?"
   "We made the carrot sticks just the way you like them this time."
   "I took in the blue suit just a little, David."
   "Expresso machine is fixed if you want me to run and get you a cup."
   Mulder just gawked, not quite sure what to make of it.  The wardrobe
woman, the bitchy one who gave him a hard time about hanging up his suit on
Friday, was waiting in the back of the group, cigarette between her lips. 
"You come here to eat or work?"  She asked.
   Mulder didn't take long to answer, but however long it was wasn't fast
enough for her.  "Work," he managed.
   "Fine." She plopped a gray suit on the dressing chair.  "White shirts
are in the top drawer.  Red tie is on the rack."
   She herded the other women out, which was good.  Mulder didn't know if
they expected to watch him change.  It wouldn't have surprised him if they
had.
   He stripped down, started to put on the suit she laid out.
   As he buttoned into the shirt, someone knocked on the door.  "They're
ready for you in make-up, Mister D."
   Great.  What you really mean is, "Half the staff is waiting on your
sorry ass so why don't you hurry the hell up."  But I'm the star of the
show, so you say, "they're ready for you," like they were keeping me up
nights.
   This ain't half bad.
   Everybody catering to you.
   Free clothes.
   Tons of money.
   Everybody catering to you.
   That catering thing is great.
   "Yes, Mister Dutchoven."
   "Right away, Mister Dutchoven."
   Wait.  
   Maybe there's a way to use this.
   "I'll be there when I'm ready," he said.  He hoped he sounded a little
surly.  He didn't want it to be too rough, but it was a first attempt and
right away he thought he had played it a little light.
   "Yes sir, Mister D.  Whenever you're ready."  Whoever it was whined the
words,   placating. 
   "Hey!"  He barked.  "It's Mister Duchovny, got it?"  He hoped that--just
this once--he had said the name proprerly.
   "Yes sir, Mister Duchovny," the voice sounded absolutely petrified. 
"Do--Would you like me to get Tommy to take Blue?"
   "What do you think I'd like you to do with Blue, shit-for-brains?"
   "Uh, yes, sir, Mister Duchovny.  I'll get Tommy right away."
   He heard the footsteps running away.
   Mulder finished dressing and sat in a chair, rubbing his lip for a
moment, thinking.
   He counted the clothes.  
   He counted the hangers the clothes hung on.
   He mixed the blue shirts with the white shirts. 
   He rearranged the suits. 
   Someone knocked at the door and he barked, "Go away!"
   He checked his watch.
   He counted the clothes again.
   Recounted the hangers.
   He only left the trailer when he was absoutely certain more than half an
hour went by.
By the time he left make-up, the whole studio knew that Mister D--that is,
Mister Duchovny, sir--was having a bad day.  Or something.  Rumors were
flying.  He prowled the hallway, finding Scully waiting for him behind the
set.  She was pretending to read the script, dropped it when she saw him.
   "Mulder, what are you doing?"
   "Getting ready to work."
   "No, I mean--" She pulled him aside.  "Everyone is talking about you."
   "Of course," he smirked.  "Did any of them use the term Greek god?"
   "Not really, no."
   "Adonis?"
   "No, Mulder, mostly they're using words like egotisical and bastard. 
They're also talking about you throwing a tray of lip gloss at the make-up
staff."
   "It wasn't my shade."
   "What are you doing?"  She demanded.  "Somebody said you must have
broken up with T`ea over the weekend, then somebody else said you and I
spent the weekend together, and the next thing I knew nobody was talking
around me at all."  She composed herself a little.  "Now, please tell me
this all part of the grand plan and  you're not just wigging out on me."
   "I'm just.....getting into character.  Trust me."
   They rounded the corner onto the set.
   And froze.
   They weren't in psuedo hallway.  They were in a psuedo morgue, complete
with drawers and a slab.  And a fake cadaver.  Two effects guys were
crammed under the slab, playing with a couple of tubes hooked into the
dummy, trying to feed the hoses into some buckets of green goo.
   Mulder grabbed the nearest stage hand.  "What the hell happened to the
elevator set?"
   The stage hand shrugged and moved on, busy with his work.
   Mulder looked seriously panicked, and Scully was working her way to meet
him. "Johnny?  Where the hell is Johnny?!" He bellowed.
   The kid with the clipboard--the assistant director--squirmed from
between some lighting racks to meet him.  "It's Jimmy, Dav--Mr.
Duchovny--and the director decided that we're going to cut that scene.  It
was just filler anyway."
   "Where is that little runt asshole?"
   "Sir?"
   "Where's the director?"
   Jimmy pointed with the clipboard.  "Over there.  In his chair, same as
always."
   Mulder stomped up to the man.
   "Hey, Duchovny," the directer oozed.  "Think we can get it going today? 
I mean, I wouldn't want to put you out or--"
   "Who gave you authority to cut the elevator scene?"
   "Seeing as she couldn't get the fucking lines right I thought you'd be
overjoyed."
   Mulder planted his hands on his hips.  "Gill and I worked real hard on
that scene over the weekend and I think we deserve the chance to reshoot
it."
   The director glowered up at him.  "It was two lines.  If it took you two
all weekend to learn them, we're in big trouble.  I hope you gave a passing
glance to this week's script."
   Mulder took a few steps back.
   Scully watched him fill his lungs.
   Mulder opened his mouth and did it all in one breath, at the top of his
lungs.  "This is it!  I FUCKING quit!  Get my lawyer, get my agent, I
fucking quit!  I QUIT!"  He glared at the director and Jimmy tried to grab
him, but Mulder shook him off.  "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?  I AM DAVID FUCKING
DUTCHOVEN AND I WILL NOT HAVE MY ART COMPRIMISED IN THIS FASHION!  SOMEONE
GET CHRIS ON THE PHONE AND TELL HIM HE JUST LOST HIS STAR BECAUSE THIS
ASSHOLE WILL NOT LET ME DO THE ELEVATOR SCENE.  GILL AND I THOUGHT IT WAS
FUCKING IMPORTANT BUT NO--IT'S JUST FILLER.  I FUCKING QUIT!"
   He stormed off, overturning the catering cart on his way, dashing the
espresso machine to the concrete floor, leaving everyone flatout stunned.
   Mulder hurried to his trailer, careful not to make eye contact with
anyone he passed, pretending to be pissed, but feeling something else.  He
yanked open the door to the trailer, slammed it behind him, and sank on the
little bed under the cabinets.
   There was a scrap of paper on the floor.  He picked it up.  Page 150 of
Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose.
   He laughed. 
   He didn't laugh long.  He sat there, bent over, head in his hands,
waiting.
   Someone knocked at the door.
   "WHAT?"  He barked.
   "It's me."
   Scully came in.  She stepped lightly, unsure of exactly what had just
happened.  "Are you finished throwing things, or should I come back later?"
   He smiled at her.  "Come on in, grab a chair."
   "What the hell was that? What were you doing?"
   Mulder sighed.  "Either getting our elevator back or ruining Dutchoven's
career."  She sat down at the desk, letting him sweat.  "Well?"
   "Except for mispronouncing your own name, I'm impressed."
   "No offense, but who cares what you thought?  What did they do?"
   "I think the director is changing his pants as we speak."
   "I told you I was a good peach."
   "I volunteered to come and tell you the elevator set will be up in half
an hour."  
   Mulder checked his watch.  "Now we just have to lose Zeke."
   She sat there, rubbing her eyes.  "I really hope this works, Mulder.  If
you're stuck here, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble."
   "Come on, Scully.  I don't know much about actors, but the way I see it,
if you're on a hit show and you walk off the set, they give you a fat raise
and tell Entertainment Tonight you've reached a five year contract deal."
   "That's easy for you.  You are the star of the show.  If I get too
mouthy, they're liable to replace me with a new partner."
   Mulder gave her a warm look.  "They'd never let you leave.  They might
abduct you for a few episodes, but...."
   "What?"
   "There's no Mulder without a Scully."
   Scully smiled back.  "That's nice Mulder.  But the fact is I heard some
guy in a suit on the phone on my way out here and I think you'd better get
ready for a urine test if this doesn't work out."
   "I'm a civil libertarian.  I don't believe in piss tests."
   "The studio seems to."
   "Fine."  He leaned back.  "You know, I've begun to envy you your name. 
Hell, I think being named David would be alright now that I know the
truth."
   She gave him a curious look.  "What truth is that?"
   "I was named after a network."
   "Could be worse.  How'd you like to go through life with a name like ABC
Mulder?"
   Mulder smiled.  "I could be Columbia, though.  That'd be cool."
   "You don't look like a Columbia."
   He closed his eyes.  "Promise me something."
   "What's that?"
   "I want you to promise me that as soon as we get back, we'll check all
the X-Files for anyone who looks like T`ea.  Maybe they'll give her a guest
shot, seeing as Dutchoven's her boyfriend." He sighed.  "I'd like to meet
her just once."
   "I promise."
   "And I'll see what we can do in Philadelphia.  Fair enough?"
   "Deal."
   He checked his watch.  "Come on," he said, sitting up.  "Let's see if
they're ready for us yet."
   By the time they got back to the set, the crew were putting the
finishing touches on the basement hallway.  A couple of stagehands were
arranging the lights.
   Mulder looked over the hallway, surveying the elevator doors down the
corridor.
   The director stepped up and patted Mulder's shoulder, leading him toward
the set.     "You could have told me your life depended on it.  Jeez."
   "Is that supposed to pass for an apology?"  Mulder asked.
   The director leaned in toward him, smiling.  "We all have contracts, you
know.  Can we just go back to being one big, happy, stressed-out family
now?"
   Mulder nodded, smirking to himself.
   Jimmy stepped around them.  "ALL RIGHT PEOPLE! PLACES!"  He turned to
Mulder and Scully.  "Any time you're ready."
   They went into the elevator and exchanged a hopeful glance.
   "It's now or never," Scully breathed.
   "Not my favorite Elvis tune, but appropriate."  He looked up through the
hole where the ceiling should have been.  "Uh, Zeke?"
   The fat guy popped up. "It's Zach, Mister Duchovny, but you can call me
Zeke if it makes you happy."
   "Could you just shut the doors and back away?  Give us a couple of
minutes to focus?  We think you may have distracted us before."
   "Well, sorry, Mister D, but they said in my contract that I'm supposed
to stand right here."
   "ACTION!" the director yelled from outside.
   "C'mon Zeke.  We won't tell anyone."
   "ACTION!" The director yelled again.
   Zach shook his head.  "You want me to lose my job?  Y'know there are
twenty union guys just itchin' to open this door for ya."
   "ACTION!"
   "Looks like we have a patriot on our hands, sweetheart,"  Mulder beamed
at Scully. She watched him sag a little, turning back up to Zach.  "Look
this is really simple--"
   "ACTION!"
   "-- In about fifteen seconds, my new best pal the director is gonna ask
me what's taking so long, and I can either tell him we're getting into
character or that you're pissing us off.  One way you get to keep your job.
 The other you never work in this town again." He stopped, letting the
words sink in.  "What's it gonna be?"
   "I have a contract," Zach insisted.
   "Yeah?  How long can you afford to be on welfare, Zeke?  These things
can drag on for years."
   "ACTION, PLEASE!  WHATS GOING ON IN THERE?"
   Zach started to climb down off his perch.  "Sorry.  Sure.  Whatever you
want.  Yeah.  Whatever."
   The teamster backed away out of view, and Mulder took a deep breath.  "I
think he's the only one around here who doesn't know I'm a star."  He
poised a finger over the buttons.  "Ready?"
   "I guess so.  Which button are you gonna push?"
   "Does it matter?"
   She shrugged.  "I guess not."
   Mulder closed his eyes and hit the button.  
   The elevator shook for an instant.
   The lights went out.
   The elevator shook hard, throwing them against the walls.
   "Mulder?"
   "Sorry, Scully, I'm on my butt right now."
   The lights came back on and the elevator hummed to a stop.  Mulder
climbed to his feet, dusted himself off.  He touched the suit and showed
Scully.  "It's blue," he said.
   Scully looked up.  "We have a ceiling and no Zeke."
   The doors pinged and slid open.
   Mulder peered out into the hallway.  It looked exactly right.  No
lights.  No cameras.  No action.  "Let's get outside and see if this is
really Washington."
   Mulder turned back to Scully and was surprised to find her pulling her
blouse out of her sensible skirt.  "No!  This is it Mulder!  No more navel
ring!"
   Mulder stared at her belly.  She realized she was proudly displaying her
navel to him and shrank a bit, putting herself back together.  "Good enough
for me," he said.  He held his arm out, leading her off the elevator.
   Someone was leaving their office.  Mulder nudged Scully flat against the
wall, peering out.
   It was the Cancer Man.  A cloud of smoke circled him as he strolled up
the hallway, toward them.  He spotted Mulder and smoothly, with a demonic
quickness, he turned on his heels and went the other way.
   Mulder broke from cover, sprinting down the hall.  "Hey!  Stop!"  The
Cancer Man glanced over his shoulder and broke into a run for a stairwell
at the end of the hall.  It was useless--Mulder was on top of him in a
heartbeat, tackling him onto the terrazzo.  Mulder plucked the cigarette
out of his hand and crushed it on the floor next to Cancer Man's head. 
"You oughta quit.  Those things'll kill you."
   "Get off me," the Cancer Man ordered.
   Mulder didn't move.  "Is your name William Davis?  Answer me, you black
lunged son of a bitch!  Are you William Davis?"
   The Cancer Man gawked up at him.
   "Do you like to swim?"  Mulder demanded, not realizing how hysterical he
sounded. Or was.
   "Get off me right now," the Cancer Man rasped, trying to throw Mulder
off.  Mulder wouldn't budge.
   "ANSWER ME!"
   "No, that is not my name.  And I promise you Agent Mulder, that I am
going to make you very sorry about this."
   Mulder got off him.  Let him up.
   The Cancer Man was astonished to see Mulder smiling broadly at him. 
"G'wan get outta here,"  Mulder said, shoving him down the hallway.  "Go
find a dog to kick."
   The Cancer Man staggered away, headed for a stairwell.
   Mulder approached Scully.  He could hardly contain himself.  "We did it!
  We made it home!"
   Scully was not paying attention to Mulder.  She looked behind him,
watching their arch nemesis clutch his chest.  Slowly, the Cancer Man
crumbled, grasping at the wall, trying to keep himself upright.  He failed
and slipped to a seated position against the wall, looking straight at
Scully.
   He sucked in a last breath, glaring at her until his eyes rolled up into
his head.
   "Mulder?"  She took him by the arms and turned him around.
   Mulder looked at the lump on the floor as Scully examined the body,
feeling for a pulse in his wrist and his neck.  "Is he...?"
   "Yep.  Like the proverbial doornail.  Should we try to revive him?"
   Mulder just let out a laugh, turned towards their office, ignoring the
dead man.
   Scully shook her head where she squatted.  "We just can't leave him on
the floor outside our office."
   "You're right.  Let's leave him in front of someone else's office." 
Mulder stepped over. "Jeez.  If I knew it was going to be that easy, I
would've knocked him down a long time ago."  He puffed, hefting the body. 
"Skinner's office?"
   She watched him lift the Cancer Man.  "Hasn't Skinner already explained
enough dead bodies for us?"
   Mulder dragged the body along.  "You're probably right, but I'm sure as
hell not gonna take the fall on this one."
   "You can't be serious about this."
    Mulder leaned the dead man face-first against a wall.  "What are we
gonna do, Scully?  Put down where we spent the weekend in our report?"
    Scully shook her head and reluctantly helped him shoulder the body. 
"We're breaking every rule--"
   "You are such a stick in the mud.  Who wouldn't want to report him
dead?"
   "You, apparently."
   "I hate writing reports.  Let's share our joy.  How 'bout  Blevin's
office?"
   "He does hate paperwork," she admitted.
   They exchanged a look.
   "Colton's office," they decided in unison.
   They tugged the body along.  "For a swimmer, you'd think he'd be
lighter," Mulder said.
   They neared the elevator.  "You're not thinking of getting in there, are
you?"
  "Scully, I may never go near an elevator again."
   They reached the elevator.  "Well, Mulder, I'll give you one thing," she
said as he hit the 'up' button.  The doors slid open.
   "What's that, Scully?"  He dumped the Cancer Man into the elevator, let
him land in a heap.
   "In this or any other universe, you sure know how to show a girl a good
time."
  

The End.