TITLE: STING AUTHOR: JourneyToX@aol.com RATING: R, for UST, no action, some naughty talk, naughty thoughts. SPOILERS: None TIME: Pre Xfiles. CATEGORY: Humor. And......oh you people know what I write! Say it together with me: "Skinner!" FEEDBACK: All goofiness aside, I'm always so delighted to hear from you! I look forward to it! SUMMARY: Scully and Skinner. 1980. With a little help from my friends. AUTHOR'S NOTES: I said I'd never write an X-Files fanfic in which the world of fanfic became part of the story. I said I'd never write a pre-XF fanfic where the characters met long ago. Never name the well from which you will not drink. There are inside jokes, silliness, and, to add piquancy to the dish, just a mild bit of snarkiness in this. You'll enjoy it if you don't get the jokes or the snarks, I think. I hope. Give it a try! If you hate it, you get to close it and snark about me, or even flame me. THANKS TO: Liz Ann, for straightening me out and for being herself, Alanna for inspiration and beta, the Once and Future Debbilmice for being super, and Gordon Sumner for oh, that rhythm. DISCLAIMER: Skinner and Scully belong to Chris, Mitch, Gillian, and various entities created by lawyers on paper. Other "characters" in here belong only to their good selves. I belong to Skinner. Suing me won't get you my new car, no matter how you try. Nanananabooboo. ----------------------------------------------------------- Sacred Heart Catholic Girl's Academy San Diego, California April, 1980 Study hall sucked. It was a very warm spring day, the breeze through the still winter-smudged windows only serving to carry the scent of old books, and bored Catholic girls, more swiftly to Dana Scully's freckled nose. She closed her Einstein text with a barely muffled, exceedingly bored sigh. She flicked her blue eyes right, expecting the vigilant glare of Sister Laura. Sister Laura was devouring Roget's Thesaurus, scribbling notes furiously. A small, sweet, yet sour, smelling packet slid across the scuffed library table toward her. She looked up to meet the merry eyes of her friend, Liz Ann. Silently, she smiled and took the offered treat. Her pretty pink mouth puckered. "Sour Patch Kids," Liz Ann said, sotto voce. "I don't like the green ones. You're welcome." Dana's lips curled from a pucker to a smile as she grew to like the sour, limey taste in her mouth. Sort of like a sip of margarita she had swiped from her mother's glass at that party for the Admiral. "Pssssst," whispered their tall, mischievous, classmate, Te, showing her book to Liz Ann. "Did you know Walt Whitman was, like, gay? Or bi?" "No, do tell!" squeaked Liz Ann, sidling closer to Te. "Hmph!" snorted Kim, from Liz Ann's other side. "There are laws about that. Probably unconstitutional." She arched her eyebrow loftily and returned to her biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Clarice Celestina, sitting next to Dana, popped her gum quietly and said, "That could be hot. Two guys. If one of `em is Sean." A haze of lust crossed her Irish features. "Pendrell, Pendrell, Pendrell," complained Sheare, flipping the pages of her computer science text. "What can I say? I'll loooooove him forever. To death. Even past!" CiCi vowed. Sheare shrugged, then conceded, "Well, if one guy is hot, two guys are hotter." "Hey, I'd jump in the middle of that," said Kim, thoroughly distracted from Justice Holmes. "Aren't there laws about that too?" asked Liz Ann. "Law, schmaw!" Kim said, opening her book bag, then slipping a copy of "Splash!" by hot new author, Frills Galore, into her Holmes biography. Dana sighed again, and looked out the window. Men. A mysterious, almost alien race, that walked the planet with her. In the last year she had grown out of giggling girliness and adopted a quietness about, and around men. Only she knew that under the silence was a smoulder. But, perhaps, it burned out. She saw the looks they gave her, the enlisted men sidling closer to her, licking their lips, then shying back when they realized she got her red hair and blue eyes from Captain Scully and that they'd rather not spend the rest of their lives without genitalia. Dana knew that the arch of her eyebrows and the tilt of her mouth would work a certain magic on men. She had a scientific mind, observing, analytically, her environment, and even herself. This problem of men, she thought, would take some careful study. The windows of Sacred Heart looked out upon St. Thomas Aquinas, and she rolled her eyes thinking about the mass of pimply, gangly boys, reeking of testosterone yet lacking the sweet sweat of experience, at the brother school next door. Not a man to be found there. Just boys. The half-hour bell rang, and several girls left the library, as others entered. The group with Dana stayed put, having another thirty minutes of study hall, but they were joined by Dasha, plunking down a frightening Russian text, and Alanna, who dropped her battered copy of the collected plays of Tom Stoppard. "What's up, women?" Dasha asked. "Funny you should ask, Dasha. I have my notes right here," said CiCi, pulling out a reporter's tablet full of furious scribbles. "Do you write that in acid?" Sheare asked. "I'll never tell," CiCi said, scowling. "Student gossip, nun gossip, or teacher gossip?" asked Alanna. "Gotta be teacher gossip," Te said. "They, at least, have sex lives." "Points to Ms. Te. It's teacher gossip. Now, if you'll hush," said CiCi, then cleared her throat. "Item One: What Substitute Teacher....isn't?" Shoulders lifted in shrugs, eyebrows lifted in puzzlement, all around the study hall table. "Huh?" everyone said. "You have to be talking about Mr. Skinner," Dana said, always first with analysis. "Bingo! A slice of lemon cake to Ms. Scully!" CiCi said, laughing. Everyone around the table sighed in contemplation of Mr. Skinner, their substitute civics teacher, musing on his tall, perfect body, his brown eyes, his rich voice, the way he'd rest his big hands on his hips while lecturing. He was 28, wore no wedding band, and attendance at confession for naughty thoughts and deeds had never been higher. Study hall became more, suddenly, palpably, more humid. "He is not a regular substitute teacher, ladies. He's here for another purpose altogether," CiCi whispered, gathering the group of teenage girls closer around her with every syllable. "He's here to teach us all about sex," breathed Kim, hopefully. "First hand!" Sheare said, hopefully. "I want more than the hand!" Liz Ann said, hopefully. "Maybe he'll drug us...." said Dasha, hopefully. "Or force feed us vodka.." "Tie us up...." said Te, hopefully. "Take us away...." said Alanna, hopefully. "To somewhere exotic. London. Paris. Anaheim." "No, no, no!" said Cici, impatiently. "It's not that. It's....." "Girls!" came the shrill, yet nasal, voice of Sister Laura. With audible moans, they shifted from CiCi into a semblance of order, rolling eyes at the incomprehensible lecture sure to be coming from Sister Laura. She didn't disappoint. "While it would be a logical fallacy to assume this discussion has evolved to a pathogenic level, and I will morally grant you the presumption of benignity, I must insist that your...your...devilish discussion be carried out at another place or time. You're squeaking like a lot of mice, there, ladies, and I don't tolerate rodentia!" "Translation: `shut the fuck up!'" said CiCi, quietly. Catholic schoolgirl faces turned quite red, and snickers and snorts were muffled in Catholic schoolgirl hands, sweaters, or book bags. "Sister Laura!" said an eager voice behind CiCi. Everyone scowled her way. They might be mice, but nobody liked a rat. "Sister Laura! CiCi said..... `fuck'," said the Rat. Sister Laura said "Up with this I shall not put!" and motioned for CiCi to stand, rise, and go with her to receive her punishment. "Not Mother Superior's office again!" Te said, in horror. "Where do you think I get all my good information?" CiCi said, shrugging nonchalantly, and gathering her books and handbag. "By the way, I didn't draw that picture of you and the janitor," said CiCi to the Rat. "If I had, I would've put zits on your ass!" CiCi exited with dignity, and high-fives to her friends. The Rat was hissed at. "I wonder what she knew about Mr. Skinner." Kim wondered aloud, with a sigh. Study hall passed more slowly after that, each minute seeming to drag out while pages were turned, notes taken, and the thoughts of Catholic schoolgirls were far, far away. Finally the bell rang, and it was time for civics class. Te pocketed the volume of Walt Whitman, Liz Ann pocketed the Sour Patch Kids wrapper, Kim pocketed, reluctantly, "Splash!" which was just getting good, and Sheare moped about missing CiCi. Dasha and Alanna had to stay for thirty more minutes of study hall. Nobody paid any attention to The Rat. There was just enough time for Dana and the girls to make a dash to the restroom before classtime. "Yo, what is that color, Maybelline? Cherry Tart Red?" Kim asked Liz Ann, who was applying a shade not known in nature to her cheekbones. "Shut up before I get out my can of whup ass!" Liz Ann warned, shoving Kim over out of the mirror, causing a small Revlon disaster to the lower half of Kim's face. Te loomed over everyone, fussing with her hair, and Dana claimed the lower part of the mirror, putting on clear lip gloss. Behind them, Sheare spritzed some Charlie! CiCi dashed into the bathroom, with only enough time to wash eraser dust from her hands and face, and make a serious adjustment to her bra, before it was time to dash to class. They were ready to do battle. Sacred Heart would make a fine showing in this skirmish between the sexes. Walter Skinner was, although he didn't yet know it, toast. --------- Proceed to Part The Second, in which Dana and Friends Learn The Power of The Written Word *~*~*~*~*~* JourneytoX@aol.com, BYFP, not BOFQ MORE Skinner, Save Spender, Can Kersh, Flush Fowley. "God Bless America! Now get your asses out of here!" 1939!Skinner, Triangle "Oh yeahhhh!" Mitch Pileggi, Season 3 Gag Reels. :-) ~*~*~*~*~ From journeytox@aol.com Sun Mar 7 11:47:08 1999 Date: 28 Jan 1999 23:35:34 GMT From: JourneyToX Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: "Sting" by JourneyToX 2/2 [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] STING a sort of X-Files fanfic by JourneyToX@aol.com Part the Second Disclaimers and such in Part One. ----------------- "Glad you could join us, ladies," Mr. Skinner said, scowling. Dana decided that no matter how much she saw his scowl, she would always like it. Dana's friends hurried into their seats. As Sheare took her seat, toward the front of class, Mr. Skinner handed her a stack of handouts. "Today's lecture is on Executive branch of government, focusing on the Department of Justice. Uh, Miss Bliss, you're not supposed to keep all of those. Please pass them out to the class." Sheare stood, twirled on one foot to face the back of the room, and gracefully passed out the papers to her classmates. There was, during her twirl, an unfortunate moment in which everyone knew that Sheare wore day-of-the-week panties, and also wore the wrong day. When she crossed the front of the room, Mr. Skinner was heard to sniff and cough softly. Sheare paid him no mind. Dana stifled a giggle. When Sheare reached Dana she leaned down and whispered, "Did you hear how he said `Miss *Bliss*'? Hmmm?" The warm spring day's fragrances and Sheare's cologne conspired to tickle Dana's nose and she fought, but lost, against a mighty sneeze. And another. Dana cringed in mortification at her rather messy hands and nose. Even if she were going to be a doctor, she'd never get used to snot. Maybe she'd get non-snotty patients. Mr. Skinner, pacing through the classroom while giving his lecture, never paused a beat while taking the box of tissues from a shelf and handing the box to Dana. She felt like she'd won the Kentucky Derby. After a delicate honk of her nose into the tissues, she looked up to find CiCi, Sheare, Te and Kim, all staring with a distinctive tinge of green jealousy to their faces. Dana smiled smugly. "Who knows who heads up the Department of Justice?" Mr. Skinner asked to the class at large. Kim put up her hand nonchalantly. Skinner nodded at her. "The Attorney General, sir," she said. "Edwin Meece." "Well done," Skinner nodded, and continued with his lecture. The room grew crowded while Kim's head swelled. CiCi rolled her eyes. Her forehead seemed damp with perspiration. She unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse, fanning it out from her chest, feeling the slight coolness wash over her. She was doing this vigorously until she noticed that Mr. Skinner was standing right beside her, quite silent, quite still. He looked down, then swiftly, back up, cleared his throat, and continued with the Department of Justice. CiCi mugged a face back to Dana. Eyebrows were lifted all over the room. Te was getting a cramp in her tall frame from the uncomfortable schoolroom seating. She stretched first one, then the other, of her long, long legs out into the aisle, but not before hitching up her very Catholic schoolgirl plaid skirt just a bit. She paid no attention to the lecture and doodled. A man, rather like Walter Skinner in the embrace of a man, quite like Walt Whitman. Mr. Skinner nearly stumbled in the aisle over Te. Again, he paused in his lecture, looked up swiftly, then resumed. This time he beat a hasty retreat to the front of the classroom. There, he stood by his desk and removed his coat jacket, placing it over his desk chair. That did it. There was a discreet sound of notebook paper being ripped from a spiral. Dana knew what was coming next. Clearly some, if not all, of her friends had destinies as writers. Reams of folded pages of scribbles, crammed in coats, bags, and lockers, were testament to their prolific ways. Sure enough, she found a folded piece of lined paper slipped from Kim's right hand to Dana's left hand, while Mr. Skinner's back was turned to the chalkboard. "Oh my God. Look at his shoulders! And his BUTT!" said the note, in Kim's big, precise printing. "His gluteus maximii are most well-developed," wrote Dana, handing the note back. "Pssst!" hissed CiCi, with a furious nod at the note. Kim handed it to her. CiCi read, nodded, then furiously scribbled, handing it back to Kim. "He's a hotty. I don't care if he is losing his hair!" CiCi had written. Kim wiped away drool and wrote again. When she had finished, this time it was Dana's turn to hiss for the note. "I bet he's got hair other places! Like his chest. Yum. Yum." Dana stifled a giggle by turning her face into her shoulder, then noted Liz Ann was trying to catch her eye. "I love his mouth. Even when he frowns. His mouth is kissable!!!" Scully wrote, then passed the note to Liz Ann. Snorts and snerks were heard from Liz Ann for long moments. Dana sighed. Liz Ann had always been audible in her appreciation of humor. And men. Skinner stopped his lecture and turned to Liz Ann silently. "Problem?" Liz Ann shook her head, then feigned a few delicate coughs. Skinner shook his head very slightly and returned to writing on the chalkboard. As soon as his back was turned, Liz Ann pulled out a purple pen and wrote on the note. By this time, Te was leaning up slightly in her chair, towering over the small Liz Ann, and reading over her shoulder. The note went to Te next. "Damn! I want his hot monkey love!" Liz Ann's pretty cursive was marred by triple-underlining of the words "hot" "monkey" and "love". "I wonder if he reads Whitman. I could sing his body electric!" Te added to the note before sending it back to Dana. At the chalkboard, Mr. Skinner's hand pressure broke the chalk he was using cleanly in two in his hand, sending one piece falling to the floor. He grumbled, then bent to pick it up, pants stretched tight over his behind, then quietly continued writing about the United States Supreme Court. CiCi and Kim swooned and flopped on their desks, Te stifled a moan, Liz Ann gulped, Sheare wriggled and Dana began to sweat. "I'm going to have to go to confession!" Dana wrote, then tossed the note under Kim's semi-conscious nose. Kim roused herself, read all the offerings, then simply added, "If it's a sin, let me burn." She winked naughtily at her friends as she passed the note on to CiCi. "If I'm going to go to hell, I'm going to go for *doing it* not just thinking about it!!!" wrote CiCi. Dana's eyes popped out when she saw that, and added "How the heck are you going to do that?" Liz Ann demanded the note, read, stifling snorts, then wrote, "I don't know how you're going to do it, but if you do, I want pictures!" Te snatched the note from her hands, read it, agog, then added her own thoughts. Sheare, seated just a bit away from the others, by now had caught on to the fervent writing in the back of the room. She snapped her fingers and Te sent the note sailing, perfectly, into her palm. "I wonder if he likes to be tied up?" Te had written. Sheare fanned herself, wrote, and lobbed the note back to Liz Ann, missed, and hit Kim. "You goofs are missing the POINT and let me tell you you ought to be able to SEE the POINT even from in the back of the room. Look in his pants!" "Good Golly! What's he got in there? A rolled up telephone book?" Kim wrote, in amazement, mutely handing the note to CiCi. "Let your fingers do the walking!" wrote CiCi, passing the note swiftly to Dana, who read it, shaking until. . . . Walter Skinner's shadow loomed over Dana Scully. She looked down, saw his feet, planted apart, beside her desk. She looked up, and up, and up, until she saw his brown eyes staring her down. "I do believe you're passing notes, Miss Scully," he said, calmly and quietly. "Uh, no, well, uh...." she sputtered, hardly able to speak. "You wouldn't be lying to me, would you, Miss Scully?" he asked. "No sir, uh, no, well, yes," she said, quivering. She knew she was betraying her terror with her quaking, but it she was helpless to stop it. Mr. Skinner, however, was as tall and immovable as a sequoia. She tried, with the slightest motion of her hand, to shove the evidence under her notebook. No such doing. Walter Skinner's hand came down, swiftly, and firmly, over her own. "Please stand, proceed to the front of the class, and read the note aloud for all to hear." Mr. Skinner ordered, in an even tone of voice, hand still over hers, breath in her ear. "I will not whimper!" she thought to herself so loudly she thought she had said it aloud. Dana Scully would *not* whimper in front of this man. She would *not*. She might be 16, and he 28, she might be a schoolgirl and he a teacher, but damnit, she was Bill and Maggie Scully's daughter, a smart young woman, and *not* a whimperer. Slowly, she stood, and with her posture that made her seem Skinner's own 6'2", she walked to the front of the class. Unbidden, unwanted, uninvited, unmanageable, one thought went from her mind, through her heart, down to her awakening, secret places. Or perhaps it started there and worked its way up. In either case, she could not stop thinking it, a million times over, in the short time it took her to walk to the front of the class and turn. "I could whimper. Oh I could. When you put your mouth on me. Your hands on me. When you strip me naked, throw me over your desk, and put yourself in me, as I'm whimpering, begging you to do. And then, Mr. Skinner, then I could make *you* whimper." A girl, Dana Scully, had been caught with a note. But someone different, just the beginnings of a woman, Dana Scully, turned, faced Walter Skinner and began to read aloud, in a clear, steady voice. "Oh my God. Look at his shoulders. And his butt. His gluteus maximii are most well-developed. He's a hotty. I don't care if he is losing his hair. I bet he's got hair other places. Like his chest. Yum. Yum. I love his mouth. Even when he frowns...." "MISTER SKINNER!" At the sound of the nasal shriek from the door, Walter Skinner gathered enough muscular control to close his jaw, surprised he could hinge it back into its socket, and turned to find Sister Laura staring at him. "I came to advise you there's an urgent telephone call for you, Mr. Skinner. I think I arrived just in time!" Sister Laura said, menacingly. "Uh, I'll go take that phone call. Uh, you can deal with this, can't you, Sister Laura?" he asked, turning red and walking out swiftly. "Be assured I have both the perspicacity and moral suasion to deal out swift justice here!" Sister Laura said, glaring at Dana. "Shit!" said CiCi. "Sister Laura," whined the Rat. "CiCi said `shit'!" "Here comes my can of whup ass!" said Liz Ann, to the Rat. Dana Scully sighed. ------------- In the back row of pews, of the quiet, solemn church five Catholic schoolgirls sat, a decorous distance apart, fidgeting and waiting. There had been no movement of the door to the confessional opening for many minutes. "What the heck is taking her so long?" CiCi complained. At that moment, Kim exited the confessional, looking dry mouthed. "What took forever?" Sheare asked, standing for her turn next. "I figured I go ahead and get it off my chest about Harrison Ford, too. And Sting." Kim shrugged. "Lot off your chest!" Liz Ann said. "At least I didn't have to confess thinking about all three of them at one time and.....oh wait!" Kim said, blushing and turning back to confessional. Sheare pushed Kim down into the pew, saying "Save it!" then entered the confessional. CiCi sighed and blew her bangs out of her face. "Anyone bring snacks? This'll take awhile." Liz Ann produced Sour Patch Kids from her pocket, and even shared the red ones with Te. CiCi said, "Oh well, I figure this isn't the first time I'll get in trouble about men in my life. I imagine this is just a warm-up for what I'll have to tell Father Frank about Sean Pendrell." "Enough with Pendrell!" Kim said. CiCi gave Kim a Bronx cheer, which sounded, somehow, wrong, and settled back in the pew for a nap. Dana Scully had said nothing during all this, and observed it only as from a distance. Even here, among the holy statues and candles, the altar and the stained glass, the cross and the Virgin, she could not drive thoughts from her mind. << She shivered in the cold spring rain, blowing off the Pacific in sheets, at a bus-stop. It was growing late, and dark, as the wind whipped her cold hair into her face. Car after car passed, sending up sheets of water to soak her already drenched ankles and feet, yet no bus came. The cold wet was eating away at her, paralyzing her, darkening her vision. A shiny blue Ford Taurus pulled up next to the curb, and the window rolled down. It was him. "Miss Scully, this is terrible weather. When is your bus coming?" he asked, kindly. "I missed one fifteen minutes ago. There's another in fifteen minutes," she said. "Scully, get in the car," he said, command in his voice. She did. It was warm, and dry. Involuntarily she gave way to the shivers she had fought, hearing her teeth chatter even though the heater blasted warmth onto her. It wasn't enough. She was cold to the bone, whipped by stinging shoots of icy pain through her small frame. "Take your coat off," he commanded. Her hands tried to follow his order, but trembled too much - from cold, from his presence? - to obey. She found his hands at her buttons and sash, doing what she could not, swiftly and efficiently. When he tugged at her coat, she lifted her bottom from the seat and allowed him to pull it away from her. He shrugged off his own topcoat off and placed it over her, immediately soothing her with his body warmth trapped in its layers, and its dry, comforting thickness. She felt the heat steal up from the vents blowing onto the floorboard to bring life back into her frozen drenched feet. Yet still, she trembled. She felt a finger lift wet hair out of her eyes, and then warm hands smooth across her forehead. "You're feverish," he said. "No. Cold. Still so cold," she said, whispering barely louder than the chatter of her teeth. He was sliding across the car seat, he was pulling her close to him, he was wrapping his strong arms around her. He was pulling her close, so burning close, to his face, he was putting his hands, so burning soft, on either side of her head. He was breathing on her, so burning sweet, then brushing his lips, so burning firm, wet, hot, strong, his, over her mouth, pressing, kissing, claiming, branding. A man's kiss, burning through her mouth, down her throat, through to the startled, needy flesh she was told to think of as a sin, but knew now, knew certainly, was beautiful, and magical. She opened her mouth to him, joining fire to fire, hearing the beat of his heart and the beat of the rain against the car. ....>> "Dana, are you coming to confession, my child?" said Father Frank. ----------------- The Next Day Dana Scully hurried across the school parking lot, on her way the science labs, which were, unfairly, all over at St. Thomas's Boys School. This meant she had to give up half her lunch break, which had been filled with the gossip that Mr. Skinner would no longer be teaching at school. She thought Kim was going to have a nervous breakdown from moping. To her surprise, she glanced left, and he stood, lifting a box of papers and equipment, into the trunk of a blue Ford Taurus. Just like her dream. "Mr. Skinner?" she asked, hardly believing her nerve in speaking to him again. He turned to her, shot an eyebrow up, and waited for her to continue. "Are you having to leave because we got you in trouble? If so, I'm very sorry. I know we all are," she said. "It was..... girlish silliness. I'm not usually like that." "It's not that at all, Miss Scully," he said, meeting her eyes without shyness. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a black leather wallet and opened it to her. "Special Agent Walter Skinner, San Diego office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said. Dana stood, shocked, but not shocked. Her intuition had told her as much, without words. "My undercover work at this school was successfully completed yesterday. It was a sting operation. There was a group of men preying on the young women of this school, planting hidden cameras and taking pictures of the students when indisposed. The shower, the bathroom, and, for the girls who room here, their dormitory rooms. I had to find my way into their confidence about what they've been doing in this school. These men have been caught, the evidence has been seized, and they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." "They got....pictures...of us?" Scully said, shivering with a feeling of violation. "We seized all the pictures, Miss Scully, and they will be handled as court evidence, sealed away, and never thought of again. They will not see the light of day. None of the girls here, your friends, will be hurt by this crime. This matter is over. You can put it out of your mind. I promise you that." Dana Scully nodded, grateful and, proud that such a man was working for their protection, proud and grateful that she was being treated as an adult by his statements. He stood and regarded her for a moment, then turned to the driver's door of his Taurus. With his hand on the door handle, he turned to her. "Some things just shouldn't be seen by the wrong people, wouldn't you say, Miss Scully?" he said. He smiled at her, a revelation of white teeth and smile crinkles in his tanned face. With that, he closed the door, started the car and was gone. Dana Scully took a moment to remember where she was and what she was doing. Oh yes, physics lab. Neutrons, quarks, particles called `charm'. Then she would meet with Dasha to study English homework. She had to remember to return Dasha's book to her. That book by Nabokov. As she walked away from Walter Skinner's car, she did not, could not, see that he patted, in his suit pocket, a rather interesting note, torn from a spiral, written in several different, eager hands. Including Dana Scully's. ----------------------- THE END. Are you reaching for your old Police CD? I hope you enjoyed that. I had fun writing it, it was meant as fun, and it would be great fun to hear from you, dear reader. I'm JourneyToX@aol.com. Yes, a sequel is planned.