Showdown, Pt. 14: 'When Soap Opera Clichés Run Amok'
by Robin

Alex Krycek moaned and then lay still. Everything hurt like hell, except his legs, which seemed curiously absent. A layer of plaster dust covered his features like face powder on the Queen Mother. Annoyed, he spat dryly and pushed himself up on one elbow, blinking and looking about. There were flashing lights and sirens. Emergency crewmen were climbing around in the rubble, taking inventory of the prostrate bodies.
"Here?s one of ours!" a paramedic shouted, pointing to Maria who appeared to be conducting mouth-to-?mouth-to-?well, SOME kind of resuscitation on the unconscious form of AD Skinner.
"No!" she screamed as they dragged her off and strapped her to a gurney. "No! ? I?m not finished?" The rest of her complaint was lost in the wail of a siren as all 12 of the rescue team leapt onto the ambulance with her and sped off.
"Hey!" Krycek called weakly, raising a hand. "Hey!! Injured people here!" But they were gone. He cursed deep and long, making full use of every Russian epithet at his disposal. He was about to make a second tour of the juicier descriptions of people?s mothers when he heard a soft moan to his left. He craned his neck, wondering why he couldn?t make his legs move and spied Scully pushing her way out from under the remains of Mulder?s couch. Seeing what she was pinned under she gave a slight scream and, aided by adrenaline, heaved the soiled and grimy thing off of herself, scrambling away as from a chainsaw-wielding psychopath.
"Scully!" Alex called. "Over here." She staggered, pushing an errant lock of her hair out of her face and then took stock of her surroundings.
"You?re going to have to wait your turn, Ratboy," she said looking at him scornfully. "I have injured people over here."
"But I can?t move my legs?"
"Works for me?"
Scully picked her way over to where Mulder lay covered by a stack of cracked and broken videotapes. Making a moue of distaste, she plucked the cassettes off her partner and patted his face gently.
"Mulder. Mulder, wake up."
His eyes fluttered open and he coughed. "Scully? Scully? Where are you??" He reached toward her breasts, fingers fluttering like manic moths toward a bug light. She slapped his hands away.
"Knock it off, Mulder. This is not time for your puerile sexual games." Mulder?s lower lip pushed forward and trembled gelatinously.
"But, Scully, I can?t see you. I can?t see ANYTHING?" Sighing, Scully yanked out her FBI issue mag light, flicked it on high and aimed the beam at Mulder?s face. He didn?t flinch but simply sat, staring vacantly. In other words, he looked pretty normal. Scully frowned and stabbed her fingertips at Mulder?s eyes, stopping just short of carving her initials in his cornea. No reaction.
"Well, Mulder, your pupils are normal and reactive. I don?t see any sign of injury?" she grabbed a handful of hair at the back of his neck and yanked his head around. Mulder whimpered, extending his lower lip even further.
"There?s no bruising. No sign of head trauma. I?d have to say that what you?ve got is a case of hysterical blindness." Mulder cocked his head to one side in the manner of a dog, listening to his master?s voice.
"I don?t feel hysterical," he offered.
"Yeah, yeah?where?s my lap top?" Scully looked around to see Krycek holding up her G3 and smiling mirthlessly.
"My turn next, Hippocrates?"
Snarling, Scully stood and started toward him, only to be stopped by Mulder wailing pitifully and begging her not to leave him. Snarling again, Scully reached down and dragged him to his feet by the collar, pushing him none too gently in front of her. She knelt by Krycek and made an abortive attempt to snatch the laptop from him but his "upper prosthesis" gave him the edge.
"Scully, I can't feel anything below the waist and I want to know why." He told her firmly.
"Ooooh!" Mulder said, hands fluttering toward Krycek's crotch. "I wonder what's wrong?"
"Stop that!" Krycek and Scully shouted simultaneously, both of them slapping at Mulder's hands.
"Get away from me, Spooky," Krycek ordered.
"You don't know where that's been!" Scully scolded.
"Hey!" Krycek said in an offended tone.
Mulder's lip poked out and his face twisted up in a Gordian knot. Knowing what was coming next, Krycek rolled his eyes and Scully whipped out a hankie and handed it to her partner who broke down in sobs. Scully sighed and commenced her examination of Krycek's nether regions.
"Well, this is kind of interesting?" she offered after a minute.
"What?!" Krycek asked fearfully.
Mulder broke off his weep fest to listen.
"The..thing broke."
"My THING broke!!"
"No. Your?thing?seems to be uninjured. But the prosthetic?thing?broke to smithereens."
Krycek began to hyperventilate. "What?about?the?bomb?" He panted.
"Well, I don't see any evidence of a bomb here?except for this little clock ticking. But it's not attached to anything."
"Those lying, little Reticulan bastards?" Krycek seethed.
"As to why you can't feel your legs," Scully said with a particularly evil grin, "that bears further investigation." With that she whipped a hatpin out of her purse. Krycek flinched and looked at her doubtfully.
"Feel that?" Scully sank the pin into his left thigh.
"No," Krycek fought a wave of nausea at the sight.
'How about THAT?" She jabbed the pin into his right thigh. Krycek shook his head in the negative, keeping his lips pressed firmly together.
"What about THIS?" Her hand wavered and the pin sank into his right shoulder. "Whoops! Clumsy me!" Scully chirped as Krycek shot off a stream of profanities in Russian.
Scully scooted to a different vantage and examined Krycek's backside. A few vicious,pinches later she determined that he was, indeed numb from the waist down.
"Well, there's no sign of trauma. No bruising. No bleeding. I'd have to say that what you have is hysterical paralysis."
"I don't feel hysterical." Krycek muttered darkly, handing Scully's laptop over to her as agreed.
"Now, how the heck am I supposed to get you two hysterics out of this rubble and to a hospital? Maybe I can contact some help online," Scully perched on a cinder block and fired up the laptop happily. Krycek, spotting a gleam of red in the rubble off to his left, glanced around quickly to see if anyone else noticed. Scully was busy with her laptop and Mulder was memorizing his own face with his fingers, otherwise the coast was clear. Using his prosthetic arm, Krycek discreetly rolled an I-beam off of what was indeed the Thong of Power. Quickly he caught hold of it and stuffed it into the secret pocket inside his leather jacket. And just in time?
"It looks like you could use some help little lady?" the dark, rich baritone of AD Skinner announced.
He stood above them on the remains of a coffee table a gentle smile on his face which was bereft of glasses lost in the accident. A soft breeze blew at the shredded remains of his clothing beneath which his muscular form assumed a pose reminiscent of Michaelangelo's statue of David. The early morning light shining through the early morning mist resulted in a kind of halo that shone about him softly.
"Wow?" Scully breathed looking up at him in awe.
"Wow," Krycek agreed.
"Wow," Mulder, chimed in, his fingers fondling Skinner's calf. The AD reached down and gently batted Mulder's hand away. Then he climbed down and approached, then knelt by Scully.
His gaze played over her face like a wet washcloth, cleaning and soothing her. He reached up and tenderly brushed her hair back from her face.
"What can I do to help?" He said simply.
Scully's mouth opened and closed several times before she could get her voice to work properly.
"Wuh?wuh..thu?" She gestured toward Mulder and Krycek. "Buh?buh?.injured, sir." She stopped.
"Yes, I can see that you have injured people here. We'll need to get them to a hospital. But first?" he gathered her in his arms and stood.
"Let's get you to safety." Then he stopped and looked into her face once more. "And may I say, Miss, you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." Then he kissed her. One of those long, slow, moist, heart-stopping, movie kisses. When he stopped, Scully looked at him stupidly for about a nanosecond and then yanked him back for seconds.
"Wow," Krycek said.
"Are they KISSING?" Mulder asked, outraged. "They can't KISS! He's her BOSS for crying out loud!"
"Shut up Mulder." Krycek said.
"Shut UP Mulder" Scully snapped, and resumed gazing dreamily into Skinner's face.
"What is the blind one talking about?" Skinner asked disinterestedly, as he gave Scully's lower lip a tender bite.
"Mmmm? Wha??" Scully knew that she should be paying closer attention but couldn't for the life of her decide why.
"Her BOSS! You're her BOSS! And you shouldn't be having?having?.RELATIONS?with her!" Mulder shouted petulantly.
Krycek lobbed a chunk of plaster at Mulder that bounced off his head and triggered another bout of weeping. It was not that Krycek was a romantic at heart. He was rather hoping to see what would happen when Scully's altered DNA kicked in and whether or not she would bite off Skinner's head. But Scully seemed totally overwhelmed by the AD's machismo. Interesting?.
Skinner pulled his attention away from the gently squirming Scully cradled in his arms and looked at Krycek.
"Is that true? I'm her boss?"
"Yes," Krycek answered. "His too. You mean you don't remember?"
"No. Can't say that I do?" Skinner lifted his chin slightly to give Scully better access to nuzzling his adam's apple.
"Well, what DO you remember?"
Skinner sighed and squinted into his memory while Scully lapped dreamily at his earlobe.
"Actually, nothing. I remember waking up here and seeing you all. But that's about it?Who the heck am I anyway?"
"Adonis?your name is Adonis" Scully mumbled while simultaneously making a hickey on the nape of his neck.
"You're Assistant Director Walter Sergei Skinner of the FBI!" Mulder screamed at him. "And we're Agents Mulder and Scully and we work for you!"
"Scully?what a beautiful name." Skinner gazed soulfully into her eyes.
"Oh, please, call me Dana," she said, batting her eyes demurely.
"Put her DOWN!" Mulder ordered tearfully.
"I don't think I want to?" Skinner replied with a breathtaking smile. Scully ran her hands tenderly over his head and neck.
"Um?no signs of trauma?no bruising or bleeding?"
"Hysterical amnesia?" Krycek finished for her with a sigh.
"Uh huh?" she agreed dreamily.
"Figures?"
"Funny. I don't feel hysterical." Skinner murmured tenderly into Scully's ear, prompting a delicious giggle from the now seriously disheveled FBI Agent.
"Well, I hate to be the one to break this up," Krycek said, using his prosthetic arm to pull himself over to Mulder's prone and sobbing figure.
"But we've got to get out of here before the bad guys come looking for us." He slapped Mulder a couple of times to bring him around and another couple of times for the fun of it.
Scully sighed and patted her hair into place. "He's right. The Consortium is looking for the Thong and if we know Mulder has it, they probably do too?"
"I don't have it anymore," Mulder sulked. "It's somewhere in this mess." He groped around himself, managing to land one hand on Krycek's butt, a move that earned him another slap.
"We'll have to come back for it," Krycek offered quickly. "The first thing we need to do is get medical help for these guys."
Skinner nodded and scanned the area. He strode to the street, still carrying Scully in his arms and flagged down a city transit bus.
"We're commandeering this bus. This is an FBI?FBI?" he turned to Scully for confirmation. She nodded. "?an FBI emergency."
The women on the bus swooned en masse and it took several minutes to clear them off. The men went without protest. Skinner tenderly deposited Scully on the seat behind the driver.
"Wait here," Skinner ordered the driver, a jaded father of eight who had seen everything, and merely grunted in reply. Skinner strode back to the wreckage of the apartment building to find a solitary Mulder, weeping and feeling around himself for signs of life.
"What happened to the other one?" Skinner asked. Mulder's face lit up at the sound of his voice.
"You didn't abandon me!" he gushed. Skinner picked him up and slung him over his shoulder like so much dry cleaning.
"I wouldn't leave you alone here, little fellow, but where's that other guy? The one in the leather jacket and the stupid hair cut?"
"There was a sound. A sound like a BIG LIGHT. And then everything shook. And then I heard his voice going up in the air! I think?I think he was abducted by ALIENS!!!" Skinner looked under his arm at Mulder's face speculatively.
"Uh huh?aliens, you say?"
"Yes! And I think he had the Thong with him too. I heard him scream something about 'you'll never get it from me you lying little gray bastards'".
"If you say so?" Skinner shrugged and delivered Mulder to the bus where the entire story was recounted to a concerned Scully.
"This is bad." She told Skinner. "If Krycek has the Thong and the aliens have Krycek we need to find out exactly what that thing does."
" I think it's time for a visit to the Lone Gunmen" Mulder offered.
"The who??" Skinner asked.
"I agree, " Scully said and gave directions to the bus driver. Skinner looked from one agent to the other.
"Do we get paid for this?"

To Be Continued

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