Mulder's Leap (1/9) by K. (1013@hehe.com) and Windsinger@aol.com (AKA Sue Esty) 2/23/96 Disclaimer: We don't own these characters and we don't mean to hurt anyone's feeling or take candy out of the mouths of babes. We love CC, DD, GA, and the Quantum Leap crew. Warning: This is NC-17 or very nearly so. At least we think so. Maybe not. Someone with kids between 13 and 17 tell us if this is NC-17 or not. Lots of really BAD jokes, some bathroom humor, lots of lust of various kinds, no violence except for cats dropping on your head and chewing your ankles and the sex is heavily implied but not graphic. K.'s notes: I came up with the idea for this story and the first chapter and then had no idea where to go with it from there, so I sent it out to the Xangst Anonymous mailing list as a tag team story. Sue and I began conversing about the story through e-mail and she had a fantastic plot and some really great ideas, so we decided to work on the story together. I have to admit that Sue wrote almost all the rest of the story, but I've had a ball with this! I eagerly awaited her e-mail installments and bombarded her with my opinions and ideas. Besides all the fun I had, I made a friend to boot! ;-) Windsinger's notes: This is a real diversion for me. A story completely for fun!!!! and for outrageous plotting!!!! and for animal lust!!!! and because I love QL and XF!!!! K., thanks for starting this craziness. I needed a little bit a craziness in my life, and thanks for putting up with my unbridled imagination. No, Scully would not exactly act this way. (Scully, no, not the gun!) And thanks to Micro, my husband's 18 year old cat. Seven pounds of skinny inspiration who sits on top on my computer monitor when I type (where it's nice and warm) and wants to know why writing stories is more important than feeding her! Mulder's Leap (1/9) 1013@hehe.com and windsinger@aol.com (AKA Sue Esty) ***************************************************** The way the surroundings fizzled into view reminded Sam of the old, plain Aka Seltzers that his Dad used to drink after one of his Mom's huge home cooked meals. Not the stomach- turning lemon flavored tablets that replaced them, but the original ones that didn't taste half bad. He mulled over this until a bone-numbing chill shocked him out of his reverie and he realized that it was snowing heavily. Shaking from the chill, he looked down at himself to see who he had leaped into this time and gasped in shock. "Oh, boy!" It came out as "Meoooooow." ***************************************************** "Well, at least we have power. They're predicting more snow today and tomorrow. Neither one of us is going anywhere." Dana Scully handed Fox Mulder a mug of hot tea, then wrapped both hands around her own mug. "So much for skiing this weekend. I'm sorry I dragged you up here, Scully." "It's not your fault that this storm hit the same week that we finally took a vacation. If worse comes to worse, we have plenty of firewood and supplies. As for the skiing, I heard that man at the General Store talking about seeing bright lights in the sky for the last few weeks. Fess up, Mulder. You didn't even bring your skis, did you?" Silence. "I guess I should be relieved. We could be on a fishing trip, trying to catch the elusive brain-sucking amoeba that's been decimating the fish population in that lake in Oregon." A loud scratching sound interrupted Mulder's reply. Startled, they both looked around, remembering that Scully's dog Clyde was staying with her mother. Cautiously, Mulder opened the door and looked down at the most pitiful sight he had seen in a long time. A small black and white cat was crouched on the doorstep, shivering violently. It looked at him with huge, terrified amber eyes. He picked up the little creature and slammed the door shut just before the last of the heat could escape. ***************************************************** Sam looked up at the largest door he had ever seen. The snow was coming down even harder than it had a few moments before. At the rate he was losing body heat, he knew he would die if he didn't find some place to get warm soon. His scratching paid off when the door swung open. Rationally, he knew that people would be huge, but he was still unprepared for the reality. A tall, dark-haired man reached down and picked him up. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to scream and fight to make the giant turn him loose. At least the hands were warm. Before long, he was wrapped in a towel, warming in front of a roaring fire. "How do you suppose a cat ended up out here in the middle of nowhere?" "He probably lives around here. Maybe he got lost in the storm." Idly, Scully stroked his head. "He doesn't look sick particularly, but his fur certainly is odd. No undercoat at all. And he's awfully thin. Must have a rough life." "Admit it, Scully, that's the ugliest cat you ever saw." Sam looked around the room until he spotted a mirror, then shrugged off the towel and bounded onto the table so he could look at himself. His scrawny body was covered in long black and white hair, but it fell straight, instead of fluffing out like other cats' coats. Rosy pink skin shone through in places where his thin hair was tousled. Sam stared at his reflection in the mirror and growled. Chuckles from the pair behind him did nothing to lessen his irritation. ***************************************************** The tall man and the pretty redhead had gone to sleep hours ago, wrapped around each other on the converted couch in front of the fire. Sam had taken refuge in the kitchen beside the refrigerator where the heat from the condenser came out. The sound of the motor also helped mask the noises from the living room. Of all the situations he could have leaped into, he had to end up sharing a very small cabin with an amorous couple! Unfortunately, the motor noise also covered the sound of the imaging chamber door opening. The first he knew Al had arrived was when he heard his friend's exuberant voice. "Way to go, Sam!" The little cat scurried into the living room. Sam found his friend bent over the sleeping couple, leering at the diminutive woman. "Al!" "Sam?" As neither the man nor the woman stirred, Al looked around the room trying to figure out where Sam's voice was coming from. Petulantly, Sam leaped onto the end of the bed. "Where the hell have you been? Look at me! Just look at me! Can you believe this?" Mouth open, Al stared at the bristling cat. "Sam?" Without waking up, Mulder kicked his foot under the covers and Sam landed on his butt. "Ouch!" "Sam, are you all right?" "Yeah, it only hurt my pride. I thought felines were always supposed to land on their feet." Al wildly began punching buttons on the candy colored handset he was holding. "Sam, you can't leap into a cat! This can't happen!" "Well, it has! What does Ziggy have to say about this?" "She says...you shouldn't be able to leap into a creature that has substantially less body weight than a human..." he hit the handset in frustration. "Ziggy doesn't have anything yet! Do you know who these people are?" "His name is Mulder, her name is Dana Scully. They work for the FBI. I think she's a pathologist. She examined me and they were joking about how she doesn't usually deal with live patients," Sam volunteered eagerly. It felt so good to be able to talk to someone again! "I'll see what Gooshie can find out about them. Meanwhile, you just lie low." "Don't leave me here alone, Al! Al!" Sam cried out, but the whoosh of the imaging chamber door drowned out his small voice. Sam looked around the huge room. Frightened as he was, he really needed to make a call to nature. Sam guessed he would have to use the litter box Scully had fixed up for him. At least it was clean. THIS time. ***************************************************** Sam had dozed off and on for what seemed like hours. Hoping that Al would pop back at any moment, he had hidden himself under an armchair in the living room. His new, magnified sense of hearing was becoming a real detriment. At every sound, no matter how small, his ears twitched and his eyes flew open. How could he change the future when he weighed less that ten pounds? When he couldn't communicate with anyone but Al? What if he ended up in the local pound, or worse, at the vet's? Something moved across the room and Sam could have swore he saw a field mouse the size of a Rottweiler run behind the bookcase by the kitchen door. He slid a little further under the chair. he tried to console himself. No sooner than the thought crossed his mind, a light burst through the uncovered window, turning everything inside as white as the snow-covered terrain. Mulder tossed the covers back and leaped to his feet. Quickly pulling on his boots, he threw the door open and lurched into the cold. Sam ran after him. The light was even brighter outside, if that was possible. The last thing either of them noticed was the absolute, unexpected quiet. ***************************************************** Sam swam back to consciousness for the second time in so many days realizing how cold he was. A woman was shaking him and talking in hurried, panicked voice. "Mulder! Mulder, Can you can hear me?" He recognized the flame-haired woman, but the perspective was all wrong. She looked like a normal person instead of a giant. Sam felt his chest and his face in wonder...human, male..."Thank God!" "Mulder?" Dana stood up, looking at him worriedly. "Are you all right?" "I saw a light." She pulled him to his feet and held his hands between hers, rubbing them for warmth. "Let's get inside where it's warm, then we'll talk." He leaned on her and they turned toward the cabin. The black and white tomcat was lying a few feet away, still as death. Scully dropped to her knees and picked him up. "Is he alive?" Sam felt a jolt of remorse, hoping his leap wasn't to blame. "Yes. He's breathing. We better get both of you inside." ***************************************************** Sam stoked the fire while Scully worried over the scrawny little cat. "Are you going to tell me why you ran out of here without your coat? I'd hate to see you spend *our* vacation in a hospital suffering from pneumonia!" "Didn't you see the light?" "I woke up to find the door standing open and the two of you unconscious in the snow. Don't tell me I missed another UFO sighting." "UFO sighting?" One amber eye opened warily and Scully made the mistake of leaning in close to look at the little guy. When her huge face swam into view, the other eye flew open and a high-pitched girly scream filled the room. ***************************************************** "I think we should call him Sylvester. He reminds me of that cartoon cat that's always getting beaten up by a kangaroo. He looks a lot like him, too." Scully told Sam as she finished setting the table. "Uh, yeah, Sylvester, it is." Sam replied, stoking the fire. When he turned around, Al had popped back into the cabin and was looking around on the floor. "Sam, don't listen to them! You're not anything like that cartoon cat," Al called out. Quietly, he added, "Don't they know animals have feelings too?" "Uhmmm, Al!" Dana glanced at Sam. "What did you say?" "Nothing. I was clearing my throat." When she turned away, he waved at the hologram to get his attention. "Sam? Kitty, Kitty?" No one answered him and finally he realized that the other man could see him. "I'm going to turn on the news. See what's happening everywhere else while we're cooped up here." Turning the volume up loud enough to drown out any conversation, he ducked into the bathroom and motioned for Al to follow. "Sam?" "Yes, it's me. Al." Quietly, he closed the door. "You leaped again? Into the same situation? This is weird!" The virtual cigar was dancing over the keys on the handset while he talked. "I leaped early this morning. Didn't you see Mulder in the imaging chamber?" "No! Nothing has changed! That's why I didn't know you had leaped." "There was a bright light, Scully says maybe it was from a UFO, I'm not sure. What if that has something to do with all this weirdness?" "A UFO? Really, Sam, you're starting to sound like this Mulder guy. He believes in all that stuff. Speaking of which, where do you think he is?" Sam's borrowed hazel eyes widened with realization. "I think he's hiding under a chair in the living room!" ***************************************************** "-so you see, we don't have control over any of this. My friend Sam," The cigar smoking man motioned toward Mulder's stolen body, "is a really good guy. He's helped lots of people. Could you let me know if you can see me? A small gesture, a meow, anything?" Mulder looked at the garishly dressed man on his hands and knees who was looking under the armchair, trying to make eye contact. He peeled his lip back and growled. "Uh, thanks. Just bear with us and everything will be fine." Al made an awkward petting motion, but his hand went right through Mulder's tiny head. The cat's eyes grew even bigger. Sam watched the exchange, frustrated that he couldn't talk to either of them without alerting Dana. Dana came out of the kitchen carrying a pot of coffee. "Breakfast is ready. I hope you're hungry." "It smells wonderful." He looked at the table she had laid out. "You shouldn't have gone to all this trouble." "If the power goes out, we may get tired of cereal. Besides, I wanted to cook a nice meal for us to celebrate our first vacation together." She smiled and slipped her arms around his waist. "Hopefully, the first of many." He wasn't sure what to say, so he smiled and said nothing. "I have a confession to make. I realized that you didn't pack your skis before we left Washington." With one arm still around his waist, she toyed with the buttons on his shirt. "I'm not angry with you, though. After sneaking around to see each other for so long, I think it's really sweet that you arranged this romantic getaway. You knew we wouldn't have time to ski." Sam froze. The real Mulder crawled out from under the chair and glared at him, growling menacingly. **************************************************** end part 1 ===================================================================== ====== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Mulder's Leap/silly QL xover 2/9 by K. & Windsinger Date: 7 Apr 1996 23:36:03 -0400 Mulder's Leap 2/9 by K. (1013@hehe.com) and Windsinger@aol.com (AKA Sue Esty) 2/23/96 See part 1 for notes and disclaimer. ************************************************** The hologram stepped between the little cat and the couple standing by the table. "Uh, Sam, I don't think 'our friend' is gonna stand for this." Eight pounds of jealous feline jumped through Al and wrapped its body around Sam's leg, sinking sharp canine teeth into his ankle. "Ouch!" Sam peeled Mulder off of his ankle and held him away from his body like an angry ferret. "Calm down! I'm not after your woman!" "What?" Scully's eyebrows shot up. "Uh, I've read about cats who become attached to one person in a household and, hum, become very protective of that person." "Quick thinking, Sam!" Al called out. Dana laughed, but took the cat. She cuddled him and scratched his head until his growls turned into loud purrs. "You may have some competition for my affections from this little guy!" ************************************************** Sam dried the last glass and put it back on the shelf. "Breakfast was great. I've probably told you this before, but you're a fantastic cook." Scully eyed Sam suspiciously. "This vacation is getting to you, Mulder. I usually have to beg you to help with the dishes, and you never comment on my cooking." Sam coughed nervously and went back to studying the dish he was drying. "So, what's on the agenda for this morning?" the lovely woman asked suggestively, sliding awfully close to Sam as she spoke. He had slid out of bed before she woke up, and Dana felt they had some unfinished business to attend to. Sam glanced around quickly, looking for the cat, and stepped away from her. "I'm in the middle of this really great book. I thought I'd read for awhile." Hoping that he had indeed seen a book by the couch, he forgot about Mulder for just a second. As he walked through the doorway, a sharp, hissing pile of fur flew off the top of the bookcase and clawed his head before it caught hold of his shirt and hung on for dear life. Yelling in surprise and pain, Sam fought to get away from the little terrorist. Dana plucked the cat off of him and tried not to laugh. There was a book on the floor, so Sam grabbed it and flipped to the middle. He plopped himself into the armchair he had slept under when he was a cat. Scully tilted the book so she could read the title. "'I was an Alien War Bride.' Great choice of reading material. You know, we *are* on vacation. Don't you get enough of that during the other fifty weeks of the year?" "You can never read too many books about... ," he looked at the cover, not able to believe Scully had read it correctly, "...alien war brides." With a snort, she put Sylvester down and pulled Sam over to the couch. "I know I can't compete with your Book-of-the-Month selection, but at least we can cuddle." The cat disappeared behind the couch and Sam put his feet up on the coffee table to protect his vulnerable ankles. Scully dug out a magazine and propped up against him. Sam had barely gotten through two paragraphs before Mulder leaped onto the back of the couch and stretched out, close enough to inflict some damage on his rival if he felt like it. Sam thought to himself. ************************************************** Scully was only pretending to read her magazine. What she was really doing was trying to distract Sam from his book. She kept squirming and when her hands would wander or when she would shift into a suggestive position, Sam would receive a warning growl and a painful swipe from Mulder's paw. His arm was sore from the cat's abuse and one of his feet had been asleep for a long time. Obviously, reading had been a bad idea. "How about some hot chocolate?" Sam asked suddenly. He tried to disentangle himself to stand up. "No, you stay put, I'll fix it." Sam stood up anyway when she went to the kitchen. He groaned as the blood rushed back into his foot. He was so on edge that when Dana brushed her fingers against his as she handed him his cup, he jumped, spilling hot chocolate on the couch and on her. "Gosh, I'm sorry!" They both wiped at the stain on her sweater, but that only smeared it. "It's O.K., I'll get myself cleaned up and I'll be right back." This could be the break he'd been looking for. "You know, if the storm causes the power to go out, we won't have hot water. Why don't you go ahead and take a long, hot bath?" "It's not even noon yet. How decadent! You want to join me?" He rubbed his arm. "You go ahead. I'll try and get this chocolate stain out of the couch. We don't want to lose our deposit." ************************************************** Mulder leaped onto the vanity where he could watch Scully while she bathed. As much as he usually enjoyed this, he couldn't help but shudder when she immersed herself in the steamy water. Without thinking about it, he suddenly realized he was licking his coat and that he found the activity not disgusting at all, but very soothing. Before he knew it, he was bent into a ridiculous position, washing places he could never have dreamed of reaching before. His bath was interrupted by a noise from the living room. Perking his ears and listening carefully, he could hear two voices. Mulder padded silently into the room in time to see the strange man who had been there earlier walk through the wall. "Dana, I'm going to bring in some firewood!" Sam called out as he buttoned his coat. Unnoticed, the cat slipped out when the door opened. ************************************************** The door slammed shut before Mulder realized he had made a really big mistake. It had stopped snowing, but it was still bitterly cold. Soon he was shivering, trying desperately to warm himself. He leaped from snow drift to snow drift but light as he was the snow was lighter and he kept ending up over his head after each leap. Soon he was drenched all the way to his pale pink skin. The man wearing Mulder's body was standing over by the woodpile talking to his friend with the cigar, but to a little cat whose continued existence was seriously in doubt, eavesdropping had lost its appeal. He shivered again. What was he going to do? Condescending to go over and beg the man who had stolen his body to hold and warm and protect him was totally unacceptable. Mulder would die first. Glancing back over his shoulder at the huge cabin, as impenetrable as a fortress, Mulder was afraid that might very well happen. He could freeze before Scully finished her bath and realized that he was outside! Maybe he was meant to die out here. If so, that thief would have his body and his lovely Dana, and he would be nothing but a stiff little corpse for the crows to eat in the spring. ************************************************** Sam scuffed his boot in the snow. "Al something confuses me. Why were you so surprised when you found me in a cat body last night? What do you have in the imaging chamber, anyway? What you should have is one really confused cat, panicked out of its skull, wearing my body." "That's the point," Al said, "we don't. That's why I thought you had originally leaped into this Mulder guy. What we've got is your typical POW syndrome. You - he -just sits, won't eat, won't drink, won't talk. A lot of males do that, so we didn't think it was unusual until we found out who you were supposed to leap into and probed into his background. Fox Mulder is not the type to submit meekly to that kind of treatment." "What type is he? Who is this guy? Why was I supposed to leap into him in the first place and why didn't I?" "My, we are full of questions this morning aren't we? Ziggy has been trying to access information on Mulder and Scully since we found you. Everything is classified! The NSA is demanding to know why we're interested in them and it was 'suggested' that we should back off!" "Why?" Sam blew on his gloved hands, trying to stay warm. "I don't know. Whatever they're messed up with is big. Really big." "But why am *I* here? What's going on?" "The only information we've got is that Mulder disappears tomorrow night, never to be seen again." "What happens to him?" "Nobody knows, or if they do, they're not telling us." ************************************************** An old storage shed nestled just inside the tree line was the only shelter Mulder could find. As he got closer, his hair tried to stand on end. There was something in the shed. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he was certain of it. Vicious, high-pitched growls and hisses greeted him as he slunk through the hole beside the locked door. A long-haired brindle cat was flattened against the floor, looking at him with murder in her eyes. Try as he might, Mulder couldn't stop staring into her eyes. He sniffed involuntarily and another chill ran through him. It didn't smell like his favorite perfume, but it had the same effect. Hisses and growls came forth of their own accord and punctuated hers perfectly. They circled each other like mortal enemies, but there was lust in their hearts. She tackled him and they wrestled wildly then flew apart, crouched low to the ground and barred their teeth at each other. "What about Dana?" a tiny voice reminded him. How could he do this? Did their relationship mean nothing? Was he doomed to succumb to every bitch in heat that crossed his path? She stuck her butt in his face and he sniffed the heady aroma of her femaleness. Why couldn't people be uncomplicated like this? They could have wild, uninhibited sex and he wouldn't feel obligated to call her in the morning. She wouldn't leave any embarrassing messages on his answering machine or show up at inopportune times. She wouldn't be there tomorrow to love him and take care of him, either, the voice nagged. But Dana would never know, he argued back. And if she did find out, she would forgive him. My God, if these weren't extenuating circumstances, what *would* qualify? Mulder's burst of reasoning faded away. Instinctually, he grabbed the female's neck with his teeth to hold her immobile and climbed on top of her. Another brindle cat torpedoed him from the side and suddenly he was tumbling wildly, being scratched and bitten by his new rival. A terrified black and white streak misjudged the distance and slammed into the cabin door. Dana opened the door and let him in. "Poor baby! What were you doing outside?" Wearing a terry cloth robe with her hair wrapped a towel, she was a goddess. There was a lump in his throat and a tear in his eye when he thought about how close he had come to cheating on her. He rubbed his head on her robe until she scratched behind his ears. Sam finished stacking the snow-covered logs next to the fireplace and peeked over her shoulder, careful to stay out of reach of Mulder's claws. "Looks like he tied up with another cat." "Yeah, he is missing some hair." Something tickled his chest and Mulder scratched furiously. "Looks like he picked up some fleas, too." "Well, we don't have any flea shampoo, but a friend of mine makes her own. One drop of bleach to three drops of dish washing detergent, heavily diluted with water." Sam made a face. "That sounds horrible!" "It smells pretty bad, but it'll make his coat shine! We need to brush him first. Can I use your comb?" Sam nodded reluctantly. He felt sorry for Mulder's predicament, despite the deep scratches on this arm and teeth marks on his ankle, but this might occupy her for a while. Scully had her face down next to the cat's making little loving sounds. As she drifted toward the bathroom, Sam called over his shoulder, "I think I'll take a walk!" and vanished out the door before she could reply. *A nice LONG walk,* Sam muttered under his breath. By the time Mulder suffered through her ministrations and the flea bath, he didn't even remember his close call with the brindle cat. ************************************************** end part 2 ===================================================================== ====== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Mulder's Leap/silly QL xover 3/9 by Windsinger & K. Date: 7 Apr 1996 23:39:08 -0400 Mulder's Leap 3/9 by K. (1013@hehe.com) and Windsinger@aol.com (AKA Sue Esty) 2/26/96 See part 1 for disclaimer. ******************************************************** Sam needed something to eat. Warily, he stuck his head in the back door. He was watching for the claws - Scully's or Mulder's he wasn't sure. Hopefully, he could grab something to go and be out of there before Scully found out her wandering boy had come back. Trudging aimlessly around in the snow, talking to himself and sometimes Al, trying to figure out how he should go about doing whatever he should be doing, and how to restore Mulder, and how the cat figured in all this, required a lot of energy and he'd taken off before lunch. The walk and soul searching had only helped to convince Sam that this was one of the most dangerous assignments he had ever been given. Dana was intelligent, attentive, amorous and expectant and she had a super economy size box of condoms in the drawer beside the couch. If Sam rejected her, that could have lasting effects on their relationship. On the other hand, if he didn't, that might have a lasting effect upon his life if Mulder had anything to say about it. As he eased himself into the kitchen, Sam blessed his current tall, lanky form. He had to admit, Mulder's body was a really nice one. It was good to be in a body so much like his own for once and the man kept it in good condition. Nice and lean. Of course, Sam recognized, temperament had a decisive affect upon weight control, and Mulder perhaps had a touch of hyperthyroid. The restlessness certainly helped to keep the weight down. Mulder's stomach growled. Better hurry and feed the vessel, Sam decided. He was beginning to feel a little light headed. Hyperthyroid *and* hypoglycemic. This guy's moods swings must be something to watch. Sam began hunting in the refrigerator. Salad stuff... yogurt.... those must be Scully's. Scully... Here he was calling her Scully just as Mulder did. He wondered how the lovely woman in question felt about being called by her last name all the time. Back to hunting and gathering.... Maybe there was peanut butter in the cupboard. Nothing. There was a small pantry and it was stocked, though a lot of the cans and bottles where dusty. Well, the cabin was a rental. Former renters probably left the odd can or two or ten behind. Sam resumed his hunt for PB and J and found something even better. Spam. Before he could wrestle the key off the bottom of the ancient can, a voice floated in from the living room. "Mulder, is that you?" Sam cringed, but knew his presence had been detected. Must have been the rumbling of Mulder's stomach. "No, it's a rapist!" "Oh, I thought it was the guy I drove up here with." Music started in the living room. An old, old song started playing on a cassette recorder Scully had brought. "Afternoon Delight." The sharp can lid slipped just as Sam recognized the tune, giving Mulder's index finger a fine little cut, the kind that hurt like the devil. A glance at the wall clock told him it was two o'clock. Yep, afternoon. If Mulder was anywhere around, Sam knew he'd be dead meat unless he got out fast. There was no doubt in his mind that if he laid a finger on Scully, Mulder would kill him. How an eight pound cat can kill a one hundred sixty odd pound man, Sam didn't know but he had read those golden eyes with their green flashes and he knew murder when he saw it. Speaking of dead meat, thirty seconds later Sam had folded a thick slice of Spam and mustard between two pieces of bread and had opened his mouth when..... "Meoooooooow!!!!" Startled, Sam nearly dropped the precious sandwich. He did have to make a lunge for the mustard jar to keep it from crashing to the floor after knocking it with his elbow. Sylvester - eh, Mulder - had pushed open the kitchen door and was sitting on the floor right in front of Sam, his eyes proclaiming that in his estimation Sam was indeed - dead meat. "What's up?" Sam whispered. Then he noticed that Scully's home made flea dip had definitely improved the cat's appearance. "Hey, I like the blow job, who's your stylist?" Mulder meowed again, a shrill, unpleasant sound. Insulted and definitely demanding. "Look I'm keeping away from her, okay. I've frozen my nuts for the past two hours because of you, so get off my case." That meow again and this time a small pink tongue emerged from behind the sharp, white teeth. "Oh, Zippy's transistors, you're hungry! Why didn't you say so." Mulder gave Sam a look that would melt glass. "Okay, I guess you tried." Sam went hunting and gathering in the pantry again coming up with a can of tuna. He whipped off the lid of the can, plopped it into a bowl and, with a flourish, set it down on the floor in front of the offended cat. "There, how's that." In his own good time, Mulder rose and sauntered over to sniff at the contents. His response was to sit down again and lift his nose disdainfully. "This is what you guys fed me! In fact, this is better. I got the cheap stuff, this is the expensive brand - solid white packed in water." Mulder did not look impressed. Sam got down on Mulder's hands and knees and stared into the kitty face from a distance of about three inches. "Look, Fuzz, just be glad she hasn't been able to get to the store or you'd be eating Friskies Seafood Combo and you have no idea where *that's* been." In response, Mulder turned his butt to Sam's face, flipping his tail under Sam's nose and suddenly was gone. Getting to his feet, Sam found the cat had leaped onto the counter and was nosing the forgotten Spam sandwich. "Hey, that's mine!" but when Sam made a grab for it, the bright, sharp teeth dug in deeper, the stomach pressed low and challenging to the ground, and a growl issued from deep in that thin little kitty chest. Sam sighed, found a roll of foil, stashed the tuna in the fridge and tossed his sandwich down on a plate on the floor, bread and mustard and all. "Hate to tell you this, Mulder, but that's probably got as much mystery meat in it as the Seafood Combo. At least we have one thing in common. Neither of us have any taste whatsoever." Mulder's tail flicked almost happily as he jumped down from the counter and approached the plate. Without further ado, he dove in. ************************************************************ After lunch Mulder practiced gravity defying maneuvers as a human he could only dream about. Being trapped in a cat's body had some advantages. But even twisting and flipping in midair and leaping tall pieces of furniture in a single bound got boring. For a while Scully petted him, but she didn't for as long as he would have liked. She was not in a good mood, in fact she was furious that her Mulder had made a second Spam sandwich and ducked out the back door when she had made plans for the long, snowy afternoon which required both of them. Mulder tried to be philosophic about Scully's mood. He had wanted the thief who had stolen his body to stay away from his female and, quite surprisingly, the man had obliged. It meant, however, that Mulder no longer had a target for his attacks. That was where he was now, lying on the top of the highest bookcase in the room, chin on his paws, tail twitching, ears perked forward waiting in eager delight for that impostor to come back and then Mulder would pounce, claws extended. A glorious pounce. The last one had been good, this one would be better! Long minutes had gone by, however, and the man in his body had still not returned and so Mulder was bored. Waiting lacked challenge. Mulder's brain began to turn over. Only it was not responding in its normal smooth fashion. Why were his thoughts so muddy? No, not, muddy, just not particularly analytical. They were more elemental, basic. Otherwise, why had he gloried so completely in all those physical feats of daring- do? And this pouncing for the sheer joy of it had seemed like such a perfect idea at the time. Thinking was getting to be as tedious as waiting. Time to do a little investigating. After all, investigating was what he was paid to do. Mulder only hoped he would be paid to do that again and sometime real soon. The universe of the cabin suddenly provided endless possibilities for diversion. Being so small made little, mundane things suddenly not so little or commonplace, and, having a nose that could smell its way to China, gave the big wide world a whole new dimension. Mulder also found that he could squeeze into just about anywhere his head would fit. Images of liver-eating mutants came to mind. Especially the liver-eating part. Scully's drawers in the bureau was his first target. The woman, however, was just too damn neat and had closed the drawers tight. It would have been nice to get up close and personal with her unmentionables. His own drawers, however, were open plenty wide enough to admit one scrawny cat body. Nothing very interesting, however, certainly nothing Mulder didn't remember though their proportions where alarming. A roll of his socks was as large as his head, the gun as long as his body. The gun was not the source of interest Mulder had expected. It was hard and cold and tasted bad. The holster, however, was a different matter. The leather smelled delightfully of foreign places, animals, sex. Mulder had found himself rubbing his chin against it, marking his spot. He stopped. Sex? Must be the mink oil. More drawers, not much interest until Mulder found the bottom drawer of the hall bureau open just enough to get a paw in. And something in there smelled wonderful. As if fishing, the paw went in, claws extended trying to snag whatever this amazing thing was. The smell was like sex, but not sexy, like food but not eatable, like sunshine but not warm. It was driving him nuts. He was laboring so intently that he did not even notice when Scully walked by. "What are you doing there?" she asked, a smile in her voice. Mulder found himself shamelessly looking up into her face with pleading eyes. Scully took pity and opened the drawer. In a wink the cat hopped in, and in two had latched onto the object of his desire. Scully, however, took it away which made the cat meow loudly in protest. Scully opened the plastic bag to find a bright yellow, cloth ball, about half the size of the cat's head. "Someone must have left this here. Looks like a pet toy. You want it?" Before she could finish speaking Mulder was up on the bureau, standing on his hind legs trying to snatch the object for her fingers. "I guess you do, sport. Okay, here goes." And she tossed it to the far corner of the room. Mulder gathered himself, executed a mighty leap and tore up the carpet to reach it. It was his, all his. It was wonderful, it was enchanting, it was invigorating. Mulder batted it with his paw, loving the way it moved away but then felt a moment of panic that it would be gone. He pounced on it, to roll around on the floor with it. Hid it under the couch to find it again a second later by its incredible smell. He lay on his back and played with it, tossing it up and down, keeping it in position with all four feet and four sets of claws. He felt light. Defy gravity? Kitten snuff to how Mulder felt now, which was as if he were flying. There was no ground, no ceiling, no sky, no earth, just a yellow ball, the center of his universe. His whole world. ************************************************************** When Dana walked in from a walk in the snow - off looking for Mulder - she found the living room in a shambles. The lamp was knocked over and the drapes had tears, as did the tops of all the chairs and the couch. "Sylvester!" Mulder slunk onto his stomach. The tone of that beloved voice did not sound very loving. A hand came down, pulled at the soft yellow ball which the cat had firmly in its mouth, but Mulder locked his jaws. He was not about to let this go. Not even for the goddess. Another growl. Mulder was getting good at that. "I think I know what that is now. I don't know if you should have it for so long." Scully sighed. The damage to the cabin was done. There went their deposit. "Oh, I guess you're on vacation, too. Look, you play quietly or I take it away, you hear?" Mulder stretched out in front of the fire. He licked the pretty ball, the prettiest ball he had ever seen in all his life, the most beautiful object he had ever wrapped his legs around. He bit it, tearing a little of the fabric, bringing the wonderful substance which was inside outside and into his sensitive nostrils, into his lungs. Into his head. The room was slowly spinning. Quiet? Sylvester would be quiet. Very quiet. Just lying here staring into the fire, smelling his lovely, lovely ball, the flames capturing his attention, leaping, dancing, red and gold and yellow... yellow and red and gold... over and over and over.... but yellow, the prettiest of all. ************************************************************* Shivering in every limb, Sam finally returned for dinner. He moved warily. He even stared up at the top of the tall bookcase before walking under it. No mountain lion. No streak of black and white flew out from under the chair, claws extended, to greet him either. Where was the little monster? Sam found him. The cat was sprawled out in front of the fire, legs stretched out like a dog's, its head pillowed on a scrap of yellow fabric. The golden eyes were open and mesmerized by the flames. As Sam took what was left of the ball, the little chin fell down bonelessly onto the floor without a flicker of protest. Sam shook his head sadly. From the front porch he threw the remains of the catnip as far out into the woods as he could. Worse and worse, Sam thought as he stamped the snow from his shoes. Mulder's psyche seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into the cat's. Something Sam had not had a problem with, but then Sam had not been a cat for as long and maybe his experience with leaping gave him some protection. Mulder had been thrown in completely unprepared. Scully had suddenly materialized before Sam. She was dressed casually, but her flannel shirt was unbuttoned down to her navel and underneath she wore a tight cotton eyelet-trimmed camisole. Worst of all she was smiling everywhere. With her mouth, her eyes, her hands, her whole body. And Sam's protection was lying on the floor, staring into the dancing flames, utterly and completely stoned. ************************************************************* After dinner Sam wheedled Scully into a game of Scrabble. At least she and Mulder had something in common besides sex. As it turned out, she was totally amazing at it. She knew as many body parts in Latin as he did and far more words in French for the progenerative act. Being both intelligent, competitive players, they soon found seven letters restrictive and mutually changed the rules. When they ran out of letters, they made more until they were soon spending more time cutting out little squares and inscribing the alphabet on them than thinking up words. When they ran out of room on playing surface, they cut up and ruled off blocks of paper from grocery sacks and taped them onto the edges of the board. Sam was beginning to hope that he had a chance of keeping her at this all night, when Mulder woke up. Sort of. At that point a nimble leap was called for but all the shaky animal could manage was a wobbly climb up Sam's back, claws extended for purchase on Sam's shirt and skin, and an ungraceful dive from Sam's shoulder to collapse into the center of the gaming area, scattering paper and wooden letters everywhere. End of game. With a toss of her head Scully flipped back a fan of flame red hair and laughed. The interruption was fine with her. She was ready for bed anyway... emphasis on the *bed* part. They were just finishing cleaning up the mess and Sam was wondering what his next distraction technique was going to be when a scratching sound, much louder than the day before, came from the direction of the front door. Sam and Dana both looked towards the door but saw no black and white cat as they expected. Then they looked towards the fireplace. Mulder/Sylvester sat perched on a stack of wood doing his best to appear menacing and territorial for Sam's benefit. By the twitching of his ears he had heard the sound as well. A question in her eyes, Scully went to the door. Opening it, she was met by a blast of cold air and - another cat. This one was grey, not fat, but large and healthy looking, with elegant dark striping. And clearly female. Like a queen condescending herself to accept the adoration of her subjects, she proceeded to stroll into the room. Dana stood back, hand on her hip, mouth open, staring as she watched the stately entrance. "My apologies for not playing 'Pomp and Circumstance'," Dana said in wide-eyed amazement, "but then maybe you would have preferred the 'Masterpiece Theater' theme." Dana soundly shut the door against the wintery mix threatening to suck all the warm air out of the little cabin. Without a glance towards any of them, her majesty deposited herself in the middle of the small room's carpet and proceeded to lick the considerable snow off of her exquisitely thick fur. She had grace, she had style, she was as proud as a peacock and an arrogant as a lord, she smelled like a brothel and she made Mulder's little, still-partially stoned animal heart sing - that and a few other parts of him. Sam closed his mouth and looked from the female to Mulder's rapidly flicking tail and curled lip and didn't need a map to know trouble was on the way. What should he do? What would Mulder want him to do? Too late. Sylvester was on the move, making his move, circling the female, nose down low, inhaling long, luscious breaths of kitty sex. He had hesitated in the tool shed. Not this time. "Scully..." Sam began warningly. Dana was watching, eyes aglow, wrapped in observing the miracle of chemical attraction and wishing she could bottle it. "What?" she asked, distractedly. "I don't think this is such a good idea." "Mulder, after what you watch for fun, I'd never have taken you for a prude." It took exactly two seconds for Sam to figure out what Mulder watched for fun. The night was going to be harder than he thought. "Ah, well, that's fantasy. This is reality. And the reality is Her Majesty there outweighs poor Sylvester two to one." Dana's eyes glistened. "Who's to say she doesn't want it." Sam felt his insides begin to heat up. Sylvester had been circling, sniffing her aroma, making little growling noises, announcing his intentions. The grey madonna had not done so much as acknowledge his existence. The poor black and white bag of skin, bone and hair never even got to first base. Mouth open, teeth exposed for the grip on the back of her neck, Sylvester reached out to embrace his love between all four legs - and with one nasty hiss and disdainful shrug of her sizable shoulders, the female sent her black and white admirer flying through the air to land with a wail of surprise and pain and frustration almost in the fire. Sam took three quick strides to retrieve the rejected creature, brushing the cinders off the clorox-scented coat as he cradled the stunned little body in his arms. Dana had a smirk on her lips that mirrored the expression on the grey female's pert face. "That's why they call it survival of the fittest." Sam shook his head over the trembling little body. "Dana, I think we're going to have to separate these two." "Oh, come on Mulder. Coming to the defense of your sex? He'll learn. And, then, maybe she's just playing hard to get." "Scully... It's dangerous. He was pretty ill last night. He might get hurt." Dana sighed, more than a little disappointed. "You're probably right. I guess we'd better put Her Majesty in the kitchen if we want to get any - " her eyes danced "- sleep." As Scully took the conquering female into the kitchen to get her some food, Sam unfolded the bed, still wondering how he was going to get out of his own ordeal. Once again he had no ally. Mulder was sprawled out in front of the fire, a dejected lump of sorrow. "Don't fret, Fuzz," Sam muttered to him sitting down on the floor next to the grieving animal. "Someday you're going to be really happy you don't have relatives in the animal kingdom. I mean, look at that coat. Do you really think it's right to pass along those kinds of genes?" ************************************************************ Sam let Scully have the bathroom first to give him time to think. Any plan he might have made, however, went right out of his head when she emerged from the bath. The red of her crimson satin camisole and high cut briefs reflected the fire and made her hair glow like flame. Knowing he was working against a force of nature mightier than he was, Sam grabbed up a fist full of magazines and headed for the bathroom, muttering almost unintelligently, "Ah, I may be a few minutes. Travel doesn't agree with me, I guess." ************************************************************* An hour passed. The bathroom was small and there was nowhere for Sam to sit but on the toilet which didn't have a lid and he was sore. And in trouble if the sounds from the living room he had been hearing for the past forty-five minutes was any indication. First she had stood at the door and offered creative suggestions, then she tried tantalizing alternatives, finally she shouted rude, disgusting insults at his physical condition and his manhood. After that, quiet reigned. When a half hour had passed without a sound, Sam uncoiled his cramped limbs, moved his numb butt and with trepidation opened the door. No crockery, bullets or spoken abuse was flung his way. Dana was in bed, asleep on the very furthest edge on her side of the bed she could lie on and not fall off. From the view of one arm which lay outside the covers she had changed to long-sleeved thermal underwear. Wearing his sweats and a t-shirt, Sam tiptoed to the bed, crawled in, and, like Dana, balanced himself on the very edge on *his* side of the bed and willed himself to go to sleep. It had been a very long day and was threatening to be a longer tomorrow. A little sound made him raise his head. A black and white head poked itself up over the edge of the bed, finally clawed itself up to the surface of the mattress. Mulder seemed to have recovered from the rebuff of his new lady love and had returned to defend his old one. Contentedly, the cat circled around in the middle of the ocean of space between the two human bodies, plopped himself down and purred. *************************************************************** end of part 3 ===================================================================== ====== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Mulder's Leap/silly QL xover 4/9 by Windsinger & K. Date: 7 Apr 1996 23:44:13 -0400 Mulder Takes a Leap 4/9 by K. (1013@hehe.com) and Windsinger@aol.com (AKA Sue Esty) 2/23/96 Warning: Everyone acquainted with Calvin Ball? It's a lot like Fizbin. The laws of logic, physics, chance and reality are being treated similarly in this story. See part 1 for notes and disclaimer. **************************************** Sam woke to the feel of warm hair against his cheek and a sharp pain in his ear. Mulder's furry body was draped across his face and he had Sam's ear lobe trapped between two of his sharp little feline canines. "Oh, get off it, Fuzz!" Sam grumbled sleepily. "I'm sure pierced ears don't fit in with the FBI dress code. Haven't I done enough for you already?" The pressure on Sam's ear increased and the cat began to pull. Sam grabbed the little body up and held it aloft, spitting and twisting. When Sam's sleepy mind finally figured out that the unhappy animal was trying to look towards the door, he dropped it onto the floor in an instant. "You want to go OUT? In this weather?" Sam's voice dropped to an even softer whisper. "In case you haven't noticed, Mulder, you're not a dog." Mulder meowed piteously and, swearing under his breath so not to wake Scully, Sam put his bare feet onto the chilly floor and reached under the bed looking for his shoes. Bending down, he spied the cardboard box full of the closest stuff to sand Scully could find. Remembering his own humiliating experience with the litter box, Sam apologized to the miserable animal and willed his sleepy body to move a little faster. As zipped up his coat, Sam muttered. "You know some cats learn to use the toilet." If looks could kill, Sam would be toast. The night was clear and cold. At least the wind had died down and the snow had stopped. Sam flapped his arms, wrapped them over his chest and sat down on the top step to wait. Mulder bounded into the relatively minimal amount of snow in the lee of the steps, which was protected from the wind and the drifts, and was back in three shakes, taking a flying leap into Sam's lap and burrowing into the zippered opening of Sam's coat. Sam smiled and settled himself more comfortably on the step. He was surprised by the attention. He thought Mulder hated him, he certainly would in Mulder's place. In reality Sam actually liked cats, even ugly ones like Sylvester. To gain their love was a real accomplishment. He scratched under the little chin and enjoyed the feel of the animal's purr against his skin. A guilty feeling flowed over Sam. The more Mulder behaved like the cat, the further he was getting from being Mulder and Sam wasn't helping. They had problems, big problems. But that was for the morning. In the meantime, it was a beautiful night and now that he was out here Sam wanted to enjoy it for a few minutes. Only Mulder had other ideas. The little cat had lost interest in snuggling. Instead, the skinny little body was all a quiver. His mouth opened, his lips pulled back, and a sound almost like a bird's squawk came out. He began turning around and around and around in a frenzy on Sam's lap. "What's wrong?" Sam asked, more than a little worried. In response, the animal opened wide and took a bite out of Sam's coat and began to pull frantically. "Hey, that's my coat! Who do you think you are, Lassie?" And the night turned quiet and then white. Blinding, pure seamless white. Sam found he couldn't move, couldn't feel. He felt he was the filament inside an incandescent light bulb, glowing like the sun but not burning. Time stood still. And then it was over. *********************************************** Mulder passed a hand over his eyes, a little dazed. He had run outside to see the light and he'd seen it, like so many others, tantalizing, but so far away. When he should have felt exhilaration, he was left with only sadness and loss and helplessness. Maybe Samantha was up there somewhere. He stood up. No use sitting on the steps in the dark, freezing with the ugly little cat in his lap. Besides, Scully was waiting in their nice warm bed and suddenly the thought of her made him very anxious to join her there, certain parts of him definitely more anxious to join her there than others. Inside, as he was approaching the bed, Mulder sniffed. He was smelling the femaleness of Scully. And, though he did not know it, he was also smelling the scent of a female cat in heat which she must have gotten on her when she held the grey cat. He didn't try to identify the scents, however. He simply allowed himself to enjoy how they affected him. He growled low in his throat and began to circle the bed as he stripped off his clothes. Dana felt something large and warm and naked and insistent laying up against her back. A warm breath was nuzzling her ear. She should resist his advances, give him a taste of his own medicine. She was furious over the day and the evening before. He had ignored her, worse than that, snubbed her. Well, Fox Mulder could go take a flying leap for all she cared. But lips and tongue and teeth were working over her neck. Hands moved deftly and with heat over her body. She turned over, meaning to tell him exactly what she thought of him, but, before she could speak, he was there. His mouth was there over hers, hot, demanding. More than hot. Fiery. And his eyes above hers glowed golden in what was left of the fire light and melted her down into her component parts. A few feet away Sam shivered, a tiny, furry lump under the armchair, *his* chair. He tried not to hear the panting and growling and moaning from the bed, tried to wrap his thin tail over his cold nose. How could this have happened again? How...how...how? And then it came to him. Part of it anyway. Now where was Al when you needed him? As if on cue Al appeared, dressed in, of all things a red plaid lumberjack shirt and sleek black leather pants. He stood in the middle of the room and stared at the bed. "Oh, Sam... Sam..." Al moaned, his voice showing his disappointment even as his eye drank in the sight. Two more beautiful human specimens he had seldom seen. "I'm down here!" Sam projected as loudly as he could in hopes to be heard over the creaking of the ancient sofa bed and the whimpers and sighs. Al heard but took a long count of ten before he could pull his eyes away from the bed. Eventually, he did get down on the floor to look face to face at the little cat. "Sam?" "Don't ask." "Then that's Mulder up there? I'd say he recovered quickly." Playfully, Dana made an attempt to lunge off the bed, but an arm came out and grabbed her, pulling her down on top of the arm's owner, her back to his front. Long arms and legs wrapped around her and flipped her over with ease. Dana made a sound like a woman possessed, and loving every minute of it. "Al, We *have* to get out of here. It's indecent." "They're not indecent. They're consenting adults." "*We're* indecent for being here." "Well, not including that closet-sized bathroom, this place has exactly two rooms, this one and the kitchen and the kitchen door is closed and I can't open it for you." Sam was so desperate he would try anything. He heaved himself up and went to study the door while Al sauntered into the kitchen, passing through the wall, with only one last lingering backwards glance at the mating ritual going on in the bed behind him. Sam was finding that there were advantages to weighing eight pounds, having the strength and agility, for your size, of a Olympic gymnast and - again, for your size - the brain the size of a planet. The kitchen door handle was the pull down kind. Sam leaped to the top of the bookcase, gauged the distance, calculated the speed and mass ratio, and dropped, pulling the handle down. His momentum and the weight of his body was just enough to disengage the lock and leave the door ajar from the frame an eight of an inch. An eight of an inch was enough to give purchase to sharp little claws. Sam was making use of the claws on all four paws to pull open the door wide enough to admit his little body, when he paused to project a very pertinent question, "Al, where is she?" Al didn't need to ask who Sam meant by 'she'. He had popped in during that little encounter, but Sam had been too concerned about 'Sylvester' surviving his own little mating ritual to notice. "Her Majesty's asleep in the corner, or seems to be. You hoping she's changed her mind?" "Oh, you saw that? Poor Mulder. Let's say I'm hoping she hasn't. I plan to keep my distance from that man killer." Away from the distraction going on in the bed, Sam finally remembered what he had wanted so desperate to tell Al. "Al, I think I know what's going on, or at least what's causing Mulder and I to keep changing places." Al was interested. Even interested enough to take his mind off what he was missing in the other room. "Anything you've got, buddy, is more than we have now, which is nothing." Sam leaped onto the counter so he could be closer to eye level with Al and wouldn't have to project so hard to be heard. After all, he did not want to wake up Lacretia Borgia. "Al, there was a light tonight when we switched places. A light in the sky. A brilliant white light and there was one the night before, too, when Mulder leaped into the cat only I forgot because I was up to my eye balls in snow at the time. Before the light came I was the man holding a cat in my lap, after the light I was the cat." "Uh, oh. You're thinking about UFO's again, aren't you? Just because of what I told you about Mulder?" "You didn't tell me anything about Mulder except that what he did was classified. Scully was the one who mentioned UFO's. That and Mulder has a weird choice in reading material." "Didn't I? I meant to. He's a UFO chaser and I guess you could say, a parapsychologist. He's the FBI's specialist in the paranormal." "I didn't know they had one of those." "Your tax dollars at work. Are you thinking a UFO passed overhead and that's what caused you to change places?" "That would explain a lot. We know the Quantum leap beam is magnetized plasma. What if the UFO has a strong magnetic field?" Al rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It's possible. I'd like to check with Ziggy, though. This may even explain your very first leap in this assignment. Maybe the Quantum Leap beam, which was meant to take you into Mulder, was deflected into a cat due to a similar interference with the UFO." "Maybe the magnetic field also modulated it," Sam suggested, "to allow for the spacial dissimilarities." "By that are you suggesting that that's why you can leap into something so small? Why the cat seems to be bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?" Sam's golden tiger eyes fixed Al with a withering gaze. "Right. What you said. And maybe there's enough residual Quantum leap 'stuff' around to make the leap shift every time the UFO flies over." "'Stuff'. Very technical, Sam. Don't let those kitty brain cells turn your grey matter to oatmeal the way they did to Mulder." Defensively, Sam sat up, pushing out his narrow furry chest. "Just who came up with this explanation anyway? Do you have a better one?" "Not at the moment." Al sucked on his cigar and paced the moonlit kitchen. "The first night you said you were unconscious after the transfer. How did tonight go?" "Just some disassociation. The varying factor is probably the distance we were apart at the time. We were a few yards apart the first night and he was sitting on my lap tonight." Al rubbed his eyes. "This almost makes sense, which means I've been talking to you too long. At least it's someplace to start. I'll go converse with Ziggy." Al looked over to the grey cat in the corner who was beginning to stretch. He winked at Sam's skinny, little body. "Watch your step, killer." And Al was gone, leaving Sam alone with Her Majesty Lacretia. Sam shuddered at the thought, dropped lightly down to the floor and poked his head around the corner of the door. Mulder was propped up against the head of the bed, holding Dana before him in his arms. She was panting, her sweaty body glowing in the fire light. "Mulder, that was . . . *great*! I never thought about the back of my neck being an erogenous zone before. You almost drew blood when you bit me." He nuzzled his head against hers, breathing in her scent. A rumble began again deep in his chest. "You smell sooooo good, Scully." She snuggled back against him, liking the slick softness of his warm skin. "I didn't realize how . . . inhibited we were having neighbors so close by." Dana giggled. "If we were that loud at home, the neighbors would have called the cops ." "Scully, dear, we are the cops." "In that case...." She turned in his arms and pulled him down on top of her. "Can you do it to me again, Tiger? Sam pulled back from the door. Nope, not safe to go back in yet. Not for a *long* time. ***************************************************************** End of part 4 ===================================================================== ====== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Mulder's Leap/silly QL xover 5/9 by k. & Windsinger Date: 7 Apr 1996 23:46:11 -0400 Mulder's Leap 5/9 by K. (1013@hehe.com) and Windsinger@aol.com (AKA Sue Esty) 2/25/96 See part 1 for notes and disclaimer. ****************************************** Turning from the living room and its preoccupied inhabitants, Sam looked towards the spot next to the stove where Lacretia had been curled up sleeping. She was gone. Sam scanned the floor. Nothing. He heard a sound like a soft motor, but it was not the hum of the refrigerator motor and it was coming from above him. Sam looked up and up... He was standing under a high kitchen bar stood. Something was sitting on that stool. Something that had not been there before with legs and arms and a tail. Something nearly Mulder's size. Slowly, Sam backed up, belly to the ground. By the light from the moon outside he saw her, Lacretia, only now she was nearly six feet tall. And she was not just large but human. Human, that is, except that she was covered with silvery grey fur and the owner of a proud full tail, long exquisite ears and .... Sam blinked. Breasts were peeking through the luscious belly fur. Six of them. She opened her pert, lovely muzzle. "Well?" Sam shivered. he wondered. He wasn't even quite certain he was sane at that moment. "Ezeeka, stop playing games and reverse the polarity of the fourth dimensional field." The tail unwound itself and moved with more flexibility and deliberation than any animal tail Sam had ever seen. Its tip touched him on the shoulder. He flinched. When it touched his nose, he sneezed. Sam began to feel decisively odd. The room began to spin. Sam clamped his eyes shut tight. The vertigo persisted. He felt as if he was swelling, falling, diving, dying. The world settled down. Sam opened one eye. Everything was the same and yet everything was different. Same chairs, same appliances, same cupboards, only they where suddenly much smaller. The room was smaller. No, Sam realized, almost happily. I'm larger. And he was. Definitely larger, but still smaller than Lacretia. He figured he was about Scully's size and he was sitting on something like haunches, but just on his back legs. His paws where no longer paws, but not quite hands, either, though there was an opposable thumb. By the mirror like effect from the glass on the windows he could tell that he was just as ugly as he had been before. Certainly his black and white splotchy fur was as thin and unbecoming as before. Lacretia just sat as he collected himself. "Ezeeka!" she snapped to get his attention. The name rolled off her tongue. Sam hit the floor on his belly. "Sit up, sit up, you fool," she said in her rich voice almost like cloves in its uniqueness. "Has the terran animal host gotten to what few brain cells you have? Save such fawning for the elders. I speak as your -" After she used a word Sam didn't understand, Lacretia stretched, obviously enjoying the rippling of her muscles over the thick fur. Catching sight of Sam's bony body and scanty, straggly fur, her slitted cat eye narrowed. "Leave it to you, Ezeeka, to select the mangiest receptacle imaginable. Have you no pride?" Still too awed to speak, Sam lowered his head. "Hrumpf! By now you'd think I'd know better. It wouldn't do me any good to ask why you haven't completed your assignment, either, I suppose. You were instructed to bring the human male to the place of examination. Is that so difficult? You do not even need to assist in the actual capture if he passes the testing. We'll take care of that." Sam kept silent. He didn't even know if he could speak, and, if he could, what would he say? Thankfully, she did not seem that surprised at his silence. "You have until moon set tomorrow. We'll be waiting. Do you remember where?" In answer to his blank stare, she snorted, gave him some precise longitude and latitude coordinates then rose off the chair, as graceful as a dancer well-rehearsed in her choreography. The interview had seemed at an end, but then she continued. "For my own amusement, Ezeeka, does he really show signs of a true belief? Is he convinced that there is life beyond this world and that we have come? I have not seen one of these believers with my own eyes. I would like to, but then he will have to come with us so perhaps that is not such a good thing for him. It is also not a policy I agree with." She pulled herself up onto the counter, drawing up her lovely legs. For the first time Sam realized she was naked in her fur and he was comfortable with that. "Remember, Ezeeka, any way you can get him there is acceptable. He can be asleep, unconscious, whatever. It will make little difference to the test. Just bring him, Ezeeka. Make us proud." At that she slid open the window above the sink with one paw. "Close this after I am gone," she ordered, and with that, something happened which made Sam's heart stop. The air wavered. She changed, she shrunk, until only the grey cat which they had called Lacretia remained. For an extra second, Lacretia stared at Sam where he sat still sitting on his haunches on the floor, then with a swish of her tail, she vanished out the open window. The cold from the open window finally woke Sam from his paralysis. As he closed the kitchen window, he saw a large grey cat move into the woods at the furthest edge of the moonlit lawn. He stood and took in deep breaths, staring out into the night where somewhere, a UFO waited. "Oh, Boy..." Sam whispered, his mouth feeling odd as he spoke. "You called?" Al winked into view, but his head was down as he looked at the parti-colored display on his controller. "Ziggy's real impressed by your hypothesis, Sam, however, she finds it a little far fetched..." That was when Al looked up and for the first time saw the unimaginable. Standing by the counter near the kitchen sink was a large black and white cat (?) / humanoid (?)/ animal (?)/ whatever, about the size of a preteenage boy. It's hands were thick and shaped roughly like paws, the hair which covered its body, was long and lanky. Al blinked. "Sam?" "In the flesh, so to speak," the giant cat answered. "W-What...h-happened?" Sam moved to hop lightly and with grace onto the stool where Lacretia had sat. Being up on something felt somehow appropriate. "Al, Lacretia was not just any cat. Neither was Sylvester." "That I'll buy." "She talked to me." Sam gestured to his chest. "*This*, Al, belongs to an alien. Someone called Ezeeka. Well, no, not entirely. There really is some poor, skinny little Earth kitty in here, but overlaid is some kind of alien presence. I think Ezeeka's people have got their own kind of Quantum leap beam but it's controllable. He's even got a dimensional switch which allows him to appear either as the cat or some amalgamation of himself and the host he's selected. Lacretia is its teacher, supervisor, whatever, and she just dressed him down for messing up his assignment which was to see that Mulder was taken someplace for an alien examination. Did you get all that?" Al stared. "Are you saying this body is part real cat and part alien and you leaped into it? Good going, Sam. No one's ever going to believe that." "I guess that's why they never used this story in the series." "No guts, no glory." Al paced, eyes wide on the huge, mangy cat perched on the stool. "You said something about an examination and Mulder? What is this examination supposed to be about?" Sam sighed and crossed his elegant, furry legs. It felt good to sit almost like a normal person. "They're interested in people who believe in extraterrestrials. They are obviously interested in collecting a few. Mulder's clearly a prime candidate for becoming an unhappy passenger on a cruise to a distant planetary system." Al face opened in a look of wonder. "By Ziggy, it all fits doesn't it? You were sent here to change places with Mulder because you have always been very skeptical about the possibility of extraterrestrials. Mulder believes in them fervently." Sam nodded. "Looks like it was intended for the aliens to examine me. Since I don't believe, they'd reject Mulder. Then I leap out, Mulder leaps back in, and that's that." "Only it didn't work that way. Your Quantum leap beam got deflected by the UFO's magnetic field, and instead was attracted to the similar magnetic resonance in that strikingly handsome form you are now inhabiting." "And Mulder and I have been playing ping pong ever since each time the UFO passes overhead." "And Mulder's still in danger." Al chewed his cigar. "What's this examination entail? At the moment you appear to be one of their 'people'. Can't you just swear to them that he doesn't believe?" Sam's shoulders drooped. "Good try, but Ezeeka has to physically deliver him to the examination point." Sam had searched his eidetic memory against the geographical coordinates Lacretia had given him. Thinking was certainly easier and more natural to think in this form than when he had been a little cat. "That would be about two miles northeast of here. That seems to be my only job. They dip into the subconscious, by the way, which is why Mulder can't just lie. I was sent here to give them a subconscious to examine that really didn't believe. They even said I could deliver him unconscious, if I had to, and the examination would still be valid." Al frowned. "Then we've got to get Mulder out of his body again. Good thing you've figured out how to control this alien leaping. You just need to get the UFO to buzz this place on cue. Too bad that Mulder's not going to like it." "Al, all I know is that this alien-cat hybrid acts as a sort of catalyst or magnet for the UFO's magnetic field, I can't control when the UFO flies over." Al paced the kitchen floor, thinking. Sam let him. When it came to convoluted, screw-ball ideas, Al was the master. Suddenly, the hologram's bowed head snapped up. "I've got it!" Al raised his arms cigar in one hand, the control box shining like a pinball machine in the other. "Sam, look at you. You're an alien. All you have to do is walk up and *ask* Lacretia to have the ship to fly over a couple of times." "You've go to be kidding." "Tell them it's to make absolutely sure Mulder doesn't believe. If, after a couple of fly-by's he still doesn't believe, he never will." "Al, listen to yourself. I don't know how to talk to an alien." "So we find someone who can." "So where do we find an alien expert in the middle of the night?" Al stared towards the now quiet living room. "Mulder?" Sam asked incredulously. "In the cat again? I know he has to vacate his body anyway, however, I don't like what being a cat did to him." "What's he doing, marking the furniture?" "Not that bad - yet." Sam stretched. His joints felt all wrong. It would be nice to feel human and male again. "I have to admit, though, I wouldn't mind being Mulder again for a while." "With that hot number around, I don't blame you, but that won't work, not any more." Al shook the holographic ashes off his holographic cigar. "You've seen the alien Lacretia. Heck, look at yourself! And you've seen what the UFO can do. Sam, tell me the truth, do you believe in extraterrestrials now?" Sam felt this job getting very messy. "I'm afraid I do." "Mulder's ass is going to be killing time in a zoo in Alpha Centauri then." There was silence then Al began. "Unless we find another donor, someone who doesn't believe in ET's, to leap into Mulder's body for a few critical minutes." Sam looked blank. "Who's left, Sam?" "You?" "Guess again." "I hate this plot." "So do I but it's all we've got. Guess again, Sam." "Scully?" "Bingo." "But surely Scully believes, she works with the guy." Al made a definitive negative gesture with his head. "She's the ultimate skeptic." Sam's expression was as pensive as it could be under the circumstances. "I wish I still had my slide rule, but at this point I'd settle for a pencil and a piece of paper. I need to graph this out. If we do manage to switch her into Mulder's body - and I have no idea how we're going to pull that off - as soon as she sees the UFO, she'll believe." "You said she could be unconscious. Drunk would probably work as well." Sam's eyes opened wide. "And that's what you expect me to do? Walk in there and say, 'Oh, Mulder, go get your girlfriend -" "- Partner -" Al corrected. "Partner? Is this an FBI definition of partner I have been heretofore unacquainted with?" Sam sighed and began again. "'Mulder, why don't you go get you *partner* drunk and then we're going to project her into your body to be examined by aliens and *you* - for you, we're going to turn you back into one scrawny excuse for a cat.'" "Sounds good to me if it moves the plot along." Sam leaped lightly down from the stool. "Al, I can't just walk in there. Scully's in there! Look at me! I'm a five foot -" Al cocked his head. "Four and a half, I'd say." "I'm a four and a half foot ugly cat! I gather he can hear me speak now, while as a cat he couldn't, but that means she can hear me, too. And what if she sees me? Then we're all dog meat!" "Then you are going to have to get him alone in order to speak to him. By the way, now that you're a big, ugly cat, how do you become a small, ugly cat again? Unless you stay totally out of Scully's way, you're going to need to change your appearance to something a little less - conspicuous." ***************************************************** After Al left to burn a few of Ziggy's circuits with the news of what was going on, Sam sat in the middle of the kitchen, big and hairy and ugly, and wished, more than anything, that he was small and furry and that he was hiding under his chair. He wished that the world and this assignment would go away and that Scully would hold him. As quick as that thought, he was small and furry. With practice and a little concentration, he found the opposite worked as well. At least something was operating with minimal effort on this nutty assignment. The space under his armchair, however, was probably cold and the world had not gone away and Scully was in there holding Mulder. One problem down but three more yet to solve. How was he going to find a way to get Mulder alone for a long talk? How was he going to talk him into getting Scully drunk and then how was he going to convince the man to agree to their outlandish plan? Sam padded into the living room. He was only a speck again in a giant world. What could he do? His tail dragged along the floor. This half-baked plan had better work or Mulder was going to disappear within twenty-four hours and that beautiful, sensual woman would be left grief-stricken and alone. Sam headed for his desolate spot under the chair. He lay there miserably for about five minutes, but the fire in the fireplace was nearly out and it was cold. Seeking warmth and human companionship Sam walked on soft little cat feet up to the couch bed and crawled up as quietly as he could so that he would not wake the sleeping couple. He picked a spot among the blankets above their intertwined legs. It was lumpy, and lacked closeness but it would do. Suddenly a large male hand came out of the dark. Sam cringed, afraid he was going to be tossed off the bed, into the cold and frightening room. Instead the large, gentle hand settled the cat into a warm hallow between the man and the woman and began to stroke the little body from the top of his head to the tip of his sorry excuse for a tail. Above Sam's head, Mulder's eyes glowed sleepy and golden and satiated. "What's wrong little fellow? Do you feel all alone in the world? No one loves you? I know just where you're coming from. You just stick with me and I'll fatten you up, get you in shape and, before you know it, you'll be able to hold your own with all the other sex-crazed Toms out there. Then you'll get yourself a hot little female just like mine." The hand moved down and began to scratch the little cat under the chin. Sam felt all his tension and misery melt away. A few minutes before he had felt he was in hell, now he was certain he was in heaven. ***************************************************************** end of part 5 Mulder was having the most wonderful dream. There weren't any images, just a feeling of being rocked and soothed. Half-awake, he was fastidiously licking the back of Scully's neck just at the hairline. She must have been having a pretty great dream herself, because she was making small, happy sounds, angling her head so he could reach the soft skin just behind her ear. With one final, slow lick, he woke up and stretched. In fact, he took an extra long time stretching this morning, it felt that good. Scully slept on. He leaned over and kissed her, catching that scent in her hair again. Lustful urges sprang to life once again. He crawled out of bed and looked down. The chill of the room and the distance from Scully's scent soon deflated Mulder's enthusiasm for procreation as he started thinking about the second must important thing on his mind - food. The engine was sputtering. He felt like he hadn't had a decent meal in ages. Rapidly, he pulled on the discarded sweats, socks and sweatshirt, staring at them for a second, trying to remember when he had ever worn those colors together. Funny, he thought he had worn a t-shirt to bed. Shrug. Food was more important than logic at this time of the morning. On his way to the kitchen, Mulder spied Sylvester sitting on the back of the couch and gazing forlornly out of the window. "What's wrong, fella? You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders? Let's us menfolk find some breakfast." With that Mulder picked up the little cat, plopped it down on his shoulder with a rough, playful stroke and sauntered into the kitchen. The contents of the refrigerator did not inspire confidence. He did find half a block of Spam pushed to the back, which was odd. Personally, he loved Span, though he would never admit it, but he hadn't had any in years. He certainly hadn't had any on this trip, and he could not see Dana ever touching the stuff. It must have been left by some other renters, though they usually cleaned out the refrigerator between guests. Hesitantly, he sniffed it, wondering how old it was. It smelled all right, but with Spam one could never tell. Mulder wasn't sure that stuff *could* go bad, but he decided not to take the chance. As he pushed the block into the garbage, he smiled with a kind of lustful anticipation. He had other plans for the day, all involving Scully and creative mating activities, and being sick wasn't on the agenda. So intent was Mulder on finding sustenance for his own stomach, he didn't notice that Sylvester was gazing into the trash can at the discarded meat with a mournful expression. Humming loudly which set off a pleasant vibration from his sinuses all the way down into his chest, Mulder did find a bowl of tuna covered in foil, seemingly untouched. Deciding this was probably Sylvester's, he scooted the bowl across the floor to where the little cat was now lying sadly with it's chin on his front paws. Then Mulder found something in the freezer which made his heart beat faster. A salmon steak. Whipping it out of its paper and plastic wrapping, he tossed it on plate and threw it in the microwave. Mesmerized, he watched the seconds tick by. Fifty-three, fifty-two, fifty-one. For some odd reason, he couldn't stomach the idea of cooking that lovely pink meat until it was dry and tasteless. He stopped the timer and pulled out the steak. It was thawed and still cool. Raw. A couple of minutes later a tousled, sleepy Dana stumbled into the kitchen to find Mulder standing at the counter, gnawing on the remains of the raw salmon steak. "Ugh! Mulder, what are you doing?" Mulder looked down at the remains of the raw mess in his hands, almost as surprised as she was. Somehow it didn't seem nearly as appetizing any longer. "Uh, eating sashimi. You know, sushi without the rice?" Dana shivered. "I hope it was good." Hastily, Mulder put the rest in Sylvester's bowl. "Actually, it tasted as if it had a bad case of freezer burn." Almost at a run, Mulder made for the bathroom where he threw up the remains of the salmon along with something really disgusting that looked like a hairball. ***************************************************** Dana pressed the back of her hand against Mulder's forehead. He didn't seem to have a fever. In fact, he seemed fine since he'd finished throwing up. Maybe he wasn't coming down with anything. Lord knew if he was, they'd both have it! His skin was a healthy rose color, not the green tint it had been earlier, but he smelled like sweat and sex and raw fish. Pushing her hair back with both hands, she realized she felt pretty grungy herself. "I'm going to hop in the shower, you want to join me? Or we could take a long, hot bath together..." "I guess we could help each other scrub those hard-to-reach spots...," he grinned. She laughed. "Deal." She pulled him out of the armchair and led him to the cramped bathroom. Everything was fine while she ran the water and added the bubbles, but when the time came to sink into the steamy water, Mulder froze. Panic caused his heart to flutter and his breathing to quicken. "Mulder? What's wrong? Do you feel sick again?" Dana climbed out of the tub and grabbed a towel to keep from making a huge puddle on the floor. "Uh, no...Tell you what, why don't you take your bath and I'll wash up later." He backed out the door, muttering reassurances to a worried Scully. Later, when he was alone in the bathroom, he turned the shower on but couldn't bring himself to step under it. Instead, he washed his hair in the sink and gave himself a sponge bath with the roughest wash cloth he could find. Odd, but he found rubbing the rough cloth in long strokes over his skin calming. ***************************************************** An hour later Mulder announced, "I'm hungry. What sounds good for lunch?" "It's not lunchtime, yet. It's too bad we don't have some goldfish for you to munch on." Scully propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him in mock horror. "*That's* why you're always having to restock your aquarium, isn't it?" "Ha ha. A woman with a man-eating dog shouldn't tease me about my goldfish!" He looked so injured, she had to laugh. "How about a glass of milk and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Do you think you could keep that down?" "Yeah, I feel great now! You stay put and I'll fix it," Mulder called out as he bound into the kitchen. "Do you want one?" They ate their snack in front of the hearth. Scully took the empty plates to the kitchen while Mulder savored his drink. The milk had sat close to the fire for a while and was warm now, but still tasted better than he could ever remember it tasting before. Some of it dribbled down his chin and he wiped it away with his hand. Discarding the empty glass on the hearth, he sniffed his hand and licked it until all traces of milk were gone. A full stomach and the warmth from the fire made Mulder drowsy. He stretched until all of his joints popped and curled up on the couch. Sam watched Mulder from his warm vantage point on top of the bookcase. If he did nothing else on this leap, he had proven that heat definitely rises. Sam meowed mournfully. How was he going to pull this off? Unless he could communicate with Mulder somehow, they didn't have a prayer. Jumping lightly down, the cat sat on the rug in front of Mulder, and, staring eye to eye into the man's face, racked his brains, trying to think of a plan. Scully came back from the kitchen a little perturbed over how low the fire was burning. As she threw the last log on the small blaze, Mulder raised his head. His eyes were heavy-lidded. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." "That's all right." He noticed what she had been doing and groaned. "I'm not keeping up my end of the bargain, am I?" "I did agree to cook if you took care of the fire." "I just never dreamed how much firewood it was going to take. I guess we should have opted for the rental with central heating." He made a awkward move to get up. "No, no, Mulder. If having a nap will keep you from really coming down with something I'll do it." "But we've used all the small stuff. A couple of big logs are okay, but we need a lot of the other." Dana brought herself up to her full height and stared down at where he sat slumped against the cushions. "And who says that the macho male is the only one who can split wood? My father taught me when I was twelve. Besides I need the exercise. We've been eating like piranhas on this trip." Her eyes narrowed. "Get that look out of your eyes, Mulder, I said we'd been eating like piranha, not *eating* piranhas." He grinned lazily. "I wasn't thinking that at all. I was just going to offer you another type of exercise." She patted him on the head. "Oh, you'll get you chance, Tiger. Later. Which is why you'd better get your rest while you can." He flopped back down into a prone position as she went to get her coat and boots. "Promises... promises..." A minute later a draft passed over him as the back door opened and closed. Shivering, he grabbed a pillow and blanket, moved to curl up on floor next to what was left of the dying fire and quickly drifted off. No one had been paying much attention to Sylvester, but Sam had listened eagerly to the whole exchange. Here was his chance! When he was certain by listening to Mulder's breathing that the agent was asleep, Sam trotted to the kitchen and leaped up next to the sink to peer out the kitchen window. Scully was already at it. She had the big ax in her hand and after a few practice swings was doing a fine job. A fine job that would keep her occupied for a while. Not long enough for a good long chat with Mulder, but maybe long enough to plant a suggestion or two. Mulder was sleeping on his side with his front towards the fire. Sam sat down out of sight at the man's back and concentrated on the multidimensional switch. It took a while. For a moment, Sam was afraid it wasn't going to work. This was not as simple a task as putting on your shoes, when he had shoes, Sam thought, begrudgingly, hoping on his next assignment he'd leap into something nice and normal like a serial killer or a Republican. Finally, he felt the change begin, his vision blurred, the ratio of his mass to the room decreased dramatically and just like that he was in Ezeeka's version of Sylvester's incarnation. Clearing his throat, leaned over and began to whisper in Mulder ear. Sam whispered about sex. Not the most comfortable subject for one heterosexual man to whisper to another, but he had enough foreign films memorized to manage. He talked softly about how lovely a woman Scully was. How it might be nice to see how she would behave if she was *really* uninhibited, perhaps after a few glasses of some really strong stuff. The words didn't matter. The idea and the repetition were what was important. At one point Sam leaned too close and his whiskers tickled Mulder's ear. The man's hand came up and he batted with a curled fist, almost like a paw, at where the giant cat's head had been a moment before. Sam's stomach twisted with guilt. He felt awful about this. About this whole plan. What did he think he was doing involving other people like this? He would probably have to tell Mulder about Quantum Leap which was a definite no-no. And the way he and Sam had talked about using Scully without her consent was shameless. They would be exposing her to danger, too. And Mulder? Sam was very concerned about Mulder's leaping into the cat persona again. Even if all the bodies and personalities sorted themselves out correctly in the end, Mulder may very well end up sniffing catnap for the rest of his life and thinking that an object swinging on the end of a string was a pretty good idea. Intently, Sam studied Mulder's face. There was a sexual glow to him, a subtle but unmistakable roguish expression. The tip of his tongue traced his sensual lips as if he had just tasted something that pleased him. The man was clearly deep in a very pleasant dream. Sam's subliminal messages had done that much. Now to see where it would lead. Sam steeled himself and took a last look around the cabin. Time to return to the land of the giants. ***************************************************** Cradling an armload of wood Scully returned twenty minutes later to stand in the main room of a cabin, a smile on her lips, and wished she had brought her camera. Mulder was lying on his side in front of the fire like a great big cat and Sylvester was curled in a ball almost within his arms. They were so cute together. She hated to wake either one of them but the fire was nearly out. Mulder did wake when Dana had to step over him to reach the hearth, but he woke with a bright and eager eye. She was pleased that the little nap had done him so much good. He even threw on his boots and made multiple trips out to the wood pile to bring in enough wood to last them for at least another day. They stacked it together. The fire was a high blaze now. The room was warm, almost too hot. Scully pulled off her sweater. Mulder pulled off his. She read the light in his eyes and eagerly reached to help him off with his t-shirt, but he put a finger to his lips as if he had a secret and vanished into the kitchen. Sylvester followed like a shadow. Mulder took out glasses, then reached under the cupboard and fetched a bottle of wine. Sam meowed with a spit and a hiss that got Mulder chuckling. For the plan, Mulder would need the hard stuff. Well, Sylvester could take care of that. When Mulder turned away to hunt for the cork screw, one swipe from a well placed kitty paw disposed of the wine. In answer to the loud crash, Scully raced into the kitchen to find Mulder grumbling as he picked up the pieces of glass. "What happened?" "I was going to bring us each in a nice glass of wine but Sylvester had other ideas." Scully smiled and picked up the little cat holding it high as it squirmed. "Bad kitty, bad kitty." Mulder straightened up with a impish grin, holding up a dusty bottle of a clear liquid. "Oh, I don't know. All the beer's gone, but I found this we can use as a substitute." "Vodka?" He poured a sizable amount into two glasses. "Tastes not half bad mixed with orange juice." "You're thinking Mimosas, Mulder, only those are made with champagne. Thanks, but none for me." Mulder added the orange juice. When he turned, she saw his expression had rearrange itself into a pout. "Oh, come on, Scully. I want to see how you are when you are - wild, uninhibited." "More than last night?" she asked, incredulously. His smile had a wicked gleam to it as he handed her both glasses. "Unless you try, you'll never know what's lurking under that well controlled exterior, Dr. Scully." He had come closer. His eyes were drinking in the sight of her. His body still radiated heat from the fire and from his dream. Dana felt the tides threaten to sweep her away. To give in to him was also what she wanted at that moment. He was so close she could feel her knees getting weak as desire touched off all the hormones. "I'll probably just fall asleep," she defended lamely, a little afraid to find out herself. The next thing she knew he had lifted her, laughing, up in his arms was carrying her off to the couch and the blazing fires within and without. Sylvester sat on the kitchen floor purring with satisfaction. So far so good, but, much as he hated to eavesdrop, Sam knew he would need to monitor these two. Scully needed to drink considerably but not Mulder. Sam sighed. Maybe during his next leap he could oversee a rabbit farm or something like that. Some place where there was a little less sex going on. Before trotting into the living room, the cat stopped at a puddle of the spilled wine Mulder and missed cleaning up and lapped up some of the lovely liquid. "Waste not, want not," Sam rationalized. ***************************************************** "Mulder, get *off* me!" Mulder was hot, he was heavy, and he had passed out. When he only groaned in reply, Dana put the heel of a hand on each bare shoulder and pushed him off. Turning on her side, she propped her head up in one hand, and studied him. "You are *never* going to live this down, Fox Mulder." A moan this time. "Wha' happened?" "You got drunk. By the way, didn't your teachers ever tell you to be prepared to complete what you start?" Rolling over onto his stomach he put his head in his hands and moaned again. "I'm *so* sorry, Scully." "I've no doubt you are." "I drank too much and you're not even woozy." "Oh, I had some, but if you hadn't distracted me I could have told you that I don't become a Jersey Devil when I drink." "So at least I distracted you?" he asked hopefully. "You always distract me, Mulder," Dana said rising and beginning to dress in her hastily discarded clothing. "Come on, let's go for a nice long walk to clear our heads." The spirit was willing but the flesh definitely was not. Mulder's head swam when Dana tugged on his arm and from somewhere a memory of the freezing cold and being small and helpless induced in Mulder a dread of the outdoors and a sudden deep shiver Dropping down by his side, Dana put the back of her hand to his forehead again finding it damp and chilled. "Mulder, what's wrong? You look like you're going to be sick again." "I didn't think I drank that much." In fact Mulder didn't remember how much he had drunk. Clearly too much. What a fiasco. Though he had never been around for their love making before, Sylvester had always seemed to be in the way. The cat had actually almost upset Mulder's glass three times, but Mulder had always managed to rescue it. Now he was sorry he had. He gave Dana the whipped puppy look he had read in those Romance novels that the women like so much. "I'm sorry, Scully. You know I don't drink as a rule. That wasn't like me. I don't know why I even started that. I don't know what I was thinking." "That's the point. You weren't thinking and you have been acting a little weirder than normal today. Actually, a lot weirder than normal." That comment really hurt and his fallen expression was not an act this time. He knew he was behaving erratically. He just didn't know why. In fact, that was probably the main reason why he probably had drunk more than was good for him. Being anxious about why he was acting so out of character had just caused him to drink more, which itself was out of character. "Poor baby," Dana was crooning as she ruffled his hair. It even hurt when she did that. "Maybe you'd better stay here and sleep it off. I wouldn't want you to fall down the hill and go boom." She paused and lowered her voice to a throaty purr. "Besides I have plans for later and I want you awake. We have unfinished business." His eyes lit from behind with that inner glow she loved. "You mean we can pick up where we left off?" "I doubt you could, I doubt you'd want to, but we could start over. Only my rules this time." He smiled. "I that case I'll make jello while you're gone." Playfully, she made a fist as if to hit him. "Enough already. Is it all right if I go? I want to find that view the guidebook talks so much about. That means I'll be gone at least an hour." Just as Mulder had managed to prop himself into a half sitting position, Sylvester leaped, and Mulder went flat down on his back again with a whoosh. The cat lay down on Mulder's bare chest with an attitude that he was not about to let this one get away. "I'll be fine," he groaned. "The mighty hunter here will protect me." Dana bent to pet the feisty little animal. "I agree I don't think Sylvester wants you to go." Picking up the black and white bundle of ragged fur, she held it up to her face. "I'll let Mulder stay and play with you on one condition - that you don't let him drink any more of that nasty concoction and, if he tries it, you have my permission to bite him this time. Can I count on you?" Wearing the most serious of expressions on its face, Sylvester answered with such a definitive yowl that Dana laughed. "There's my little guy. You'd better watch out, Mulder. I think he understands me." Quickly she gave the little cat a kiss on the nose and patted its head and then she bent down and gave the same to Mulder. "Now don't you two boys mess up the house too much while I'm gone." As he watched Dana prepare for her hike, Sam sat on Mulder's stomach, resisting a strong desire to territorially knead his paws and nails into that skin. Dana was going, Mulder was his, all his. Mulder was going to get the surprise of his life. ***************************************************************** End of chapter 6 ===================================================================== ====== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Mulder's Leap/silly QL xover 7/9 by Windsinger & K. Date: 8 Apr 1996 00:06:17 -0400 Mulder's Leap (7/9) by K. (1013@hehe.com) and Windsinger@aol.com (AKA Sue Esty) 2/26/96 See part 1 for notes and disclaimer. ********************************************* Mulder opened one eye. The room swayed blurrily, then focused. He rapidly shut the eye. He definitely had had too much to drink, either that or not nearly enough. What he had thought he had seen was Sylvester sitting in front of him - only Sylvester had looked to be about five feet tall and was sitting cross legged on the coffee table. Carefully, Mulder opened both eyes, figuring if one side of his brain was sending a false impression, maybe they would cancel each other out. What he got was the same incredible vision only in perspective this time. "What's wrrrong?" asked the giant cat in a voice with lots of rolling R's and a lilt. Rather Scottish actually. "Haven't you ever seen an alien before. I thought they were your forte?" Mulder realized he was now crouching on the couch with his wobbly legs under him prepared to spring over the back. Where was Scully anyway? Figuring, it never hurt to be polite to an hallucination, he found himself saying, "Actually, I don't think I've seen your type before. The Reticulans don't look like oversized, mangy tomcats." "If I didn't agree with your description I'd take offense," Sam muttered. Mulder blinked. "I don't think I caught that." "What do *your* aliens look like?" Sam asked. "Overgrown sunflower seeds?" "For one, the politically correct term is Extraterrestrial Biological Entity. E.B.E. for short. And if you've seen *Close Encounters of the Third Kind* you have a pretty good idea. Speilberg did his homework." As the apparition gave every intention of staying in one place, Mulder felt secure enough to hazard taking his eyes off the EBE for a moment to search from side to side and over the back of the couch. "Where's Scully?" he asked. "Or is she not part of this nightmare?" "Can't be a nightmare. It's two o'clock in the afternoon." The cat curled its scraggly tail rather gracefully over its hind feet. That was when Mulder noticed its front paws were much more like hands than paws. "As far as Scully goes, don't you remember? She went to take in the sights." Mulder read the glowing digital display on the VCR. The 'cat' was telling the truth. Only a half hour had passed since Dana had left to go hiking. The EBE spoke again and its tone was clearly serious. "Her not being here is fortunate because we need to talk and it's important to the plan that she not see me." "You have a plan?" "We think we do." "'We'? Then there's more than one of you?" "There was." Mulder searched his brain. There had been another cat. Dana had ragged him shamelessly about his not being able to remember seeing a grey female in heat who had inexplicably dropped by and, just as mysteriously, vanished. For the life of him, Mulder couldn't remember, but Scully certainly did and from her description of events, poor Sylvester did as well. "By any chance, would that have been a grey female with an attitude?" The giant cat's whiskers twitched in alarm. "You *remember* that?" "Actually, no. Scully mentioned her." Sam let out a sigh. He was glad Mulder did not remember much, if anything, about certain events in his life as a cat. "It wasn't her I was talking about. I meant I have a friend, but he's a hologram and you won't be able to see or hear him until you are wearing this body. Then, we theorize, you probably will be able to see him because this form is the original locus of the alien Al has in the imaging chamber." Mulder had to admit he had gotten lost about half way through that explanation, but he did notice there was a new addition to their little group. "By Al, do you mean the man with the bad wardrobe?" Sam followed the direction of Mulder's wide-eyed gaze and, sure enough, Al had appeared. "You can see him?" "Can't everybody?" Al and Sam exchanged worried glances. "Besides you," Al remarked to Sam, "only small children and animals can see me." Al looked back at Mulder who was wearing a rather dazed expression and idly rubbing his ear with the back of his hand. Mulder must have felt their eyes on him and glanced up sharply. "What?" Sadly, Al shook his head. "I can see what you mean, Sam. This is more serious than I thought." Mulder sat up straighter. His legs were drawn up offering a kind of protection but he was no longer poised to flee. "Who's Sam?" The cat pointed to itself. "Me. Sort of." "Sort of?" "We're going to have to tell him, Sam," Al said. "No one will believe him anyway." "That's certainly true," Mulder frowned. "This is going to sound impossible." Those were words Mulder lived by. "Try me." By the time Sam had finished explaining about how he was a physicist from the 21th century, who had been experimenting with time travel when he had gotten caught in this leaping and do- gooding, and had explained their theory about Sylvester and the alien consciousness wearing Sam's body in the imaging chamber, even Mulder's eyes were glassy. "Let me get this straight, you take over other people's lives in order to perform a good deed like some twenty-first century boy scout?" The cat assumed that offended air felines do so well. "I like to think of myself as more of a guardian angel." "You're not like any guardian angel my mother ever told me about. 'Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord I will not leap.' Do you really expect me to believe this?" Sam shrugged, or as close to shrugging as a cat can. "We hoped you would or this story is going nowhere fast. If I had made it up, don't you think I would have come up with something more plausible?" "Why are you telling me this?" Al answered this one. "Because we need someone who's comfortable talking to aliens - er - EBE's." Mulder almost laughed and Mulder never laughed. "Me? I admit I chase EBE's and everything else that goes bump in the night, but I've yet to catch one. And though I've seen one or two, I've yet to talk to one, and, if I have, none has ever talked back." "You're still as close as we've got." "And why do you need to talk to an EBE?" If the first long explanation left Mulder stunned, the second left him paralyzed. "They want to abduct me?' "I was sent here to prevent that. We just need some help this time." "So you want me to leap into the body of this alien cat and have Scully switched into my body so that the Caticulans -" "Caticulans?" Sam asked. "We have to call them something... So the Caticulans can scan Scully and not abduct *me* because *she* doesn't believe?" Al made a stab with his cigar. "I think he's got it!" Unwinding his limbs which were beginning to cramp, Mulder sat on the couch nearly normally. "And to keep Scully ignorant of what's going on, you suggest getting her drunk - In fact, you've already tried to get me to do that once, haven't you? - and that's supposed to work?" "So I'm told." "This actually makes sense." Al blew imaginary smoke rings. "Amazing, isn't is." Mulder turned to the Caticulan who had curled up on its side on the coffee table. "It's Sam in there, correct?" "Correct." "So if I leap into that cat-thing and Scully leaps into me, where will you be?" "What's left?" Mulder recoiled in horror. "Scully? Nooo... Ooooh, no! *She'll* make me disappear!" "Don't worry," Sam soothed reasonably. "I'm used to it. I haven't lost the virginity of a woman I've leaped into yet." Mulder hazarded a glance at the three quarters empty bottle of vodka. He had definitely had too much. "Scully had a good idea. Maybe I should take a walk to clear my head. Maybe when I come back all this will be gone." After pulling on his boots and coat, Mulder went out into the cold winter air. As a demonstration, Sam shrank down to Sylvester size and came along, bounding in the footprints that made a clear track out to the woodpile. ****************************************** Mulder sat on the pile of logs and stared into the grey sky. Beyond the mantle of the atmosphere was the blackness of space. It was a lonely place and he had no desire to get up close and personal with its cold desolation. He sat for a long time, coming quickly to the conclusion that he wasn't drunk any longer. Not even close. The cat had curled up in his lap trying to stay warm. "Sam," he started and then remembered that, as a cat, Sam couldn't reply and couldn't really assume Ezeeka stature, because if Scully should for some reason return early from her walk, it wouldn't help anyone for her to see Mulder conversing with a oversized alley cat. In compromise, Sam trotted over to the shadowed, open doorway of the nearby tool shed and enlarged, but he did not look happy. When the wind blew, his thin coat of air blew up like a woman's dress over an airvent. Somehow the sight of that pale pink skin and the goosebumps, made this whole strange situation suddenly possible. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'll do it," Mulder told the cat. Sam sank down on bare earth inside the shed and wrapped his arms around what passed for his knees. "Agent Mulder don't accept this plan lightly. There's danger." "Isn't there always." "I mean it. Even if everything works out perfectly, as far as the aliens and the leaping goes, there's still danger. What we haven't told you yet is that you leaped into Sylvester once before. Your consciousness was inside that ugly little cat for nearly twenty-four hours." Mulder stared. "If you don't believe it, look at the claw marks on your arm, and the teeth marks on your left ankle. When you were Sylvester, you did a perfectly admirable job of extending your territorial rights over Scully while I was in your body. Have you noticed that there's a day you don't remember?" "Days tend to get away from you on vacation, but Scully's mentioned some things. So?" "Have you also been acting a little... strange today?" "Strange? Scully wouldn't say that was at all unusual." "But particularly strange, even for you?" "Like?" "Like since when do you have raw salmon for breakfast?" Mulder shifted uncomfortably. "And had an aversion to baths?" Sam asked. Mulder stared. "How would you know about that?" The Caticulan brushed the long hairs on the end of its tail. "Sylvester was there." Mulder felt a shudder pass through him, remembered the little cat watching so studiously, as he washed his body with the rough wash cloth that morning. And took his time. And enjoyed it. "I think I'm going to be sick again. Is there more?" "Do you usually take cat naps in front of the fire in the middle of the day? And Scully - " Sam paused. Maybe he had said enough. "What about Scully?" Mulder growled. "Ah, do you and she usually go at it with such - " "*That's* enough!" Mulder said jumping to his feet, but he felt the ground sway and his stomach lurch and quickly sat back down again. "What we choose to do privately is our own business." "I agree, but those are symptoms, and I'm concerned. So is Al. This merging with the cat may have lasting effect. You should know that." Mulder put his chin in his hand. Felt the anxiety build. Al popped in and Mulder didn't even flinch. Before he realized it, however, he found himself scratching his chest. Guiltily, he stopped, not meeting Sam's worried eyes. "But you say I'm history if we don't do something like what you suggest?" Al, font of all statistics, answered. "Though the odds are better than they were, Ziggy says there's still a 93% chance that you disappear." "Those are better?" "They were 100% before Sam jumped. The 7% must come from if Sam tries to approach the Caticulans, as you call them, and make the arrangements." "And if I do it?" Al examined his device and looked almost pleased. "Only 28% chance that you'll disappear, obviously the same alien-loving thoughts which makes you the obvious choice for an alien's research project makes you an excellent choice as a fellow EBE. " Then Al jiggled the instrument and a frown appeared "Ah, but there's an additional 45% risk that Mulder and Scully end up in mental hospitals for the rest of their lives." Mulder sat up straighter. "What! You didn't say anything about this before?" The Caticulan's muzzle got a pinched look. Mulder assumed that was a frown. "I think I can guess. If all the jumps don't happen exactly right, things are going to be left in a real muddle. Your body with Scully in it - " "And Scully's with yours, right?" Mulder asked horrified. "Nope," Al corrected, "Sam will probably jump onwards to the next assignment which means the alien will swap with him and the alien will end up with Scully's. He's a young male? That will be a shock." "And what about me?" Al made a motion with his hands like the kind one makes to produce a bird from shadows. "You could end up flying off with the Caticulans as Ezeeka - that's the Caticulan's name - or, if they think you're too strange even for them, they could just leave you behind in the body of the cat. Fancy Feast for the next decade, if you're lucky, and with Sylvester's looks, I wouldn't count my kitty years." Mulder looked down at himself. Looked back at the giant cat. Stared at Al and the way he could see through the guy. He didn't want to be taken like some zoo specimen up in a space ship. He searched for aliens but only to get Samantha back. He hated them, they scared him to death. If he thought they would take him to his sister, maybe he would even agree to go willingly, but from what Sam said these were not even the same ones who had taken Samantha. They could be whisking him off to experiment on him and put him on display in some section of the Universe in a completely opposite direction from where Samantha was. And then there was Scully. He did not want to leave her. But he would not put her in danger either. It all came down to that in the end. "I won't involve Scully. I can't." Al paced, walking through the woodpile without a thought. "Think about this, Mulder. You'll ruin our success rate and that makes us look bad. Besides, this is the rest of your life we're talking about. Your disappearance will affect a lot of people. Just how many and how widespread the effect will be, Ziggy is trying to calculate, but you are one busy boy and your algorithm is extremely complicated." "You can tell, Ziggy - whoever Ziggy is -" "Ziggy's a sentient computer," Al explained, patiently. "A sentient computer? I should have known.... Well, you tell Ziggy not to bother. I won't endanger Scully's life, even to save my own." A woman's voice was suddenly heard. "Mulder, who are you talking to?" Mulder started so violent he nearly lost his balance on the stacked logs. He shot a glance towards the hologram who was not the least concerned about being seen. "Myself," he finally muttered, guiltily. Scully walked towards him. Her face was flushed with health from her walk. Her gait was much more relaxed than the one she used to stride so purposely through the halls of the FBI. Mulder wondered why did the precious things in life seem all the more precious when you were in danger of losing them? Her eyes had that suspicious look though. She had heard, but how much had she heard? "Oh, Mulder!" she exclaimed stepping quickly to the door of the tool shed. Mulder tensed, but she bent down and came up with Sylvester in her arms. Sam had been quick, she had not seen Ezeeka. "How could you have let poor Sylvester outside on a day like this. What were you thinking? He's frozen." "He wanted to come. He followed me out," Mulder replied lamely, while Dana cuddled the little creature. She unzipped her parka and slipped him inside so only his head showed. The cat's golden eyes were fixed in complete seriousness on Mulder's face. Gently, Scully petted the little head which made the golden eyes close. "Mulder, animals, have been known to do some pretty stupid things for love. Even Human animals. That's doesn't mean, however, that you should let them. What's up, Mulder? 'I won't endanger her life even to save my own'? Why am I thinking that you're planning to do something unselfishly stupid and not allow me to be part of the decision." There was no way out of it. Not this time. "I do have a problem." "Tell me." "I can't. If you understood, it would only make it worse." "But I can help?" "If you try to help, you'll be putting yourself in danger." "And if I don't help?" "Let's just say I won't die, but you won't have me to jump on your bones anymore. However, I can think of a certain infatuated blond analyst, an FBI Assistant Director and an FDA inspector who'd be more than willing to pick up the slack." "I don't want a fresh-faced college boy, a ex-marine jock, or a surfer head. I want you. You're more than a hot date to me, Mulder. Much, much more, as well you know. Now give." "That's just the point, I can't. You aren't allowed to know anything." "Don't protect me, Mulder," she warned in her 'Scully-is-not- taking-any-shit-today' voice. "I'm not only protecting you by not telling you. It would be more dangerous for me, too, if you knew and that's the honest truth. They even suggested that I get you drunk to keep you in the dark." "So *that's* where the vodka mimosas came from." "Oh, Scully, I would never consciously go behind your back and do anything like that. Believe it or not, I was subliminally influenced to do that." "At this point I'll believe even that." Mulder smiled weakly. "It was so against my nature, that's probably why I did such a lousy job." At that moment Al popped in, which gave Mulder a start. The hologram was nearly hopping with anxiety. So intent had Mulder been on Scully, that he hadn't even realized Al had disappeared for a while. "Mulder, Ziggy got some new stats which you are not going to like. If you don't let her help and you disappear, there's an 88% chance that Scully dies six months later because you're not there to gun down a certain ex-con before he gets her." Mulder groaned and dropped his face down into his hands. Feeling an unexpected pinch, Sylvester yelped as Scully crouched down beside her partner. "Mulder, what's wrong!" Scully cried. "Don't ask how, but I was just told that if you don't help me today, you'll be in even *more* danger a few months from now." "Working with you, Mulder, has never been boring. Are you hearing voices now?" "Guardian angels, actually." "Uh?" "Forget it," Mulder sighed. Scully put her hand on his knee. And looked up into his stricken face. "Mulder, I love you. Do you remember what Jim Kirk told that Keller woman in that old Star Trek episode? That someday a great poet would say that 'Let me help' was greater than all the 'I love you's' in the world. Let me help, Mulder. We've faced danger together before. We've faced it separately, too, when you've been too pig-headed to let me in, but we're stronger and better together." Mulder affectionately rubbed Sylvester's head where it peeked out from the opening of Dana's parka and Scully had the oddest feeling that he was talking to the cat. "I guess I don't have any choice, do I?" Sam meowed, sympathetically. ***************************************************************** end of chapter 7 ===================================================================== ====== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Mulder's Leap/silly QL xover 8/9 by K. & Windsinger Date: 8 Apr 1996 00:12:19 -0400 Mulder Takes a Leap (8/9) by K. (1013@hehe.com) and Windsinger@aol.com (AKA Sue Esty) 2/27/96 See part 1 for notes and disclaimer. ******************************************* Scully drained the glass, delicately smacking her lips. "It's not Perrier." "It's not lemons and snow globe water, either, Scully. It's one of your killer sedatives which I'm more than familiar with. Except for a little snooze, it's still not too late to back out." Dana shook her head, as she had each time he had made the suggestion, and opened her medical bag. "Let me go over this with you one more time." She held up a hypodermic marked in red tape. "This is an injectable sedative, just in case I start coming around too early and you need me out fast. Remember, red for stop." She held up some ampules. "These, as you know, are smelling salts. The stuff I've taken is not so strong that these won't bring me around a least partially." She help up another syringe, this one marked in green. "And here's a stimulant if you need me awake quick. Green for 'Go'. Got that? There are several of each just in case." Mulder was sitting on the couch with the saddest expression on his face. "Did you know you were wonderful, Scully." "That's funny, I thought you were the wonder." She closed the bag and yawned. That stuff worked pretty fast. Mulder opened his arms, beckoning. "Come here." She smiled and snuggled down into his lap. "I thought you'd never ask." They sat that way for a moment, her head pillowed on his shoulder. "Scully," Mulder asked in an odd voice. "Do you like me?" Scully's blue eyes which had closed, opened. "Mulder, I love you." "Do you like my body?" "You know I do. Every muscle and scar." His embrace tightened as if he wanted to remember the feel of her. "Then, if when you wake up, you find that something horrible has happened, if the world is terribly changed for you, promise me you'll adapt? That no matter where we end up, you'll go on with the work? And if I'm gone, remember I'll always love you and I'll be doing everything in my power to come back, though there may not be much I can do." "Mulder you're scaring me. Stop that," came her sleepy voice but her worry was clear even through her slurred tones. He stroked her hair feeling her body relax more completely against him. That was when he caught sight of Sylvester, Sam, that is, watching them discretely from the top of the bookcase. Closing his eyes Mulder had a fuzzy memory of the view from up there. Sam had been telling the truth. It had happened. It would happen again. Mulder continued, a tremor in his voice. "Scully, one more thing, if you can still hear me. If the worst happens and your world is not the way you remember it and I'm... lost, promise me that you'll make sure Sylvester is safe. Give him Spam on Saturday nights and let him sleep in your bed. Promise me, Scully. Please?" But she was asleep. Sam watched sadly from his lofty perch. He had seldom seen trust like theirs. Unfathomable. For a moment he considered how very deeply alone and lonely his life was and envied Mulder's to the depths of his soul. *************************************************** The cold winter air hit Mulder in the face as he stepped onto the back porch on his way to the car. He had dressed Scully in her parka and wrapped her in a blanket and now he carried her in his arms, her head against his shoulder. Even in her dreams Scully felt the touch of wintry air and stirred to sleepily wrap her arms around his neck. "Do i' ta me again, 'iger?" she murmured. Mulder's feet suddenly felt leaden, fixed to the wood of the porch step and guilt gnawed at his resolve. Gently, he kissed the top of her head. "Oh, Scully," he whispered, "if I fail I hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me." He held her closer. "That would be pretty odd, your ending up in my body. But lose your sanity? Never. You're a survivor if I ever saw one." Gently he laid her across the back seat of the car, then leaned in to watch her sleeping. "Hey, Scully," he continued, "you know it might not be half bad. You wouldn't have to worry about fighting the male-dominated hierarchy of the FBI any longer, or the AMA either for that matter, though you probably are not going to be thrilled about inheriting my reputation. And, yes, I still remember you telling me during that long stakeout one night that you always wished you were taller. Be careful what you wish for." Tenderly, her wrapped the blanket more securely around her. "Just watch out for nosebleeds for a few days." At that Mulder turned and saw Sam, who, as Ezeeka, was standing by the wood pile, a blanket around his thinly furred shoulders, gazing at the grey, cloudy sky. "Are you ready?" Sam asked. "No, but we might as well get it over with. Scully always says trouble follows me. This time I feel like I'm jumping down its throat." Sam kept looking at the sky. "Let's hope it has a well- developed gag reflex." Mulder followed the direction of Sam's gaze. "What's up?" The lion-eyes were shadowed. "Clouds. Just clouds. I had this funny feeling though." Sam shrugged the thin shoulders. "Probably nothing. Nerves." "Where's Al, by the way?" Mulder asked. "I can't see him missing this." "Ziggy's concerned about his being in the same area as the UFO. If their 'beam' is a similar technology to our 'leap', they might get some interesting energy traces and I don't want to make them suspicious." Mulder stared at Sam and his lank straight fur, huge cat-like face and knock knees. "Heaven forbid that we should do anything to make them suspicious." With reluctance, Sam handed his blanket to Mulder. "I've been thinking. I'd better ride to the site as Sylvester, just in case you have nosey neighbors. Then as Ezeeka I've got to find a UFO to buzz us the first time so you can switch with me. That will be the hard part. But definitely we need to crossover when I'm Ezeeka size. I don't want you exposed to Sylvester's primitive instincts any longer than necessary." "I'm just thrilled either way. You know, this is not the way I planned to spend my vacation." Sam tried to grin, but knew from forcing himself to look in a mirror that he it came out looking more like he was twitching his whiskers and curling of his lip. "After tonight, let's hope that you can get back to your vacation -" A voice behind them startled them both. "And Scully can get back to snapping on the old latex - " Mulder jumped and spun. "Al..." he exclaimed, not amused. "Sorry, was I wrong? Maybe in your relationship, you - ah - Gosh, it looked that way to me..." Sam stood shaking his head the long black and white hairs fluttering. "Best let it alone, Al, before you dig yourself in any deeper than you already have." "Hmm, good point." "What are you doing back here anyway?" Al opened his mouth, looked puzzled, and closed his mouth. "I forgot. Something I needed to tell you." "Whatever it was make it later, Al," Sam said. "My friend and I, here, have some leaping to do." "Well, excuuuse, me! I can see us mere holograms aren't welcome any more. You leap into one giant alien cat and you start getting a swell head." In a huff Al disappeared. Sam shivered. "Life as a giant alien cat just isn't what it's cracked up to be." With a resigned sort of expression cats perfected eons before, Sam closed his eyes, concentrating. "Just one last thing, Mulder. Leave the window open just in case Sylvester's prone to car sickness, okay?" A moment later the air around the shabby alien form began to blur and Sam felt the shrinking, the dropping down on all fours, the change in the intensity of the smells, and a small black and white cat stood in the yard shaking its head. This they had planned. Sam would travel to the site as Sylvester. What happened next they did not plan. A darkness passed over the yard. The odd feeling Sam had experienced had been trying to warn him. Something large had been approaching them from above the clouds. Sam felt his little body crouch low to the ground, felt the limp hair make a half-hearted attempted to stand on end. A panic gripped him. The cat within felt an overwhelming need to hide, to feel safe, and, without thinking, he made a leap for Mulder's startled arms. Startled, Mulder was still standing in the yard with Sylvester clinging to his coat when the world turned darker under the shadow. Before he could move, the thundering quiet descended, a light burst around them that was blindingly bright even in daylight. As the disorientation that came with the crossing over passed, Mulder's voice screamed "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! NOT NOW!!!!!" but it was Sam who cried out. Mulder blinked, and realized he was small and quivering with cold and fear and staring into his own face. ************************************************ Sam drove, and as he drove he swore over and over again to himself. This was not working out right. Could Mulder manage as a cat to do all that he needed to do? Certainly at the moment, success seemed dubious. Mulder was perched on the back of the passenger seat, staring intently out of the window, eyes fixed on the flights of birds, his tail twitching, his mouth opening and closing in a kind of spastic anticipation of delight. Frustrated, Sam brought the car to a grinding halt, took up the little cat and put it right up to Mulder's face. "Look, Mulder, get a grip. Concentrate. You can't let this happen. Not now. Do you like the feel of small bones breaking under your jaws so much that you want to spend the rest of your life chasing down Tweety Bird and Mickey Mouse? Think of Scully, if not yourself. Think of the two of you. You let yourself get lost in this and you'll never get that particular hot little female in bed again. Now have I explained the situation sufficiently in words of two syllables?" Something definitely got through. Mulder squirmed to get free and leaped lightly over the seat to curl up, protectively, on top of Scully's sleeping form, eyes open and watchful. Sam drove the car to the edge of the field. It seemed abandoned. He carried Scully to a clump of trees about a third of the way across the field and, wrapped in blankets, laid her down where the snow was less deep. Stubbornly, Mulder had refused to be carried and so he had to leap from footprint to footprint reach the clearing. Upon arriving he felt himself swept up in the man's large hands and deposited on a tree trunk so that they could 'converse' more nearly face to face. Sylvester's expression was one of bored tolerance. "Look, Fuzz," Sam began. "We're going to have a problem here if you don't starting thinking big. Now you're the G-Man. You work for the government, and the government knows more about thinking big than anyone. We wouldn't have a trillion dollar deficit if they didn't. You have to imagine yourself larger. It works, really it does. Trust me." Sam suddenly had a terrible thought. If Lacretia found them now, *he* would be the one wearing Mulder's body and, as sure as the moon was a big, cold rock, Sam believed in aliens now. Stunned a little by his perilous position, Sam soberly tilted up the little cat head with a finger on the bony chin. "Mulder, think. We're all counting on you. I know we didn't have a chance to talk about this, but it's vital that you pay attention to me." For his part Mulder did try, though he had to maintain his feline dignity and pretend that he didn't. He watched the giant's mouth and the sounds had a ring to them, like something he should be able to understand, but they came too fast and taken together were just noise. The drawstring on the man's parka hood, however, dangled enticingly. One paw reached out to bat it and Mulder was repaid with a delightful demonstration of the first law of thermodynamics, the actual definition of which escaped him for the moment. Roughly, Sam snatched up the animal. "No, Mulder, that's *not* the kind of attention I had in mind." The animal squirmed. The little cat face just looked so helpless that Sam gave it a apologetic pat, set it back down, and tried to think of a more direct approach. Mulder shivered and sniffed. The man had tucked the drawstring away out of sight, but it was there someplace. In addition, there was a smell about the man's coat, an incredibly familiar smell that promised safety. Mulder stuck his nose into the dark warm cavity inside the open coat. The man himself smelled incredibly familiar. There was nothing Mulder wanted more at that moment than to get next to that incredibly familiar man and get warm. Finding that drawstring wasn't such a bad idea either. Abruptly, Sam lifted the protesting cat. "Business, Mulder. All right, I've decided to make an appeal to your baser instincts, which I know you have." He stared the little animal right in its golden eyes. "Honesty, Fuzz, think about this... you don't really want to eat mice for the rest of your life, do you? I'll bet their fur gets stuck in your teeth. Just think to yourself - I want to be a big, strong kitty. I want to be able to bring down antelopes because their flesh in so sweet, Wildebeests because they're a challenge, David Letterman because he kicks scheduled guests off his show. Think about being the big cat you saw before, when I was the Caticulan and you were one hundred percent Mulder. Hey, I'll just bet Ezeeka can handle a can opener. You could even shop at the grocery store by yourself. I've seen stranger things prowling the aisles at three o'clock in the morning. Just imagine, Fuzz - Spam every night." Sam went on like that for the next ten minutes, trying to entice Mulder by listing the advantages to being Caticulan over just plain Sylvester. Giving up in frustration, Sam stomped through the snow to check on Scully, making sure she was warm. When he pulled open the blanket in order to wrap it more securely around her, he heard a low growl. Mulder was crouched low on his tree stump, hair brisling, teeth bared. Inspired, Sam opened the blanket more fully. In response, Mulder pounced. The leap was so deft and unexpected that he drew first blood, leaving long scratches on the back of Sam's hand, in reality Mulder's own, before Sam could curtail the spitting, angry creature. "Ha! So I found your achilles heel after all, you horny beast," Sam snarled, playfully holding the creature at arm's length. "Why am I not surprised. Well, you don't have a chance with her for, you see, I eat little upstart males like you for breakfast. So why don't you pick on someone your own size. Maybe an overgrown squirrel or a pomeranian." In response Mulder spat and made a lunge for the prominent nose. Sam responded by flinging the little creature as far out into an open space of deep snow as he could, taking care not to dash its brains out on a tree in the process. Mulder returned in seconds like a teeny, tiny hurricane of raw fury to find Sam had zipped open Scully's parka. Eight pounds of berserk warrior can do a lot of damage. He attacked his rival with tooth and claw, cat drool and snarls that would have made a bobcat envious, but Sam met every onslaught, refusing to give ground this time. Sam was betting on lust and dumb male pride to cut through the dominating cat thoughts where logic could not, and, if it took pushing Mulder to the limit, Sam would, though he wondered if Mulder would appreciate waking up to find out he had flayed his own body alive in the process. Sylvester was a small, skinny little kitty but definitely a feisty one. For Mulder's part all he knew in his jealous rage was that this *person*, as familiar as he may smell, was trying to lay claim to *his* female. Finally, too frustrated to see straight, the animal imagined burying this usurper six feet under. For that, however, he would need a big hole, a big, deep hole. That strong desire was all that was needed to get the process started. Mulder felt a fog clearing from his mind, felt raw red thoughts of death and destruction slide off to find he had his hands - or what passed as hands - around his own neck and was squeezing. The body, which he realized on some level was his own only with Sam inside, was coughing and choking. Mulder backed off, almost tripping over something which he found out later was his own tail. He stood shivering with the cold and the remnants of his anger. "Had enough?" Sam asked bending down to zip Scully's parka up again and rewrap the blankets. Mulder stared down at the body of the Caticulan. "You do this all the time? This leaping? Whatever they pay you, it isn't enough." **************************************** Leaving Sam to tend to the bites, scratches and bruises Sylvester had inflicted upon Mulder's flesh, Ezeeka's current incarnation moved out from under the copse of trees to look for... Truth to tell, Mulder was really not quite sure what he *was* looking for. Signs of a UFO, he supposed. Of other Caticulans. Luckily, he found them almost as if they had been waiting for him. Which, in fact, they had. There were two. One was clearly using a large, beautifully marked grey cat as a host. Mulder's awe and terror were such that it was a struggle to remember all that Sam had told him about Ezeeka's earlier conversation with Lacretia. He did remember to crouch down in a posture of submission. Considering the fear that was threatening to paralyze him, that part wasn't difficult at all. "Ezeeka, finally," the beautiful grey Caticulan said. Mulder found himself staring up into her face slightly distracted, something about her look and her smell made him all tingly. It was all he could do to keep his mind on the plan. What did Sam say he needed to ask for? Was that two or three fly by's? "Where is the Terran?" the female inquired. "I-I..." Mulder began. It felt funny to talk with this mouth. "Yes, what is it, my son." Mulder stared up from him groveling position. 'Son'? Could it be true? Then why was he having these clearly sexual urges. Ah, their minds where related but not their host bodies. And if she was Ezeeka's mother then he didn't have a chance of fooling her. Then, again, Mulder remembered, parents of teenagers almost invariably know their children less than anyone. "M-Mother," Mulder began, not entirely certain where he was going with this, "there is much that I would tell you, but I lack the permission which would allow me to speak in you presence and present my case in an acceptable manner. If only I were given leave, I would be satisfied." Mulder had to admit, he did not know where the stilted, formal language had come from, no doubt imprinted on his brain from countless hours of sleeping in front of flickering cathode ray tube, but if it were good enough for B-grade SciFi movies it was good enough for him. The female stood staring, open mouthed. "Excuse me?" "I'd like to make a suggestion?" Mulder summarized. "Why didn't you say so?" The grey female straightened and looked to her companion, a large yellow tomcat with a thick-neck and massive shoulders. "Our son wants to make a suggestion. Who taught him to think for himself?" The tone of her voice was different. Before it had been cool, authoritative. Now there was a warmth. "We both tried," her mate replied with something like a purr, "though I for one never thought he was listening. What change would you suggest, Ezeeka?" "The man's with me. He's groggy with sleep, but aware enough. I've been thinking that if the ship were to pass over this area three times before the examination and he still refuses to believe, then you will be triply assured of his unsuitability. Wouldn't that provide you with a more accurate sampling than your current protocol?" "Perhaps," the male agreed slowly, "but 'three'?. Why three?" "Isn't three the statistically significant number in this case?" Mulder was perfectly aware that it was no such thing, but why confuse the issue with the facts. Pseudo-science had worked for Montgomery Scott for years. The dominant female's eyes had opened wide. The tip of her long tail was touching Mulder on the muzzle. Almost a kiss. "An interesting variation on the algorithm. It *would* improve our results if we were able to choose our subjects with better care. We'll try your suggestion, but deliver the subject here immediately afterward." At that the two nodded and were gone. Amazed at the thought that this seemed to be working, yet almost too weak in the knees to move, Mulder headed back towards Sam and Scully. Hidden again within the circle of the concealing trees, Mulder was giving Sam a thumb's up with his new thick thumbs, when something flashed to his right, making him jump. "Al!" Mulder gasped. "You scared me half to death." Mulder directed his next remark to Sam who was sitting on a log dabbing first aid cream on the scratches on the back of Mulder's hand. "Do you ever get used to that? Those surprise entrances?" "I've learned to deal with it." Then Sam smiled ever so slightly. "After all, I wouldn't want to betray my cool exterior." Al, dressed in a silver lame space suit for the occasion, was flapping his arms. "Well, I don't know about you, but my exterior is pretty cool." Al bent and watched Mulder breathing. "Just how many of your cases require that you be able to see your breath? You need to ask for a transfer to someplace warm, like New Mexico." Mulder's reply was a stare that could have melted corrogated steel. "Al," Sam commented patiently, "where you are it's a comfortable twenty-three degrees Celsius." "Is it? Yeah, I guess it is. Hard to remember with all this snow." Al was moving, gesticulating madly towards where the UFO was supposedly parked. "Wow! Aliens. This is so amazing." Mulder as Ezeeka took Scully into his arms. "Sorry, I can't share your enthusiasm." Sam, rising from his log, began walking towards the outer ring of the copse to be out of the line of fire when things started happening. At the same time, he gestured significantly to Al to join him and leave the two alone. "Al," he called softly, "I thought you couldn't risk being here?" "It's all right. Ziggy cleared it." The hologram had definitely not followed as Sam had intended, but was unashamedly studying the odd couple. "Mulder, if you hold that woman any closer, you won't need an UFO to -." "Al!" This time Al caught the determination in the glare Sam shot him through Mulder's eyes and made a hasty retreat. Mulder didn't even notice Al's departure. Scully was in his arms, proportionally a much larger bundle than normal, and his leg was already beginning to fall asleep, but he was willing to risk a numb leg or two to have her this close again. They were not given a long time, however. Mulder lifted his head and caught Sam's somber gaze from the far edge of the trees. The ship was coming. The clouds had lifted and the shape could be more easily seen moving far above the trees. Mulder clung to Scully's presence as a talisman against the panic. He felt himself pass into a heavy twilight state near sleep. That would be the drug in her body. Mulder was not aware of much after that, but he did sense a man who looked like himself rushing forward from a position at the edge of the wood to quickly wrap Scully, now in Ezeeka's body, in a blanket and, in Mulder's own familiar form, to hold and comfort her in her disorientation and confusion, to remind her not to try to fathom what was going on. Mulder should have been jealous. As he drifted only partly in the world, he wasn't, strangly enough. After all it was *his* voice that calmed her fears, *his* hand she clung to even if directed by Sam's will. As for the words, Mulder did not think that he could have done any better. Pass it did. As the frail cat body coccooned in its blankets tensed in his arms, Sam became aware of the ship's swift return. Hastily, Sam reached into Mulder's coat pocket looking for the syringe he could have sworn he had put there. He came up empty handed. "Sam!" Al had returned and spoke anxiously, moving through the trees like some kind of frenzied spirit. "Sam, Mulder's got to go beddie-bye and I mean now or Scully's going to wake up and get an eyefull!" "Don't you think I know that!" Sam hissed. "Don't bust your firmware." With a sudden inspiration, he tried an inner pocket. With a sense of triumph, he came up with the red-coded syringe. Smoothly, he pulled the needle guard off with his teeth and plunged half the contents of the hypodermic into Mulder's thigh through a tear he had prepared in the fabric of the jeans. "Yuck!" Al exclaimed, "How can you do that!" "Sometimes a man's just gotta do, what a man's gotta do." For the second time the ship passed over. ***************************************************************** End of chapter 8 ===================================================================== ====== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Mulder's Leap/silly QL over 9/9 by Windsinger & K. Date: 8 Apr 1996 00:23:42 -0400 Mulder Takes a Leap (9/9) by K. (1013@hehe.com) and Windsinger@aol.com (AKA Sue Esty) 2/26/96 See part 1 for notes and disclaimer. ********************************************** Sam shook his head, felt the long soft ears flap in the breeze. Mulder's body was beside him, fast asleep with Scully's consciousness tucked temporarily inside. Al was pacing the cleared spot they had made their base and studying a chart on a piece of paper. "Can't tell a thing without a score card on this leap." He stared quizzically at Ezeeka. "Sam? Is that you?" "Last time I looked. Won't be for long, though. Scully's where she ought to be. Now where's Mulder?" Al gestured to the other side of the clearing. Sometime during the last pass, Mulder had lost his battle to stay awake and Dana's body had slept safely out of the way of the magnetism of Ezeeka's Quantum leap resonance. Sam settled down next to the lovely form, patting the slim shoulder. "Mulder, I know you're in there someplace. Almost show time." Sam felt Ezeeka's hair begin to stand on end. Definitely show time. *********************************************** Mulder woke. He felt the cold wind against his skin. For a moment he could not remember why he was lying out in the snow without his clothes. Then he raised his arm, saw the thin patches of long black and white hair. He was Ezeeka again, lying next to a sleeping Scully. Al was crouched down next to him. "I don't think I'm in Kansas any more," Mulder commented to Al. "Ever actually been to Kansas?" Al asked. "I spent a month there one weekend. Are we ready to go? I'm getting dizzy." "As far as I can tell, though the trouble may be in the going." Al looked from Ezeeka's scrawny body to Mulder's sizably larger one. "Hmm, I hope we haven't miscalculated. Are you going to be able to carry him out there?" Mulder flexed Ezeeka's arms and legs. "Cat are amazingly strong for their size. You'd better hope I can." Thankfully, Ezeeka was stronger than he looked and Sam had not injected Mulder with a full dose of the sedative into Mulder's thigh so that particular male body was not entirely a dead weight on their halting struggle across the snow. Al jumped around like a cheer leader as the giant cat half-carried, half-dragged six feet plus of Fox Mulder to the other side of the field where Ezeeka's 'parents' waited. As a climax, the examination was, quite literally, anti- climactic. Lacretia and her mate stood humming with hands/paws raised over the dazed, dark-haired, human male who kept trying to flip long hair that it did not possess out of its eyes. Their ruling came even more quickly than the O.J. Simpson verdict. "We read an openness to the possibility," the tomcat pronounced after their long silence. "Not unusual for Terrans. A borderline case." From his position with his belly in the snow, Mulder felt a icy sweat run down his back to match the affect of the snow on his stomach. It sounded like the Caticulans were considering taking his body after all, only this time they would be taking Scully's spirit as well, the part of her that made her Scully. That would be worse for her than anything. He had never considered the possibility that Scully might actually believe. Though she had certainly seen a lot, he thought she was too stubborn to admit the truth of what she had seen even to herself. And if they took her, where would he go when the real Ezeeka's spirit leaped back to reclaim his rightful place? Where would his own consciousness go? To take Sam's place as the leaper, talking to a holographic friend and being throw into one impossible situation after another like a puppet on strings? Speaking of holographic friends, Al had been hovering in the background. "What's going on, Mulder? This doesn't sound so good. Are they actually thinking about taking Scully?" Al rapidly began pounding buttons and swearing at the controller. "Al, chill out," Mulder muttered under his breath. "I'm trying to think." "Chill out?" the two elder Caticulans asked together. "Chill what?" Trying to cover, Mulder scooped up a paw-ful of snow. "'Chill what?' Oh, anything you want. Snow cone?" Without attempting any further explanation, Mulder began hastily, "Es-steemed p- parents..." Mulder paused, uncharacteristically tongue-tied. That silver suited leprechaun had rushed him. He hoped he was not sucking up so shamelessly as to be completely unbelievable. "After you kindly allowed this human to experience the magnificence of the ship's passage, to feel the ground tremble under its presence, certainly if this human were ever going to believe, he would now. A subject like that will certainly fail and end up skewing your results." Mulder made one last desperate attempt. "You could lose your grant." The last line seemed to get their attention. Budget cutbacks seemed to be rampant across the galaxy this year. The two conferred, ears and whiskers twitching. "We would have fewer data points in our clinical trial..." Lacretia began. "But our success rate would be higher with this new protocol," her mate suggested. "We might even surpass Team B's cycle record." Lacretia was clearly beginning to warm up to the idea. "And we would have fewer subjects to feed. That would improve the bottom line." Al was listening open-mouthed. "Are these guys in any way related to the Ferengi?" After a few minutes of this, Lacretia paused to look down fondly upon her son who crouched before her in the snow, both shivering and sweating. "At one time we might have taken this one, but your argument has merit, even more so because, coming from you, it is so unexpected. Your Group Leader thought you totally lacked any motivation. We are happy to see he was wrong. Very well. In the interests of improving the study statistics this one is rejected." Mulder realized suddenly that he was breathing again. This was going to work, it was going to work! A tiny part of him wondered, however, if he had just been insulted. Before he had time to wonder any further, he felt himself being raised from the ground. Two tails had reached out from opposite directions and were intertwining around his body - a grey tail striped like a raccoon's and a yellow one. He felt himself being drawn away from Fox Mulder's supine form. "Uh, oh...." Al warned unnecessarily from the sidelines. Lacretia's mate was speaking. "Ezeeka, we just want to say how proud we are. We'll talk of this more later, but for now we have to return to the ship - immediately. They have indulged us far too long, but we wanted to see to it that you had your chance." Mulder felt his thoughts beginning to weave in a panic. They intended to take him with them, take him now. Away from the life and the world he knew, away from Scully. Al's voice was talking somewhere, tense but calming. "Hold on, Mulder. Don't freak out on us. You give it away now and all's lost." Mulder knew this, but the terror he felt was too great. He pulled away. As the tails tightened in response to his resistance, he was almost overcome with the desire to drop down into the body of a small cat who could slip through their circle of tails and be off into the woods in a flash to hide where he could never be found again by them or anyone. "Don't!" Al ordered, and in that voice was the commanding officer Al, in fact, was, even if, for the moment, he was dressed in a silly silver space suit. "I know what you're thinking, but life is more than field mice, tuna fish, and nice rounded bottoms. Well, maybe the rounded bottoms part still applies... What am I saying...." Mulder did manage to slither from their grasp, to lay belly down on the ground, prostrate, subservient, tail between his legs. "Mother, Father..." he whispered. Fox Mulder never begged, but decided this might be a very good time to get out of that particular rut. "May I speak?" The elders exchanged amused glances. "Nothing's ever stopped you before. You've passed your age of maturity exam. You're an adult. You don't need our permission." Cats sweat through the pad of their feet. Mulder felt he could have wrung water from his clenched hands at that moment. Like a dog, he was almost panting. "I feel a responsibility for this man." He looked in the direction where his body was making weak, aimless motions, preliminary to waking fully. "It's cold here. Let me see him safely home." The female displayed the facial expression equivalent to a smile. "More and more interesting. You're showing a sensitivity towards sentient creatures we applaud, even if these humans barely meet the recognized criteria. You certainly are full of surprises today, Ezeeka." "Yes," the father agreed, clearly suspiciously, "we are *exceedingly* surprised. Very well, though it may cost you two days rations, I will placate the pilot with a game of *RAGATA* which he loves to play because he always wins. But you had better hurry," he purred in an entirely different tone than previously, "for tonight we'll celebrate. I think there are some other rites of passage a young male should be introduced to." Lacretia rolled her gold-green eyes. "I don't want to know..." Though the 'rites of passage' his 'father' promised had a distinctly tantalizing smell to it, Mulder forced himself to concentrate on the celebration part. Here was potentially the solution for to his very last problem. "May I ask one more favor?" Lacretia's eyes narrowed a little. "Don't press your luck, Son." "As part of my celebration, may I watch the ship pass over head two more time before I take the human back to his home. I enjoy watching the ship." Seeing that the yellow tomcat's next question would be 'why two?', Mulder hurried on. "Once for my old life, once for the new." The male shook his great yellow head sadly. "Now he's a poet. I don't think I can stand it." Despite the male's long-suffering response, communication passed between the parents that resembled purring in harmony more than anything. Lacretia spoke. "Let it be so." ********************************************* Back in the copse of the trees, Mulder first broke a smelling salt under Scully's nose to get her attention, then rubbed her lovely face with snow to wake Sam up from Scully's stupor. As the ship passed over the first time Mulder, as Ezeeka, held his own body, marveling at the size and the firmness of it, taking the once in a lifetime opportunity to become acquainted with what Scully must feel when they were together. At least he certainly hoped it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. If all went well, he would soon pass into his own semi-conscious form. A few dozen feet away, Sam had risen on Scully's legs which at the moment were not working so very well and was preparing to come forward to reassure Scully when she woke up in Ezeeka's form. Al hovered, standing by to badger Sam and keep him from falling asleep too soon. Sam would stay with Scully until the ship passed over for the second and last time when Scully would once again be joined with her loveliness, Sam would be an ugly giant cat again, and all would be as it was at the beginning of the story. And that is what happened. ******************************************** Mulder woke snuggled up against Scully. He was having some trouble pulling his thoughts together and the fact that a big, ugly cat was rubbing his face with snow did not help. There also the residual acidic tang of smelling salts in his nostrils. "Are we home yet?" Mulder croaked. Al was the prancing elf again. He was stabbing his finger on the control box and calling out readings. "Absolutely. You and Scully are all set to run off and do whatever it is you do best - actually I've seen a practical demonstration of what you two do best - with the clear and certain knowledge that you, Agent Mulder, are not going to disappear." Al stared suddenly at a reading on the box, slapped the instrument against his thigh, frowned, then shrugged, his brow furrowing. "Not for a while at least." With an expression still puzzled, Al waved his hand absently in farewell, walked through the door of the imaging chamber and was gone. Mulder shook his head and sat up. The fog was clearing but it would take some concentration. "What next?" he asked no one in particular. Sam as Ezeeka was crouched in the snow, arms around his knees. "Just in case the ship flies by again, you two get away from me as fast as you can." "What about you," Mulder asked his voice full of real concern. Ezeeka's shoulder's twitched. "Sometimes the powers-that-be give me a little 'vacation' and let me stay in one place for a while. Not this time though. I think this time I'll leap as soon as I know the two of you are all right." Mulder turned to look upon Dana's serene face. "Do you think you can drive?" Sam asked. "We've still got Scully's stimulant." Mulder stretched up to his full height, liking the feel of the familiar long legs and arms. "I can manage for that short a distance without the drugs. I hate needles and Scully says I'm hyper enough as it is." Sam gazed with unconcealed envy upon the tall man and his beautiful partner and at the tenderness with which Mulder prepared to lift her sleeping form. "In any case, you shouldn't be here when Ezeeka's consciousness comes back. He's liable to be very confused and, from what I gather, you've left him a lot to live up to." Rising from his knees with Scully in his arms, Mulder staggered a little, the drug still in him. When Sam offered to help though, Mulder declined. Protective, still territorial. "I can carry her. She doesn't weigh much." Sam looked down at himself. He was almost looking forward to his next leap. Anything would be better than this. "I guess I should make myself scarce." "No, come with us, if only just to the car." Mulder took in the skinny, shivering figure. Al had been right. No one would believe it, not even the trio from The Lone Gunman would believe this. "Sam, I hoped you don't mind me saying this, but I really liked you better as Sylvester." So Sylvester rode in the hood of Mulder's parka as Mulder carried Scully to the car. She was beginning to stir but being held in his strong arms gave her no incentive to make any attempt to rouse herself. Once in the car she curled up contentedly in the back seat with a small smile on her lips. In farewell, Mulder scratched the cat under the chin. "I'm going to miss you Sam, Sylvester, Ezeeka, whatever. Be careful out there." As he drove away into the dusk, Mulder found a mist clouded his vision. In his rear view mirror he could see a small, black and white cat watching the car as it sat alone in the ruts the wheels of his car had made in the snow. Turning over his shoulder to smile with love upon Scully's sleeping face, Mulder did not see the flash of blue light that flared a few minutes later. ************************************************** Sam lay and let the tingle from the leap pass. He stretched out a limb. Long. Normal amount of hairiness for a human male. Thank God! It was dark though. Really dark. Sam called out and heard his voice echo a long way off. Tiny lights he had thought were stars, but were too regular to be stars, stretched out above his head. He sat up, putting together the pieces, reading by the dim light the marks on the walls. As he read, he became aware that his eyes hurt and his stomach was growling and he was thirsty. Terribly thirsty. The air was bad, too. On the wall someone had written in chalk, "Ratboy was here." And somewhere in the dark a late model UFO sat and oozed World War II vintage diesel oil. "Oh, boy...." ************************************************** They were packing to go home. The last couple of days had been wonderful. Mulder had slowly shed most of his catness by forcing himself to do un-cat-like things - which were also un-Mulder-like things - such as eating vegetables and taking long baths. He usually preferred a quick shower. After all the cold showers he had taken before he and Scully became intimate, the practice had become a habit. To help with the long baths, Scully joined in and that made for some interesting hours. Mulder even opted for some softer, gentler sex and let Scully be the aggressor. And so, as the days passed, Mulder's problems began to sort themselves out. All except for one. He could not keep from worrying about Sylvester. When Scully ran the sponge over the claw marks on his arm or on his hand, he thought about Sylvester. When he put on his socks and saw the teeth marks, he thought of the straggly-haired little tomcat. When he watched the bruises on his throat fade from purple to green, he remembered Sylvester, in Ezeeka's incarnation, defending Scully. In his sleep he saw the small animal as he had last seen him, sitting alone in the snow, freezing. Beginning before dawn the morning after their - one would have to say - unique day, Mulder drove out to the field and searched for hours. He couldn't find a trace of the cat, however, except for a few small paw prints near where the car had been parked. Within a dozen feet of the spot, the tiny prints enlarged into Ezeeka's large ones which led back towards the ship but the trail was soon lost among all the other tracks the crossed that area of the field. Mulder took this all to mean that Sam had leaped and that Ezeeka, having come back to his own alien-host, had returned home to enjoy his 'rites of passage'. If Sam and Al were right, Ezeeka would 'beam' out of Sylvester, much as Sam had leaped in, to leave the little cat much as the Caticulans had found the poor thing. But there was no sign of Sylvester, no little bundle of shivering pink skin and black and white fur came running at Mulder's call, and the weather report predicted snow again by the end of the week. Mulder returned twice more that day with Scully this time and twice more the day after. Nothing. The last day of their vacation dawned grey and threatening, with a scent of snow in the air. Mulder stood on the top step of the back porch and called and called for the cat with a sing-song tone to his voice which Dana had certainly never heard him use before, but Sylvester never showed. With the field only two miles away, Mulder had hoped the cat would find its way back. By ten they were packed and after taking a final check for missing items - the meager remains of the economy-sized box of condoms was almost left behind - Dana pulled the car away from the cabin. "Scully, where are you going?" Mulder asked when she turned left instead of right out of the driveway. "This isn't the way back to Washington." "I just thought you might want to look around one last time." The look he gave her then made her wish they had another long and lazy evening in front of the fire. Dana knew that a lot had happened after she had taken the sedative. Mulder had explained a little, but he wasn't sure how much even he believed any longer. Something about UFOs and this particular field and cats. When she asked, he said he was willing to tell her, but doubted she would be able to believe him. Dana let the matter drop at that, afraid that she actually might. The part she found the most odd was how Mulder's feelings for Sylvester had changed. Before the afternoon of vodka mimosas, Dana would have sworn that Sylvester and Mulder were bitter enemies. Now, when he thought Scully wasn't looking, Mulder moped around as if he had lost his best friend. They searched for fifteen minutes. Snow, which had begun as flurries was coming down harder. "Mulder, we need to get out of these hills before the roads get too bad." "I know." If he had had a tail, he knew it would have been dragging all the way back to the car. "Mulder, Fuzz survived just fine before we came here." Mulder looked up curiously. "Fuzz?" "A few days ago you were calling him Fuzz all the time. Sort of a nickname." "I did?" "Don't you remember?" She touched his arm trying to sympathize. "I thought it was kind of cute. Sylvester Fuzz. Now that's a name you won't find in the stud books." A pain flitted across her partner and her lover's face. Dana wished she had not said that bit about the stud books. She had only been trying to make him smile. He was wickedly gorgeous when he smiled. "Mulder, as I said, he survived fine before he found us. He'll manage. He probably even has a family who cares for him and who probably missed him terribly during the days he was with us." Dana had tried to sound optimistic, but in her heart of hearts, she knew that was unlikely to be true. The little cat had some kind of a genetic defect which was why he had such odd and scanty hair. Their vacation had coincided with the first cold spell and the first snow of the season, and Sylvester was obviously a young cat, probably from a spring litter. He would never survive the winter. And he was unbelievably ugly. No little girl or boy would choose a cat like him to love and cuddle. Only Fox Mulder. Mulder opened the door for Dana and she slowly came to stand beside him. "I'm sorry, Mulder." He nodded. His eyes glistened but not with a secret joke or any kind of life. "I'm all right." One final time, he turned and looked across the field and the clumps of woods that dotted its periphery. He had been calling 'Kitty' and 'Sylvester', now he called "Fuzz!!" three times, a fourth, then stopped to listen to the sound of his own voice echo lonely among the low hills. From seemingly far off he heard a rustle of dry leaves. Heard the rustle again, but closer this time. Something small he could not see was moving fast within the little bit of woods to his right. Within seconds, an animal, looking like a cluster of black spots against the snow, burst into the open close to the car and launched itself at Mulder's chest, clinging with sharp claws that went all the way through his coat and into his skin. Mulder didn't mind. He wrapped his arms around the trembling beast and laughed. He opened his coat and put the little, shivering ball of frozen fur inside. Scully had gotten out of the car and came to stand beside him. She rubbed Sylvester between the ears and both could hear the loud contented purr. "What do you know, Mulder. Someone else who doesn't like their first name. Are you going to keep him? But your apartment building doesn't allow pets. " "I'll find a way." Mulder looked down at the beast snuggled against his chest. "What do you say, Fuzz? Want to come live with a G-man? I warn you, I keep odd hours." Dana shook her head smiling. "He has still got to be the ugliest cat I've ever seen." "None of us is perfect. Besides," the cat crawled out of his coat, up onto Mulder's shoulder, and began to gnaw on his ear, "he loves me." Dana came and put her arms around Mulder's waist and gave him a long hug. "Like some other people I know." ******************************************** THE END Acknowledgements to Douglas Adams, Steven Spielberg, the author of the 'Saga of Seed', Star Trek (the original series), Star Trek Next Generation, everyone else we stole bad jokes from and, of course, the cast and crew of Quantum Leap and the X-Files. So ends The First Adventure of Sylvester Fuzz. Could there be a sequel in here someplace? Fox Mulder and his ugly wonder kitty Fuzz: Do they prowl for hot females on a Saturday night? Will we see a return of Ezeeka the teenage Caticulan? Will there be Spam and salmon dinners in their future? What will Clyde think of all this? Exactly how sensitive ARE animals to the paranormal? Who knows? When we need a silly break, anything may happen. And if you are at all interested (I can't see how you could be), this is how it worked: consciousness/physical appearance 1. Start of chapter 8 Sam/cat Mulder/Mulder Scully/Scully 2. To tell aliens to fly over Mulder/cat Sam/Mulder Scully/Scully 3. Fly over 1 Scully/cat Sam/Mulder Mulder/Scully 4. Fly over 2 Sam/cat Scully/Mulder Mulder/Scully 5. Fly over 3 Mulder/cat Scully/Mulder Sam/Scully 6. fly over 4 Examination Mulder/cat Scully/Mulder Sam/Scully 7. Victory lap 1 Scully/Cat Mulder/Mulder Sam/Scully 8. Victory lap 2 - Final Sam/Cat Mulder/Mulder Scully/Scully