TITLE: Men In Black - Post-Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'

AUTHOR: Gabi Fisher

SPOILER WARNING: none

CLASSIFICATION: V, H (a bit)

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anyone in here. I'm not even pretending to. No infringement intended.

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As usual, the elevator was empty except for Scully on the ride down to the basement. She was leaning against the back wall, thinking of the events that happened during the time she had begun to talk with the author Jose Chung to after the book was published. She still couldn’t figure out why Mulder had been asleep in the chair in her hotel room. (Had he fallen asleep while they were talking or did he often sleep in chairs?) That night was a large blank in Scully’s mind. She vaguely remembered going out for ice, though she wasn’t even sure if that had really happened or if the just thought it did because she had seen the ice bucket in her room. She didn’t even remember lying down with all her clothes on. When she lay down, usually she at least took off her jacket. Mulder’s version of what had happened that night, however, was even more unbelievable than her convenient memory loss. As least she could blame her memory lapse on being extremely tired. Or something like that…

Even more unusual than that, was that Mulder kept dipping his hand into the ice bucket. He did it repeatedly as if he didn’t believe that when you leave ice in a container overnight, it melts into water. After the phone call, as she was walking into the bathroom to take a shower and get dressed, Mulder asked her again if she was sure she didn’t remember what had happened the night before.

"Mulder, I am positive I don’t know what happened last night. I was probably just really tired and sat down for a minute and fell asleep. I am also positive that there were no ‘men in black’ in my room. There are no ‘men in black.’ That is just ridicules," she replied, trying her best to keep from laughing.

Mulder just continued to sit in the chair, giving the bucket of water a confused, puzzled look.

After that day, they didn’t really see much of each other, and it was their first day back to work after the weekend of returning from Washington.

The elevator dinged softly, telling its only rider that it her floor, and the doors opened. Scully walked down the hall into the basement office. When she saw what Mulder was doing, repeatedly dipping his hand in a bucket of water no longer seemed so bizarre. Mulder was so engrossed in the book that he did not even notice Scully come in, so Scully just stood and stared at him. Well, actually his face was hidden behind Jose Chung’s From Outer Space, so she was actually staring at her book’s cover. Scully put her hands on her hips, and after about a minute Mulder finally looked up.

Startled, he jumped and attempted to hide the book. Scully forced an irritated look to cover her smile and glared lightly (if that’s possible) at Mulder, "I knew I should not have left my book here the other night."

"I-I-I," Mulder stammered. "I just wanted to see how awful you made me sound in the book."

"I’m not the one that wrote the book." That time less of the irritation on her face was feigned. However, it was fun to watch Mulder squirm. She knew as well as he did that he was reading the book because he was curious. Who wouldn’t be?

"I know," he paused, thinking of something to say that wouldn’t offend Scully anymore than he already had. "Uh, but you were the one who told Jose Chung what happened.

Scully smiled. "I just told the truth. I can’t help it if he interpreted it differently than I meant it," she replied innocently.

"Couldn’t you at least have helped Jose Chung make up a better alias for me than Reynard Muldrake?! I mean, he could just have written Fox Mulder in English and it would have made all that much difference!"

"Well, not everyone knows French," Scully pointed out. "And I didn’t have any hand in our names in the story either. I wasn’t even allowed to give ideas," she defended herself.

Once he figured he wouldn’t be able to make Scully feel bad about the book, Mulder just kept his mouth shut and pulled the book out from under him and began reading it again. Scully began to walk out of the office, but turned around before she reached the door. "Just return it when you’re done." Scully thought for a moment, and then amended her statement, "On second thought, keep it. I’ll get myself another copy. I know you want your own copy, Muldrake."