This chapter is rated PG-13


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Chapter Three
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February 28, 1993
9:01 a.m.

It was only when I ran out of change that the Gunmen decided to 
believe me.  Or at least, that they were finally curious enough to 
agree to my demand that they get their asses out here ASAP.  A few 
times I had to signal to the surly proprietor of the convenience 
store -- Fred was his name -- to make change for me while I said, 
"Langly!  Don't hang up!" or "Why would I lie?"  Fred scowled but 
he didn't have anything better to do, with no one there but me.  
Probably thought I was trying to work it out with a girlfriend -- 
maybe the same one who had left my ass beaten and unconscious in 
front of his store.

I took an additional chance and asked Fred where the nearest motel 
was.  He was surprisingly helpful with this, and I relayed the 
information to Langly.  He still sounded suspicious, but as long 
as they came to Nevada, I didn't care.

"If you are who you say you are, why don't you come to D.C.?" he'd 
asked. I could hear Frohike and Byers talking in the background.

"I can't, not when Scully might be here," I'd explained.

"Who the hell is Scully?"

The question had thrown me for a loop.  They didn't know who 
Scully was.  My mind ran through a gamut of possibilities before I 
finally said, "Someone who was with me at the time this ... thing 
happened.  My partner."

They'd grumbled and tried to convince me to head east, but I was 
adamant and wouldn't budge on that point.  Not without Scully.  I 
didn't think they would really pass up this opportunity, anyway.  
They might need to posture a bit, but if what I was saying was 
true, it was exactly the kind of thing that would pique their 
curiosity.  Their inherent natures wouldn't allow them to let it 
pass them by.

It's good to know your friends.

I imposed on Fred once again for directions to the Little A'Le Inn 
-- which sounded like a place I would have been thrilled with in 
less dire straits. I could almost see Scully rolling her eyes.  
But things being what they were, I just hoped it wasn't too far 
away.

"It's a bar, too," Fred offered.

Perfect, a little voice whispered in my ear.  Getting shit-faced 
drunk sounds like just the ticket.

"My sister Ethel owns the place.  I could have her send one of her 
boys out to get you, being as you're stranded and all."

Fred and Ethel?  Don't say =anything=, I told myself severely, and 
don't smile either; you need all the help you can get.  "Thank 
you, Fred, that's mighty nice of you," I said.

Ethel's 'boy' Ricky -- I'm not kidding -- turned out to be a 6'4" 
mass of muscle with two eyes and a head of bushy brown hair.  He 
didn't speak so much as grunt, and the ride to his mother's motel 
was spent in silence except for when we first got in and he said, 
"Radio don't work."  No other three words have ever made me jump 
out of my skin the way those did.  I half expected him to beat me 
to a pulp just for fun.

One look at Ethel and I knew where her son had gotten his build.  
But she was more jovial than her offspring, and her conversation 
rambled like an old-time cowboy.  Though she spoke like she had 
all the time in the world, I still found it hard to get a word in 
edge-wise as the woman never seemed to need air.

She talked and talked and talked, about the weather, her sore 
joints, and the brawl that had happened in the bar last night, 
while I signed for a room and paid with the little cash I had 
left.  At least some of it must have been printed after 1993, but 
luckily no one really looks at cash too closely; neither Ethel nor 
Fred blinked an eye.  I'd asked the Gunmen to bring some 
additional funds.  I don't know where they get their money, but 
that's probably a rock better left unturned.

The whole process went fairly quickly, and only once did I manage 
to make a contribution to Ethel's running dialogue.  I hesitated 
next to the line where I was supposed to fill in the date, needing 
to confirm one more time that this was real, so I darted into her 
conversational traffic.

"What's the date today?" I asked, the pen hovering.  I hoped she 
wouldn't start reciting historical facts and legends, because then
I'd have to jump in and we'd be standing here for the next twenty 
years.  Luckily, Ethel was far too engrossed in the story she was 
already telling.

"... and John looked at him real hard and said, 'I hope you're not 
gonna say what I think you're gonna say' and Tobias -- not the 
smartest man in the world, bless him -- went right out and said it 
anyway.  He was just being stubborn ... or maybe he's just that 
stupid, I never can tell with him -- it's the 28th of February, 
boy -- so of course John had to show him what was what, even 
though I told him I'd kick his ass myself if he broke one more 
chair in my bar ..."

It was only when Tobias was flying head-first out the front door 
that I realized Ethel had answered my question without breaking 
the flow of her story.  I should have her explain my reports to 
Skinner.

"2/28/9" I wrote obediently, then hesitated on the last digit.
"What's the year?" I laughed, hoping it sounded genuine, although 
to me it more resembled the death rattle of a dying emu.  Or what 
I thought that would sound like.  "Whenever the new year comes I 
always get mixed up."

"... but this time John helped me clean up and paid for the chair 
he broke, so I say let bygones be bygones.  Boy, it's been two 
months since the new year, what's the matter with you?  It's 1993 
is what it is, I turn sixty-four this year, but you wouldn't know 
it to look at me, would ya?  Ma always said that the secret to 
lookin' young is being young in the heart, and wouldn't you know, 
she was right.  Now my brother Fred --"

I filled in the final "3" with a lump in my throat.  Despite the 
fact that Ethel was apparently of a different opinion, I felt like 
an old, old man.

***

12:32 p.m.

I had five hours to kill, probably more, before help arrived, and 
I spent three of those in the bar getting rip-roaring drunk.  
Well, that wasn't exactly the plan, but that was the way it worked 
out.  I knew I should keep a clear head if I was to have any hope 
of finding Scully, but the events of the past few hours were just 
too damned overwhelming.  And anyway, I only meant to have one 
drink to calm myself down, but the next thing I knew I was 
knocking back my third tequila.

Fortunately, Ethel had taken a liking to me and kept clucking 
around bringing plates of barbecued ribs and potato salad.  The 
ribs only reminded me of Scully and that barbecue place in 
Wisconsin that we ate at all those years ago -- that we =would= 
eat at, a year or so from now -- and I could feel my eyes start to 
water.  Damned alcohol.

You are such a girl, I told myself crossly, draining another mug 
of whatever was on tap.  Actually, I was giving myself too much 
credit.  After all, Scully was a girl and she wouldn't cry in this 
situation.

"Don't worry, she'll take you back," Ethel said, as she passed by 
my booth again.  "Pretty face like that, how could she resist?"  
There was an edge in her voice that I hadn't heard before.

I just stared at her.

Ethel softened.  "Here, I brought you some food."  She set the 
heavy plate down in front of me.

"Not hungry," I muttered.  I raised my glass.  "Another, please."

"Not till you eat that."

How dare she tell me what to do?  "You're not my Scully!" I 
retorted, glaring at her two images.

She blinked.  "You're right, I ain't that, whatever it is.  But I 
own this bar, and I say you don't get served another drink until 
you put something in your stomach.  Last thing I want is you 
upchucking all over the place."  She left, turning her nose in the 
air.

I pushed the fully loaded plate away, sullenly determined not to 
do as I was told.  But it did look kind of good, and smelled even 
better.  I reached out a finger and poked it into the potato 
salad.  I stuck it in my mouth, and my stomach started to growl.  
Well, all right, maybe a couple of bites.  But not because that 
old witch told me to.

I guess I was hungrier than I thought, because I finished every 
last bite.  I cleaned the second plate Ethel brought, and most of 
the third, too.  My head had cleared a little by then, and when 
she asked me if I wanted anything to drink I sheepishly asked for 
black coffee.

Nursing the mug of hot liquid, I started to realize that this was 
actually kind of exciting.  I'd traveled back in time.  Somehow, 
whatever had flown over us had transported me five and half years 
into the past.  The government must have been working on time 
travel before Nichols had perfected his technique ... and from the 
looks of things, they'd been successful, at least to a degree.  
But had they perfected it?  Surely if that were the case, the 
world would be different ... somehow.  But how would I know?  My 
life would change along with everyone else's.  That was a little 
too freaky to contemplate, especially on a full stomach.

In any case, it seemed highly unlikely.  The light had flashed 
over all of us -- me, the guy in the bad suit, the other soldiers, 
Scully ...

But if their time travel experiments hadn't been perfected, and 
we'd all been randomly shot into various points in time, there was 
a chance Scully could be =any=where.  Any time.  And none of us 
might ever get back.

"How ya doin'?"  Ethel again.

"Tequila, please," I answered hoarsely, thankful that she 
immediately signaled to the bartender.

But they would have no reason to experiment on their own men, 
would they?  That didn't make any sense.  Was it possible that the 
bright flash of light wasn't a ship at all?  That it was one of 
their helicopters, and it was merely a coincidence that they'd 
spotlighted us at the same time that something else had happened?  
But what?

"Thanks," I mumbled when Ethel handed me the shot of amber liquid.
Ah, Jose -- my man, you have never let me down.  A quick snap of 
my wrist and a nice warm trail burned into me.

"You take it easy," she said, moving on to the next miserable man.

There was still the chance that Scully was out there somewhere.  
It wasn't out of the question that she would be, and in fact, it 
was probable.  Wasn't it?  True that I hadn't seen her in my 
wanderings, but that didn't necessarily mean she wasn't there.  
Maybe she'd ended up somewhere else, not far from where I'd been.  
Maybe she'd hit her head, or tripped and fallen.  Maybe she'd been 
unconscious and that's why she hadn't answered my calls out into 
the night.

Why hadn't I looked harder?  What had I been thinking?  Was Scully 
out in the desert looking for shelter and sustenance, possibly 
hurt?

No.  I had to think that she would have been found by those same 
jokers who'd found me last night.  She would know to stick close 
to the road, and I had no doubt they patrolled the area 
frequently.  After the bright light, I'd apparently reappeared in 
the same spot, only five and a half years earlier.  At least, I 
was reasonably certain it was the same spot.  Though in the 
desert, at night, it all looked the same, so how would I know if 
I'd been a hundred yards off?  Or even a hundred miles off?  
Nellis was a big place.

Assuming for the moment that I =had= reappeared in the same spot  
-- and it was promising that I was still in the right state and in 
the right area -- it was probably not be that big a leap to assume 
that time was the only element that had changed while everything 
else stayed the same.  Yet there was no guarantee that Scully or 
the men had traveled the same distance in time that I had.  It was 
also possible that no one but me had experienced it.  The =where= 
might be the same, but the =when= was the real bitch.

If Scully found herself in the past, what would she do? I 
wondered.  Probably tell herself she was delusional or dreaming.  
Or try to convince the rest of the world that they were simply 
mistaken.  "It's 1998," she would tell them, and they would feel 
stupid for doubting her.  I almost smiled.

This was all assuming that whatever it was that brought me here 
wasn't also able to move people geographical distances.  
Otherwise, it was also possible that Scully could have reappeared 
in Siberia.  There was really no way to know, but I had to try and 
find her.  What if she were to appear tomorrow, or even the next 
day?  What if she'd appeared five minutes ago?  Then again, what 
if she'd appeared five years further in the past -- or even five 
hundred?  Hell, she could have lived out her life in some past 
era, and be dead and buried by now.  The idea made me feel sick.

But I knew there was nothing I could do until the Gunmen got here.  
I needed a little perspective, and besides, I didn't have 
transportation.  Ethel might have let me borrow her truck, but I 
was in no condition to drive, having wallowed in a little too much 
self-pity.  I'd probably kill myself running into a shrub or a 
cactus and then I'd be no good to Scully at all.

Pathetic.

It suddenly occurred to me that Scully =was= here.  Scully existed 
in 1993, and holy shit, we would be meeting a few days from now, 
if memory served.  That meant that I existed somewhere out there, 
too.  The me from 1993.  What a strange thought.  In any case, it 
made me feel immeasurably better to know that Scully was around.

I started to think more rationally.  What was the worst case 
scenario?  Worst case, I would have to wait until 1998 arrived 
again, and somehow stop my other self from going to Nevada and 
dragging Scully along.  Then it would be as if this had never 
happened.  In the meantime, I would have to lay pretty low; I 
couldn't interact with the people who knew me.  And Nichols had 
taught me something else about time travel -- that two "versions" 
of the same person inhabiting the same space was bad news.

Even if I did approach him -- me, my other self, whatever -- for 
help, I wasn't sure how he would react.  I didn't know that man 
anymore, and trying to predict "my" reaction gave me a headache.  
Most likely, he'd be fascinated by the idea and deliberately seek 
me out.  I'd possibly made a grave error by calling the Gunmen.  I 
hoped they hadn't called him.  Me.  Whoever.

The real reason this was the "worst case scenario," however, was 
that it meant living the next five and half years of my life 
without Scully.  That seemed an interminably long time, and while 
if I was successful those years and this whole ordeal would never 
exist, I didn't think I could do it.  Too many things could happen 
between now and then that would jeopardize things.

I could also fail.  If I didn't stop me and Scully from going to
Nevada and we both got sucked into this time warp again, I'd be a 
forty-two-year-old-man in 1998, instead of a thirty-seven-year-
old-man.  And with nothing to show for it.  If Scully did get sent 
to some other random moment in time, I might never see her again.

My gut clenched.  I couldn't accept that.

It was, of course, possible that she hadn't been affected by 
whatever had sent me here at all.  Maybe when 1998 rolled around, 
I would simply step out of a car and say that I'd been waiting all 
these years to be with her again.  I would be almost six years 
older, and she wouldn't understand why.  "You were just here," she 
would say, and I could almost hear her voice and see the look on 
her face.

God, if I could know that she would be there at the end of it all, 
I could wait.  I could wait longer, if necessary.  But I couldn't 
know it; I didn't know anything.  And all this rumination was 
useless.

I got up and felt in my pocket for money before I remembered that 
I didn't have enough.  I started for the exit.  "Charge the bill 
to my room," I said to Ethel as I passed.  She nodded and didn't 
ask any questions.  I hoped the Gunmen would come through; I'd 
hate to think I was freeloading on top of all my other sins.

My room was dark when I opened the door; I hadn't drawn the 
blinds.  I left them closed and didn't turn on any lights as I 
sank onto the bed and kicked off my shoes.  Lying down, I tried 
not to think about her voice calling for help, calling my name.

Maybe waiting it out wasn't so bad.  I could watch her -- them --
from afar. I could actually do some good.  I could be their 
mysterious benefactor.  I knew things, could do things, that would 
make their lives easier, better.

Maybe I could send Scully flowers and say that they were from the 
other me.  He'd know they weren't from him, of course, but he'd be 
so relieved that someone had done the hard part for him that he 
wouldn't say anything.  Maybe their lives would be different, and 
they'd have no reason to travel to Nevada in 1998 at all.  Maybe 
the Bahamas.  Yes, that was a much better place to bring Scully.  
Surf and sun and lounging on the beach, holding hands and drinking 
daiquiris.  We could steal kisses in the moonlight, and no bees 
would interrupt them.

I thought again about how soon, less than a week from now, Scully 
and I would meet for the first time.  He had nearly six years to 
look forward to with her.  The lucky bastard.  And he wouldn't 
even appreciate it in the beginning.  For the same amount of time, 
I would have no one.

Maybe I could go back to the bar and make an announcement.  Pity 
party in Room 4.

My body still ached from having "slept" the entire night before on 
hard, rocky ground.  Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to try and 
catch a little shut-eye while I was waiting, so that I'd be 
refreshed when my saviors got here and we could start the search 
for Scully immediately.  I didn't think it was really feasible, 
with my thoughts going a mile a minute, but my full stomach and 
the alcohol conspired with my tired joints to lull me to sleep.

The loud banging on the door woke me.

==========END CHAPTER THREE==========