By myself, naturally. Who else?

Still scrounging through the remnants of my story files, looking for something that can be salvaged and posted, and I'm find some amazingly horrible stuff.

I see that it was 1999 when I started the sequel to Billowing Seas. I should finish that some day.

And then, once upon a time in 2000, someone put forth a challenge to write fanfic stories in the Hard-boiled Detective tradition. Five minutes in the public the library convinced me that, 'I can do that.' And, to make it all more interesting, I decided that if I was going to write an AU, I'd go all out. I'd make Mulder a Non-Believer and set the story back in the 1940s.

I was a fool.

It always looks easy, doesn't it?

Three paragraphs into the story, I remember changing the title to, Soft Boiled.

I knew when I was licked, and this had all the earmarks of a disaster. I stood in middle of the office, trying not to notice the way the redhead was giving me one of those killer looks that only a broad can deliver.

All I done was point out that a considerable investment of time and money had produced myself, Special Agent Mulder, and my newly minted partner, Agent Scully. And that those who held the purse strings would no doubt frown on the idea of the two of us trekking off cross-country for weeks to poke around under rocks, looking for aliens, for pete's sake.

Not the kind you'd automatically assume -- a truckload of Mexicans hauled up to spend a few miserable weeks picking fruit before being dumped back on the wrong side of the Rio Grande. No, we had a perfectly good Immigration Bureau to deal with that situation.

If you can believe it, the report that I was staring at while avoiding the Evil Eye Scully was throwing my direction claimed that an actual outer space rocket, complete with other-world passengers, had crash landed in the Badlands of New Mexico. Worse yet, the report claimed that government agents (yes, our government) had made off with the evidence and were now covering their tracks.

Makes you wonder what they put in the water in those places, doesn't it? Looked like the whole town was sharing the same crazy story, too.

So, the word came down for someone to go out and have a look. Not that anyone was buying the alien idea, or the notion that Uncle Sam was involved in any underhanded games tampering with evidence, you understand.

No, the men with the brains and a view of the Big Picture were smelling Reds. Seems someone in the House had a bee in his bonnet about communist infiltration and something in the papers in my hand had rung a bell somewhere.

Why me? I swear, Skinner was always handing me these cases. Anything with an angle sharper than the headache after a weekend drunk.

I checked the file again, playing for time while I tried to figure how I'd gotten behind the eight-ball with my boss. The complaint was signed by four people. No doubt each and every one of them an honest and upright citizen of, I checked the locale, Aztec. A teeming metropolis with which I was determined to stay unacquainted.

"It's a bad joke." I wasn't buying any, not this year.

"Aztec, New Mexico? In August?" I lobbed the folder onto his desk. "If I want a sauna, I'll visit the baths." Warning bells tattooed my brain just a breath too late to save me from my own mouth but he didn't bat an eyelash to show that the pitch had crossed the plate.

Blogging is great. I mean, where else would I find a forum to mock this stuff?

Next we step into the Wayback Machine and step out again in early 1998. At this point, I was torn between Krycek-love and Skinner-love for Mulder. The result was...unfortunate.

A distant memory of triumph tingling through my veins along the flow of champagne.

Answers sought and found, the lost regained, the dead redeemed. Unaccustomed headiness of alcohol in my blood, teasing and tormenting, lighting the beacon that draws me down this shaded alley. The pull of shadows and secrets, no more my life and yet all my life could hold and it sings to me from the distant moon-fled corners of the darkened space.

A flash of green and white and shadow and he is here. Enemy, not-enemy, the one who led and lied and prodded me into the path gilded with success.

'You left,' I told the silent figure, 'Before I could....' What? Apologize? Explain? Forgive?

How to forgive that which needs no forgiveness? This is Krycek, my enemy who has given me the elusive victory. This is my partner, a friend who betrayed and left me. This is Alex, the love who stole joy and hope and returned to fill the empty places of my heart with the answers to all the questions that defined my life.

"Are you ready for me, now?" Voice soft, husky, but never rough. A note that sings more loudly than the sweet liquor in my veins, vibrating across my soul in a jangling harmony of new questions and answers to be sought.

"You're thinking about him again, aren't you?" Skinner's sour voice broke into Mulder's romantic fantasy.

Mulder opened his eyes and frowned at the other man. "So?"

"Do you have to think about Alex Krycek every time we go to bed?"

He's pissed off. Again. Jeez.

"You don't like it when I think about Scully," Mulder said logically.

"Is there some reason you can't go to bed with me unless you're fantasizing about someone else?"

"But, you're practically bald!" Mulder objected." You don't think I'm going to get all excited about sleeping with some old, bald guy, do you? Besides," he said primly, "You're my boss. We shouldn't be doing this at all."

"What the hell difference does that make?" Skinner stuffed his shirt into the hamper.

"A lot," Mulder told him. "It's the intention that counts, isn't it? If I'm thinking about someone else, then I don't really intend to be having sex with you. So I'm not really breaking the rules," he finished triumphantly.

"You're a bigger pervert than I am, Mulder," his boss told him sourly.

"Oh yeah?" Mulder gave him a look. "I'm not the one who's blackmailing a subordinate to have sex with me, am I?"

"You could have said 'no'," the older man said coldly.

"Yeah...and lose my job and everything I've worked for, right?" Mulder sighed. "Come on. Get your big ass over here and get on with it.

"What's the matter with my ass?"

"Jeez, you're touchy today. There's nothing wrong with your ass, per se," Mulder said soothingly. "It's just...." he shrugged. "Not my first choice, that's all."

"And I suppose Alex Krycek's is?" Skinner folded his arms and glared dangerously at Mulder's naked body.

"It might be." Mulder smothered a smile at certain private memories of his views of Alex's ass. "It's a nice one, you have to admit."

Later that same year, I became determined to write a Case File Story if it killed me.

Mulder stared hazily at the barred wall. The air stank of unwashed bodies and other, worse things. Around him, bodies in various stages of decay twitched and moaned. After a moment, he decided that most likely all of what appeared to be a room full of corpses were, in fact, probably still alive. At least, if the noise level was anything to judge by. And the bars were familiar as well. In fact, he appeared to be in a drunk tank.

What the hell?

He thought back to what he could remember of the previous evening. Scully was taking a few days off for a family wedding. They didn't have any interesting cases active. Even the Lone Gunmen, his usual court of last resort, were unavailable. And to top it off, his television wasn't working.

So he had taken a drive. Not his preferred form of recreation, but he couldn't settle down. After an hour of aimlessly turning and twisting, he found himself in Crystal City. Since Skinner was equally unavailable, being out of town for a two-week management conference, Mulder was trying to turn around and find his way back to the highway when he discovered a street full of small restaurants.

On an impulse, he parked his car and chose the quietest one. Not one of his more felicitous choices, the food was edible, but that was all. The waitress, a pretty blonde, had been sympathetic and recommended a fudge brownie for dessert, assuring him that it was well worth the money. It had been excellent. In fact, he had ordered a second one.

Another impulse, he had decided to take a walk after the meal. Somehow it had amused him at the time to explore Skinner's neighborhood while the other man was out of town. An illicit thrill. The neighborhood was quiet, but not quite deserted. The other restaurants were doing a thriving business.

He felt dizzy. Food poisoning? No, no nausea. Looking around, he realized he was lost, which seemed pretty funny for a moment. The sound of his own giggle shocked him. Stoned. I've been set up. His brain kicked in instantly, analyzing everything he'd eaten in the past few hours. He could still taste the last brownie. Nothing in the flavor or texture to give it away, but it had to be the brownies. They were the only items that had been recommended to him, the only ones that could have been prepared in advance.

The weight of his gun under his arm reassured him as he retraced his steps. The darkness deepened around him and moved oddly.

What the hell did they give me?

And then there was, Brothers in Blood. It's "circa 1500" but was actually started in 1997. Highlander, obviously. That one is so boring that not even excerpting for mockery makes it worth reading. I mention it only because about ten paragraphs into it, I'm reminded that there was a time I had something of a bathing fetish...every story I wrote, the characters wound up showering or taking a bath. Sometimes more than once.

It's weird, the things you get fixated on, isn't it?

And there, over in that folder, there's The Seduction of Duncan MacLeod. You didn't expect I'd miss the chance to slash Nick Lea's "Cory" character, did you?

And there was Games People Play, a really dreadful HL PWP.

Methos stretched his feet out to rest on the low table and slid down a few more inches on the couch. His favorite way to spend a long, rainy afternoon. A cold beer and a favorite book.

"Methos?" The warm breath tickled his neck. "What are you doing?"

"Building the pyramids." Of all the questions he disliked, that was one of the worst.

He knew that what the question really meant. If MacLeod had his way, Methos wasn't going to get another page read.

"I'm bored."

"That's the real problem with immortality, isn't it? What to do on a rainy afternoon. I am improving my mind. You might consider doing the same thing."

Anyhow, the good news is that I found two things that might be salvageable. Surely I can strip enough dreck from at least one of them to make it postable, even if there's only a scene left?

I mean, it's my own stupid and pointless deadline and at the moment I don't remember exactly why I decided that even though I haven't written anything in four years, I should post something new, but a deadline is a deadline.