(Written in 1999 but not sent to Gossamer with my other stories)    

Rating:   PG
Archive:  CounterMeasures, OK.  Others, please ask first.
Spoilers: Three of a Kind  (US6) 
Summary:  A couple of post-ep vignettes that take place some 
          months after the episode.  Heavily influenced by the
          Open a Drawer Observation Deck card.
  
  
In the Air II - Open a Drawer 
by Martha 
marthalgm@yahoo.com 
  
Dana Scully was searching frantically throughout her apartment.    
Having already lost her Cross pen at the office (never, NEVER, should
she have handed Mulder her pen to sign for a delivery from the lab),
she was now looking for one of the two Waterman pens that she knew she
kept at home, neither of which were in the desk drawer where they
usually resided. 
  
After about five minutes of checking her purse, her jackets, and a
briefcase that she barely used anymore, Scully was now on a mission. 
  
She did not just lose things - misplace them possibly, but never lose
them. 

Scully headed for the kitchen and stood in front of the small island
bar that bordered the dining area.  At times, she had brought a paper
that she was working on or a report that she was editing to this area
of the kitchen while she waited for the microwave to finish defrosting
her evening meal.  Perhaps, she thought, she had left her pen here at
one time and just put it away in one the junk drawers while tidying up.
  

The red and white rectangular package hidden underneath the double A
batteries caught her eye.  It was an unopened package of cigarettes -
Bill's brand, probably left behind on his last trip back East to see
their mother.  Scully held the pack lightly in her right hand with her
thumb and forefinger, turning it from side to side, allowing the
florescent lighting from the fixture overhead to reflect off of the
cellophane casing.  Bringing the package to eye level, she continued to
do this for almost a full minute. 

She was mesmerized by this;  later, she would try to remember what had
first intrigued her about the package but could never get a
satisfactory response.  A voice inside of her offered a suggestion:
Open it.  Scully lifted the golden tab with her left thumbnail and
encircled the package, dropping the sliver on the bar, and undressed
the rest of the cellophane from the box.   

Why, she thought;  but within ten seconds, she had grasped the lid of
the hardpack and flipped it open, releasing that initial overflow of
aroma.  Scully breathed that fragrance in, and it was a fragrance from
the past for her.  That first whiff was always sweet, almost heady,
making her swoon from the dizziness.  The only other mixture of scents
or tastes that were as strong was when she indulged in a piece of
Godiva chocolate with her morning coffee.  The second sniff of the
package was always more pungent, reminding her of vapors from the
retarring of the roads around the city.   

This is why she did not smoke, she thought, blinking her eyes to
clear the fumes wafting from the package.  But something continued to
hold her attention captive as she gazed at the silver foil inside.  A
flick of the finger at the pointed edges uncovered the contents. 
Without realizing, almost as if someone was willing her to do so, she
brought the package closer to face.  With a bit of maneuvering, she
grasped one of the cigarette filters between a top and bottom incisor
and slowly drew the object out of its container. 

Scully pressed her lips together, encasing the filter, and watched as
she lazily twitched the cigarette up and down with her tongue.  She
breathed in again, partly through the filter, and the taste of the
tobacco reminded her of the Friday night parties in high school when
*everyone* was smoking . . . or trying to.   

A snippet of a scene from a party flashed in her mind but she could not
discern which one.  It was odd, she thought;  she had that picture for
a split second, and then it was gone. 

Scully gasped.  There it was again.  Only it did not seem like a high
school party;  the boys were actually men, and she seemed to be the
only girl . . . woman . . . at this party.   

She clumsily grabbed at the cigarette and tried to stuff it back into
the package.  You don't smoke, she told herself. 

Scully had an eerie notion that someone else had just said that to her
also.  She closed up the package and dropped it back into the drawer,
closing it slowly. 

As soon as she heard the drawer hit wood, she was hit with another
image.  An elevator door was closing, and she was . . .  she was . . . 
being told to behave herself.  And she could hear herself giggling.  
  
The remembrances were disturbing her.  She still had her hands on the
front of the drawer and quickly tugged the front back open.  The
cigarette package was scooped out, crumbled up, and thrown into kitchen
wastebasket. 

As she walked out of the kitchen and lifted her hand to turn off the
overhead light, a face flashed through Scully's mind:  Frohike.    

Suddenly, more pieces of her fractured memories began to fit
together.   The scent of the cigarettes still on her fingers seemed to
fuel the blending of events (a party, the elevator, giggling) that she
had no previous recollection of.   

She turned on her heels, going directly to the wastebasket. 
Gathering up the corners and pulling the plastic bag out of the
container, she twisted the end in a knot and made her way across the
apartment and out into the hallway towards the garbage chute.   

Scully returned to her apartment and leaned back against the front door
after closing it shut.  Sighing heavily, shaking her head as if to
assure herself that the odor from the cigarettes had taken her down
this weird dream pathway, she headed straight for the bathroom to wash
her hands.   

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* 
  
John Byers silently cursed as his foot became entangled with a   
mishmash of wiring underneath Langly's workstation.  He gently shook
his leg to extract his shoe, mindful not to pull too hard on any of the
lines to avoid disconnecting something.   

Langly had replaced a sputtering CPU and attached a scanner, and now it
was up to Byers to integrate the new systems with the server network. 
Langly, however, had this habit of having wires and plugs laying
everywhere.  

It was driving Byers crazy.  There was a way to clean up the mess.  He
looked around the immediate work area, picking up papers and even the
keyboard, in search of those little items that seemed to appear out of
nowhere and multiply like tribbles;  items that were everywhere and
always a nuisance. 

Twist ties. 
  
Those little wire things, encased in either paper or plastic, that
seemed to be attached to every new piece of equipment or supplies that
they had bought recently.  If there was a cable, a wire, or a plug, it
was held together with one of those little twist ties.  And it did not
matter how many had been thrown away, at least two more would take its
place.   

Byers silently wondered if 'twist ties' was a trademark name. 
  
Langly always had a handful of them littering his area for just this
purpose.  He never bothered to get rid of any, saying that he had a
number of ways for using them.  He had even, on more than one occasion,
used them to tie his hair back away from his face when that other bane
of equipment packaging - rubber bands - failed to present themselves.
  
Byers was now over at Frohike's work table looking for several of them.
Opening the drawers, sorting through the items on the surface with his
palms, he was unable to initially locate any twist ties.  Batteries,
wire clips, and a multitude of small screwdrivers occupied one drawer. 
The second held a number of pens and stray diskettes.   

Opening the third drawer was somewhat of a shock.  It was filled   
nearly to capacity with matchbooks.  Matchbooks and matchboxes of all
designs and from a number of hotels and bars, local or otherwise;  no
surprise here, Byers thought.  Frohike was a collector of small odd
items, but why matchbooks?  He did not smoke or at least did not
currently smoke cigarettes, but other more chemically enhanced
substances may have played a part in his past. 

A small white object near the middle of the drawer caught his eye.  It
had a glossy cover and only part of the imprinting was visible, but
Byers recognized it right away.  He pushed the other matchbooks out of
the way and removed it from the drawer.   

The Monte Carlo, he read. 
  
Susanne, his brain screamed. 
  
He had not talked with her since he sent her away that night into the
cover of darkness from that bright spot in the desert.  He kept tabs on
her, knew her most recent location, but always understood that she
would move on in another month or so.  He refrained from tracing her
activities more than once a week, mindful that there were other powers
out there who might still be looking for her, and he did not wish to
draw any undue attention towards her.   

They still had the injector and a small remaining sample of the AH
compound, but they had no way of knowing if Grant had passed on any of
the research prior to his death.  Susanne had given them the formula
and her notes to use as they saw fit.  An article was being prepared
for TLG with Langly checking research and development corporations that
might also have the same basic compound in their arsenal of inventory. 
Or weaponry. 

Since discovering that a part of their outer circle had been   
infiltrated by the CIA, Frohike took it upon himself to run a series of
clearances on a number of their acquaintances.  He had refused to
believe that Timmy - CIA operative Timothy Landau - was just an
isolated plant in their somewhat unusual society. 

Byers concurred with that belief.  And everyone seemed to be going
about business as usual.  Everyone but himself.  He would think of
Susanne several times a day and pause.  The guys at first refrained
from making any smart remarks, but lately they had taken to clearing
their throats, loudly, to bring him back to earth.  He did not think it
rude on their part and would sheepishly smile and continue with his
work - and his thoughts of her.   

He still had that same dream at night, the dream of the perfect
little home with two perfect little girls and Susanne, the perfect
wife, waiting for him.  But he no longer dreaded the ending of being
alone in the desert.  He knew that she was out there, waiting for him. 
He knew that all that he had to do was to look for her, and she would
be found.  All he had to do was to open a drawer and draw out a shiny
white object, and she would be beside him, with him, sharing his life. 
  

He knew that the 'someday' would be soon. 
  
Byers stuck the matchbook into his shirt pocket, settling it near his
heart, and continued his search for the elusive twist ties. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* 
  
end