TITLE: Not A Three Hour Tour AUTHOR: Rhetta RATING: PG CLASSIFICATION: Vignette DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, just let me know. FEEDBACK: rhoannan@attbi.com SPOILERS: Set mid-Season Seven with slight allusions to 'D.P.O.', 'Small Potatoes', 'Arcadia', and 'Sixth Extinction' DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully, and The X-Files belong to Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox. Jane, on the other hand, belongs to me. I would, however, like it stated for the record that I am more than willing to trade her for Mulder. SUMMARY: Mulder stuck on a life raft in the middle of the ocean with a moody teenager and a ticked-off Scully. What could possibly go wrong? A post-ep for an episode that never was. AUTHOR'S NOTE: A big thank you to Kate for all the great beta help. ********** If Scully doesn't wake up soon I'm going to do something drastic. I've narrowed it down to either jumping off this boat or throwing Jane off it. "Controlling the weather," Jane says with the sense of import that only a fifteen-year-old can convey. I look over at her. She looks back with a scowl. I bet she's a good swimmer. "No." I'm not sure if I'm answering her or myself. "Shapeshifting." "No." I glance at Scully for what must be the hundredth time. She's still sleeping peacefully. Well, as peacefully as someone can in a small life raft floating in the ocean. "How many times are you going to check on her? She'll wake up when she's ready." I look over the side of the boat appraisingly. That water looks pretty soft. "Reading minds." My head snaps back. "What?" She sighs. "Reading minds?" "Definitely no." "Are you kidding? Finding out what everyone is really thinking. You've never wanted to do that? Not even once? Where's your sense of adventure?" "Oh, I don't know. Read my mind and find out." It comes out a bit sharper than I intended. "Don't knock it until you've tried it," she grumbles. I glance over at Scully then back at Jane. "I'm knocking it." Her scowl deepens. She crosses her arms in front of her and leans back against the side of the boat. Great. Now I've got a moody teenager on my hands. I hear a groan from Scully and turn to see her squinting at me. "I see you haven't lost your knack for charming the locals Mulder." Finally. She's been out since we first got into the boat last night and I was starting to get worried. "This is the middle of the ocean Scully. Nobody's local here." She puts a hand to her head and grimaces. "I guess I can rule out this being some sort of bizarre 'Gilligan's Island' nightmare. Unless you're the Professor." She looks at me with a smile. "Or maybe Gilligan." I smile back. I love Playful Scully. "Actually I always wanted to be Mr. Howell. That guy had it made. Not only did he have the best hut, he also got to spend most of his time sipping mixed drinks and making humorous remarks while everybody else did the work." I look at her thoughtfully. "Of course then I might be a little old for you, but I'm thinking a May/December romance could work for us." I hear a snort from Jane. "Yeah, as opposed to the December/December one you've both got going now." Scully glances over at her with a slight frown. I'm guessing Jane isn't exactly winning her over either. Jane looks at her then grumbles something I'm assuming is not kindly and slumps back down. "What about Mrs. Howell?" Scully says after a moment. Ah, the game is afoot. I gaze at her solemnly. I mean look. Look at her solemnly. Not gaze. Look. "Scully, this is my fantasy and in my fantasy you're Mary Ann." Okay, maybe I was gazing. I hear another snort, this time from Scully. "You're Mr. Howell and I'm Mary Ann? If I'm going to be Mary Ann why can't you be the Professor? That doesn't seem very fair to me or to Mrs. Howell." "Oh. Would you rather be Mrs. Howell then? I really can't see you in those hats but if that's what you want..." "Actually I'd rather be...wait, I can't believe we're doing this. Here we are stuck on a tiny raft in the middle of nowhere with no water or food and no land in sight and we're discussing which member of Gilligan's Island we want to be. Why do I always let you drag me into these kinds of conversations? Seriously Mulder, why?" I can't resist a grin. "Well, that settles it. You're definitely not Mary Ann." She smiles reluctantly. Reaching into one of my jacket's side pockets I take out a half-full bag of sunflower seeds and wave it in front of her. "Food." I pull a small bottle out of the other pocket and hold it up. "Water," I say with a flourish. Scully raises an eyebrow. "So, in which pocket are you hiding the land?" "Why Agent Scully..." I say with my best leer. The best one I can muster without my morning coffee, anyway. Scully looks up at the sky and closes her eyes, I'm guessing she's making a quick prayer for patience. She's been doing that a lot lately. I'm trying not to take it personally. "Mulder, have you seen land?" She gestures toward the bag and bottle. "Those seeds and that tiny bit of water won't even last us the day. And I wouldn't advise eating the seeds anyway. They'll do more harm than good. I don't know..." "Don't worry about it Scully. I have a cunning plan." "A cunning plan? Does it involve us waiting on this boat until someone spots us?" I throw the bottle to her. "Ah, so you've heard of it." She takes a drink and throws it back to me. "Yeah, but where I'm from that's not called a plan. It's called giving up and waiting for the inevitable." I offer the bottle to Jane and then lean back with a calm smile. "Cunning plan. Waiting for the inevitable. It's all semantics." Scully crosses her arms in front of her and looks equally calmly back at me. Well, almost equally. I'm pretty sure that if she rolls her eyes like that again she's going to hurt herself. "C'mon Scully. It's not my fault we're stuck on this life raft. You were the one that jumped overboard first remember." She looks at me incredulously, momentarily too stunned to speak. The silence stretches just long enough for me to mentally add that last statement to my growing list of things I wished I'd never said aloud. "You're saying this is my fault?" She finally manages. "You're the one that thought this was an X-File Mulder. Without any scientific proof, I might add." The 'No Scientific Proof' card. She's pulling out the big guns early. "We had proof Scully. Maybe not 'wrapped up in a nice little present' proof, but we had it." "A grainy photo you got from a trusted source is not proof. In fact I still can't believe you talked me into going on that cruise ship with only that photo to go on." I attempt a smile. Charm. The last defence of the truly desperate. "I think I also mentioned the buffet Scully. All-you-can-eat shrimp and prime rib is hard to say no to." "Yeah, maybe if we'd actually gotten to the buffet Mulder. We were running around down in the crew's quarters at the time it began the first night and the second night I barely escaped permanent injury when you hurled that life raft at me." "Towards you," I say lamely. I'm not going to mention the fact that I had a few shrimp on my way to find her last night. It wasn't like I knew she'd jumped overboard at the time. I thought she was avoiding me because she was still mad that I'd neglected to tell her when we first boarded that I'd booked us as a married couple. "Mulder..." She says quietly. Too quietly. I glance up at her quickly. She's looking at me the same way she did when I introduced us to the Captain as Lou and Mary Grant. "Yeah Scully?" I'm hoping she's not going to ask me what I think she's going to ask me. "Exactly where did you get that photo?" I let out a sigh. Another dashed hope. "A trusted source." "Tell me Mulder." Closing my eyes I try to think of a viable distraction. Only one sounds appealing at the moment but I'm almost positive throwing Jane overboard wouldn't be a good idea. Why I was so eager for Scully to wake up earlier is beyond me. "Frohike's cousin." I finally mutter. "Frohike's cousin? That's a trusted source? Isn't he the one that claimed he was getting subliminal messages from the Kids Word Jumble in his local paper?" "It was the Teen Crossword Puzzle and he was under a lot of stress at the time. Scully stop rolling your eyes." "It's almost impossible not to after a statement like that." Okay, now Playful Scully is starting to tick me off. "You know, you've never explained why you decided to just leap off the ship like that. I'm assuming there's a scientific reason. I'd love to hear it." "I did not 'leap' off the ship." I sit up as another thought occurs to me. "You weren't pushed, were you?" Scully looks over at Jane who seems to suddenly be vastly interested in the water lapping against the side of the boat. I look at Jane for a moment and then back at Scully. I think I know where this is going and I'm not liking it. "I wasn't pushed either." She looks a little embarrassed. "Dragged over would be a better word." "Dragged over?" I look back at Jane again. She's still fascinated with the waves. Maybe I should have thrown her overboard when I had the chance. "It was an accident," Jane mumbles. She hasn't turned to look at us yet. Scully gives me her patented 'Be Nice' look. I take a deep calming breath and attempt a smile. "What was?" I say as patiently as possible. Jane glances over at me then looks back at the water. "I was reaching for my CD player. It had fallen on the other side of the rail. I thought I could reach it by standing on the bottom rail but..." "It was too far." I finish for her. You'd think with the amount of television teenagers watch she would have caught one of the many films where someone makes that same mistake and ends up either as shark bait or stranded on a deserted island. It's pretty much stereotypical by now. I glance at Scully. She motions back at Jane. Fine. Let her tell it. "How does Scully fit into this Jane?" "She tried to grab me as I fell and I uh...sorta..." "Dragged her over with you." Jane nods and looks back out at the water. I catch Scully grimacing out of the corner of my eye and smile slightly. Something tells me she's not going to list this as one of her shining moments. I reach over and briefly squeeze Scully's hand. "We don't have a lot of good experiences on boats do we Scully?" "They do seem to sink a lot when we're on them," she says with a ghost of a smile. "You'd think you being a Navy brat and all would account for something." "Well, I always know the correct term for what part of the ship is sinking first." "Yeah, that's helpful. 'Well Mulder, it appears we were struck on the bow and now we're listing dangerously to starboard.' Always nice to hear." "At least we would have died knowing the proper terminology." "Also nice to hear." She stares at me for a moment. "Finding out why you jumped would be nice to hear too." I was waiting for her to get to that. Unfortunately it doesn't rank as one of my shining moments either. "It was either that or drown, the ship was sinking." "I meant last night and you know it. Why didn't you call for help when you saw us fall overboard? If you had the time to throw an inflatable life raft down you'd think you would have also had enough time to go get help." "It was the middle of the night Scully. Besides, that area of the ship was usually deserted. If I remember correctly that's where a lot of the sightings were." "Alleged sightings Mulder, and if that was the case why didn't we search around there instead of in the crew's quarters?" I shrug and attempt a smile. "I said 'a lot' of the sightings, not all of them. The most recent ones were in the crew quarters. I figured we would start where we had the best chance of seeing something." She frowns. "That doesn't explain you throwing the life raft in or not going to find help." "I wasn't thinking too clearly Scully. I got there just in time to see you both go under but I only saw Jane come up. I thought you might have hit your head on your way down so I threw over an inflatable life raft that was in the bottom of one of the small boats and jumped in after it. And for your information I did yell for help right before I went over." "You yelled her name," Jane said. "Well her last name anyway. Since she was already in the water I can't see how she could have been much help." "Thanks Jane," I mutter while looking at Scully. She's rubbing her temples with her fingers. Either I've given her a headache or she's praying again for patience. I look back at Jane with a scowl. I definitely liked the girl better when she was engrossed with the ocean. Scully looks up after a moment. "So, nobody knows we're missing." "I'm sure by now they do." I motion to Jane. "Her parents are probably organizing a search right now." "And the family of Lou and Mary Grant are probably helping out too," Scully says with a frown. I knew she was still mad about that. Jane laughs. "Lou and Mary Grant? My mom used to love 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show.' I bet those people get a lot of jokes about that." Scully stares darkly at me. "It could be worse, their names could be Rob and Laura Petrie." Oh yeah. Still some anger there. "Scully..." I say with a sigh. "Later Mulder. Right now let's try to figure out what we're going to do." She's still frowning but at least she's not going for her weapon. Not that it would do any good if she did go for it. It's exactly where my gun is, back in our room, being of absolutely no help to us. Much like our out-of-the-service-area cell phones. I grin weakly at her. "Where's a satellite phone when you need it?" "Beyond our budget Mulder. Exactly how were you able to swing the cruise tickets?" "I'm assuming you wouldn't buy that I saved my coupons?" "No." I rub my eyes. Forget satellite phones, where's a cup of coffee when you need it. "It involves Frohike's cousin Scully, and I don't think we want to go down that road until after we're rescued." She stares at me suspiciously. "Why?" "I just don't think we want to go down that road." "Mulder..." "Ship." Jane says, obviously a step behind in the conversation. "I'm serious Scully, you do not want me to tell you right now. I'm not even sure I want to tell you afterwards." "Ship," Jane says a little louder. "We'll talk about the ship Jane," Scully says irritatedly. "Right after Mulder explains what Frohike's cousin has to do with the tickets." "Scully..." There's no way on earth I'm telling her when she's in this mood. She's FBI-trained, she doesn't need her gun to inflict injury. "Ship!" Jane yells and starts to stand up. Scully and I quickly turn towards her. "Sit down!" we yell in unison. Whatever either of us were going to say next is a mystery as we see the bow of a ship come into view behind her. "Ship," I say quietly. "Coast Guard ship," Scully says just as quietly. "That's what I said," Jane grumbles. "You're not the most perceptive people are you?" I wonder if it's too late to throw her off the boat.