From: Jinx451 Date: 01 Oct 1998 21:18:26 GMT Subject: NEW: Insomnia by Jinx451 Heyall I guess this was posted about six to twelve months ago, by a mate who had internet access, but seeing as i have access myself now, I thought i'd do a repost, and get some feedback on it. NJoy Title: Insomnia Author: Jinx451 Spoilers: Nah. Keywords: SOMEONE PLEASE SEND ME A FAQ SO I CAN FILL THIS ONE IN. Rating: Nothing nasty here Feedback: Yes - good, bad, I don't care. I want to be good at this. Send it as a reply to this message. Disclaimer: Almost forgot - NOT MINE, NOT MINE - all characters copyright CC and 1013. No money's being made from this so they shouldn't be too pissed. Anyway, at least we take *risks* with the characters. Someone has to :-). Summary - Sleepless nights - a companion to Dark and Long, only played for laughs. The X-Files: Insomnia 00.00:00 Mulder looked up from his bed at the clock. He had been lying there for about two hours now - trying to get to sleep. There was a clicking as the numbers flicked over on his clock. He groaned and shut his eyes again. And then opened them again. 00.00:07 Time wasn't passing as quickly as he'd hoped. Closing his eyes for a moment seemed like an age. Only to have them open and see that it was ten or eleven seconds later. Now it was only seven seconds. Mulder hadn't been sleeping well for a number of weeks now. Since he'd got back from Japan, he was having more and more trouble getting his rest. First it had been waking at five, then four, and now - a month later he couldn't even get to sleep. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling of his apartment roof. He reached over and puled the sheets back across himself. "One , two, three, four-" he said to no-one in particular. He'd tried almost everything else - counting sheep seemed as good an idea as any. "-seventeen, eighteen, nineteen-" He'd never quite got the principal of counting sheep. His dad had tried it on him when he was young, but had never bee able to justify himself. "- thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four-" This was getting silly - it hadn't worked wen he was young, no reason why it should work now. Counting sheep probably wasn't going to work. He closed his eyes again, and blotted out everything from his mind. 00.07:23 Wasn't working. Mulder sat up and turned on the lamp that sat beside his bed. he had to see a doctor about this. He had work to do in the morning. He had to go to work in the morning. He leaned back and turned the light off again. He pulled the pillow over his head, and hummed loudly to blot out the incessant click-clacking of the clock as the seconds flipped over into minutes, and then hours. It wasn't going any faster however much he didn't think about it. He remembered one night when he was little - what was he thinking 'one night' ? Christmas Eve it was - him and Sam had sat up, while his dad had told them that if they just went to bed and slept then Santa Claus would come, and just like that it would be Christmas morning. Mulder had stayed up pretending to sleep. He believed although he never proved it, that Sam had done the same thing. When they got up the next morning, Santa had been, and they were both too tired to open their presents. The night had seemed to have lasted forever - he must have gone to sleep, he didn't see Santa that year. One year he was sure he had seen small shapes moving at the windows - large heads, and spindly limbs, Santa's little helpers he thought. That was the Christmas before Sam had gone. He yawned - a good sign, it had to be - and laid back onto his sheets. The sudden urge to sleep passed over him, and he was still wide awake. 00:43:47 Mulder leafed through the case file. It was impossible even thinking about sleeping, so he might as well try and get some work done. Then, if by some miracle he did get to sleep, he would have something to show for it. And he could always catch some shut-eye at the office tomorrow, if he wanted. Tomorrow. Was tomorrow Thursday or Friday? He hated this time of night - it was still late enough to be just getting in late and going to bed, but early enough to have that sudden realisation you have to be at work in less than nine hours, and you haven't got to sleep yet. The file was making less and less sense. He had no idea what the words meant - just another profile case. It was pretty open and shut. The X-Files had been getting quite a few of these sorts of cases. Probably Skinner trying to get them shut down again. Probably a conspiracy at some level. God, this was getting ridiculous. Skinner had saved his hide so many times these last six months, and he'd saved Skinner's. Ridiculous conspiracy theory. Ridiculous. He was getting nowhere with the files. He put them back in his desk draw, and turned off his desk lamp. He walked across to the kitchen area, and ran a glass of water for himself from the tap. He opened the refrigerator, and peered in. There was precious little that could be described as edible in there - Mulder remembered why he ate at the office so much. He picked out a ceramic dish, with cling-film over the top, and lifted it off cautiously. There was an evil smell emanating from it, so he placed it over by the sink, and made a mental note to dispose of it with the assistance of thick gloves in the morning. The remainder of the items in the refrigerator were similar unmarked dishes with cling-film over them. Mulder had already seen enough to put him off food for life - so he closed the door, and reached up for a packet of sunflower seeds. He slumped down on the sofa in front of the TV and picked up the remote. There had to be something on... 01.23:04 "...concludes our late movie - tune in tomorrow, for more classic B-Movie horror with The Saucer Men That Ate Manhattan..." *click* "...prices cannot be beaten with our patented 'New Added Stain Removers'..." *click* "...but Ryan - if it was you that night at the window, then who did I see when I was with you at the hotel...Ryan? Ohmigaaaahhhhhh-" *click* "...clinically proven to reduce ageing..." *click* "... and finally tonight, we have the amazing true story of Martha Lane from Texas who plummeted from the top of a high rise building to survive after having her fall broken by a moose..." *click* "...coming soon to theatres near you - 'JFK - The Alien Factor'... " *click* Mulder turned the TV off. perhaps a trawl through the late night shows wasn't a great idea. He looked at the clock. Only seven and a half more hours before he had to be at work. 29 channels and nothing on. Or at least nothing that didn't insult the senses that much. What could he do? He stood up and the sat down again. The he stood up. This time he had a purpose. He walked back to his bedside cabinet and picked out a book from his sparse bedside collection. "The Ultimate Conspiracy Handbook" - it had been a Christmas gift from Scully the first year she had been assigned to the X-Files. He still wasn't sure whether it had been meant as a joke, or sincerely. He opened it at the index, and began to cross reference alien abduction with JFK... 02.38:55 "...so if Kennedy hadn't found out about the existence of extra-terrestrial life then they wouldn't have had to kill him. But if they killed him how come they were so sure Oswald did it? Unless Oswald was working with the aliens, and was their scapegoat. Or maybe he was an amorphous alien being - disguised as Lee Harvey Oswald." the recorder clicked and ran out of tape. Mulder topped up the Whisky in his glass, added another ice cube from the plastic container that now graced his table top "JFK - The Alien Factor. Side..." he paused and looked through the tapes he had already recorded "...side five." he continued. "For Kennedy to be eliminated, the aliens needed to have contacts at the highest level. The incident in New Mexico strengthened alien relations with Earth, after we returned one of their crashed craft to them. After negotiations with earth governments, they agreed to have silent witnesses and advisors on Earth -" he made a note on a piece of paper, questions he would ask the cigarette smoking man when he got his hands on the grubby little bastard. "Furthermore, alien technology as we understand it is at a sufficient level, so as they could have equipped Oswald with an advanced automatic rifle designed to look like a standard one. The powers, and influence that they had, they could have swapped them at any time. With his advanced rifle, Oswald..." Mulder drained his glass and refilled it. He noticed that the bottle was almost empty. It was a shame - it was helping him think better. "Oswald managed to fire three bullets, which because of the measure of their technology hit Kennedy and the driver seven times... which was... the magic bullet." It all made sense now. "In conclusion, Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald alone - using alien technology - under direct orders from an international consortium of alien and human officials." He stopped the tape, and put it with the others in their cases. He made a mental note to tell Scully in the morning...but then why wait until the morning? Mulder picked up his mobile and tapped in Scully's home number. The phone rang for a few seconds before it was picked up. "Dana Scully speaking, who is it?" Scully sounded, unsurprisingly, like she'd been dragged out of bed. "Who is this?" "It's me Scully." "Mulder?" "Who else? Listen-" "What on earth are you doing calling me at this hour? I was sleeping." "This can't wait - I've got to tell you something. You sure there's no-one there who could be listening in?" "What? No. Come on Mulder... I need my sleep-" "I've figured it out." "What? Mulder? Hurry up." "I know who killed JFK." Scully muttered something under her breath "Don't tell me Mulder. It was the aliens, right?" "Yeah! How did you figure it out-" "Good night Mulder." *click* Mulder tried to re-dial, but she'd taken the phone off the hook. It didn't matter - he was happy with himself. he'd solved one case all by himself, and he still had six hours before he had to be at the office. If he carried on at this pace he would have solved the entire collection of FBI unsolved cases by dawn... 03.17:20 Mulder decided against the idea of going back through the FBI records. He pulled out another bag of sunflower seeds, making another mental note to buy some more on the way to the office, or even to raid his office stash. He sat down in the middle of his rug, and laid out his assorted reading material in front of him. Playboy; Encounters; Conspiracy Monthly and OMNI. Mulder was really in the mood for a good conspiracy - he was really into it, now he had solved the JFK murder conspiracy. On the other hand though... he picked up the Playboy, and began to flick through... 03.50:42 "-two hundred and seventy thousand, eight hundred and three green bottles standing on the wall; two hundred and seventy thousand, eight hundred and three green bottles standing on the wall, and if one green bottle should accidentally fall, there'd be..." Mulder paused for thought "...forty thousand, seven hundred and sixty nine green bottles standing on the wall..." 04.21:37 "... and there'd be... no green bottles standing on the wall." Funny - now Mulder was feeling tired he had absolutely no desire to sleep. At all. Oh well, what the hell, he supposed he could at least not feel tired in bed. He got up off the floor, here he had been lying for well over an hour and walked back to his bed, making sure he closed the fridge door on the way. He climbed back into bed, and closed his eyes. The clock was still clicking and clacking. Mulder had a strange sense of deja-vu. 09.23:01 Mulder looked up at his clock, and then looked down again. He must have knocked it so hard the time changed. He looked at his watch. Still no change. He lurched out of bed, and via the floor, made his way to the window. He pulled the rollers up, and was almost blinded by the sunlight. Last thing he remembered it was five AM and he still wasn't asleep. He grabbed his clothes, pulled them on, and ran out the front door. The ceramic dish sat on the table in the mid-morning sun, and began to warm up. An enterprising fly settled on the edge of the dish, and peered in. He flew away, before returning with a number of other flies. The fridge door swung open on it's hinges, and groaned painfully. The flies had complex messages running through their tiny little minds. They weren't sure quite what they meant, but they were sure that food was involved, which could only be a good thing... 10.02:00 Mulder rushed into the office. Scully looked up at him - she didn't look like she had slept well. She stared at him accusingly before going back to his work. He hoped insomnia wasn't catching. "Agent Mulder?" One of the interchangeable secretaries peered into the office. "Skinner would like to see you in his office immediately." Mulders shoulders slumped, and he rested his head on the table. It was not going to be a good day... END And there is more where that came from... "Come on people, say you want a revolution"