A GROOVY KIND OF LOVE
By: Jennifer Maurer

I would never have found out about it if I hadn't come into the office early that morning. Earlier than usual, I mean; Scully and I both tend to start our days at the crack of dawn, but usually I beat her into the office. Not that day, though.

The office door was ajar, and I would probably have walked right in were it not for the strange noise I heard as I approached. It sounded suspiciously like a snort. I paused, and listened to see if I would hear it again, enabling me to recognize it. After a moment, the sound did come again, and then I knew what it was: Scully laughing, or rather, trying not to laugh.

Scully's not one to play fast and loose with her emotions, and it's not often that something will have her fall out on the floor in hysterics. But every so often, usually when I make a joke she finds amusing against her better judgment, she will emit these small, ladylike sounds of laughter through her nose. Sometimes her lips will twitch as she tries not to grin.

Peeking through the office door, I saw that she had stopped snorting for the moment, but her lips were, in fact, twitching. She was sitting at her desk, looking at something on her laptop. I could see the light from the screen play across her features, but she was sitting at an angle that prevented me from seeing exactly what she was viewing. If I could ease the door open just a bit more, and crane my neck just so...

"Oh! Good morning!"

Damn. Forgot about that creaky hinge.

I gave it up and walked into the office, noticing that Scully closed her laptop upon my entrance. I could tell it was still on, though, because I could see the light leaking out around the edges.

"Good morning yourself, sunshine. Did I scare you?"

"No, of course not," she responded coolly, regaining her composure. "You just startled me, that's all."

"What were you looking at?" I asked innocently, drifting towards her desk.

"Oh, nothing," she said a little too casually, opening the laptop only wide enough to let her reach the keys.

"Didn't seem like nothing," I answered, playfully reaching over to push the screen upright with my
fingertips. By then, however, she had closed whatever program she was using, and the screen showed nothing but a charming picture of an autopsy, her chosen desktop theme. This, I knew, was designed to prevent me from using her laptop when I had a perfectly good one of my own, because I always let her batteries run down.

"Well, it is nothing," she said decisively, rising from her chair. "I'm going for some coffee, would you like some?"

"No, thanks, I'm fine," I answered, walking over to my own desk and sitting down. I started shuffling through files, giving every appearance of industry, until Scully was safely out the door. Then I made a beeline for her desk and opened up her laptop.

With my own numerous issues involving trust, one might think that I would show Scully the same respect she has always shown me. And normally, I do, aside from the occasional ditch, as she often points out. But I knew from her expressions of mirth, however subdued they may have been, that whatever she had been looking at was just for fun, and had nothing to do with our work or anything else serious. Besides, Scully would never have known about those videos that aren't mine if she hadn't done a little peeking herself. No harm, no foul, I figured.

Checking out her laptop, I noticed that her modem was still active. So, whatever she had been looking at was on the Internet. Aha, Scully, you can't hide from me. I just opened Netscape and hoped that in her haste to close the program, she hadn't thought to clear the browser's history.

Of course, she had not. She'd barely opened the laptop wide enough to touch the keys as I came drifting towards the desk, sensing something was afoot, stellar agent that I am. It was merely a matter of clicking on the last page viewed, and...

Oh, my.

Although I may in the past have neglected to think of Scully as a *woman*, aside from being an FBI
agent, recent events had led me to see her in a different light, and even lead me to consider certain...possibilities, shall we say. I knew about Jack Willis, of course, and it was logical to assume that she had been interested in other men during the course of her life.

But this...well, I had never suspected she might be attracted to...

"Mulder!"

Caught in the act. I had been so involved in perusing the web page she had been looking at that I never even heard her heels clicking back down the hall. Now she stood in the doorway of the office, coffee cup in hand, and her mouth hanging open in shock.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

In retrospect, I realize that I should have handled the situation in a more appropriate manner. I was dancing on the skinny edge of being in deep trouble, and the response least likely to result in another shooting would probably have been to slink back to my desk, hang my head in shame, and meekly beg forgiveness for invading her privacy.

Unfortunately, that is not what I did.

Instead, I calmly and deliberately raised my eyes from the computer screen to meet hers. I saw the look of annoyance on her face, let my eyes drop back to the computer, and blurted out my first thought in a rush of laughter.

"Greg Brady?"

"Mulder, you are dead," she growled, stalking over to try and wrest the laptop from my hands. I turned away from her, shielding the computer with my body.

"Scully, I learn something new from you every day. I had no idea Greg Brady, excuse me, Barry Williams, has his own web page."

"Well, now you know he does. End of discussion."

"Oh, no, Scully, I think the discussion's just beginning. *This* was what you were looking at when I came in?"

She gave up the fight for the computer and instead stood glaring at me with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Why did you feel you had to hide this from me?"

She was on the verge of giving me an answer that did not involve bodily harm when I let the punch line slip.

"There's no shame in being a closet Brady Bunch junkie. It might be strange, but at least it's not illegal in this state."

I would have been able to get away from her if I hadn't been laughing so hard. As it was, she only had to chase me around her desk twice before managing to snatch the laptop back from me. She cut right to the chase, switching the whole thing off before setting it back down on her desk.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't shoot you in the other shoulder."

"C'mon, Scully, I think it's kind of cute that you like Greg Brady. I didn't even think you were old enough to have seen 'The Brady Bunch'."

As I'd hoped, that last remark smoothed things over a little. She uncrossed her arms and sat down behind her desk. I perched on the edge and waited to hear all the details.

"Bill and Missy thought it was a stupid show, but Charlie and I loved it. I liked the fact that the dad was always around...you know, because mine was gone so much."

She shrugged, fiddling with a pen, and I could tell she was mortified that she was even telling me this. I felt bad for laughing at her earlier. I had also dismissed "The Brady Bunch" as stupid, but more out of jealousy for the happy family than anything else, I think.

"Samantha liked it, too," I told her. She looked up at me then, clearly relieved that I wasn't going to be making any more Greg jokes. She reached over and squeezed my hand before she continued.

"Anyway, between the ages of 8 and 10 I had a huge crush on Greg Brady. I wanted to write Barry
Williams a fan letter, but I never quite got up the nerve."

"Did Bill or Melissa tease you?" I asked, wanting to hear more about the young girl I was imagining.

"Mercilessly," she said. "Bill especially. Charlie had a crush on Jan, so he understood how I felt. Missy just told me I'd grow out of it."

"And did you?" I asked, unable to suppress a small smile. I saw the corner of her mouth twitch.

"Eventually, yes. I grew up and moved on to other things."

"So you were surfing the web today, and you just happened across this web page..."

Her lips pursed in an effort not to smile.

"I might have gone looking for it," she admitted, a faint blush staining her cheeks.

"Searching the web in an effort to reunite with the object of your childhood affections. I gotta say, Scully, I'm deeply moved."

She kicked my shin at that last remark, but gently, and when she looked up and saw me smiling at her, she smiled back.

"I may yet shoot you for snooping," she said.

"Now, Scully, is that how Mr. Brady would have advised Marcia to solve her problems?"

She rose from her chair, but I was too quick for her, and fled to the relative safety of my own desk.

"Greg Brady wouldn't have scurried away," she said. "If he had been caught snooping, which I'm sure he never would have been because he was too well mannered, he would have apologized deeply and sincerely and done everything he could to make it up to the injured party."

I could tell she wasn't really mad anymore by her tone of voice, but I still thought it prudent to make nice in order to avoid any possible future retaliation. I didn't want Scully to remember this incident with revenge in her heart the next time we were confronted with anything slimy.

I dropped to my knees and walked back over to her desk that way.

"Scully, I really am sorry I laughed at your crush on Greg Brady. I think it's cute; I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. In fact, in my youth I may have harbored feelings of a similar nature."

She turned to look at me with one eyebrow arched.

"You had a crush on Greg Brady too, Mulder?"

She got me that time. I may have even blushed a little. When I was able to speak without stammering I answered her.

"No, the object of my youthful affections was a woman of rare delicacy and grace..."

"Let me guess. Chrissy from 'Three's Company'."

"You wound me, Scully. I was a deeply sensitive youth, attracted to more important things in a woman than heaving bosoms."

"Ginger from 'Gilligan's Island'?"

"It was Maryann, actually."

"Mulder, you're sick."

"Gilligan never appreciated her as a woman. All he cared about were the coconut cream pies. I could have given her so much more."

"That show went off the air in 1967."

"Your wellspring of knowledge never ceases to amaze me."

"So weren't you a little young to be having these unholy yearnings?"

"I was six years old."

"Right. Aren't boys that age supposed to think girls are icky?"

"I was mature for my age."

"I'll bet you were very excited by the reunion movies."

"You have no idea."

I got up off my poor, battered knees and hobbled back to my desk. As I went, I thought I heard
Scully singing, "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale..."

~*End*~

RANDOM AUTHOR MUSINGS: As I said, no offense meant to Barry Williams, who seems like a nice guy and really does have a cool website: www.barrywilliams.com, naturally. I liked Maryann second best (after the Skipper) so I decided Mulder should like her, too. Send those comments right along: [jenbird72 at verizon dot net]