Rating: R-some sexual imagery.

Summary: Michael's having a hard time-literally. And nothing like beating a hasty retreat from a kiddie party.

Spoilers: None.
 

MICHAEL:

September 30, 2000

This is unreal.

This girl looks EXACTLY like Kellie Martin on ER.

And she's in my astronomy class.

Well, not in my section, but she's here on the trip, so she must be in the Thursday night section.

I wonder if I can switch to Thursday nights.
 

The clusters and galaxies and nebulae are cool, but the brightest thing in the world right now is Kellie Martin's clone.

I have got to talk to her.

This would be a lot less difficult if the Steinerts' kid, Max, hadn't decided to glom on to me like flies on shit. For some reason, the kid thinks I'm hot stuff, and hasn't left me alone all night.

Now he's asleep. He like went from 90 to 0 in ten seconds flat.

My leg is falling asleep.

I have no idea why little kids like me. Same thing happens with the Mulderette when I see her. She sees me and thinks I am like the hottest thing since you could get 'Debbie Does Dallas' on home video.

Be nice if women felt the same way.

I'd really like to lose this kid.

The problem is, I wake him up, and he'll probably be back at 100 miles an hour in less than 5 seconds. Mom and Dad try to keep him under control, but he is a piece of work, to be sure. I've heard more than a few comments about him, most of them guaranteed to lower their grade if Mom and Dad catch it.

And Mom and Dad are my teachers.

When did I become such a suck-up?
 

Casey finally grabs the kid and stuffs him in a sleeping bag. I'm amazed he doesn't wake up and I tell her this.

"Me, too," she says. "He likes you."

"I noticed."

"Michael...this expose you did on experiments at Fort Detrick in the 50s...are you able to document this?" Oh shit. I left off the references-but we always do at TMB. Our readers understand this. We get enough threats as it is.

"Uh...yeah. But I'd rather not." What a lame explanation-Jesus!

I hope Kellie's clone can't hear me right now.

"Hmm." She's pacing around, smoking a cigarette, drinking coffee from one of those thermal mugs. I can see where her kid gets it from her. "Normally, I'd mark you down for not including your biblio. That was part of the assignment. But if this is true-"

"Oh, it's true."

"-then I suppose I could understand why you wouldn't want to include your sources, since this will be in a publication that is at least theoretically available to the public. However, I would like to know the sources on this." Uh-oh. She's doing the hardass professor thing.

Why does she have to be married to the coolest prof I have?

"It's not that I don't trust your veracity in this, Michael. I have a more...personal interest."

"Why's that?"

"Because I think the person you spoke to was my father."

I really don't want to talk about this. And I'm not giving up my sources. I do that, nobody'll ever speak to me again.

"Okay, Michael, yes or no will do. Was the person's name Curran Lenihan?"

"Why, do you know him?"

"I hope so, he's my dad."

How much does she know? What's her deal here?

Fact is, that was the guy's name. I'm not sure I want to tell her this, though.

"Michael, my dad was a meteorologist at Fort Detrick for years and years. If it's him, you might as well tell me. Get you off the hook for the rest of your sources." She smiles at me.

I don't like this lady. She's manipulative as hell.

"It was him," I mutter.

"Thank you. You've got your "A."" She crushes her smoke under her heel, and I look at her again. She's not smiling this time-first time I've seen her look serious. Like her face isn't used to it. "My dad feels that, in spite of what he was told, that research into biochemical agents continued. And he thinks they've been used on the public, and experimentation on the public will not only continue, but escalate."

"What do you think?" Answer the teacher with a question-Socratic method, I think Ally calls it.

"I used to think he was just getting to be a paranoid old bastard. But as I get older...I'm not so quick to discount his ideas." She's still pacing. "He doesn't talk in specifics to my brothers and me, not too often. He says we're better off not knowing. But if this is going to be a threat to my kids..." she trails off. I've heard Ally use this voice.

Treat it like a hotel fire-stay low and don't use the elevators.

"You can subscribe, you know."

"Give me your URL." She digs into her purse and pulls a scratchpad out. I write it down-I hope she can read it. I have the world's shittiest handwriting, except maybe for my dad. His is really bad.

I got a new subscriber tonight.

But Kellie's clone has left.

Damn.

I have to ask Luke if I can change to Thursdays.
 

ALLY:

October 15, 2000

It's Saturday night...and we're at a kid's party.

It's kind of a joint celebration for Rebecca Mulder turning 1, and for her dad, who had a birthday the same week. 39. We all plan to roast the hell out of Mulder next year for turning 40.

We're wining and dining at their new home, which they've only lived in a few weeks. You can tell they're used to much smaller digs-they don't have a ton of crap bulging out from every wall. And Dana's got a housekeeper, so the place is tidy.

I'm thinking about getting someone to come in and clean. I can afford it now-I can't just throw money around, but I think I could spring for someone to come once a week and make the place navigable.

That would be a major improvement right there, being able to walk through a room with no fear that a foreign object will turn you face-down on the floor.

Of course, if I have them do Miranda's and Shelby's rooms, I'll probably have to offer hazard pay.

They're not with us tonight-they were invited, but declined, favoring social activities with their own groups of friends. Shelby's at a club, Miranda's at a concert.

Right now I am envious of them.

The Mulders are certainly gracious, but Dana's family is all here, and some of her old friends, and we can't get as crazy and drunk as we usually do. And certain topics of conversation are censored here-this family's Navy and Catholic to boot. And Mulder is reluctant to discuss work with her brothers around-they blame him for a lot of what happened to Dana, and while they're polite, the tension is palpable.

Byers and Juliet have shown up, and Frohike came with Jo. It might have been better had he not. Mrs. Scully and her clan all seem to have the wrong idea about Frohike and Jo.

Frohike and Jo, my former boss at CU, are friends. They are good friends who like to do things together and who have some common history. They don't sleep together. I've never received any indications that either of them had any romantic interest in the other. There've been some cracks made to that effect, and while I doubt the spirit was malicious, the comments were not
particularly welcome.

Still, they're more at ease here than Langly and me. Frohike and Jo are good Catholic kids when you get down to it, and they both have military experience, so they can deal with whatever's going on here.

I sneak outside to have a cigarette, and I notice Juliet follows me.

Juliet moved to the area in May. She and Byers are heavily involved, but not as involved as she'd like. They still live apart, for one thing. Juliet would like to change that, in particular by acquiring the title of Mrs. John Fitzgerald Byers. But Byers is still sort of hesitant, so she goes with it. She tried to rush things once before, and the results were not pretty.

"When did you start smoking?" I tease her.

"I didn't. But I needed to get out of there." It's chilly today, and neither of us have our jackets on. She hugs herself against the cold. "Here, let me breathe in some nicotine-filled air. Let me get my quota of secondhand smoke for the day."

"Did anyone say how much longer till dinner?" I ask.

"I hope not much, because once we have dinner, cake and presents, we are out of here," Juliet shudders.

"You guys have any hot plans for tonight?"

"There's a Masterpiece Theater on at 9 we'd really like to see. Otherwise, just your typical Saturday night fuckfest. You?"

I grin wickedly. "We have kids out of the house tonight."

She looks horrified. "And you're wasting your time here? You and Blondie need to go home and boff each other until your brains are tiny puddles on the bed." We're both laughing.

"I have to admit, we don't get as much privacy as we'd like, although with the girls in 10th grade, it's improving. Sort of."

"Privacy? Ally, privacy is a nonexistent commodity in your home. If that's your basis for getting it together, then you guys are sexually anorexic."

"It's not that bad, Julie," I assure her, laughing still, choking on some of the smoke I swallowed. "Wait till you guys have kids. It gets harder."

"Yeah, but I'd really like to see how much harder." She looks wistful. "I wish he'd make up his mind. It's not like I'm getting any younger, and the alarm on my biological clock no longer has a working snooze button."

"You talked about it lately?"

"Not really. I pushed once. I'm not doing it again. He has to bring it up next time."

"You really love him."

"God, I can't even describe it. It's like-I'm no longer myself without him. And I really hate being that way, and I love it at the same time. Doesn't make any sense."

I hold up my left hand and display my wedding band. "Sure it does. Do you read Hebrew?"

"Sorry, can't say as I do."

"The translation of this is, 'I am my beloved, my beloved is me.'"

"Wow. I mean, I always thought they were gorgeous rings, but I didn't know that the text was significant. Did you guys have these made?"

"No, Langly found them in a jeweler on P Street. The same jeweler made my engagement ring-twice." I'd had to have the ring cut off when I broke my arm, and Langly had it reset.

"Personally, I still believe diamonds are a girl's best friend," she grinned.

"My first husband gave me a diamond, and I really liked it, but this is just so much more...Langly-like." I admired the periodot and white gold ring that graced my right hand. The two rings together were too large to be worn together on just one of my hands, which are about the size of a child's.

"At least John's not wearing his old ring anymore." It had been removed when he'd been hospitalized, and he'd given it to Frohike for safekeeping. So far, he'd never asked for it back.

"Well, I don't know if I told you this, but John said something to me at the wedding."

"Oh? What'd he say?" You could see her ears visibly prick up.

"He said, he wasn't ready yet, but he could see it happening down the road."

She gnawed on that for a while. The taste of it seemed to agree with her.

"Let's go inside," she suggested. "Maybe dinner's almost ready."

"And the sooner they serve dinner-"

"The sooner we get dessert." We giggled like two high school girls and rejoined the party.
 

Dinner was catered; Dana wasn't much for cooking, both due to lack of inclination and lack of time. Her mother probably would have prepared the whole spread, but Dana had balked sufficiently. There are very few forces that can stand up to the power of Maggie Scully, but her daughter is among the privileged few. It was from an Italian place in Silver Springs, where
they were now living.

"It's not bad, but give me Bustamante's any day," Langly whispered to me. "Or yours."

"It's food, Langly. We're finally eating. Don't whine." I then buried my face in his long locks and whispered back, "Which means that soon they'll serve dessert and open presents and then we can bail."

"I think sooner'd be better than later in this case," he concurred, and returned to his ravioli.
 

"God, I couldn't wait to leave," Langly breathed in a huge gasp of cold air as we left. "Sorry, just not my kind of gig. We definitely give better parties."

"I have to agree," I assured him. "I thought Michael was coming."

"Said he had work to do."

"Wish that would've worked for us," I laughed, and so did he.

"Well, hey, it's not every day your kid turns one. I can't believe they're having another one so soon." He unlatched the passenger door of the Neon, and I slid in.

"I can," I told him when he'd settled into the other side. "How do you think Dana kept him away from the pub crawl after the wedding?"

"I dunno. I say we try the pub crawl alternative for ourselves."

"Home, James."
 

MICHAEL:

A car pulls up. I can hear it. It's Ally's Neon. She and Langly took it to go to Mulder and Scully's house. They always take hers.

I was invited to go, but I didn't want to. Not because I don't like the Mulderette-I do-but I just couldn't deal with a bunch of people I didn't know. I get enough of that at school. I'm so out of place there.

And even here, where I know people, I always feel like I don't belong. I mean, sometimes my dad and Langly and the prof tell me I did okay or something, but not too much. They're not into that kind of thing. It's like if they tell you you did okay you'll get lazy or something.

I'm not lazy. Nobody can say I'm lazy.

I've still got a 4.0 average. We're half through the semester-midterms next week. We don't have to get an issue out for two weeks, so I say I'm gonna study for my midterms. Which I don't really need to do. I don't study all that hard. And there's no midterm in writing class, just a paper, and it's not due till Friday.

So I write the Java program that's due on Monday-it's a snap. I could be teaching this class.

One good thing: Luke let me change to the Thursday night section for astronomy. Thursday's less crowded than Tuesday, he said no problem. He's a lot less anal than his wife, who gives me A's but still writes all over my papers how I could make it better.

I live for Thursday nights.

Thursday nights are key. First there's astronomy, where I can watch my dream girl in class, and then I can come home and watch her again on ER.

I haven't spoken to her. I don't know if I ever will. She'd probably scream and run if a dork like me came up and tried to talk to her.

I want to, in the worst way. And it's not the only thing I want to do.

And she seems so nice...but maybe if I try to talk to her, she won't be so nice.

And get this. Her name's Kelly.

When I heard Luke call her name the first time, I started cracking up. I got a lot of weird looks.

Kelly. I think about how cute she is, with her long dark blonde hair and big blue eyes and how she looks in a pair of jeans. She's got the cutest little ass. And real nice tits. Not huge, but real good shape. And even better, she's short. Not as short as Ally, but shorter than me.

Thursday night she had on these tight Levis hugging her ass and she was wearing a T-shirt that made her tits stand out. She had a bra on, but it was one of those real thin ones where you get cold, the nipples show right through.

I damn near had a wet dream in class, and I was wide awake.

God, I want this girl.

So what do I do? Am I supposed to go up to her and say, 'Hi, I'm Michael Frohike and all I do 24/7 is think about fucking your brains out?'

I don't think so.

And she seems smart. She answers questions in class, something I don't do, and she's always right.

I wonder what her major is.

The lights go on in the kitchen. Kids are out, so I can guess what's gonna happen next. They're gonna grab a couple of brews and head on into the bedroom and fuck like bunnies. Happens whenever the kiddies are gone, like clockwork. It's not the only time it happens, but you can be sure if Miranda and Shelby are out, Ally and Langly'll be tearing up the sheets.

I've read Ally's journal, so I know they're not real imaginative. Definitely not kinky. They seem to have pretty much straight-up sex, nothing real fancy.

But they make a lot more noise when the kids aren't there.

I know this because I've gone in the house when they've been having at it, and I've heard the sound effects. Ally's noisier than he is, but if there're no kids around, he's not afraid to let loose a bit.

I've read her descriptions of how he looks when he comes.

I don't think knowing this is making my life better.

God, they are so lucky.

While they're having a major boinkfest, I'm out here in the offices, munching on cold pizza, sort of half-assed researching an article for next month's issue, and getting a hard-on for a girl who in all likelihood will never even say hello to me.

I go to my dad's desk and hope he's got a video or two lying around.

I could sure use it right now.

END OF PART 5