New Submission: Bruised and Bloody Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Summary: Two agents, one pizza delivery vampire and a wooden chair leg. Post episode thoughts from Bad Blood. Spoiler: Bad Blood and some small mentions of season five Keywords: vampire Rating: PG Category: S H UST/MSR (you decide--it's not that blatant) Disclaimer: Like I could leave this one alone? HAH! So I took the characters, beat me with a wet noodle. So I took the plot (a great one, too)--shove bamboo up my nails! So I had a great time, but I made no money. Now, leave me alone :) Comments: please Archive: anywhere Dedicated: Susan for editing and all the nice people who make me do these pieces Bruised and Bloody (1/2) by Vickie Moseley vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com Scully's version, chapter one He still wouldn't look at me as we got off the plane. Three hours in in the air, one hour lay-over in Atlanta because God forbid we get a non-stop flight, and he still found ways to ignore my gaze. Every single time. I didn't realize how much I depend on looking into his eyes until he refused to let me do it. OK, maybe it was my fault he was so mad at me. I mean, looking back, I probably could have been more supportive. I'm sure that when Mulder was reaching for that rock to pound the leg of the motel chair into Rickie's chest, he was doing so because he thought _we_ were in extreme danger. I had just shot four rounds at the kid, point blank, for the same reason. But a stake through the heart? Give me a break! A simple flying tackle and cuffs couldn't have done the trick? So I told Mulder the only thing that came to my mind when I broke through the underbrush and found him, a little bloody, finishing his, uh, technique. I said I thought he 'over-reacted'. You would have thought I'd accused him of performing sodomy on the high altar with the Bishop. No, Mulder could have found humor in that. It was much worse than that. You would have thought I'd said I didn't trust him. But that was just the beginning. I only wish I'd known. So, anyway, the ride back home, all the way from scenic Chaney, Texas, was a complete and total bore. Mulder somehow managed to get us seated in separate rows, and I found myself sharing my row with two teenagers, on break from college. Two very horny teenagers, who seemed to think that a row of airline seats was the 90's equivalent of the balcony of the Bijou Theater. At one point, I almost offered the couple a condom. And some advice on the evils of pre-graduate sex. But once we were on the ground, things went to hell in a handbasket rather quickly. He had to talk to me in the car. I mean, I was driving and I had him captive. And I really was trying to understand what had just occurred. Here was the man who had taught me EVERYTHING I know about being a field agent, about making a 'good' arrest so that it's not a waste of time, about making sure to keep your head when everyone around you is losing theirs (visions of Chaco Chicken flooding my memory)--when this man drives a stake, a wooden stake through a teen ager's chest, that tends to upset me. I really did ask what had happened politely. The first time. By the eighth time, I have to admit, I probably had lost my temper. But he was being so damned uncooperative. And totally unresponsive. He didn't even try and defend his actions. He kept repeating "It's over, I don't want to dwell on it." By the tenth time he said that, getting more and more agitated each time, I think I'd gotten the hint. I dropped him at his place to change. He looked like he'd spent the night in a hog lot. I told him I'd meet him in the office in an hour. I turned the car around and made my way back to the office. Mulder's version, chapter one I never realized what a bitch she could be. No, scratch that. I think I've always known it, but luckily, I've been able to deflect her bitchiness most of the time. Oh, there are plenty of times when she directs that 'Superwoman Laser Look' at me and I actually feel the blood leave the lower reaches of my anatomy. It probably travels to my heart, where it quivers for a while before risking a look out. But by and large, Scully is a reasonable person. Except when she smells blood. Over-reacted. Over. Re. Acted. OK, I can see where to some, my actions in the resolution of this case might seem a little extreme. A bit far to the end of the spectrum. A tad off the beaten path. But hell, she all but accused me of murder out there in those woods. She should have been kissing my feet! After Ricky finished 'feasting' on my AB negative red blood cells, I'm certain he would have gone after Scully for dessert. So I wasn't just protecting me--I was protecting my partner as well. Hell, she was acting like she was on the rag the entire trip. The moment she walked into the office, I could tell. But I made a quick check of the calendar and either she's early or it was something else bothering her. Broken nail. Ran out of eye liner. Pantyhose riding up the wrong side of the OK corral. Take your pick. Yeah, even '90's guys' can be gross when pressed. She came into the office pissing and moaning that we had to leave town again. Well excuse me, Miss High and Mighty. If I could find 'X Files' walking around the streets of DC everyday, maybe we would have nice 9 to 5 jobs where we never left our comfy little homes. But, even given the higher than usual number of 'weirdness' types we have here in the Capitol City, some of our work is best done in the field. Of Kansas. And Washington state. And even, god forbid, Chaney, Texas. I certainly would never _pick_ Chaney as a hot spot for vampires and vampire activity. But then, I led a sheltered childhood. I can't remember running into a single bloodsucker in my entire time on the Vineyard. Of course, I was never invited to the Kennedy compound. But it's not that far-fetched to find vampires in Chaney. It really isn't that far from New Orleans, and if we are to believe Ms. Rice, that _is_ a hot bed of vampires and has been for about a couple hundred years. But Chaney? Oh, well, it doesn't matter. He was there. He was there, and he tried to kill me, first by drugging my pizza. Scully's pizza. Scully's pizza that I ate and I still think it was only the drugs which I ingested that stopped her from beating me senseless for eating her pizza. So, I was drugged. Not an unusual occurrence for me. Waking up with a pimply faced kid with green glowing eyes and fangs taking a bead on my jugular, now _that_ is something I don't come across every day. When he went for my throat, my life started flashing before my eyes. Or was that the tracer off Scully's bullets? Yeah, right, she accuses me of murder, well, almost and there she was, Ms. Annie Oakley, pumping lead into the kid's chest like it was free time on the shooting range. Direct hits. Two of them that I could see. Damn, I'm glad she's on my side. Especially since the one and only time she's fired at me, she aimed high. Could have been _much_ worse. But as it was, after I recovered enough to run after the guy that just tried to drain me of a vital resource, I did what any sane person would have done. I drove a stake through that sucker's heart. After that, I just didn't want to talk about it. But Scully did. All the way back to the motel, all the way through the interview with the Sheriff, Deputy Dawg, and all the way home. By the time she dropped me off at my apartment, I was ready to take an ice pick to my ears just so I wouldn't have to listen to her voice again. Scully's version, part two I knew Mulder was scared. Hell, I was scared. We were facing all sorts of charges and some of them were manslaughter and murder related. The family was suing the FBI, with our names prominently listed as codefendants, for 446 million dollars. Ahab could have had a really nice ship for 446 million dollars. I know I didn't have that kind of loose change laying around, and I'm pretty sure Mulder didn't either. But he didn't have to be so defensive. I was going to back him up. Or at least give him an out. I mean, he'd ingested a goodly amount of a potent drug--it was a wonder that he could stand, much less run through the woods after that kid and then drive a stake through him. I didn't get a look at him during the plane ride home, but I could tell by the way his hair was sticking out in all directions in the lounge in Atlanta that he'd been asleep during the flight. Mulder doesn't sleep on planes. He just pretends to. Unless he's not feeling well. I knew he wasn't feeling well. I should have taken him to the doctor. Drugs in your system can mess you up for a couple of days, and with Mulder, even more so. It took three days to get the psychotropic out of his system after his water was drugged. But I didn't push. I was not mad at him. I know that's what he thought. That I was mad and that I didn't think he used 'appropriate procedure' in restraining our assailant and he probably thought I was ready to gleefully hand him over to Skinner and wash my hands of the whole case. That couldn't have been farther from the truth. I have lied more times in my life _for_ Fox Mulder than for any other living human being. I've lied to save his career, I've lied to save his life, I've lied to help him save _my_ life. So now, when it looked like he could have landed in a nasty prison cell, he has the audacity to think that I wouldn't back his story, regardless of how outlandish it might sound. That kid really was attacking him when I got to the room. Assault on a federal officer. Grounds for use of extreme force. Mulder's methods were a bit--gross, but I still think he was in the right to, ah, restrain Ricky. Maybe not by pinning him to the ground with a wooden chair leg through his chest, but hey, I'm not about to quibble. What's done is done. Any port in a storm. Shit happens. Case closed. Of course I would support my partner. I had a few things to do when I got to the office, so by the time I made it down to the basement, Mulder was already there. I could tell he was trying to write up his report--there was a tidy pile of crumpled up pages already decorating the floor around the trash can. He was mad at me. No doubt about, no matter what I would have said at that point, it all would have been 'bitchy nagging' to Fox Mulder's ears. So I didn't say anything. Just sat there quietly and watched him kick the shit out of our one and only trash can which took me 3 months to requisition when the last one developed a huge hole in the bottom thanks to Mulder dropping some excess 'evidence' into it from a case. By that time I was getting a little pissed, too and I was almost ready to tell him that he was requisitioning the next trash can. The look on his face stopped me. Mulder doesn't scare easily. Threats against his life run off him like water off a duck's back. Threats to my life don't scare him, they make him mad. Prison--that scares him. Maybe it's because of Bill Patterson. Maybe it's because in the back of his mind Mulder is terrified that one day the demons he keeps locked up so securely inside him will break to the surface and he really will end up like Patterson--alone and insane. Mulder has always depended on me to keep that from happening. I think that's what he was asking yesterday morning. Did I really think he'd lost it this time? But he didn't have to be such an asshole about it. He wanted to know what I saw. OK. Sure, fine, whatever. I thought the tape recorder was a bit much, but by this point, Mulder wasn't Mulder, he was crazed and nervous and if I'd had some Thorozine handy, his butt would have been sore, too. I told him what I saw. Short story. Tiny town, a nice funeral home, a dedicated Sheriff who _did_ call me Dana, two dead men with pizza in their stomachs and knock out drugs in their blood stream. A psychopathic pizza delivery kid standing over my prone partner, who seems to remember all the words to _The Theme from Shaft_ at the most inappropriate times. That's what I saw. That's what I remember. That's what happened. Then I took off after the pizza kid, after attempting to subdue him with my weapon (note, I gotta check my gun, I think the sight is off) and when he tried to escape, I shot out his car tire. He entered the woods, I followed in pursuit. Now, I'm not taking sides at all here, well, I am, but that's besides the point, when I say that it's curious how Mulder, who was groggy as hell when I left him, managed to break a chair (flimsy though it be) run out into the woods (in his socks but no shoes), race past me (OK, I'll give him that one--he's always been faster) and drive a frigging stake through the kid's heart all before I could even get within earshot of him. Maybe there was something else in that pizza. But when it all comes down to it, I still firmly believed that the absolutely best defense for both of us was for Mulder to tell Skinner He was drugged. Mulder's version, part two God, she can be so sanctimonious. I've noticed it before, but usually it's just a passing sort of thing. Yesterday morning, she _reeked_ of it. Sanctimonious nagging little bitch! No, that's not fair. She was scared. I could tell it. Hell, I was a little scared, too. Scully would never last long in prison. Not a day. If the first time someone female made a pass at her didn't get her in a fatal fist fight, the sheer humiliation that she would be bringing down on herself and her family certainly would kill her. And Maggie--I don't even want to think what would happen to Maggie Scully if she had to go through a murder trial. Two murder trials, actually. Dana's and then Bill's. Of course, I'd be long dead. Bill Scully would have put a bullet between my eyes weeks before Dana's trial even started. Not a pretty picture. But then, when I asked my partner to update me, tell me what to expect out of her statement to Skinner, she gets all high and mighty. "You mean 'get our stories straight'?" Like we've never done that before! Like we don't do that every frigging case! This time it was just slightly more important, since not only our jobs, but our lives and a considerable portion of the National Debt hung in the balance. So I got out the tape recorder--to make it official. In the heat of the moment, it struck me as sort of funny that the two of us could be in the same room and see things totally differently. She always blows off my efforts to include her in cases early on. She hates to travel and makes no bones about telling me. So I wasn't surprised when her version of the events were a little jaded. But when she got to the part at the funeral home--that's when I really started to get nervous. She had it all wrong. She forgot completely about very key points, like the town having the largest showroom of coffins in the state. She did manage to remember when I noticed that the first victims shoes were untied, so she wasn't in a trance or anything. I found it particularly interesting, from a strictly psychological viewpoint, that she all but forget how she stood there and drooled all over Deputy Dawg. I'm sorry, Sheriff Dawg. Or whatever. The woman needs to start frequenting the same rooms of the video stores that I do, no doubt about it. Bill Scully would put another hole in me for that idea. But when all was said and done, she came up with some cock and bull story about how I woke up singing 'The Theme from Shaft' which is damned interesting since I never even saw the movie, and then she continued to forget how the kid flew across the room at her, pushed her aside and took off into the night. She said she fired at him but missed--yeah, like that _ever_ happens. She shoots at me and hits the target, she shoots at a perp and misses by a mile. I'm willing to believe that, sure. What was really annoying is that some of what she conveniently forgot was essential to my defense. In fact, pretty much all of it. She didn't miss the little bastard, the bullets didn't stop him. He had fangs and green glowing eyes--a real tip off that he wasn't your average run of the mill murderer, but that escaped my ever watchful partner, as well. Basically, she made it sound like I ran a wooden stake through some pimply faced pizza kid who was just passing by. But she did come up with a fool proof alibi. I was drugged. Yeah, that's right, the old stand by. Mulder socks his boss in the jaw. It's OK--he was drugged. Mulder runs off to New Mexico and ends up in a boxcar buried under ground. It's OK--he was drugged. Mulder drives a wooden stake through a 19 year old kid's heart for no good reason other than he thought he might be a vampire. It's OK, he was drugged. Yeah, that should do it. File it in the Constitution somewhere in the Fifth Amendment. You can't be forced to incriminate yourself and always let Mulder off any charge because face it, he was drugged. I did not want to go up and see Skinner. End of part one ***** Bruised and Bloody (2/2) By Vickie Moseley vmoseley@fgi.net Scully's version part three Going up to see Skinner was the least of our problems, it turns out. Before you could say 'did you say 'gnawed' on the neck?' we were on a flight back to Chaney. OK, I have to say it. Mulder was right and I was wrong. Not completely wrong, but obviously a little off the mark. There has to be something strange about a person who can survive a stake through their heart. Even I know you don't pull the stake back out once you kill a vampire. Sheez! Not that I'm admitting that Ricky was a vampire. I mean, that's just too--too--too, Ah, screw it. Anyway, one dead forensic pathologist later, we are back in the Chaney Cemetery, waiting for a pizza. I'm sorry, pizza delivery man. I kept wondering if we should have just phoned on over to Aunt Bee's and ordered a medium sausage, pepperoni and mushroom. After all, I didn't get supper last night, now did I? It wasn't that unusual a feeling. There I was, cold, wet, hungry, waiting for a vampire in the middle of an abandoned and untended cemetery in a small town in Texas. And who says I don't lead a glamorous life as an FBI Agent? Until the Sheriff showed up. Now here is where the story gets a little weird. (Did I really just say that?) Sheriff shows up, Mulder asks where General Delivery mail would be delivered. Sheriff answers 'the RV park'. Suddenly, Mulder is all but throwing me at the Sheriff with a lecherous grin and a 'Don't say I never did nuttin fer ya' and off he ran. Well, this time, I was not in a 'running after Mulder' mood. It had _nothing_ to do with the Sheriff. He was good looking, yes, but he was also a very interesting man. He was keenly interested in my views on the case, something my esteemed partner seemed to lack this time. Interest in my views, that is. And the Sheriff was very accommodating. I mean, he offered me the warmth of his car--er, a seat in his car and a boot/cup full of some of the best darned coffee I've had in years. It wasn't until he started telling me how sad he was that Ricky was giving all of 'them' a bad name--how Ricky didn't understand the meaning of 'low profile' that I started to put two and two together. Charming. Vampire LaStat. Oh shit. And where in the hell was my partner when I needed him? By that time I was out like a light. Mulder's version part three I knew there was nothing to worry about with Skinner. Piece of cake. Of course, the fact that Ricky the Vampire attacked the forensic pathologist--I knew the fangs were important!--might have helped our Assistant Director in his understanding of the events of the previous night. Or not. Anyway, we were ordered to return to Chaney post haste. As in now. So, after a quick change of clothes (I've discovered that blue jeans are much easier to part with than Armani suits), we found ourselves on yet another plane to Chaney. Scully was doing her stone statute imitation the entire trip. I was doing my damnedest to refrain from a chorus of 'I told you so!' and the airline magazine was the same one from the day before, so I took the opportunity to eat two bags of sunflower seeds (skipped breakfast) and consider out next move. It kept coming back to the cemetery. OK, I have to admit, here the journal articles and textbooks I read in college failed me. How did I know to go to the cemetery? You've never heard of Bela Lagosi? Though I must confess, Wynona Ryder was rather hot in the remake. But I digress. We arrived at the cemetery, tired, cold, wet, hungry--yep, must be an X File. Scully wonders why I get banged up all the time and not complain about it. Do you know what you never miss in a hospital? Three square meals a day! And it's often the only place I get a full eight hours of sleep (though I'm told that coma and sleep are two different states of unconsciousness). There we were in the cemetery, waiting for Ricky. Just my luck, another sucker showed up instead. Sheriff Casanova. Scully started salivating and it was just too much for me. Get something straight. Scully and I have an understanding. We have no life together. She doesn't date, I don't date. We don't date together. That's just the way it is. Now, whenever _I've_ broken this little arrangement, whether intentionally or not, Scully has gone ballistic on me. I can still remember the attitude she had with poor Dr. Berenbaum. And Det. White? We won't even go there--the woman was under the influence of strange cosmic forces and Scully was ready to shoot both of us. Or maybe, just me. But I'm above that kind of behavior. I'm a realist. I know that any guy who hooks up with Scully would be in it for the sex. Face it, we don't have the kinds of jobs that are conducive to a long lasting relationships. They might have some hot passion, but one Sunday morning pretty soon after they meet, I'll call about 4:30 to tell her we need to fly out by 8, Casanova'll throw a hissy fit because he'll have planned on staying in bed all morning doing erotic gymnastics, she'll tell him to hit the road and that'll be the end of it. Why bother to be jealous over that? Waste of time. No matter what happened between Scully and the Sheriff, I'm the guy with her plane ticket home. So I went off to find the Vampire. I probably should have been worried. I mean, that little naggy voice that sounds exactly like Scully at her shrillest was telling me there was more to this case than one blood sucking pizza kid. But I was trying to block out all things Scully at that moment, so I chose to ignore it. Ricky was in his aunt's Winnebago. Nice RV, actually. Interesting how it was the only one I've seen fully equipped with a built in the wall casket. You can get _anything_ for these things these days. Ricky was 'encased' all right. Right where all good little vampires should be, except it was night. He had headphones on--probably listening to MegaDeath. Anyway, I slammed that lid down the minute his beady green eyes opened and I did the only logical thing I could think of. I read him his rights. Hey, I wasn't going to spoil this collar on procedure! Gotta say this for him--some of that flab must be muscle because he almost knocked me off the coffin lid. I cuffed it shut. And as I was triumphantly trying to get Ricky to settle down, I looked out the window. A whole small town of green glowing eyed people with fangs stared back at me. Shit. There wasn't much to work with. And I learned somethings that are vitally important. One. Not all vampires live in fancy Southern Plantations or in the French Quarter of New Orleans. A whole bunch of them live in RV's and travel through Texas. Two. Garlic breadsticks are a very poor substitute for either a silver crucifix OR a string of real garlic cloves. Or a wooden stake through the heart that is NOT removed by an over eager forensic pathologist. And there are times, when a sharp needle in the butt can actually be a welcome respite from whatever hell you are going through. Scully's version part four Emma Amelia Willoughby. Born July 12, 1883, died February 4, 1965. Beloved Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother. More power to ya, Emma. Thanks for letting me sleep on your grave. I woke up alone, cold, wet and hungry. Big surprise. Face down on a grave in the middle of the cemetery. Another big surprise. With all my clothes intact. Big relief. My mouth tasted like a herd of long horns had partied till dawn there. And there was a Sheriff's badge pinned to my overcoat. He really was too charming. I should be getting good at this by now. If a guy is charming, if I'm attracted to him in any way, shape or form, I should _immediately_ put the bastard in cuffs and call for back up. Would make my life a hell of a lot simpler. But there I was, as I said, cold, wet, hungry, and minus one pain in the butt partner. Oh, and of course, without any means of transportation. I vaguely remembered the turn off to the RV park about two miles down the road. Good thing I was wearing my hiking boots. The mud was awful. When I got to the Park, it was deserted. Not just deserted--_really_ deserted. Not a van or Winnebago any where in sight. Just our rental, parked over by the bathrooms/laundry facility. There were two boots sticking out of the driver's side window. Three guesses who the boots belonged to. My head was pounding and the taste in my mouth was getting worse as I stood there and the last thing I needed was to find my partner, drained of blood and dead in the red Ford Contour we'd rented in Dallas. Fortunately, I heard him groan before I broke out into tears. He was fine. This time, he'd been pincushioned with the drug, unlike consuming in in a cup of coffee shaped like a Western boot. But that doesn't stop the horrible taste in your mouth. I could tell by the way he grimaced and ran his tongue around his teeth that he had the 'fuzzy feeling', too. We were a pair. His immediate response to waking up in the car was to check his neck in the rearview mirror. OK, I have to admit, I felt my neck, too. Then, after he was sure he was all right, he had to check out _my_ neck. Just like my Mulder, always the paranoid. But at that moment, I didn't really mind it that much. Once I got over my initial relief that we were both intact, I was a little perturbed when he couldn't supply me with a more accurate description of the past night's events. Somehow, the story of him sitting atop Ricky's coffin, giving him the Miranda treatment, struck a humorous chord with me. I tried. I really, really tried. I just couldn't help myself. Mulder's version part four She laughed at me! She frigging started to laugh _at_ me! That ticked me off. Until I got a good look at her. Scully is a beautiful woman, but, and I say this with the deepest affection, she looks like Medusa in the morning. And this morning, her hair was nine ways from Sunday, her make up was smeared (but not the kind of smear that would have made me reach for my gun and go 'sheriff hunting') and her clothes looked like she slept outside all night. On the ground. My first thought on waking was to check our necks, which were clear of bite marks. I was a little suspicious of the badge pinned to her chest, but decided at that point, not to press it. I told her my version of the events of the previous evening. Now, usually, Scully takes these impromptu reports with a tongue stuck firmly in her cheek and an impassive expression on her dainty face. This time, she laughed at me. It was a giggle, really. At first, at least. And she did try to hold it in. But after that first little 'tee hee hee' escaped, there was no stopping the avalanche. It was the coffin that got her. OK, I'll fess up, I burst out laughing, too. I could see the seriousness of the situation. I had been drugged, again! She had obviously been sleeping outside, and knowing Scully as I do, that was NOT of her own volition. And the entire RV park was now devoid of any trailers. Or members of the undead. In other words, the perp and any other suspects were long gone. It took us about half an hour to quit giggling everytime we looked at each other. "I'm starved," she told me, in between titters. "Tell me something I don't know," I rejoined. "I refuse to eat anywhere in this town," she promptly shot back. "You expect an argument out of me, Scully? Because you aren't going to get one. Not on that, at least." We both climbed into the rental. "Shouldn't we--" she started, but I stopped her. "Look for them, try and find the sheriff--" I interjected. "He was one of them," she said flatly. I was good, I kept the shit eating grin off my face. "Don't worry, Scully. Falling for a vampire seems to be an occupational hazard," I grinned at her. She looked like she was going to ask for an explanation, but then she thought better of it. I'm glad she did. Scully's version part five I remembered seeing a Baker's Square at the exit before the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. We stopped, since we had two hours before our flight, and ate. We ate like locust eat during a dry spell. Mulder was starting to consume sugar packets by the time his 'mega breakfast' arrived. And coffee. Between the two of us, we drank at least a pot of coffee. Didn't get to sit together on the plane, but that was all right. I was seated next to a dear woman traveling to see her grandchildren and got to endure stories of their entire grade school career, to date. Mulder, of course, lucked out and was seated next to some business class passenger, who immediately took out his lap top and started working. Since I was just across the aisle I could see the 'what the hell' look on the guy's face when Mulder sat down, looking like an escaped convict. The coffee had kicked in by that point and gave him that 'wide-eyed, delusional paranoid' look that I've come to love. Mulder squirming in his seat, chugging down iced teas and bags of peanuts as fast as the flight attendant could toss them at him. Oh, yes, it was going to be a fun drive home. We were five miles from my apartment when I noticed my partner squirming in the seat. Three too many iced teas was my diagnosis, so instead of my original plan of heading over to Arlington to drop him off, I went straight home. He didn't seem to notice the detour. He was too busy running to my bathroom. As always, he forgot to put the seat up. Damn him. When he emerged, several minutes later, looking far more comfortable than when he went in, I offered him a seat. He was starting to come down from the caffeine high he'd been on and the after affects of the knock out drug were also kicking in. He didn't sit--he fell onto the couch. I wanted to talk. I deserved it, I felt. I wanted to apologize and be apologized to. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry he thought I wouldn't back him up and he should know that I'd cheerfully go to jail for him--just like I've done before. But more than that, I wanted him to tell me that he was sorry he thought I would rat him out, that he never doubted me for a minute, really and he was only kidding about the sheriff. I got a roomful of snoring Mulder instead. Mulder's version It's morning. That comes as a surprise, really. When I sat down it was still evening--early evening at that. Now, it's morning, my shoes are off, I'm lying on Scully's sofa (the too short one) with a nice fluffy pillow under my head and one of her grandmothers patchwork quilts covering me. It's nice and warm and smells like fabric softener sheets and I think if I'm really quiet, I can stay like this for a while. I didn't mean to fall asleep on her. I'd really about decided that if she wanted to talk, I would talk. We don't do that as much as we should, as she's pointed out to me on a number of occasions. It wasn't the middle of the Florida forests, it wasn't after some lunatic monkey boy had put the moves on her wearing _my_ tee shirt and jeans, it wasn't even in a hospital where we were holding hands because we had to hold on to each other or risk falling off the earth. No, it was in her apartment, and it would have proven to be a rather lengthy apology on my part but instead, I fell asleep. So now it's the next day. Scully just tiptoed into the kitchen, I can hear her making coffee. I peek over the side of the couch and see her in her robe and --oh God, Tigger slippers?! Where the hell did she get Tigger slippers?! Must have been a gag gift from Maggie. But I was wrong in my earlier assessment. My partner looks pretty damned good in the morning. It's nice to wake up here. And the apology. I don't think I have to worry about it. If I'm not mistaken, she's got the skillet out and I distinctly hear the cracking of egg shells. I'm pretty sure I'm already forgiven. the end Vickie "Your ability to juggle many tasks will take you far." My fortune cookie, Feb. 28, 1998