The Best of Me

David Hearne
ottercrk@sover.net


Date:   Tue, 21 Nov 2000
CLASSIFICATION: Post-ep for "Fearless Symmetry"

RATING: PG

DISTRIBUTION: Can be posted anywhere.

SPOILERS: One Breath, Unusual Suspects

Send feedback to ottercrk@sover.net

Website is located at http://members.dencity.com/hearne

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"You're *what*?"

"I'm buff." Frohike flexed an arm. "Feel that."

"No, thank you," Byers replied.

"I'm serious. You oughtta see me with my shirt off."

"Frohike, I don't even want to *think* about you with your shirt off."

"All right, what the hell are you two going on about?" This was spoken by
Langly. He had just walked into the offices of the Lone Gunmen, a grocery
bag full of chips and salsa in his arms.

"You don't want to know," Byers told him.

"This has something to do with Scully?" Langly asked, putting the bag down
on a table.

"As a matter of fact, it does," Frohike said. "What of it?"

"Just seems like you're wasting a lot of energy pining for a woman you'll
never get." Langly opened up a bag of chips.

"Oh, is that so?" Frohike replied as he snatched the bag out of Langly's
hands.

"Yeah, that is so. Besides, what makes you think she's even worth catching?"

Frohike pointed a finger at Langly and said, "Hey, pal, watch it."

"You don't like Scully?" Byers asked, surprised.

"No, Scully's cool," Langly replied. "She just...thinks too much."

Byers laughed in amazement. "Oh, I suppose you like 'em stupid," Frohike
growled.

"I didn't say that," Langly snapped, taking back the bag of chips.

"Well, what are you saying?"

Langly opened up a jar of salsa and plunged a chip into its red depths.
"Scully can't accept things at face value," he said before crunching the
chip between his teeth.

"Excuse me," Byers said. "but isn't that why we're here? Because we don't
accept the government's claims at face value?"

"Look, man, Mulder has told me about some of the stuff she's seen. Yet she
is still going on about 'scientific verification' and 'assessing the
evidence logically' and blah, blah, blah. Can't she just say that it's an
alien and be done with it?"

"I think Scully would say that there's a difference between what you can see
and what you can prove. Her preference is for the latter, I believe."

"Okay. But how about a little faith? How about taking a leap?"

"That's why we have Mulder. We don't need another one of him. We need
someone who can keep him in check."

"Well, I guess you like her, too."

Byers looked sad for a moment. "She...reminds me of someone." Then he shook
off his moodiness and said, "Besides, if you have a problem with her
approach to the paranormal, tell her."

"And she'll whip your long-haired ass all over the map," Frohike warned.

"Hmmm," Langly said, munching on another chip. "She could, couldn't she?
Think she ever whips Mulder's ass?"

Frohike and Byers looked at Langly.

"Ah, in a figurative sense, I mean."

"Actually, let's think about it in a literal sense, too," Frohike suggested.
"I mean, I'm not sure about the stuff Mulder is into..."

"Well, if anybody could tell..."

"Watch it, Goldilocks."

"Ah, gentleman," Byers said. "let's not project too much onto Mulder and
Scully, all right?"

"Oh, we don't have to get too dirty," Langly said. "I mean, the basic
question is  -- are they doing it or not?"

"What makes you think they even want to?"

"I've seen it, man. The way they look at each other, the way one will touch
the other on the shoulder...something deeper is behind all that."

"Now who's not taking things at face value?"

"Goldilocks has a point," Frohike said, opening up his own bag of chips.
"Something is stirring between our two dashing FBI agents."

"And you two sound like a chat room discussing every look exchanged between
Will Riker and Deanna Troi."

"Actually," Langly said. "we sound more like chat rooms discussing every
look exchanged between Kirk and Spock."

Langly and Frohike giggled. Byers rolled his eyes.

"Of course, in all seriousness, Deanna really has the hots for Picard,"
Frohike said.

"Are you nuts?" Langly shot back. "What would she see in that bald-headed
tight-ass?"

"A lot more than can be seen in that smug idiot with the beard!"

Byers turned away from the escalating debate. He pulled a chair up to a
computer, needing to get some work done.

As his fingers tapped the keyboard, he found himself thinking of the moment
when he had sat at this same computer and told Mulder that Scully was being
slowly killed by a biological poison. When he had told Mulder that there was
nothing he could do, Mulder didn't scream or cry. He just stared at the
monitor, not believing what he was seeing.

Byers thought about the way Mulder had been before Scully had been assigned
to the X-Files. Mulder probably wouldn't believe it, but he had struck Byers
then as being less committed to the work than he was now. He had been a lot
more mercurial in his temperment then. At one moment, he could sound like a
crusader. In the next moment, he seemed ready to chuck every X-File out the
window. He could turn from deadly serious to glibly sarcastic in a
heartbeat.

Now, with Scully, he seemed more...steady. Having three conspiracy experts
(not geeks, mind you) for sidekicks couldn't give him the right intellectual
boundaries he needed. He required someone who would test him, who would make
him think before leaping, who would make his quest more than just a crank's
crusade.

She brought out the best in him. And together they brought out the best in
the Lone Gunmen.

"En garde, you dwarf!" Langly shouted, throwing a handful of chips at
Frohike.

"You are so dead, hippie!" Frohike declared and the air was full of flying
snacks.

Well, most of the time, Byers thought.

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