From: palmerdolph@yahoo.com   
      
   title: Christmas 1996   
     author: probe   
     rating: ummm...pg13 sort of or just pg   
     comment: this had no beta because it is a challenge fic for X-OK and my beta   
   was doing the challenge.  Sorry.   
     warnings:  no character death.  a little Mulder torture involving the pinkie   
   toe and lots of angst with a dash or romance.   
     thank you to frannie the wonderhorse for being so nice to me all the time   
     email feedback!  palmerdolph@yahoo.com   
      
      
     South Hampton estate of   
     Senator Matheson   
     December 24th 1996   
      
                 "So you're still an FBI agent, Foxy?"  A drunk and wobbly   
   brunette had placed a   palm against his chest, to steady herself.  Once a   
   little more steady, she ran it down the lapel of his tuxedo, sloppily   
   seductive.   
      
     A white-coated waiter appeared and Mulder traded both their empty champagne   
   glasses for full ones.   
     He'd downed a scotch back at Aunt Elaine's to get steeled for the party --   
   "liquid courage" his Uncle Robert used to call his pre-party drink.   
     So there was the scotch and no dinner and how many of these champagnes had   
   he drunk?  Who cares. The brunette tugged at his jacket again.   
      
     "That's right," he said, "FBI." He craned his neck to search the party for   
   the coiffed gray head of his mother.  She was in a somber group of older   
   women, all of them sparkling with new beaded Christmas gowns and antique   
   family jewels.   
      
     "You don't remember me, do you?" the brunette purred at him.   
      
     Mulder squinted down at her. She had wide set green eyes and pale skin that   
   reminded him of Phoebe.   
      
     "You probably fall into my post-Oxford period," the words slurred out of his   
   mouth before he could stop them.   
     When the brunette scowled at him he looked just as accusingly at his glass   
   of champagne.   
     How the fuck many of these had he drunk anyway?   
      
     "You’re a bastard, Fox Mulder," the brunette handed her champagne glass back   
   at him roughly and tried to make a staccato turn on her heels.   
     Too much to drink made the move impossible in strappy heels and she fell to   
   the marble floor in front of him.   
      
     "Damnit!"  the people closest to them turned to stare.   
      
     Mulder handed away the two champagne glasses and lifted the brunette to her   
   feet.   
      
     "It's really slick there. The floor is wet I think," he said loudly.  The   
   other groups of people went back to their conversations.   
     "Thanks," she whispered to him.  Oh fuck she was crying.  Mulder felt the   
   familiar wave of guilt.   
      
     "Don't thank me.  That was a shitty thing to say.  I'm drunk and I was   
   trying to be funny," he lied.   
     Then with another look at her face, "Sara."   
      
     He must have gotten it right because she smiled at him.   
      
     ***********   
      
     Aunt Elaine commented twice about his driving but he was fine.   
      
     Hell, he'd had nothing but scotch on the plane from Russia and still made it   
   to that joke of a Congressional Hearing.   
     No.   
     He didn't want to think about that Hearing because then he would start to   
   picture Scully spending the night in jail because of her loyalties to him, to   
   the work…   
     It had driven him crazy on the plane back to the US.   
      
     "Fox!" his Aunt Elaine screeched. They'd started to spin out but he righted   
   the Bentley without a change in pulse.   
      
     "Not to worry, Aunt Elaine.  The FBI trains us for these conditions." Mulder   
   shrugged.  Maybe he wasn't lying. Maybe the FBI actually did driving training   
   for the regular recruits.   
      
     "I don't like the snow here," his mother said vacantly.  "The flakes are to   
   big and wet. My fur looks terrible."   
      
     Mulder stole a glance from the dark road to the glassy eyes of his mother.    
   Looks like she took her pre-party courage in the pill form.  He hadn't noticed   
   her drinking at the Matheson's party.   
      
     "I don't think the snow is the problem," snipped Aunt Elaine.   
      
     Back home the two women went straight to bed but Mulder searched the library   
   for the liquor.  Good old Uncle Robert had always kept a stash of bourbon   
   hidden behind the leather bound encyclopedia set.  Mulder had been working his   
   way bottle by bottle    
   for every Christmas they visited Elaine.  Last bottle.   
      
     "Looks like I owe you some replacements, Uncle Robert," Mulder raised his   
   glass at an empty chair by the fireplace where his uncle once sat.  Then,   
   after a thoughtful moment, he wandered over to the carefully trimmed logs in   
   the brass fire bin and    
   started piling them in the hearth.   
      
     The blaze of the fire made him feel a little better or maybe it was the   
   bourbon.  He stuffed another newspaper under the log pile and the fire flared   
   up higher.  Don't think about Russia, he reminded himself.  Don't think about   
   Krycek. Don't think    
   about the Congressional Hearing.   
     Or Scully in jail.   
     Or Scully.   
      
     He rubbed at his face.  How much more did he need to drink to finally get to   
   sleep?   
     Something tapped on the French door panes of the library.  Fingernails   
   tapping a little rhythm.  He got up, undoing his bow tie and shedding his   
   jacket.   
      
     Behind the glass was the brunette from the party, Sara, with a half-full   
   bottle of champagne in one hand, smiling.  "Let me in," she stage whispered.   
      
     Sara thrust a sprig of mistletoe over his head, laughing.  It bothered him   
   that he could only remember her name and none of the particulars of their   
   involvement.  He pulled the mistletoe from her fingers and pushed her coat off   
   her shoulders looking at    
   the swells and dips of her body under her velvet dress.   
      
     "Let me help you with that," she told him and she shimmied out of the   
   dress.  Except for the stockings and garters, she was naked.  "Remember me   
   now, Fox?"   
      
     He did remember her, flashes of her legs crossed beside him at a ball game   
   and her breasts under her hands.  She laughed a lot, he remembered.  He'd   
   liked that.  He couldn't remember anything they'd talked about.  It hadn't   
   mattered.   
      
     "Kiss me," she told him.   
      
     He did.   
     Her tongue was in his mouth, warm and slick but her lips were cold and they   
   made his tingle and go numb.   
     Mulder thought the bourbon must have been working on him because he felt   
   dizzy and staggered backward.   
     Sara fell heavily onto his chest.   
      
     "We should lie down," he slurred but his stomach clenched and he thought he   
   might pass out.   
     Sara was crumpled on the ground at his feet.   
     When had that happened?  He turned and tripped over a footstool; pain shot   
   up his foot.   
     "Fuck!"   
      Something was wrong.   
     Mulder wiped at his mouth where Sara's tongue had touched, finally vomiting   
   on Aunt Elaine's vintage Turkish carpet.   
      
      
     **********   
      
     Even before he opened his eyes he knew he was in the hospital, the smell,   
   the beeping of a heart monitor, the squeak of rubber soled nurse shoes.   
     Someone pried one eyelid open to shine a light on his pupil.  He knew it   
   wasn't her but he couldn't help himself,   
     "Scully?"   
     He tried to pull himself up but a determined little Indian man pushed him   
   back down.   
      
     "You haf been poisoned."   
      
     "What?"  His throat was so dry that he croaked.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)