My Best Friend's Partner

Diana R. Flynn / Darkflurb

STOP! DON'T SUE!
Fox Mulder, Dana Scully and the rest of the characters from TXF were invented by Chris Carter and the other wonderful people at FOX (even if they did steal my name for Mulder's ex, those sneaky little...) and I in no way wish to take credit for creating them. As you may have guessed from the title, I also took a few ideas from a certain Julia Roberts movie (that's why they call it a PARODY!). I don't know who wrote it, but I really enjoyed it, and would like it if everyone involved would consider the following to be a slightly twisted little tribute.

This story has a mild PG rating for some really really mild bad language that people will probably make fun of me for even mentioning. ...oh and it's got some really bad humor.

PART ONE: THE AMBIGUOUS BEGINNING...

~I guess I have no one but myself to blame for this...~ thought Agent Diana Fowley, as she looked across the intervening space to Fox Mulder, her once and -- if she had her way -- her once and future love.

The pain was excruciating, exquisite, and shared by everyone in the viscinity. Well... almost everyone.

She'd done well in Berlin, stopped a few terrorists, but sometimes she'd wake up in the middle of the night, and think of the pale-eyed Agent that she'd left behind... Think of the quest that she'd had a chance to share.

Not that that was _all_ there was to remember late at night...

But she hadn't wanted to share someone else's mission, however noble. So she'd left to find one of her own. And she'd ended up right back where she'd started.

Fowley looked over to Agent Scully. The look on the redheaded woman's face fairly screamed that she could not believe what was happening.

...and for once, Fowley could only agree with her.

~No one but myself...~ she repeated, thinking back to earlier that night. A smile crossed her lips. The look on Scully's face had been priceless...

PART TWO: WHY I HATE MY PARTNER'S EX, or WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS IS A-?!

Wait, wait... This place was a _what_?!

Dana Scully's eyes shot open as Agent Fowley innocently answered Mulder's question.

"But, Fox, I thought you knew this was a karioke bar!"

"We didn't," he answered in his usual monotone. "Agent Scully and I ...don't sing much."

Fowley smiled, "I know."

Just what was that supposed to mean?

"Look," said Fowley. "I got a table, unless you two want to stand in the doorway all night..."

Scully looked toward Mulder for a moment, but he was already following Fowley into the dim building. She steeled herself and followed.

"How are you feeling?" she asked Agent Fowley as they sat down.

"Better," answered the brunette, just a little too courteously. Scully _had_ wanted to know how her lung injury had healed, but...

"So why did you want to meet us here?" Mulder asked.

Yes. Why indeed? And why had she specifically asked to meet both of them, and not just Mulder?

Fowley paused a moment before answering. Scully began to wonder...

She'd never felt particularly hostile toward Agent Fowley, not really. But, as the -- allegedly -- telepathic child Gibson had told her, she did care what she thought. About her. About Mulder.

Scully shook her head. She still wasn't sure why she'd made that phone call. It hadn't been as if Fowley and Mulder had been doing anything...

Perhaps it wasn't so much the fact that she and Mulder had once been... together. Mulder was allowed to have a life. Maybe it wasn't even the fact that Mulder had never once mentioned Fowley to her.

Maybe it wasn't the looks on the Lone Gunmen's faces when she'd first mentioned Fowley to them, the way they'd spoken of her, as if they were holding back more than they were telling.

Maybe it wasn't the way Mulder kept letting her use his first name.

Maybe it was...

"Well, Fox," said Fowley, "I thought I should tell you that I've applied for reassignment. I've asked to work with you and Agent Scully on the X-Files."

Scully blinked.

"You want to what?" asked Mulder.

~She was there when he discovered the X-Files...~

What had Frohike meant by that? Had Mulder and Fowley been dating at the time that he'd discovered the Files? Had Fowley and Mulder discovered them together? Had she been his first partner? Had she played the same role that Scully played in his life?

Played the same role.

That might be it.

PART THREE: WHY I HATE MY EX'S PARTNER, or HASTA LASAGNA, YOU CVS-BRAND BARBARA STREISSAND WANNABE!

"Better," she answered Dana Scully's question.

She smiled.

~You are going _down,_ honey...~

That phone call had not been a coincidence. Had she thought that Fowley hadn't seen her? She'd walked right past the door for goodness' sake! Did she think that Mulder wasn't allowed to talk to an old girlfriend? Was she that possessive of him, the sick little-

"So why did you want to meet us here?" asked Fox.

What was it that he had for manipulative women? First that Phoebe Greene person and now Scully.

"Well," she replied, "I thought I should tell you that I've applied for reassignment. I've asked to work with you and Agent Scully on the X-Files."

Though if Scully for some reason decided not to show...

"You want to what?" asked Mulder.

He didn't sound displeased. Good.

Scully hadn't said anything. Also good.

"I applied for transfer to the X-Files," she said again. "You're going to need the extra help, starting over. As far as I know, my application has been accepted."

And not a moment too soon, from what she'd heard -- and read -- about Agent Scully and about the X-Files. Done okay with her indeed!

Scully still hadn't said anything. Hadn't moved, in fact. Very good.

A part of Fowley was ...apprehensive. What about the rumors? Mulder attempting suicide after hearing of Scully's fatal cancer? Spending a weekend shooting sharpened pencils into the ceiling? Some were more likely to be true than others, to be sure, but if they were, then Scully was far more controlling that Phoebe had ever been.

Fowey's face darkened. No one did that to her Fox while she was around.

The redhead had to go.

She was going to go.

And there was no time like the present to get started.

PART FOUR: THE REALLY REALLY SHORT ONE THAT I JUST PUT IN FOR FILLER.

~She wants to replace me,~ Scully realized. ~In the X-Files. _That's_ what bothers me about this woman.~ It was almost a relief to finally figure it out.

Of course, it was too late to do anything about it.

And the return look from Agent Fowley gave Scully another revelation:

She was there when he discovered the X-Files...

All this time that she'd been working with Mulder, what had he been thinking? That she was his second partner on the X-Files?

What had Fowley thought, returning to find her there?

~No...~ Scully amended, ~She thinks that I replaced her.~

PART FIVE: NO! ANYTHING BUT THAT!

"I'd have to tell you I'm surprised," Fox was saying. "What do you think, Scully?"

Fowley watched the other Agent flounder.

"Well I-"

Distracted, disoriented, and distraught. Excellent. Time for a little abject humiliation... Fowley glanced up toward a man who was wearing a waiter's uniform and carrying a microphone. She nodded in his direction.

He came over and clapped a hand on Scully's shoulder. "Hello there," he checked his list, "Dana Scully right?" he asked.

"Uh, yes..." said Scully, still off-guard. "What is it?"

Fowley smirked inwardly as comprehension dawned on Scully's face. Scully glanced back across the table for a moment and their eyes met.

It was times like this that convinced Fowley that telepathy existed. No words, no gestures, yet she understood Scully's meaning in full.

~You planned this, you sneaky little...~

~You bet your overdyed little head I did,~ Fowley grinned. ~Break a leg, Red.~

"Alright, Miss Scully," said the waiter. "What would you like to sing for us today?"

PART SIX: A TURN FOR THE VERSE or SONGS IN THE KEY OF NONE

Before Mulder could wonder what had Scully so distracted, a waiter with a clipboard and a microphone came and clapped her on the shoulder.

"Alright, Miss Scully. What would you like to sing for us today?"

"...to sing for us today..."

"...to _sing_ for us..."

"...to _SING_..."

Mulder looked up at him in surprise. No... He couldn't mean...

"Uh, excuse me," he said to the waiter. "I really don't think you should-"

"Alright, Miss Scully. If you don't have any preference, I could pick a song for you..."

Scully stammered, "No, really I-"

Why did Diana have that look on her face..?

"Hey!" Mulder protested again. "It's not a good idea to make this woman sing."

"I'm sorry sir, but if she didn't want to sing, what is she doing in a karioke bar?"

What was she doing there? She was there because-

Oh.

Oh dear...

Mulder put his mind back on the problem at hand -- saving his eardrums and Scully's dignity. "The lady doesn't want to sing," he told him.

The waiter glanced over his shoulder. "Look," he said, beginning to sound upset, "my supervisor is over there, wondering why I'm holding things up." He turned back to Scully. "Miss, if you'd just-"

Scully opened her mouth to protest again, but it didn't look like this guy was going to have any of it. The waiter's supervisor started to walk towards their table.

Mulder stood up, "You look," he began. "There's a whole bar full of people here, and I'm sure at least one of them would like to-"

What happened next was a bit confusing. Mulder would rememmber the supervisor's annoyedexpression, Scully's "what the-?!" expression, Diana's rapidly fading cat-that-got-the-canary expression, and the waiter's rapidly intensifying desperate-as-crud expression as he announced something unintelligible into the microphone before cramming it into Mulder's hand.

But for the rest of his days he would never remember exactly what had possessed him to -- amid many cries of "Put that mike down!" and "You suck!" -- to actually stand in that circle and sing a loud and off-key rendition of "Blinded by the Light."

PART SEVEN: CHIVALRY ISN'T DEAD, BUT IT SURE IS TONE-DEAF.

Now she knew why Fox always spoke in a monotone... Could anyone be _that_ off-pitch?

"...she was blin- BLINDed by the l-light..."

Apparently so.

Check that, this was going to be _much_ harder than she'd previously thought...

~I guess I have no one but myself to blame for this...~

She looked over at Agent Scully. The look on her face fairly screamed that she didn't believe what was happening, and for once, Fowley could only agree with her.

~No one but myself... I should have known better than to put him in a position like that. I should have guessed that I was up against something that intense...~

The hold that Scully had over Fox was downright frightening: she'd actually made him sing in public! He didn't even sing when he was drunk!

"...ripped UP by a... a something-something moter in the- the night..."

...thank goodness.

Fowley blinked. Why did Fox have that look on his face?

Oh dear.

"He is enjoying this far too much," she muttered slowly.

Scully didn't seem to be paying attention. "Uh huh," she murmured, looking at Fox with a catatonic mixture of fascination and horror.

"This could be very bad..."

"Uh huh."

PART EIGHT: THE HILLS ARE ALIVE ...BARELY

"She was BLINDed by the- what?" Mulder looked up to see the supervisor walking toward him.

"Sir," he said, covering the mike with his hand. "Please leave."

"But-"

"Don't worry about your bill. Just leave."

"Don't you want me to finish the s-"

"NO!" shouted half the people in the bar.

Several minutes later, with much applause from the crowd, Mulder, Scully and Fowley left the karioke bar.

"I'm still perplexed as to how Scully's name got on that karioke list," he said aloud.

"And how the waiter knew what I looked like," murmured Scully.

"Didn't we once find an X-File about bartenders with telepathic powers?" asked Fowley.

Mulder thought about it for a moment.

"...no," he said, confused.

"Yes we did," she answered.

"No, I think I'd remember one that weird."

Fowley stopped for a moment. "I think I left my purse inside," she said.

Scully frowned. "If you forgot your purse, what's that in your hand?"

"Did I say my purse? I meant my keys."

"Do you want us to come with you?" asked Mulder.

She laughed, "No, I wouldn't want you to get stoned to death. I'll be right back."

Mulder leaned against the side of the building. He galanced to Scully. She ran a hand over her eyes.

"Look," she said. "I'm sorry I vagued out on you back there."

"Don't mention it," he told her. "It was even kind of fun."

She looked back at him the same way she might a rabid ocelot. "Don't tell me you're thinking of-"

"No..." he trailed off. "I guess you and Diana are right."

"While we're on the subject," said Scully, "about Agent Fowley coming to work with us..."

Yeah. He'd probably get stoned to death if he tried to get back into this one, but...

"Mulder? Are you listening to me?"

PART NINE: AND THRICE AGAIN or COME ON! I HAD TO HAVE ONE TITLE THAT DIDN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!

"What was I supposed to do? Phil's already mad at me for holding things up."

"All you needed was-"

"That is the last favor I do for you, Diana Fowley!"

"Oh thanks, Ed!"

"Who is this guy anyway?"

"I told you. He's an old boyfriend."

"Well he seems really attatched to his new girlfriend."

"She's not his girlfriend!" Fowley paused. "...I think."

He'd sung in public.

He was totally blind to her manipulations.

He defended her against Fowley's criticism.

He let her stay with him on the X-Files even though she could not aid his quest for the Truth.

...and so many people at the Bureau had answered her questions about Scully with "Well, at first I thought that they were sleeping together, _but._"

Oh.

Oh dear...

Fowley walked out the karioke bar. Mulder and Sclly were waiting outside. Fowley looked at them for a moment. Could they be-?

Nah.

"Find your keys?" asked Scully.

"Uh huh," said Fowley, smiling pleasantly.

~This isn't over, Red,~ she thought.

It was times like this that convinced Fowley that telepathy existed.

~Not so tough without your karioke bar?~ Scully's eyes were piercing. ~Take your best shot.~

Fowley shrugged.

~If you insist.~

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
DIANA FLYNN

I hope you enjoyed this little story. Please send any comments, feedback, death threats or money to vhrd53d@prodigy.com.