Title: BALL FOUR
Author: Jean Robinson (jeanrobinson@yahoo.com)
Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property 
of Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Television 
Network. Stratego and Monopoly are the property of 
Parker Brothers, Inc. No infringement is intended. 
Rating: PG
Classification: S
Archive: Please ask permission.
Spoilers: Up through FTF, pre-season 6
Summary: Playing by the rules doesn't always mean you 
win.
Feedback: Gratefully appreciated at 
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com
Author's notes at the end 
*****************************


BALL FOUR (1/4)
By Jean Robinson


"Scully? Are you doing anything on Sunday afternoon?" 
Mulder asked.

She didn't look up from the case file spread out in front 
of her. "Laundry and dinner with my mother."

"Sounds exciting." 

"It'll do. I like to give my cardiovascular system a rest 
every now and then, unlike some people I know."

Mulder ignored the jibe and persisted. "Can you make it 
a late dinner and laundry afterward?"

Scully sighed and put down her pen, closing her eyes 
briefly. His dogged, aggressive and tireless style was one 
of his stellar qualities when assessing his value to the 
Bureau, but God help him, more often than not it made 
him a colossal pain in the neck on an individual level. 
She knew exactly where he was going with this, and she 
could now forget about getting anything done on this 
report until he had his say. "Mulder, give it a rest. They 
did not cheat, and you know it."

"How can you say that? Agent Stannis has to be the 
biggest ringer in the Bureau. A score of seventeen to one? 
How can you even think of that as fair?"

She crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow at him. "So 
Agent Stannis pitched varsity baseball at Duke. The 
opposing team is not required to provide you with 
resumes of their players. You're the only one who is 
crying about this. No one else cares."

Mulder stopped tossing his baseball from hand to hand 
and glared at her. "That's because no one else respects 
the rules, Scully. Seventeen to one? Come on!"

"Mulder, you are the biggest sore loser I have ever met, 
have I ever told you that? You've been sulking for three 
weeks about that game. Since then two other teams have 
played the VCS and no one, I repeat, no one has raised 
any question of impropriety regarding Agent Stannis' 
being part of the lineup. Get over it."

"We need another player for Sunday. We need a secret 
weapon. We need you, Scully," he cajoled.

"I have plans. Sorry."

"It's the national pastime, Scully. Do it in the name of 
patriotism."

"Forget it, Mulder."

"Your mother said she'd hold the pasta for you," he said, 
smiling triumphantly as he played this unexpected and 
totally underhanded trump card.

"You =called my mother=?!" Scully jumped to her feet, 
oblivious to the files that scattered in front of her, 
conscious only of her shock at how far he would go to get 
his own way. "Jesus, Mulder, I don't believe this!"

He continued to grin wickedly. "She said she thought it 
would be a fine idea for you to be out getting some 
exercise in the fresh air. She said she's sure she can find 
an old baseball glove for you."

Mulder alone she could handle, but the combined 
onslaught of her mother and her partner was beyond her 
power. Defeated, she slumped back into her chair and 
glowered at him. "You're not going to let this go, are 
you?"

"Nope."

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Nope. You never did. Here." He reached into his desk 
drawer, pulled out a small, soft bundle and tossed it over 
to her.

She caught what turned out to be a baseball shirt, white 
with blue sleeves. Emblazoned on the front in blue 
capital letters were the words LAB RATS. Twisting the 
shirt around, she discovered Mulder had been 
distressingly thorough. SCULLY was printed boldly 
across the back. She lowered the shirt and scowled 
harder, refusing to be placated by his cheerful grin. "I 
know you're bored, Mulder. . ." she winced at her own 
careless choice of words and there was a tense, 
uncomfortable silence as they both recalled the events 
that had stemmed from their last conversation involving 
that particular phrase. Scully mentally swore at herself 
and plunged on. ". . . but I didn't think you'd stoop so 
low for anything other than the Redskins or the Knicks. 
For God's sake, it's only a baseball game."

Mulder managed to look both appalled and mortally 
offended at the same time. "Scully, Scully, there is no 
such thing as 'only a baseball game.' Have I taught you 
nothing in the last five years?"

"Sometimes I wonder, Mulder," she muttered, bending 
over to pick up her fallen paperwork. "Sometimes I really 
wonder."
**************

By Sunday afternoon, she felt somewhat better about 
being there with the rest of the Lab team, although she 
was still inwardly fuming about how humiliating it was 
that he could manipulate her with such ease. She wasn't 
going to admit it to Mulder, but it did feel good to be part 
of the camaraderie, to see these people outside of the 
Hoover building, to know that they owned clothes other 
than power suits and lab coats, and to see hands covered 
in oversize brown leather gloves instead of thin white 
latex ones.

It felt good to do something so blessedly normal. 

Mulder greeted her genially; now that the battle had been 
fought and won and she was here he was prepared to be 
generous. "Hey, Scully, glad you could make it. We won 
the coin toss for first ups."

She surveyed the group, nodding to friends and co-
workers from both sections. The VCS shirts were bright 
red with white letters announcing their team name, 
DEATH SQUAD. That was as far as the official uniform 
went; below their shirts everyone sported a motley 
collection of jeans or sweatpants in various stages of 
disintegration. A few wore cleats, but the majority were in 
sneakers. Baseball caps of all colors and team affiliations 
abounded. Scully toted her childhood glove, one of the 
many pieces of sports equipment her brothers had 
bestowed upon her for her birthday or Christmas, and 
wore one of Bill's ancient Little League hats as well. Both 
had been enthusiastically dug out of an attic trunk by 
her mother.

The glove had been dry and cracked; she'd spent an hour 
the previous evening rubbing neat's foot oil into the worn 
cowhide to soften it. While it was never going to be the 
supple toy of her youth, at least she could now open it 
wide enough to accommodate a ball. 

A long, deep scuff mark marred the glove's thumb. Scully 
had stared at the gouge for quite some time, 
remembering how it had happened. It might have been 
the last time she used the glove, in fact. Before anyone 
went to college; she couldn't have been older than twelve. 
A neighborhood pick-up game. An argument with Bill 
about a ball she should have chased but hadn't, 
believing it to be foul. Her mistake allowed three runs 
and cost them the game. Bill had vented his anger on his 
present. Strange how she could still hear and see it all so 
clearly in her mind.

By the third inning of today's game, it was clear that 
Mulder's grudge match was not going to leave him in a 
better mood than the original game. The score was 8-0, 
and the Lab Rats were trying desperately to get someone, 
anyone, on base. Agent Stannis pitched with the grace of 
natural ability and the ease of long practice, striking out 
one after another as his teammates cheered him on from 
the field.

Watching batter after batter expire under the Stannis 
curveball, the Stannis fastball, and the Stannis sinker, 
Scully suddenly realized something. Everyone on her 
team was right-handed. Stannis was left-handed.

Statistically, it was not very unusual. But from a game 
standpoint, it raised an interesting question. How well 
can a left-handed pitcher throw to a left-handed batter? 
From her memories of games both watched and played 
as a child, she knew it mattered. Maybe not in the major 
leagues, where the truly talented dominated, but it 
certainly did in the world of amateur ball she had grown 
up with. Her brothers had spent a patient week to show 
her just how important it was one summer, and she felt a 
sudden malevolent glee that that long-ago, almost 
forgotten lesson might just give everyone a huge surprise 
now.

An excited yell from her team drew her attention back to 
the game. Mulder had managed to smack a line drive 
that took a quirky little hop when it landed, and he beat 
the outfielder's off-balance throw to second base. All the 
Lab Rats were on their feet, screaming happily about 
comebacks and jumping up and down as if he'd hit a 
home run.

"You're up, Dana," Danny beckoned her to the plate.

Scully hefted a couple of the bats and chose one. As she 
stepped up to the plate, Danny pulled off her fabric cap 
and pushed one of the hard plastic batting helmets onto 
her head.

It promptly flopped over her ears to rest on the end of her 
nose, obscuring her sight completely, along with three-
quarters of her face. The catcher burst out laughing. She 
pushed the brim up and regarded Danny wryly. "This 
isn't going to work. Are the others any smaller?"

They weren't. In fact, they were bigger. Both teams were 
laughing at her now. Go ahead, laugh it up, she thought. 
You'll be laughing out of the other side of your face in a 
minute.

It took almost ten minutes to jury-rig the interior straps 
in the first helmet so that it would sit precariously on her 
head. Even then she had to tilt it so that the brim nearly 
pointed at the sky to keep it from falling down over her 
eyes again.

"Come on!" Stannis yelled impatiently from the mound. 
"Put someone up who can at least see over the plate!"

Scully froze. She'd trained Mulder long ago to eliminate 
the short jokes from his repertoire of childish taunts. A 
quick glance in his direction told her he didn't want to 
know what she had planned for Stannis, regardless of 
the outcome of the game. It was another legacy from her 
brothers. If you didn't fight back, they didn't respect you. 
Few people in the Bureau, however, had reason to 
suspect that Dana Scully not only got mad, she got even, 
too.

She took a deep breath and forced herself back under 
control. She'd deal with Stannis the jerk later. Right now 
she had a date with Stannis the pitcher, and it would be 
a pleasure to make him squirm in front of everyone. She 
snatched the bat back from Danny, who was holding it 
while she fiddled with the headgear, and stepped into the 
batter's box. . . to hit lefty.

Stannis, who had started to go into his windup, paused, 
momentarily disconcerted. He'd watched her in the 
outfield; during the first inning she'd caught a pop fly 
and had tried unsuccessfully to throw out a Death Squad 
runner sliding for third. "What do you think you're 
doing?" he called. "You aren't left-handed!"

Scully smirked. "I have brothers, Agent Stannis," she 
shouted back. "They taught me a lot of things, such as 
how to fight dirty." Those tactics had included an 
arduous education in switch hitting at the hands of the 
family Little League stars. It wasn't a talent she'd ever 
really had occasion to use, although it impressed a 
boyfriend or two in high school.

"Go, Scully!" Mulder yelled from second, delighted at this 
sudden turn of events. "Bring me home!" The other Lab 
Rats were on their feet again, bellowing out 
encouragement, sensing Stannis' impending downfall.

"You asked for it!" Stannis reared back and fired.

Ball one.

Ball two.

Ball three.

By this time, the Lab Rats were nearly hysterical, ecstatic 
that they were about to have two people on base with no 
outs, and Agent Cox, whose hitting power was legendary 
throughout the Bureau intramural rotation, next up. 
"Come on, Dana!" "You can do it, Scully!" "Make him pay, 
Scully!" "All right, Dana!" Even though she probably 
wasn't even going to touch the ball, she was poised to be 
the savior of the game.

On the mound, Stannis was desperate and seething. 
Only a few minutes ago his team had been singing his 
praises, now they were screaming for his blood. Spooky's 
sidekick looked like an easy out; she should =be= an 
easy out. But she had destroyed his rhythm; he couldn't 
find the strike zone. It wasn't so much that she was 
batting lefty, either. He hadn't pitched a 22-3 season his 
senior year at Duke by letting southpaws get on base and 
score. 

But Scully was short and batting lefty, and despite all his 
ability he couldn't compensate for the two. He'd faced all 
kinds of hitters during his reign of terror at college, but it 
had been nearly twenty years since he'd stared down the 
plate at someone this small. His body had grown over a 
foot since then, and either it didn't remember the moves 
he needed to pitch to her, or it was simply physically 
impossible for him to execute them properly now from 
his adult height. 

Yet to walk her would be unthinkable. He set his glove in 
front of his face, narrowed his eyes, and adjusted his 
stance slightly. This was going to be the first big strike on 
her way to the Lab Rats' first out of this inning. No way 
was she getting on base.

In a way, he was absolutely right.

Scully dug her the toe of her right sneaker into the dirt, 
watching to see how his arm would come around, just as 
her brothers had instructed her. Watch the arm, a voice 
belonging to an adolescent Bill said in her ear. Will he 
come over the top or sideways? Don't watch his face, 
watch the arm.

Stannis came over the top, hurling a scorching fastball, 
like the ones he had thrown years ago in dozens of NCAA 
games against other similarly young, fit and trained 
athletes, the ones he had thrown to gain the attention of 
two major league scouts before deciding to embark on a 
career in law enforcement.

Except that those blazing, blinding pitches hadn't been 
flung with the additional force of angry, macho 
frustration, and hadn't ever hit anyone whose protective 
equipment was not properly secured.

The ball smashed into Scully's right temple, catching the 
edge of the helmet and sending it flying, driving her back 
into the catcher. Bright white light exploded inside her 
head, followed by a thunderclap of excruciating pain. She 
felt the second concussive shock as her body and head 
connected with the hard, dusty ground after colliding 
with the catcher, and everything went black. 

The bat rolled lazily from one lax hand.

End part 1/4
________________________

BALL FOUR (2/4)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


"SCULLY!!" Mulder bolted from second base across the 
playing field along with everyone else, all of them running 
as if the inning was over and the teams were swapping 
sides. All except Stannis, who stood rooted to the mound, 
apparently unable to believe what he'd just done. The 
Lab Rats scrambled around the chain-link fence behind 
home plate. The catcher, shaken but unhurt, was still 
picking himself up.

Danny got to her first. "Oh, my God," he whispered. 
"Dana? Can you hear me?"

Obviously not. The site of impact had already started to 
swell and bruise; within minutes her right eye was going 
to be swollen shut.

Mulder shouldered his way through the crowd. "Get 
back! Give her some air, get back!" He dropped to his 
knees across from Danny and echoed his words. "Oh, my 
God." He looked up frantically. "Ice! Does anyone have a 
cooler? We need some ice!" Several people split off from 
the huddled collection of both teams and ran to retrieve 
thermal picnic coolers from the shady spot under the 
trees edging the dugout bench. God bless the FBI, 
Mulder thought irrelevantly; someone always brought 
beer.

Danny looked at Mulder. "Now what? An ambulance? We 
can't move her; he might have fractured her skull."

Mulder nodded. "Get my cell phone. It's over there, in the 
blue duffel bag." He pointed to where he'd left his 
belongings, and Danny jumped up to retrieve it.

Feeling utterly helpless, Mulder stared at his 
unconscious partner. An all-too-familiar pang of guilt 
lanced through him. She looked so small, so pale, except 
for the right side of her face, which was rapidly turning 
an extremely nasty reddish purple. How many times had 
he ended up standing over her battered body, knowing 
that if he'd left well enough alone, this wouldn't have 
happened? He'd lost count. It didn't bear thinking about 
anymore. By all accounts, she should not have survived 
his association to this point.

Not to mention all those wonderfully pleasant late night 
or early morning phone calls he'd made to her mother 
bearing bad tidings about her daughter. It's a wonder the 
woman still spoke to him at all. 

But Scully seemed to be breathing normally, and that 
had to be a good sign. Didn't it?

Someone thrust a plastic bag filled with ice into his 
hand, and Mulder gently pressed it against the swelling. 
Danny had found his phone and was a few paces away 
talking with a 911 operator.

"Come on, Scully," Mulder murmured quietly, shifting his 
stance so that he knelt behind her head. He held the 
makeshift ice bag on her face with his right hand and 
stabilized her head on the other side with his left. "Come 
on, wake up. You know your brother will kill me if he 
finds out about this, don't you? Do you want that?"

It was, unfortunately, nothing less than the truth. Not 
everyone in Scully's family was as graciously forgiving as 
her mother. He had no doubt both her Navy brothers 
would pound him into a bloody pulp if they learned he 
had put their sister in the hospital again.

Danny came back over. In the distance, the thin wail of 
an emergency siren pierced the air. "How's she doing?"

Mulder shook his head. "She's out cold. We'll be lucky if 
the bastard didn't break her head." He glanced up at 
Agent Stannis, who was now sitting on the mound with 
his head in his hands, looking for all the world like a 
small boy who had allowed a grand slam home run to 
ruin a championship season. He couldn't bring himself to 
come over and see what he'd done to Scully, but neither 
could he drag himself away from the scene of his crime. 
Mulder unbent a little; if he felt guilty at maneuvering 
Scully into playing in the first place, Stannis must feel 
ten times worse. "Go talk to him before he does 
something foolish like try to drive home," Mulder said, 
and Danny nodded and went over to the mound.

The siren was very close now; Mulder could see the 
ambulance's flashing lights at the opposite end of the 
park. Four other agents had run off to flag it down and 
direct it to the ballfield. The vehicle pulled up and the 
paramedics jumped out.

"Whoa, got beaned a good one, didn't she?" the first one 
said almost admiringly.

"Yes," Mulder said tersely. Don't lose your temper, don't 
lose your temper. These guys do this all day, and it's 
natural for them to joke a little about it. If she was 
bleeding all over the place, they wouldn't do it. She's 
going to live, she's going to be fine, and they know it. 

But it was hard to stomach their cavalier attitude when 
his partner and friend of five years was lying motionless 
in the dirt, when even her auburn hair seemed colorless, 
when he could actually feel her face puffing up to an 
unnatural size under his chilled and cramped hand.

He answered their rapid questions. No, they hadn't 
moved her. No, she hadn't woken up since she'd been 
hit. No, she wasn't allergic to anything and she wasn't on 
any medication and she hadn't been drinking, she didn't 
smoke and she didn't take drugs. Yes, it was possible she 
might have hurt her neck as well. Yes, they'd been using 
a standard baseball and yes, the throw had been very 
hard, and yes, she had worn the batting helmet but the 
damn thing didn't fit. Yes, Mulder said finally, it had 
definitely been an accident; everyone at the game could 
verify that the pitcher had not meant to hit her.

"Good." The first paramedic had been checking her vital 
signs during the questions, spouting out numbers and 
medical phrases seemingly at random to his partner to 
relay to the hospital. Mulder had spent enough time in 
Scully's company to understand that everything 
appeared within normal parameters. They fastened a stiff 
cervical collar around her neck to stabilize her, lifted her 
onto the gurney and proceeded to strap her down firmly, 
adding additional padding and restraints around her 
head to keep her immobile. Mulder's bag of melting beer 
cooler ice was replaced with a futuristic-looking cold gel 
pack, wedged securely in place under the foam blocks 
surrounding her head.

"Anything unusual about her medical condition we need 
to know about?" the first paramedic asked as they raised 
the gurney, preparing to roll it to the ambulance.

Well, she was abducted and subjected to unknown 
surgical procedures, some of which left her barren. She 
lives with a piece of technology in her neck that may or 
may not be a government tracking device, and may or 
may not be responsible for her being alive today instead 
of dead from a brain tumor. To top it off, she just 
returned from a vacation under the southern polar ice 
cap during which her insides were partially hybridized 
into alien slime. Is that unusual enough for you? Mulder 
bit back the words, knowing from personal experience 
what would happen if he explained Scully's admittedly 
peculiar medical history from his own point of view. 
Instead he simply replied, "No. Nothing else. Can I ride 
with you?" as they walked to the vehicle.

The second paramedic shook his head. "No, it's against 
the rules. We're going to Washington Memorial. You can 
meet us there."

Mulder merely looked at him. "We're with the FBI. I'm 
riding with her."

Both men turned to stare at him. Amazing what effect 
those magic initials had on people. Everyone 
automatically suspected they were in trouble once you 
identified yourself, even if their closest connection to a 
crime was an overdue library book. "Okay," the first 
consented slowly. "Get in."

Mulder turned back to Danny, who was waiting with the 
silent knot of players, including Stannis. The pitcher, 
Mulder noted with relief, looked upset but calm, as if he 
was finally understanding that accidents did happen and 
no one was threatening to blame him. "I'll call her mother 
when I get there, and I'll let you know what's going on." 
He stepped up into the ambulance and hauled the doors 
shut behind him.

He could have easily driven to the hospital; it was going 
to be a hassle to come back for his car and he was 
risking his fourth parking violation by abandoning it on 
the park grounds. But he could not put aside the 
irrational fear of leaving Scully alone with the 
paramedics, not after the drastic consequences of her 
last ambulance ride. 

His head kept telling him that the circumstances had 
been entirely different; then her injury and the 
emergency team's response had been choreographed, 
and a random accident during a ball game between 
colleagues was nothing to worry about. His gut screamed 
at him not to take his eyes off her this time, that as long 
as he had her in direct view she would come to no 
further harm.

Of course, he knew exactly what scathing remarks she'd 
be making if she was conscious about his pigheaded 
presumption that he was somehow solely responsible for 
her safety and well-being, but he couldn't help himself.

Since their return and recovery from Antarctica, he'd 
noticed a subtle change in her behavior. She'd enlarged 
her requisite bubble of personal space by a fractional 
amount. Not with her family or him, but with others, 
especially strangers. If a room was crowded, she found a 
reason to remain near the door. She stayed half a step 
further away when meeting new people. She backed her 
chair up another inch during meetings in Skinner's 
office. He characterized it as mild claustrophobia, no 
doubt triggered by her time encapsulated in the ice 
coffin. Nothing overt, nothing blatant; she probably 
wasn't even aware of it herself. Nothing that caused him 
to think she wasn't fully recovered and fully capable of 
holding her own. 

Mulder had no intention of mentioning it to her, either. 
He was sure he had come home with his own set of new 
and improved mannerisms, things that he was equally 
unaware of doing but which were probably glaringly 
obvious to his partner. But he had noticed this tiny 
adjustment of hers, mainly because he was having 
difficulty doing anything =but= watch everything she did 
since he'd resuscitated her under the ice. 

When he saw the paramedics looping all those straps 
around her body, he'd immediately wondered what Scully 
would do in her concussed state if she were to wake up 
and find herself so firmly restrained. That, more than 
anything else, was what caused him to pull rank on the 
EMTs with his Bureau credentials.

End part 2/4
________________________

BALL FOUR (3/4)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


Dana. Dana, I know you hear me.

She did hear the voice, but it was faint. Who are you? 
she answered. Why is it dark in here? Where am I?

Don't worry. You're safe. It won't be dark for very much 
longer, I promise. I need your help, Dana.

There were no visual or tactile stimuli for her four other 
senses to seize upon and analyze for further clues, so she 
focused on the voice. It was somehow familiar, yet its 
identity eluded her, teasing her from the extreme outer 
edges of her memory. 

Who are you? she repeated.

You know who I am, Dana. I need your help.

Young, it was someone young and female. Oh, no, not. . . 
she tried desperately to halt the continuation of the 
thought and was unable to do so. Not Emily. Please not 
Emily. I can't bear that.

No, not Emily. It's Sam.

The name didn't process for a second, and then 
recognition hit. Samantha? Mulder's sister? On the heels 
of that came the first stirrings of real fear at the 
situation. She was somewhere that wasn't anywhere, 
having an unspoken conversation with her partner's 
missing sister, and no science she knew of would permit 
or explain this kind of activity. Where am I? she 
demanded. What's going on?

Dana, you're safe. Nothing will happen to you here, and 
nobody is going to hurt you. But I need you to give Fox a 
message.

Are you dead?

No.

Am I?

No. Can you concentrate, Dana? Concentrate and you'll 
see me, and then you'll realize there is nothing to be 
afraid of here.

She tried. And suddenly, the colorless, nowhere 
nothingness around her did brighten a bit. There in front 
of her was Samantha Mulder, age eight, looking very 
much like all the pictures Scully had ever seen of her as 
little girl in Mulder's apartment or in the tattered X-File 
folder bearing her name on the worn tab.

He's been looking for you his entire life. Where are you? 
Where are we?

I know he has. I wish I could tell you, but I can't. I can't 
stay here very long, either. I have to go back soon, before 
I'm missed. But you have to give him a message for me. 
Can you do that?

I don't know.

Please, Dana. It's important.

All right. I'll try.

Tell him the game didn't matter. It would have happened 
anyway. It had already been planned, and the game 
didn't matter.

The game?

We were playing a game. Stratego. Our parents were out 
visiting neighbors. Earlier in the day we'd been building a 
puppet theater in the basement and had left all the tools 
out. Dad was furious. He'd told us to clean up the 
basement before we did anything else. No TV. No games. 
Not until we'd cleaned up. But Fox disobeyed. He put the 
television on and took out the game. He'd gotten it for his 
birthday the year before and loved it. But every time I 
played him, I won. He was four years older than me, and 
I could beat him at Stratego. I was too young to know I 
should have let him win sometimes, but it was the only 
thing that I could really do better than he did. Does that 
make sense to you, Dana?

Oddly, it did. She wasn't familiar with Stratego itself, 
because activities in the rambunctious Scully household 
had centered around her brother's BB guns and 
whatever woods could be found near their current 
residence, rather than on sedate board games. On the 
rare instances when inclement weather kept them all 
inside, they were more likely to play their own version of 
hide and seek, otherwise referred to by their mother as 
hide and shriek, than to sit down for a friendly afternoon 
of Monopoly. With four of them, patented games with set 
rules too often led to arguments, tears and the occasional 
fistfight. 

Apparently things were different when there were only 
two siblings.

But she was intimately acquainted with the competitive 
concept of good, better, best. Once you got to best, you 
would do anything to stay there, and too bad for anyone 
else's ego. Scully couldn't outrun her brothers or become 
more appealingly feminine than her sister, so she'd 
swamped them all in scholarly achievements. They were 
close enough in age that the comparisons were inevitable 
and painful for the other three, and she hadn't cared a 
bit.

The Samantha apparition continued its explanation. We 
were playing Stratego when it happened. When I was 
taken. Fox thought he was winning, but he wasn't. I 
knew where his flag was, and I knew where his bombs 
were. He always hid the flag behind four bombs arranged 
in a diamond. It was so easy to beat him because he was 
predictable.

Not much has changed.

I know. But deep down Fox thinks that if we'd just been 
downstairs, in the basement, we might have been safe. 
That maybe Dad was trying to warn us, to outwit them 
and save me somehow. That if he'd just done what he 
was told instead of trying to win, I might still be there to 
play Stratego with him again. Tell him it's not true. Tell 
him they would have found me no matter where we'd 
been in the house. Can you do that, Dana?

I. . . 

Please. He needs to know.

The young, earnest voice was fading. The small, solemn 
image of Samantha Mulder was fading, slowly displaced 
by the blank void. Apprehension flooded back, bringing 
sudden alarm. Wait! Scully called frantically. Don't go! 
Don't leave me here!

I have to go back, Dana. The girl had vanished entirely, 
and the voice issued one final barely audible plea. Tell 
him.

NO! Wait!
**************

Scully's eyes shot open; the left one fully, the right one 
barely moving. Piercingly bright light overhead made her 
gasp and squint. She tried to bring one hand up to block 
the illumination, but couldn't move. She was completely 
paralyzed. Her head felt like it was encased in some kind 
of vice. Panic erupted and she opened her mouth to 
scream.

"Scully!" Someone grabbed her hand. "Scully, it's all 
right!"

The scream turned into a short, choked cry in her throat. 
Her partner's face loomed over her, blotting out the 
offending light at last. "Mulder?" she asked weakly.

"Welcome back. You like to scare the daylights out of 
people, don't you?"

She tried to move her head and was rewarded with a 
reminder of the restraints as well as a huge bolt of pain 
through her skull. She clutched his hand harder. 
"Mulder, wh. . . what's going on? Where am I?"

"It's okay. Relax," he soothed.  "You're in an ambulance. 
We're about two minutes from Washington Memorial."

A strange young man in a blue uniform joined Mulder in 
her field of vision. "You have a head injury, Agent Scully. 
You've been unconscious for almost thirty minutes. 
Please try not to move, we'll be at the hospital very soon 
and they'll take care of you."

Her good eye flicked back to Mulder. "What?"

"You got clobbered by a baseball at the park. Do you 
remember the game?"

Game? "Baseball? I thought it was Stratego. . .?" she 
trailed off, confused.

Mulder snapped to attention. "=What= did you say?" he 
demanded, staring down at her with frightening 
intensity.

Thankfully the paramedic's annoyed interruption spared 
Scully the need to formulate a sensible response. "Agent 
Mulder, I'm going to ask you to refrain from questioning 
her any further until she's been examined at the 
hospital. Agent Scully, don't talk. Head injuries are 
funny, and I don't want you to crash on me as we pull 
up. Things like that are bad for my reputation."

They were pulling in at that moment; the vehicle slowed 
to a smooth stop and the back doors banged open. The 
next fifty minutes were a bewildering cacophony of 
different people rushing in and out of her curtained 
cubicle in the emergency room, a hurried trip to the X-
ray department and then a long wait for the results.

They let Mulder in as the examining doctor was going 
over his initial findings. "Dr. Scully, although I won't 
know for sure until we see the X-ray, you seem 
concussed but otherwise fine. You say you don't 
remember much about today, and that's very normal for 
someone with this kind of injury. Your memory may 
come back, it may not. Don't worry about it. You are 
going to have one of the most magnificent black eyes I've 
seen in a long time, though." He paused, clearly 
expecting one of them to smile, and when they didn't, he 
shrugged and continued. "You may have double vision 
for a while, you may be dizzy or drowsy for several days, 
and you may have bad headaches. All normal. I'll be 
back after I've gotten the films." He gave them a 
professional smile and walked off.

Mulder stepped over to take the doctor's place next to 
her. Scully was lying on an examination bed with her 
head and shoulders elevated, holding another blue gel 
cold pack to her face. She gave him a lopsided smile. "So, 
tell me about the game. I'm dressed for it, so I must have 
been there. Did we win?"

His relief that she was awake and talking coherently was 
so enormous it was almost palpable, as if a third 
presence had joined them in the cramped cubicle. "We 
didn't finish. You might say you were the final out for the 
day. What's the last thing you do remember?"

"Last night, before I went to bed. I was watching the news 
and trying to recondition my glove for the game." She 
lowered her hand, and he sucked in his breath at the 
sight of her face. Swollen to twice the normal size on the 
right, the skin around her temple was deepening to an 
exceptional mixture of red, black and blue. Her right 
eyelid was a puffy bulge. She caught him staring and 
shot him an irritated look from her one visible blue eye. 
"Don't. I know what it looks like, and I'm not thrilled, 
either. Let's just pretend I don't resemble something out 
of one of your case files, okay?"

"Okay." He pulled up the regulation spine-numbing 
plastic hospital chair and sat down. "How do you feel?"

It was clear he was asking for form's sake, and obviously 
expected to receive her standard response of "I'm fine." 
Mulder had dubbed it the f-word; it was one of his more 
tactless inside jokes. Both of them now understood that 
it meant the direct opposite when they spoke it to each 
other, yet they continued to use it and act as if 
everything was indeed fine. So we're both a couple of 
sadomasochists who deserve each other's company, 
Scully thought.

He could discern the lie at the best of times; sporting a 
facial injury of this magnitude was hardly the best of 
times, and she didn't even bother trying. "Dizzy. 
Nauseated. Not the best day off I've had, Mulder."

Her partner's face registered his shock at her admission 
and she could almost hear the thoughts flying behind his 
concerned eyes. When the person who'd come to work 
the same day she'd buried her father, the one who had 
worked on cases for thirty-six hours straight without 
sleep or food, the one who stared down mutants and 
monsters without flinching surrendered to a mere 
physical ailment, it had to be serious. She'd given him 
good reason to think of her in any number of colorfully 
descriptive terms over the past five years, but a whiner 
she was not.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked. "Water?"

She shook her head, and instantly wished she hadn't. 
"Oh. . . I'll have to remember not to do that just yet." The 
little cubicle tilted along the edges of her vision, sliding 
into a slow spin that made her gag. "Mulder!" She flung 
out her hand, unable to vocalize the sudden urgent need, 
but the expression on her face was clear enough.

He snatched up the basin on the small instrument table 
and thrust it under her jaw, just in time. When the bout 
of vomiting subsided, he went in search of someone to 
help her clean up.

She felt worse than ever now, as if she'd suddenly been 
pressed into service as the demonstration model for the 
textbook definition of "wan." Mulder was watching her 
with an increasing amount of worry, muttering dire 
predictions regarding the future fate of the X-ray 
department staff for taking so long. Almost as if he'd 
heard the thought, the doctor chose that moment to 
return with the news.

"You're lucky," he said. "No fractures, not your skull, not 
your eyesocket. But you do have a granddaddy of a 
concussion, so we're going to admit you overnight for 
observation."

"No," Scully protested half-heartedly.

"Yes," Mulder overruled her.

"Mulder, I'm not staying here. I want to go home."

"Too bad."

"If I could have your attention, Dr. Scully?" the doctor 
interrupted politely. "Perhaps you misunderstood me. I'm 
not giving you a choice. You're our guest for the next 
twenty-four hours. The orderlies will be along when there 
is a bed free. It may be a long wait; Sunday afternoons 
can be bad times. Until then, I'd advise you not to move 
around too much. You'll only regret it." He patted her 
knee, gave them one last brief smile, and departed.

Scully sighed and rested her head back against the 
pillow. The room was still spinning, but she could handle 
it now. Her head thudded in great, painful beats, setting 
a counter rhythm to her pulse. "The next time I say I'm 
not playing, Mulder, I mean it."

"Still think Stannis plays fair?" he inquired innocently.

"Shut up." She closed her eye. "What time is it?"

" About four-thirty."

"I have this feeling that I'm supposed to be somewhere, 
but I can't for the life of me remember where." She lifted 
the cold pack back to her face. "I don't suppose you have 
any paranormal insight on my itinerary that you'd care to 
share with me?"
**************

The instant the words left his partner's mouth, Mulder 
gave himself a mental slap in the forehead. If she's the 
one with the concussion, how come you're the one who's 
forgetting things? he berated himself. Margaret Scully. 
She was supposed to go to dinner with her mother and 
he was supposed to have called Maggie when they 
reached the hospital. He'd certainly had enough time 
while they fussed over her. 

"Uh, Scully? You feel that way because you =are= 
supposed to be somewhere. You were going to your 
mother's after the game. I'll call her and tell her you've 
been detained." He reached for his cell phone.

"Mulder?"

"What?" He paused and glanced over at her, one finger 
on the phone's power button.

Scully smiled at him sweetly. "I can't wait to hear how 
you explain this one."

"I'll blame it on El Chupacabra. I haven't used that 
excuse yet this week. I see Stannis didn't knock out your 
sense of humor, even though I asked him to try." He 
finished dialing and waited for the other end to ring 
through.

"Hello?" The familiar female voice floated through the tiny 
handset, bringing on that guilty feeling again. Here we 
go, he thought.

"Mrs. Scully? This is Agent Mulder."

"Fox? How's the game? Did you win?"

Margaret Scully might be one of the few people who could 
get away with calling him Fox, but Mulder's sensitive ear 
picked out a teasing note in her voice that had nothing to 
do with the way she addressed him. He turned a 
suspicious eye on his partner, wondering just how much 
she had told her mother about the grudge match. He 
certainly hadn't emphasized his desire to see Stannis 
dethroned when he'd enlisted her help to coax Scully 
onto the ballfield. Now Maggie sounded like she was one 
notch away from laughing at him.

"No, we had to stop the game early."

"Why? Fox, what's wrong?"

Right. First the charm, then the alarm. You're doing 
great, you jerk. Why don't you just give her heart failure 
and be done with it?

"Dana got hit by the ball, Mrs. Scully, and we're at the 
hospital having her head examined." Oops. =That= 
certainly didn't come out right. Behind him he could hear 
Scully attempting to suppress a laugh, but her mother 
wasn't amused.

"What? What happened to Dana?" she demanded.

"Here, you can talk to her, Mrs. Scully." Mulder shoved 
the phone into Scully's hand in desperation.

"Hi, Mom."

Pause.

"No, I'm all right, Mom, really. Nothing's broken. I just 
look a little gruesome. They're going to keep me here 
overnight, just as a precaution."

Pause.

"Well, remember when I was ten and Bill ran through the 
swinging door in the kitchen without realizing I was on 
the other side? Like that, only more so."

Pause.

"I'll tell him. I love you too, Mom. I'll see you later." She 
disconnected and handed the phone back to Mulder. "My 
mother told me to tell you that I've had enough fresh air 
and exercise. I have to admit I agree."

End part 3/4
________________________

BALL FOUR (4/4)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


There has to be a better way to spend a Sunday night 
than stuck in a lumpy hospital bed with a killer 
headache, Scully thought dismally. Her level of 
discomfort had escalated to a point where even a UFO 
stakeout in the middle of Idaho with Mulder would be 
paradise in comparison. A UFO stakeout in the middle of 
Idaho with Mulder in the dead of winter, even. 

She could ignore the pain, but the concussion still played 
sneaky tricks on her eyes and ears. Every shadow, every 
small sound was magnified and transformed into 
something else, until she was no longer sure what was 
real and what was her imagination. Plus, every time she 
did close her eyes, it seemed a nurse was waking her up 
again, checking to be sure she wasn't lapsing into a 
coma.

She finally drifted off as the first light of dawn filtered 
through the window. The morning routine of the hospital 
roused her barely two hours later, but she felt much 
better despite the disjointed sleep. Her head still hurt, 
but it no longer felt as if it was disconnected from her 
body. The sickening spinning sensation had dissipated. 
And she could now remember the previous morning, if 
only up to a point. She'd gotten up, gone to an early 
Mass, come home and had breakfast, and. . .  and 
nothing.

You can fill in the blanks, Scully, you're a deductive 
investigator. You changed, went to the park, and played 
ball until you got clocked. End of story. You're missing 
about five unimportant and meaningless hours of your 
day, most of which will probably come back. Stop 
obsessing about it. It's not like. . .  like that other time. 
You could talk to twenty people who were with you and 
can tell you every word you said and every move you 
made. Nothing happened.

Except the uneasy night and the remains of the 
headache made her think something else had happened, 
and it was disturbing not to know what that was. She 
could listen to Mulder reiterate every step she'd taken on 
the ballfield, and it still wouldn't be the same as 
possessing the actual visceral memory of participating in 
the events.

Her mother took her home after she was discharged in 
the afternoon, and stayed to fix dinner. Not that it took 
much fixing; Scully decided she couldn't manage more 
than toast and soup. The nausea was gone, but that 
didn't mean it would stay gone. The paramedic was right. 
Head injuries were funny things. She noted with relief 
that someone had retrieved her car; since she couldn't 
remember driving it to the park, she wasn't relishing the 
task of locating it from the vast unknown of the place's 
many lots. Not that she would be driving for a few days, 
anyway. 

She shooed her mother out after dinner. "I'll be fine, 
Mom. I just want to lie down." She'd discovered 
something else - it was terribly tiring to have the use of 
only one eye. To compensate for the exaggerated blind 
spot, she'd been holding her head angled awkwardly to 
the right. They'd told her at the hospital that she could 
expect to be this way for three or four days, maybe more. 
Great.

Despite their still questionable status at the Bureau, or 
maybe even because of it, there was no problem with sick 
leave even considering the time off she'd needed for 
recovery from Antarctica. When Scully had talked to 
Skinner that morning he'd told her not to worry about it. 
Implying, she thought wryly, that if she came back too 
soon, fell asleep behind the wheel of a rental car on an 
assignment in some nowhere town and crashed, he 
would not forgive her very quickly. She wondered what, if 
anything, he might have said to Stannis. Perhaps 
something like, "Agent Stannis, the next time you decide 
to incapacitate someone, I would appreciate it if you were 
to limit your selection to criminals. We have enough 
problems keeping agents alive and well without your 
help, thank you."

She did lie down, and actually fell asleep for some forty 
minutes. When she woke up, her bedside clock read 
8:26. And the memory was suddenly there, as if someone 
had pressed an internal rewind/recall switch while she 
dozed.

I talked with Samantha Mulder.

Don't be ridiculous, Dana. God knows what happened to 
Samantha.

She gave me a message for Mulder.

You're being an idiot. You were hit in the head by a 
fastball, remember?

No, I don't actually. But I remember talking to 
Samantha.

Don't go there, Dana.

We were talking about Stratego.

And the moon is made of green cheese, produced by all of 
Mulder's little gray men. If anyone is talking to his sister, 
it would be him, not you.

She told me about the night she was taken. The night 
Mulder tried one last time to beat her at a silly board 
game that Parker Brothers probably doesn't even make 
anymore. The night he thought he should have been able 
to save her by being good.

You're delusional. You ought to call the doctor and tell 
him you're having hallucinations. Maybe they missed the 
hairline fracture on the X-ray after all.

I'm not imagining this. I'm not. How could I invent 
something this detailed?

Dana, how many times has Mulder told you the story of 
The Night My Sister Was Abducted? Ten? A hundred and 
ten? Maybe you don't have his photographic memory, 
but for heaven's sake, you could probably recite it better 
than you can say the Apostles' Creed nowadays.

She gave me a message for Mulder.

I can't believe you're thinking of calling him to tell him 
this. I really can't. You're going to be on sick leave a lot 
longer than Skinner thinks you are, Agent Scully. They 
will put you in a padded room and give you crayons to 
write home with if you keep up like this.

She wants him to know it wasn't his fault.

I give up. Call him. Go ahead. I dare you. I really want to 
see how far you're going to take this.

She was reaching numbly for the bedside phone when 
there was a knock at the front door. She jumped and 
yanked her hand back.

"Scully? You there?"

Mulder. Of course it would be Mulder, dropping by after 
work to make sure she was still breathing, all under the 
guise of just looking in to welcome her home and see how 
she felt. She hadn't yet broached the subject of his 
newfound paranoid interest in her every waking move, 
but she intended to do so soon. Maybe even tonight.

After she gave him the message.

There is no message, Dana! You had a dream while you 
were unconscious from a concussion; you did not 
commune with the beyond!

"Scully?"

In a minute he would just open the door himself with his 
key, convinced she was lying on the floor in dire need of 
help. "Coming!" she called, sliding off the bed, 
remembering this time to move slowly.

"Hi, Mulder." She stepped aside to let him in, looking his 
familiar slightly rumpled self. It was probably a long day 
of busy work at the office without her.

"Brought you something to keep you occupied, since I 
know you can't read yet." She'd tried, and as the doctor 
had predicted, all she got was a case of double vision and 
a stunning sense of vertigo. "Here." He handed her a 
small wrapped package, and she didn't trust the 
expression on his face or the gleeful note of expectation 
in his voice.

It was the books-on-tape version of  "The Boys of 
Summer."  "Oh, very funny, Mulder. Very funny."

He looked at her strangely. "Are you all right, Scully? You 
look a little pale. Except for that, of course." He gestured 
to the contusion, which now had some lovely lemon 
tones swirling through it for contrast.

Tell him.

Don't do it, Dana. Don't give in to the fantastic creation 
of an impaired cranium.

Tell him.

"Scully?" Now he looked truly worried, as if she was 
having some sort of brain seizure. His next move would 
be to reach for his cell phone and summon an emergency 
squad if she didn't do or say something to reassure him.

"I'm fine." Good one, Dana! Very original, very creative. 
How'd you ever think of it on the spot like that? And for 
your next trick, can you make him believe it?

"You're fine," he repeated doubtfully.

"Yes. . . no." Jesus, you sound schizophrenic. Make up 
your mind! "Mulder, something. . . something happened 
to me yesterday. After the accident." She moved away 
and sat down on the couch.

He sat down next to her, waiting.

"It was while I was still unconscious. I remember talking 
to someone, having a conversation."

He raised his eyebrows, which used to be her trademark 
gesture. It was odd the things they picked up from each 
other. "You didn't make a sound until you woke up in the 
ambulance. Do you remember who it was?"

She couldn't look at him and fixed her attention on her 
hands, which were gripping each other in her lap. 
"Mulder, I think it was Samantha." Then, unable to help 
herself, she glanced up to see his reaction.

He simply stared at her, eyes wide. He seemed to have 
stopped breathing. "Mulder?" she asked softly, putting a 
hand on his arm.

He shook his head slightly and blinked. "You said 
something in the ambulance. Something about Stratego. 
I was going to ask you what you meant, but I forgot 
about it until just now. Samantha and I were playing 
Stratego the night she was abducted."

"I know."

"What did she say?"

Reluctantly, Scully recounted the salient points of the 
bizarre little talk. How Samantha wanted him to know he 
could not have helped her by minding his father, that his 
willful disobedience had nothing to do with her removal. 
And the critical, rational side of her still refused to be 
silenced, even at the cost of denying him some peace of 
mind. "But Mulder, you've told me all of this before. I've 
seen dozens of pictures of your sister at that age. I've 
read all the reports. You've seen Samantha, and she's 
not a child anymore. I'd just incurred serious head 
trauma. This is nothing except a dream I had while I was 
unconscious."

"Then why did you tell me?" he asked quietly.

She broke his steady gaze and looked away, across the 
room at the cold fireplace. "I don't know. For some 
reason it just seemed important."

"I never told you we were making a puppet theater. I 
never told you how I placed my game pieces on the 
board. I never told you that she always used to beat me 
and that it always bothered me when she did." His voice 
was still low and mild, but Scully felt her temper rise to 
the occasion at the relentless recitation of alleged facts 
supporting his point of view.

"Mulder, I've listened to you talk about this for five years! 
I've heard you rant about it in your sleep! How can you 
possibly remember every little scrap of information you've 
ever mentioned to me in connection with it?" she 
snapped

He fell back on the interrogation standby, answering her 
question with another question. "Why don't you believe it 
really was Samantha, Scully?"

She swung back to him, angry at his gentle tone, his 
inability to at least consider her arguments and reasons. 
All this time and he still thought she was an easy 
convert.

And who says you aren't, Scully? the evil little voice that 
had been arguing with her all evening piped up once 
more for a final vicious poke at her conscience. You were 
the one who believed it enough to bring it up in the first 
place.

She twisted away and rose to her feet, as if distancing 
herself from her partner would somehow distance her 
from that internal imp and silence it once and for all. 
"Because I can't, Mulder! I don't know why I told you, but 
I do know that everything I've said has a rational 
explanation. This does not have to be one of your 
extreme possibilities. It does not have to be an X-File, a 
visitation, a spiritual possession, a Vulcan mind meld or 
whatever else you want to call it! That's what I believe, 
okay? That's what I was taught to believe. That's why 
they stuck me with you in the first place, remember?" 

God, her head really hurt now.

She thought he might recoil, that he might get mad and 
just walk out. But he didn't. Apparently he was willing to 
forgive her a lot on account of what she'd told him, the 
story she claimed to be nothing more than a by-product 
of her close encounter with Agent Stannis' less-than-
accurate aim. Or he was just humoring her because of 
the bump on her head. Either way, Scully was relieved he 
hadn't gotten upset. Everyone else trampled on his 
convictions; he expected more from her. He deserved 
more from her. No matter what she really thought about 
the unsettling little episode.

Especially since the jury was still out on that subject, 
despite what she'd just yelled at him.

There was a rustle behind her as Mulder stood up, and 
then warmth on her shoulder as he rested a tentative 
hand there.

"Scully, we've seen lots of things that science can't yet 
explain. You know that. And maybe you're right and 
science will someday explain them, maybe I'm right and 
there are other forces out there, and maybe it's a 
combination of both. It doesn't matter right now." He 
paused. "Thank you for telling me, anyway. For whatever 
reason."

She took a deep breath and let it out again, trying to 
ignore the sudden rolling sensation under her feet, as if 
the floor had been replaced by a lazy ocean wave. Oh, 
how I hate head injuries, she thought wearily. Turning to 
face him again, she said, "You're welcome. You know you 
couldn't have stopped them, Mulder. You know that 
whoever took your sister was not going to be fooled by 
having you hiding in the basement."

He sighed and dropped his hand. "I know."

"Are you going to leave me alone now?"

"Huh?" He tried to look innocently puzzled at this abrupt 
change of topic, but didn't quite make it.

"Don't 'huh' me, Mulder. All the staring. All the phone 
calls. All the last minute visits to my apartment with 
idiotic and unnecessary bits of information, when all you 
really want is to be sure I'm locked safely in my room. I'm 
not Samantha, and I can take care of myself. By the time 
I get back, you better have gotten it all out of your 
system. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he mumbled guiltily. "I wondered if you'd 
noticed."

"How blind do you think I am? Don't answer that. Of 
course I noticed. And from Frohike, I'd expect it. Not from 
you. Not anymore. Deal?"

"Deal." He stood up to leave. "I'll be glad when you are 
back. The paperwork is driving me crazy."

"A few days," she promised. "I know you're having a 
wonderful time ruining the filing system and if I leave 
you alone too long our new space will look exactly like 
the old one. But I have to wait until I can see straight, or 
I won't even find where they stuck us and you'll have to 
lead me around like a guide dog all day. Although, maybe 
I'll make an exception and pay an early visit to Agent 
Stannis."

That made him smile. "Gonna glue his computer 
trackball in place, or leave the fingerprint dust on his 
monitor screen?"

"I haven't decided yet. Maybe I'll just hang around his 
office and frighten his visitors."

"I'll call you tomor. . ." he saw her eyebrow go up and 
hastily amended his words. "Okay, I won't call you 
tomorrow. At least not more than once. Scout's honor." 
He held up one hand and pressed the other against his 
chest, over his heart.

"Mulder, you were an Indian Guide, not a Boy Scout," 
she laughed.

"True, but I still have my honor. Bye, Scully. Get some 
sleep."

He halfway down the hall when she called out, "Mulder?"

He turned around. "What?"

"Did you really always set your pieces up the same way, 
with the bombs in a diamond shape in front of the flag?"

"Yeah," he replied slowly, "as a matter of fact, I did. 
Why?"

"Nothing. I just wondered. Thanks for coming over, 
Mulder." Scully hesitated. "Thank you for the gift."

He smiled at her. "No, thank you, Scully. By the way, are 
you free =next= Sunday?"

End


Author's notes: For my father, who taught his right-
handed children to bat lefty to make us terrors behind 
the plate, never realizing how much this innocent action 
would confuse and confound our gym teachers from first 
grade onward. A grateful thank you to Meg, who beta-
read and provided subtle and not-so-subtle 
encouragement. For anyone who is wondering, yes, 
Parker Brothers still makes Stratego. Unfortunately, I 
was never able to beat my older brother at it no matter 
how I many bombs I put around my poor little flag. And 
don't even get me started on Monopoly. <g>

Feedback gratefully appreciated at 
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com