"Oh, wait," you say. "Scully was pregnant at the end of the last extension of the series. What about that baby?" To which I say, "Good! Get me some information about the baby, girl or boy? name?" I'm thinking there was a miscarriage. I have a fictional biography of Dana Scully which gives her birth date as February 23, 1964, and the Pilot of the X-Files was in September 10, 1993, so that makes her...29 when the show begins. This would give her enough time in her twenties to have gotten a medical degree. (I have a fictional biography of Mulder which gives his birthdate as October 13, 1961, so he is a month before his 32nd birthday when the show begins. So, that means when she announced to Mulder that she was pregnant in 2018, then, she was at least 54 years old(?) I had my younger son when I was 39 and that was considered very old to be having a baby. As it was, he was delivered by Caesarean, because of complications. I'm thinking that there is a very good chance that Scully would have had a miscarriage. (Side note: William was born May 13, 2001. I don't believe any of the stuff about "Jackson" He's an actor Cigarette Smoking Man hired.)

As we found out, when then President Trump fired Agent Andrew McCabe in 2018, hours before his formal retirement,(note: Mr. McCabe sued and in 2021, had his pension restored.)there is a mandatory retirement age of 57 at the FBI. Mulder, in 2018, is in his last year as an agent. He's of two minds about retirement, as most people are. He thinks he might like more free time, but wonders if he will be bored. Scully plans to continue working for the government, but only part time, and near their retirement cabin.

A big difference between these later stories on my site, and the actual X-Files later stories/movies is that, in these stories, Scully and Mulder are married. They have been since Scully found out she was going to have a baby (the first one, William.)

Y'know in the series, the baby, William, is frequently called a "miracle baby" but you won't hear Mulder or Scully refer the baby as a "mystery baby." Nope. No mystery. The usual way. Scully is a good Catholic woman, and also has been around listening to other women and men as they gossip about other folks enough to know she doesn't want to be showing up at Mass regularly with a child and some guy she's living with. She knows that some people argue, "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?"

Also, early in her career, she had autopsied a boy, James, age eight. He had taken his own life because he was a "bastard" and relentlessly tormented at school.

She lets Mulder know she has been looking around at various international organizations. Plenty of places need a forensic doctor. Many would be glad to house a US trained doctor in a secure compound and supply a nanny and bodyguard. Who knows, she might meet someone who is proud to stand up with her at the altar.

So they are married, although she retains her professional name and continues to be known as "Scully" to people she has worked with for years. Mulder is relieved to know, now that he's coming up on retirement, that if he should die before Scully, she would continue to receive some money as spousal benefits.

Scully thinks she may have made some headway with her relationship with her brother when she sends him a wedding announcement. He sends a "Best Wishes" card. Then, in way too short a time, she sends the birth announcement, and that's the end of that.

Enjoy the site!

Teaser: It wouldn't be an X-File without a teaser, so here it is. U.S. Naval Station Mayport, Jacksonville, Florida, Monday, March 26, 2018: Pre-dawn on a U.S. Naval base airstrip. In the background are large gray vessels. Inside a building, three sailors walk down a corridor in dim light. They wear uniforms that suggest that they are Navy Seals, and there is a brief focus on one of the trio's "trident" insignia. They go into a room and each points a metal device like a TV remote at a man laying on a cot, and clicks it. "Rise 'n shine!" says the one. "Up 'n at 'em!" says the second, and, "Wake-y Wake-y!" says the third, but these calls overlap. The three people clicked on are shown from the back getting up. Each unplugs something from an outlet and they wind and store the cords in a small pouch. They are in military pants, and white undershirts and socks. They pull on military shirts and boots, but these are different from the Seal outfits so they are Non-Seals. We can't see their faces. The Non-Seals stow the pouches in a pants pocket and each grabs a jacket before they shuffle up the corridor followed by the three Seals. The next scene, a Navy Lieutenant finishes a lecture using a map which is projected on a whiteboard. He uses a metal pointer to show a dot which represents a city in (maybe) North Africa. He gives directions about finding the building where they will "deliver the goods." It's obvious this is some sort of "special operation." He is very serious about asking if there are any questions. There are about 16 guys in the room, plus the Non-Seals, and the three Seals with remotes, the six of whom sit apart from the others. All take packs from a side table, and with the exception of the Lieutenant and the Seals with remotes and Non-Seals, all take an M16A3 rifle. They walk outside to where three helicopters are waiting on the tarmac. They divide into three groups and walk to the helicopters. All the men stop when they reach the helicopters. The Lieutenant says to them that they will be aboard the S.S. Iwo Jima. He gives the Seals with the remotes orders to "check in" every 8 hours from the ship and every two hours after leaving the ship. "Yes, Sir!" they say, saluting him. Suddenly a space ship that looks like the traditional "flying saucer" simply "appears" above them. A bright beam of light focuses on the the Non-Seals and they are quickly pulled up into the ship. The men with the remotes throw down the remotes. They scream in pain and clutch their hands to their bodies. The remotes glow as if red-hot, then disappear in a flash of light. Another of the men takes his rifle from his shoulder, backs off, and opens fire on the spaceship, but it has disappeared and he is firing into air. Two other men have taken their rifles from their sides, but have not fired them. The Lieutenant halts all the men with an upraised hand. The Lieutenant scans the skies. He gives a little shake of his head. "Gone!" he says to the other men. Whooeee! Music and Opening Scenes, all the usual stuff: sauntering ghost, noiseless funhouse screaming, identical pouring pods of goo, flashlights, etc. Old Wine in New Skins, Part One: Whoosh! Friday March 30, 2018: Scully and Mulder are en route from their D.C. condo to their weekend cabin in the mountains of northern VA, close by the Mount Weather (Secure Facility) compound. Several years before, the property came up for sale. Mulder and Scully envision it as their retirement home. It's on a large isolated lot which backs up to public land, and features two cabins. The main cabin has a front porch, then Great Room, with kitchen and in-kitchen dining off the entry, and pull-down stairs to an unimproved attic. Off to one side is a laundry/pantry, bath and bedroom and a large closet for the gas furnace and hot water heater. The back wall has a large fireplace and a door to the patio and back yard. There is a small lean-to tool shed at the back of the main cabin. The other cabin is just a bunkhouse. It came with two metal bunk beds in it as well as a small metal clothes rack and two cracked and scratched dressers. It is electrified with two outlets and a bare bulb overhead. So, y'know, IF they had any friends or family left, (except Scully's brother William, who won't even send them a card at Christmas) they could have them over. During the sale process, Mulder, by now, has nothing to say but a pleasant smile when Scully chirps excitedly about the place having a "guest house" that could be "fixed up." Nope. Not a word. Uh-uh. Not me. No Sir. She puts up cafe curtains in her mind as they close the deal. What Mulder didn't know then is that Scully had a schoolmate named Charlene with whom she had corresponded since they were in seventh grade and Scully was thinking about inviting her and her... OOPS! Dang! Chris found out about Scully having one (1) friend left and has Charlene's flesh eaten off by bacteria when she went into the hospital for a routine check-up to treat some minor abrasions following a five car pile-up at rush hour several years ago, right after they purchased the cabin. It was suspected that the infection was part of a domestic terror attack. Mulder and Scully were assigned to investigate. They brought the group responsible to justice, but not before ten people died at the hospital (including that cousin of Mulder's...what was his name...Adlai? Yeah, Chris found out about him, too.) However, a massive attack on the public was thwarted at the last moment. Scully attended Charlene's funeral. Scully furnishes the main cabin with her own personal touches. The bare bunkhouse stays as it was. Well, anyway, back to the story... Scully and Mulder had worked very late on a new case. They eat a late dinner in Virginia, and it is almost midnight when they arrive at the cabin. They are discussing Scully's upcoming hysterectomy. It is revealed that she had a miscarriage shortly after telling Mulder she was expecting. A flashback reveals Scully looking at the medical data while recuperating in the hospital,and the baby would have been a girl. She has an appointment with her doctor the next week. As they step up onto the porch, they have returned to the discussion of what they will need to do on-line over the weekend as the preliminary part of a new investigation. Mulder goes to unlock the main cabin door. He stops, momentarily confused, then pushes the door a little ways open. It is unlocked. They quietly un-holster their guns (they take their guns and usually check for critters, like raccoons, squirrels, etc., before they go anywhere on the property. Mulder is very set against dying in a bear attack,) and cautiously push the door more open. They peer around the door. Someone is in the Great Room. Silhouetted by a window bright with the light of a full moon, and slouched in an overstuffed chair, the figure reaches over to a lamp on the table beside the chair. A light goes on in the Great Room. There is a young man slouched in the overstuffed chair. "Hello!" He says. He puts his hands up. Scully and Mulder enter, guns drawn. "You don't recognize me," says the young man, "It's me, William Van de Camp. Your son." Mulder and Scully had given the infant William up for adoption to a couple they knew. Their family had been friends of Scully's family through church. This is called a "fictive kin" adoption, and after adoption by relatives, it is usually considered better than stranger adoption. Mulder and Scully told them to expect that their son might be a little odd. Mulder told them that he was partially an Alien, and Scully told them she had been injected with Alien DNA. They said William's life was in danger. The Van de Camps might have also thought Mulder and Scully had been a little affected by their job. (Um. You know...) Anyhow, Scully and Mulder had sworn them to secrecy. They would tell people that this was the child of a single mom who could not raise him by herself. The Van de Camps were themselves childless. They met William and fell in love with him, without reservation. They knew that Mulder and Scully were in a very dangerous line of work, so they agreed that raising William away from all that would be a good idea. So Mulder and Scully were sure that, even if the couple had known about the cabin, they wouldn't have told William about it. So, they hadn't told William, but well, there he was. In their weekend cabin. Y'know, not at their workplace, not at their D.C. condo: No. There he is at the not - known- by - anyone - weekend cabin. "You're probably wondering if Mom and Dad Van de Camp let me in on the secret of my heritage. Nope. In fact I am supposed to be in Washington D.C. to take part in a protest march. I guess they think it's my rebellious DNA-from each side here- showing itself." William smiles, "I go to a lot of protests now that I'm older. Also we've moved much closer. It's only a few hours bus ride to get to Washington D.C." A few seconds pass. "Um, are you going to holster your guns and sit down?" There is a little bit of annoyance in that question. Mulder flips on the light and he and Scully sit down at the kitchen table. Scully re-holsters her gun. Mulder lays his on the table. Mulder says, "How did you find this place?" "Well, that's certainly part of a very much longer story, but I can condense it and say that I've been in contact with some of our relatives. Actually, they've contacted me, and I've joined up for occasional duty." Mulder asks,"You mean you're part of them now?" "Well, Yes and No. I haven't officially signed on, but that looks likely in the future. Them-They- the folks I've joined up with, aren't the little grays or any of the horror film aliens. They definitely aren't the ones you think are in league with the government. They think that Spender is creepy too, OK? They're actually very nice. They just "observe" for the most part. So, Dad, ...your mom? She and this one Alien, well, it was... considered aberrant. They were in love, and it, well, it wasn't allowed. 'Those things happen' is about all anyone will say." "Them contacting me put to rest a lot of fears I had. I had never felt quite right or normal. "Mom" would tell me that all teenagers go through feelings like that, but I could tell she was afraid it was the Alien in me finally coming out. I mean, I knew I was an Alien. From a very young age. I told them so, too. From a very young age." "So I've been pulling small duties every now and then, ever since I was twelve years old. Learning a trade, if you will. I was initially contacted by another boy at school. He was also partially an Alien, and had been adopted into a "blended" family. At my first meeting with them, the Elders were impressed with what I already knew just from my own research, and thinking about things. Anyway, about a year or two ago, they assigned me a permanent Mentor. I'll say I'm going somewhere, like, to a friend's house, and put in a few hours with my Mentor on a ...what you would call a spaceship. My Mentor and I would call it ...um... more like a workroom or office. The Aliens I work with do other things besides watch us. It's not all about us. The Elders said to tell you that your sister...they have no knowledge of her whereabouts ...they extend condolences." "Well, that's a pretty Tall Tale, William. Got anything to back it up?" Mulder says. "Ah, Ha! Ha!!" Now William's eyes sparkle. He smiles a little smile."Out in the back yard. Come with me." He slowly gets up and goes to the back door. Mulder takes his gun. Scully walks behind. William stops momentarily at a set of switches and flips a light on for the patio. He is in the doorway. Mulder says, "You seem to know your way around." William stops and turns halfway around. He replies, "Oh, I've been here a lot... Sometimes when you aren't here, but also, if you are, I can look at things and move them around a little-up to 5 lbs and maybe 15 feet-using a small device operated from the office, a "distance peering" and "remote hands" robot. My Mentor is teaching me to use the device but I'm not good at it yet. Mulder and Scully share a look. They have talked before about how it seemed like there was a ghost in the cabin. A door is open that was shut. Things move from where they were put down. (Leila: Having not raised their son to his teen years, Mulder and Scully have no idea just how like a teenager this is. Doesn't close the door. Takes stuff and doesn't put it back in the right place. Food is missing. Lots of food is missing, like, "Hey! I thought I put two six packs of pomegranate drink in the refrigerator. Now there's only one." Yeah, that type of stuff has been going on.) They nod to each other. In the back, beyond the circle of light, there's a small rise, a knoll, covered in grass. Three Adirondack chairs have been pulled up there. Three figures are seated in the chairs, but seated forward, on the front edge, not relaxed in the chairs. Three plastic lawn chairs have been pulled up opposite them. William enters the circle of chairs. Mulder stops outside the circle. When Scully approaches within a certain number of feet, the three figures rise and face her, respectfully. It is SO last century. Scully bumps into a plastic chair, so absorbed is she staring at the three figures. She stops. "Frohike?" She whispers. "Yeah. Almost. Sorta." says her addressee. "We're not really the men we used to be." says another, the blond figure. "Come inside, in the light." barks Mulder, and Scully backs away, way off to the side. The three figures raise their hands and obey his orders. Scully follows William with her gun re-drawn. Mulder orders them on through the house to the kitchen, where they stand around the table, under the light. There they are...or are they? Scully squints and says to Frohike, who stands nearest her, "You look like you, but not...is there a good explanation for that?" "No." says Frohike. Mulder says, "Is there a bad explanation for that?" "Yes." says Frohike. "Sit and explain." says Mulder, who stands by the front door. Each sits in the chair nearest to them. Byers who is first to sit, begins, "People always complain about how the government is "wasteful," he says with air quotes, but, sometimes the government is very thrifty. They didn't let us "go to waste" when we were exposed to a lethal virus." (A flashback of the Gunmen begins with Byers, in the sealed contaminated hallway, saying "Never Give Up!") Langly picks up the story, "They sent men in hazardous material suits to get us before we were quite dead. I remember seeing them." (The same scene shows Langly opening his eyes briefly as two men in haz-mat suits drag him onto a stretcher. Another man sprays something that fogs the air. The scene dissolves in a fog.) "We were rushed to a secret location. They had been waiting for a chance like this." Frohike continues, "They had everything ready to go. They transferred our consciousness into these body-like forms, which they then modified to look like how we used to look. (Clear plastic forms that look like their faces get filled with flesh- toned goop, and then the faces, now like masks and mounted on armatures, are further sculpted. Facial hair is being inserted above Byer's lip at a microscope-aided station.) So it's us, but not us." There’s a pause. Scully holsters her weapon and says, quietly, "These are man-made bodies? They are really..." and her voice trails off. Frohike leans in her direction, and says, "Madam Doctor...would you like to examine me?" She nods and he rises and, with a nod to Mulder to acknowledge that there's still a gun pointed at him, walks over extending a limp, unaggressive arm in her direction. She takes the arm and examines it. Scully gasps, "Mulder...this is a man- made arm!" She extends her search to his face, "life-like but not ..." With her left hand, she fumbles with the chain around her neck, and grasps hold of the crucifix. She looks at Mulder, mouth agape. Mulder says, "In 1998 we were on a case involving two people who were trying to upload something to the Internet..." "Ah!" says Langly, silencing the other two with his upraised index finger. "I remember that... They were trying to upload themselves as energy." Mulder remembers several other cases where the Lone Gunmen helped. They ace the test. Scully says, "What is your life like now? Do you...do anything...?" This gets a laugh from all three and William. Langly says, in great humor, "Do we do anything? Do we DO anything? Why Scully, we're the best thing the government ever thought of! We're busy all the time! We get all the Mission Impossible assignments! Nothing is too dangerous for us!" They laugh again. "I've been 'killed' three times already!" ventures Byers, holding up three fingers. The others nod their heads and put up fingers-Langly puts up three, Frohike puts up five. (Note: when Byers says he was 'killed' he means he got knocked end-ways hard enough that he couldn't function, and needed repairs. What ever hit him would have killed a human soldier, though. This is what the Gunmen are designed to do.) "So," Mulder says, warily, "Are you on an assignment now?" Langly salutes, grinning widely, "Yes Sir!! Or we were, at least! We were on our way to our new assignment -delivering guns to rebel forces in an African country. Only thing ...we got abducted! (As he describes the abduction, there is a cut-away to the event in the teaser, but now we see it is the Gunmen being led to the helicopter.) It happened right in front of everybody on the base- commanding officer, security detail, helicopter pilot, everyone outside at the time.... This big saucer ship appears, zips us into it in a tractor beam, and..." (Langly pushes his arm up) "Whoosh! Away we go!" (In the accompanying re-enactment of the abduction, the ship fades and disappears as it swiftly glides straight up with a Whoosh!) "It didn't really go 'Whoosh!" interjects William, sotto voce, to Mulder. Mulder nods. (In a second re-enactment of the ship leaving, the ship fades and disappears as it swiftly glides straight up, noiselessly.) "Well, it was very convincing," says Byers. "But, Oh, We had met William before. He met us while we were in South America delivering medicine where the local government didn't want any medicine delivered. He identified himself as your son. He promised us he would arrange a meeting with you." "A while before we got abducted, Will said not to be surprised at anything, don't panic, so we didn't panic when a space ship materialized. We kept our cool!" Langly is proud. He grins. "Wait-You couldn't come and see us?" Mulder asks. "Well, HAVE we come over to see you?" Frohike says. Byers says, "It was made clear to us that we couldn't contact anyone. But William went behind their lines, so to speak, and said that he was working on a plan, and well, it looks like it was a pretty good plan." "Basically, we went where we were told to go and did what we were told to do." says Frohike. "No social life. They shut us down when we weren't on an assignment." "They don't know you're here?" asks Scully. "No." says William, "My Mentor has monitored their phone calls, texts, and e-mails. They assume the guys have been abducted. They don't know where they are so they can't shut them down either. They're really teed off about it, too." He smiles. He has a dazzling smile, we can now say. "Theft of government property." notes Frohike dryly. Mulder looks at Scully, sarcastically "shocked", "Gasp! Scully! We're in receipt of stolen government property!" He re-holsters his gun. Scully replies, also in a mock serious way, bites her lip, shakes her head, and says, "Boy, we're in big trouble now. They won't like us doing that." "Well I'm forgetting my job here! Who would like what to drink?" She heads for the refrigerator, and Mulder, likewise taking off his jacket and hanging it up, shakes hands all around, and goes to the cabinets to help Scully serve. The four at the table remove and put their jackets on the backs of the chairs. There is excited talk on all sides, including requests for "only water, please," from the three semi-humans. William requests, "Some of that sparkling pomegranate drink, please!" as he knows there is another six-pack in there. At this point a jacketless Mulder goes to the furnace thermostat and turns on the heat, something he would have done immediately if there hadn't been all the commotion that happened. Then he pulls two folding chairs out from in the laundry/pantry room and opens them for Scully and himself. Everyone pushes into the table. There's a lot of news to catch up on. The End of Part One. Thanks for visiting my site! Leila Old Wine in New Skins, Part Two: Big Boxes Friday, March 30, 2018: The second part opens the same night at the cabin with Mulder and Scully bringing in a clothes-bag and groceries from their car. They discuss, in almost whispers, the situation. Scully says, "So...robot Gunmen..." She eyerolls. Mulder agrees that the Gunmen inside seem to be the genuine article, noting quietly that, "Only those three could manage to end up as runaway government robots." The Gunmen and William are seated around the table. Scully and Mulder come into the cabin. Mulder hangs the clothes-bag on the coat-tree. As the guys help Scully put away the groceries, Langly begins. "Well, there's another issue we have had with our 'service to our country.' We delivered things all over the world in these big boxes. They were big enough for several types of goods-medicine, guns, whatever." The Gunmen show three dimensions. Langley shows height, Byers shows width, Frohike turns sideways and shows depth. As Langly continues, the other two Gunmen re-take their seats. "Then they changed the boxes. The new ones were very high tech, an outer box and an inner insulated metal box. Scan-able codes, GPS, and antennae. At first it just seemed like that was all to keep the contents cool and safe, and track them. Then Frohike noticed something that piqued his interest." Langly finishes taking the last of the groceries into the pantry. As Langly re-takes his seat, he yields the floor to Frohike. Frohike begins (and the cut-away ensues, only now they are in a jungle, in a military field tent,) "The dimensions didn't add up. So finally I decide to remove the top piece that held the inner and outer boxes together and we pulled out the inner box. There was a difference in height of several inches." says Frohike. (The cut away shows Frohike, taking off a top piece and, a flat screwdriver in hand, forcing up the top of the inside box at six "notches" clearly designed for that use. He pulls out the inner box and he and Byers hold it level with the top of the outer box. Langly measures with two-plus hand widths of the empty space -the difference between the height of the two boxes.) Eyebrows on the X-File couple go up. "Yeah. There was a false bottom. After they gave us these new boxes? We almost never returned with the boxes. They always got "handed off" to someone else, sometimes in a completely different country, for no well-explained reason." Byers takes over the grim ending. "So we might have been drug mules, or worse. There could have been bodies in them for all we knew." William says, "I had been monitoring electronic communications about these trips and I was suspecting that there might have been two parts to every delivery. I went to their field operations center in the jungle to ask if I could inspect the boxes. Sure enough, there was something else in the bottom." It's Langly's turn again. "We had already checked. It was only cash, but, you know, U.S. dollars, and lots of them, so it was some sort of pay-off. We told William that being used like that made us mad, but we had feared that if we complained we might get decommissioned." Mulder says, "Decommissioned? You mean turned off?" "Worse," says Frohike, "dismantled; junked." Byers says, "We were so ashamed that our wanting to be activated-to walk around and feel the sunshine and wind-and work together- that wanting to do that -it made us cowards." The Gunmen look down, or off to the side. The Gunmen now sit not looking up. Their craven desire to be alive again had been brought out into the open. Scully is beginning to blink at a rapid rate. Her mouth goes down and her chin shakes. She gets a box of tissues from the counter. William says, in a deliberately very sunshine-y up-beat way, "So I suggested that my Mentor could help. We just needed a place for them to go to. I told the Elders that I thought this place might be available. So, can they stay?" After a moment goes by, Will begins to look nervous. Scully dabs with a tissue and says, "Well I move that you stay here as long as you want to." "I second that motion." says Mulder. "All in favor, signify by saying "Aye." The "Ayes" have it and the motion carries. That's good, because it's perfectly obvious that Will has no "Plan B." Byers stands and offers a toast, "To our hosts!" Mulder adds, "To our guests!" Glasses clink around and across the table. William says that the Gunmen and he are going back up onto the ship soon. Langly quips that it's time for the Gunmen to "recharge our batteries" except it isn't a quip. Scully says that they can stay in the bunkhouse-which is their guest house, after she buys bedding for it. She will go into town tomorrow and do shopping for groceries (including more pomegranate drink for William) and bedding. Scully asks William, "So are you still planning to go to that protest in Washington? You're not going to get yourself beat up, are you?" William says, "Yes! I mean yes, I'm going. It's being put on by MUFON-The Mutual UFO Network?- and it's called the MUFON March- it's about the government covering up what they know about various UFO sightings." Scully is relieved. Insofar as she knows, there aren't any people violently opposed to releasing info on Alien sightings. He continues, "It's being held on Sunday. MUFON looked around and there was another big protest being held tomorrow, so they changed the date." "Oh What is the other protest about?" asks Scully. "It's the ERA. Virginia has yet to ratify the Amendment. The Rally to Pass The ERA is being held at the State Capitol Building in Raleigh. I could have gone to that one-some women in my Role Playing Group are going and would have set me up for a place to stay, but I canceled when I found out that my Mentor planned to abduct the guys this week. I thought it might be cutting it close, so I told my gal friends they would have to be equal without me.... this time." Will smiles wryly. As he explains this, Scully makes a note to herself to get herself on some contact lists of women's political groups in Virginia. She had been kept informed by her co-workers in Washington, D.C. about women's issues there, but now, when they plan to move to the cabin, she would have to seek out this information. While this last little exchange has been going on, the Gunmen are visibly excited about something. There are whispers, gestures, and nods. "So, William," says Langly, "Would you like some company at the MUFON March?" All three look eagerly at William. "It's been a really long time since we saw any MUFON folks!" says Langly. "I guess it has been!" exclaims William, "What- about 15 years?" "Where is the March Route?" asks Frohike. William takes a piece of paper and a pencil from a drawer, and begins to sketch a map. They confer about the various federal buildings the march will pass. Mulder looks at Scully. Scully steps up to the job of being diplomatic. "Um, Guys. you know, when people get a really close-up good look at you, you don't pass for human. I think you could end up attracting the bad sort of attention..." The guys seem to take no note of her in their excited huddle. Mulder leans over and waves. "Hello? Earth to Uncanny Valley?" William has made some sort of drawing on the other side of the map and shows it to Frohike. Frohike shows it to Langley and Byers. The three nod. Frohike suddenly lifts his head up towards Mulder and Scully. "Huh? Hmm?" says Frohike, "Oh, I guess we wouldn't want to attract the wrong sort of attention. You're right about that." The others nod to each other and him. William rips up the paper with the map and the drawing and takes it to the trash basket. It seems like the matter is closed. William says, "Scully- Mom? When you go into town tomorrow could you do some shopping for us?" He gets another paper and writes a list. He shows it to the other three. Byers adds two items. Scully looks at it. She says, "XL balloons, poster board, Sharpie marker set, 2 sets acrylic paint, brushes, 1 yard black nylon mesh, 12 yards silver cloth. Well, I guess that's all at the fabric and crafts store... doing a project, huh, Son?" (A "What We Call Each Other" agreement has been reached.) William nods. Scully continues, "hmmm... 3 pairs of gardening gloves, and 3 pairs of rubber boots?" Byers says, "As you might imagine, the government didn't pay us for our work and well, you know, being dead, we can't open an account anyway. So we have nothing. But we're willing to work. You just buy some seeds, more shovels and rakes and such, and we could put this whole place under cultivation." Since buying the original property Mulder and Scully have bought the lot next door. There actually is enough land to be a little mini-farm. Scully takes the list and puts it into her purse. "OK, I'll stop at the Ranch 'N' Home." The Gunmen and William go out and stand on the Grassy Knoll. A bright vertical beam of light appears, and they disappear and the light stops. Mulder and Scully watch from the doorway, then quickly close it. It's cold outside!The camera pans upward to the cloaked ship, so, nothing, unless you know what to look for... The End of Part Two. Thanks for visiting my site! Old Wine in New Skins, Part Three: MUFON Saturday, March 31, 2018: The following scenes have no dialogue. Early the next morning the group stands looking into the bunkhouse. The door droops on its hinges, which look rusty. The shot changes to a view from deep inside the room. The inside is bare and very unpromising looking. The group at the door goes out of focus and we watch a spider work on its web in the foreground. Back in the main cabin, Scully shows them mattresses for the bunk-beds still in plastic wrappers in the attic. In the next scene, Scully shops in a lighting fixture store. She looks at a decorative globe. She looks approvingly at the price tag. She takes it up to the register. Outside the bunkhouse, Mulder brings a can of paint to Byers. Byers works at high speed with a small brush, meticulously painting something. In the bunkhouse, the other Gunmen clean and polish everything, also at high speed. Langley stops moving at high speed and carries the spider in a clear plastic cup with a square of cardboard over it out to the rose bushes at the side of the cabin, turns it over, and lets the spider run out onto the bush. Next they bring the mattresses down from the attic at warp speed. Mulder stands in astonishment holding the bunkhouse door for them. Then, as Mulder holds the door, Langly fixes the door. It's like watching robotic tools at a factory. In town, Scully puts big shopping bags of bedding in the back of the car. She moves some curtain rods over to make room. Then she takes out the list, gets in the car, and drives to the Ranch 'N' Home Store. At the cabin, Mulder produces some yellow cotton swiss-dotted material and a pattern packet from the pantry/laundry room and shows it to Frohike and then we see Frohike at a sewing machine zipping the material piled up high on one side of the machine through the machine in a blur. Byers, at the same rate of speed, takes the finished curtains onto an ironing board and, with spray bottles of water and starch, makes the curtains crisp. While they do this William does some dusting and vacuuming at regular human speed out in the bunkhouse. Mulder prepares a lunch, some soup and cheese sandwiches, for the humans. He puts water in a pitcher and puts it in the refrigerator. Scully rearranges things in the trunk some more to make room for some Food Tiger cloth grocery bags she bought to reduce plastic waste. In addition to all the purchases for the bunkhouse, there are some bags from a fabric and arts and crafts store, and bags from a butcher and bakery. She drives out of the Food Tiger parking lot, and onto a main road, and is traveling back to the cabin when she sees another small shopping center. She turns into the center and into a parking space. She gets out her phone and does some online banking, transferring $2,000 dollars into her debit account. Then she goes into the store-we don't know what store, but obviously she's going to make an impulsive purchase! Driving back to the cabin, she grins as she looks over at the shopping bag on the passenger seat. Twenty minutes later, all three Gunmen, standing in the Great Room, seem to stop and listen. Langly shushes Mulder. Then Langly takes the pile of curtains out to the bunkhouse as Frohike takes the sewing machine and Byers takes the ironing board and put them back in the pantry/laundry room. They move all the pushed back furniture back to each piece's original position. After doing this, they walk outside and wait. Scully drives up. The Gunmen meet her at the car and take the bedding, the curtain rods, and the light globe out of the car. Mulder helps Scully take in the groceries and other items from the list. As they put the bags on the table the Gunmen appear at the back door inviting Scully to take a look at the bunkhouse. Needless to say, the place has been transformed into a charming little guest room. Everything gleams. The door closes properly. The beds have been made. The new light globe glows. The curtains are lovely. Scully is a little confused as to how all the packaged stuff from the trunk got assembled, hung, attached, etc. and the packaging cleared away while she brought in stuff from the car, but decides it may have taken Mulder and her longer than she remembers, and besides there are three of them. (William has been doing some required reading for his classes.) They have lunch. William says he would really like to go for a walk with "Mom and Dad" and see the countryside. He gets his jacket. Mulder and Scully grab their jackets and begin to tell him about the history of the area as they leave out the front door. After they leave, Byers takes a pile of old newspapers from a basket near the fireplace and rips them into strips. He mixes flour and water together in a big bowl. Langly brings in three large balloons and tapes them onto coffee cans currently being used for different sizes of nails -the nails sit in piles. Frohike is once again at the sewing machine. He is sewing the silver cloth, again in a blur. Outside, Langly takes a two-foot long piece of wood from the tool shed and brings it onto the porch where he has set up a folding worktable. He staple-guns the wood to the middle of a poster board, as a handle. He letters and draws on the poster board using the markers, and then joins Byers who is taking some large forms out of the oven. They attach the black mesh in an opening in each. They paint them, but we can't quite see what it is they are painting. As before, it's like watching a movie of people moving but it has been sped up. On a wooded path, Mulder, Scully, and William, it turns out, want to discuss the same thing. Mulder says, "We've talked this over, William, and we think you should tell your parents what you are doing with the Aliens and that you have contacted us." "Well," says William, "I would agree, but there's a problem with the Aliens. I've promised not to reveal anything about my service, unless the people are on the OK list. You both are and The Gunmen too. Apparently the Aliens think it works fine if my parents think I thought this Alien stuff up in my head." He shrugs. "I guess it matters a lot more if they are going to bring people they've abducted to your house." observes Mulder. "Well, I think we can work around that." They all agree they can figure out a way for William to "discover" Mulder, Scully, and the X-Files. Mulder says: "Do you have any big papers due? Like, research papers?" "Yup," says William, "I have one paper due in my English Lit. Class and another in my U.S. Government class. The one for Literature will be on the Beat Generation, and their poetry, in the Fifties. The Government one is on McCarthyism." "Well, if one has to be about the government, that's great. We're with the government, y'know. You could ask your teacher to do your paper on The Roswell Incident instead. Pretend you got our number from "some person at MUFON." Call us on Monday and ask for an appointment for an phone interview in our messages. Leave your name and number and say that this is a high school government class paper about The Roswell Incident. Our calls are monitored from time to time so please play it straight." William considers this. "Well, OK, so then what?" Mulder asks, "Do you have a land line at your house?" "That's pretty much all my mom uses," says Will. "Then I'll call your parents on their land line but from my own phone, not the office phone, and say that we got this call about a phone interview for your term paper, and we know it's you, so we think the cat is either out of the bag or soon will be, and it would be best if they tell you about us. They know you are interested in MUFON. I think it would make sense to them. We could decide to have a meeting at your house then. You could write your paper on The Roswell Incident. We can tell you all about it, you know...we’ve got documents, pictures, all that. Stuff you just can’t get anywhere else. But as far as your parents and your Mentor know...we would be the ones who decided to make contact. You were just doing research." Scully adds, "We get lots of inquiries from citizens, especially if they have seen something strange. If you keep asking the local authorities about it, eventually they go to the Rolodex and give out our number." Sure enough, on Sunday, when he asks one of the other MUFON members about where "a friend" can report a sighting, the guy he asks goes through his little black book and gives William the X-Files number. So it does make sense. They return to the cabin and get ready for supper. Scully has made a pasta bake and a salad. After serving this, Scully serves an apple pie from the bakery and all is proclaimed a success. Scully announces that she has a special dessert for the Gunmen, who sit with their glasses of water at the table, enjoying the dinner regardless of not having any. She gets the bag out from her last stop. Mulder didn't see the bag when she snuck it into the kitchen from the car, so he will be surprised as well. Inside the bag are three more bags tightly wound around...smart phones. The Gunmen, William, and Mulder stare at the phones. The room is absolutely silent. Scully wonders what's wrong. After several seconds, Byers says, very quietly, "Langly used one of these once. Two years ago. Someone needed him to send some complicated information back to HQ." His voice gets even quieter. "Then they took it back, of course." "Each one of these is like a very small computer, you know." says Frohike, in muted tones. "They say you can play games on these." Langly is almost inaudible. Scully brings the tissue box over to the table and re-seats herself. The Gunmen look over their phones. The phones that they have came fully charged from the factory. (They've all been added to Scully's plan, too, of course.) Langly shows them what he learned about the devices that time he got to use one, then William takes over, after he retrieves his phone from the bottom of his backpack. It should be noted that when Will is in the "office", he uses devices in place there to do research or to communicate. The Gunmen have been using these devices all week to "catch up" on what's been going on while they were in their "government employment". Later in the evening, Byers loads the dishwasher as Scully sits with a cup of coffee. Byers does this at regular speed. The Gunmen have found that it makes conversation with others hard if they are moving around really fast. The other guys have gone to sit together in the Great Room and personalize the smart phones. They make up their first contact list of each other's phone numbers. Mulder shares addresses of news and history sites with Frohike. William shares awesome game sites with Langly. He thinks the Gunmen should join the same on-line RPG (Role-Playing Group) as he is in, and suggests possible roles, or game characters, they could pretend to play. Byers finishes with the dishwasher and sits with a glass of water. Scully says, "Tell me if I'm getting too personal, but, I know you used to have girlfriends. Are you planning to get in contact with them again?" "No." says Byers. "That's one of the issues we have been investigating on board the ship while we waited for this weekend. In each case, they've moved on. Of course, we can't have children. Also we literally got out with only the clothes on our backs. We have nothing to offer anyone. I mean, William bought us these civilian clothes with HIS money!" Byers continues, "All- Mary, Nell, and Lois- are married, or re-married. Mary has three kids! Nell had a baby very late in life but it was a healthy little girl, so Ken has a little sister. Lois married a wealthy widower in her community and they both have a whole new family including grandchildren. So, there you have it." Scully nods. Byers takes out his new phone and, moving to the chair next to her, engages her advice on what apps he should choose. They make jokes about several apps. Byers shows interest in some that promise you can make money with them. The next morning (April 1st, appropriately) Mulder and Scully wake and notice it's really late. Scully asks if Mulder turned off her alarm clock. "No." Scully puts on a robe and slippers, and Mulder, wearing an undershirt and sweatpants, puts on some slip-on canvas deck shoes. They go out to the table. There is a note from William and the Guys telling them they will will try to contact them from the March. "Oh No!" says Scully. "He gets this from YOU!" she grumbles. The MUFON March is underway! Ah! What a great crowd! They're having fun! Mulder gets a phone message from Frohike. There's a picture. In it, William holds the sign that Langly made. It explains the acronym MUFON: Mutual Unidentified Flying Object Network. The acronym reads from top to bottom. Next to the letters, Langly has drawn a green alien who leans against the letters in sort of the same way as The Pink Panther did. In addition to holding the sign, William is taking a selfie with three "Aliens" in home-made silver space suits and grayish-green paper-mache heads. They wear white gardening gloves and black rubber boots. They have smart phones. "Ah!" says Mulder, showing his phone to Scully. "He DOES get that from me! Pure Genius, and TOTALLY from ME!" Scully counters with, "Yes. He got it from you: it's easier to ask for forgiveness than get permission. That's TOTALLY from YOU." Then she laughs, "That's how we KNOW he's YOUR son." Mulder beams. After breakfast, they go to Mass at St. Patricks in town. Then they buy sandwiches and drinks and walk through a park to have lunch there on a bench. They talk about how great it is to suddenly have a full guest house. Even better, these aren't guests. Now they are members of the household. It's Sunday night and William and the Lone Gunmen have been "Whooshed Up" after a bus ride from D.C. out to open fields, and brought back to Mulder and Scully's cabin. ("Whooshed Up!" is now the accepted onomatopoetic verb for the ship's ascension. Everyone knows the ship makes no noise but y'know what? It's FUN to say "Whooshed Up!") Needless to say, the Gunmen are thrilled about being at the MUFON March. They were a huge hit! Lots of people cheered them and took their picture as they passed by. After supper everyone but the Gunmen has someplace to go. Mulder and Scully must go back to their Washington D.C. apartment. They have work the next day, and the next day Scully has a Dr's appointment. William must be taken on the ship to a field near the bus station at the next town over so he can fake arriving by bus at his own town, where his parents, the Van De Camps, will pick him up. He has school.(Williame saves money by travelling by ship. He used his unused bus money from his folks to buy thrift store clothes to replace the Gunmen's military outerwear.) The Lone Gunmen have made a plan for the garden. They will be busy clearing weeds and brush off the land the next week. They will figure out how many more tools, seeds, and bags of this or that, and call with a list. "On our new smart phones," says Byers. The Gunmen have something to say to their hosts before they leave. They walk out to where Mulder packs the car. Frohike says, "We have confirmed that all three of us can hear your car when it turns off onto the last big road leading to this place. We've decided that there is enough time for one of us to go to the front yard and rake, shovel snow, pull weeds, whatever...one of us will be out there and that person will wave to you. Mulder says, "...and if you're not there waving?" "Drive on." (In an emergency, they could, in fact, cross over to another road by taking their neighbor’s dirt road at the end of his field at the turn around space. They would never do that except if they thought it would be dangerous to go back past the cabin. They wouldn't want to trespass on their neighbor's land, but, it's an emergency plan.) Mulder points over to the wooded hills and says, "There's a hiking trail that overlooks this place, so you probably shouldn't do any more high speed stuff as we get into summer." It's a plan: no fast moves and a waving greeter. And a garden! They high-five all around. William goes home and sets up the X-Files interview. His parents get the call from Mulder saying it's time for everyone to have a meeting, so they do. William writes a fact-filled paper with lots of pictures on The Roswell Incident and finishes his paper on The Beat Generation. William asks if he can stay with Mulder and Scully over the summer and his parents say he can. Mulder tells them he thinks the danger William was in as a baby has passed. Even if they get new enemies, none of them will be able to figure out that they have a cabin or that there are people related to them there. All the records are sealed. William did balk at telling his parents about his work in “the office” with his mentor. The Elders had asked him to not bring it up with the Van De Camps, and he felt he should abide by their request. Will begins to spend his weekends at the Cabin. He finds a bus route close enough such that Mulder and Scully can pick him up as they travel from Washington D.C. through Virginia. Scully has a hysterectomy in the middle of April. She files away the paperwork about the operation, and tries to put sad thoughts in the files with the papers. Some women never even have one child and here she shares this child with the adopted parents who did so well bringing him up. In May, as his 17th birthday approaches, William asks his parents if one of them will co-sign on buying a truck. Will now works at a bookstore part time, so he promises to help out with payments. They find an affordable used truck that has a crew cab. It's not pretty to look at but it runs great, so, he brings his parents to the dealership. On the way over they ask him if he would like the truck as a birthday gift. He thinks that's a great idea. They plan to have a small celebration with just family. Will and Mr. Van De Camp pick up the truck at the dealership on his birthday... After this Will drives to the cabin every weekend. Sometimes he spends time in the Spaceship "Office" helping his Mentor. Sometimes he helps Frohike in the garden. Sometimes he sits with Mulder and Scully and learns about their exploits with the paranormal. Of course, William's Mentor is very happy that the whole "Whooshing Up" thing has worked out so well for everyone involved. The Elders are pleased with the report. Often reports about the Earthlings are disheartening. The Aliens usually keep their distance. Two weeks later, The Gunmen show Mulder and Scully their latest accomplishment, a raised herb garden. Mulder remarks to Scully as they walk from their car to their D.C. apartment: "They make these advanced cy-borgs and use them for drug mules and arms runners. It's a nice herb garden. Too bad it's not a second space station orbiting Mars." "Yes, and one that was built billions under budget," adds Scully. She shrugs. What can you do? They have years and years of success stopping monsters and they're still in the basement. Mulder and Scully may not have impressed upper management much in their time at the FBI, but the folks they directly affected are, to a person, glad that Mulder and Scully were around to save them when some monster decided that they would be his or...(um, mostly his, huh?) next victim. One guy they saved from a gruesome death, "Bill Guilder, Your Friendly Builder" lives in the local community. Mulder sees him in the Home Improvement store one day and re-introduces himself. Bill laughs and says yeah, he hasn't forgotten him. Mulder asks him if he could come over and look at the cabin with the idea of estimating how hard it would be to make the attic over into a second floor. They exchange business cards. Bill does come over and is pleased to tell them that the cabin looks as though the original builder had that as a plan. The foundation is reinforced well, the walls have been built very strongly, and there's a strong bearing wall going down the middle of the house along the wall of the bedroom and the bathroom and pantry. Mulder says he was thinking of taking it on as a home project with the help of his farm hands, meaning the Gunmen, but he thinks this might be a bit beyond him. Bill counter-proposes that he can help them with their construction project by giving them a really good price on the project. He gives Mulder a price which is a very good deal. He says although he's real busy, he could probably figure out how to fit it in, "if you''re flexible and work with me. I can provide good plumbers and electricians, so it's done right." Mulder tells him that he's retiring at the end of October, and then "I'm very flexible" Later in the week Bill calls Mulder and arranges a schedule, Mulder says when he's not there, the Farm Hands will be there to open the house and close it, but he adds, "They will be busy. They will be tending to the greenhouse they are building,-and doing their regular chores. Bill never meets the Gunmen. He does catch glimpses of them going into the other buildings, so he does know that they are keeping an eye on the place. Mulder wishes he could actually introduce him to the Gunmen, but prudence dictates ... um...nah. As they promised, the Gunmen put the place under cultivation. William spends all summer there. Every Saturday they load fresh vegetables into his truck and take it to the Farmer's Market. People come there from miles around and the guys make enough money to buy gas, and materials at a used building supply place. They order a special plastic designed for greenhouses and build a sturdy greenhouse to grow specialty vegetables and herbs. Frohike goes along with William to the market on Saturdays to help unload the truck and provide security. To avoid recognition, he dresses as an old woman with a long brown dress over a long sleeved red knitted top, white apron and headscarf, and Revlon's "Pallid Crone" makeup. Those who are familiar with children's books are probably way ahead of me now: Yes, he looks like Strega Nona. The End of Part Three. picture/photo credits: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1016338_pink_panther? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strega_Nona Thanks for visiting my site! Leila Old Wine in New Skins, Part Four: Babushka June 1, 2018, the Cabin. Scully has begun to worry about William going out from their secluded cabin to sell vegetables every weekend in a place with no security. They gave William up for adoption because they believed his life was in danger. Mulder assures her that Frohike is going along both to help unload the truck and be security. Then Frohike asks Scully to buy him several skeins of yarn and a package of 6 steel knitting needles. "I've looked at your church's website," he says. "They usually have a Christmas Bazaar to benefit the Food Bank. I could knit some afghans to sell while I sit at the market with Will." Now Scully is secretly even more despondent. Not only does Mulder not take her concerns seriously, No! Now Frohike thinks he wants to knit while he supposedly is providing "security" for William! She confides her anxiety to Mulder again over lunch in D.C. Mulder arranges for them to take off from work early the next Friday, so Scully can buy the knitting supplies. They arrive at the cabin late in the afternoon. As usual, the Gunmen and William stand outside waving happily. When Scully brings the knitting supplies in, Mulder, William, and all the Lone Gunmen are in a great mood. Frohike takes one pair of knitting needles out of the package. "Scully, come out with us to the side yard!" they say to her. She’s confused but goes along with whatever is going on. There's an old stone wall, now falling down in some places, between the two properties they now own. Mulder asks Scully to focus on the wall. She does, but with her peripheral vision, she sees a little blurred motion off to her right, where Frohike stands. They walk out to the wall. Mulder points out two of the stones that are still in place, next to a fallen down section where they will pass through. The stones look odd from the front. They have holes in them, dead center. When they step over around to the other side, the crumpled, blunted ends of knitting needles stick out from the back. On the way back to the cabin, Frohike catches up with Scully, and moves in front of her, stopping her. He tells her, with no sarcasm, that he hopes she feels a little better about him looking out for William. Frohike says, "We would do anything for Will. He rescued us." Scully does feel better, and...ooh! He begins to knit such beautiful afghans for the Christmas Bazaar! The one Scully seems to like the best will not go to the Church Bazaar at Christmas. It will be put away in the bottom drawer of one of the small dressers in the bunkhouse. Frohike discovers that he likes dressing as a woman. Well, OK, not per se, but he has found that, as an old lady, no one actually notices him other than with a cursory polite nod. If he lets William do all the talking, and only throws out some words in a foreign language once in a while, folks assume that he doesn't understand English and they leave him alone. He studied Russian a few years ago with the other Gunmen because they needed to confirm that their deliveries in Siberia were actually to the right places, or if they were just being told that they were at the right places, so he uses Russian. He gets to sit in the truck, or wander off to the side and look at the view, or sit with his vintage carpet bag with his knitting in it and knit afghans, while William handles any and all negotiations. William calls him "Babushka," which is "Grandmother" in Russian, or he calls him "Grandma." Of course, in addition to Frohike's Babushka outfit, Scully has gotten the Gunmen some work clothes for the garden, and some nicer clothes for anything else that comes up. When he's not in work overalls in the garden, Frohike wears his Babushka costume so that he can get more accustomed to his "character," and he speaks Russian most of the time during the week. After a while William begins to pick up a little Russian as the Gunmen converse in Russian together. He also visits a Russian language app when he needs to find a word. They don't get much door -to -door traffic out where they are, but one day, a car pulls up next to the cabin. Frohike, dressed as Babushka, goes to answer the door. "I need more practice answering the door if you're not here," he whispers to William. So William and the other Gunmen hide and listen. Babushka opens the door. A man and two women stand holding bibles and pamphlets. “да?" (Yes?) Babushka says. He does not smile. “Hi! I’m Pastor Jim. We're from the Disciples of Jesus Church down in town. We're inviting folks to attend our church on Sunday.” says the man. “Religionist опиум народа!” (Religion is the opiate of the people!) snorts Babushka. "Ha,Ha. Is there anyone else at home?" says Pastor Jim. He's picked up the tone. "то не ваше дело, один кто фунты на Библии!” (That's not your business, Bible Thumper!) says Babushka. "Well, you're invited to come hear the Word of God!" He peeks around Babushka. "Cosmonauts!" roars Babushka, immediately regaining Pastor Jim's whole attention. "Whoosh!" Babushka makes an extremely animated motion of something going up into space. "Они выглядят вокруг для Бога." (They look around for God.) "Loo-king, Loo-king." Babushka says, with his hand on his brow, turning back and forth. He turns back to them, frowns, shakes his head, and turning his palms upward, shrugs. "No God!" At this point William decides it's PAST time to intervene. He rushes to the door. "Oh Grandma," he says, "Do we have visitors?" He smiles his dazzling smile and says, "I'm sorry! Grandma is from Russia -in the old times. Are you from a church?" He takes a pamphlet and scans it. "Oh yes. I've seen your church, but we attend St. Patrick's." He returns the pamphlet. "Thank you so much for stopping by!" He closes the door. At the Farmer's Market, on Saturday, June 23, another vendor reminds William that the next weekend is the weekend before the 4th of July and people will be buying lots of sweet corn and other vegetables for their family cook-out. They should bring more if they can. Everyone sells out! The next Saturday,June 30, 2018, in addition to filling the bed of the truck, the guys fill up the back seat of the cab. They haven't had to use this part of the truck before. Frohike has made some advertising for their booth. There are bright pennants for the corners of the booth. A large prepared canvas cloth sign with grommets along the edges announces that the produce comes from "Galactic Farms-Our Vegetables Are Out of This World!" There is a picture of a field of vegetables floating in space, made by Langly. Tethered astronauts with hoes and rakes tend the rows. In the same afternoon, he makes a painted wooden sign they put up in the front yard that has no picture, only "Galactic Farms." and their slogan. At the market, there is a line for their produce. Then it gets literally out of hand. A lady buys three bag-fulls of vegetables. As she turns to go, suddenly she loses control of the bags. She tries to catch them and two bags rip completely. Most of the produce bounces off the guy in line in back of her. He fumbles to catch some carrots and sweet corn, but only knocks them farther away. William quickly comes around the tables with some bags and he and the man kneel down and pick up her vegetables from the ground and double-bag them. They get done with this but as they stand up again, the man wobbles and falls against William for support. He laughs and apologizes, and then offers to help the lady take her bags to her car. Suddenly Babushka rushes up to the man, exclaiming "Вы ранены?" (Are you hurt?) He brushes off the man's sleeve and front with one hand and pats his shoulder with the other. William says, "It's OK Grandma, No one's hurt!" Will starts to ask if the lady would like some complimentary vegetables, but the two are already on their way through the crowd, with the man carrying two of the bags. Another half hour of frantic selling and they are out of vegetables. It’s still the middle of the afternoon. They announce that they are sold out, stack the empty boxes and crates in the truck bed, fold and load the tables and chairs, pennants and sign alongside, and place their lunch bags, the knitting bag, and the money box on the floor on the back passenger side of the cab. As they drive off the fairgrounds, William says, "Well, I guess we have a story to tell at dinner tonight." “да!” (Yes!) says Babushka. "Could you believe how clumsy that woman was?" laughs William. “Нет, я не верил ему!” (No, I did not believe it!) says Babushka. "You sure were upset about that man!" says William. "I was upset about both of them!" Frohike has reached way down into the big pocket in the voluminous skirt of the dress. He pulls out William's wallet and hands it back to him. The End of Part Four. English to Russian translations done at SDL Free Translations https://www.freetranslation.com/en/translate-english-russian Thanks for visiting my site! Leila Old Wine in New Skins, Part Five: Shippers July 13, 2018, The Cabin. As they sit at supper, Frohike says,"Y'know, that incident with the Evangelists at our door made me think. I'm not seeking enough spiritual enlightenment." "It's true. Me too." says Langly, nodding, "And me as well," adds Byers. Frohike says: "So we've looked around on the Internet and we've become interested in the Mulan site." Scully looks shocked. The group Frohike has named, led by the cleric Mulan, is a well-known Middle-Eastern cult. No doubt every member has a file at the FBI. She shares a look of consternation with Mulder who seems equally taken aback. The Gunmen are in hiding. Why would they jeopardize their successful escape from the government to get involved with this group? At this point Will gets up and takes his glass to the refrigerator. He makes a sharp movement upward with his glass and catches Scully's eye. He winks. Mulder also sees this out of the corner of his eye, and shoots a sly smile to Scully. Mulder says, "Well, I'm sure what Pastor Jim took away from his visit here is that "Grandma" is an atheistic Communistic loonatistic loony." Scully clears her throat and with a severe look, says, "Ahem! You know, when we first started going to St. Patrick's, we let some people -like Father Brennan-know that we worked for the FBI. So...Now..." she continues with rising anger, "Now, if they talk to Pastor Jim, they're going to hear about how we are harboring a bunch of... Pinko Commie Infidel Cultists?" Will ducks behind the refrigerator door for a moment. Mulder grabs up his napkin from his lap and rises, his fists clenched. "How dare you!" he says, forcefully, and looks each Gunmen in the eye. "Here we have taken you under our tin bunkhouse roof, given you the very water of our faucet, and you turn out to be nothin' but a bunch of engineered, techno-steered, oily- geared, antennae -eared,...(at Byers,) fakey -beard (at Frohike, in his Babushka outfit) make-up smeared, (at Langly) "and '.." Mulder's fist, with the napkin, has been climbing, at each accusation, to almost full arm extension upward, but now seems stalled. From over the refrigerator door, Will prompts in a whisper, "artsy-weird?" "and ARTSY-weird Alien Government Robot Cross-Dressed Pinko Commie Infidel Cultist Pro-voc-a-teurs??!!!! Mulder brings his arm down and throws the napkin onto the table in a sweeping motion. "Bah!!!!" He flips up his coat-tails of his jacket and drops onto his puffy chair pad with a "foomph!" Scully, shakes her dessert spoon for emphasis at the Gunmen, and then also at Will, as she sneers, "Boo! Booooo! Hisss!!" The Gunmen look at Will. They clearly suspect that he has spoiled their little joke about joining a cult. "What?" says Will, batting his eyelashes, pretty much confirming their suspicions. He has retaken his seat and is pouring a can of pomegranate drink into his glass, smiling. They give him the stinky side-eye. Byers begins gathering the plates nearest him to clear for dessert. "Thanks, Will Van De Camp!" he whines. Mulder, in an aside to Scully, says, "Wow, would that push ALL the buttons?" She counts on her fingers, "Government Spies, Commie Operatives, Nebulous-Genders, Cult Terrorists, Alien Overlords, Killer Robots ..."Yep, I think that IS all the buttons." Then she says, her eyes narrowing, to the Gunmen, who are all up now, clearing the table, "Well, I suppose your next move is to terrorize the country-side?" Frohike stands up from where he is bent over loading the dishwasher, puts his hands on his hips, and says petulantly, "Well, you came in late. It’s too dark out NOW to go menace the citizenry!! How will people see us from a-far off, (he holds his hands out in front of him, fingers curled, and steps from side to side in place, in a classic robotic walk) marching ... marching ... marching towards them? So, I figure: finish dinner, go to your tin-roofed bunkhouse, rise early in the morning..." Langly: "...have a hearty glass of your very faucet water ..." He is serving the dessert, the banana custard and whipped cream, to Scully, Mulder, and Will. He gestures to the cream bowl and to each person who either wants the stuff or not. Scully almost never does. Byers, scraping some uneaten onion slices from the salad bowl into the small composter container next to the sink, "...and be in town as the shopkeepers roll up their screens, and open their cash registers for the day...a day... of heart-stopping terror!" Langly goes from serving over to the door, flings it open (catching it at full swing,) and announces to the outside world, which, at this point in the evening, is a chorale of peep toads over at the stream and pond which crosses into the property from the National Forest, "Sleep well, unsuspecting humans, for tomorrow... we attack at dawn! Bwah-haha!" The peep toad peeping continues, unfazed. (Nature can be awfully indifferent to human tragedy.) He closes the door, but grins and steeples his fingers as he walks to the Great Room. Byers clears the dessert dishes and Frohike puts them in the dishwasher and turns it on. The group joins Langly in the Great Room, where Langly has turned on the late news. For the rest of the evening, every now and then, the Gunmen will turn to the door, rub their hands, and cackle. Finally everyone retires to the bedroom and bunkhouse. The next morning, well after after Mulder and Scully have begun breakfast, the Gunmen and Will trudge in to the kitchen. The sun has risen over the mountains to the East. Langly brings out glasses. Byers pours water. Frohike pouts, "We overslept." "Um." says Scully, chewing toast. "It's always somethin'," says Mulder, shaking his head and buttering. Will snickers and gets a plate for some eggs, bacon, and toast. Nothing is at it appears, however. Only Will has been sleeping in late. The other three have been up well before dawn using their infrared night vision to pick vegetables. They have carefully washed, dried, and sorted through the produce before packing up the crates and baskets. They do this every week so the vegetables are truly "just picked," high quality, and very clean. "The customers notice." said Frohike to Will after listening to conversations outside their booth. After waking Will, they have come in for their usual glass of water and conversation. As Will finishes his breakfast, Frohike goes to change into Babushka. Will and the other Gunmen bring the tables, two folding chairs, lunch bags (one is just 2 waters), and the money box out to the truck as Babushka emerges from the bunkhouse with her knitting stuffed into her vintage-store carpet bag. Their day at the Farmer's Market is uneventful. Well, OK, it is eventful in that a reporter for a little local newspaper is visiting booths to write a story about the Farmer's Market. Babushka observed the reporter as he visited each of the booths opposite them, (not much gets by her,) so she has exited the booth with her folding chair and knitting bag well in advance of the guy. The reporter visits the "Galactic Farms" booth and Will spins a very bland story of how his family bought the cabin here as a summer place, and then they bought the property next to it and decided to run a little family farm and raise vegetables because they "like the area so much" and, he says, proudly, "We raise just the best darned vegetables you can get anywhere!" He continues, "and running this little booth has been such a good work experience for me!" The reporter takes Will's picture showing him "packing vegetables" into a paper bag. The canvas sign with "Galactic Vegetables" is visible in the background of the picture. Later, a local restaurant owner will recognize the name "Galactic Farms" and Will's face from the story as Will approaches him to buy "farm-fresh herbs and specialty vegetables." As Will and Babushka pack up, they take the unsold produce and put it in with several of their paper bags full of odd shaped and otherwise not-salable vegetables and take that over to the Community Kitchen. Then Will stops at the bakery and gets a long loaf of crusty bread to have with spaghetti and homemade marinara sauce made from tomatoes and herbs from their garden, which has been cooking down since yesterday. Mmmm! Friday August 3, 2018. So the summer goes. Will and the Gunmen settle into routines. The next Friday, however, at dinner, Will announces a big change. "I've been contacted by my Mentor. I'm going to spend a week on The Pixel (This is the name of the space ship Will goes to) the last week of August- helping process some data. And you all are invited to go on-board for a short visit if you like, after we finish our work. You would be picked up and dropped off here on that Saturday, the first of September, after dinner." "Oh a visit to the Pixel! Yes, I'd love to see the inside!" says Scully. "Can we look at the science lab?" asks Mulder. Will promises them a "full tour" and he's pleased that he can show Mulder his work in the lab. The Gunmen seem very pleased about the upcoming visit. In fact, it's almost as though they know something funny that they're keeping from Mulder and Scully. They smirk. Mulder and Scully compare their feelings on this and they both think there's something going on, over and above that they soon will be "whooshed up" into Will's spaceship and meet his Mentor. They wonder if Will is in on it, too, although he doesn't smirk, so maybe not. While Mulder and Scully drive back to their condo on Sunday, Will drives his truck to a public parking lot in a mall near his parent's house and walks to the field where he gets "whooshed up" sometimes, and gets whooshed up. He spends the week on the ship. This means that after Mulder, Scully, and the Gunmen visit the ship, Will will be taken back to the field and he will drive home to his parent's house as if he has been driving all evening. He will spend Labor Day with his folks, then start his senior year. Mulder and Scully arrive for supper on Friday, August 31st. Annoyingly, the Gunmen are still smirking at them. Finally Saturday night comes. The Gunmen, Mulder, and Scully stand out on the grassy knoll. Suddenly they are...just aware of a ship overhead. They can't see it. They just know it's there. Scully looks at Frohike. "Yup, that's them up there." he says. There's a beam of light in their eyes that makes them close their eyes. Then they are in a small circular-walled room. Mulder and Scully attempt to take in their surroundings. They look down and it seems obvious that the floor can open and close like a camera lens. Above, in the ceiling, are some circular fixtures. Off to the side, there is a large canister with piping running into it from the ceiling and out of it to the floor. "That's the whooshing machine." says Langly, pointing at the cannister. Scully and Mulder laugh at Langly's "whooshing machine" joke. Mulder whispers to Scully, "Was that the big joke?" She shrugs to indicate she doesn't know. No. The Gunmen are still smirking."Well, lets go to the Bridge" says Frohike to everyone. He touches a circle on the curved wall and a slit delineates. It widens, opening an entrance into a larger room. Will and his Mentor stand smiling across an expanse of plush carpeting. In back of them are a control panel,a darkened window, and a large screen. In front are some seats. There are seats for the pilot and co-pilot and some for "observers" or "guests". "Welcome Aboard, Mr. and Mrs. Mulder! Welcome Back, Lone Gunmen!" says the Mentor. Mulder and Scully cross the room and shake hands with the Mentor. "Will is going to show you two around! You guys?-just find a chair! I can't wait to hear about your new place!" Will motions to his parents to follow him. The Mentor sits with the Gunmen. The Gunmen begin to talk about their little bunkhouse, and the garden, and the greenhouse... The Gunmen are still smirking. Will doesn't smirk, but he and his father exchange a glance that is a question and answer. Scully observes the exchange. The Gunmen smirk some more, but Mulder and Scully now know why. Will takes them through several compartments which look like what their function is. First is the Science Lab, of course. It's located on the main deck immediately off the bridge. In the crew's quarters, the kitchen and dining area have futuristic kitchen appliances and modernistic seats, but yeah, you would guess where you were. The bedrooms look like bedrooms. The bathroom is a little weird, but they're weird on airplanes now, right? There is a storage area next to the bathroom, and one below the deck they are on, and another storage area above the main floor. Instead of open shelving there are rows of floor to ceiling compartments, which makes a lot of sense on a moving spaceship, where stuff could fall off open shelves. They return to the Bridge. Will escorts his parents to "front row seats" next to the Mentor and he sits down next to them. The group is the telling the Mentor the funny stories. Frohike, Langly, and Byers take turns telling the mentor about Babushka and the Evangelists. Frohike and Will tell the story of the two pickpockets at the Farmer's Market. The Mentor laughs and laughs. Finally the Mentor points to the screen with a small device and says, "Well, now let's look at the solar system from here." It opens up. They've been traveling all this time. The view from Pluto, or maybe Planet Nine, can't be beat. The Mentor operates the control panel, and the ship zooms in to Mercury, then back to Mulder and Scully's cabin, swooping in for close-ups on each planet as they fly by. The Gunmen report that they must leave to recharge their batteries. They say goodbye to Will "until the next time you can get a way for a visit" says Byers. After the Gunmen have been whooshed down, Mulder and Scully express their appreciation to the Mentor for all the help they have received from the Aliens, especially how grateful they are that the Lone Gunmen have been taken away from the government and brought over to their cabin. They have a tearful goodbye with Will, then they get in the whooshing machine and get whooshed back to the grassy knoll and suddenly the ship...isn't there. There's no light on in the bunkhouse. Mulder and Scully retire to their bedroom, get ready for bed, and laugh themselves to sleep. In the morning, Mulder and Scully are at breakfast when the Gunmen walk in. The Gunmen stand perfectly still. Then they begin to smirk. Then Mulder and Scully and the Gunmen burst into laughter. "You dogs!" yells Scully. "You rotten scoundrels!!! You are so going to pay for this!!!" Mulder begins to have a whole range of emotions sweep over him. He weeps. "That's my boy." says Mulder wiping tears from his eyes. The whole room explodes into laughter again. Scully stands and gestures at the Gunmen with her whole arms. "Not only is she... is she..." "...a SHE, But DAMN, SHE IS ONE HOT BABE!!!!" Mulder completes Scully's thought, sort of. (She probably would have gone with "but she's absolutely adorable!") "Yes! And they're an "item." says Byers, confirming what Mulder found out in the exchange of glances with his son. "Teens in love!" "The Elders couldn't be happier." says Frohike. "Will says that when he started his training, he was very unhappy. He was different from the Earth kids. The Elders assigned him a young person his own age so he would be comfortable learning about this stuff. It's not one-sided. She wants to know what all the young Earthlings are doing- the music, the games, the slang expressions..." Langly says, "...When we play the game "Trail-Wender" in the Great Room, she's a Faye Archer in our group. She plays from her ship." Byers says, "More seriously, Eh-law-Eez is in the Cadet Program. She can operate a space ship very well, as we have seen." (After seeing "Eh-law-Eez" written on a note to her, Scully inquires about this spelling discretely. It turns out that the Gunmen, being big fans of DC comics, think her name might be like from Planet Krypton: Jor-El or Kal-El. It isn't. As Scully suspects, it's Heloise. No hyphens. She begins to write it correctly and the correction takes hold.) Mulder laughs, "Helping my Mentor enter data, Ha! Ha! I wonder how many times he snuck out to meet her at night!" "Once a week, always on Tuesdays. The last two weeks in July, though, it was twice in one week, Tuesday AND Thursday." Frohike says, matter-of-factly. Byers and Langly concur. Laying down and recharging batteries without moving is not the same as being asleep, apparently. The End of Part Five. Thanks for visiting my site! Leila Old Wine in New Skins, Part Six: Workin' Stiffs. September 28, 2018, The Cabin. Fall comes and the garden is harvested. Pumpkins sit on the porch. In anticipation of Halloween, Langly has selected a big oddly-shaped greenish-white Lumina pumpkin which he plans to carve into an Alien Jack O' Lantern based on the Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver." He thinks he can prop it up in a chair on a box on the porch and cover the box in an old black raincoat of Mulder's and add on some gloves, pants, and shoes. Mulder takes many better-shaped pumpkins of several colors and sells them to a market in town. At Frohike's request, Mulder enters a very big Lumina pumpkin in the Special Variety division in a local contest under the name "Galactic Farms." It gets one of several "Honorable Mention" awards given out. Frohike tells Will that they should enter more contests, whenever possible. He says, "Then we get to put "award-winning" in our advertising." Over the summer and now at the harvest time, the Gunmen have been doing a lot of home canning. Leaves and damaged, rotted, or otherwise unusable produce has been put in composting bins. They turn under the remainder of the plants in place. In addition to getting the field ready for winter, the Gunmen keep up with the latest in tech via on-line magazines. They discuss these tech ideas. Byers reports to Mulder and Scully that there have been some amazing breakthroughs in rooftop solar energy collection in the 15 or so years while they "worked for the government." The Lone Gunman ask Mulder and Scully to invest in the parts so the Gunmen can make and install solar panels on the roof of the bunkhouse. They are able to buy the high tech parts on-line and make housing, wires, and such from materials Mulder finds at the used building supply store, the local hardware store, and one of the last few remaining Radio Shacks. Mulder gets some batteries from a Prius at an auto salvage yard so the system will be able to store some power. They come up with their own version of a "wiper" device which clears snow off of solar panels. They hope to have the panels up and running before the very cold weather sets in and they meet their deadline. The electricity produced powers both cabins for most of the day each day, and sometimes there's some power stored. Mulder and Scully are pleased that their investment will mean that they will not have much in extra electric bills over the winter. Usually they closed the cabin in the fall and opened it back up in the spring, but now the Gunmen keep the house at about 50 degrees, and warm it up a little more just before Mulder and Scully arrive, and then it goes back to the lower temperature when they leave. They don't cook anything, but sometimes run power tools, and of course, they re-charge their batteries when needed.The Gunmen continue to make plans. "We could get the whole place to be off the grid if we had more collection and storage!" says Byers. "I think we're just a little bit ahead of the curve on this. When folks realize the possibilities, we'll see rooftop solar everywhere." Mulder glances at Scully. They think Byers is a little bit optimistic on this. However, on their way back to their condo, once again Mulder and Scully "shake their heads" that the government would have abused talent like this for such short sighted gains. Mulder and Scully get some luck that will greatly help the Gunmen and Heloise. The head of the department which makes phony identities for undercover agents retires. A friend who has worked his way up is put in charge. This guy, Leon Greeley, is more than a office co-worker type friend. He actually will be glad to help them. He could get in trouble! He helps them anyway. About 20 years ago, the FBI sent Assistant Director Skinner with a force to confront a cult that had barricaded itself into its compound in defiance of local authorities who suspected sexual child abuse was being practiced. It was such a weird cult that Mulder and Scully were sent to provide what help they could to negotiate with the leader, if the opportunity came up. Leon, one of the newest members of the FBI, was also sent, simply to swell the ranks. He was inexperienced. The compound was astonishing to the average person. Located in the middle of a barren desert wasteland, it was completely isolated and primitive in some ways, but it also bristled with antennas, dishes, and other high-tech equipment. Leon was moving slower than the rest of the group, trying to take it all in. Thus, Leon was lagging well behind the other agents, when suddenly the cult charged from their primary compound building to a series of outbuildings in an attempt to reach another fortified building where they kept vehicles. This switch cut Leon off from the rest of the agents. He took cover, but it was obvious that if the cult split and only some moved to the next building, the two places available to him would be exposed to either one part or the other part of the group. Assistant Director Skinner ordered heavy cover fire, and, with two experienced agents, began to run towards Leon's position. Suddenly Mulder and Scully joined his group. It turned out the rescue group could have used even more people. They were able to get the young agent to safety with no lives lost, and eventually, the cult surrendered to the authorities, but allowing the inexperienced agent to lag behind, and going out after him with too few agents were serious miscalculations on Assistant Director Skinner's part, and everyone knew it. So, back in D.C., Skinner called Mulder and Scully into his office and chewed them out for acting without orders and thanked them for risking their lives and also contributing to the success of the operation, all in one gruff breath. Everyone knows how he does that, yes? So, Mulder and Scully are able to call on Leon to give the Gunmen and Heloise identities with birth certificates, SS numbers, previous job references, driver’s licenses, the whole nine enchiladas. Leon Greeley asks no questions. For the pictures of the Gunmen, Mulder and Scully had found almost-look-alikes from the files of several local acting agencies, so there were actors available also, in case they were needed. Mulder will tell them it's an FBI operation. Heloise is able to pose for her own picture. She is ready with an explanation that she had an "ear job" because she does cos-play. No one asks. At this point, professional photographers actually are used to people who have had Fairy or Elf or Vulcan or Romulan "ear jobs." The photographer taking her picture adds to our knowledge. He compliments Heloise on her ears and says he's been seeing them for 25 years, "But then in the late '90s, things started to get real ugly. We've had folks who made themselves into Ferengi." Langly searches for a way to productively occupy his time now that the garden is manured and turned over and the solar project is done. He asks Mulder to front him the money to buy art supplies. When he was putting out the newspaper, he often did editorial cartoons. For a while, he and Frohike put out a comic book. Long ago he had art courses. Now he feels he needs to dig down deeper. He decides to start by doing studies of natural objects. He produces many beautiful studies. He sets up a workspace at a window of the Great Room. He begins to work abstracting from nature. He does some large abstract paintings. The Gunmen build a second greenhouse on as an extension of the first. Before they begin, they construct a large root cellar below ground level, which is accessed by a small shed attached to the greenhouse. It's hardened and plumbed, so it could be a bomb shelter, in a pinch. (Yeah, Gunmen here, folks.) They add a big storage/potting shed as an extension of the bunkhouse, and dig a trench and bury water pipes so there can be a sink and a cabinet in the shed and Frohike can wash and dry vegetables there under the window instead of at a basin at an outside faucet. Mulder is helping Frohike make payments on a truck. His alter ego "Babushka" delivers the produce but Frohike establishes that "Grandma" does not speak English, and so she is going to shove a clipboard at the first person she finds, get their sign-off on the delivery, and boogie on out of there. If there is a problem, they should call him, Frohike. Well, for people who are counting, that leaves Byers to figure out how he is going to find a way to make a new life for himself as best he knows how. About a month ago, Mulder, Scully, and William chipped in to get the trio a home computer. Byers looks around and is able to get a position being a remote tech support for a web hosting site. As with Langley, Mulder arranges for the look-alike actor to interview in person, but, after that, Byers spends his days chatting with folks who are having site problems. Byers moves from working at the kitchen table to the Great Room at a window after Scully and Mulder buy him a him a desk and office chair. Scully found the desk on Craigs List and it's a beauty. She pairs it with a big swivel chair from the local office supply store. Mulder and Scully are busy at work this fall. They are copying all their reports and bringing them home to their condo. They will be retiring at the end of October. Mulder will have reached the mandatory retirement age of 57 on October 13, 2018. He will have been in the FBI for 34 years on October 24, 2018. Scully has put in 25 years. They think they may write their memoirs in a book, maybe, so they want to keep copies of the evidence and pictures of their very bizarre exploits. They also have heard rumors that the X-Files will not be re-staffed, and it will be closed down. They wonder if records of 25 years of work will be stored or will it all go out with the trash. Hmmmm. Experience says: get a copy of everything. Tuesday, October 2, 2018, Mulder and Scully show up for an appointment with Mrs.Yazzie in the Human Resources Department. They like visiting with Mrs. Yazzie. She keeps a Bulletin Board of the activities of the young people on her San Carlos Reservation. They find out that the next weekend will be the Fair and Rodeo. There are pictures from years past. Some of the people in the picture are from her family. They ask about it, and in fact, one of her nieces is up for Rodeo Queen. After pleasantries, Mrs. Yazzie pulls their large brown envelopes out of a pile on her desk and goes over with them documents verifying their employment at the FBI. It turns out that everyone has been urged, via word of mouth, to obtain documentation of their work. There are hints that the new administration might be a "rough ride" as one of the other agents puts it. They leave with envelopes which have documents showing their pension information, evaluations, dates of everything. Will comes for a visit the first weekend in October, and he has some great news. "I've committed to joining the Cadets the next summer, after getting my high school diploma. The Elders said we could let my parents in on everything. Heloise gave them the same tour of the ship, including the run out to the edge of the solar system and back. On the way out, in addition to the tour of the ship, we sat down and I told them about you guys (meaning the Lone Gunmen, who approved this revelation.) I wanted them to know how kind the Elders were to let me and Heloise go and get you, so they would know these were Good Aliens. I told them how our government was using them to make secret deliveries... Black Market stuff! They were really shocked!" So, yeah, Mulder and Scully are not alone thinking that the government should have been more appreciative of this wondrous technological achievement that is the Gunmen. Will relates to them how excited he was to visit Heloise's planet the first time a few years ago. "The name of their planet is hard for us Earthlings to say in our language, so I don't want to try to do that, and botch it up, but in English it would be translated like "abundant" or "plentiful" so the accepted translation is "Bountiful". Mulder says that "there is a place in Utah called "Bountiful". It was named after a place in the Book of Mormon. It's a place near Jerusalem that had "much fruit and honey". Will nods in agreement. "The people of Heloise's planet think their whole planet is like that," says Will. Will tells them that part of officially joining includes an oath of loyalty to the Aliens, but it's like dual citizenship. They don't ask him to give up being an American citizen. "But now I will be able to do stuff like visit their cities, drive a spaceship, maybe marry one of their citizens, y'know, stuff like that." That last part is music to Scully's ears. Will explains that the Van De Kamps and he will tell people that after graduation he will be "working on a farm and taking online courses" He'll be able to keep in contact with all his friends via his computer e-mail and even text or call on his cell from anywhere in the Solar System as both are bundled on Heloise's plan. Their coverage is much better than any of ours. (cough)Cheaper, too. Speaking of coverage, before Will went to the Mufon March, he discussed the issues of that demonstration and the EFF Net Neutrality Protest with Heloise. She was denied permission to go to either demonstration by the Elders, mostly as a safety issue. Will recalls what the Elders decided. "The Unites States government, and its states, sometimes violates its own founding principle of the right to protest." they said, "We can't allow you to put yourself in harm's way." The Cadets program she is in is a government youth program. She is training to be in government service. The Elders exercise the right to make these types of decisions in loco parentis for cadets under the age of majority. Will has to leave on Sunday morning. He travels by spaceship now, and his parents pick him up outside of town. He promised Mr. Van de Camp that he would help him do some "Honey-Dew" work around the yard on Sunday. After he goes back on Saturday night, The Gunmen discuss his sign-up with Mulder and Scully. They are delighted to hear that Will is going to join the Cadet Program. Byers says, "Will has told us it's not about us and that's correct. He's very interested in Space Science, and the Aliens collect data on all of the meteorites, comets, asteroids, and such found in space, but spend a lot of time collecting data on planets. Each of the planets in our solar system is completely different from the others, so there's a lot to find out. Other ships conduct research in other solar systems." Frohike says, "Heloise is interested in the people on this planet, but that's really a hobby. Of course, she's become a lot more interested now that she is Will's girlfriend." Langly adds, "Will had to present a case before the Elders to get them to interfere with an Earth government project in order to to rescue us. It was highly unusual, but I guess he made a good case." Frohike says, "And de-cloaking the ship was even more unusual, but Will asked them to do that so our government would think we'd been taken far far away, and, in fact, we were taken out of the solar system...and even farther, until Heloise couldn't detect anyone tracking it from Earth, then she returned to Earth in full cloaking mode." Langly adds, "So we hope they think we're gone for good." Then, as the group sits around the table after supper, Mulder broaches a topic. "Well, guys," he says to the Gunmen, "November 22 will mark the Anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination. Have you been following the release of information on that?" He gets a lukewarm reception to this question. The Gunmen shrug. "Huh," says Mulder, "I would have thought you would be very eager to see what the government has been keeping for all these years." "Well," says Byers, "That's sort of the problem. We have talked it over since we arrived last spring. We will continue to look at what is released, of course, it, but remember, the government has had 50 years to figure out how to present this. We're not thinking anything will emerge from the collection of evidence that is a clear story one way or another." "In fact," picks up Langly, "We would expect lots of conflicting material to be presented...in no order... all jumbled. We think the strategy could be to overwhelm people with too much information." Frohike sums up, "So we have our doubts." At the end of October, Mulder and Scully are given a small retirement party at work. Mulder actually times the appearance of upper management. "Twelve minutes?? They couldn't have had a cigarette break in that amount of time." Scully admonishes him mildly, "Don't be bitter. You've had a successful career here. If you're carried out by six people today it'll be because you're drunk." "And maybe disorderly?" posits Mulder, in a slightly brighter tone. The consolation Mulder has is that these upper management people are all retiring soon as well. Most of the really antagonistic people, like Acting Director Kirsh, retired quite a while ago. These are the last people who still disparage his work as "Spooky Mulder". Most of the people in second level management are more respectful of the success of the X-Files duo in stopping monsters. Some of them have helped in some of the investigations. Some of them are actual friends, like Assistant Director Torres, who took over from Skinner. Mulder and Scully are now in total retirement mode, or at least they're trying to be. They have a condo and they plan to list it for sale after the first of the year. They think the cabin will be finished by then. If it isn't finished they will just continue to live sometimes in the condo, sometimes in the cabin. Mulder suddenly has a great idea. "Hey, you," he says to Scully one night. "Let's go down to Puerto Penasco. We could drive through the South, stay in Tucson or near the border, and go down on day trips for a few days." Scully thinks this is a great idea. She begins to think about what she would pack. Unfortunately the next day, Will calls and says they are at her parent's ship and are preparing to go down to the surface to a hospital, as Heloise needs a small surgical procedure. "It's a woman-type thing," says Will, "But it's not anything to worry about." Scully can hear him pacing through the phone. The next day Heloise has the surgery and is back on her parent's ship that evening. "Everything is fine!" says Will. The next morning, though, they get another call from Will. The Van de Camps had a car accident coming home from the movies. They have just now gotten back from the Emergency Room. The car may be totalled. A friend from church took them home. Will says he'll need to take his truck and go take care of them at the farm there. The next morning, a dog shows up. She's a small Black Labrador, very young. Mulder suspects she was dumped out in the night. Scully heads for the Pet store to get dog chow, a collar, a leash, and two bowls for food and water. Mulder posts a picture on the County Lost and Found Pets site. The plan to go to Mexico is forgotten. They are needed at the cabin. The second weekend in November, Bill Guilder tells Mulder that he can't have anyone there to work the last week of November, as he will be traveling with his family for Thanksgiving, and can't be there to oversee the work. But the good news is that several of his projects are finishing early ("This never happens! he says,) and he will have a lot of workmen available the coming two weeks, and the first part of December as well. "We may finish the cabin right then, before Christmas." Bill says "We'll make sure that everything is cleaned up before the break the last week of November. You could have Thanksgiving here. It won't be a mess." Mulder and Scully decide to take advantage of this, and invite the Van De Camps to Thanksgiving Dinner. Scully calls Mrs. Van De Camp on Friday afternoon from the cabin (they've taken off from work early.) As Scully is inviting Mrs. Van de Camp,(Marlena), Mr. Van de Camp (Gustave) comes in from work, and she relays the invitation. Gus reminds Marlena of the huge problem to this plan. This will be The Big Game! The Pamlico Bay Pirates will be playing against their traditional rivals, the Plymouth Hills Pilgrims! Both schools turn out in costume for the game. They have already bought a pirate costume for Heloise! Marlena says they will have a family discussion on it and says goodbye. To the Van de Camps, it seems unsolvable until Will comes in from the neighborhood RPG Club. Will smiles and takes his phone outside. Then he comes back in and says he thinks he has figured it out: "The game is from 10:00 until about noon," says Will, "as soon as we get back from the game, Heloise can "give us a ride" to the cabin." Marlena says, "We should all stay in costume, then, at least until we get to the cabin, so Mr. and Mrs. Mulder can see how cute you two look in your costumes!" Marlena calls Scully back to arrange this. Scully asks her if this stuff about Aliens has been shocking. "Well," says Marlena, "You told us he was an Alien and he told us he was an Alien. I’m thinking we shouldn't have been surprised. I'm real glad he'll soon be meeting people that are his own kind. He was teased a lot in school. He had awful bouts of depression...even though he could keep up his grades... I was heartsick. You can imagine." Scully can imagine this. Marlena brightens and says, "Isn't his Mentor just the most wonderful gal? I have such great hopes for them!" Scully could not agree more. And, Oh, Marlena will bring a side dish and a pie. So what do Will and the Aliens look like? Now, after writing this story and posting it, I have seen "Ghouli," the 5th episode of X-Files Season 11. In it, two girls meet on an abandoned ferry and give each other a vicious slashing. Then it turns out that Mulder and Scully's son set up his two girlfriends to meet there and then he appeared to each of them as a monster attacking them, so they defended themselves. We get to see what Will-oh it's "Jackson?"-named for our First Uncouth President? -what he looks like. I don't know if they are trying to make it believable that he's Smoking Man's son both in facial features and in sociopathic attitude, but I thought about it, and if folks don't mind, I'm going to keep Will in this story as a nice person who rescues the Lone Gunmen. (Maybe Chris Carter was setting "Jackson" up to have Mulder, or Scully(!) be forced to kill him. I mean, Will is a relative, yes?) So, in this story, Will looks like Scully's family, with Scully's blue eyes and reddish-blond hair. I'm going to do that even if folks do mind. And Will is going to go to the MUFON March in Washington instead of "Jackson" going to Charlotte with his tiki torch to march and shout, "Blood and Soil!" Well, on to the Aliens. The Aliens: ugly-headed little grays? Oh, No! They look like the Elves in Lord of the Rings. I am picturing them being cast from Native Americans, slender with high cheekbones, but with white hair though, instead of black hair. The Elders all wear Space Muu-Muus like Marlon Brando as Jor-El in the Superman series when he is addressing the Krypton Council. You can see my drawing of Space Muu-Muus here in this picture of Frohike and his Girl Friend Lois Lane from "New Show Ideas for Chris Carter", "#2 StarTreX", on my site. They both have a futuristic hairstyle: "The Piñata ." Lois has an anti-gravity handbag there, just the thing for you older gals tired of lugging stuff. At dinner, Scully relays the news about the Thanksgiving plans. Scully explains that they plan to come over in their pirate costumes after attending the big Pirate-Pilgrim game. Frohike asks Scully if he may use her laptop, which is set up and open in the Great Room. After dinner he shows them his find: clothing patterns for Pilgrim outfits sold on line. Mulder whips out his credit card. Scully will buy the cloth as soon as the patterns come. Everyone knows that as soon as he gets the cloth, Frohike can speedily construct the costumes. They'll be in costume too! They will be in costumes appropriate to the Thanksgiving Celebration, but also will be in the costumes of their game rivals. The Cabinistas think this is very funny! In the middle of this, Langly says, "No Wait! Can I be a Pirate?" Everyone stops. Mulder accuses him of "watching too many "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies!" "No," says Langly. "I WANT to be a Pirate! ARRRRR!" So they get him pirate stuff. OH! Including a fake hook, and an eye patch, and a fake fuzzy toy parrot. Now EVERYONE suddenly realizes THEY wanted to be a pirate! ARRRRR! Especially Mulder. Too Late! They also order wigs for the men who don't have long hair, so they have can have long hair gathered in the back, as Pilgrim men and pirate men had, shoes with buckles, hats with buckles, and a big tri-cornered hat with a red plume for Langly. "ARRRRRRR!!! T'was done smartly," says Langly, approvingly, when they have finished ordering. And, while it is true that all the men will get to wear pantaloons, high knee socks, and high-heeled shoes with buckles, Langly has the soft black velvet pantaloons, the big hat with the red plume, the purple ruffled lacy shirt, and shiny, silky, gold vest. When they gather in the Great Room the weekend before Thanksgiving to show each other their costumes, Mulder gives Langly a Puritan sneer. "Forsooth, Are Ye not the Little Lord Fauntleroy?" says Mulder, hiding his jealousy. Not. Well. Scully and Mulder stop in a furniture store on the way to the cabin the first weekend in November and buy a table with an extension leaf and eight chairs. They will use another chair from the kitchen for Thanksgiving. They have measured the available space in the Great Room and choose a small sofa-a love seat- to add more comfortable seating. They set up delivery. Then they go to the Ranch 'N' Home store and buy a second radiating oil-filled heater for the bunkhouse (They have one for the cabin). During Fall Break, Will and Mulder plan to visit several galleries, trying to get someone interested in showing Langly's work, now that Langly will soon have proper ID. Langly wants his new name to be very "artistic". He makes the mistake of asking everyone's help with this at the dinner table. Frohike offers up, "You mean like... Roboticelli?" Byers says, "There was this artist, he tries to work in cubist style, but each painting is more awful than the one before it. He was terrible!" "How terrible was he?" asks Will. "So terrible everyone called him SUCK-casso." "Wow! That's mean." says Scully. "Yes but there's a moral to his story" says Frohike. "Yeah?" says Will. Frohike: "Yes. You know: If it ain't Braque..." Mulder, Scully, and Byers: "Don't fix it!" Mulder is sitting next to Scully. He turns to her and says, "So, there's this painter. Psycho-Angelo..." Scully says, "Psycho-Angelo!?!!!!" Mulder says, "and Psycho-Angelo, he paints pictures of women in the nude." Scully says,"That's really disturbing!" Mulder says, "Finally the women get tired of it..." Scully says, "I should THINK SO!" Mulder says, "So they say, Hey, Psycho-Angelo, put some clothes on!!!" Whenever anyone gets "done" with their joke they send a "look" over to Langly. The beams of snark are almost tangible. Byer:, "This painter, El Techo? He paints, "View of Toledo..." Will: "Ohio?" Byers:"Exactly: Toledo, Ohio. But it's a computer paint-by-numbers, and there are only two colors. One is always on the canvas, the other one is always off." Will: "Sounds messy." Mulder: "Thomas Khaaaaan!!!-kade, Genetically Enhanced Painter of Light!" Frohike:" Artificial Light!" Mulder, "Yeah. That's what I meant!" Langly, "OK, fine. No artistic name; just a normal name." "Terrance Minator? Everyone calls him Terry. Terry Minator." "Silas Borg? That's Sy Borg. To his pals." "I'm going to go sit by myself now." "... Otto Mayshun..." "...can't heeeeear yooooou..." "..."AndrewRoid Webber" ..." "(exasperated exhale of breath)...other rooooom nooow..." Mulder and Will are successful at getting a dealer for the paintings so Mulder arranges for the actor look-alike to accompany them, posing as Langly. For his part, the actor believes he's taking part in a criminal investigation. Mulder cautions the actor that he shouldn't discuss his work with anyone. After this initial set-up, Mulder will deliver the paintings. The painting that Mulder seems to like the best has been framed and is wrapped in brown kraft paper and lays under one of the bunk-beds in the bunkhouse. Frohike composts the green waste from the plants but he also gets a "pass" to affix to the truck so Babuska can take trash to the landfill. When he's not on his shift answering the phone, Byers keeps up with cultural events via an on-line alternative newspaper that covers the D.C. Arts Scene. In November, two tickets to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for a January performance of "An American in Paris," are in an envelope in the top drawer of one of the bureaus in the bunkhouse. In December, Langly adds another envelope to the first. It's a gift card to a studio in the D.C area which advertises their specialty as family photos. As Christmas approaches, Langly buys Frohike and Byers subscriptions to sites which they usually visit several times a month for free, but now they will be able to go behind the pay wall. Langly and Byers go in together and buy Frohike some more tables for sorting and packing vegetables. These are stored in the tool shed under a tarp and a load of wood left over from building the greenhouses. No one is going to go through that stuff unless they have to. Frohike sews Langly a smock, modeled after the long dark gorgeous smock in Rembrandt's self-portraits. He gets him a matching beret. Back then, Boy, if people came to your studio, they KNEW you were an artist! Byers buys Langly a taboret. He has begun to need more space for his supplies! The taboret is hidden in the potting shed under a mess of pots and bags of stuff. Frohike makes Byers a lovely cross-stitch. It is framed and will hang on the wall above where Byers works on the computer. It says: End of Part Six. photo/picture credits: http://www.granitestatenursery.com/fall.html http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The Corbomite Maneuver (episode) “Do-It-Yourself-Fallout-Shelter” Source: Forbes: 70 Years of the American Home: From Fallout Shelters To Smart Technology Written By Lexie Pelchen Former Staff Writer Updated: May 2, 2023, 4:03pm https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/features/american-homes-through-the-decades/ Thanks for visiting my site! Leila Old Wine in New Skins, Part Seven: Thanksgiving November 22, 2018, The Cabin. When the Van de Camps and Heloise arrive for Thanksgiving Will is delighted to see the most of the group in the cabin dressed as his school rivals. "We just whipped their butts!" he says. "Go Pirates!" says Heloise, raising her arms like a cheerleader. No SRSLY! She could not BE cuter. They high-five with Langly, who is the first one to greet them. He shows off his pirate costume, then everyone greets everyone else. Of course, this is Turkey Game Day, and everyone in the Male contingent wants to follow various teams. Mulder has brought 2 extra television sets from his condo. Heloise sees the two women, Marlena Vam de Camp and Mrs. Mulder,Scully, working in the kitchen, so she goes there also. She observes that all the men are in the Great Room watching the televisions. She says, "So is this feast prepared by the women only?" Marlena and Scully put everything on "simmer" and attempt to figure out how to explain it. "Well," says Scully, "Mr. Mulder and Mr. Van de Camp and, y’know, all the men, um... they only do the very important jobs of the feast." "Ah!" says Heloise "What are the important jobs the men do?" Scully and Marlena try to think of some thing, anything, Heloise has seen the men do since they got here, come up with nothing and they’ve been there almost 2 hours. "Well," says Scully, "Before you arrived, Mr. Mulder put the extra part in the table to make the table bigger. He and the other men put the table at the back window, and put all the chairs around it." Heloise nods and waits. Scully thinks quickly. "And," says Scully, with sudden new conviction, “Early this morning Mr. Mulder did THE most important thing in the preparation of the turkey! The men must do this task!" Marlena nods solemnly and goes out on the limb. She has no idea where Scully is going with this, but says,"My husband always does this!! A real man does this! He would be ashamed to not do this!" "The man," says Scully, "must remove the plastic thingy from the turkey!" "Yes. The man must do that!" exclaims Mrs. Van de Camp, although for years now she has let Mr. Van de Camp sleep in and she has pulled the durn thing out herself. Scully has gone over to the sink and opens the cabinet door under it. There is a small trash basket there. She looks inside and fishes out a dangerous-looking white thing. She holds it by the handle. It looks like a Bat'leth but for only one hand. "You see?" says Scully turning it back and forth. Heloise’s eyes are open wide. Scully tries to keep Heloise busy bringing out stuff. At one point, though, Heloise does make it over to where Will sits. Then Will talks to Gus, Mr. Van de Camp, and Gus comes into the kitchen. He says to Marlena, Mrs. Van de Camp, "Will says Heloise told him he isn’t a man until he disarms the turkey. Do you know what’s going on?" He turns to Scully, "Heloise said he has to take away the turkey’s weapon." He looks back to his wife. She hugs and pats him reassuringly. "It’s her first Thanksgiving." says Mrs. Van de Camp. "I’m sure everything is confusing." And indeed, it is. If you were to ask Heloise right then about all this, she would say that the turkey comes to the door weaponized and battle ready, brandishing the small Bat'leth-like thingie. The turkey and Mr. Mulder fight. It looks like a big puffy cloud with whirling lines and wings, arms, feet (both kinds) sticking out on all sides gripping knives, hatchets, Bat'leths 'n' stuff. She imagines Mr. Mulder is able to force the turkey to relinquish its grip on its weapon, whereupon the defeated gobbler is quickly killed, beheaded, plucked, and put in the refridgerator. If you're seeing this as a small cartoon in your head, you're supposed to, "K? Back in the real world, Mr. Van de Camp stands before Scully. Scully opens the top drawer, She says,"Gus, If you’re going past the table, would you put out the flatware, please?" Scully gets out 6 of everything and fills up both his hands. "Thanks!" He takes the flatware and drops it in a pile on the table. He goes around and sets the pieces out for the humans, then goes back to the sofa. Scully has a sudden thought."Marlena-What about saying Grace?" "Hmm! Good question!" says Marlena. "At our house, Gus always said it. I could ask him." "Well, there you have it. The men talk to God ." says Scully. They high-five. When Scully explains this to Heloise, well, impressed doesn’t even begin to cover it. In the middle of the meal, the subject of Will's “Protest” comes up. His adoptive parents are happy he is "givin' 'em Hell in Washington” as Mr. Van de Camp puts it. Mulder asks Heloise if she understands the issue of government secrecy about Aliens. "Well," she says,"It would be OK if someone uncovered how the "Unfreindlies" are colluding with Earth's Government! But we other Aliens would prefer to not be in the news." Mulder takes this as kind of a compliment on his work, uncovering Alien collusion. Fall passes. All the parents and Will and Heloise arrange that Will will spend Christmas Day with his adoptive parents, as they usually visit friends and relatives and open gifts with them, and then come to Mulder and Scully’s cabin Tuesday, December 26th. The group will open gifts when he comes, and he will stay a few days. Heloise is invited. Scully goes out to shop on the Saturday before Christmas. It snowed in the middle of the week, but all the roads and sidewalks have been cleared and are dry. She grocery shops at Food Tiger, and visits a book store to pick up books she has put on "pick-up" at the counter. She buys some gift bags and tissue at the Shoppers Bargain Store. She has already received her on-line orders: socks and underwear and hats and gloves for all of the guys' stockings, and a hat and gloves for her own stocking. Heloise's clothes have unintelligible tags, so Scully had Will surreptitiously measure a pair of Heloise's slippers and some of her clothes, and has received her online order of a winter coat and boots she thinks will fit. Heloise has already enthusiastically responded to Scully's invitation to "go shopping after Christmas" so she will need some warm outerwear. Scully bought Heloise a handbag online. It goes well with the boots. Now, in the Shoppers Bargain Store, she buys all the sorts of stuff women routinely carry around: tissues, comb, some cosmetics, pen, etc. Shopping with Heloise! Scully hardly knows what to think. What a wonderful Christmas it will be! Scully is very excited that construction is going on to make the attic a second floor. Suppose Will and Heloise marry and move into the cabin? Will and Heloise could "Whoosh!" to work.They might need to add on an addition to the main floor, too, as a new "Great Room" and use the current room as a family room and work room for Langly and Byers. Now when they drive up to the cabin, Scully "sees" those dormers sticking out of the roof, and she imagines the "Great Room" addition on the far side of the house. It would be the new entrance to the cabin, with a garage farther on. (Leila's note: Instead of an addition to the cabin, they decide to make a garage with an office on the second floor and living quarters on the first and second floors.) Sometimes she goes to "home fashion" magazine sites that have such cute bedrooms for boys and girls. She has wonderful day-dreams. She stops at St. Patrick's on the way back. Before Will showed up, she ached for the family she would never have. Now she and Mulder have a son and three new "uncles" in their family (yeah, ok, part uncle/part grandma, we take our relatives as we get 'em.) There's a chance for a wedding and grandchildren. There are the other parents, and she is so grateful to them. She tries to do what Paul said: "Pray without ceasing." Most of the time it’s just being conscious of God. Other groups of seekers often express this as "being in the moment; to not let amazing things right at hand pass unnoticed." The altar cloths for the week before Christmas are gorgeous, a deep rose color. Pots of poinsettias line the altar rail. Scully thinks how the priest, Father Niall Brennan, who hails from Ireland, always is at work behind the scenes to make the church so very beautiful. She thinks about the nuns and the staff who keep everything clean and so well organized. She thinks about the choir director, the choir members, and the organist. All of the people who make the Mass happen-she prays for them just as she prays for the FBI and her family and friends. Father Brennan has studied church music extensively, not only the music of the Catholic Church throughout history, but also the hymns from the Reformation, and up to today's Christian Rock music. He plays piano and organ. He has worked with the other church leaders in the area to present Ecumenical services. During these services, Father Brennan introduces the hymn or song he has chosen for the congregation to sing by telling a short story about the hymn, or the hymnist. Scully finds herself thinking of the words of one Father Brennan seems to use a lot. She has a sense of how her deepest desires have been "granted in what He ordaineth" the beautiful words from "Praise to the Lord the Almighty" by German Calvinist hymn-writer Joachim Neander, (Yo-a'-kim Knee-an'- der) (1650- 31 May 1680) who held services to sing his hymns near Dusseldorf, in a beautiful ravine now called the Neander Valley. In the mid 19th century, that ravine was dug out to provide limestone for cement. Later, scientists excavated in the place for fossils. In 1856, Neander became the only Hymnist to have a fossil hominid* named after him. *Yeah. That one. It was a huge moment for anthropologists. The suffix "thal" means valley, btw. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalweg)(This geek moment brought to you by Bach Cantatas Website: * http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Neander.htm and Wikipedia: Joachim Neander: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Neander.) The End of Part Seven. photo/picture Credits: https://noshon.it/blog/2012/11/the-complete-guide-to-cooking-a-turkey/> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Bat%27leth http://www.cornerstone-farm.com/poultry-packaging/turkey-truss/ Thanks for visiting my site! Leila Old Wine in New Skins, Part Eight: An X-Files Christmas "Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority."  -Thomas H. Huxley Bill Guilder pushes his crew and the cabin gets a second floor the second week of December.Everything looks great. Now it's time to do Christmas preparations.The Gunmen Guys have cut down a small tree on the property to be a Christmas Tree. They note that they should obtain some small and seedling trees to replace it which will provide Christmas trees for the future. Scully has brought them her mother's decorations. Branches taken off from the bottom of the tree, to get it into a stand, now have been arranged by Frohike into a beautiful spray with a big red ribbon hanging on the door of the main cabin. From the fireplace chimney, they have hung (with care) large red and green taffeta "stockings" they bought at the Christmas Bazaar. (Frohike's afghans were a sell-out at the same church event.) In 2018, Christmas Eve is on a Monday. Mulder and Scully go to a special Mass in the morning, but decide not to try to make the midnight service. The forecast is for snow, and it starts early in the afternoon. The snow accumulates quickly. The local news reports that most secondary roads are closed. Mulder retrieves kerosene lanterns from the tool shed in case the power goes out and they run out of stored solar electricity. He checks the wood bin so he won't have to make a trip out to the woodpile under the front porch. He sets out several large flashlights (including a two -pack of those Ultra-Bright 500-Lumen Tactical Military Flashlights-his new favorite!) on the kitchen counter, and puts bedding, with several blankets, on the pullout sofa for himself and Scully, in case they must move into the Great Room in front of the hearth. From time to time Langly clears off the path to the bunkhouse, and the other two Gunmen keep the solar panels on top of the bunkhouse clear of snow. They decide to wait and let all the snow accumulate, and then clear it off from the porch, and out into the driveway, and from the vehicles, after it stops. Two weeks earlier, Mulder found a phone Dreidel Game. He and the Gunmen tried it out, but didn't have a "pot". Now in the afternoon before Christmas Eve, Frohike says he's going to "make it interesting." He had Scully buy him some wrapped hard candies. He says to Mulder, "You'll play for yourself, but, we will champion others." He's already set this up. Frohike will play for Scully, Byers for Will, and Langly for Heloise."To the victor go the candies!" he says. Byers is not very lucky, but the others share their winnings so Will can have candy too. After the game, the Gunmen join in at Scully's invitation to make Christmas Cookies. They make three types: holiday shapes of sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles, thick shortbread with jam centers, and gingerbread men. The Gunmen add "antennae" to their gingerbread men. All of the antennae are different, so they look like GingerBread Tubbies. A sumptuous feast of roast beef is served on Christmas Eve. As usual, The Gunmen Guys have water, but Scully serves it in holiday glassware that was from her mom's house. Langly, Frohike, and Mulder retire to the Great Room to entertain themselves with board games by a fire on the hearth. Byers loads the dishwasher and Scully sits with a cup of coffee at the table. Suddenly there is a loud knock at the door. Byers answers the door. He has a one-sided conversation punctuated by loud groans from a female voice. Byers turns and exclaims, "Scully!" A man assists a woman through the door and into the kitchen. Both are dressed in traditional middle eastern robes, and capes or shawls, in layers; both have head coverings and heavy looking boots. It seems as though neither the man nor the woman knows English. Byers points to Scully and says, "doctor", in French, Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish and Hebrew to let the man and woman know Scully is a doctor.(When they were sent to places, they picked up important words and phrases.) Dr. Scully takes a look at the woman and does not need a patient interview or any medical tests to diagnose. The woman is in labor and could give birth at any moment. Dr. Scully directs the preparations. She orders all of the lights turned on. Langly does this and brings extra lamps in from the bedroom. The man takes the woman to the pull-out sofa which Mulder has already opened and is covering with the blankets he laid out before, and then a large patchwork of clean cleaning cloths. Mulder stands near Dr. Scully, to do any repositioning of the patient as Dr. Scully needs. Byers brings a large bottle of alcohol, sterile cloths, and some bandages to the kitchen and sets it all down on the counter. Frohike sets a large pan of water to boil on the stove. At Dr. Scully's direction, he sets out several instruments from her medical bag. The instruments could be sterilized with either the alcohol or the water. The Gunmen Guys go to the kitchen, at the ready. The delivery goes quickly, with no surgical intervention needed besides the usual cutting of the cord and then clothes-pinning it. The child is a boy. Mulder finds an old flannel sheet set stored in the pantry and rips it up. He makes several pieces into diapers and gets safety pins. He brings a plastic basin. After washing and drying the infant in the kitchen sink, Scully diapers, then wraps the baby in some long strips of flannel. Mulder sets up a crib inside a large plastic crate with a huge square decorator pillow inside, covered with cloths.The sides have rolled cloths as "bumpers". He sets this on a coffee table near the sofa. Scully is transfixed, looking for several moments into the face of the infant. She brings the infant over and places the child into the arms of his mother. Mulder reflects that it is amazing that the couple arrived at the only place for miles with a doctor. The Gunmen Guys come in to have a look, then Scully shoos all the men to the kitchen so the mother can breastfeed the child. Scully assists the mother, positioning some pillows and then removes all the materials that have been brought into the Great Room and puts everything but the flannel diapers and pins and the makeshift crib back where each came from. In the kitchen, Frohike pours the unused boiling water into a teapot with Chamomile teabags. After the baby has been fed, and put in the makeshift crib, Mulder heats up leftovers in the microwave and offers them, and cups of tea, to the couple. It is clear some things are not food that they are used to, and they turn several items over to look at them before trying them. They seem to like the Christmas Cookies, however, and smile and nod at these treats enthusiastically. Mulder brings more. They like the tea as well, and hold out their cups for seconds. Then they pass the plates and cups back. At this point, the man kneels in the middle of the Great Room, and, in an attitude of praise, obviously offers thanks to God. He stands, and with hands outstretched, delivers a blessing on everyone. No one needs a translation to understand this. Scully now says that everyone should go get some rest. Frohike, Byers, and Langly trudge out to the bunkhouse, and, after Scully discreetly sees to the mother's needs for a bedpan, and Mulder sees to the man's need for the bathroom, Scully and Mulder retire to their bedroom. Mulder is shaken awake by Scully before dawn. "They’re gone!" exclaims Scully. Mulder, sleeping in sweatpants and a teeshirt, puts on his boat shoes and a sweatshirt and looks outside. No footprints break up the smooth expanse of snow out to the main road, which looks cleared. It is still snowing. It looks like several inches fell during the night. Mulder goes to the bunkhouse. The Gunmen Guys have been recharging and have not been aware of any noises that would have caused them to get up and investigate. They find that the sheets and blankets are neatly folded on the sofa. The sofa bed has been refolded up into the sofa. The milk crate is empty and the pillow is back on the sofa. Only the flannel diapers, swaddling, clothes-pin and safety pins are missing. Other than that, everything is the same as it was. As the Gunmen Guys prepare breakfast, they discuss the strange event. At breakfast, Scully and Mulder keep her and his own counsel. Eventually it's obvious that they have discussed it and have come to their conclusions, but they keep it to themselves. The day passes with each person immersed in chores or in their own interests. It continues to snow that morning but finally stops in the afternoon. The snowplow comes by. The Gunmen Guys remove snow off the all the pathways and the vehicles in the driveway and keep the the solar panels and the bunkhouse path clear. On Wednesday, Will arrives in the mid-morning, and they open gifts. Will has gifted everyone with a subscription to a movie channel. They decide that they will watch a classic film but can't decide what to watch. Mulder and Frohike think it should be a comedy: Trains, Planes, and Automobiles, The Producers, Raising Arizona, etc. and Byers and Scully are all for a period piece-a great romance: Gone With The Wind, Doctor Zhivago, or the like. Langly thinks Will would like a period piece, but one with an action hero-Ben Hur or Gladiator. Will agrees that something like Gladiator would be real good. They don't vote. It's still in the suggestion stage. Heloise arrives on her own and has been very practical in regard to gifts. Her gift is a very high tech device that attaches to the bunkhouse window and is connected to the network of Alien communications in vessels in this part of the Galaxy. There is a second device for the kitchen window that is an "extension" of the main device. The device monitors surveillance, which is to say, that, if the government thinks the Gunmen might not have been "whooshed up" to someplace far away, and starts looking for them via satellite, drone, or through their computer or phones or any other device of known former friends or allies, up to and especially in a group of vehicles heading to the cabin, the Gunmen will be warned and any Alien ship in the area can come whoosh them out of there before they get caught. After the gifting, Heloise says she must return to her ship. She has some work to do. Scully puts some cookies into a red paper plate and makes a clamshell with another red plate stapled to it on top and a green sticky bow. Heloise exclaims, "I’ve seen these type of desserts in the Earth Women magazines I study to learn more about Earth! They’re "scrumptious," yes?” "Um, ...YES!!!" says Scully. Will goes out with Langly, Byers, and Frohike to the greenhouse to help Frohike transplant some seedlings, and they tell him about the strange visitors. "Oh!" says Will, in a way that suggests that this explains something. "What’s your thinking?" asks Frohike. "Well," says Will, "I noticed Mom is just glowing, like she’s high on something, but I know she doesn’t do drugs or anything." "Well, if you find out what she’s thinking, we’d all like to know." says Byers. "It was an awfully peculiar incident." Langly adds, "They appeared and then disappeared. In the morning, when we went out to clear off the walkways...no footprints, no tire tracks, no nothing." At lunch they have a soup made from vegetables from the greenhouses mixed with barley and lentils, along with a loaf of multi-grain bread from the bakery in town, and an assortment of jams and butters from the Christmas Bazaar preserves tables. They continue to discuss what they might watch with Will's subscription. In the afternoon, "Babushka" must go into town and deliver some herbs and vegetables loaded into six large insulated chests (to keep the vegetables from freezing in the bed of the truck.) Langly, Byers, and Mulder decide to go along for the ride. Will elects to stay with his mom and help around the house. The group in the truck wait about as long as they can and then Frohike (Babushka) asks Mulder, who is sitting in the front with him, why Scully seems so... "different" since the strange incident. "Oh." Says Mulder, "She thinks it was the Christ Child." "Ah." says Frohike. There is a real long silence, until Byers notices how lovely the trees look. All agree. Then, another long silence, then everyone agrees with Langly on, um, something or other. Maybe how it could snow again with all the clouds. Yeah, that was it. Finally Mulder says, "Scully and I have seen people in the thrall of powerful forces. We’ve seen ordinary people turn -physically morph-into terrifying animal creatures, or demons. And the thing is, lots of people are ready to believe in these things just from hearing about them. Why is the Christ Child so far -fetched?" Then Mulder says, "Now, that's Scully's conclusion, and I respect her opinion. For me, though, I think there's a more down-to-Earth -an Earthly explanation. First of all, it did snow several inches...enough to cover footprints... So I'm thinking that they might have been undocumented workers who work on one of the farms around here. Obviously they got lost going somewhere else at a very critical time. I'm thinking the miracle may have been that they found our place and there were people here who could help them. It doesn't surprise me that they left before we could report them to the authorities!" "You make your point, Sir," says Frohike. The other two nod. Mulder turns on the radio and finds a discussion of various basketball teams. This sets off a lively discussion of several teams among the Gunmen Guys and Mulder through out the whole ride around town, pausing as Babushka makes each delivery, and the whole ride back. At the cabin, after setting everyone’s Christmas gifts into neat piles, vacuuming, and putting the trash out, Will joins his mom for a small "afternoon tea” except she has coffee and he has his favorite sparkling pomegranate drink, along with Christmas Cookies. "So, Mom," says Will. "The guys say you delivered a baby here on Christmas Eve?" "Yes," says Scully, dreamily. "It was wondrous; a miracle." "So, you feel pretty proud of having helped make a miracle happen?" "No my skills aren’t the miracle. When I delivered the child and looked at him, it was as if I had known him all my life. It was my Lord, being born to be among men. I think it's possible that they simply went back to the spiritual realm after blessing us. I’m filled with joy at being blessed." "So... did you report this birth to the proper authorities?" says William, puzzled. (He's thinking of the Wise Men returning by a different route.) "“Well, Dad did try to find out if they showed up at a hospital later, but we couldn’t find any records of them at any of the local hospitals. I did call the County this morning before you arrived, but it was pretty silly. I have no names, no addresses, nothing. It will be recorded as a "John Doe" birth, if it gets recorded at all. I’ve done my duty." Then she adds, "You know, Will, in our work your dad and I have seen some very bizarre things. Very evil things. When we have reported those things, the government has turned a critical eye on our report. I’m not going to go out of my way to convince the government that this happened." She smiles and shrugs. It should be noted that Will has been brought up in the Catholic religion as well. Mrs. Van de Camp read to him from "Bible Stories for Children" several times a week for his bedtime story, and they took William to Mass every week when he was old enough to understand what was going on. She and Mr. Van de Camp engaged him in discussions about religion around the family table at Sunday Dinner. William couldn’t square all of this with his belief that he was an Alien, however, so he didn't want to be confirmed. Will and Scully continue to talk about how Scully "knew" it was the Christ Child as Scully begins supper, or "breakfast for supper" which will be pancakes with butter and several syrup flavors from the Christmas Bazaar, sausage from the butcher in town, freshly squeezed orange juice, and water in a whole different set of festive decorated glassware for the Gunmen Guys, from the "This ‘n’ That" table at the Bazaar. When the group reconvenes for supper, The Gunmen and Will go to the Great Room and talk about what they will watch with Will's online gift. They also tell what each group has found out about Mulder and Scully’s ideas about the strange visitors. Frohike says, "Mulder said people are so ready to believe that someone could be possessed by a demon, or be a monster, so why do folks have a hard time with good beings coming to bless us? I see Scully's argument." (Leila's note: George Burns in "Oh God!" made this argument as well.) Frohike goes on to say, "So they've finally reversed roles? The "I want to believe" guy and the sceptical scientist-they're all switched around now? Mulder thinks it's easily explained by pointing to illegal immigrants? Interesting!" They all get a laugh at this. In the kitchen, Mulder says, as he sets the table, that he has discussed the strange incident with the Gunmen Guys. Scully likewise says that she discussed it with Will. Suddenly Heloise knocks on the patio door. She has beamed down onto the cleared off area. She is rushed into the kitchen by a joyous Human-Alien-Robot mob. She explains to Mulder and Scully that when she called in a finished report to the Elders, "They were astonished that I wasn’t enjoying the Holiday with you; they insisted I come back! May I?" Mulder hugs her and sets another place. Scully makes more pancake batter. While Mulder and Scully prepare dinner, Will fills Heloise in on what he knows about his mom's spiritual event. Heloise says its wonderful how his mom "has such a positive outlook." She says, "Other people might have been afraid to let strangers into their house!" The supper mood is merry. Later, as everyone clears the table, Will suddenly thinks out loud that maybe they could watch a Holiday Classic film. The words, "like, Miracle on 34th Street" leave his mouth before he has thought about it enough. Mulder objects on the basis that "it would be too obvious that I get all my talking points about the Christmas birth from Santa Claus, when he’s examined on the witness stand." Scully laughs and says, "See, Will? Yeah, they put Santa on the witness stand to defend himself! Santa! This is why you don’t do anything more than the minimum as far as reporting anything to the authorities. (and, to Mulder) 'Isn’t that right?'" Mulder side-hugs her, and says, "No miracle stories right now, unless they involve dogs that can shoot basketballs." They decide on watching all of the Star-Trek films, the original cast and the new crews. Will explains to Heloise that they are going to watch an entertainment program about a fictional future when humans explore space in a ship with a crew from Earth and also crew members from other planets. So, yeah, deja vu, been there, done that, it’s so yesterday, etc. Still fun, though... Will and Heloise take the new love seat in the Great Room. Heloise is thrilled when she sees Mr. Spock. “He is SOOOOO handsome!” Will takes the opportunity to tell her, "Viewers loved Mr. Spock. He was interested in helping to seek out new worlds, and help those other beings, just like you are." Heloise gives Will a look of adoration. She finds his hand and entwines her fingers. She leans against him. Mulder goes to the kitchen and brings back the tissue box for Scully. And himself. He has dreams now, too. In his dreams, he watches "2001: A Space Odyssey" and sends off home-made rockets with a little girl who has Scully's blue eyes and Héloise's red-bronze skin and elf ears. End of Part Eight. Thanks for visiting my site! If you have a comment, correction, or more information on a subject, write me an e-mail. Since I’m making all of this up, I could see me making a mistake on what happens on what date. Other stuff too. Thanks!” translations from: http://www.free-translator.com/ Leila You may contact me at leilafile@hotmail.com MENU Click here to return to the Home Page Mulder and Scully in Retirement! 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Click here to see The Re-Make of the X-Files Leila's Myth Arc Click here to go to Leila's Myth-Arc! Yes! I have a Myth-Arc! Leila's Lone Gunmen Stories This section has stories about The Lone Gunmen Click here to go to a Re-creation of the Original Homepage of The Lone Gunmen site Click here to go to The Three Moscateers Click here to go to A Hunter Thompson Weekend Click here to go to one of the two different treatments of the ending of the story My Friend Flicker which has Scully/Doggett and A Wild Hair Day, the continuation of the story of Flicker, with Doggett/SecondAgent Click here to see one of two different treatments of the ending of the story My Friend Flicker, which is a Scully/Mulder story and then there is This Case is Closed, which is the continuation of the story of Flicker, with Scully/Mulder Click here to go to A Cruise To Nowhere