Author's Note: To my real life friends who should be completing their dissertation and thesis project, thank you for reading this right now instead. To everyone else, about the same... it's just that I don't know what you should be doing instead, but I appreciate your time nonetheless. And your crazy awesome reviews. Thanks also to IAmLoisLane for also finding time to beta in her busy schedule. And, now, ladies and gentlemen (mostly ladies, though, right?), may I present to you, the lovable Lone Gunmen's Love-O-Matic (patent pending).
Mulder and Scully exited Nathan's office and quite literally ran smack dab into their favorite underground conspiracy trio with Scully and Frohike taking the brunt of the collision. The Lone Gunmen bounced backwards such that Byers and Langly had to catch Frohike before they all ended up scattered on the ground like bowling pins. Scully, on the other hand, was not pushed toward the floor, but propelled into her partner who deftly caught her under her arms and stood her back up.
"You okay?" Mulder asked Scully as he clasped a chunk of hair that had flipped over to the wrong side of her part. His fingers lingered gingerly behind her ear where they'd tucked the hair back, and a tentative thumb traced softly down her cheek, which flushed a scarlet heat he found both tangible and satisfying. Time paused for a single indulgent second then the clock ticked back into its regular rhythm.
"I'm fine," she insisted then slowly spun toward the guys with her laser look locked on the shortest of the gang. "Frohike, so help me, if I find out you choreographed that just so you could cop a feel... I will kick your ass from Roswell to Dallas."
Byers and Langly traded amused looks.
"As titillating as that sounds, I can assure you that if it were a setup, I'd be the one catching you in my hulky arms… not Agent Perfect over there," Frohike said as he tossed a scowl in Mulder's direction.
"Settle down, Melvin," Mulder said good-naturedly as he shared a smile with Scully. "And for the record, it's Doctor Perfect you should be worried about, not Agent."
Langly and Byers' tandem head tilt expressed their common confusion.
"Mulder… " Scully's eyebrows pulled together curiously at Mulder's tone which mimicked Frohike's enough to give her pause. "For the record… he shouldn't."
Mulder looked at her long enough to catch the drift of her words. Frohike shouldn't worry about Dr. Perfect because there was nothing between them. Officially. And if Frohike didn't have to worry, neither did Mulder. That last part was less interpretation of her expression and more his own ambitious elucidation. In other words, wishful thinking.
"Broke it off, huh, Scully?" Mulder asked playfully then turned to the Gunmen. "Watch out, boys, she'll chew you up."
"Man-eater," Langly mouthed to Frohike who brutally elbowed him in the ribs.
With everyone righted, recovered and set straight, Mulder and Scully noticed a metal cart a few feet behind the Gunmen that looked like a short storage cabinet on wheels.
"What are you three doing here anyway?" Scully asked, eying their cargo. "And what the hell is that?"
"Mulder didn't tell you we were on the way?" Byers asked innocently.
"No…" Scully glanced at Mulder who shrugged.
"I didn't tell you because no one told me," Mulder insisted, giving the guys a pointed look.
"We told you we had just the thing for this case," Langly reminded him.
"Yeah, well, okay, but I didn't think you were going to bring it over immediately to Fairfax. It's almost three a.m."
Langly, Frohike and Byers looked at Mulder as if he were in a foreign movie and there were no subtitles.
"You know, never mind. Just… take it into the waiting room," Mulder told them.
Scully folded her arms and glowered at Mulder, though it was completely for show. Truth be told, she was curious about the Gunmen's wee hour delivery. "You know, Mulder—"
"I swear I didn't know they were coming, and I sure as hell didn't invite them."
"Uh huh." Scully's face melted into an easy smile. "Come on, Agent Perfect. Let's see what the three amigos have in store."
Scully's enthusiasm was squelched when she and Mulder walked into the waiting room. The cart had been opened up and folded out in all directions.
"Lady and gentleman, step right up." Frohike took on the persona of a ring master. "May I present to you the Love-O-Matic."
It looked like a crash cart crossed with one of those electronic palm reading machines that Scully saw outside the restroom of every mall she'd ever visited. She was not impressed. At all.
"Is this a joke?" Scully muttered to Mulder.
"I…uh…"
"He's serious. Step up," Langly instructed the agents.
Mulder and Scully glanced at each other, but then walked a few paces closer to the machine. There were two rubber silhouettes of hands on the horizontal surface of the contraption just below a single gauge with a large red needle. A phallic glass tube holding a small reserve of red liquid sat upside down above the gauge. Behind the main body, wires and cords were spilling out and coiling around in every direction. On the floor, a runner made of diamond plated steel glimmered even under the fluorescent hospital lights.
"What the hell is this?" Scully asked.
"The Love-O-Matic measures compatibility," Byers explained.
Scully turned to Mulder in time to see his eyes roll. That was a rare expression on his part, and it let Scully know that this was as stupid as she'd suspected.
"Look, guys," Mulder said impatiently, "Scully's exhausted and I'm just plain beat—"
"Believe it or not, this thing works," Langly promised. "Now, come on."
Scully and Mulder traded a skeptical look—an infrequent happening.
"Oh, come on. Hurry up. Let's get this over with," Frohike griped.
Mulder started to take a step forward, but Scully put her arm out to stop him.
"How exactly is this supposed to help us on this case?" Scully directed her question to Byers, the man she considered to be the most rational of the group—maybe even in the room.
"Mulder said this case has to do with love and compatibility," Langly spoke up.
"Soul mates," Mulder clarified.
"We're assuming, Agent Scully, you could use some proof," Byers chimed in.
"You have no idea," Scully replied.
"This machine'll give you that proof," Frohike guaranteed. "If these people are soul mates, their compatibility should be off the charts."
"You know, it's not so much a matter of compatibility," Mulder began, "as it is—"
"Look, if you want to know if two people are or could be in love," Frohike butt in, "the Love-O-Matic'll tell you. Ninety-eight percent accurate."
"How could you even possibly know that?" Scully questioned.
"Maybe you should just let us give you a demonstration," Langly suggested.
"Sure," Mulder said. "You and Frohike hop right on, and let's see if all this banter is really just an outward expression of your unresolved romantic tension."
"Or you and Scully could give it a shot," Byers suggested evenly.
"No!" Scully and Mulder said together then turned to one another.
"I mean, no offense, Scully," Mulder spoke hesitantly. "I'd just hate to feed into this delusion that a machine could assess compatibility."
Scully nodded, though his reluctance actually surprised her. She felt like she should at least attempt to represent his regular side of the argument. "And even if it could, we're not looking for compatibility anyway, right? We need—"
"Complementary. Right," Mulder agreed.
"Anyone know what in the Sam Hill they're talking about?" Frohike asked the others.
"Shh," Langly waved a hand to hush him and turned back to Mulder and Scully as if watching a movie.
"Then again," Scully advocated, "if it doesn't work, what's the harm?"
"You mean, you want to try it?" a baffled Mulder suspiciously asked his suddenly open-minded partner.
"I don't want to try it," Scully claimed. "I just don't want to be rude."
Mulder stared at her for a good ten seconds. She didn't want to be rude? She was willing to step into—or onto, however it worked—the Love-O-Matic… with him. Then it started to make sense. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, she didn't completely doubt the Gunmen's creation, what did she have to be worried about? She didn't have any romantic inclination toward Mulder—not really, not beyond their normal surface-level flirtations, not in the sense of genuine compatibility. He, on the other hand, was in love with her, and while he was skeptical of the Gunmen's device, he was more afraid that it would actually work… that it would tell him something he didn't want to hear, something he was terrified to find out: that he really didn't have a shot, that they didn't have a shot. Maybe Ansel Holmes was being easy on him earlier. Maybe Scully wasn't his soul mate.
That couldn't be possible.
"Mulder?" Scully asked, squinting as she read his face.
"If they can hear you saying you don't want to be rude," Mulder argued in a last ditch effort, "you might as well just go ahead and be rude."
Scully turned back toward the machine. She knew how she felt about Mulder, but she didn't really believe the Love-O-Matic was even operational, let alone capable of gauging compatibility. What was the harm?
"Come on, Mulder," Scully suggested in a way Mulder would never know how to refuse, "live a little."
