Only One Original
AN: As much as I love Kansas City, and I do love it as it is one of the places I call home, I just found that there wasn’t as much material to play with in this episode for me. So yeah, as awesome as it was that Scully was the one coming up with the crazy theory, I am moving on towards the end.
Was it some karmic balance the universe was trying to strike? Was it really the idea that the universe really hated similarity so much that it worked to keep things too alike away from each other? Was it as simple as psychology, that people who are biologically the same, or at least shared many of the same personality traits, could not actually been in the same place at the same time? Perhaps it was as simple as the laws of physics, things that are alike automatically repel each other.
Whatever the hell it was, Scully was never, ever doing it again. It hurt too much.
“How’s the head?” Scully gingerly touched Mulder’s rock-solid jaw, the one she knew wasn’t that way because of any natural means. He moaned and shrugged his shoulder in a sling, looking up at her pitifully, the fingers on his good hand stilling on the keyboard as he typed. If she had the wherewithal she would have made him stay home from the office. But he had insisted, wanting to see Saperstein and try to put some sort of meaning to one of the stranger cases they had ever seen.
“I don’t like that it hurts you like that,” she sighed, running fingers through his dark hair but relenting as she leaned a bruised and battered hip against his desk. She hadn’t walked away from this incident fairing too well herself. She had a bruise on her chin that no amount of foundation could hide, a nasty contusion on her shoulder that meant she couldn’t lift her left arm above her head, and a scrape across one of her knees. But by comparison to Mulder, she had come out a winner. They had been standing in the middle of a maelstrom, the entire arena in Kansas City breaking out into a riot, fists and bottles flying, as angry fingers snatched at clothes, hair, and skin. And in the middle of it all, Betty and Lulu and Bert and his doppelganger grappled and argued. And all Mulder could do was stand over Scully and attempt to protect her from the worst.
Truth be told, she felt a bit guilty on that. With his jaw wired shut and his face bruised and battered he looked as if he’d been on the wrong end of a NFL linesman out for blood. But he had been her savior, especially as it had been their own foolish fault the entire thing started.
“So I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to put in the report.” She eyed the screen carefully, as it blinked in black and white up at her. “I mean, how do we tell Justice that the string of fights, a couple of battered Mormon missionaries, and two nearly broken agents stem from some sort of cosmic joke?”
Mulder’s only response, or at least the only one he was capable of at the moment, was to blink at her unhappily. She was on her own on this, and she found herself grinning slightly at him, trying to channel Mulder in a moment when he couldn’t say a word.
“Well, we could tell them that it was some sort of cosmic effort to prevent two identical copies from being far too close together?”
He nodded thoughtfully, and she could tell he liked the response, but she also knew that the likelihood of the Justice Department buying that one was slim to none. “Or we could simply tell them that we had a case of two women, genetically sisters, who were so alike their personalities clashed to the point they ignited anger wherever they went, leading ultimately to the riot you and I barely got out of.”
Mulder’s dark eyebrows rose over a deeply skeptical gaze.
“And perhaps there was a lot of beer drinking involved.” She sighed as she frowned at the report, knowing that it wasn’t a good answer, but it was better than nothing for those higher up in the chain of command. “Beer drinking sounds good, don’t people get piss drunk and do stupid things at sporting events.”
Again, Mulder didn’t like the answer, but nodded gingerly, his good hand picking at the keys. Frankly neither did she. But sometimes in their work there were things that were just too weird to explain to people who didn’t witness it, and this case was one of those things. How were they supposed to explain the idea of people who, despite being born from different mothers, were so genetically alike that it was akin to clones? If Scully didn’t know better, she’d wonder about some of Spender’s experiments.
And even then, she couldn’t say she wasn’t suspicious.
“Do you think that somewhere out there, Mulder, there are copies of us running around, living lives, completely unaware that a doppelganger of them even exists.”
Mulder glanced up at her, eyebrows quirking in consternation and surprise. If he hadn’t expected her to come up with doppelgangers as an answer for their case, he clearly hadn’t expected that she would muse on the possibility of one for her. She smiled down at him, laughing.
“I don’t know I used to hear it all the time when I was younger. People would say I looked like someone they knew, or they would swear that they saw someone just like me in some remote place. And I used to think it was because of the red hair, it’s so unique, they just assumed that they looked like me. But what if it was? What if there’s another petite, red haired woman with my face out there, who perhaps is a doctor instead of an FBI agent, who lives a normal, humdrum life, free of mutants and aliens? I mean, in theory, it could be possible, a woman out there who is just like me?”
The look on Mulder’s wired face was priceless. For once, he was the one staring at her with the look she was sure she gave him on a regular basis. As if she had suddenly turned purple and had sprouted green spots, he frowned at her, shaking his head, turning from the computer to reach for his legal notepad.
His good hand scribbled across the page in his spidery writing, his pen tapping on the paper when he was done. Scully glanced down at the words and felt a bright smile spread across her face.
“I’m the ‘only one original’, huh?” She chuckled as he smirked up at her, nodding slowly.
“N Immm glah,” he managed to force out between his teeth, tossing the pen aside as he reached for her. Despite her aches, pains, and mild protests, he toppled her easily onto his lap, pressing his mouth against her shoulder.
“And I’m glad there is only one Fox Mulder.” She replied, leaning her head against his. “Because having one in my life is more than any one person should be cursed with.”
“Smarmass,” he snorted, gently shoving her back up again. Scully willingly went, snickering as she rose and glanced at the slowly written report. If they waited for Mulder to do it with his single hand, they would be at it all night.
“How about this,” she offered with a coy glance his way. “I will finish this report for us. And perhaps I can take you home, get you settled, and show you how thankful that I am that you were my knight in shining armor when everyone decides to loose their mind and beat each other up?”
Clearly, that sounded appealing to him. His eyes sparkled as he pushed himself away from his computer, holding his good hand out towards the monitor. He rose and allowed her to take his seat as she settled behind the keyboard, frowning at the words he typed across the screen.
“I’m not sure that’s how you spell ‘serendipitous’.”
“Mmmm,” he grunted, grabbing his basketball to play with.
“And I don’t think that duck has an “I” in it.”
Mulder only shrugged good-naturedly, a mischievous gleam in his eyes, but of course said nothing.
Was it some karmic balance the universe was trying to strike? Was it really the idea that the universe really hated similarity so much that it worked to keep things too alike away from each other? Was it as simple as psychology, that people who are biologically the same, or at least shared many of the same personality traits, could not actually been in the same place at the same time? Perhaps it was as simple as the laws of physics, things that are alike automatically repel each other.
Whatever the hell it was, Scully was never, ever doing it again. It hurt too much.
“How’s the head?” Scully gingerly touched Mulder’s rock-solid jaw, the one she knew wasn’t that way because of any natural means. He moaned and shrugged his shoulder in a sling, looking up at her pitifully, the fingers on his good hand stilling on the keyboard as he typed. If she had the wherewithal she would have made him stay home from the office. But he had insisted, wanting to see Saperstein and try to put some sort of meaning to one of the stranger cases they had ever seen.
“I don’t like that it hurts you like that,” she sighed, running fingers through his dark hair but relenting as she leaned a bruised and battered hip against his desk. She hadn’t walked away from this incident fairing too well herself. She had a bruise on her chin that no amount of foundation could hide, a nasty contusion on her shoulder that meant she couldn’t lift her left arm above her head, and a scrape across one of her knees. But by comparison to Mulder, she had come out a winner. They had been standing in the middle of a maelstrom, the entire arena in Kansas City breaking out into a riot, fists and bottles flying, as angry fingers snatched at clothes, hair, and skin. And in the middle of it all, Betty and Lulu and Bert and his doppelganger grappled and argued. And all Mulder could do was stand over Scully and attempt to protect her from the worst.
Truth be told, she felt a bit guilty on that. With his jaw wired shut and his face bruised and battered he looked as if he’d been on the wrong end of a NFL linesman out for blood. But he had been her savior, especially as it had been their own foolish fault the entire thing started.
“So I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to put in the report.” She eyed the screen carefully, as it blinked in black and white up at her. “I mean, how do we tell Justice that the string of fights, a couple of battered Mormon missionaries, and two nearly broken agents stem from some sort of cosmic joke?”
Mulder’s only response, or at least the only one he was capable of at the moment, was to blink at her unhappily. She was on her own on this, and she found herself grinning slightly at him, trying to channel Mulder in a moment when he couldn’t say a word.
“Well, we could tell them that it was some sort of cosmic effort to prevent two identical copies from being far too close together?”
He nodded thoughtfully, and she could tell he liked the response, but she also knew that the likelihood of the Justice Department buying that one was slim to none. “Or we could simply tell them that we had a case of two women, genetically sisters, who were so alike their personalities clashed to the point they ignited anger wherever they went, leading ultimately to the riot you and I barely got out of.”
Mulder’s dark eyebrows rose over a deeply skeptical gaze.
“And perhaps there was a lot of beer drinking involved.” She sighed as she frowned at the report, knowing that it wasn’t a good answer, but it was better than nothing for those higher up in the chain of command. “Beer drinking sounds good, don’t people get piss drunk and do stupid things at sporting events.”
Again, Mulder didn’t like the answer, but nodded gingerly, his good hand picking at the keys. Frankly neither did she. But sometimes in their work there were things that were just too weird to explain to people who didn’t witness it, and this case was one of those things. How were they supposed to explain the idea of people who, despite being born from different mothers, were so genetically alike that it was akin to clones? If Scully didn’t know better, she’d wonder about some of Spender’s experiments.
And even then, she couldn’t say she wasn’t suspicious.
“Do you think that somewhere out there, Mulder, there are copies of us running around, living lives, completely unaware that a doppelganger of them even exists.”
Mulder glanced up at her, eyebrows quirking in consternation and surprise. If he hadn’t expected her to come up with doppelgangers as an answer for their case, he clearly hadn’t expected that she would muse on the possibility of one for her. She smiled down at him, laughing.
“I don’t know I used to hear it all the time when I was younger. People would say I looked like someone they knew, or they would swear that they saw someone just like me in some remote place. And I used to think it was because of the red hair, it’s so unique, they just assumed that they looked like me. But what if it was? What if there’s another petite, red haired woman with my face out there, who perhaps is a doctor instead of an FBI agent, who lives a normal, humdrum life, free of mutants and aliens? I mean, in theory, it could be possible, a woman out there who is just like me?”
The look on Mulder’s wired face was priceless. For once, he was the one staring at her with the look she was sure she gave him on a regular basis. As if she had suddenly turned purple and had sprouted green spots, he frowned at her, shaking his head, turning from the computer to reach for his legal notepad.
His good hand scribbled across the page in his spidery writing, his pen tapping on the paper when he was done. Scully glanced down at the words and felt a bright smile spread across her face.
“I’m the ‘only one original’, huh?” She chuckled as he smirked up at her, nodding slowly.
“N Immm glah,” he managed to force out between his teeth, tossing the pen aside as he reached for her. Despite her aches, pains, and mild protests, he toppled her easily onto his lap, pressing his mouth against her shoulder.
“And I’m glad there is only one Fox Mulder.” She replied, leaning her head against his. “Because having one in my life is more than any one person should be cursed with.”
“Smarmass,” he snorted, gently shoving her back up again. Scully willingly went, snickering as she rose and glanced at the slowly written report. If they waited for Mulder to do it with his single hand, they would be at it all night.
“How about this,” she offered with a coy glance his way. “I will finish this report for us. And perhaps I can take you home, get you settled, and show you how thankful that I am that you were my knight in shining armor when everyone decides to loose their mind and beat each other up?”
Clearly, that sounded appealing to him. His eyes sparkled as he pushed himself away from his computer, holding his good hand out towards the monitor. He rose and allowed her to take his seat as she settled behind the keyboard, frowning at the words he typed across the screen.
“I’m not sure that’s how you spell ‘serendipitous’.”
“Mmmm,” he grunted, grabbing his basketball to play with.
“And I don’t think that duck has an “I” in it.”
Mulder only shrugged good-naturedly, a mischievous gleam in his eyes, but of course said nothing.