Title: "Two More Couples" Author: Angela W. Category: Alternative Universe Rating: PG-13 Summary: Two couples get together. Timeline/Spoilers: This is part of an alternative universe I visit occasionally. It presumes that after the X-Files were shut down at the end of season one, they were never reopened. Thus, nothing *bad* that happened to anyone after that time (deaths, abductions, etc.) has occurred, although many people we didn't meet until much later in the series are in this. Mulder and Scully are married in this, but it's not part of my regular "married" series (the ones where they got married in Las Vegas). Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. They are the property of Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. Feedback: If it's nice or contains *constructive* criticism, feedback is valued. Archive: Feel free to archive anywhere! "So explain to me, again, why we're having this holiday shindig at our house tonight?" Special Agent Fox Mulder asked his wife as she shimmied into her velvet Christmas dress. "Why not? I thought it would be fun. A chance to get everyone together and let some of our friends meet each other. Besides. . ." "Okay, I distrust the tone of that 'besides', Dana. What have you got up your sleeve?" "Well, Suzanne thought that Jimmy and Kimberly might like each other." "You mean Jimmy as in Jimmy Bond, the Lone Gunmen's newest employee? And Kimberly as in Kimberly Johnson, Skinner's secretary?" "Yes, Fox. As far as I know, they're the only 'Jimmy' and 'Kimberly' coming to the party." "Does Suzanne even *know* Kimberly?" "Let's see. . .in the past two years, they've both been guests at my bridal shower, our wedding, my baby shower, Missy's bridal shower and Missy and Sean's wedding. . .I think that qualifies as at least a passing acquaintance with each other." "Isn't this an awfully elaborate pretense to get Jimmy and Kimberly together? Wouldn't it have been easier just to set them up on a blind date or something?" "Blind dates are awkward and artificial. This way, they simply get to meet each other, at a party with a bunch of other people they mostly already know. If they happen to hit it off, okay. If they don't, there's no embarrassment, because they didn't even know that Suzanne thought they might make a cute couple. Besides that's not the sole reason for the party; like I said, I just thought it would be fun." "I think there's a major flaw in this plan: Jimmy seems to have the hots for Yves." Scully shrugged. "So what? Langley and Frohike *also* seem to have the hots for Yves. I haven't noticed it doing any of them any good. I think part of their problem is that they don't really meet a lot of women; at least not single, attractive women. And Jimmy is the type, physically, who appeals to Kimberly." "How do you know what type appeals to Kimberly?" her husband asked suspiciously. "It happened to come up at Missy's bridal shower. Things got a bit. . bawdy." "Why am I not surprised?" "Mostly it was Monica. That woman has a mouth on her. I wonder if Doggett knows how much of their sex life is common knowledge among other female employees of the bureau?" "If he doesn't, it's not our place to enlighten him. So I'm taking it that Kimberly's type is dumb blonds?" Scully laughed softly. "No, I don't think either hair color or intelligence levels were mentioned in her descriptions. She just likes *big* men; tall, broad shoulders, lots of muscles. . .that sort of stuff. I figured Jimmy qualified in that regard." What Scully didn't share with her husband was the implication both she and Monica had picked up on; that the description Kimberly was giving of her "dream man" could just as easily have been a stat box for her boss, Walter Skinner. Still, if Kimberly had her heart set on Skinner it was probably a lost cause; he'd been divorced for several years and Kimberly had worked for him for almost that entire period. If he hadn't made a move to become more than just a boss to his pretty young secretary in all that time, it was doubtful he ever would. When Mulder remained silent, Scully added, "I'm guessing you don't think the two of them will hit it off?" "Personally, no. But for all my supposedly brilliant profiling skills, I tend to be pretty clueless when it comes to guessing who's going to appeal to whom in a romantic sense. Remember, I'm the man who thought your sister and Pendrell would never make it to a third date. Since they got married last month, I was obviously wrong about *them*. So maybe a year from now, we'll be attending Jimmy and Kimberly's wedding," he said. *** An hour later, Scully was holding their daughter, Emily, on her hip when she answered the door. Her sister and brother-in-law, Melissa and Sean Pendrell, were the first to arrive. "How's my favorite niece?" Missy asked, snatching the baby greedily away from her sister. "Missy, she's your *only* niece," Mulder pointed out dryly. "Don't bother her with details," suggested Pendrell. *** The next guests to arrive were John and Suzanne Byers with their daughter, Jill, who was about a year older than Emily. Suzanne had a huge smile on her face which seemed inappropriately exuberant for a mere casual holiday party with friends. Maybe she *really* gets into matchmaking, Mulder thought. "Suzanne, do you have something to tell us?" Scully asked. "I'm pregnant," Suzanne announced. "That's wonderfu!" Dana and Missy said in chorus. "Sweetheart, I thought we agreed we were going to wait and make *one* announcement, once everybody was here," Byers said in mild protest. "I can't help it; I'm excited!" Byers smiled gently. "I know. Me, too." *** The next guests were the only other "couple" attending the party; Monica and John Doggett and their son, Luke. Just as Jill was about a year older than Emily, Luke was yet another year older than Jill. Luke had his own bit of Christmas news to share with the assembled guests. "I can tee-tee in the potty!" he announced gleefully. "That's great," Mulder replied, since the little boy seemed so proud of his accomplishment. "I thought you were having problems trying to sell him on the concept of giving up diapers," Scully murmured quietly to Moncia. "I was," Monica admittedly ruefully. "Then he followed John into the bathroom one day last week and once he realized that *DADDY* goes tee-tee in the potty and that if he stopped using diapers he would be just like Daddy -- which is the goal of his entire existence -- he immediately started using the toilet. Except for a couple of accidents at naptime or bedtime, he's been keeping dry ever since." *** The next two people to arrive could have been tagged "the odd couple". Melvyn Frohike and Ringo Langley were good friends as well as co-workers. Neither seemed to have much luck with women. As was true of their younger colleague Jimmy, they both seemed slightly enamored of Yves Harlow, a freelance writer who sometimes worked with them and sometimes competed against them in their quest for uncovering conspiracy theories. Jimmy himself showed up next. He came alone, but was greeted enthusiastically by everyone present. He was like a gentle giant; among the adults present, he was the youngest by several years. "I'm always glad when Jimmy shows up at a party," Missy murmured in her husband's ear. "Should I be jealous?" Pendrell inquired. But it was more in the nature of teasing than actual worry. Miraculous though he still felt it to be, his gorgeous wife was as crazy about him as he was about her. "No, of course not, silly; it's just that when Jimmy's around, I know I'm no longer the dumbest person in the room." "You're not dumb, Missy," Pendrell protested. It had been a shock to him when he first realized that a woman as beautiful and outgoing as she was could have insecurities. But in a family full of people with master's degrees and medical licenses, Missy -- who'd only completed three semesters of college before dropping out -- sometimes felt like she didn't quite measure up. *** The next two people to show up were Walter Skinner and his secretary, Kimberly Johnson. It was unclear whether they'd arrived "together" or had just happened to both pull up at the same time and accompanied each other to the door. Dana made a special point of immediately introducing Kimberly -- and Skinner, too, since he happened to be standing right next to her -- to Jimmy. They greeted each other politely enough, but there didn't seem to be any initial spark. "They don't look too interested," Scully murmured to Suzanne. "For heaven's sake, Dana, what did you expect? For them to immediately rip each other's clothes off? Give it time. After all, you and Mulder knew each other for an entire year before you gave up on the whole 'we're just partners in a professional sense' business and started dating. And, quite frankly, I'm not sure things would have progressed even *that* quickly if the X-Files hadn't been shut down and both of you reassigned," Suzanne said. "Okay, okay," Dana replied softly with a small smile. *** The last person to arrive was Yves Harlow who did seem to make somewhat of an "entrance". She was wearing a black velvet dress that hugged her curvaceous figure and black high heels that boosted her already above-average height to the point where she was nearly on eye level with Mulder and Doggett and just a few inches shorter than Skinner and Jimmy. She towered over poor Frohike. However, she didn't really cause as much of a stir as she might have hoped. The married men gave her the sorts of smiles which basically said, 'Yes, you're attractive. I'm not blind; I'll acknowledge that. But I'm also not interested." Frohike and Langley, as usual, did fall all over themselves asking if she wanted a drink or something to eat. On the other hand, Walter Skinner -- the only man at the party Yves had never met before -- gave her the same sort of bland smile the married men had. Granted, he was old enough to be her father, and she wasn't really interested in him, but she was used to having more of an effect than that on all but the most happily married -- or flagrantly gay -- of men. Most disturbing of all, Jimmy Bond didn't join his co-workers in swarming around her. He acknowledged her presence with a casual "Hi, Yves. You look nice tonight," then turned back to the conversation he was having with Mulder and a redheaded woman. Yves at first thought the woman was either Dana or her sister, then realized the two of them were carrying on an antimated conversation with Suzanne Byers and the two little girls in another part of the room. "Who is that?" she asked Frohike, inclining her head toward the woman who seemed to be holding the attention of both Mulder and Jimmy. "Her name's Kimberly Johnson. She works at the bureau," Frohike answered. *** The party was progressing nicely. Emily had fallen asleep but Dana, loathe to take her away from all the festivities, had simply tucked her into her cloth infant seat with a blanket around her and settled her into a dimly lit corner of the living room. Luke and Jill were playing some sort of game which seemed to involve chasing each other around the dining room table at top speed, then ducking underneath the long tablecloth and hiding. Various adults kept coming up to the table and "finding" them, which led to the whole game starting over again. Mulder and Scully's main Christmas gift to each other had been a state-of-the-art sound system, so they were putting various CDs in and some of the adults -- those who weren't busy eating from the buffet or "discovering" the toddlers hidden beneath it -- were dancing. There was a sprig of mistletoe hung in the archway between the living and dining rooms and all the men who were dancing with their wives managed to swing beneath it and steal a kiss. Pendrell spent so long beneath it with Missy that Mulder muttered "Why don't they just get a room?" to Scully. "Hush, Fox. They're newlyweds. Let them be," she replied. Yves had danced with both Jimmy and Frohike -- Langley refused to dance, even if it would provide a chance to hold Yves in his arms -- and Kimberly had danced with Skinner and Frohike, finding Frohike to be a surprisingly good dancer. Finally, the event that Scully and Suzanne had been hoping for happened. . .Jimmy asked Kimberly to dance. Jimmy wasn't deliberately trying to make Yves jealous; he didn't have the guile for that. He was, actually, trying to follow the rules of etiquette his mother had taught him as a teen, which he seemed to recall included a caveat that an unmarried male guest at a party should ask each of the unmarried female guests for at least one dance. He presumed the rule didn't apply to females in diapers hiding under tables, but it would certainly apply to Kimberly. Kimberly moved gracefully into Jimmy's arms and Scully grabbed the remote to the CD player and flipped the song selection to "Love Me Tender". Mulder rolled his eyes slightly, but didn't comment. Jimmy and Yves weren't the only ones on the floor; both the Doggetts and the Pendrells were dancing. Skinner was watching the scene in front of him with ill-concealed impatience. He was vaguely aware that he really ought to ask Yves to dance -- his mother had taught him the same rule that Jimmy's had -- but he was too disgusted to do so. He hadn't minded Kimberly dancing with Frohike; that man was even older than *he* was and, in any case, was too busy flirting with Yves to be more than a vaguely attentive partner to Kimberly. But having her dance with this good-looking blond giant was irking him. Although he didn't make use of the ability often, Skinner had grown accustomed to being able to intimidate virtually any man he came in contact with. Those who weren't cowered by his sheer physical size were usually wary of his position as Assistant Director of the FBI, as his workaholic lifestyle led to him associate mostly with other agents. Jimmy, however, was every bit as big as he was and 20 years younger, too. And, as he wasn't an FBI employee, there was no threat -- not even a veiled, implied one -- that Skinner could make in regard to hampering the man's career. Jimmy was dancing easily with Kimberly. He was less attracted to her than he was to Yves which meant, ironically, that he danced better with her as he could concentrate on the music rather than her proximity. Yves noticed the grace with which the two of them moved and was not amused. Jimmy's final step before the dance ended involved dodging the two toddlers and placed him and Kimberly squarely beneath the mistletoe. Langley noticed and said, "Hey, Jimmy. Look up!" Jimmy glanced up, saw the mistletoe, and grinned. Still striving to be polite, more than for any other reason, he quickly dropped a tiny, closed-mouth kiss on Kimberly's equally closed lips. "What the *HELL* do you think you're doing?" Skinner roared. "Jimmy!" Yves screamed at the same time. There was stunned silence for a moment. The few adults in the room who hadn't been paying attention to the drama beneath the mistletoe were at least aware that *something* had just happened, even if they weren't quite sure what. Surprisingly, it was Kimberly who took charge of the situation. "He kissed me; that's what people do when they find themselves underneath the mistletoe at a Christmas party. I'd thank you to remember, Walter, that I'm your secretary; not your wife or even your girlfriend. Who I do and don't kiss, even if it happens right in front of your face, isn't any of your business," she paused for a moment than continued, "Thank you for the dance, Jimmy. I enjoyed it. Now I think I'll step outside for a bit of fresh air." Mulder mouthed the word "Walter?" at his wife in the silence that followed, but nobody actually said anything for several seconds. Then Yves said, her voice tight, "Jimmy, may I speak to you for a moment, please? Outside." She turned and walked in the opposite direction, through the back door. Jimmy said, "Uh, sure," and followed Yves. Skinner, who hadn't moved a muscle or said a word since Kimberly's speech, now said, "I'm going outside to talk to her," and walked out onto the front porch in search of his secretary. "What just happened?" Pendrell asked. He'd been so busy concentrating on Missy that he hadn't paid attention to what the other guests at the party were doing. "Jimmy and Kimberly were dancing," Scully explained. "They had to sidestep in order not to run over Luke and Jill and ended up underneath the mistletoe. Jimmy kissed her -- only an itty-bitty, just-for-show type kiss -- and Skinner freaked out." "Yves didn't seem to take it too well, either," Suzanne added. "Are Skinner and Kimberly. . .I mean do they. . .?" Frohike couldn't seem to find the words to finish the question, but his intent was clear. "Not so far as anybody in the bureau is aware," Monica answered. "But after that little display, you have to wonder." *** Kimberly crossed her arms against the chill on the front porch. It was late December in northern Virginia, but she'd been so steamed when she stormed out of the house that she hadn't bothered to grab her jacket. "Here," a deep, familiar voice said beside her in the darkness. "Take my jacket. I already feel bad enough about my little outburst; I don't want giving you pneumonia added to my list of sins." Kimberly took the proferred suit jacket and snuggled down into it. Although she was an average-sized woman, the garment dwarfed her. Skinner was standing in only his shirtsleeves,but he was too embarrassed to notice the temperature. He didn't know exactly what to say, so he said the simplest and most direct thing he could think of. "I'm sorry. I was jealous. But you're right, I have no claim on you." "Walter, may I remind you that *YOU'RE* the one who wanted it that way? After that evening a couple of months ago, when you took me out to dinner for my birthday and kissed me goodnight, I thought maybe. . .you thought of me as something more than just your secretary. I knew we'd have to be discreet -- I certainly wasn't planning on climbing into your lap to dictation! -- but I hoped we'd start dating. Instead, the next morning you gave me that whole 'I apologize, it won't happen again, it was unprofessional of me, if you'd like to work for someone else here at the bureau I'll arrange it but if you want to continue working for me I give you my word that our relationship from this point onwards will be strictly professional' speech. What is *wrong* with you? You don't want me for yourself but you don't want any other man to want me either? I'm sorry, but I want more out of life than just to be your secretary! I explained a lot of that to you when we went out on my birthday. I've always wanted marriage, kids, all of that. But I'm 30 years old! Do you know that Suzanne Byers is six months *younger* than I am? She's been married for five years and has a baby and another one on the way. I'm not going to wait for Prince Charming any more. If I can't have the man of my dreams, I'll settle for a decent guy who wants the same things out of life I do." Kimberly took a deep, shuddering breath. "It's not that I don't want you," Skinner replied. "It's that you deserve better. As you pointed out, you're 30 years old. I'm 46 and I've already failed once at marriage." "Do you still love her? Is that what the problem is?" "Her?" "Your ex-wife." "No. I stopped loving her a long time ago. Truth be told, I stopped loving her before she ever filed for divorce. . . around the same time she decided -- after years of telling me that she'd probably want children someday, just not right away -- she definitely didn't want them, ever. I stayed in the marriage because I believed it was morally wrong for a man to walk out on his wife simply due to the fact that his heart no longer skipped a beat whenever he saw her. When she announced she was leaving me, I was relieved more than anything. I told you some of this the night we went out. You deserve someone young, like yourself. Someone like Jimmy." "For God's sake, Walt, I barely know the man! I met him for the first time tonight. He seems like a nice enough guy, but stop trying to marry me off to him! He was just being polite. The kiss didn't mean anything more to him -- or to me -- than the dance did. It's a social convention to kiss if you end up under the mistletoe, so we did. You're the one who made a federal case out of it!" "Well, I'm a federal agent." The remark made absolutely no sense. However, the sheer incongruity of it made Kimberly dissolve into almost hysterical laughter. Skinner stepped closer, intending to shake her. However, when his arms encircled her, his self-control -- formidable though it was -- snapped. He kissed her instead. *** In the backyard, Yves turned to Jimmy and demanded, "What was that all about?" "What was *what* all about?" "You and Kimberly. Underneath the mistletoe." "We kissed, Yves. It's what people do under mistletoe. Other people have been doing it all night. I don't see why you're coming unglued." "I thought you liked *me*, but you were kissing her." "I do like you, Yves. You know that. I've asked you on numerous occasions to go out to dinner with me, to the movies or any variety of other non-work-related activities. Your responses have varied from 'No' to 'Hell, no' to 'I think you're an idiot, Jimmy, and please quit asking me out on dates'. I may be dumb, Yves, but I'm not *THAT* dumb. I like you, but you definitely don't like me. Okay, I can live with that; I'm a big boy. But don't expect me to continue to dance attendance on you when you've made it clear that you're not interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with me. Langley and Frohike may be happy buzzing around as drones with you as their queen bee, but that's not my style. Since you don't want me, I feel free to look around for some woman who might." "Like Kimberly?" "For heaven's sake, Yves, I barely know the woman! I met her for the first time tonight. I have no immediate plans to ask her to marry me or even to sleep with me. Will I ask her out to dinner sometime? I don't know. Maybe. Is it any of your business if I do? Quite frankly, no." "I do like you, Jimmy." "Well, you have a very weird way of showing it! The only times you've ever been even halfway nice to me have been when I'm sick or hurt." "That's because otherwise I'm. . . scared." "Of me?" She nodded. "Why? I realize I'm a big guy, Yves, but I don't deliberately set out to hurt people; especially not women." "Not so much physically as emotionally. In the few other. . .relationships. . .I've had, I was always in charge. The guys were pathetically grateful that I was dating them at all and I never had to worry about being dumped; things operated on my timetable and I ended the relationship when I felt the time was right. With you, it wouldn't be like that. And giving somebody else that kind of control over my heart. . .my life. . .that's scary." Jimmy was quiet for a long moment. Finally he said softly, "Nothing worth having comes without risk, Yves. If we married, I'd never leave you. I know that's what your father did to you and your mother and it's probably what's made you so gun-shy. But as far as getting to that point goes. . .I can't make you any promises. I'd like to date you. Heck, I'd like to sleep with you, but I won't push you for sex; we can wait 'til if and when we're engaged -- or even married -- for that if you want to. Neither of us can know whether we'll even make it that far. Maybe you'll go out with me a couple of times and decide you were right all along; that I *AM* an idiot and you'd be better off with someone who can understand every word in every sentence you ever write or speak. . .because honestly, Yves, I can't. Or maybe we'll mutually decide that we'd be better off doing the 'let's just be friends' routine. Or maybe we'll fall in love and decide to get married. . .sometimes I think I'm already halfway to that point, despite you never giving me the least bit of encouragement. Or yes, theoretically, you could fall in love with me and I could realize that the only reason I was attracted to you in the first place was that you were a challenge -- because, without meaning to be egotistical about it, most women I show an interest in at least agree to a first date -- and then you'd be depressed for a while, but I daresay you'd get over it." "Jimmy, that's. . .very astute." "Remember, Yves, I'm not as smart as you are. What does that mean?" "It means that in some ways you're a lot smarter than I am. I realize we're out of range of the misteltoe, but would you kiss me?" "Like I kissed Kimberly?" "However you want to kiss me." Jimmy smiled and stepped closer, then drew Yves into his arms and bent his lips to hers. The kiss they shared bore very little resemblence to the chaste, closed-mouthed peck he'd bestowed on Kimberly a few minutes earlier. *** "Okay, four of our guests are outside and it's below freezing out there. As polite hosts, do we let them develop frostbite or haul them back in or what?" Mulder asked. His question was ostensibly directed to Scully, but he spoke loudly enough for everyone at the party to hear. Since the two couples had left several minutes ago, nobody had said much. "May I remind you that one of the people you're talking about is Skinner?" Doggett said. "It would take me, you *and* Pendrell to 'haul' him anywhere and if he didn't want to be taken back inside, he'd likely fire us for our trouble." "We could try hauling Jimmy," Pendrell suggested. "That way we'd just be risking hernias, not hernias and unemployment." "You're not helping the situation, Pendrell," his sister-in-law said, bestowing upon him the look she usually reserved for particularly outrageous suggestions from her husband. "Why doesn't somebody look out the window and see what they're doing?" Frohike suggested reasonably. "Good idea," Scully replied. She walked quickly to the living room window and pushed the curtain slighly aside. It took her a minute to realize what she was looking at. That big, bulky shape in the shadows was obviously Skinner, but where was Kimberly? Then she realized that it wasn't a trick of light that made Skinner seem even bigger than usual. The shape was Skinner *and* Kimberly, engaged in a passionate kiss on her own front porch. After goggling for a minute, Scully turned back to the assembled guests -- those that were still in the house -- but caught her husband's eye and smiled. "Hey, Mulder? Remember when we worked the X-Files together and you were always trying to get me to believe in ghosts and psychics and beast men and sorts of other strange stuff?" "Yeah. So what?" "I would have been more likely to believe *everything* you ever claimed to have seen during that year than I would have ever believed that we'd have our boss making out with his secretary on our front porch." "Really? That's what they're doing? Let me see!" "Whoa there, Fox. You break up their little kiss-and-makeup session and Skinner likely to not only fire you, but me for good measure. Just accept my medical opinion that neither one of them is going to succumb to frostbite any time soon and leave them alone. I assume they'll come back in at some point tonight." Meanwhile, Suzanne Byers had tiptoed to the patio door and was watching Jimmy and Yves in the backyard. "Jimmy and Yves are kissing, too!" she called out. "Like he kissed Kimberly?" Frohike asked with faint hope. "Nope. Along the lines of how Sean kissed Missy, only more so." "Awww, shoot! And here I was, hoping she'd eventually choose brains over brawn," Frohike said with a sigh. "I should have never mentioned that Jimmy and Kimberly were standing under the mistletoe," Langley said, "then this whole situation would naver have started." "I think these situations -- both of them -- started a long time before tonight, Langley," Suzanne replied, stepping away from the door and rejoining the rest of the guests. "What you said and what Jimmy did might have brought things to a resolution more quickly than would have otherwise occurred, but I doubt the outcome would have been any different." *** Several hours later, Mulder and Scully were cuddled up next to each other in bed. Both of the couples had eventually re-entered the house and nobody had said anything, but for the rest of the evening Jimmy had danced exclusively with Yves and Skinner exclusively with Kimberly. The Byers family -- with a sleepy toddler and an equally sleepy expectant mother -- had been the first to leave the party, followed fairly quickly by the Doggetts, and Jimmy, Yves, Skinner and Kimberly. Missy had intended to stay and help her sister clean up, but finally Dana whispered, "Just go home. Maybe your departure will convince Frohike and Langley that the party's over." Luckily, the tactic had worked and all four of the final guests had left at the same time. "So I guess your plan backfired or misfired or something," Mulder said sleepily. "Jimmy and Kimberly didn't get a *chance* to show an interest in each other. Skinner and Yves flipped out." "That was Suzanne's plan," Scully murmured. "I pretty much figured that if Jimmy expressed even the *slightest* interest in Kimberly, things would happen almost exactly as they did. Good night, Mulder." Author's e-mail addy: tapw63@hotmail.com