Rating: PG-13, only because some tongue was added and there's somebody living it up in the office.

Summary: Another Hanukkah party rolls around at Chateau Langly...and another Frohike disaster visits it.

Spoilers: Memento Mori, but only the reference for black and sexy. No funky poaching.
 

I would really like to avoid my dad right now. Not only do I have Kelly here, and I'll never hear the end of that, but I also probably look like shit, and I feel like shit, and like I really need him to drag me home right now.

Kelly's really grooving on my hair. "Ally's daughter did that for your hair?"

"She's not licensed. But she does all right."

She runs her hand through her pretty dark blonde locks. "I wonder if she'd be willing to give me a trim. I don't really have the money and I really need to get rid of the dead stuff."

What dead stuff? Her hair is perfect!

"You don't really wanna do that," I tell her.

"Sure I do. Can you introduce me?"

"Didn't you meet her before?"

"For about one minute, and she'd just woken up. C'mon, I'm game."

Whatever.

If Miranda thinks I would have killed her for fucking up my hair, then she hasn't even dreamed of what I'll do to her if she fucks up Kelly's.
 

Miranda, naturally, is real happy to have another victim. Kelly tells her she just wants the ends trimmed. Miranda asks if she wants a makeover. Kelly's like no, that's okay, I don't wear makeup, Miranda tries to convince her she can make her look really hot. Finally Kelly gives in.

Like I said, nobody says no to Princess Miranda.

I wonder if Jesse can get it up on command.

Miranda takes about half an inch off the bottom of Kelly's hair, and I got to admit it does look a little better. Then she drags out the makeup-and she's got buckets of the stuff.

What do women do in the bathroom, anyway?

Watching her make over Kelly is a little revelation about what they do. Kelly doesn't want her to do anything drastic. So Miranda at least gives a fuck about her victims, and she goes along with what Kelly wants.

This is nice because I can just stretch out on Miranda's bed while she does Kelly. Miranda and Kelly are talking about college and stuff, and Kelly's telling her she wants to be a doctor and all.

Miranda says I should introduce her to Dana.

I did promise her I'd do that once. I just haven't gotten around to it.

The good Dr. Scully is upstairs, so when Kelly's done-and she does look totally hot, I confess-we head upstairs. I need to find Ally, because Kelly and Dr. Scully will talk about medicine, and I don't interpret too good. I know a few signs, but nothing like Ally does.

Dr. Scully's supposed to be off her feet, and she's in the recliner relaxing. She looks pretty puffy, Ally says she has problems when she's pregnant, but she's definitely not fat and ugly. She looks like this real ripe peach. I introduce Kelly to Dr. Scully, then go to find Ally. She's usually in the kitchen.

I find her, in the kitchen, and she's in some sort of tonsil tournament with Langly there.

I guess if they were in a dry spell, it's over now.

Fuck it. He can have sex with her anytime. And they've got company, dammit.

"Hey Ally."

She looks up for a moment. "What's up?" You can tell she's kind of wasted. She starts giggling as soon as she looks at me. "Hey, your hair looks good. My daughter make you one of her victims?"

"Yeah. Anyway, I need a favor."

"Jesus, he comes in here like this and then he wants a favor." Langly shakes his drug-kingpin hairdo. "I need another beer." He grabs a cold one and starts back to the living room, but not before he kisses his wife again, real hard, on the mouth.

The black and sexy worked, apparently.

"My friend Kelly's here, from your chem class, remember?"

"Since the class only ended the other day, I'm not that wasted yet." She's still giggling. "You want me to come out and talk to her?"

"No, I need you to interpret for me. She wants to talk to Dr. Scully about medical stuff, and you're the only one here who can do medical stuff."

"Sure, why not? You want another beer, Michael?"

"Nah, that's okay."

"You feeling all right?" She's not giggling anymore. "You're really pale there, boy."

"I'm okay. Can we go see Dr. Scully?"

"Sure. Let me get another drink and we'll do it." She pours herself another maggie and we head out into the living room. Langly stops her, dips his finger in her maggie, and runs some of the maggie along her lips, and she starts sucking on his finger.

Goddammit, they can do this later.

She tells Langly there's more where that came from, and he grins at her real evil-like.

No big secret what they'll be up to tonight.

So Kelly tells Dana, with Ally's help, what she's doing, how she's a premed and all, and she'd really like to get a job in medicine instead of working for her mother's diner.

Dr. Scully seems to like her, they talk a lot about medical school.

It sounds pretty brutal. But Kelly's into it.

Dr. Scully tells her that she doesn't have openings in her lab, it's only grad students and above, but over at the hospital they use undergrads in some of the labs. She promises Kelly she'll go online and make some calls and see what's up. This makes Kelly real happy.

Kelly thanks her a lot, tells her it would be nice to do something where you don't get your ass pinched by a bunch of idiots all the time.

Dr. Scully raises one eyebrow and tells her that it's not much different in medicine. The idiots are just more educated. Kelly laughs, she's not taking this seriously.

I really feel awful. But Kelly's here. And I want her to be here. She wants to go say hi to my dad, but if I look as bad as everyone says, he's gonna drag my ass right out of here and make me go home to bed.

Later will be fine, thank you.

Right now I just want to hang with Kelly. I ask her if she wants to come outside and see where we publish the magazine. She says sure, okay.

I'm ready to put my keys in the lock and hit the security code when I hear all this moaning going on. Kelly hears it, too. She doesn't say anything, just sort of looks at me like, uh-oh.

Byers and Juliet. Fuck.

Don't these people have homes they can go to, goddammit?

"It's okay, we can sit out here if you'd like," I tell her.

"Are you sure? Shouldn't you be inside?"

"I'm okay."

"Well, I'm freezing, and I'm hungry. Mind if I get something to eat first?"

We go back in and Kelly grabs some soup and salad and bread. Ally's got this killer selection of breads, like challah (good enough to make you want to be Jewish), and blueberry muffins and seven-grain and some of her killer garlic bread. With cheese.

I don't want any right now. I would, but I can't swallow it. I settle for some margarita mix on ice, and I offer Kelly some. Kelly's only 18, and Ally's real strict about not letting underage people drink at her house.

Overage people, they can go nuts if they want.

It's not raining anymore but it's chilly out and it's real damp. We sit on the balcony near Ally and Langly's room. They have some chairs out there, I wonder if they've ever come out here naked.

Probably not. You can walk up the steps from the backyard to the balcony and you can see things real easy from here.

"This is delicious," Kelly's mumbling as she's stuffing herself. "It's so nice not to eat diner food."

"Ally's a good cook."

"What about you?"

"I ate already." Lie, but she doesn't have to know.

"Thanks for introducing me to Dr. Scully. She's nice, and I could really use the help. I'm amazed though. She's deaf and she's still a doctor. Was she always deaf or did she just become that way?"

"Ally says she went deaf about two and a half years ago after some virus. So she used to be able to hear."

"That's impressive. It's hard enough to do this when you can hear."

"Dr. Scully's pretty smart. She used to be a Fibbie, you know."

"No, I didn't. Really."

"Yeah. But then she lost her hearing and she couldn't be in the field and she said if she couldn't be in the field, she wasn't gonna do that anymore. She says she misses her gun." We both laugh, but then Kelly looks sad, and angry, all at the same time.

"I hate guns," she says softly.

"I hate 'em too."

"They're bad news. If it wasn't for a gun...my dad might not be where he is now."

"Where's your dad?"

"In prison." She sounds embarrassed.

"Hey, my dad some time, too."

"Really. Where?"

"Club Fed in Danbury."

"That's for white collar criminals. No, my dad-he's really my stepdad, but I don't know who my real dad is-got in this barroom fight and he had a gun and he shot somebody. And my mom divorced him."

"Sorry." What else do you say.

"It's okay. I'm not going to live that way. I'm going to get away from all that."

"You will."

"You know, you and Dr. Scully and Ally are about the only ones who don't laugh at me or shine me on when I tell you what I want to do. Everyone else, they think I'll get real someday, their words, not mine."

"You'll be a good doc."

"Thanks. That means a lot to me. Just to have somebody take me seriously."

"It's cool."

"God, I almost didn't get here. I wanted to get off early, but we got sort of busy and my mom asked me to stay, and I stayed until my shift was over, and she wanted me to stay longer, because she let my little sister go and she didn't have enough help, and I just said, sorry, I have to be somewhere. And she let my sister go because she says she was there all day! Like I didn't have things to do today!"

"That's hard."

"It'd be so great to have a job in something I want to do, away from my mother's diner, away from all the jerks I went to high school with and everything. Even my best friend, she went and got pregnant last year, and it's like, I see her sometimes, but we're so far apart now. I went a few miles up the road and it's like I went a million miles away or something."

"Dr. Scully'll help you."

"My mom's gonna shit, but too bad. I'm not gonna end up like her. No way."

"You won't."

"Hey Michael!" Oh God. It's the little Sternberg monster. Alex. Shit. Shit. Shit. That kid gloms on to me like flies on shit.

"Kids like you a lot," Kelly says.

"Yeah. Little kids and big dogs." What an advertisement for my personality.

"I think it's neat. I know I talk a lot about how I don't want kids, but I really don't want them right now. Maybe someday. I actually like them a lot."

"This one could change your mind." I lean over the edge of the balcony and see Alex down there with the soccer ball.

"Michael, play with me!" He's jumping up and down all over the place.

"I don't wanna," I barely can get the words out. Like I could really run around the yard and play soccer right now.

"Play with me!" The kid is nothing if not persistent.

"I'll go play with him," Kelly offers. This is cool by me. I'm not up to a game with the Tasmanian Devil right now.

Kelly comes down, but Alex is really getting pushy. "I want Michael! Michael! Play with me!"

I figure I'm good for about three kicks or so, then I'm gonna have to bail. One thing about Alex, though: nothing much keeps him going for long, so maybe that's enough that he'll leave me alone.

So I barely make it down the steps to play with Kelly and Alex, and Alex kicks the ball to me. The ground's all wet because it rained and it's real cold out. My breath is like this big wet grey cloud in front of my face.

So I kick it to Kelly, and Kelly kicks it to Alex, who kicks it back to me. He gets mad because I don't run after it.

Run after it? He's gotta be kidding.

Right now I feel like I can barely stand up.

"You're supposed to run!" Alex is getting real annoyed at me. Usually when we play, we play real hard and I give him a run for his money, but not tonight.

"If you kick it to me, I'll run," Kelly tells him.

"No! I want Michael to play! Why won't you play with me!"

Because I feel like shit, you little monster.

"Okay, you kick it, and I'll run for it one time," I tell him.

"'Kay!" He's all happy now. He boots it with all his might-and like his parents, he's one fucking big kid, and strong. I'm gonna have to make a chase for it so it doesn't fly over the sensor fence.

I'm small and usually I'm pretty fast, but right now it's like the world is in slow motion. I try to call Kelly to catch the ball but nothing's coming out of my mouth...

I can't catch my breath...

Fade to black.
 

Fuck. I am so cold.

I don't know what happened, but I open my eyes and I'm lying on the ground and like everyone at the party is hanging over me.

I don't know what happened, but I'm positive I made a total ass of myself.

I try to get up, but nothing's happening. Then I feel like I'm being lifted off the ground.

I am. It's Dad and Byers and Langly and Mulder, all carrying me off. Kelly's right nearby, and from what I can tell, she looks kind of upset. They set me on the sofa, at least the sofa's warm, but I can't stop shivering.

Then it's Jo and Dr. Scully hanging over me. Kelly and Dad pile some blankets on me, but Jo pulls them back for a moment to see what's happening with me. I'm freezing.

Ally brings me a commuter mug filled up with something hot and tells me to drink it.

I can hear Dr. Scully and Jo tell my dad I have to go to the hospital right now.

I don't want to go anywhere. Maybe home. Where I can get warm and curl up under the covers and die of humiliation quietly.

I look over at Kelly. She says she'll go and meet my dad at the hospital, and that I'll be okay, but I scared the shit out of her.

She wants to be a doc, she's gonna have to get over that in a hurry.

But in a way it's sort of nice I could get her to react.

I fade out. Again.
 

December 9, 2000

Next time I wake up I'm totally confused.

I'm in a bed, but not mine.

Oh God. Once again, something sticking in my arm and something popped over my nose, which totally is freaking me out.

But my dad is here. He sees me wake up and he comes right over and gives me a hug.

And then Kelly comes over and gives me just a real small, quick hug.

I really must have died and gone to heaven. Kelly Martin just hugged me.

I'm trying to talk, but it's not coming out. Dad says I've been asleep for about fourteen hours.

What the hell day is it?

I can't see anything. Where are my glasses?

I want to go home. I don't like this place. Even with Dad and Kelly here, I hate it.

I'm real thirsty. Dad hands me some ice to suck on.

Kelly tells Dad he ought to get something to eat. Dad is ready to object, I'm sure, but then he thinks better about it. He's probably going to stay with me all night, he's gonna need some strength.

At least I hope he stays all night.

Kelly tells Dad-she calls him 'Mr. Frohike,' which sounds real funny to me-to get something and she'll stay with me until he gets back, but then she has to go to work so her mother doesn't have another major shitfit.

Dad leans over me, and I think he's just gonna hug me again, but this time, he kisses me on the forehead and tells me he'll be right back.

I don't need to die of pneumonia. I'm already going to die of humiliation.
 

"Your dad's real worried," she says.

"Yeah, I know. I just wish-"

"What?"

"You know, do stuff like that in front of people." If I was a redhead, I'd be blushing now.

"I think it's nice," she says. "At least you have a parent that acts like one."

"He's gonna drive me insane. I can tell. He's not gonna let me out of the house the whole vacation."

"Hey, at least he's not telling you to call the light company to deal with the bill because she doesn't have the money and she's embarrassed and anyway, I can do it so much better." She sounds bitter. Way bitter here. "My mom does stuff like that all the time. It's like, something happens, her solution is, I'm gonna go have a cigarette."

"Ally does that."

"Ally has a smoke and deals with the problem at hand. My mom doesn't. She's still looking for prince charming to make it all better. And I hate to tell her, but even if she does find him-which is highly unlikely-he's not gonna make it all better for her. You'd think she'd have figured that out by now."

How about you, Kelly? You looking for prince charming?

I'm scared to ask her that.
 

December 10, 2000

I wake up and Dad's snoring away in the chair. I must really have been out of it, because he could wake the dead the way he snores.

It's daylight. He must've stayed all night.

I feel better in a way that he did this, and I'm sort of embarrassed that I need him to so bad.

I should be old enough to deal with this shit myself.

But I can't.

What happened to me? I lived on my own for years. I dealt with all this stuff myself.

But I can't do it anymore.

Maybe I never could.

Maybe I just didn't know what I was doing.

Maybe I still don't know what I'm doing.

But maybe my dad can help me out on this.

I sleep.

END OF PART 21