4800 words
J.
Mulder drove through the empty streets to work. It seemed kind of lucky that he was on the street when traffic was literally nonexistent, but Mulder thought nothing of it.
He passed by the receptionist, waving, she waved back. She was wearing a Catholic schoolgirl costume, and Mulder thought it looked good on her.
He passed by the break room, making sure to wave to the
Mulder rolled his eyes as he saw Elvis flirting with Kimberly outside Skinner’s office. He was such a horn dog. He’d even worn one of his flashy suits again. Kimberly, dressed in a Turkish towel wrap, seemed uninterested. Agent Henry Douglas made a joke and Mulder laughed. “By the way, great job on that Mothman case. You never cease to amaze me.” It was an empty compliment, Mulder knew, but he accepted it graciously. The other agents were such suck-ups to him. As he rolled his eyes, he missed seeing Krycek falling outside the window.
Mulder entered his office, seeing Agent Scully looking very formal for a Casual Friday: cotton short shorts and a midriff-exposing tee-shirt under her overcoat. “Morning, Mulder what’s going on?” she asked as he entered.
“Not much. Why so dressed up today?”
“You know how much I despise Casual Friday. When women walk around in lingerie, it’s just despicable. I thought I’d show them what classy looks like.” She smoothed the half-shirt again. It kept riding up. Not to mention the weak elastic of her pajama-like shorts was barely supporting her gun and holster.
Mulder went to the file cabinet, pulling out a file. Behind him, through the small window a bright blue light descended upon his partner, rendering her mute and paralyzed, and slowly pulled her out of the window. “Oh, by the way, Scully, I’ve received a video from an anonymous source that claims that it’s of a possible alien abduction. I think we should look at it. I may even send it to the A/V guy and see what they can make of it. Scully?”
Just as Mulder was about to turn around, light flooded the room again and Scully slowly drifted back into her seat. When the light disappeared, Scully was sitting in the same chair again, her hair a mess and her coat on backwards.
“Scully, what happened?”
“Nothing.”
“I think you were abducted.”
“Mulder…” she replied condescendingly, pulling out a compact to try to fix her hair. “I’m tired of you calling it an alien abduction every time I disappear in a beam of light emitted from a flying saucer. It might have very well been swamp gas.”
Light reentered the room, and Mulder rolled his eyes, telling her, “Scully, you’re being abducted again.” His legs felt heavy like lead, so he couldn’t move to rescue Scully until the light, and Scully, were gone.
A.D. Skinner entered the room, looking up at Mulder from his four-foot frame, “Where’s Agent Scully?”
“She was abducted.”
“Well, for God’s sake, go rescue her already. It seems sometimes that all we pay you for. Which reminds me, you’re getting a mandatory pay increase.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mulder replied as he ran out of the room, running into the Cigarette Smoking
Taking a drag, the Cigarette Smoking Man replied, “She will be returned when they are done with her.”
Mulder threw Smoking Man down the hall. He glided horizontally through the air, hitting Krycek as he rounded the corner. They both crashed into the wall, leaving an indention.
Mulder ran out to his car, only to be stopped by the Lone Gunmen’s VW van.
Byers, wearing a black business suit and dark sunglasses, told him, “We were scanning the area and found the electrical interference outside the building. We got a visual feed, and when we saw it was Scully, Frohike demanded we help out.”
“Damn right!” Frohike commented, also in a black suit, though covered with a leather jacket, putting on sunglasses over his own glasses before removing the latter and replacing them with the former.
Langly came around from back, also dressed in a black suit (well, it was black jeans and a black sports jacket worn over a white tee-shirt with an black clip-on tie attached off-center to the collar, askew, with plastic sunglasses), holding a large plastic carrying case, “C’mon, Mulder, we don’t have much time if you want to save your partner.”
Frohike handed him a dark suit, “Sorry, but your duds are all wrong.”
Langly opened the plastic case he was holding; it held a very futuristic-looking gun. Off of Mulder’s look, Langly replied, “You really think your Sig is gonna have any effect on hostile E.B.E.’s? We had to shoplift these from a government base.”
As Mulder finished tying the jet black tie, he asked, “Okay, but I’m not taking the Noisy Cricket.”
Frohike laughed, “As if. You’re getting this,” he said, pulling out a slim, bazooka-like weapon. “Medium-range plasma cannon, 600E series. I think you’ll like it. Recoil’s a bitch, but I think you can handle it.”
Mulder joined them in the van as they sped out of the parking garage. As the car lurched into the morning traffic, Frohike pressed a red button on the dash, and the vehicle suddenly lurched a few feet into the air, and started moving at several hundred miles per hour just above the canopy of the cars. A few drivers watched this spectacle from their windows. One particularly distracted driver drove straight into Krycek on the sidewalk.
Mulder laughed, “How long has this thing been able to do this?”
Langly turn from the passenger seat, “Oh, it’s a recent addition. Frohike wanted to do the virgin run to impress Scully, but we think she’d be less impressed if it’s before she experiences the joy of an anal probe.”
From the back of the van, Byers called, “Langly, what are you planning on packing?”
“Wrist mount, as always.”
“Okay, but I’m packing you an extra power pack. Your fingers were a little trigger happy last time and I don’t want to have to save your ass again when your battery dies.”
“There she is,” Frohike proclaimed, pointing toward an enormous hovering flying saucer. Langly reached out the window, wearing an arm-mounted weapon of some sort and fired a laser shot into the door panel of the saucer, which fell off, allowing Frohike to drive into doorway the shuttle… barely. It scraped the sides as it maneuvered into the tight space.
After a rather rough landing inside a large cargo area of the ship, Mulder and the Lone Gunmen, dressed sharply in black suits and outfitted with various metallic weapons, stepped out of the car and walked towards a door. Byers, pulling two oversized pistols out of their holsters kicked down the door and fire five carefully aimed shots through the passageway. “Coast is clear, guys,” he said with a wink.
Mulder, impressed, commented, “Pretty slick. Tell me, why you don’t have a girlfriend?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Byers replied, walking in.
“I know why,” Frohike commented, “He apparently doesn’t know a pretty woman when he sees one. I mean, you work with Dana Katherine Scully, don’t you?”
Mulder laughed. Langly elbowed him, “Byers has actually got one, but he’s being pretty tight-lipped about her.”
“Byers, you dog,” Mulder laughed, staring at the tallest of the Lone Gunman. He followed them down the hallway, passing the corpses of four dead aliens and Krycek.
Two minutes and two dozen dead aliens later, Mulder, Byers, Langly, and Frohike stood at the threshold of what appeared to be the colossal door of the main chamber. A well-placed shot by Frohike’s oversized plasma-rifle knocked down the door, and the four men in black entered in.
Mulder’s mouth dropped. Scully was wearing a bikini-like outfit, made of metal, with a shackle around her neck, the chain attached to it leading to the blubbering hand of a Jabba the Hutt-like creature, who was smoking. She smiled as he arrived, “Hey, Mulder, you’re just in time!”
* * *
FOX MULDER’S APARTMENT
Mulder awoke so hard he fell of his couch and hit his head on the coffee table. He looks at the clock on his wall: 6:02. Might as well get up. Can’t wait to tell Scully about this dream.
* * *
DANA SCULLY’S APARTMENT
The midmorning sun slowly woke Scully up from a peaceful slumber. She turned on her king bed to face her husband, who is lying face-forward, bare-backed, his chestnut brown hair and large frame pleasing Scully greatly. Reluctantly, she pulled herself out of bed, her seven-month pregnant stomach peeking from under her shirt. She walked into the bathroom as her husband slowly started to rouse and volunteered to start breakfast. She watches him leave the room, his muscular arms and back causing Scully to giggle with glee.
Scully drew her bath, dropping in the bubble solution and lighting a few candles. Sighly, she slowly soaked, letting her muscles relax fully. She meticulously lathered her body, shampooed and conditioned her hair, and basked for a few moments before drying off. She then carefully applied a light coating of makeup and fixed her hair, and walked out of the bathroom, smiling as a glance at the clock told her that it was still only 6:15.
She walked down the stairs into her kitchen, where her husband is hunched over the stove, making eggs. He called to her, “Have fun at work today. What’s Spooky having you do today?”
“Oh, who knows?” she replied, resting her head against him. “You know how Mulder is. We’ll be chasing aliens all day.”
“Why do you stay?”
“It’s kind of fun sometimes,” she commented before digging into her breakfast.
* * *
J.
BASEMENT FLOOR
Scully entered her office. Upon seeing her, Mulder stood up to hand her a video. As he did, his gun fell from his holster. “Not again,” he complained, picking it up, dropping it, and picking it up again before putting it back in his holster. Scully took the tape and popped in the VCR, and pressed Play. Immediately on screen was the scene of an alien abduction. In crystal-clear Technicolor, she watched as two women and a man hovered to the base of a flying saucer, aglow with lights. The spaceship shot off into the distance.
“What do you think of that?”
“Mulder, most videos of spaceships are blurry. Why was this one crystal clear?”
“I don’t know, but we’re heading out to
* * *
PARKING GARAGE OF THE
Mulder drove out of the parking lot and into the empty streets of
“Welcome to
“Why didn’t we fly? That took forever.”
“You know how stingy the bean counters upstairs are.”
Mulder handed her the X-File, “Three people were abducted. We’re approaching the landing site now.”
Scully looked out the window, as they passed a small bluff, she noticed a film set, including the flying saucer from the video. “Mulder, there’s our alien spaceship. It’s a film prop.”
“That’s what the government wants you to think. There’s a conspiracy, you know. You don’t the abductees walking around, do you?”
Sighing, Scully replied, “Mulder, there they are right now. They walked out of some trailers on that set.”
Mulder looked, “Well, darn it, but that doesn’t prove that there aren’t any aliens. What happened to my sister then?”
“Is that her there?” Scully asked, pointing toward a woman with curly, brown hair hitchhiking on the side of the road. Mulder picked her up.
“Hey, Fox, nice to see you,” Samantha comments cheerfully.
“Samantha, did the aliens return you?”
“Fox, you silly goose. I wasn’t abducted; I was just hiding in the attic.”
Scully gave Mulder a classic “now-what?” look. Mulder just fumed.
“Looks like there’s a storm a-brewing,” Samantha commented, pointing forward.
Indeed, a few enormous grey clouds quickly filled the skies in the span of a few seconds.
“So, you must be Dana, Fox’s partner,” Samantha asked, holding her hand out. Scully took it, smiling.
“Anyway,” Mulder stated, “let’s find a place to turn around. Skinner will probably give us the day off. You can go see your hubby.”
“Oh, you’re married, Dana? That’s so great. Where your ring?”
Scully lifted up her hand, finding a magnificent, sparkling, four-carat diamond ring on her hand. Samantha cooed, asking, “So, what’s he like?”
Scully sat back in her seat, smiling, “Well, he’s really handsome. He’s about six feet tall with thick brown hair, about the shade of yours and Mulder’s. And he’s got this wonderful voice. He’s got a really strong back and awesome, muscular legs.”
Samantha giggled, “What’s his name?”
Scully drew a blank, suddenly realizing she couldn’t remember his husband’s name. She looked over to Mulder and they locked eyes. The realization hit Scully like a lightning bolt.
Only, it was a real lightning bolt as she watched Mulder start to convulse.
* * *
DANA SCULLY’S APARTMENT
“NOOOO!” Scully screamed, bolting straight up in bed, breathing heavily.
She began to calm down. She looked to the side of her queen-size bed, finding herself the sole occupant. Meanwhile, in
Scully headed for the shower, closing the drain. She started the water, but saw on the clock in the bathroom that’s it’s already 6:07, so she unplugged the drain and started the shower. Meanwhile, Mulder started his own shower. They both lept back after forgetting to let the water warm up.
As Scully begins to dry herself off, she saw the clock again; it was 6:22. She groaned and ran into the bedroom to get dressed.
Scully ran down the hallway, momentarily wondering where the stairs were, but laughed it off, and made herself some breakfast: cold cereal and orange juice that hopefully hadn’t expired yet.
* * *
PARKING GARAGE OF THE
7:58 AM
Scully hopped out of her car and started to run up the stairs. Once out of sight, Mulder parked right next to her and ran past the stairs, opting to take the shortcut through the backdoor that led to the basement.
Scully briskly walked, practically power-walking, toward the office. Mulder was almost jogging, looking behind him to assure that Scully didn’t see him come in late. He nearly crashed into her, but turned around just in time to meet her face to face in front of the basement office door.
“Mulder,” she said.
“Scully,” he said immediately after her.
They began to laugh. “I had the craziest dream last night,” she blurted out.
“Me too,” he replied, “you were abducted twice in the same day…”
“You got a video, but it was fake…”
“…so the Lone Gunmen and I went all Men in Black to save you, but…”
“She was just hiding in the attic and…”
“…in chains, that’s when I figured out that…”
“I was pregnant and it turned out my husband was…”
Both lost their train of thought, just staring at each other, then cracking up again.
Mulder opened the door, and they entered, stopping dead in their tracks. Sitting at Mulder’s desk was an extraterrestrial creature, with a wide head, brownish skin, and huge eyeballs. With its long fingers, it held a cell phone. Covering the mouthpiece, it looked at the agents and told them, “E.T. phone home,” in a matter-of-fact way.
Mulder and Scully turned their heads left in unison, seeing a mop-topped Robin Williams look-a-like typing on a laptop, “Oh, don’t mind him. He’ll reimburse you for the charges, Agent Mulder. By the way, Agent Scully,” he started, still typing away and not looking up, “How the hell do you turn this thing on? My fingers are getting tired.”
Mulder and Scully gave each other incredulous looks.
* * *
THE CAPTAIN LORD MANSION BED AND BREAKFAST
Simultaneously, Mulder and Scully jerked awake, looking each other in the eyes, finding themselves in bed together, bare shoulders peeking out from under the quilt. They looked around at the lavish, colonial surroundings of the B&B room. They returned their gazes to each other and looked under the covers, incredulous looks still upon their faces.
* * *
FAIRFIELD INN
Mulder woke up suddenly, seeing a woman lying beside him, no clothes apparent. She had long, dark brown hair and fair skin. She lay face down, but Mulder immediately recognizes her, especially seeing the austere dark skirt suit on the ground, the typical wear for an FBI agent. He pulled himself up, seeing he was in a hotel room. A two-bed hotel room, he realized as Scully sat up in the other bed, the cover pulled up to hide her bare form.
The sheet rode up, revealing a bare-backed man also lying down. He, too, was on his stomach, his face turned away from Mulder, his tattooed arm hanging over the edge. Mulder caught Scully’s eye, seeing her almost brimming with tears of confusion. He matched the glance. He closed his eyes again, opening to wake up from this nightmare in a dream in a dream…
* * *
FOX MULDER’S APARTMENT
Mulder fell off the couch, his thick mane of brown hair a complete mess. He pinched his forearm and winced. Shaking his head, he headed for the bathroom.
* * *
DANA SCULLY’S APARTMENT
Scully bolted up in bed, her thick mane of red hair a complete mess. She pinched her thigh and winced. Shaking her head, she headed for the bathroom.
* * *
J.
BASEMENT FLOOR
Mulder took the shortcut, meeting Scully in the hallway. They both stared at one another for a moment, the sense of déjà vu apparent in both their eyes.
“Mulder, you’d better open the door,” Scully said, surprised he seemed to understand her request.
He opened the door, revealing a completely empty, dark office. “No E.T., no Mork, it appears.”
“You had that dream, too?”
“Yeah, then we woke up together in bed, then we woke up with…”
“Diana and Ed, yeah. Weird.”
“Well, shared dreams are a common…”
“Mulder, stop. Don’t you turn us into an X-File.”
Mulder just started to laugh, and Scully joined him. She looked up at him and noticed his coy stare. “Mulder when you look at me like that, it usually means you have a bad idea.”
“I bet this is another dream.”
“Could be, I’ve woken up four times today already.”
He leaned over, grabbed her face, and kissed her hard on the lips. He pulled away, and she replied, “Okay, what the heck?”
“Well, since I’m not allowed to do that in real life, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity. You know, relieve some sexual tension or something.”
“Mulder, that doesn’t make any sense. If you kiss me in a dream, it’s nothing more than a subconscious fantasy. The fact that you didn’t do it in real life just adds to the tension.”
“So you admit there’s tension?”
“Well, there’s the slight possibility that someone thinks you’re hot.”
Mulder smiled, “C’mon, you seemed like you really wanted to do it before that bee got you.”
“Mulder, that was preceded by a very heartfelt conversation, not a silly argument.”
“You mean I have to go through all that work?”
“Mulder, just get over here. I’ll burn more calories pressed against the wall than standing here arguing with you.”
“You have some pretty wild dreams, Scully.”
“Well, something has to balance out the Ice Queen façade.”
No more words were expressed until Skinner came strolling down the hall, holding his agents’ next case. The last thing he expected to find was the two of them in an intense liplock, the smaller of the two pressed against the hallway wall, her feet off the ground, and his hands in her coppery hair.
“WHAT IN THE NAME OF J. EDGAR HOOVER IS GOING ON HERE?!?!” roared A.D. Skinner.
Scully slid to the ground giggling, “Mulder, it’s Dream Skinner! Let’s let out some tension on him!” She pulls out her gun and points it at Skinner, who cursed and dropped the file, as he moved out of range. “Agent Scully! What the hell has gotten into you?”
Mulder pulls out his gun, swinging it around carelessly, “Hey, Skinner, are you in this dream, too? Don’t worry, you can’t kill anyone in a dream. Oh, wait, there was this case that I did…”
Mulder shoots three rounds into the ceiling, commenting, “Damn, dreams are loud!” Scully nodded in agreement.
* * *
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR SKINNER’S OFFICE
Scully sat straight in her chair, eyes unfocused, staring at Skinner’s nameplate. Her legs were uncrossed but pressed tightly together, one hand tightly enveloping the other. Mulder sat slightly slouched, wringing his hands with more than his normal impatience. He swallowed hard, his eyes darting around the room, anywhere but into Skinner’s eyes.
Skinner started talking, his teeth clenched, “So, let me get this straight, Agents, the reason I found you in the hall, deliberately violating Mandate 8901 and pointing a weapon at a superior officer and firing three rounds into the ceiling is because you thought this was a dream…? Agents, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to tell the suits upstairs. I am putting you two on a two-week unpaid, forced sabbatical until I find out what disciplinary action must be taken. Take a vacation. I wouldn’t suggest doing it together.”
* * *
THE X-FILES OFFICE
After quite a bit more tongue-lashing by Skinner, the agents finally escaped.
Mulder now sat in his chair behind his desk, while Scully sat in front of him, her face in her hands. “Mulder,” she started, “what just happened?”
“Well, we broke a few hundred regulations, because well, we thought that we weren’t really breaking them, and now we’re being punished for it. Let’s face it, our excuse wouldn’t hold in a third-grade classroom.”
“The thing is, the day was exactly like in my second dream.”
“Second dream?”
“Well, first I dreamt I was pregnant and married to you…”
“Really…” he replied, smiling wide and giving her a look.
“Well, it’s weird. The guy looked like you, but I never saw his face. And he obviously didn’t start as you, because he joked about you. But in the end, I had this epiphany, but that’s when I woke up, or thought I did, to the dream that was real until… E.T. and Mork.”
Mulder laughed, “Yeah. I had a first dream, too. There were all kinds of aliens, and Elvis, walking around the office, like they were FBI agents. And all the women were dressed scantily.”
“Could it be your choice of entertainment?”
“Maybe, but it wasn’t like that. It was all casual, like that’s the way you always dressed. In fact, you were wearing a sexy pajama number and I joked how austere you looked.”
Scully couldn’t help but laugh at that. He continued, “And, uh, you were abducted twice… I guess it’s almost like a joke to me.”
“Yeah, you dropped you gun a lot in my dream.”
Mulder laughed and finished, “Anyway, the Lone Gunmen and I went all Men in Black and we came to save you, and you were in the clutches of Jabba the Hutt. I think at this point it would have turned a bit… porno-ish. Ooh, and Krycek died a bunch.”
“No fair! Why does Krycek get to die in your dreams and not mine?”
Mulder just shrugged.
Scully continued, “Are we sure that this isn’t a bad dream? I mean, it’s been realistic so far. It could be our subconscious minds fearing… I don’t know.”
“Falling in love, or just succumbing to the physical feelings, and being caught, which could cause us to be separated…”
Scully blushed, “Though, we’re having a pretty logical discussion here. I though the right brain was used primarily in dreams. And we’ve been in this dream a long time.”
“Well, time is kind of irrelevant in dreams. Of course, maybe our brains work really quickly when it’s not worrying about body functions. There’s this philosophy that states that our waking life is really those twelve or so minutes after we die where our brains continue to be active. Since the body can focus all its energies on thought process, it could be like a second life, a kind of dream state. Maybe it’s so fast that those few minutes of unreality is the glorious afterlife, or Hell if you were bad in life and had a nightmare as your brain cells died.”
“That’s interesting. Any other philosophies?”
“I kind of like this one: Heaven in the real world in its perfect state. But to appreciate it, we are all asleep, having nightmares, which is what we perceive to be the real world. When we die, we actually wake up and find ourselves in a world without war, pain, or struggle. Everything is how it should be. One of my friends stated… mind you, he was drunk at the time… that we would wake up in bed with our soul mates.”
“That’s kind of sweet.”
“Well, he then said that the ‘perfect life’ was the fact that we’d get to, uh… be in bed with our soul mates for the rest of our lives.”
Scully laughed at this. “I doubt this is a real philosophy, but you see it on television a lot, where, life is a television show where you’re being watched all the time.”
“That would explain those floating words.”
“You mean the ones that say where we are? Those dreams, they weren’t first person. I was watching myself, but I thought it was myself, and there in the corner, ‘Dana Scully’s Apartment, Georgetown, D.C.,’ just as clear as day.”
“Yeah, but you gotta wonder if those philosophers are right, don’t you?”
“They’re nice thoughts; maybe we’re not supposed to understand life in general.”
“Maybe, but I really feel like there’s nothing wrong with us trying to. Maybe we’re even supposed to.”
“Maybe…”
* * *
The sun was shining brightly outside the window, but the couple in bed did not stir. The tall, brown-haired man lay sleeping, as if dreaming. Tightly wrapped in his arms was a petite woman with cherry red hair. She, too, was dreaming. Before the bed sat a fluffy armchair, and restlessly seated in it was a three-year-old girl with strawberry blond hair. She finally got up and walked over to a bassinet beside the bed. She peered inside to see a sleepy-looking newborn baby.
The girl mumbled to her brother, “You look sleepy. You’re gonna have to go sleep real soon. I woked up early and Mommy’s gonna be really sad. You gotta make her happy.” With that, she kissed the baby’s forehead. The tiny creature blinked his eyes a few times. Any moment now, he realized, he was going to have to go to sleep. As warm as the bassinet was, he knew that until you napped, you’d be too tired to stay awake here.
The door to the room opened and another woman with pale red hair entered. “Sweetheart,” the woman said to the little girl, “c’mon out and play. They’ll be awake before you know it.” The girl scrambled away from the bassinet and hugged the woman’s legs. With this, the woman took the little girls hand and escorted her out into the world.
* * *
20TH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION STUDIOS
The white-haired television producer stared at the thick stack of papers, the words “SOMNIENDI” typed on the front.
He looked proudly at it, but he sat back in reflection, rubbing his head. A look of disgust appeared on his face. No, he thought, the ending gives away too much, but there’s gotta be a way I can do this. If I were to add…
He starts to flip through the stack of papers, his sneer growing every minute. He sighed and pick up the entire stack and threw it in the trash can beside his desk. “What the hell was I thinking? Get in the game, Chris! What kind of fan would like this kind of crap?”
With this, he got up and turned off the light.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
CREEDOG T. VANDREY
~
A/N: By the way, I haven’t taken any Latin, but I think I’ve conjugated the verb right, so if I haven’t, making sure to tell me.
^_^ - It has… potential. Maybe if we worked on it a little. Well… maybe if we… um, yeah. Oh, here’s an idea… no, well, if… yeah, if… well… (sigh) Uh! How do I… how do I… uh-huh, you see, um… you the boss, Creedog. Whatever you say, goes.
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