TITLE:  Scully/Mulder In 2000
AUTHOR:  Phantom Chic
RATING:  PG
CATEGORY:  Humor, M/S UST
ARCHIVE:  Ephemeral, Gossamer, Spooky's, Gate-Philes
SPOILERS:  Anything up through FPS, is fair game.  Especially
any Gunmen eps and M/S flirting.  Specific references to: Closure,
Millenium, Chinga, Triangle, Home, Arcadia, X-Cops, Three of a
Kind, Tooms, Small Potatoes.
DISCLAIMER:  I own nothing.  "The X-Files," Mulder, Scully,
the Gunmen, etc. belong to CC, Ten-Thirteen, and their
actors.  Big shock to everyone, I'm sure.
FEEDBACK: Ooh, please! I can not emphasize how much feedback
does not suck. Just make sure the subject line says "fic feedback"
or something similar so it will make it past my mail filters.
SUMMARY:  The Lone Gunmen have an interesting proposition for
Mulder and Scully.
NOTES:  Just a short fluffy humor fic.  I'm sick of this presidential race. 
I stumbled across www.mulderscully2000.com and got this idea.  Special
thanks to Jenniferanne for the great beta.

*****

"Mulder, do you have any idea what we're doing here?" Dana
Scully asked, as they pulled up in front of the building
that housed the offices of the Lone Gunmen.

"Sorry, Scully," Mulder shrugged, as he put the car into
park.  "I got a call from our friendly neighborhood
conspiracy theorists asking us to come over because they
have something to show us."  He stepped out of the car and
walked quickly around to open his partner's door for her. 
Of course, Scully was perfectly capable of opening her own
door but he had been trying to be a gentleman for the new
millenium, despite Scully's protestations that it was still
the old millenium.  He had stopped when he was distracted
by letting go of his sister after so many years and let
Scully take care of him instead.  Now that time had passed
he resumed his attempts to show her how much he appreciated
her, and she seemed to both accept and enjoy it.  His hand
went automatically to its customary position on the small of
her back as they walked up to the door.  Scully rang the
bell and they waited, knowing that the three men inside
were going through their routine check of the security
monitors.  Scully shook her head as they heard the telltale
clicks of the half dozen door locks being undone.  Finally
the door opened and Byers held it open to show them
in.

"Thank you for coming so quickly.  We have something we want
to run by you," he said as they walked to the main area of
the office.  Mulder and Scully exchanged greetings with
Langly and Frohike.

"This isn't about another video game, is it?" Scully asked,
cautiously.

Langly shook his head quickly, "Nothing like that."

"All right, boys, spill it.  What have you got?" Mulder
asked.  The Gunmen exchanged glances, before Byers stepped
forward to act as spokesman.

"Have you been following the political campaigns?" He began,
testing the waters.

"Yes.  Several of the candidates have good positions on a
number of issues.  But I, for one, don't fully agree with
any of them.  At this point there really isn't any one of
them I particularly support." Scully replied cautiously, her
eyebrow raising at the odd direction of the question.  She
glanced at Mulder.

"I don't like any of them.  None of them have a stance on
aliens, global conspiracies, or Colonization." Mulder said,
only half joking.

"We'd tend to agree with both of you.  Which is why we came
up with an alternative." Byers replied, then looked at
Langly, who reached over to one of the tables and picked up
a poster that had been laying face down on it.  He held it
up so the agents could read it.  They stared in shock at the
blue and white poster and they read 'Scully/Mulder 2000 
Vote for the Truth.'

"You've got to be kidding." Scully looked at the faces of
the three men and realized that they were serious.  She
looked over at her partner and what she saw in his face
frightened her slightly.  "Mulder, don't tell me you're
actually considering this," she said, warning evident in her
tone.

"Ah, come on, Scully, I think you'd make a good President."
Mulder smiled down at her as she shook her head.  The Gunmen
watched as her eyebrow climbed to heights they would have
thought to be impossible.

Scully decided it wouldn't hurt to play along for a little
while.  "Mulder, why don't you be President?"

"Yeah right, Scully," Frohike scoffed at the idea as Langly
and Byers tried to stifle their amusement at the idea. 
"President Mulder?"

"No one would vote for me, Scully.  But you, well, who
wouldn't want someone like you running the country?" Mulder
quipped as the Gunmen nodded their agreement.  "I'll be your
amusing sidekick of a Vice President.  Like the opposite of
Al Gore."

"Putting aside for the moment our less than sterling
reputations, let's consider this: a single woman FBI agent
for President, and her partner for Vice President?  Mulder, 
assuming I went along with this, no one is going to go
for that.  Do you realized how long it's been since we had
an unmarried President?  The family values people alone
would rule us out." Scully shook her head in amused
disbelief.

"Then marry me.  It'd be great!  A married couple running
for President and Vice.  Every romantic in the country would
vote for us."  Mulder grinned at her.

"Mulder, if you're not careful, one of these days I'm going
to hold you to these proposals." Scully said, rolling her
eyes.

"Proposals? Plural?  Just how many times has he proposed to
you, Scully?" Langly asked, as Frohike and Byers stared at
her in shock at the offhand comment.

Scully glanced between the Gunmen and Mulder before deciding
it wouldn't hurt to rib Mulder a little.  "Directly?  This
is only the second time.  Hinted at it?  Let's see, there
was the china pattern comment, the comment on our compatible
genetic make-ups, the drugged declaration after the Bermuda
Triangle, all the innuendoes when we were at the Falls of
Arcadia, iced tea..."

"That's enough, Scully.  I think they get the point." 
Mulder interrupted her, realizing how long Scully could
go on with his numerous innuendoes.  Secretly, he wasn't
sure whether to be pleased or worried that she had kept
track of all those comments he had made over the years, both
joking and serious.  He wondered if she knew the difference,
or that the serious had far outnumbered the facetious as the
years progressed.

"Geez, Mulder, how come you never told us about all this?"
Langly asked, having watched Mulder's face going rapidly
blank during Scully's recitation.

"So, Scully, what do you say?  Can I be your running mate?"
Mulder asked, ignoring Langly's question and the other two
Gunmen's stares.

"All right, Mulder, I'll go along with this, assuming it
doesn't interfere with our casework.  You guys can make up
the posters and bumper stickers and whatever else.  But I am
not paying for this campaign.  So unless you've got several
million dollars lying around that you never told me about, I
don't think we're going to get very far."  Scully looked
around at all four of them, giving them tacit approval to go
ahead with their plans.  "My mother will vote for us and I
can probably convince Charlie and his wife, but I don't
think Bill will be particularly enthusiastic about the idea. 
Tara likes you though, so that makes nine.  Ten, if I talk
to Ellen.  And Skinner may voter for us, but I think we'll
need more than a dozen votes.

"We've already prepared a virtual campaign, along with all
of the standard political memorabilia, and, of course, full
page ads for the next issue of the Lone Gunman," Byers
replied.

"Of course.  Plus all of the people we've helped on our
cases." Mulder added.

"I don't think genetic mutants are eligible to vote,
Mulder," Scully pointed out.

"But their victims and families can.  Hey, I bet that
episode of Cops we ended up on was great publicity." The
idea occurred to Mulder suddenly, as he spotted the video on
a shelf along one of the walls.

"Great.  There's a wonderful voter demographic we're
appealing to." Scully snorted, remembering her embarrassment
when her family and friends had somehow gotten a hold of a
copy of the show.

"You're forgetting one large group," Frohike injected, "all
the men who'll take one look at you and be falling over
themselves to support you.  Like those guys in Vegas or Ivan
when you wasted Maitreya a couple weeks back."

"Thank you, Frohike.  I don't know how I feel about that,
but it may be true.  Then we could add all the women who'll
take one look at Mulder and do the same," Scully smiled,
starting to get into the idea.

Mulder looked at her in surprise, 'She really thinks I'm
that attractive?'  This really was turning out to be quite
the informative visit to the Gunmen.  Although he wasn't
sure how he felt about having a bunch of strange women
lusting after him.  Or having a country full of men lusting
after Scully.

"Of course, we are forgetting one thing." Scully said, as
she remembered another reason for the futility of their
campaign.  "C.G.B. Spender.  I doubt he'd take kindly to the
idea of the two of us in positions of power."

"He'd probably think it's funny," Mulder said, dryly.  "He
either wouldn't take it seriously, or he'd decide that he
could undermine our effectiveness with a few scandals."

"And he'd probably be right.  But what kind of scandals
could he dig up that wouldn't lead back to him?" She asked,
the idea growing on her as she realized how much they could
do in the White House.

"He could make it look like one of you was having an illicit
affair." Langly suggested.  It seemed like the most obvious
idea.

"I would never cheat on Scully," Mulder protested without
thinking.  Scully's head whipped around and he realized what
he had just said.  The look she gave him seemed mildly
doubtful and he realized that he might have to convince her
of that fact.

"He didn't say it was true.  Just that Spender could make it
look that way." Scully spoke up, fully cognizant that it was
neither the time nor the place for that discussion.  "You
don't need much in the way of facts to fuel a scandal."

"Even making it look like you were sleeping with each other
would affect public opinion." Byers pointed out.

"There's an idea," Mulder muttered.

Scully rolled her eyes as she attempted to stifle a smile. 
"Alright, boys, you start working on the campaign.  Mulder
and I will go see if we can agree on the...finer points of
our platform."

After the door had closed behind Mulder and Scully, Langly
turned to his comrades, "Any bets on whether they actually
get around to discussing the campaign?"

"I think they may be too busy working on their 'platform.' 
Could you believe all that stuff about marriage proposals?"
Frohike replied with a sigh.

"Yeah.  What was that iced tea thing?" Langly remarked,
shaking his head.

"I'd guess the next proposal will end in an actual
engagement." Byers suggested.

"About time.  They already act like an old married couple."
Langly said, as they watched the two agents on the security
cameras walking towards Mulder's car.

*****

The End