I was on the phone with my best friend negotiating the usual movie terms- what movie, when could I get a sitter, and near whose house- when they next darkened my doorstep. I thought I'd made it clear that I wasn't expecting to have anything further to do with them after the x-ray fieldtrip, yet there they were, hanging around the yard.

I guess I swore, because Colleen asked me what was wrong. " There are FBI agents in my yard."

" No, really."

" Really. I told you about them. They keep bugging me about stupid stuff."

" If you wanted to get off the phone, you could just tell me." She said, sounding hurt.

"And you sound schizophrenic when you claim there are imaginary people bothering you. I understand, but a lot of people might not realize you're kidding. " She added in a concerned tone.

" For God's sake, I'm not making it up! There really are FBI agents here."

" Right." She said sarcastically.

I rolled my eyes and opened the door, thrusting the phone in agent Mulder's face. " Tell my friend who you are." I demanded.

He shrugged slightly. " This is special agent Fox Mulder."

Fox?! No wonder he'd never mentioned his first name before. I yanked the phone back.

" Satisfied that I'm not just blowing you off?" I asked Colleen.

" That's... really an FBI agent!"

" I know. I'll talk to you later, ok?" I said, hanging up 30 seconds later.

" Now that you've made me cut my phone call short, what the hell do you want?" I asked.

" We wanted to talk to you about your late husband." Agent Mulder said with no preamble.

I bet I turned pale. Even people with a peaches and cream complexion get whiter sometimes. " What do you want to talk about Jason for?" I asked, my voice cracking a little.

" There's something we need to talk to you about concerning his death." Mulder told me.

It took a lot to keep me from running out of the room. It had only been a year since Jason died. My way of dealing with mourning is pretending that everything is ok. As long as people go along with me and help me pretend, I'm fine. When people bring it up, all the nice defenses I built up start to fall down, and I don't like those people much. Good thing it was agent Mulder, I already didn't like him.

"It was an accident, what's there to talk about?" I asked, all along thinking, if he says anything about aliens I swear to God I'll kill him.

"Yes...but there's something strange that surrounds the circumstance of the accident." He said slowly.

Well, he had me there. Some girls swoon over musicians, but not me. Over the years I had known several really nice, really self-absorbed men who sang. They made nice friends, but they didn't "do it for me" if you know what I mean. It almost seemed like fate that I, independent film buff, Ms. I've-never-seen-Pretty-Woman-but-can-give-you-synopsises-to-two-dozen-movies-you've-never-heard-of-without-pausing-for-breath, would end up with an indie-film maker.

Jason was a great guy, and I felt lucky to have him. Alas, it's like they say, all good things must come to and end; we were only married for a year and a half before the accident took his life. It was a stupid senseless accident.

He got the idea from watching several knock-offs of the crocodile hunter. His idea was to make a film about the dangerous lengths wannabe nature show hosts went to in order to draw an audience, any audience. It was supposed to be a mocking sort of expose' on "Nature with Norm," a cheesy public access show.

Norm, a balding 30-something who wore a pit helmet and other garb more suited to the African savanna than the "wilds" of southern Maine, spent most of his show's allotted minutes making up ridiculous claims about the ferocity of mundane animals. It made for entertainment, as long as you enjoyed watching TV MST-3000 style.

Since none of the animals were particularly dangerous, it was just supposed to be an entertaining lark of a project, that might make real money once it was printed. No one on the project could have foreseen the tragic turn of events. And I certainly hadn't.

Norm, thrilled to death to be the focus of an authentic movie-maker, played it up for all he was worth. Jason was interviewing the manic host about his vast collection of harmless reptiles – which were kept in thick glass tanks on a series of heavy but none to stable wooden bookcases- when Norm rushed over to get a particularly dangerous specimen of common tree-toad to show the audience when it happened.

He tripped in his eagerness to get the animal, and stumbled into one of the bookcases. That case knocked into another, which crashed down on poor Jason who hadn't had time to get out of the way. He was dead by the time they unearthed him from under the bookcase, shattered tank, and lacerated reptiles. Norm was removed from the scene under sedation, and never took up with the nature show even after being released from the hospital.

"What about his death are you planning to investigate?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"I have a video- "Agent Mulder said, making a move to reach into his coat. Agent Scully kicked him in the shin. Hard. Which made me pretty sure of what was on the tape, the thought of which made my stomach churn. His hand dropped back to his side, still empty. "Anyway, I wonder if you're familiar with a phenomena referred to as a rain of toads?"

Scully quickly jumped in "While they're observed often enough to validate their occurrence, scientists think it's caused by-"

"I know what a rain of toads is, and am familiar with both the scientific theory and the biblical connection." I said shortly. "And given that neither explanation can account for such a thing happening inside a building, I'm going to ask you to leave now while I'm still master of my emotions and actions."

At that I opened the door and glared at them until they walked out. Fortunately for them they didn't say another word.

Once they were gone, I sat down at the computer and tried to figure out if it was possible to get a restraining order against insane law enforcement agents.