THE TRUTH

Vol. 1 Issue 10

February 26, 2001

MUSINGS FROM THE EDITOR’S DESKTOP

Ok, we are a little behind. In this issue, we will feature "Per Manum". But by this weekend, you should have an issue of The Truth dedicated to the heart-stopping episode "This Is Not Happening". We now have a new writer that I’d like to welcome. Sheila Sweeney will be doing the Classic X-Files column and this week, she spotlights the great first season stand-alone "Eve". Welcome Sheila! We also have lots of News and Special Features to entertain you with, too. Ok, let’s get on with it. And by the way, do not worry. Mulder is not dead…

In this week’s issue:

NEWS

TIMELINE FUN

SPECIAL FEATURE

REVIEW OF "PER MANUM"

CLASSIC X-FILES "EVE"

PAPER SAINTS part 4

NEWS

The End of The X-Files?

"Yeah, yeah, we know the truth is out there — but will we actually get any of it on Feb. 25 when The X-Files picks up the story of Agent Mulder's apparent abduction? After all, the character, played by David Duchovny, disappeared last spring, and viewers have been led to suspect he's being held hostage aboard an alien spaceship.

"'We will figure out what's happened to Mulder — to an extent,' X-Files creator Chris Carter tells TV Guide magazine, on sale now. 'There will be a most shocking discovery, one we think cannot be happening — but it is.' The installment also boasts revelations about Agent Doggett (Robert Patrick) and the arrival of a new FBI sleuth, Monica Reyes, played by Annabeth Gish, who may become a regular next season. That is, if there is a next season.

"The Lone Gunmen, a spin-off about Mulder's three technonerd pals, takes the X-Files timeslot (Sundays, 9 pm/ET) for three weeks starting March 4. How 20th Century Fox (which produces both shows) and Fox TV choose to nurture Gunmen will help Carter decide if he'll do another year of X-Files.

"Duchovny is not expected back for another season, but has agreed to do a second X-Files film. So May's two-hour season finale "will be a cliffhanger either for next season, if we return, or for the movie," says Carter. And don't expect a happy delivery for mom-to-be Agent Scully (Gillian Anderson). Instead, Carter warns, the pregnancy will be 'a subject of serious consequence.'

If They Can't Figure It Out, What Hope Does FOX Have?

"The X-Files creator Chris Carter told free-lance SF columnist Ian Spelling that his upcoming spinoff, The Lone Gunmen, [premiering on March 4], is already surprising people.

"'I can tell you that there are a lot of people in Canada who are still scratching their heads,' Carter told Spelling. 'They're trying to figure out how Tom Braidwood, who was a first assistant director on The X-Files while we were in Vancouver, is the star of a television show.'

"Carter hopes that fans of his other work will tune in. 'I hope X-Files fans will watch it," he said. "The comic episodes we've done of The X-Files are some of the most beloved episodes of the 180 we've done so far. So I'm hoping people will come to watch The Lone Gunmen like they watched those comic episodes of The X-Files.'"

Chris Carter Makes the Rounds

From the Official X-Files Web site:

"Chris Carter is making a number of press appearances to promote the March 4th debut of The Lone Gunmen. Here are details on a few:

• March 1
• Good Day New York
• MTV Radio interviews
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien (may actually be on the next night, according to other sources)
• March 2
• Fox and Friends
• ABC Radio interviews
• KROQ radio in New York
• The Charlie Rose Show
• Live chat on Yahoo
• Live chat on MSN

"Also, look for interviews with Chris on the AP and Gannett wire services, as well as in Salon.com, Newsweek.com, People.com, TVGuide online, the New York Observer, the New Jersey Star Ledger and the College Television Network."

Leyla Would Be So Pleased

It's become very fashionable for X-Philes to criticize series creator Chris Carter and the staff of Ten Thirteen Productions for any number of offenses, both perceived and real. But here's some news that should make all fans feel good about CC and the (mostly) boys.

Episode 8x19, "A Dream Whose Sleep...," which will air in the general vicinity of the beginning of May, is now in preproduction. A copy of a casting call for that episode was leaked out over the Internet, and it includes a familiar name:

"[LEYLA HARRISON] Female, late 20s - early 30s, open ethnicity. A cute, newly APPOINTED AGENT TO AN X-Files case to partner with 'Agent Doggett' (Robert Patrick). She began as an accountant for the bureau, and always had the dream of becoming an agent assigned to the X-Files. She is eager and enthusiastic about the position, but her inexperience and ineptitude is frustrating to 'Agent Doggett' although, always the gentleman, he treats her like a gentleman should. GUEST STAR.

At some point during her illness, her love for The X-Files was communicated to Ten Thirteen Productions, and it has been reported that she received a "touching letter of support from Frank Spotnitz and the [production] crew" not too long before her death.

Now CC and Spotsy are providing her with the ultimate X-Files tribute - to be forever immortalized in the pantheon of X-Files guest stars. Good work, guys.

Overnight Ratings for "Per Manum"

"ABC edged out CBS to win Sunday night in the ratings race, but FOX dominated all in the important 18-49 demographic. ABC was led by "The Practice" to an overall 9.8 rating/15 share (12.5/18) for the night, followed by CBS and "60 Minutes" with a 9.7/15 (9.9/15). FOX was third on the night with a 7.9/12 (8.0/12), followed by NBC, in another weak Sunday showing, with a 5.8/9 (6.9/10). Figures for UPN and The WB were delayed and will be added as soon as they are available. Among adults 18-49, FOX dominated the night with a 7.0 rating, followed by ABC, 5.1, NBC, 3.2 and CBS, 3.1.

"FOX started the night with "Futurama" at 7 p.m., 4.8/9 (5.1/8), followed by "King of the Hill" at 7:30 p.m., 5.8/10 (5.7/9). "The Simpsons" jumped to an 8.9/14 (9.3/14) at 8 p.m., followed by "Malcolm In the Middle," 9.0/14 (9.5/13). At 9 p.m. an episode of "The X-Files" which looked into Scully's pregnancy took a 9.4/14 (9.2/13)."

Lone Gunmen Week on FX

"Monday February 26 through Friday March 2 is Lone Gunmen Week on FX. The following episodes will air at the regular X-Files slot of 6pm ET/3pm PT and 12midnight ET/9pm PT for the week: 'Unusual Suspects,' 'Kill Switch,' 'Triangle,' 'Three of a Kind,' and 'First Person Shooter.' Interviews with all the actors are expected to air as well, so get your VCRs ready."

Lone Gunmen to air Six Episodes in March

From sftv:

"In addition to the previously announced airings in The X-Files time slot the first three Sundays in March, FOX has announced that The Lone Gunmen will also start airing at 9 pm ET/PT Fridays starting March 16th, replacing Freakylinks. The official X-Files Web site has updated their schedule to reflect the new info, as listed below:

TIMELINE FUN

(borrowed from about.com)

Before Mulder returns next week, let us all take stock of where things stand with the miracle pregnancy of Dana Scully, based on what we have learned through the episode "Per Manum," and working backwards chronologically:

In order to have any chance of making the timeline work out (and not have Scully be 40 weeks pregnant with no delivery imminent), we must presume that the events in "Requiem" did not in fact take place in May 2000, but rather right before "Within" was aired in November 2000.

According to a transcript, the date in that episode is simply established as "Present Day." Of course, "present day" when it aired was in fact May 2000. But we digress.

It's certainly good sport to make fun of the producers at Ten Thirteen, because they have frequently been sloppy with the series' continuity, much to the fans' chagrin. However, with this particular exercise complete, it's time now to look forward. One caveat: We reserve the right to bring out the verbal brickbats once again if any date references in the remaining episodes of this season invalidate our generous assumption two paragraphs back.

SPECIAL FEATURE

(borrowed from nytimes.com)

MULDER has a brain tumor? One that he neglected to mention to Scully, his longtime partner in F.B.I. investigations and unresolved sexual tension? And this was preying on his mind for a full year before he was abducted by space aliens last May?

These are thrilling, frustrating, patience- testing days for fans of "The X-Files." The Fox show's eighth season, which began in November, has been the first without David Duchovny — playing Agent Fox Mulder, lonely but sexy believer in all things paranormal and extraterrestrial — as a weekly fixture. Gillian Anderson, as Agent Dana Scully, M.D., has top billing now. And there's a new guy in town: Robert Patrick as Agent John Doggett, Scully's by-the-book partner. This month Mr. Duchovny appears (more or less) in three episodes, the last one next Sunday. Tonight: Who or what is the father of the baby Scully is carrying?

Scully is a little stressed out, but for the series, things are going well. Ratings have remained high (an average of 12.99 million viewers this season as opposed to 12.97 million last season, according to Nielsen Media Research). And although a very vocal Internet-chatting, letter-writing group of viewers is convinced that Mr. Duchovny's absence is some sort of plot rather than his own career decision, most fans have accepted Mr. Patrick's Doggett for what he is: one more guy looking for Mulder, not a replacement for him. Sometimes Doggett has to spell it out for us. "I'm no Fox Mulder," he admitted in this season's third episode, "but I can tell when a man's hiding something."

In creating the new character, the idea was to bring in "someone as different from the character of Mulder as possible," said Chris Carter, the show's creator. And he has. Doggett is, as planned, "an insider rather than an outsider" and "a skeptic rather than a believer."

"What I like about him is he's an adult," Mr. Carter said. "He's very noble and honorable and restrained and all those wonderful characteristics in a man. And he's got to play this every week."

Mr. Patrick, 41, looks like a Secret Service agent, maybe from the Nixon Administration. The first time Scully met him, she threw a glass of water in his face. (She didn't like what he was saying about Mulder, whom, as we all know, she thinks of as much more than a friend.) He can be counted on to ridicule her theories with comments like, "Agent Scully, don't ask me to believe that this is some sort of justice from beyond the grave," or, "What do you think, Agent Scully? Haunted hotel room? Alien invaders? Sloppy vampires?" In Episode 5, he challenged her with: "What are you saying? Ray Pierce has become some sort of metal man?" But that was a semi- inside joke, alluding to Mr. Patrick's most famous role until now, as the killer liquid- metal cyborg in "Terminator II: Judgment Day."

Surely Doggett is becoming a little more open-minded. In the course of 12 episodes, working with Scully in Oklahoma, Arizona, Utah, Massachusetts, Montana, Pennsylvania and points south, he has seen things. He has shot a half-man-half-bat to save Scully's life, cut an otherworldly parasite out of her back and shot it dead, seen his own "third eye" in a mirror and, oh yeah, been devoured and regurgitated by a "soul eater." Like Scully in the old days, however, Doggett contends that seeing does not necessarily mean believing.

The old days began on Sept. 10, 1993, when the series had its premiere. The premise was fairly original: two very different F.B.I. agents investigating U.F.O. sightings, aliens, mutants, telepaths — anything seemingly paranormal that would land the case in the so-called X-files. The show quickly became a hit, Mr. Duchovny quickly became a sex symbol (maybe the first one with a serious Internet presence), and the writers and producers were clever enough to let the unspoken attraction between Mulder and Scully build and build without consummation.

This has not stopped them, however, from teasing fans over the years: the almost- almost-almost kiss interrupted by a bee sting in the 1998 "X-Files" feature film; Mulder's "I love you" to a Scully who wasn't exactly Scully, because they were somehow on an ocean liner just before World War II; a Mulder who wasn't exactly Mulder approaching Scully with a serious come-on (it was really another man borrowing Mulder's appearance). The show's so-called mythology, which included the story of the long-ago abduction of Mulder's sister, Samantha, by aliens and Mulder's belief in a government conspiracy to conceal the existence of extraterrestrials, took on a life of its own in the minds of the show's millions of fans. Most of the time, Mulder turned out to be right.

Maybe that's why Scully is behaving so much like him this season, which amounts to actual character development. Long the empirical analyst, she has taken on Mulder's role as the agent willing to take a leap of faith rather than search endlessly for a scientific explanation. "He's a kid who materialized out of thin air, unaged," she pointed out to Doggett in an episode about a missing child who turned up after 10 years. "Do you not somehow recognize how strange this is?"

Like Mr. Duchovny, Ms. Anderson, 32, does have a life outside "The X-Files." She earned generally favorable reviews two months ago as Edith Wharton's heroine Lily Bart in the film version of "The House of Mirth." But she has chosen to stay with the series full time so far, and with Scully expecting a baby, she is sure to be the focus of episodes ahead, especially during the next sweeps period in May. As Mr. Carter predicted, when asked just how pregnant the character is, "I would say that baby's due on the season finale."

Mr. Duchovny will be back on the show in April and May, but his character is very much a part of the series almost every week. When Mulder isn't there, people are talking about him, or the camera is lingering lovingly on the nameplate on his desk.

When the principle of Occam's razor (that the simplest explanation is usually the right one) came up in Episode 3, Scully quickly pointed out that Mulder had always called it "Occam's principle of limited imagination." In Episode 10, in which Scully shot what appeared to be an angelic little boy but was really a homicidal fakir, she wept as she told Doggett how she came to the decision.

"I realized that it's what Mulder would have seen or understood," she said. "Because that's just how he came at things. Without judgment, without prejudice and with an open mind. And I am just not capable."

THAT sort of talk is very satisfying to devoted David Duchovny fans (me included), who have been reduced this season to an adolescent kind of yearning for Duchovny-Mulder, whose current scarcity makes him the ultimate unattainable man. Sure, Mulder is presumably in some other part of the galaxy for the time being. Sure, Mr. Duchovny, getting serious about his film career at age 40, has been busy making "Evolution," a science fiction movie with Julianne Moore. But if we get one more glimpse of Mulder in which he appears to be having his face stretched on the aliens' examining table but says nothing (well, once he screamed "Scully!" and that was encouraging, but it turned out to be happening in Scully's dreams); if we see him make one more five-second screen appearance without speaking; if we think we're seeing him but it turns out to be an alien bounty hunter disguised as Mulder, we're going to turn.

Flashbacks are fine (the scene in tonight's episode in which he says, "The answer is yes," is a semi- thrill). Even a best-of-Mulder collage will do.

Luckily, the lead characters and the actors who play them were never the show's only strength. Most of the same writers and directors from past seasons are still around, creating scary one-hour dramas about exterminators with superhuman vision, religious cults, mystics who can stow away inside human bodies and murder suspects experiencing time in reverse. The "Twilight Zone"-ishness (but with more gore and glop than Rod Serling might have chosen) hasn't gone anywhere.

The future of the series is still up in the air (negotiations for a possible ninth season are still going on, Mr. Carter said). Serious fans already know that the season finale is going to be a cliffhanger that will be resolved — well, as much as anything is ever resolved in "X-Files" world — either in the new season or in a second feature film. That film is not expected to happen until the series is off the air.

Meanwhile the show's first spinoff, "The Lone Gunmen," is scheduled to have its premiere on Fox on March 4 (in the "X-Files" time slot the first three weeks, then moving to Fridays). The title characters are, as X- philes know well, the trio of less than movie-star-glamorous, conspiracy- obsessed computer geeks whom Mulder has called on for assistance many times. Mr. Duchovny, Ms. Anderson and Mr. Patrick are listed as cast members in the new series, so they should be making at least the occasional appearance.

Watch "The X-Files" long enough and you can get a little zen about the big issues, like birth, death and terminal illness. With space aliens and backwoods healers around, nothing, it seems, is irreversible, which may be a good thing to keep in mind in the weeks ahead. And we have reassurances of that rule from the horse's mouth. When I interviewed Mr. Duchovny last year and asked about the fate of Mulder's sister, Samantha — was she really, most sincerely dead, as recent episodes seemed to have indicated — he put on a mischievous half-smile and answered, "She comes back for sweeps." And Mulder's mother — also dead, right? "Sweeps," he said, switching to deadpan. "Whatever we need. They come back."

MULDER- Scully? I must have dozed off. I was waiting for you to get back. It didn't take,

were you.

MULDER: And you want to destroy them?

HYBRID: No. What we want is the same thing that you want. (Hybrid and Mulder in vault with

HYBRID: During her abduction, high application radiation procedure which caused

MULDER: Why?

HYBRID: For fertilization. They constitute one half of the necessary raw materials.

MULDER: For genetic hybridization, or reproduction. These women, these women are your

birth mothers.

HYBRID: Barren now, from the same procedure that caused their cancer. And now they're left to die, their conditions hastened by the men running this project.

MULDER: You're trying to save them.

HYBRID: They're our mothers. (Mulder leaves with vial)

CLASSIC X-FILES

Here is a review of my favorite older X-Files episode, Eve!

On opposite sides of the country, two identical murders are committed at exactly the same time. The uncanny thing about it is that the victims’ daughters, Tina Simmons and Cindy Reardon, are identical but the problem is that Tina was kidnapped from the foster home and Cindy is safe with her mother. Agent Dana Scully runs a background check on the girls and finds out that a woman named Sally Kendrick was tampering with unfertilized ova. Meanwhile, Agent Fox Mulder talks to "Deep Throat" and finds out about something called the "Litchfield Experiments". Around the time of the war, the Americans got wind that the Russians were experimenting with eugenics. So we copied it and created The Litchfield Experiments. They made girls called Adams and boys called Eve. Deep Throat gave Mulder a tip to see a woman at a psychiatric ward. Her name was Eve 6. She was twisted and psychotic. Scully and Mulder went to see her and Scully mistook her for Sally Kendrick. Then, as they see Eve 6's picture, they notice that she and the other Eves were identical to Tina and Cindy when they were younger. Eve 6 tells the Agents that Eve 7 and 8 escaped earlier on. When they are at a stakeout at Cindy's house, one of the Eves kidnaps Cindy and gets away. Scully and Mulder find the hotel where the Eve and the twins are. They tell the local police to keep watch on the room. Then Eve supposedly poisons one of the eves, takes off, and leaves the girls. Mulder and Scully take responsibility for the girls(not knowing it was them who killed their fathers and poisoned the Eve with fox glove extracted from a digitalis plant). They stop at a diner to get beverages and go to the bathroom. Tina and Cindy poison Mulder and Scully's Diet sodas with the fox glove and take off. Mulder and Scully find them and send them to the ward. Then, later on, without M & S knowledge, one of the Eves gets the girls.

PAPER SAINTS 4/15
by Jill Selby (jillselby@yahoo.com)

Archiving Note: Do not archive at Gossamer. All other archives,
please ask permission.

Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property of Ten
Thirteen Productions and the Fox Television Network. All others
are the author's creation. Any similarity to any person, living
or dead, is purely coincidental. No infringement is intended.

Classification: XRA/MSR
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Timeline: Post-movie

Dana Scully used to believe football players were overpaid, but
spending time at the bottom of a 700-pound pile of men had given
her a new appreciation for the job demands of a quarterback. Then
again, no quarterback had ever been tackled by a lecherous cop, a
jealous partner, and a dead, naked pervert.

Definitely time to ask for a raise.

She wasn't sure if it was a residual electrical charge or a
phantom of memory that was sliding across the hair on her arms
like sandpaper sleeves. The shock was evidently being passed
from one person to the next; Mulder had suffered its effects when
she tumbled into his arms. Griggs, she surmised, experienced the
same unpleasant jolt when he threw himself over her and her
partner to shield them from the falling body of Randall Harper.

Knees and elbows and feet collided as the trio wriggled from
beneath Randall Harper's body. It took eternal seconds for
Scully to free herself from the tangle and identify the owner of
the hand that had settled possessively over her left breast.
Randall Harper was a pervert, even in death, though considering
the bits of flesh he'd left dangling from the ceiling, he wasn't
going to be getting past first base in the afterlife.

With a graceless wobble usually reserved for toddlers playing
dress-up in their mother's shoes, Scully stood and made her way
across the room. She waved away the offers of assistance from
well-intentioned officers, and only stopped when she reached her
destination. The obsolete contraption of twisted pipe had been
painted in rainbow hues and demoted to decoration, but the cold
cast iron radiator served Scully's purpose. She brushed her hand
across the metal and, as she expected, a hot spark jumped from
the tip of her index finger.

"Mulder, you need to ground yourself." This time when she said
those words, she wasn't speaking metaphorically. "Sergeant
Griggs, you too."

Out of respect for the incomparable sound of fat and flesh
slapping against linoleum and flailing humans, silence held reign
in the room until Scully, with her softly-spoken instructions,
wrested control. Now the room was buzzing with discussions,
theories, and a steady stream of profanity from one bewildered
officer who seemed to have misplaced the rest of his vocabulary.
In this dissonant chorus, one voice rang above all the others.

Sheila Solomon was issuing orders like a drill sergeant, sending
uniformed officers dashing off in so many different directions
there was only a blur of blue as Scully approached the woman at
the center of it all. "Agent Solomon, what's going on?"

Sheila Solomon had already demonstrated the strong constitution
necessary to stomach gruesome crime scenes, so Scully was a bit
surprised when her simple question so rapidly changed the pallor
of the woman's dark skin.

"Oh. Agent Scully, I'm sorry." It was like living through their
first meeting all over again, with Sheila awkwardly tripping over
an apology. "I didn't mean to... I mean I know you're in
charge. I thought, well, it looked like you were indisposed and
I figured you'd want to get the coroner over here to bag the
body." The woman's hands were fluttering around, pointing and
gesturing at nothing and no one in particular. "Officer Jenkins
is calling for the paramedics, just in case, and I sent Agent
Abbott to the laundry room to look for fabric softener sheets,
and --"

"Thank you, Solomon."

" --and I sent.... Sheila sputtered to a halt, then eked out
breath for one more word. "What?"

"That was good thinking. Thanks." Scully offered the woman a
quick but sincere smile, then walked away from the flabbergasted
agent. Halfway through her limping journey to the body of
Randall Harper, Scully stopped. "Fabric softener?"

The open-mouthed astonishment on Solomon's face dissolved into
the sheepish look of a woman who'd been caught passing out cookie
recipes at a bra-burning rally. "I carry them in my pocket
sometimes, to prevent static. I thought they might be helpful
under the circumstances."

"Couldn't hurt." If Scully's words fell short of actual praise,
she figured there would be plenty of time for compliments after
the work was done.

____________

"Are you still working on that?" The food at this hotel was
decent, but the portions were decidedly stingy and Mulder had
been staring longingly at the remnants of Scully's dinner for the
last fifteen minutes.

Her noncommital "Hmm" wasn't quite the invitation he was hoping
for, but hunger made him desperate. His hand slipped quietly
over the tablecloth, covertly making its way toward her abandoned
plate. The crispy edge of a french fry was teasing his fingertip
when Scully pushed the plate aside, laid her paperwork on the
table, and announced her discovery. "Balloons the Clown."

"What?" Mulder fumbled the pepper shaker he'd grabbed as an
alibi for attempted food theft.

"Randall Harper." Scully pointed to Harper's mug shot, then
handed Mulder a photograph of the same man decked out in a bright
yellow suit, wearing the requisite orange wig and red foam nose.
"a.k.a. Balloons the Clown."

"I've never trusted clowns."

"You don't trust anyone," said the woman who was the exception to
all his rules.

"I *especially* don't trust clowns."

"At least in this case you would've had good reason for your
prejudice. Harper performed his balloon tricks at schools and
daycare centers all over the city. That's how he made contact
with the children he allegedly molested."

Scully had showered and changed after they checked into the
hotel, but she still looked worn down by the day. Mulder debated
briefly about saving his theory until morning. But as much as he
wanted unrestricted access to his partner's leftover french
fries, he wanted her company more. "Have you ever rubbed a
balloon on your head and then stuck it to the wall?"

"That's not one of your weird foreplay rituals is it?"

She was letting that rich, seductive tone filter into her voice
more often these days. Unfortunately, it never failed to provoke
a corresponding stutter from him. "No, no. Um, no. Just follow
for a second. The static electricity from your hair holds the
balloon to the wall, right?"

"Mulder, if you're suggesting--" Mulder watched the evolution of
statement on his partner's face as she made the connection from
what he had said to what he hadn't. As her mind grabbed onto the
argument, she physically grabbed onto the table and leaned
forward. "A balloon is one thing, but Randall Harper was a huge
man. There's no way a static electrical charge would be powerful
enough to hold him to the ceiling."

"Isn't lightning a form of static electricity? Lightning is
pretty damned powerful."

"Yes, but the discharge of energy lasts only a fraction of a
second. Harper's body was suspended from the ceiling for hours.
Without some sort of mechanism to create a steady current, it
would be impossible, and even then I'm not sure it could be done.
Or, more importantly, why anyone would go to all that trouble to
stick a dead man to the ceiling."

Mulder began sifting through papers, looking for clues among the
upside-down scribbles of the investigating officers. "Did the
police search the attic?"

"Thoroughly, and found nothing at all to account for the
suspension of the body or the electrical charge. Hopefully the
autopsy will give us more to go on."

"Is that an electromagnet in your pants or are you happy to see
me?"

"Something like that." His joke earned him an indulgent smile
before she looked away. She watched the traffic outside, studied
a paint chip on the window sill, and scrutinized the work of her
fingers as they plucked a loose thread on her jacket. "If we
don't find some connection to the Oliver case, we'll have to
throw Harper back to the St. Charles PD. I may have already
wasted a day of four agents' time investigating a non-related
case. Mulder, what if I screw this up?"

Her anxiety wasn't unexpected; Scully was being asked to prove
her mettle as a supervisory agent. No, it wasn't her self-doubt
that surprised and humbled Mulder. It was her willingness to
reveal it to him. Still, he knew better than to answer her
vulnerability with any sort of coddling reassurance. "I'll trade
you my connection theory for the rest of your fries."

"I think I'm doomed to suffer indigestion either way." She
groaned for effect, the sound tinged with the slightest sigh of
relief.

"Someone out there," he made a sort of all-encompassing gesture
with a ketchup-laden fry, "is playing Good Samaritan."

"By killing people? I must have missed that part of the story in
Sunday School."

"By killing *bad* people. Look at the victims. Tony Oliver,
heartless murderer, killed by having his heart removed. Randall
Harper, a molester who lured children with balloon tricks, stuck
to the ceiling of a daycare center with a static charge and a
couple of nails through the nuts."

Scully leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her
chest. "Okay, since you're theorizing, care to tell me how your
Good Samaritan managed to extract Tony Oliver's heart without
leaving a mark on the body, or how he was able to get Randall
Harper out of prison undetected?"

"I admit my theory has a few holes," Mulder said between bites.
"What do you expect for cold french fries?"

"I want to finish looking over these files tonight. I think I'll
head on upstairs."

As Scully placed the pictures and papers back into Harper's file,
it occurred to Mulder that when they left the crime scene that
afternoon, she had no such file. He knew the answer before he
asked the question, but a little troll of self-torture forced him
to ask anyway. "Scully, where'd you get all that?"

"All what?" She was sorting and stacking, oblivious to his
agitation.

"The Harper file."

"Oh, Sergeant Griggs dropped it by right before I came down to
dinner."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

She jerked her head up as if slapped by his accusation, and in
her voice there was ice. "I just did."

"Did he say anything to you?"

"Something like, 'Here's the file you requested, Agent Scully.'
Made my heart go all aflutter."

He put a hands over hers to still the angry motions. "I'm just
concerned, that's all. The guy was being a real jerk at the
crime scene."

"Yeah, well," she pulled away from his caress. "There was a lot
of that going around."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing. I'm going upstairs."

Before she could lift herself out of her chair, Mulder had his
hand wrapped around her wrist, gently but firmly holding her in
place. "You expect me just to step aside and let some guy paw
all over you?"

"No one, and for the record, that includes you," she told him as
she slipped free of his hold, "puts his paws on me without my
consent. I had things under control with Griggs. Your manly
posturing was unnecessary and...."

"And?"

"You promised you'd keep our work and personal relationship
separate."

"So you think I was unprofessional."

"I didn't say that, but petty displays of jealousy will only
undermine you on the job."

Perhaps it was the fierce rumble in her voice, or the way her
eyes narrowed with anger, but he didn't believe she was terribly
concerned about *his* image at the moment.

"It's not me at all, is it? You're worried that you'll seem
unprofessional."

"Mulder, this case is important to me, but how can I expect the
other agents under my supervision to trust and respect me if they
don't see that from you?"

Mulder glanced around to make sure they were still alone in this
section of the restaurant, though he continued to speak softly in
the hope she would drop her defenses if he did. "I think you're
being oversensitive, Scully."

Before she could rally a response, he quieted her with a touch of
his finger on her mouth. "It's true, I didn't like the way
Griggs was treating you, but here's a news flash for you. I've
never liked it when another man started sniffing around. My
response to Griggs today was no different than it was four years
ago in Toledo when Agent Wilkerson kept looking down your shirt,
or last December when Bud in Accounting 'accidentally' brushed
his hand against your ass in the elevator. My behavior hasn't
changed, but our relationship has." As if to prove the point, his
hand was making tender, loving strokes against her cheek. "And
today, for the first time, you were watching me to see how I'd
react to a competitor. Believe me, Scully, I'm the same
possessive, insanely jealous partner I've always been."

"That doesn't change the fact that Solomon and Abbott have
probably already figured out what's going on with us." Her mind
was still in the battle, but her body had surrendered and was
leaning into his touches.

"You could tell Nelson Abbott the sky was orange with purple
polka-dots and that's what he'd believe, and Solomon was busy
passing out fabric softener and talking to anyone who would
listen. I'm sure she wasn't paying attention to any sort of death
glares I might have been casting toward Rusty Griggs."

"I'm sure Griggs noticed."

"Scully, I was not even a blip on Griggs' radar." Mulder pulled
back for a moment, just long enough to drag his chair around so
he could sit beside his partner. He wanted her to feel the heat
of his breath in her ear as he talked. He wanted to feel every
one of her sighs and shivers. "Everything's fine. Believe me. But
if it'll make you feel better," he began dropping kisses every
word or two, here and there, on her cheeks, her forehead, her
chin. "I promise to be your perfect, platonic partner--"

"Subordinate." She whispered against his mouth before their lips
met.

Mulder aborted the kiss to chide her with mock sternness. "Don't
push your luck. I promise to be Dana Scully's perfect, platonic
*partner* in the presence of my colleagues for the duration of
this case."

Scully's fingers, which had been twirling through Mulder's hair,
came to rest as she cradled his face in her hands. "You have no
reason to be jealous. You know that, don't you?"

"I could use some convincing. Perhaps a physical demonstration of
your troth?"

"Well, okay." She kissed him, just a flirt of a kiss on his
mouth, released him, pushed her chair from the table and stood.
She faced him and with the solemnity such an oath deserved, drew
an X over her chest with her index finger. "Cross my heart,
you're the only man I want."

He looked up at her, hoping he didn't look as pathetically
desperate as he felt, but pretty certain he did. "You're wounding
me, Scully."

"Then I'll have to kiss it and make it all better." Her fingers
brushed through his hair to smooth the damage she'd done to it.
"After this case is over."

She collected her files, though not the dinner bill, and walked
away with a cheerful, "Goodnight, Mulder."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Archie Boggins, a Cow Insemination Technician, has the worst job
in St. Louis. So says the perky, doe-eyed, Wonderbra'd host of
"Good Morning St. Louis." Evidently Bitsy, Muffy,
whatever-her-name-was, tirelessly scoured the city and outlying
regions in search of someone whose idiocy might equal her own.
She found him in Archie, who seemed to take a disturbing amount
of pleasure in shoving his arm up a cow's ass. Little did I know
when I left for work this morning that within a few hours I'd
find myself coveting Archie's job.

When I was promoted from Library Assistant III to Library
Associate I, there was more to it than the new, glamorous title
and the opulent lifestyle that accompanied the 27-cents-per-hour
raise. Library Associate is, as I proudly pointed out to my
parents at the time, a supervisory title. But I'd take cow crap
any day over having to reprimand my best friend.

Trent's page-one story was usurped by the mayor, who allegedly
committed an indiscretion while visiting one of his constituents.
The mayor insists that even exotic dancers have civic concerns
and that he was only spending time with Twirly O'Toole to get
input on the city's beautification proposal.

On any other day, our heroism would have made headlines, but who
can compete with Twirly O'Toole?

I shared Trent's frustration at being denied herohood for another
day, and felt the same disappointment with the brief, undetailed
article on page three. And while I wanted to express aloud my
opinion of the mayor and his need for input, it was Trent who
lost his temper first. Unfortunately, it happened at the exact
moment Mrs. Schnepf waddled her way upstairs to deliver her daily
dose of prune-faced joy. She actually managed to open up those
squinty eyes when she heard some of the words Trent was throwing
around. Now, the blue-haired demon has ordered me to write up a
reprimand for Trent's file and to make sure he signs it. I am,
after all, his supervisor.

Schnepf will be watching to make sure it gets done today. And, as
she constantly reminds us, she has eyes in the back of her head.

She doesn't really, though.

Not yet anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End "Paper Saints" part 4/15