GOOD VIBRATIONS
EPILOGUE / CHAPTER 9
. . . None of which the interns in Accounting were to know, of course, poor fools.
But, anyhow, what happened to everyone during the bureaucratic limbo of Mulder and Scully's horrific expense report?
Well, Billy Ackroyd was pissed off enough at the world in general to write a full-length book lambasting every facet of the government. It went on to reach #3 on the New York Times' Bestseller List, where it stayed for a number of weeks. Although Ackroyd earned enough to build several more – better -- motels, he chose not to; instead, he pursued a moderately successful writing career. He is now a wealthy anarchist.
The starry-eyed Charlotte Ackroyd, through a series of unlikely events which I will not bother to relate, was Discovered and became a star of the stage. Singing, of course. Her first hit song was titled "In Your Eyes (I See Intensity)." Upon her becoming a millionaire, any number of intense-eyed young men began to seek her out, although -- no worries -- not one of them answered to the name of Mulder. Charlotte didn't mind too much. Life was good. Still is.
The visiting New Agers were unhappy when the good vibrations dissipated a few days after the second earthquake, but were thankful that they had had the chance to Join into Cosmic Oneness. Exchanging addresses and phone numbers, they went their separate ways; every so often, they have a reunion.
And Joe Lowell? Eventually, he got over his identity crisis. Now he works quite contendedly in a national fast food outlet as an Assistant Manager of Frying Things. One of his subordinates is a man who bears a startling resemblance to Elvis Presley.
The subterranean army research facility, as you might have guessed, collapsed into one big sinkhole. Unless you have a backhoe and a whole lot of spare time, no evidence remains of its ever having been there.
The interns from Chapter 1 decided to pass on to their superiors only what they felt were the "safe" parts of the Expense Report From Hell. In other words, Mulder and Scully were reimbursed six months after the fact for two pairs of sleeping bags, some bedsheets, and two pairs of flip-flops. This confused the heck out of them when they got the reimbursement checks, since they had pretty much forgotten about that particular wild goose chas. When your job description can be summarized as "glorified ghostbuster," you don't tend to have a lot of leisure time in which you can review your less pertinent cases. Some things are best forgotten, anyway.
As for our Dynamic Duo's place in the epilogue aside from their financial relationship with the Bureau -- well, we all know that they live on.
AUTHOR'S ENDNOTES
I had a heck of a good time writing this (whereas, by the end of "Primal Fear," I was fused into a twitching, paranoid lump . . . though that was, admittedly, sort of fun in its own wouldn't-wanna-do-it-again kind of way), and am unimaginably grateful for your having read this far. Hopefully you also enjoyed reading it. :)
Also: Thank you so much, those of you who reviewed. Even though I prefer to finish stories before beginning to post them, which is why there are huge time gaps between each series' first appearance, I do make changes to unposted chapters when given advice. (So you can hold Blue Twilight responsible for the UST in Chapter Seven.)
And: I realized after posting Chapters One through Three that I probably should not have named Mr. Ackroyd "Billy." There are way too many people (characters and cast alike) on the X-Files who are called by some variation on a theme of William as it is, so I probably should have named him something else. Well, you live and you learn.