textfiles/sf/XFILES/alk1.a

     In the chronology of events in the X-Files Universe, this
story takes place after "Our Town" but before "Anasazi" and is
intended as a "fix" for those of us struggling through this long,
cruel summer.

     DISCLAIMER:  Mulder and Scully are lovingly borrowed from
Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions and no copyright
infringement is intended.  So there. 

     THANKS to:  Gerri, who was kind enough to post this for me;
Tricia, Celtic goddess and editor extraordinaire; Amy, who
cheered me on; and John, story consultant and provider of
mocaccinos.

     Please direct all comments (and I *do* want to hear them!)
to me, the author, at 75271.3116@compuserve.com

                    A Little Knowledge   (1a/7)
                  ****************************
                               by
                          Patti Murphy 

     Had she known what it contained and where it would lead,
Scully would have been even more annoyed with Mulder when he
dropped the computer disk on her desk at quarter to five that
Friday afternoon.  
     "What's this?" she asked, picking up the little blue
diskette.
     "Some light reading for the weekend," Mulder said.
     She frowned at him.  "Mulder," she said.
     "Gotta run, Scully.  There's a guy at the Smithsonian giving
a talk on repressed memory syndrome and alien abductees," he
said, as he threw on his suit jacket.  
     "But we have to finish the field report on the Chaco murders
in Arkansas," she protested.  "Skinner is asking for it."
     "Can't it wait until Monday?" Mulder asked.  He had turned
off his desk lamp and was edging towards the door.
     "Mulder," she said, with increasing menace in her voice.
     "We can whip them off first thing Monday morning, O.K.?"  He
had his trenchcoat in his hands now and she knew she wasn't going
to be able to stop him.  "Have a good weekend, Scully, and take a
look at what's on that disk."
     "Mulder!"
     The door slammed and he was gone.
     She tossed her pen down on the pile of paperwork in front of
her and sighed in frustration.  The disk sat on the edge of her
desk blotter, taunting her.  She looked at her watch and sighed
again.  She needed a weekend off or she was going to lose it
completely.  She fumed silently for a few minutes, then decided
that she was going home.  To hell with it.    
     She got up abruptly, stuffed several files into her
briefcase, got her coat and was at the door when she remembered
the disk.  She went back to her desk, grabbed it and dropped it
in the outside pocket of her briefcase.  She would look at it
later.  Much later.      
     

     Scully tilted her face to the sun and took a deep breath,
soaking up the musky smell of damp earth.  She closed her eyes
and pushed all thoughts of Mulder and work from her mind. 
Nothing but this park and this bench and this intoxicating
sunshine.  It was a spring sort of sunshine, warm and bright, but
still a little tentative, almost as if the sun knew that it might
have to depart suddenly, should the lurking shadows of winter
decide to return.  
     Her mountain bike leaned against the bench where she sat. 
It was the dark green of an MG, the closest she'd ever get to
owning a British sports car on a Department of Justice salary. 
     So far, it had been the perfect weekend.  She'd slept late
and then read the paper on the couch with a second cup of coffee.
She'd met a friend for lunch, then had browsed through
bookstores, returning home in time for a bike ride.  Another day
of this and she might start to feel like herself again.  
     Her legs felt heavy and tired from the cycling.  She hadn't
been exercising very much lately and she could feel the lack of
it.  Working out was always the first thing to go when things got
busy, and she knew she couldn't afford to let that happen.  She
had to stay in shape, if for no other reason than to keep up with
Mulder.  He was a foot taller than she was, and there were days
when Scully was certain that every inch of that foot was in his
legs, because she constantly caught herself running to keep up
with his long stride.  That had happened a lot this week.  They
had been so snowed under with work, and Mulder had been restless
and more disorganized than usual, flitting from one case to
another, throwing out ridiculous and far-fetched theories,
expecting her to race along behind him, holding everything
together, keeping Skinner at bay with her field reports.  
     She realized she was clenching her jaw.  She took a deep
breath, let it out slowly.  She wasn't going to think about work. 
     A man in spandex bicycle shorts lurched by on roller blades.
He started to teeter dangerously right in front of the bench
where she sat, and Scully reflexively stuck out an arm to catch
him.  At the last moment, in defiance of several laws of physics,
he regained his balance and righted himself.  Their eyes met and
the man blushed a deep crimson.  He was tall and lanky, but not
in a gangly sort of way, and Scully guessed that he was about her
age.  His eyes were the gentle blue of the ocean on a calm day. 
He was smiling at her now, with that look that people get when
they see something that they like.  Scully couldn't remember the
last time she'd seen that look in someone's eyes.
     "Good thing I bought the helmet, too," he said, still
blushing.  "I think I'm going to need it."
     Scully smiled at him, wondering if the dark tint of her
sunglasses would disguise the movement of her eyes enough for her
to check out his legs.  Probably not.  "That was a nice
recovery," she said aloud.
     He laughed a bit, looked down at his roller blades.  When he
looked up, his eyes moved up her body in a shy little glance. 
When they reached her face, his smile was even wider, the
admiration evident now.  "You ever try these?" he asked.
     She shook her head.  "I don't like stitches much," she said.
     His laugh was genuine and lit up his face.  For a few
moments, he stood there, smiling and looking at her.  Finally, he
whipped off a glove and stuck out his hand.  "I'm Peter," he
said.
     Scully took his hand.  Firm grip, not too firm, warm soft
skin.  He had a lot of freckles.  "Dana," she said.
     "Dana," he repeated, and he looked at her as if he was
memorizing her face.  He released her hand, straightened up, and
looked around the park, searching for the next right thing to
say.  His eyes stopped on her bicycle.  "Your bike looks new. 
Are you just breaking it in?"
     "I've had it for a while, actually," she heard herself say. 
"I don't ride it very often."  Ask him something, she thought,
anything.  Just keep him talking.
     He looked toward the playground, and she could see that he
was scrambling to think of something to say, too.  A little
pause, his gaze lingering on the parents pushing children on the
swings and then he was putting his glove back on.
     "Well, it was nice meeting you, Dana," he said.  "Maybe
we'll run into each other again."  
     She nodded.  "Yeah, maybe we will."
     He gave her a last smile then turned and rolled off down the
asphalt bike path.  Scully watched him skate away, until he was
out of sight, then sighed and shook her head.
     "I've got to get a life," she said out loud as she wearily
got to her feet.


     The lunch hour racket in the deli was louder than usual.  Or
maybe it was just her damn headache.  It was the third headache
of the week -- actually it was the third day of the headache that
had started on Monday morning -- and she didn't need to be a
doctor to figure out what the cause was.  The cause was standing
at the counter ordering their sandwiches, his usual mild
expression in place.
     Scully massaged her temples, trying to loosen the half-
nelson of pain around her head.  Mulder must have sensed how
close she was to throttling him this morning because he had
stopped in the middle of a very technical explanation of genital
excision in cattle mutilations and had said: "Hey, Scully, how
about lunch?  My treat."  This was remarkable because when he was
on a case, Mulder often lost sight of such trivial matters as
meals.  But it was all the more remarkable because as far as
Scully knew, Mulder never had any money with him.  There was only
one explanation for such unusual behaviour -- she must look as
lousy as she felt, bad enough for him to notice and be worried. 
Great.  Now he'd start to hover.
     She reached for her briefcase, started fishing through it
for the bottle of Advil that she always kept there.  She groped
around, headache thudding against her forehead with each
heartbeat, and tried to calculate how many of those little brown
pills she'd taken since Monday.  She was up to fourteen before
she located the bottle. Her medical training kicked in and she
remembered all the harmful effects of such a high dose of
ibuprofen.  She quickly concluded that none of the side effects
could be as bad as this headache, and besides, she had too much
work to do. She popped two pills into her mouth and swallowed.
     As usual, they had ended up at Mulder's favourite lunch
place, a cramped, noisy little deli with rickety tables and faded
photos of D.C.'s various sports teams in frames that were bolted 
to the walls.  Scully always felt like she should wipe off the
chair before she sat down, but Mulder had strong-armed her into
going there, and she had capitulated without much of a fight. Her
head hurt too much to argue and after all, he was paying.   
     She checked to see where Mulder was in line -- maybe food
would help.  He was at the counter now, standing there with his
hands in his pockets, staring off into space, no doubt thinking
up some outrageous theory to torment her with.  Deep down, she
knew that he didn't do it on purpose.  It was just the way he
was.  But it got so frustrating sometimes, chasing after him,
reigning him in, trying to reason with him while he made
ridiculous leaps of logic, like an acrobat taking a sharp turn
off the high wire.  She smiled a bit at the image of Mulder in
free fall.  That's what she was...Mulder's net.  And lately,
something about that rankled.
     She rubbed her forehead wearily.  Better not to think about
it right now.  It was going to be a long enough day without
adding psychoanalysis to the agenda.  She pulled a file from her
briefcase, flipped it open and tried to concentrate around her
headache.  She had struggled through the same paragraph twice
when suddenly Mulder was at the table, hands full of paper-
wrapped sandwiches and drinks.
     "Turkey on whole wheat, mayo on the side, and grapefruit
juice," he said, putting the appropriate items in front of her. 
"You didn't specify so I had them toss on some sprouty things,
too."  He ripped open a bag of potato chips with his teeth as he
seated himself at the tiny table.
     Scully slid the papers back into the folder and returned
them to her briefcase.  By the time she had unwrapped her
sandwich, Mulder had cracked open his soda and was washing down a
mouthful of pastrami on rye.  She glanced at his lunch and fought
the urge to roll her eyes.
     "Didn't they ever teach you about the food groups, Mulder?"
she asked.
     "I must have been sick that day."  He popped another chip in
his mouth, watched her fuss with her sandwich.  "Do you want your
pickle?"
     Scully shook her head as she chewed and motioned for him to
take it.  They ate in silence for a few moments.
     "Did you have a chance to look at the files on that disk I
gave you Friday?" he asked.  Scully noticed how much attention he
was paying to rebuilding his sandwich which had collapsed in his
hands after the last bite.  She also heard the studied casualness
in his voice and wondered what exactly she was being set up for.
     "There were over five hundred," she replied.  "I read about
fifty of them." 
     "And?" he asked.
     "And..." She dragged the syllable out.  "I don't know what I
was supposed to be looking for.  They looked like a random sample
of medical files of people who had died around 1970."
     "You didn't find anything suspicious?"
     She shook her head, sipped her juice.  "Was I supposed to?"
     Mulder chewed thoughtfully for a moment.  "I couldn't find
anything unusual, either," he said, after he'd swallowed.
     "Wait a minute.  I don't get it," Scully said.  "If there's
nothing unusual in these files, why do we have them?"
     "That's what we need to find out."  He was concentrating too
hard on his sandwich.  Scully suddenly saw the missing piece.  An
eyebrow lifted.
     "Mulder, where did you get those files?"
     Mulder took a swig of soda, then methodically wiped his
hands with a paper napkin.  "My anonymous contact gave them to
me."
     She put her sandwich down and sat back in her chair, arms
crossed.  "Your new Deep Throat contact?" she asked.  Mulder
nodded, nibbling tentatively at his sandwich, watching the storm
clouds gather in his partner's face.  "The same man who knew what
kind of danger you were in, but refused to help me find you when
you were alone and injured on a polar ice cap?"  Mulder noticed
again how her eyes cooled to a pale grey when she was angry.  He
considered mentioning it, then decided it was probably not the
best time.  He gulped down some more soda and continued eating. 
When he didn't respond, she said, "You could have died, Mulder
and he was going to let you."  There were sharp edges to every
word.
     "He wouldn't have given me these files if they weren't
important," Mulder said.
     She leaned forward, pale eyes ablaze.  "Do you remember the
last time a contact of yours handed you a tip like this, with
nothing to go on?  Do you remember Purity Control, Mulder?"  
     He met her gaze, then lowered his eyes, nodding
imperceptibly.  When he looked up again, his expression was
stony, unreadable.  "My contact died for giving us Purity
Control," he said.
     "And nearly took you with him," she said,  "and lied to you
at least once before, that we know of."
     "He was in a very delicate position, Scully."
     "Delicate position?  The man admits that he manipulated you,
nearly gets you killed and you're worried about his delicate
position?"  Mulder started to speak, then quickly shut his mouth. 
They sat in charged silence for a few moments.  "O.K., O.K.," she
said tersely, raising a hand to signal a truce.  She sighed
heavily and ran her hand across her forehead and through her
hair.  If only her head would explode and get it over with.  She
regarded Mulder for a few seconds.  "Did it ever occur to you,"
she said, "that this Mr. X, whoever he is, might really be
playing for the other side?"
     A suggestion of a smile rested on Mulder's lips.  "And you
call me paranoid?"
     "Dammit Mulder, I'm serious," she said, slamming her hand on
the table.  Her bottle of juice jumped.
     "He's an anonymous informant, Scully.  He risks exposing     
himself every time he passes something on to me.  It's not like I
can ask him for letters of reference."
     She closed her eyes and leaned forward, letting her head
rest on the palms of her hands.  The noise in the deli closed in
around her, made her feel dizzy.
     "I can't just walk away every time things might get
dangerous," he said.
     "You know that's not what I'm saying," she said.
     "Then what are you saying, Scully?  What do you want me to
do?"  Impatience and anger mingled in his voice.
     She lifted her head, slowly, opened her eyes and gave him an
icy look.  "I want you to be careful, Mulder, because one of
these days, I'm not going to be there to catch you," she said. 
She reached for her briefcase and got to her feet.  "I have
things to do.  I'll see you later."  She strode off before he
could reply, making her way through the crowded tables, toward
the door.  She knew that by the time she reached the sidewalk,
she would feel like an idiot for behaving this way, but she
didn't care.  At that precise moment, all that mattered was a
deep breath of fresh air and getting away from Mulder.
     She had a hand on the door and was pushing it open when she
heard her name being called over the noise.  A strange voice, not
Mulder.  She turned instinctively and looked up into a hopeful
smile.
     "I'm not sure if you remember me..." Soft blue eyes.  The
park.  Roller blade guy.  She remembered.  "We met at the park
the other day," he continued, "uh,...on the weekend?  I'm..."
     "Peter."  She spoke it before she could stop herself.
     He exhaled audibly, looking relieved as he nodded. She
shifted her briefcase to shake hands with him.
     "I didn't know if you'd recognize me without the helmet," he
said.
     Scully felt herself smile, despite the flush of anger that
still coloured her cheeks.  She took a deep breath to steady
herself.
     "Is everything all right?" he asked.  "You look a little
upset."
     "Oh, I'm fine, really," she said.  There was something about
his eyes, a gentleness that drew her in, made her want to stand
there and just look at him.  She took in his dark suit, tasteful
tie, mentally trying to change gears.  "Do you work around here?"
she asked.
     "I'm a reporter, for the Post," he replied.  "I'm on the
hill today, doing some research for a story.  How about you?"
     "I'm with the Bureau," she said, waving her hand in the
general direction of Pennsylvania and Ninth. 
     "Wow.  I'll bet that's a lot more interesting than reading
bills about lobster quotas, which is what I spent the morning
doing," he said.
     "Oh, it's interesting," she said.  She thought about Mulder
sitting back at the table.  "Some days it's a little too
interesting, actually."
     "I suppose you're on your way back to work," he said. "Lots
of bad guys to catch?"
     She smiled.  "And never enough time.  You know how it is."
     He stood there, smiling down at her, clearly enjoying what
he was seeing.  Scully suddenly wondered what it would feel like
to have his arms around her.  She drifted on that thought for a
moment, until she realized that he was saying something.
     "I guess I should be getting back, too.  You never know when
there might be important lobster news breaking, and if I wasn't
there to cover it, I could miss out on my shot at the Pulitzer."
     "It was nice running into you again," Scully said.          
"Look, if you're not able to, I understand," he said, "but,...I'm
going to kick myself later if I don't ask....Do you think we
could have lunch together sometime?"  He looked more than a
little nervous.
     "I'd like that," she said.
     He brightened.  "How about tomorrow?"
     "Sounds good."
     They made arrangements to meet and exchanged cards out on
the sidewalk.  His card declared him to be Peter O'Hara, reporter
for the Washington Post.
     "Well, you'd better get back to those bad guys," he said,
with a grin.
     "And you'd better get back to those lobsters."
     His grin blossomed into a smile.  "I'm glad we bumped into
each other again."
     "Me, too.  I'll see you tomorrow."
     "Bye."
     Scully had walked two blocks before she realized that her
headache was beginning to feel better.

cont.