"Fox! What happened to you?"
Mulder grinned as he swung into Skinner's apartment on his crutches. Scully followed him, looking grim.
"I just tripped." Mulder carefully dropped himself onto Skinner's couch.
"He did more than trip, Walter. He broke his ankle. Again." She glared at Mulder. "The entire assignment was a disaster from start to finish. We caught the guy, but nothing worked right."
"But you caught him?"
Scully sat down on the chair facing the couch. "Foot up, Mulder. And I still think you should be home in bed. Yes, Walter, we caught him. Don't ask me how."
Walter collected their coats to hang up, and then disappeared into the kitchen. He came out with a tray of coffee and cups. He glanced at Mulder's foot, now propped on his coffee table, and sighed.
"That's some cast." He sat down on the couch next to Mulder.
Mulder grinned. "They only had purple plaster left."
Scully poured out the coffee and passed it around. "You know how the day started. Nasty, rainy day. I hate December. If it weren't for Christmas, the entire month would be a waste." Skinner exchanged glances with Mulder and shrugged. "I know that for some reason you're grooming me to take over for you."
"There's no one better for the job, Dana. I pegged you as successor four years ago - before we became friends." He looked at his two agents, his two friends, and wondered just when they became the most important people in his life, and the ones he trusted beyond all others.
She looked at him and shook her head. "I know. You keep telling me that. That *is* why I was ASAC on this case, right?"
"You were ASAC, *Agent* Scully, because you were the right person for the job."
"He's right, you know. No one has had as much practice debunking psychic frauds as you."
"Me and the Amazing Randi. Okay. I can accept being made ASAC on this at the last moment, when Mr. Majestic left Texas and showed up practically on our doorstep. I can accept having to spend a nasty, rainy day *outdoors* to catch a short man with a big name who may or may not have been defrauding people and leaving them ill."
"May or may not, Scully? I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. You were convinced he was just out to rob those people blind."
She smiled at that. "I was right, wasn't I? As I was saying, all that was bad enough. Even that it took half the morning before some of those agents realized it was *me* in charge, and not Mulder, was, if not acceptable, at least predictable. I've learned to take care of that."
"I knew you could, Dana."
"But did you have to include Tom Colton with the group? He was totally useless. If he wasn't sucking up to me, he was flirting with Mulder."
"You saw that?" Mulder grinned over his coffee cup.
"You let him flirt with you?" Skinner looked at Mulder in feigned shock.
"Colton just didn't take a hint. Finally, I had to assign him *away* from us, which meant I couldn't keep an eye on him. I put him with Matt Stein. Thank you for *him*. You remember the case? Mr. Majestic started as an ordinary mind-reading act, but he "found" he could heal people by a combination of psychic energy and a magic elixir he'd invented. Except that the elixir was made from, among other things, peach pits. Not a strong enough dose to kill, but he did come close a couple of times. He went from state to state with this, amassing quite a tidy sum of money."
"'Mr. Majestic's Traveling Snake Oil Show.' I still think he thought he was helping those people, Scully. He wasn't running, he was traveling."
"Be that as it may, he *was* hurting people. If the elixir didn't hurt them, the fact that they stopped treatment did. He had to be stopped. I knew from his files where he'd go. He liked certain types of neighborhoods. Once I got rid of Colton, we made real progress checking it out. I admit, it helped that he wasn't hiding. So did Mulder's profile."
"So what happened?"
"What didn't happen, Walter?" She drained her cup and poured some more coffee. "The area was desperately poor, of course. But it was still full of Christmas lights and decorations. Mulder must have stumbled through three creches all by himself."
"Is that where he broke his ankle?"
She shook her head. "That came later. But Mr. Majestic did have plenty of warning. Colton was shouting, Mulder was stumbling, and we lost all element of surprise."
"Luckily, we were prepared for anything. Walter, if it weren't for her foresight, things would have been worse. He had no record of being armed, but she insisted on bulletproof vests and rifles. Good thing - a lot of his customers were armed themselves, and he was giving them hope, and they weren't going to let a bunch of feds take him away without a fight. I hated what we were doing, Scully."
"I know, Mulder." She smiled. "We had to do it. He was preying on their needs, taking money they didn't have for treatment that didn't work, and would possibly hurt them. Anyway . . . we didn't want a gun fight, and we had enough firepower that most of the customers dropped their guns . . . and to his credit, Mr. Majestic, who was quite a small man, backed us up. One guy wouldn't. He said that Majestic was curing his mother and he wasn't going to let us take him away. Majestic tried to reassure him, but this guy wouldn't listen."
Mulder rubbed at his ankle. "That's when *this* happened. I was going to sneak around, see if I could get Majestic without the guy knowing it."
Skinner looked at Scully. "How could you let him do that? He would have gotten himself and the suspect killed."
Scully sighed. "He'd been good all day, too. It was all his idea. He didn't tell me anything." She fixed Mulder with a glare.
"Well, I was punished for defying you, wasn't I? Doomed to wear purple plaster until it heals."
Skinner patted his shoulder. "I should be kicking your butt instead, but you're hurt."
"I'll look forward to it, Walter." Mulder grinned. "That *was* the plan, but that idiot Colton took that exact moment to touch me. Don't ask me why, and *don't* ask me where. I let out a yelp . . . "
"A *girly* yelp." Scully laughed.
"Scully! Anyway, I yelp and jump and trip over my own feet or something, because there was *nothing* there, and next thing I know, I'm lying in the street in pain. *Majestic* walks over, *in front* of the guy with the gun and kneels next to me. He touches my foot and tells it to heal, which it doesn't, of course. And then he calmly walks over to Scully and gives himself up. He's still in jail and refusing to let his customers raise bail."
Skinner felt a chill. He looked at the man sitting next to him. "Anyone else hurt?"
"No, sir. Not a shot was fired."
Skinner shook his head, and glanced at his watch. "It's time we got this going. Fox, need any help up? That couch is low." Mulder nodded, so Skinner lent him an arm until he was steady on his crutches.
Then he led the two of them to a window. There he had a small table set up with two menorahs. He put a suede skullcap on his head and offered one to Mulder, who, with Scully's help, put it on. Then he took out a box of brightly colored candles and carefully placed four of them in one of the menorahs, working from the center to the right hand side, melting each base before he put it in.
He turned towards Mulder, who had watched in fascination. "Fox, I know you don't do this at home, but if you would like to, I do have an extra right here. Just do what I do."
Mulder nodded and clumsily imitated him as best he could, carefully balancing himself on the crutches. Scully helped by holding first him and then the match steady as he placed the candles.
"I've never actually done this before. My grandmother had an electric one, but my parents didn't bother at all." He smiled. "What do I do next?"
"Take another candle and light it." Mulder did so, holding the tiny flame as far from him as possible.
"Mulder, are you all right?"
"Yeah, Scully. I'm just not very steady at the moment."
She nodded and supported his hand with hers.
"Okay. I'm going to say the blessings for this evening. Just say 'amen' afterwards, when I nod." Skinner sang the blessings in the old, familiar tune, and the other two chorused the "amens." He then lit the candles, working from the outside in, and placed the fifth candle in the central holder.
Mulder stood there, his candle dripping over the table.
"Let me help you." Gently, Skinner guided Mulder's hand to each candle on the other menorah and then to the special holder. He gave Mulder's hand a reassuring squeeze before letting go.
"One more thing, Fox. Repeat after me." He guided Mulder through a third blessing. "Normally we say this on the first night, but since you missed it . . . "
"Thank you, Walter." He smiled.
Skinner stared at the candles. "It's such a small miracle, really. We're not celebrating the military victory, or even that we got our Temple back. We're celebrating that a lamp burned for seven extra days. But it meant we could use the Temple and we could let the land know we were back." He turned towards Mulder and Scully, and watched the flames flicker in Mulder's eyes. "I . . . we . . . could have lost you today, Mulder. Instead, we had an almost bloodless victory and a man in custody. I don't know why the price was your ankle, but it was a small one for a miracle - no matter how tiny the miracle was."
He smiled at the other two and turned back to the flickering candles.
Back to X-Files Page.
Back to Fanfic Page.
Back to Main Page.