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Disclaimers: The X-Files characters mentioned in this story are the official and legal property of Ten Thirteen Productions and are used without the permission or knowledge of their owners. No offense or harm is intended.

Other: I stole a lot of things besides the characters. Weird bumper stickers, urban legends, quotes from various and sundry people, etc. I'm amazingly sorry. Also this story lacks any purpose and any real content. Gratitude goes to Lynn for sandwiches and betaing.

Author: annezo @ fastmail . fm

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It wasn't appropriate for an AD to accompany a Department Head on a routine case interview. It violated standard procedures. On the other hand, no one was more aware than Mulder's boss of the unexpected, and unfortunate, things that tended to happen when the agent collided with anyone from the military. So, Skinner had had Kim re-schedule his morning appointments so that he could risk his life with Mulder's early rush hour driving.

With any luck, the interview would be over quickly. No matter how insistent his superiors were that he keep a closer eye on Mulder, he wasn't thrilled with the idea of trailing around after the younger man while he interviewed dubious witnesses to even more dubious sightings of alien invaders.

In any case, in the time that he had supervised Mulder's work on the X-Files, Skinner had reluctantly come to accept that there were a lot of things that could never be described, explained, or categorized on of one of the Bureau's neat report forms.

They arrived at the small diner at exactly 6:45, the time specified in the e-mail Mulder had received.

"Well?" Mulder motioned toward the small building. "You ready to do this?" He smiled blandly.

Skinner knew that the agent knew that there was more than one reason for the his boss's presence. It was probably just because Mulder seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood this morning that he hadn't already tried to push Skinner into explaining. On the other hand, as the AD was well aware, Mulder had the patience of Job when it suited him . . . .

"Let's go." Skinner led the way to the diner. He'd explain later, right now they needed to get to work.

Cool air flowed over them as the glass door jingled shut behind the two men. Skinner glanced around and spotted Mulder's semi-anonymous contact.

The young blonde had the characteristic military haircut and his civilian clothes sat on him uneasily. He was picking at the label on a bottle of water, his eyes darting around the room.

Mulder led the way to the small, back booth and dropped into the seat across from the man. "You're Tim?" The agent's normal, impassive calm dropped back over him.

"Yeah." He eyed Skinner. "Who's he? I thought you worked with a woman."

"My regular partner wasn't available," Mulder glanced through the menu.

The waitress wandered over and waited, pencil poised above her order pad.

"I'd like a ham sandwich," Mulder said cheerfully.

"It's eight o'clock in the morning," she objected. "Only breakfast."

"What's the matter?" Mulder handed her the dog-eared menu. "The sandwiches aren't awake yet?"

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I can get you coffee."

It's going to be a long day, Skinner thought sympathetically. He was tempted to call Mulder on his behavior, but it probably wouldn't do any good. Anyhow, they couldn't start out the interview by having a disagreement over breakfast.

"Ahhh . . ." Mulder nodded thoughtfully. "I'll have an iced Perrier."

"We got bottled water. No bubbles." She stared at Mulder, daring him to make trouble.

"Two Diet Cokes for me and my friend, here." Mulder smiled. "And if a ham sandwich wakes up, give it a cup of coffee and ask it to come and see me, okay?"

Tim was watching Mulder, mouth hanging open. Skinner kept his face bland, refusing to respond to the young man's questioning stare.

Mulder intercepted and misinterpreted Tim's glance. "Don't let him bother you, he's okay." He nodded in Skinner's direction.

He's okay. Skinner was going to have something to say to Mulder about that one. Among other things, he wasn't happy about taking the blame for scaring the witness when it was Mulder's own early-morning insanity that was giving Tim second thoughts.

The thought occurred to him that Mulder might be uncomfortable having his boss present at the interview, but Skinner dismissed it. He also swallowed his automatic objection to the syrupy cola order, and let his face settle into bland politeness.

The waitress came back with the soft drinks. She slid them onto the worn Formica of the table and retreated, avoiding any further conversation with the unusual trio who were interrupting the diner's normal early-morning calm.

"That stuff is all chemicals, you know." Tim eyed the two glasses with hostility. "Everything in it is artificial. You have no idea what it's doing to your body."

Skinner glanced at the bottle of water clutched in Tim's hands. "Is that something you worry about?"

Mulder gave him a look and Skinner retreated into silence. Fine. If Mulder had wanted him to just sit there without saying a word, he should have said so before.

"Animal testing," the young man said fervently. His eyes glowed with fanatic intensity. "I don't use any products that have been tested on animals." He warmed to his subject. "Do you know, that last year in the United States, alone, more than . . . ."

"I think animal testing is a terrible idea," Mulder interrupted.

Tim's attention focused on him. "Really?"

"Absolutely." The agent slid his straw into the bubbly liquid. "They get all nervous and give the wrong answers. Can we get back to the subject here?"

Tim's face darkened, then he shrugged. "You'll learn." He sucked down a few mouthfuls of his water. "What do you want to know?"

"You called this meeting," Mulder reminded him. "Tell me your story," he invited.

Tim scanned the room again, apparently immune to Mulder's charm, but determined to finish what he had started. "I spent a long time tracking you down," he said. He glared at Mulder. "They said you'd listen. That you'd understand."

"I'm here," Mulder pointed out.

And, I'm excess baggage, Skinner realized. He wished he hadn't given in to the impulse to abandon his piled desk and accompany Mulder. This wasn't some official in the military that Mulder wouldn't know how to handle diplomatically. It was just an over-imaginative grunt.

"It happened a couple of months ago." The words started to spill out of Tim slowly at first, then faster. It had the rehearsed, practiced sound of any witness's testimony, evidence of how often he'd repeated the story.

"I was on patrol on Old Stump Road." He grimaced. "They call it B-19 at the base," he explained. "But it's Old Stump Road." He shook his head. "They always have to re-name everything. Codes and numbers and coordinates. Like they expect to be invaded any time and think that's going to help them. Crazy."

"That's very interesting," Mulder said patiently. "Does it have anything to do with the incident you wanted to tell us about?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "Christ, you're as bad as them." He took another long swallow of the water.

"Anyhow," he repeated, "I was on patrol. I got a call about some weird lights and drove out there, took about forty-five minutes. When I got to the end of the road, there was this . . . ." His glance wavered between the two men sitting across the small table from him. "Well . . . ."

"Go on." Mulder's voice had a certain hypnotic quality that Skinner admired. Nonjudgmental and encouraging. A perfect voice for an interview.

"I saw this little orange light," Tim burst out. "Kind of hovering about this far off of the ground." He held his hand about a yard from the dirty linoleum floor in illustration.

"A light." Mulder's gaze sharpened.

"That's right." Tim nodded jerkily. "I tried to call for backup, but my radio wasn't working. Happens a lot in that sector. After about five minutes, I saw the light was moving toward me through the trees."

"Then the light wasn't on the road?" The agent looked alert.

"Nope." Tim shook his head. "It was off to the left. It started coming at me, and it was bumping into the trees and stuff. It stopped." He took a deep breath. "This is the weird part."

"Go on," Mulder encouraged.

"Something like, I don't know, a hatch or a door opened up and this little gray thing, this little gray man stuck its head out," Tim said with a rush.

"What did it do?" Mulder was completely focused on the witness now.

"He . . . it . . . ." Tim licked his lips and shrugged. "It barfed all over the ground," he said sullenly.

"It . . . barfed?" Mulder's voice went up half an octave.

'That's right." Tim stared at the table. "I know how it sounds. And I know what I saw."

Mulder leaned back and stared at the witness. "What else?"

"I went over to see what was going on." Somehow Skinner doubted that. The skinny youngster didn't look like the type to approach an unknown craft on his own in the middle of the night.

"And?"

Tim's jaw set. "Bourbon."

Mulder looked startled. "I don't think they serve it here."

"Not me," Tim said. "It. I smelled bourbon."

"Bourbon," Mulder repeated. His eyes narrowed. "Are you sure of that?"

"Sure as I'm sitting here." Tim thumped the table. "He was drunk."

"What did you do?" Mulder looked fascinated.

"I was on guard duty," Tim explained. "There's no drinking allowed on that part of the base, so I arrested him."

"Arrested him?" Mulder voice went up the other half-octave.

Tim slumped down into his seat. "Seemed to make sense at the time."

"What happened?"

"Like I said, I told it he was under arrest." Tim's personal pronouns were getting mixed but he plowed on stubbornly. "He climbed out of the orange thing and fell down. I reached down to help him stand up and that's when it happened."

"What happened?" Mulder was leaning forward in his seat.

Tim shrugged. "Whatever. Next thing I know it's almost noon the next day and I'm laying there in the woods with a couple of MP's standing over me. I figure he zapped me with his ray gun or something and made his getaway."

"His ray gun?" This time Mulder didn't object when Skinner jumped into the conversation. "Did you actually see a weapon?"

Tim shook his head. "I didn't see nothing, man. I leaned over to help him and it was 'lights out' until the next day." He glared at the two men across from him. "They didn't believe me when I reported it," he complained. "Said I must have been stoned or drunk myself and gave me thirty days in the cooler."

"Was there some other circumstance that might have led them to believe that?" Skinner had to admire Mulder's tactful way of putting the question.

Tim looked away. "I might have had a little something on me," he admitted quietly. "Gets boring, you know? Driving around like that in the middle of nowhere. All the guys do it."

"I see." Mulder flipped his untouched notepad closed and slid it into his pocket. "We'll investigate the incident. If you'd like to give me your full name and address, I'll let you know what we find out."

"No way, man!" Tim looked nervous. "I'm already in enough shit. I just thought you guys ought to know about it, that's all."

"Well, we appreciate you coming forward." Mulder nudged Skinner under the table and they slid out of the narrow booth. "Get back in touch if you see or hear anything else out of the ordinary."

Tim looked hopeful. "You mean you believe me?"

Mulder smiled. "We've heard similar stories," he assured the young man. "We'll add yours to the files." He dropped a couple of bills on the table. "Thanks for your time, Tim."

Skinner led the way out of the small diner and the two men climbed back into the car, the younger man once again behind the wheel.

"That was fun," Mulder said. He twisted the key inn the ignition irritably. "I wonder who gave him my name?"

"What was that about the animal testing?" Skinner asked curiously, trying to smooth over the sudden tension in the car.

Mulder bit his lip, then grinned reluctantly. "Actually, I saw it on a bumper sticker last week."

Skinner stared at the other man in surprise, then tried to smother his own smile. "Agent Mulder, where in the manual does it approve the use of bumper stickers to calm a nervous witness?"

"Or, other means as available," Mulder quoted promptly. He looked at Skinner's smile and his own face lit up. "I can show you right where it says that."

"Don't bother." Skinner shook his head.

"No?" Mulder merged into traffic smoothly. "Then maybe you'd like to tell me what you're going to put on your report?"

Somehow Skinner wasn't surprised. "You knew?"

"Sure." Mulder gave him a glance. "I do have my sources. Even inside the Bureau."

"I suppose you do." Water cooler gossip. File clerks. Secretaries. Not even supposedly confidential management decisions were immune to the grapevine.

"So, what are you going to tell them?" Mulder asked casually. "Anything I should know?"

"Keep your eyes on the road," Skinner ordered. He gave Mulder a thoughtful look. "You just do your job. Let me worry about the rest of it."

"I don't suppose today's little incident is going to be much help," Mulder offered cautiously.

Skinner thought about the recent interview. "Agent Mulder, my report involves an assessment of whether or not you are handling your job competently. The subject matter of your investigations is not the issue."

"And . . . ." Mulder let the word linger in the air. "Am I, in your estimation, handling my job competently?"

"When you aren't, I'll let you know." Skinner opened a folder he'd brought with him and buried his nose in it, hoping to avoid any more questions.

Predictably, Mulder wasn't quite done with him yet.

"Yeah, but what about today's interview? Are you going to tell them, if they ask?"

Skinner tried to picture himself trying to explain how an army private had captured, and then misplaced, one drunken alien and a UFO. "Not even if they beg."

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The end