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10 X 17: WHEN HARRY MET SCULLY A Season 5 10X Valentine -- Mulder and Scully find out-of-this-world dates... |
FBI Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
"Hey," Fox finally blurted as he began to tidy up the
melange of fuzzy UFO photos, classified federal documents, and paranormal
artifacts which routinely cluttered his desk.
Dana, briefcase in hand, froze at the doorway of the cozy but chaotic space
they shared in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. She felt a sudden King's
"I should've asked you earlier, I know, but Frohike
and the guys have lined up some sweet seats at tonight's Wizards game,
and maybe, if you don't have any plans, you'd like to, you know, grab some
' za and watch some hoops with us," Fox suggested
in a higher octave than was normal for him. "
"Where'd he get that from, some covert ops agency that monitors NBA intelligence?"
Dana asked, the gastric rollercoaster taking another steep dip.
"Naw, Treasury guy with season tickets.
What say?"
Dana swallowed. "Well, Mulder, I appreciate
the invitation, but actually, well…"
Fox' face fell fractionally, and he attempted to compensate with the lame
grin that invariably failed to disguise his chagrin.
"…I have a…" Dana hesitated, both alarmed and vaguely thrilled by Fox'
obvious dismay. "…a meet--, oh, an appoint--.
Mulder, I have a date tonight.
A blind one. The date, not him, he's not… It's, you know, a fix-up…
I have a previous engage--. I'm busy. But thanks."
Fox' Disneyish grin expanded, though the look
in his eyes was similar to that of women experiencing multiple births. "Hey,
well… You should get out and have a good time for a change. So you're out
for the game, then?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Hey, 'nother time, huh?"
"Sure."
The behavioral scientist and the pathologist/criminologist stood silently
for a moment, trying to suck in enough oxygen to reactivate their brain functions.
"So, who's the guy?" Fox finally asked, casually hooking an arm over the
back of his chair.
"A blind date, favor for a friend," Dana lied again, working to avoid sounding
like she was reassuring her partner. He would have to ask the one night in
months, jeez, maybe years, when she'd had something going. "He's an attorney
with one of the firms downtown, handles a lot of lobbying work."
"Ah." Fox' eyes appeared to contract as his grin widened and his head bobbed
violently. "Well, hey, have a good – nice – time. Have a nice time."
"You, too, with the guys, at the game, tonight," Dana attempted to say.
She grabbed several times for her case, snagging it on the fifth try. "Tell
the guys I said…um…"
"Hi?" Fox offered. "I will tell them that."
"Yeah, do. Um, bye."
"Yeah, you…" Fox trailed off.
Dana gave her partner an insipid, finger-waggling wave, and managed to
get through the door before one of them suffered an aneurysm.
Fox stared at the door for a few moments, then plucked a pen from his desk
and flung it as hard as he could at the wall. It ricocheted; the
"I, uh, I forgot my my organizer," she said,
grabbing the leather book and fleeing, oblivious to Fox' injury.
"Attorney," he murmured, stowing every pen, pencil, and letter opener within
sight.
"Sorry," Dana said as Harry pushed off the Union Station newsstand counter.
"Had some trouble finding parking."
"Hey, no biggie," the lawyer said. "Matter of fact, Senate put off the
big vote I was waiting for, so I decided to play hookie
and do some shopping."
"I thought we were going to meet in the bar," the FBI agent inquired.
"Yeah, yeah," Harry drawled. "Um, it was kinda
packed in there – some convention or something in town, so I thought we
might just as well have drinks with dinner. You mind?"
"No difference to me," Dana said.
"Movie starts 8 sharp, so we've got plenty of time," he assured her as
they headed for the maitre'd's station.
Harold Thiessen had met Dana Scully Saturday,
when her car's thermostat had given out over by the Smithsonian. They'd both
been to see the new Art Deco exhibit, and when Harry saw Dana hunkered under
the hood, seeking clues to her plight, he didn't hesitate to jump in, most
likely ruining a crisp new Polo shirt and his white khakis. In the end, he'd
had to admit he knew little more than she did about the internal combustion
engine, so they called a wrecker and had some Italian in
The Center Café was perched above the main hall of the train station, and
Dana had always enjoyed its atmosphere of cozy self-containment amid the bustle
of tourists, travelers, and congressional aides entertaining home state dignitaries.
They ordered
"So what are we seeing?" Dana asked, glancing up at the tall, precisely-groomed
brunette sitting across from her.
"Well, you said whatever I wanted to see, you didn't care, right?"
Dana pasted on a smile, bracing for the Jackie Chan/Steven
Seagal/Arnold Schwarzenegger movie ahead of them.
"I hope you don't mind, but the new Meg Ryan-Hugh Grant thing got some
really nice reviews in the Post," the attorney continued. "I like romantic
comedies. That OK?"
Her smile spread. "Well, sure, I suppose." Gallant, accommodating, and
sensitive, Dana thought.
So what's wrong with him?, Scully demanded.
Offices of the Lone Gunmen
5:32 p.m.
As Frohike wrenched open the metal door to
his "editorial" offices, Fox could see the evening was destined to take a
wrong turn. A flash of pained embarrassment crossed the little man's features.
"Mulder," he said.
"Frohike," Fox responded, pushing past the
conspiracy theorist. The Lone Gunmen's well-hidden operations center had
the ambience of a newspaper backshop mixed with
a computer repair shop mixed with a sci-fi/comic
books shop mixed with the basement of a frat house on double secret probation.
"Mulder," Frohike
repeated, staring at his friend.
"Why don't you take a retinal scan?" Fox asked. "It'll last longer."
The scholarly Byers looked up from a computer nearby.
"Mulder."
"What?" Mulder heard
"If this is a sample of the sparkling conversation to be had this evening,
I can scarcely wait for halftime," Fox said.
"Oops," Byers murmured.
"Guys," Fox groaned.
"Dude, we got totally wrapped up in things, and I guess we
kinda forgot about the game,"
"Rain check, Mulder?"
Frohike asked casually.
"Whoa, guys," Fox protested. "Wizards, Jordan, nachos, cheerleaders."
"Whoa, Mulder," Frohike
countered. "Iranians, psychotropic drugs, the NRA."
"Huh?"
Byers stood, dressed as always as if he looking forward to a night of paperwork
and filing. "Mulder, we believe John Hinckley
did not act alone in shooting Ronald Reagan."
"
"We have quasi-documented evidence and a witness who will verify that Hinckley
was not a horny rich geek but a hopped-up stooge for the Shah of Iran and
the gun lobby, who hoped to generate sympathy for the right-wing Reagan agenda,"
Frohike said with gravity. "While we are no great
fans of the Reagan administration, a conspiracy is a conspiracy. Game's
gonna have to wait."
"Freakin' A,"
"You guys need a night out," Fox concluded. "Use the john?"
"Just move the Geiger counter," Frohike grunted.
When he came out of the bathroom, which resembled nothing
quite so much as a rural
"Celia," she said flatly. "You have to be Fox."
"Yes, it's on my official ID, so it's mandatory,"
the agent responded, smiling charmingly. She neither smiled nor blinked.
"My cousin said they're not going to be able to get out tonight, so we're
supposed to go get something to eat or something. Fine by me – these nerds
are bringing me down."
Great, a fix-up with Morticia Addams.
Fox suspected she was born of the
"Yeah, sure," Fox replied. "How's some ‘za
before the game sound?"
"Za," she repeated.
"Ah, pizza. Or we could get some dogs at the game."
"Cheese and dough or mutilated pig with rat shit," Celia mulled. "You must
really have some issues with your lower intestine. What kind of game?"
"Wizards."
"Wow, like Dungeons and Dragons or runes?"
"Basketball."
"Yeah. Gee, maybe I will just stay here with the Science Club…"
"What would you like to do?" Fox asked politely, cursing his manners.
"You know any good ska clubs?"
"Good ones?"
"Ha. I get it."
Fox began to feel the neck of his jersey tighten. "Look, nice to meet you,
but maybe I'll just crash early tonight."
"Fine by me," Celia mumbled. "Just I haven't been out since the abduction."
Mulder froze and turned back to her with concern. "You were kidnapped?"
"Yeah, by the cast of Close Encounters. Little
gray fuckers."
"Aliens…" Fox murmured, Simpsonishly
.
TheaRundquist
residence
Capitol Hill
The old lady had dozed off in the chair again,
and Carl wondered for at least the 98th time what the consequences might
be if he murdered her as she slept. Sliced her throat with a single slash,
and just disappeared into the night.
But he realized that act would sever him forever from his Celia, whose
daily visits made all the shouting and ranting, all the menial chores worthwhile.
No, he would bide his time until the old woman died on her own. Meanwhile…
Meanwhile, he knew from past experience she would be unconscious probably
until morning, and he could safely slip out for the night. Carl could tell
when Celia came by with the groceries that she was going out for the evening.
He hoped it wasn't with some male – the thought filled him with primal anger.
He would find her. Carl crept quietly to the kitchen and out the townhouse
door into the cool
Union Station
"My last date, hmm…" Dana mused. "Well, I met him during a stakeout. He
was young and strong, but gentle. He had a tattoo that told him to kill women,
and he almost stuffed me into his basement furnace."
"Bummer," Harry deadpanned.
"In his defense, he was under the hallucinatory influence of ergot mold.
It was in the homemade ink the neighborhood tattooist had mixed. Otherwise,
he was a hell of a guy."
"Sounds like it," the attorney said. "You still hear from him?"
"I was an FBI agent, he was a multiple murderer. I felt there were some
issues."
" ‘Honey, you seen my gun?' ‘Yeah, next to my ax in the living room,'"
Harry ventured.
Dana chuckled as she nibbled at the last of her quesadilla. "It's kind
of tough when you're out of town all the time on cases, and half the people
you work with are either competitive male agents, career criminals, or ghouls.
Ah, strike that last part."
"Ghouls?" Harry persisted. "Just what kind of
cases you handle, Dana."
They hadn't gotten deep into the work stuff on the weekend. Dana sighed,
described briefly the mission and scope of the
X-Files, and provided mercifully sketchy details about her partner. Harry
actually seemed amazingly receptive to her rather odd profession.
"I guess the upshot is, I don't get many chances to meet, much less go
out with nice, stable types like yourself," she
concluded.
"Whoa-oh," Harry held up a palm. "Stable? I don't think I want to hear
this."
"I mean it as a compliment."
"It's the oldest chick flick cliché," the lawyer said.
"Smart attractive career woman, wacky unorthodox guy friend, and stable,
stodgy boyfriend. You were Meg Ryan, I'd be doomed."
"Well, Mulder is hardly Tom Hanks or Harrison
Ford, and you're too witty to be either Bill Pullman or Greg
Kinnear," Dana said, feeling a faint stab of disloyalty. "And I have
neither the bubbling bouyancy of Meg Ryan, the
boundless energy of Sandra Bullock, nor Julia Roberts' boobs or height."
The white-haired man finally rose from his table across the floor, excusing
himself with a distracted smile. Scully had noticed him peering furtively
at them as Dana chatted with Harry.
"You know this guy?" Dana asked, nodding subtly at the man who was clearly
headed for their table.
Harry turned slightly, pretending to take a sip of his wine. "Don't think
so. If he was Dabney Coleman or Jack Warden or
Sydney Pollack, I'd guess he was my blustery chick flick boss or my rich
fiance's father. Wait, that would make
me Tom Hanks instead of Greg Kinnear ."
The man looked uncertainly down at Harry as he arrived at tableside. "I'm
so sorry to interrupt your dinner, but aren't you Tod
Uftring with Ephron, Nichols, and
Keaton?"
Harry looked at the man for a second. Dana could swear he paled. "
Nooo…Harry Thiessen. I am an attorney
here in town."
"Oh," the well-dressed intruder. "Well, I am embarassed
. Phil Greenlee, legislative liaison with the American Plastics Manufacturers
Association. Meet a lot of lawyers up on the Hill; must've gotten you mixed
up. Guess I was hoping it was Uftring -- I heard
about his --"
"Nope, not me," Harry interrupted cheerfully. "Nice to meet you, though,
Phil. Hope to see you on the Hill some time."
The white-haired man smiled uncertainly. "Well. Once again, sorry for the
intrusion, and I hope you have a nice dinner. Try
the black forest torte."
"Sure will," Harry promised, politely dismissive. The man waggled a few
fingers and moved slowly back to his table, looking back occasionally.
"Now we have to have dessert," Dana complained. "Should've
told him you were a diabetic attorney."
"Not fast enough on my feet, I guess."
Like hell, Scully thought. Shut up, Dana told Scully.
"I need to freshen up," Dana told Harry. "Which way is the little feds'
room?"
Once in the far stall of the women's restroom, Scully punched out the number
for SherilynYun, a
corporate attorney she'd befriended on a case. "Yeah,
Sheri?Dana Scully?"
"How you doin', girlfriend? Been meaning
to call you for lunch for some time now, but you know the drill."
"Work 12 hours, do another four at home, and drop unconscious into bed,"
Dana supplied.
"Precisely. You still partnered with tall, dark, and spooky?"
"Yeah. Sheri, you know most of the big firms in town, right?
Ephron, Nichols, Keaton?"
"Wow, Dana, they've got like an army of senior and junior partners and
even more associates."
"How about a Tod Uftring
?"
There was silence on the line. "You calling
me professionally, Dana?"
"Why?"
"Well, Tod got taken out by a drunk driver
on the expressway about, oh, five, six months ago. Him and his girlfriend,
some historian at the Smithsonian, I seem to remember.
Real messy. Thought it was a clearcut
DUI, though. You investigating?"
"No," Dana responded, confused. "The name just came up. How about Harry
Thiessen? Same firm?"
Sherilyn hmm'ed
."Doesn't ring a bell, Dana.
Maybe an associate?"
"No, I'm pretty sure he said he was a junior partner.
Does lobbying work."
"Lobbying? They into that now? I hadn't heard.
Most of their caseload is international law, intellectual property. Oh, well,
diversifying, I 'spose."
Scully heard the silent polygraph alarm in her brain.
"Hey, you seeing this guy? I mean,
Thiessen, of course."
"Not seriously, yet."
"Cause -- and if I'm out of line, just tell
me -- I was wondering if your partner was seeing anybody? He is cute, in
a goofy Tom Hanks sorta way…"
"Listen," Dana said, chasing Scully's suspicions momentarily from her mind.
"I'll call you next week; we'll do lunch. Thanks, Sheri," she said, hastily
disconnecting.
Phytocopia Vegetarian Grill,
Washington
Fox gnawed on his spinach and pignola tart,
smiling at Celia across the abstractly amoeba-shaped table. Celia established
brief, penetrating eye contact before focusing back on her salad, which
looked like a small bucketful of weeds.
"You're a cop," she murmured around a mouthful of weeds. "You don't seem
like one. Too, I dunno, dissipated and disconnected."
"Thanks," Fox said. "Now, you said you're a decorator?"
"Fengshui," she
corrected darkly.
"God bless you."
"What? That was a joke?"
"I thought at the time. That's the art of manipulating the Chi, the positive
spiritual force, in a room or environment, right? So you can maximize relationships,
professional performance, and success by bringing elements into harmony?"
Celia straightened up and spit out some kind of stem, looking at Fox with
new eyes, as if a badly-trained beagle had suddenly performed a Bach cantata.
"Wow, you are one fucking weird cop. Want to have some sex?"
"You gotta get licensed for that?" Fox queried,
pretending not to have heard the abrupt invitation.
"Freelance," Celia said, seemingly forgetting her carnal request. "I've
read and surfed everything available about
fengshui. I've done a couple friends'
apartments and a few shops. Dude in a skateboard shop I did got shot up by
some gangbangers -- they were able to save both
his legs."
"Wow, good job," Fox said. He now felt the time was right.
"So this alien abduction? When was that?"
"Oh, boring," Celia waved a hand. "Let's not even talk about that -- those
guys were gross and really rude, you know? Hey, you mind if I call my Aunt
Thea? She's a paraplegic, and I always like to
check up on her when I'm out. We got her a helper, but he's kind of undependable,
you know?"
"You go ahead. I'll be right here, eating my spinach…thing."
Fox half-expected Celia to telepathically call her aunt, or
astrally project out of the restaurant. Instead, she pulled out a
cell phone plastered with alternative band stickers.
"Auntie," she breathed with uncharacteristic emotion. "I was worried there
for a sec. Sorry to wake you up. Oh, I'm having dinner with this guy Fox.
He's really sweet, and he's into feng
shui." Celia looked up at Mulder with
a girlish smile, like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, except in reverse. "
Yeahhh, he is. Hey, shut up. Oh. I think it's in the kitchen, on
the table. Get Carl to get it for -- Really? Where is he?
The little shithead. Yeah, yeah, I know,
mouth. You need me to come over? Well, you got the number.
Kisses."
Celia folded the phone, and her expression returned to half-power.
"So, what about the sex thing?"
1700 block, Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, D.C.
6:44 p.m.
Carl huddled by the large poplar at the end of the block. He got a few
wary and curious looks from the students, couples, and homeless who moved
past the neighborhood's apartments, shops, and bookstores. Most immediately
stepped up their pace; he glared at the few who attempted to greet him,
and they cleared the area as well.
His anger toward the old woman now was directed toward Celia, who had not
yet returned to her second-floor walk-up above the gay gift shop. Carl was
hungry, but he didn't dare desert his post for dinner, for fear his Celia
would come and go. His hunger exascerbated
his irritability.
If she was with a man, they'd both be sorry, he thought, ripping some bark
from the tree.
Union Station
Meg Ryan began to brush debris from Hugh Grant's jacket after helping
him off the sidewalk (where she had accidentally knocked him with her ladder),
forgetting of course that her hands were covered with red paint.
"Oh, oh, oh," she cried, trying to clean the crimson streaks from his jacket.
"I'm so sorry. Hey, is that Armani?"
"Yes," Grant smiled, forgetting for a split-second that he was soiled and
possibly concussed.
"It looks good on you," Ryan observed, stepping back analytically.
"Very colorful, yes," Grant agreed.
"Oh, geez, I am sorry," Ryan said, pain crossing
her face as she went back to scrubbing his lapels. "Please send me your dry
cleaning bill, I mean it."
"I'll take care of the catscan myself," the
actor said absently, pulling away. "Look, I have an appointment with an important
client. I'll just tell him I was hit by a bloodmobile. Bye now."
Ryan looked miserable. Grant looked up, turned smiling.
"Nice," he said, regarding Ryan's street mural. Grant moved on.
Close-up on Ryan. Her eyes suddenly glowed, a beatific smile dimpling
her elfin face. She glanced down as the camera fixed on a pager. Obviously
Grant's, spilled as he is assaulted under Ryan's
mural. She looked up, opening her mouth to call him back. He is gone.
"Well," she grinned, slipping the pager into her coveralls with a faintly
scheming look in her eye.
"Whoo, boy," Dana sighed. Meg Ryan was a freelance
street artist who nonetheless lived in a high-priced loft with hardwood
floors and a brushed aluminum kitchen. Hugh Grant was a rich, personable,
incredibly cute publisher who somehow couldn't find women.
Mulder was a downright realist compared to the author of this piece
of fluff, she thought, craning around again to see if Harry was back.
The attorney had excused himself for the men's room at least 10 minutes
ago. Dana got up, crept past her fellow moviegoers, and fumbled her way to
the lobby.
No sign of Harry at the concession stand. Dana turned into the small restroom
hallway, and then instinctively pressed herself against the wall.
"Look, I thought we talked about this," Harry told the strikingly tall
brunette plaintively. "It gets lonely, and I need to get out every once
in a while."
Married, Scully thought coldly.
The woman's expression remained stony. "Couldn't wait to get out is more
like it. Where were you Saturday, by the way?"
"I just wanted to revisit places we'd been, where you worked. I never really
did take an official tour of the place before."
"You were gone 'way past hours. I almost came looking for you then, except
I didn't know that I could."
Harry grinned. "Well, now you know you can. That's great, Honey – a real
personal step. Now, why don't you go back, and I'll be along in a while."
The woman crossed her arms tensely. "You are with another woman, aren't
you? Boy, wait 'til she finds out."
Harry was alarmed. "Look, there's no need to be vindictive. Sometimes,
things just don't work out. People just drift apart."
"Is that some kind of fucking joke?"
"Geez, no," Harry sulked. "Look, I will come
over soon, and we'll talk about things."
The woman studied him silently, then nodded.
"You bet your ass you will."
Scully prepared to scamper back into the theater before the woman re-entered
the lobby.
She discovered she didn't need to, as the woman opted instead to disappear
into a wall.
Dana staggered against a pay phone, her heart pounding. She walked quickly
back into the theater and made a hushed few calls before Harry made his way
back toward his seat.
"Hey, Dana," he whispered with false cheer. "Sorry I was so long. Damned
hand dryers…"
"Who was the woman?" Scully demanded, her wrath overtaking her disbelief.
"Woman?" Harry bluffed.
"Oh, the woman who just walked through a solid cinderblock wall," Scully
prompted. "That woman? Or do you know lots of
ectoplasmic women?"
"Let's get a cup of coffee," Harry suggested. "How's the movie, by the
way?"
Office of the Lone Gunmen
"So?"
Frohike asked anxiously as
"Checked her digs – pitch dark," the faux metalhead
reported. "I asked around at a few of the neighborhood joints – nobody's
seen her. The old bat aunt threatened to have me busted.
Called me a crackhead."
Frohike regarded his colleague's black Foo
Fighters T-shirt, ratty jeans, and unconditioned blonde locks. "Unbelievable.
Well, we appear to be screwed, gentlemen. Without Celia,
no story. No story, we might as well see if we can catch the rest
of the game."
"You know," Byers said, resting his mouse hand, "Celia did disappear about
the time Mulder left…"
Frohike laughed harshly. "You think they
hit it off, and he took her to the malt shop? Now, there's a thought to make
you sleepless in
Union Station
Harry took a long sip of his Kenyan AA. "It's not like I was cheating
on her or you, you know."
Dana smirked despite the insanity of the situation. "First time I've heard
that in this town."
"Ever since Melinda died, her spirit, ghost, whatever has been hounding
me," the lawyer said. "I've tried to explain to her that she's dead, that
she needs to go over to the other side, if that's where you go. I've even
thought about getting an exorcist or something."
"You both sounded fairly domestic, in a Married With
Children sort of way."
"Well, yeah, I have to humor her," Harry protested. "She does
poltergeisty things – things breaking, flying around. I had to tell
her I'd see her later, or God knows what she might do to me -- or you."
"Your deceased girlfriend suggested I'd have a big surprise ahead of me
once I found out something. Something about you?"
"She meant that I still have a girlfriend. Had, I mean. I mean, once your
dead, I don't think there's a really strong basis for a long-term relationship,
am I right?"
Scully frowned, ignoring her cappuccino. "I think you're withholding a
few details here. She said you were out ‘way past ‘hours' Saturday. What
hours? As a doctor, the first thing that occurs to me
are either patient hours or hospital visiting hours. But if Melinda
is dead, what hours does she have to keep?
"And when she asked where you were Saturday, you told her you wanted to
revisit places you two had shared, her workplace. You said you'd never taken
a tour of the place before. What place would you have visited where you wouldn't
have looked around? Maybe her place of work, where you
probably met her several times to go out. And where'd we meet Saturday?
The Smithsonian Institute."
Harry put his wrists on the table. "OK, Jessica Fletcher, you've got me.
Melinda did work at the Smithsonian. Big deal – you an
anti-intellectual or something?"
"That's quite a coincidence," Scully murmured. "I know of another woman
who worked at the Smithsonian, who died recently under tragic circumstances.
She was dating an attorney, as well. Tod
Uftring, who according to our uninvited dinner guest bears an uncanny
resemblance to you."
Harry's jaw dropped and his eyes popped open. Then he recaptured himself
and put on an outraged expression. "Well, that's real trust! Miss FBI couldn't
help checking up on her date. You know, a relationship is built on –"
"A five-foot layer of horseshit, apparently," Scully stated. "Now, what
is the story here, Uftring? You're supposed to
be dead."
As Harry formulated a response, Scully's phone warbled. She held up an
index finger. "Scully. Uh huh, I appreciate you going to the
trouble. . .Instantly, you say? How was the body? I mean, was it
readily identifiable? Uh huh.
And the girlfriend?" Scully look stunned, and glanced up at Harry.
"All this time? Where is she now? Yeah. No, I'll
take care of it. What? Oh, nothing – just a loose end. Thanks."
Scully turned to Harry. "How 'bout dinner, a movie,
and the Critical Care Ward, Tod?"
"Were these like gray guys, about shoulder heighth
, big eyes like Jennifer Love Hewitt?"
Fox asked, cruising toward Celia's apartment.
"Jesus, what is with the alien thing?" his "date" snapped. "Let's just
go back to my place, and we'll visit another world, OK?"
Of course, Fox had no intention of having sex with Buffy the Vampire's
Sister – Langley, or Frohike, or Byers, whichever
one of them was her cousin, would probably be royally
PO'ed , and besides, even for Fox Mulder
, she was just weird. But Celia didn't want to go back to the Gunmen's lair,
and he couldn't very well leave her to the night. He'd drop upstairs for
a few minutes, have a few glasses of wine or eye of newt or whatever she
stocked, and get her mind off sex and onto extraterrestrials.
"This mirror," Celia said, nodding at the rearview. "It
have to be right there, in the middle like that? You're
gonna get some pretty shitty Chi off of that."
Or perhaps he'd transfer her to the first passing alien craft that materialized,
Fox thought as his cell phone sounded. "
Mulder."
"Frohike. Mulder
, did you happen to see a woman while you were here earlier?"
"Yeah, your,
"Cousin?"Frohike grunted. "Blonde, dressed
for Kurt Cobain's funeral, slightly, ah, overmedicated?"
"That's right," Fox chimed, pressing the phone to his ear.
"Hey, Mulder, I don't know what Celia told
you, but she's nobody's kin here. You hijacked our
"What?" Mulder asked, smiling at Celia as she
wiggled the rearview mirror.
"Celia was, well, committed by her family a couple of years ago, after
she got caught in some congressman's office trying to move his couch into
the hallway."
"Fengshui,"
Mulder replied.
"Gesundheit," Frohike
offered. "Make a long story short, Jacqueline Chan there beat the living
bejeezus out of a couple of aides before they
hauled her out. Had to put Celia away for a few months to please the court,
and she managed during her treatment to make the acquaintance of Mr. Hinckley,
who under the influence of some potent antidepressants told her some very
illuminating details about Iranians and the NRA."
Mulder glanced at Celia, who was attempting to find the most spiritually
harmonious angle for his passenger sun visor. "Is the situation you spoke
of hazardous? From my point of view?"
"I doubt it, long as she's had her meds for the evening. Whoops, strike
that, Mulder – I see her purse right here, and,
yep, they're still in here. Woof, looks like a drugstore. Might want to just
take her home and tuck her in – she's probably no use to us tonight. And,
oh, don't get her going on UFOs – that really makes her psychotic. Ciao, buddy."
Mulder pocketed his phone and stepped slightly on the gas.
Celia Janowitz residence
Carl sat in the darkness in Celia's bathtub, rubbing his leg. She was
constantly shifting the furniture, and Carl had stumbled on a coffee table
where a rug had once been.
Thea's helper had gotten cold outside, and was tired of the stares
of passersby, so he'd come around to the alley and used his favorite rear
entry to Celia's walk-up. He would wait until she arrived, hopefully alone.
Carl knew the layout of Celia's kitchen – she always kept the silverware
in one place. The knife she used to hack apart large vegetables lay inches
away. In case she wasn't alone.
A key scratched in the lock, and the door creaked open. Carl's fingers
moved instinctively toward the weapon.
George Washington University Hospital
9 p.m.
She was in the private room to which she had been
moved from ICU months earlier. The woman was hooked to an array of machinery,
far thinner and more pallid than she had been less than an hour ago at the
Union Station cinema. Scully studied Teri's chart – "Melinda" was one more
of Harry/Tod's lies.
"She was thrown free of the car," Tod whispered,
looking wistfully down at his comatose "girlfriend." "I don't know who the
guy was she was with, but when they ID'ed what
was left of him as me, I saw my chance to get out. You know how this town
destroys you – I'd had three or four anxiety attacks, and my blood pressure
was through the roof. So I used some connections to score some new I.D. I
can't practice law any more, obviously, but – "
"Puh-lease," a contemptuous voice interrupted.
Scully whirled to see the woman in bed standing near the restroom door. "Give
it up, Tod."
"Shit," Tod sighed.
"So I'm the dead one, huh?" Teri asked icily. "I'm some slut who was tooling
around town with some guy she'd never met. Real nice.
You think Dana here can't check the coroner's report on you? Dental records,
babe."
Scully bumped into Teri's heart monitor.
"That's right," the brunette said, a note of feminine camaraderie seeping
into her voice. "You've heard of guys being dead in bed? Well, this one's
the real thing."
Tod sputtered. "There's no need to be crude, Teri. We just had a couple
of dinners and a tenth of a movie, before you burst in with your obsessive
jealously."
"But you're. . .solid," Scully said, not quite
willing to touch him again.
"Yeah," Tod said, thumping his chest with pride.
"I don't know what the deal is there. After the crash, I just stood there
watching the cops, thinking my soul had left my body. I could float and everything,
go through shit. I followed Teri to the hospital, and I stayed with her for
a day or so. Then my ass started hurting. I thought your ass didn't hurt after
you died."
"Very metaphysical, Tod," Teri observed
drily.
Celia Janowitz residence
"Maybe just a Coke or something," Fox shrugged as Celia pushed her door
shut. "You have what you want, though."
"I don't keep pesticides, non-degradable household chemicals, or soda around,"
the vegetarian freelance feng
shuist declared, appraising the agent. "You want some iced green
tea with ginseng?"
"Yum, bring it on."
"It's an aphrodisiac, you know," Celia noted, vanishing into the kitchen.
"Or water, whatever," Fox called.
He plopped onto a futon placed oddly in a corner of the room, facing the
wall. Fox didn't feel more harmonious, just ready to say
hasta la vista and forget this chapter of Project Blue Book. He reached
behind him and grabbed a stack of magazines. Not a Sports Illustrated or Time
in the handful of alternative publications from which dark-eyed, glowering
anorexic cover guys and girls stared at him. Fox finally selected a thin journal
that promised a piece on animistic religion and leafed to the appropriate
page.
And the lights went out.
"Celia?" he called out, half-expecting a libidinous ambush.
"Fuse," the woman responded flatly from the kitchen. "Just replaced it
yesterday, though…"
Then Fox heard it. A low half-whine, half-growl, inhuman
but clearly full of territorial rage. Something scampered into the
room, banging against something and yelping.
"Carl?" Celia inquired.
Tod glared at Teri. "So, anyway, I started roaming
around the hospital, looking in one people. What was weird was, some of the
folks up in ICU, oncology, you know, the ones hanging by a thread, could
see me, even though they couldn't seem to understand what I was saying to
them. I saw a few of their souls, I guess, leave them as they
flatlined – they'd try to get me to go along with them, but I just
couldn't. Physically, I mean. I just kept coming back to look in on Teri."
"Until he got bored," Teri grinned, meanly. "His commitment lasted until
he gt sick of looking at this
godawful wallpaper, right?"
"I discovered I was becoming ‘real' again," Tod
protested to Scully. "I could feel my body was becoming more solid, I was
getting hungry, I needed to get out for awhile."
"But your car, your clothes. . .?" Scully pondered.
"MY car," Teri corrected. "They'd cleaned out his condo after his funeral,
but he had several changes of clothes at my place. I'm guessing you took my
ATM card and PIN number, too, and heisted my keys from my personal effects
so you could cruise around town looking for chicks."
"Hey, she was the first one," Tod yelled.
"I'm in the room," Scully reminded them calmly. "In fact, I'm the only
one here humanly entitled to be in the room."
"I could feel Tod's presence whenever he was
here, his love," Teri went on, a note of sadness creeping into her voice.
"When I started feeling that presence fade, I went looking for him. I remember
reading stuff on the Internet about astral projection, where you psychically
leave your body for periods at a time. I think that was what happened here."
"Nearly scared me to death -- well, you know what I mean – the first time
she caught up to me in the hospital cafeteria," Tod
said.
"At first, I couldn't go any further than the hospital lobby," Teri explained.
"I just needed to be near him, to know he was still with me. Then, when
he was gone all day Saturday. . ."
"Your suspicion allowed you to leave the hospital grounds," Scully finished
in disbelief and slight depression. "The supreme power
of jealousy."
Teri looked at Tod witheringly. "I hung on
here because you were drifting between this world and the next, and I wanted
to be with you forever. But ‘Little Tod' down
there obviously continues to make the decisions for you. He always did,
even though I hoped you'd get over it."
Scully shuddered as thoughts of necrophilia crossed her mind. And people
said she never tried anything different.
Celia Janowitz residence
Mulder felt sweat roll in tributaries down the
back of his shirt, and his heart pounded.
"Carl?" he asked.
"Yeah," Celia answered from the darkened kitchen. "Carl, is that you?"
"This is your aunt's nurse?"
Celia laughed tinnily. "God, he couldn't get
a nurse's license even in this town. He's Aunt Thea's
helper, I said. Gets stuff she can't reach, opens shit, junk like that.
You better sit still and be real quiet – he's real
possessive about me."
"Carl?" Mulder called into the inky darkness.
He thought he'd seen a flitting shadow in the dim windowlight
. He now understood the guys who insisted carrying off- duty, even to church.
"Carl, man, I'm just a friend, not even that. We just had dinner."
"You think he's gonna understand you or something?"
Celia asked incredulously.
Was he mentally challenged? Didn't speak English? That's all I need,
Mulder thought: I'm going to beaten senseless by a jealous hulk out
of a ‘30s horror flick when I could've been floorside
, waving like an idiot at Michael Jordan. Scully was probably with her fancy-ass
lawyer-lobbyist, sipping Chablis in front of a fire, chatting about the
European trade picture or saving the spotted owl or laughing about her goofy
partner and his flying saucer. He makes an observation about how her red
hair captures the firelight as if it had its own lifeforce
, and reaches out to touch it…
The thought energized Mulder, who began to
assess his defenses as he heard a rustling across the
room . He made out the mushroom-like shape of a table lamp within
a long arm's reach. It might make an effective club. The FBI agent stretched
as silently as he could, his fingers brushing the lamp's plaster base.
Carl made a low, animalistic sound. Deep within Mulder's
own CroMagnon genetic
code, he recognized the tone of someone about to attack.
Mulder's hand made the final two inches, and he had the lamp in hand.
Now, to yank it out of the wall…
"Hey, know what?" Celia shouted. "Whole neighborhood's dark.
Must've had some kinda outage in the area."
As if by magic, light blazed into the room. Mulder
was momentarily blinded, and blinked to see the dark shape drawing closer
to him.
"Carl, what are you doing here?" he heard Celia demand.
Mulder's vision cleared, and he could see a face contorted with anger
– a small face like a parody of a human's, crowned with brown-and-cream fur.
The capuchin monkey hurled itself at the man on the futon.
Mulder yelled as its sharp teeth bore into his already insulted earlobe.
"Carl, you knock that shit off!" Celia shrieked.
Bureau-honed instinct kicked in, and as the monkey wrestled with
Mulder as he tried to remove his ear, the agent grabbed the lamp
cord and yanked. The cord from the lamp, rather than
from the wall outlet. Despite the searing pain on the side of his
head, Mulder jammed the cord's exposed wiring
into the monkey's side; Carl screamed as he flew across the room.
Mulder, who had just discovered lower primates were excellent conductors
of electricity, let the cord drop from his numbed fingers.
Celia raced from the kitchen. with a cry of
anguish. To Carl, who was twitching on the floor.
She scooped the creature into her arms and cradled him.
"I think he's just dazed," she concluded, as Carl began to make plaintive,
infantile sounds.
"Why didn't you tell me Carl was a fucking helper monkey?"
Mulder yelled, trying to find something to press against his bleeding
ear.
"I don't believe in labeling people, you Mark Fuhrman son-of-a-bitch!"
Celia snarled.
"He's not an effin' people,"
Mulder snarled back. "My fingers are tingly. You
gotta call 911 and get an ambulance over here."
Celia rocked Carl. "Oh, you bet I will, you monkey beating fascist bastard.
And I'm calling PeTA and the SPCA after that."
Carl looked solefully up at Celia, then bared
his teeth at Mulder and made a gross approximation
of a hand gesture the agent recognized from Friday afternoon rush hour. The
EMTs, when they arrived, were respectful; one
sang "Shock the Monkey" falsetto as they carried Mulder
to the waiting ambulance.
"Curious George Whoops Some Ass," the other cackled.
"Oh, yeah," Tod scoffed. "You're the noble,
self-sacrificing one here. Don't go all Meryl
Streep on me, Babe. You just want to keep your claws in me as long
as you can, just like all of you chicks!"
Teri suddenly was silent, smiling enigmatically. "Well, ‘Babe,' you want
your freedom, go for it. Did it ever occur to you why you're still around,
that maybe it wasn't you pulling the strings? That maybe I knew where you
were headed, and just hoped I could stall it off?"
Tod's eyes widened.
"Well, I'll be needing the car from now on,"
Teri said lightly. "Let me tell you what I should've said the first time you
came back from a late-night ‘legal conference' with your jockeys on backwards."
"No, Teri, Babe. . ."
Teri waved and disappeared in a beat. Scully turned instinctively to the
bed; Teri's eyes popped open, and a weak smile flickered on her atrophied
lips. The machines monitoring her signs burst into new activity.
"Shit," Tod gasped.
Teri uttered three words, and even with the respiratory equipment and hoses
muffling them, Scully could make out what they were. "Go to hell."
Scully turned. Tod was no longer there. Dana
shivered as she realized Teri's first living words in months had been no mere
figure of speech.
George
"Yish," Dana said as she pushed through the
ER curtain and regarded the fresh stitches on Fox's left ear and the blood
on his sweatshirt.
"Mommy, the mean helper monkey bit me," Fox joked dismally.
Dana smiled sympathetically and then surprised him by gingerly planting
a tiny kiss on the wounded ear. "Worked for me at camp," she explained, blushing
at her impulsive gesture. She took a seat by the exam table. "I was already
upstairs when Skinner called me and said you'd been rushed to the ER. What
is the story here, Mulder?"
Fox shrugged. "Same old thing. Boy meets geeks,
geeks blow him off, boy meets girl, they graze on some vegetarian vittles,
boy goes home with girl, jealous domestic ape nibbles on boy's ear before
girl gets chance. It's an old story, but always a goodie
. So, what were you doing here? Lawyerboy choke
on a nolocontendre
?"
Dana sighed. "It's like they say, Mulder: You
meet a nice guy today, he's either married, gay,
or dead."
Fox looked at her curiously. "Well, they're supposed to be releasing me
in a few minutes. You ate yet?"
"Actually, yes, but I'm feeling oddly peckish
for some reason. You wanna get '
za'ed?"
"Yeah, we can take it to my place. I just happen to have a two-day rental
on a cinematic classic," Mulder grinned.
Dana's eyebrow arched. "Arnold, Jackie, or Jean-Claude?"
"What do you think I am, some kind of knuckle-dragging
prohominid? This is a sensitive story of romance
in an academic setting, of young love in its flower, of roguish lads and coy
lasses…"
"Animal House, right?"
"Fast Times at Ridgemont High," Fox informed
her somberly.
"A contemporary classic," Dana nodded. "Let's get a liter of Diet Pepsi,
hopefully a good year, to accompany our ‘za."
Fox felt his hip pocket, slapping the metal exam table. "You spot me a few bucks 'til tomorrow? I think the dirty damn ape lifted my wallet."