" 'Christmas in June,' you say?! `Impossible!' But not at Plum and Tucker's Mega Monster Midnight Madness Marathon! Folks, we're practically giving away air conditioners, washers, dryers, refrigerators - all at cost. 'So why should I care?' you ask.....?" Scully turned off the television.
"Good question," she thought to herself.
It was the same question she found herself asking over the last six months. Since Meena's disappearance, she and her husband had just gone through the motions; their only thoughts about their missing daughter. Although her absence was hard to bear, Scully was amazed at how brutally simple their lives had become. Wake up in the morning, think about Meena; go to work, look for Meena and do just enough work to justify their presence on the X-Files; go to bed, thinking about Meena.
Go to bed, but in recent weeks, not together. Not since May 15. Meena's birthday.
At first, Scully would wait up in bed, pretending to read books she had no interest in, or stare blankly at talking heads on the TV. screen. The clock would strike ten, then eleven, then twelve, then one. She would then go downstairs to find Mulder asleep in the den, his head resting on one wing of the wing-backed chair in next to the picture window - Meena's window. The phone sat next to him as though he were waiting for Meena to call and tell him she was in danger of missing curfew. But the phone never rang. "Mulder," she would say softly, "it's late; come to bed." "I'll be up in a minute," he'd reply. "Don't wait up for me."
Finally, one night she didn't.
And so this became their sleeping arrangement. She upstairs in bed, he in the chair by the picture window, both thinking of Meena and how much it hurt not to have her near.
When Scully turned off the t.v. in the den, the DVD drawer opened as it was programmed to do. The drawer rotated away from the laser lens and stopped, facing Scully. She read the label. "Sweet Sixteen" was the title.
Scully's mother began her campaign to give her youngest girl's daughter a proper sweet sixteen party months in advance. She left menus from the Naval Officer's Club strategically placed around her house when Scully came to visit; she reminded Scully how much fun she and her sister had at their parties. Scully gently pointed out to her mother that she spent most of the evening hiding from her parent-picked escort and that her sister Melissa and her boyfriend had to be forcibly ejected from the back seat of a Mustang by their father and two guards. Her mother finally pulled out the "I don't know how many years I have left and your father would be so proud" strategies. They worked.
Mulder had planned to tape the whole affair when he was told he could not. When he asked why, he was gently but firmly informed that the Officers Club did not allow cameras or any type of video recording device as a matter of security and because they were considered "tacky" "Clearly the Navy hasn't heard of - whaBAM!- the Daddycam!" Langley replied when Mulder went to the Lone Gunmen for help. Like a scene out of Mission Impossible, Mulder and the Lone Gunmen snuck into the Officer's club, and set up dozens of tiny hidden video devices in the plants and the floral arrangements. "This place has more bugs than New Jersey," Frohicke said, "and the beauty is the Navy will never be able to find them, proving once again 'military intelligence' is indeed an oxymoron." When Mulder finally told her months latter what they did, she wasn't sure whether to thank them or kill them. Now, in light of Meena's disappearance, she couldn't thank them enough.
Scully's memories traveled back to Meena's party. Meena was resplendent in a white ballgown with a full skirt that billowed with yards and yards of taffeta and tulle. Scully had pulled her dark auburn hair back into a very grown-up and sophisticated French Twist. Scully looked at the young woman with the beautiful ballgown and long white gloves with a mixture of pride and a little sadness. Her little girl wasn't so little anymore.
Meena and Mulder went out onto the dance floor for their first dance. Instead of the traditional "Blue Danube" waltz, Meena had made a surprise request....
"Your my best girl, and nothing will ever harm you..."
Scully smiled when she heard the familiar strains of Meena and Mulder's song. "Mame" had been Meena's favorite musical ever since she was a little girl, and Mulder had played the tape for her when she was home sick with the flu. Meena first learned to waltz to "My Best Girl" in the typical way all little girls do. Many was the time Scully had seen Mulder reach for her hands and lift her onto his feet so they could whirl around the room.
Scully watched as Meena and her father glided across the dance floor. They had only been dancing for a short while when Meena suddenly stopped. "Wait a minute," she said. Then in front of all her guests, in the middle of the stuffy Naval Officer's Club, she took of her shoes, and held out her arms. Mulder took her by the hands and steadied her as she placed her right foot on his right foot, and her left on his. "That's better," she said, and rested her head against her father's chest.
"....And if, someday, some other beau comes along, determined to take your place,
he'll have to be fine with coming behind my best beau..."
Mulder awoke with a start. "I'll be up in a minute," he replied, more asleep than awake. "Don't bother," Scully replied. The confused, hurt look on Mulder's face was like a punch in the stomach. "It's 7:15 - time to get up. We have to go to the office."