***

The ringing of her bedside telephone jarred Special Agent Dana Scully out of a peaceful sleep. Before reaching for the phone, she opened her eyes and focused on the face asleep on the pillow beside hers. During her single days, a ringing telephone at an odd hour of the night almost always meant her partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder, wanted to talk to her. But since she and Mulder were now married and he was asleep beside her, that obviously wasn't the case.

She grabbed the phone before the sound could wake Mulder -- although he seemed to be snoring through it just fine -- or, more importantly, their two-year-old daughter. "Scully," she said briskly.

"Dana, it's Yves."

"Yves, are you aware it's," Scully squinted at the clock "3:45 in the morning?"

"No. I'm sorry," the British-tinged voice on the other end of the line sounded genuinely, if only momentarily, regretful, "but I really need your help. Yours and Mulder's both."

"Yves, where are you?"

"I'm in New Orleans with Jimmy and the rest of the guys. And their behavior. . .it's just bizarre, Dana."

"They're the Lone Gunmen, Yves. Their behavior is always bizarre. No offense," Scully paused to yawn, "meant to your husband. Jimmy's the least bizarre of the four of them, but he even he has ideas that are a bit, um, offbeat sometimes. Of course, so does Mulder."

"Okay, let's go with that concept. Mulder behaves in ways that are little. . .well, weird, sometimes, right? I mean to most people. But you know him well enough to differentiate between his *normal* weirdness and when he's behaving in a way that's incongruous and out-of-character, don't you?"

"Of course, Yves. He's my husband. Even before that when he was my partner," Scully paused to remember certain events of her past -- once when she'd had to shoot a drugged Mulder and once when a man she'd initially assumed to be her partner in an unusually, er, friendly mood had turned out to be an imposter -- "I could tell the difference between run-of-the-mill Mulder madness and when he was, even by his own standards, behaving like a lunatic."

"You understand what I mean then," Yves said with relief. "Naturally the guys are acting weird. It's what they do, it's who they are. But they're acting weird in an odd way; even by their standards. And I don't know why, or what's causing it."

Scully sighed and sat up in bed. "What are they doing?"

"Well, you know how their normal behavior is to be real nervous about everything. I mean, all the guys except Jimmy?"

"Yeah?"

"They're the life of the party down here. It's some sort of convention -- I haven't figured out exactly what -- and they're all drinking and trying to pick up women and engaging strangers in conversation and Langley keeps climbing up on tables and doing this stand-up comedy routine which is really funny but very unLangleylike and,"

"What about Jimmy?" Scully interrupted.

"He's been kind of odd, too, although in a different way from the rest of the guys."

"How?"

"Well, he's been unusually, um, affectionate."

"Yves, you and Jimmy haven't even been married a year yet and, judging by the fact that you're five months pregnant, I'd assume that 'affectionate' -- which I'm guessing is your reserved, British way of saying 'horny' -- is pretty normal behavior for him to exhibit toward you."

"Yes, when we're alone. But he's generally pretty good about keeping our private life behind closed doors. Down here he keeps pulling me into his lap and. . .groping me and stuff right in front of the other guys."

"Yves, I can understand this being a tad bit unnerving for you, but are you sure the guys -- Jimmy as well as the rest of them -- haven't just had too much to drink? I mean New Orleans is kind of known for that, especially at this time of year; people drink more than they normally do and that loosens their inhibitions."

"It's more than that, Dana. I've seen men drunk before and anyway this started as soon as we'd checked into the hotel, before anybody had a chance to have a drink. Oh, and she's here, too."

"She who?"

"Susan, I think her name is? Byers' girlfriend that he only sees once every couple of years?"

"Suzanne Modeski," Scully said with a sigh. "I'll wake up Mulder. Tell me what hotel you're at and see if you can book us a room there. I'll call you back when we've got a flight arranged."

***

Several hours later, Mulder and Scully were en route to New Orleans. Despite the rushed nature of their departure and the tiny tinge of sadness they felt at leaving their daughter for a few days, even in the care of her loving grandmother, they were both excited. This was a return to the life they'd shared together for so long -- dashing off to odd places for weird reasons to investigate strange happenings.

"What did Skinner say when you talked to him?" Scully asked her husband.

"He gave his big, dramatic sigh and said he'd take care of things; tell both your supervisor at Quantico and the other members of the violent crime squad that we'd been called away on urgent, official business pertaining to an old case."

"Mulder, why is it that in all the years we worked the X-Files together, we never once had a case in New Orleans? Or anywhere in Louisiana, for that matter? I would think *lots* of weird stuff would happen in New Orleans?"

"I think you pretty much answered your own question, Scully. I'm sure lots of stuff happens in New Orleans that most people would consider odd. I just don't think the people who actually live there consider it a matter for federal investigation. What seems weird to us is probably par for the course in Louisiana."

"I think Langley summed it up when he was talking about Suzanne last spring," Scully said. "Once she shows up, things start happening that are -- even by the standards of the X-Files, the Gunmen or New Orleans -- just plain weird."

"Scully, have you ever even *met* Suzanne?"

"Sure, that time the guys lured me out to Las Vegas by playing a tape of your voice and making me think you needed me out there."

Mulder chuckled. "I'd forgotten about that. They damned near lost my friendship over that little stunt. I really raked them over the coals; told them if they *EVER* again put you in danger without me there to watch your back, I'd beat the shit out of them."

"Really? I told them pretty much the same thing. Said if they ever again made me think you were in some sort of trouble just to get me to help them out I would kick their asses but good."

"It was awfully sweet though, you know."

"You mean that the guys wanted me to help them?"

"No, that you flew all the way out there just because you thought I wanted you to. The guys shouldn't have done it, but at the same time it's funny that they knew us both well enough to know that calling you in the middle of the night wasn't uncommon for me and that you'd hop on a jet and fly anywhere in the country at a moment's notice if you thought I needed you."

"Remember when we first got married and my mother told us she and Missy knew we were perfect for each other years before we realized it ourselves? Guess maybe the guys knew, too. Seems like we were the last people on the planet to realize we were in love with each other," Scully smiled softly at her husband, then yawned.

"Sleepy?"

"A little maybe," Scully admitted. "Yves' call woke me up just when I was at the deepest stage of sleep."

Mulder responded by pushing up the armrest between their seats and pulling Scully's head gently down to his shoulder. Scully smiled softly, nuzzled her face into her husband's broad shoulder and was soon sleeping peacefully. Mulder was a little surprised that she dropped off so quickly but it was true that she'd been woken up in the middle of the night and he supposed -- now that they were no longer on the X-Files and Melissa had outgrown her infancy -- that Scully was out of practice in being awoken in the middle of the night.

***

Scully felt Mulder's light kiss on her temple and heard his murmured, "Wake up, sweetheart". She stretched out her hand and found it was right on top of her husband's burgeoning erection. Still half asleep, she gave it a playful squeeze.

"Scully, have mercy," Mulder growled in her ear. "I'm trying to get it to subside and that is not going to help. I'm assuming you don't want us to get arrested for public indecency either."

Scully blinked herself awake and blushed furiously. She realized, now, that they were on a plane. Mulder's suit jacket was draped over her upper body and his own lap, so the reflexive movement of her hand had been hidden from view, but still. . ."Sorry," she murmured, sitting up straight and moving her hand to smooth her own hair, "I thought we were still at home in bed for a minute there. Been ogling the stewardesses while I was sleeping, Mulder?"

"You have an obsession about stewardesses, Scully."

"That's because I spent the first seven years of our relationship watching them practically hyperventilate every time you walked on a plane and they realized you weren't wearing a wedding ring."

"In any case, no, I have not been ogling stewardesses. I've been watching you sleep and contemplating the possibilities for our activities in New Orleans once we get the guys' problems straightened out."

Scully smiled. While she and Mulder had an active sex life at all times, it was true that things seemed to get extra steamy whenever they were checked into a hotel. She supposed it was the combination of lack of distraction -- from their daughter or their jobs -- and the memories of all those long years they'd spent yearning for each other on opposite sides of the door in adjoining hotel rooms.

***

By the time Scully was able to make it all the way up to the Bonds' hotel room, she had already come to share Yves theory that something more was going on here than simple alcoholic indulgence. . .although there was plenty of that, too.

First, she and Mulder had walked through the bar where Frohike was drinking tequila shooters. Frohike had always enjoyed an occasional beer or mixed drink, but this was the first time they'd ever seen him absolutely plastered. When they'd suggested he'd had enough, the normally mild-mannered reporter had snarled at his friends and told them to mind their own business.

Then, they'd wandered through a convention room in which Langley was supposed to be giving a speech on computer privacy but found that he was, instead, doing a stand-up comedy routine. They stopped to listen for a moment and soon found themselves guffawing along with the rest of the crowd. "Langley is *funny*," Scully whispered to her husband. "Who knew?"

Once they were on the third floor, where all the Gunmen had rooms, they saw Byers signing a receipt for a room order meal. "Hi, Byers," Mulder said. "Can we talk to you a minute?"

Before Byers could respond, a feminine voice from inside the room called out, "Johnny, shut the door will you?" and Byers slammed the door in the agents' faces.

"Was that Suzanne's voice?" Scully asked her husband.

"Sounded like it," he replied.

Mulder and Scully knocked on the door of a room further down the hall and were greeted by a somewhat harassed looking Yves Bond, and a grinning Jimmy Bond, who had both arms wrapped around his wife's slightly swollen belly.

"Hi, Fox. Hi, Mrs. Mulder," Jimmy said. Both agents had long since given up trying to get Jimmy to call them "Mulder" and "Scully" or even "Mulder" and "Dana".

"Thanks for coming," Yves said, backing into the room. Jimmy leaned down to nuzzle her hair and nibble on her ear. Then he whispered something that caused Yves to blush. "No, not now. Jimmy, honey, I need you to do something really important for me, okay? Important for me and the baby."

"Sure, sweetheart. What?"

Yves placed his hand on her abdomen and said, "Here, feel if the baby is kicking and write down what time it says on the clock every time you feel movement. Can you do that for me?"

"Of course. Write down the time whenever I feel the baby move."

"Okay, good. You do that. I'm going to talk with Scully and Mulder for a few minutes."

"Yves, if you suspect something's wrong with the baby, you should go to a hospital," Scully said. "Or I can check you out if you want; between my medical training and my own fairly recent pregnancy, I could probably tell if the baby's moving enough."

"I'm sure the baby is fine," Yves whispered into Scully's ear. "I just went for a checkup last week and I haven't noticed any change in the frequency of its movements since then. This is just to keep Jimmy occupied. If I don't come up with a baby-related reason not to have sex, that's all he wants us to do."

Scully took a quick glance at the good-looking blond giant caressing his wife's belly and whispered back, "Yves, are you complaining or bragging?"

Yves giggled. "If that's all it was. . .if it was only that Jimmy had shifted into hormonal overdrive. . .I'd just lay back and enjoy it; bag my plans for getting any work done down here and treat this week as a second honeymoon. But I'm worried about the other guys. I think they may do something they'll regret, something that could be dangerous."

"Frohike and Langley did seem to be acting awfully strange," Scully conceded. "And Byers slammed the door in our faces."

"Speaking of Byers, you two can have his room. We got three; one for me and Jimmy to share and two for the other guys to divvy up however they wanted. Langley and Frohike are sharing, because Byers won the toss to have the private room, but he seems to be sleeping over in Suzanne's room."

"You know, despite the infrequency of their meetings, this is a woman Byers has been in love with for more than a decade," Mulder pointed out. "And they're both well over the age of consent. If the two of them want to share a hotel room for a few days -- and, presumably, engage in the activities implied by two adults of the opposite sex sharing a hotel room -- I don't think that's any of our business."

"If it's what they both really *WANT* to do then no, it isn't," Scully agreed. "But I think it's possible they've been drugged or something. My behavior was pretty odd when I was in Las Vegas, after I'd been exposed to the chemical Suzanne had been working on. Luckily, the guys got the antidote into me before I did anything really awful."

"Mmm," Mulder said wrapping his arms tightly around Scully's waist and pulling her back against him. "I wish I'd been there," he whispered in her ear. "I would have taken *goood* care of you. Want to adjourn to our-room-that-used-to-be-Byers'-room for a little bit? I'll show you. We can always talk with Yves later."

Scully's eyes went wide and she glanced up at her husband to see if he was joking. But there was no teasing glint in his eyes, no smirk on his generous lips to indicate that he intended for her to make light of his sexual innuendo. Instead, his eyes were dark to the point of being feral and the expression on his face indicated that he expected her to take his suggestion seriously. Another indication that his intentions were serious was poking into the small of her back.

Scully looked down in amazement to see that Mulder was trying to unbutton her blouse. She had no objection to her husband removing her clothes while they were alone, but a strip show a deux, with Jimmy and Yves as their audience, wasn't something she wanted to participate in.

"Mulder, quit that," she hissed, swatting his hands away.

"See what I mean?" Yves asked.

"Yes, I do. But this gives us something to work with. Mulder hasn't had anything to eat or drink since we arrived in New Orleans, which means that whatever's causing this. . .behavior. . .must be either inhaled or, possibly, transmitted by touch; inhalation's a better bet."

"Why weren't we effected, though?"

"Well, the obvious explanation would be because we're women," Scully said. "It seems to mostly be a hormonal thing, maybe some sort of testosterone-linked phenomenon. It could effect only men."

"It's effecting Suzanne," Yves said.

"I don't think either one of us knows her well enough to say that with any certainty," Scully pointed out. "Maybe it just effected Byers and she's merely. . .responding to his overtures."

"Unless the woman is an exotic dancer, her behavior was not normal. I'm sure she and Byers are happy to see each other and all that, but when Jimmy and I are went over to their room -- her room, whatever -- for a few minutes last night, she started undressing!"

"Okay, we'll concede," Scully began saying to Yves, then interrupted herself to say, "Mulder, *QUIT* that!"

"Come on, Scully," he murmured into her ear. "You may have an image around the bureau as being an ice queen but I know better. Remember, I'm your husband. I know how hot you are. How much you like sex. How willing you are to experiment with different kinds of pleasures."

Scully sighed. She was fighting a three-fold problem here, she realized. The first was to figure out what was making so many people here at this hotel behave in a way that was -- even by the standards of New Orleans at Mardi Gras time -- bizarre and irrational. The second was to get Mulder to think of something besides sex long enough to allow her time to work on the first part of the problem. The third was to ignore her own desires to simply follow her husband's suggestions, which were sounding like they'd be a lot more fun than running spectrum data analyses!

Deciding to take a page out of Yves book, and work on the assumption that even the horniest of husbands could be distracted by his duties as a Daddy, Scully said briskly, "Mulder, would you call my mother's house, please? I think we need to check on Melissa."

"I'm sure she's fine, Scully."

"I'd just feel better if you called and talked to her for a few minutes. She's getting to the point where she understands we've gone far away on a big plane and I think it worries her."

Mulder muttered "overprotective mother" in her ear, but did untangle himself from her body and moved to a far corner of the room in order to make the requested phone call.

"Hey, I just felt the baby move!" Jimmy announced.

"That's good, honey. Write down the time," Yves instructed.

Jimmy was now carrying on a conversation with Yves' belly, discussing the different sports the baby could play one it emerged from the womb, while Mulder was chatting on the phone to Melissa. With both men talking to their children, Yves and Scully were able to discuss strategies.

"I can use the lab facilities here at the New Orleans office to run a preliminary analysis, then ship samples up to Quantico for an in-depth report," Scully said.

"Analyze what? The air in the hotel?" Yves asked.

"I can capture some of that in a vacuum bottle and take it along with me, yes," Scully replied. "More importantly, I'll take Mulder to the lab and run a tox screen on his blood."

"I hope you're not planning on doing that 'til, um, later," Yves said.

"Let's write down as much as we know about when the phenomenon first began and the effects we've noticed," Scully said. "Later on, Mulder and I will take the report and the samples down to the labs."

***

By the time the "sex free" half hour that Yves had negotiated with Jimmy for had passed, the two women had a fair idea of what the effects were and what sort of substances they should be looking for. They also had two very aroused men on their hands and decided that it would be better if each couple adjourned to the privacy of their own hotel room.

As soon as Mulder and Scully were in the hotel room that Yves had reassigned them to -- the bed obviously hadn't been slept in the previous night -- he pushed her up against the door and kissed her. Scully was more than ready to stop fighting by this point. She reached around and grabbed her husband's butt, pulling his closer to her.

"Yeah, *that's* my girl," Mulder murmured. "I knew you wanted it just as bad as I did."

"Of course I did, Mulder. I just didn't want you giving it to me in front of Jimmy and Yves. This is a private activity. The only person who ever again gets to see you at full mast is me!"

"I want to give you a pearl necklace, Dana."

"Fox, you've already given me more than enough jewelry and, besides, I assume that shopping isn't the activity you're interested in pursuing at the moment."

Mulder laughed warmly in his wife's ear. "That's not what I meant, sweetheart. . .although, of course, I'll be more than happy to buy you a necklace of real pearls if you want one. What I have in mind. . .it's a sex thing."

Scully blinked. While she didn't have her husband's vast knowledge of exotic sexual practices, gleaned from all those years of watching "videos that weren't his", she'd *thought* she was familiar with most of the standard displays of intimacy between a man and woman. However, this phrase was new to her.

"What does it involve, Mulder?"

"You'll see. Trust me?"

"Always," Scully answered with absolute certainty. While Mulder might have been showing a tad of exhibitionism earlier, she had no doubt whatsoever that even in his current altered state, he wouldn't force himself on her or do anything to her if she objected to it.

Mulder continued to kiss Scully while he removed first her clothing, then his own. He pulled down the covers of the bed and slid in, tugging his wife down beside him and kissing her again, deeply, while running his hands up and down her body. Scully wiggled against him and whimpered softly when he brushed his fingertips teasingly between her legs.

When they came up for air, Mulder rolled Scully onto her back and straddled her upper body. She was a bit confused as to what he was doing. He was way too high on her body for them to have intercourse, but a little too low for her to give him a blow job. She began to get a glimmering of his idea when he placed a hand on each of her breasts and pushed them close enough together to produce a deep cleavage and began to rub his engorged cock between them.

"I think I see what you're aiming for, Fox," Scully murmured. "But I still don't see why you called it a pearl necklace."

"You will," he replied with a smirk.

Mulder continued to fondle her breasts, teasing her nipples into peaks with his skillful thumbs. Scully's own participation in the proceedings was pretty much limited to stroking her husband's back, butt and thighs. Her view was nice, though. And she was surrounded by the special, heady scent that she'd learned to recognize as the aroma of an aroused Fox Mulder.

After several minutes, Mulder whispered. "Can you hold your breasts pushed together like this for me, Dana? I want to focus all my attention on thrusting."

"Sure," Scully replied, placing her own hands on the outer edges of her breasts and squeezing them together. This freed Mulder to place his own hands on the pillow at either side of her head. Scully watched with interest as the first drops of semen began to emerge from the tip of his penis. While this was a phenomenon she *felt* frequently, she rarely had a chance to view it up close and personal like this. After a few more minutes, Mulder spasmed and hollered out her name.

As soon as Mulder could speak coherently again, he traced a finger gently around the skin just below Scully's collarbone. "See, sweetheart? A pearl necklace."

Scully strained her neck to look at her upper chest. It was true that the small drops scattered along her skin did look like pearls.

"Very nice, Mulder. Now could you get a washcloth and clean me off?"

Mulder chuckled and kissed her, then went to do as she asked. After he'd gently and thoroughly wiped her off, he kissed her again and murmured, "We seem to have some unfinished business to attend to, G-Woman. I'm afraid certain parts of my anatomy may be out of commission for the next couple of hours, but I'll be happy to use my mouth. . .or my fingers. . .or even my thigh; seems like you had fun with my leg once."

"I think I'd like to try the same thing you did," Scully suggested. "Rubbing myself against your chest and see what happens."

"We can certainly try that," Mulder agreed. "But I'm not sure you'll get enough stimulation to climax."

Scully smiled. "Come on, Mulder. You're supposed to be the one who's the fan of extreme possibilities. I'm the one who's supposed to demand scientific proof before accepting implausible theories."

"Perhaps you'd better start testing your hypothesis, then, Dr. Scully."

Scully straddled Mulder's chest and began to rub herself up and down against him. The friction of his wiry hair and warm, solid muscles was delightful but after several minutes she realized that she just couldn't get quite enough pressure where she needed it.

"Mulder, I'm not going to be able to come like this," she finally murmured. "Maybe I should move and let you use your fingers."

"I'll be happy to use my fingers, Scully, but I don't see any particular reason for you to change positions."

Mulder demonstrated what he meant by sliding his hands down the smooth skin of her back and bottom, then slipping one finger into her vagina from behind. Scully moaned her approval and arched against him. He inserted another finger and began to pump into her from that angle while she wiggled against him. After just a minute or so of being stimulated from both directions, she climaxed.

Scully tumbled down beside Mulder, placing her face on the pillow next to his and kissing him gently. She supposed she really should get down him down to the lab before his hormones kicked into high gear again, but she was *so* sleepy. . .certainly a little nap wouldn't hurt.

***

"Mardi Gras Madness", Part 2

Summarized, disclaimed, etc.in Part 1

***

When Scully finally swam back to consciousness, she glanced at the clock and groaned. Her "little" nap had stretched to a two full hours. She wondered if she was having a reaction of her own to the air in the hotel, albeit of a different type than most people seemed to be having. Probably not, she thought; she'd been unusually tired even on the plane, before they'd ever arrived in New Orleans.

Scully quickly put her clothes back on, and when Mulder woke up to ask her what she was doing she said, "We came down here to work, not play, Fox. Get your clothes on and come with me."

"Gee, Scully, I'm not saying that's impossible, but it's a lot easier for me to come with you when my clothes are off."

Scully just put her hands on her hips and glared at him, 'til her husband muttered, "slave driver" and began to don his own discarded clothing.

***

Once they got to the New Orleans field office, Scully commandeered the labs to begin running her tests. She drew Mulder's blood and also began a spectrum analysis of the air in the hotel.

"I ran those tests you asked for," the lab agent, a young black man, said. "You were pretty much on the money as to the chemicals you thought were causing it. The only thing I'm not clear on is why you and the other woman you mentioned weren't effected."

Scully was quiet for a moment, then she said, "Hold on there's one more test we need to run; I think it may provide the answer we're looking for."

***

When Mulder and Scully returned to the hotel, she told him, "Go find Langley and Frohike; see that they keep out of trouble."

"I'd rather," Mulder began, nuzzling Scully's ear and running his hand along her backside.

"I know what you'd 'rather', Mulder," Scully told him with a roll of her eyes. "We'll get to that later. Right now I need to find Yves."

Scully knocked on the door of the Bonds' hotel room and called out "Yves?"

"Shh!" Yves said, slipping out of the door. "Jimmy's sleeping. If he wakes up, he'll just want to. . .well, you know. . .again."

"Okay, come on, I figured out what was causing this. I've got the antidote here, but we need to slip it into the ventilation system of the hotel. Then we need to get out of here."

The two women quickly inserted the canister into one of the air conditioning ducts of the hotel and set the timer on it. Then they hurried out the door.

"Where are we going?" Yves asked Scully as the two woman walked briskly away from the hotel.

"I don't know," Scully admitted. "The French Quarter, maybe? Or have you already done all touristy stuff?"

Yves laughed softly. "Dana, I've barely been out of my hotel room since we got here. I was too afraid that going any place public might lead to Jimmy -- and possibly me, too -- being arrested for indecent exposure!"

"The French Quarter it is, then," Scully said, hailing a cab.

***

After several hours spent eating and shopping, the two women returned to the hotel.

They walked through the lobby, which seemed strangely subdued after the exuberance most of the convention goers had displayed earlier in the day. Scully and Yves hurried up to the floor where their rooms were located and went to the Bonds' hotel room. There they found a note in Jimmy's handwriting on the rumpled bed. It said: "Yves, The coast is clear. Meet us in Langley and Frohike's room. Tell Mrs. Mulder that Fox is there, too. Love, Jimmy."

The two women walked through the connecting door and encountered not only both their husbands, Langley and Frohike, but Byers and Suzanne as well.

Langley looked up at them and said, "Please tell me that I didn't really stand up on a table in front of a hundred or more people and give my riff on why the Ramones are the greatest band in history? I'm just hallucinating, right?"

"Sorry, Langley," Yves said briskly. "You did it. I heard you. It was quite informative, actually."

"I guess that means I really did drink an entire bottle of tequila and pay a hooker to dance the tango with me, then?" Frohike asked.

"Probably," Scully said. "I saw you doing the drinking. I missed the dancing, but I don't doubt it took place."

"Any idea what we were exposed to, or why?" Suzanne asked.

Scully gave them a brief rundown of the chemical analysis she'd found at the labs and ended with, "As for why, I really couldn't tell you. Maybe some sort of biological warfare experiment? You guys are better at formulating conspiracy theories than I am."

Frohike nodded. "Let's get back to work, then."

"Yeah," Langley agreed.

"Byers, Scully and I have kind of taken over what was supposed to be your hotel room," Mulder said. "Do you want us to see if there are any other vacancies?"

Byers glanced at Suzanne. She smiled and shook her head and whispered, too low for anyone but him to hear, "Not unless you want to."

"No thanks," Byers replied, not making eye contact with any of his friends but, instead, leaning over to peer at the screen of Langley's laptop. "Suzanne and I can continue to share."

"Johnny and I have. . .an announcement of sorts to make," Suzanne said. "While we may not ever be able to have a totally normal relationship, like either of you two have," -- she glanced first at Mulder and Scully, sitting next to each other on one of the room's beds, then at Jimmy and Yves, standing with their arms around each other near the window -- "we think we've worked out a complex enough cloaking system where we can e-mail each other on a regular basis. And, if we're careful, we should be able to make arrangements to meet up and spend a week or so with each other a couple of times a year; which will be a big improvement on the four-meetings-per-decade we've had up to this point in our relationship."

"In other words," Byers said, looking first at Frohike and then at Langley, "if you wake up one morning and I'm not there, be sure to check my room to see if I've left a note *before* you notify our friendly feds, okay?"

"Will do," Frohike said with a nod.

Yves gave a huge yawn. "I hate to be anti-climatic, but I'm tired. I'm going to bed; you can stay here and help out the guys if you want, Jimmy."

"I'll stay for a bit," Jimmy replied. He figured Yves had would appreciate a chance to use the bed in their room to actually sleep in. He'd been quite a pig, sexually speaking, since they'd arrived in New Orleans. He knew it wasn't all his fault -- he'd been drugged -- but he still felt bad about having been so demanding, especially since she was pregnant.

Scully yawned, too. "Ditto in all respects for me. I'm going back to our room, Mulder; just don't leave the hotel without letting me know, okay?"

"I won't be much longer," he answered. He still felt a bit bad about jumping Scully practically as soon as they walked into the hotel; which wasn't to say that he wouldn't be interested in an encore performance.

However, by the time Mulder returned to their room, Scully was fast asleep. He stripped down, scooted in beside her, and clicked the TV onto "mute" while watching a basketball game. It was funny how even something as basic and unromantic as this -- watching TV in bed -- was better with Scully beside him than it had been before they were married.

***

Jimmy awoke around dawn the next day. Yves was snuggled against him and still sleeping soundly. He decided to take advantage of the hotel's weight room and get in a good workout. He spent nearly an hour using the various kinds of exercise apparatus, then returned to their room to take a shower.

Yves awoke to sound of the shower running. She was about to slip out of bed and join her husband when the water cut off. She watched through half-open eyes as Jimmy -- wearing one towel around his waist and drying his hair with another slung around his shoulders -- came into the room and stood beside the bed. He reached down and touched her face gently with his fingertips.

Opening her eyes more fully, Yves smiled up at her husband then let her eyes wander down his bare, well-muscled torso. Pushing aside the towel around his waist, she took him into her mouth. He grunted with a mixture of surprise and pleasure.

"Yves, I'm sorry I've been such a pig since we've been down here."

She didn't say anything just leaned up on the elbow of one arm and wrapped her opposite hand around his thigh so she could draw him in more deeply.

"Yves, I -- aah! -- I'm trying to apologize."

"And I'm trying to give you a blow job," she replied her British accent especially pronounced, the way it often was when she was a bit irritated. "Would you hurry up and finish so I can get on with it?"

"You don't have to do that, Yves. I realize I've been acting like a sex maniac for that past few days and embarrassing you in front of our friends and. . .I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault, Jimmy; you were drugged. Besides, while I was kind of embarrassed when you started groping me in front of Langley and Frohike, because these," she grabbed one of his hands and guided it to her breasts, "are for you and, eventually, the baby, it's kind of nice that you still find me so attractive, even now that I'm obviously pregnant. I've heard that some men don't."

"You're beautiful, Yves."

"It's just that Mummy warned me you might not think so once I got big. Apparently as soon as she began showing with me, my father lost all interest in. . .that sort of thing."

"Your father is a 24-karat jerk, Yves; even I'm smart enough to have figured that out."

"So, can I go back to what I was doing? I know you don't expect me to, but you know how much I love the way you taste when you're just out of the shower."

"Be my guest, sweetheart," he answered.

***

Mulder woke up spooned against Scully. She'd worn a nightgown to bed, but it had bunched up around her waist during the night and as she hadn't worn anything beneath it his cock was now pillowed directly against the curves of her ass. He leaned over and kissed her cheek lightly, then nuzzled her hear. He also brought one of his hands up and began tracing lazy circles around her breasts.

Scully snuggled closer to him and said, "Did you not get enough of the antidote, Fox?"

"This is not a drug-induced arousal," he replied, "this is just the normal morning horniness of a loving husband who wakes up with his wife's bare ass against him and who knows that their beloved daughter is several states away and thus will not be bothering them anytime soon. But if you're not in the mood, I'll go take a quick shower and then we can go out to breakfast; I'll take you for beignets and cafe au lait in the French Quarter."

"I'm going to hold you to that offer, Mulder, but I want to play before we eat. That is, if I can be on top."

"Of course you can be on top, Dana." It was their preferred lovemaking position; it allowed face-to-face interaction and full body contact and freed him from any worries that he might hurt her.

"Just say when," Mulder murmured, resuming his pattern of kissing and caressing her.

After a few minutes, Scully was in a delicious agony of indecision. Having her husband nip and lick at her neck and murmur sweet nothings in her ear while he lightly stroked her breasts, belly and thighs was a difficult thing to put a halt to. However, she could feel his swollen cock throbbing against her ass every time she wiggled and there was a corresponding throb between her own legs that was beginning to be almost painful.

"I want on top now," she said, twisting in his arms and rolling him onto his back. Scully straddled Mulder and slid him inside her . She sighed with bliss as she scooted down and rocked slightly from side to side so she could fully engulf him. She could never get over how *good* this always felt.

"Can you bring your legs up?" she asked.

"Like this?" Mulder asked bending his knees so that her bottom could against his thighs.

"Y-yeah!"

Mulder took one of her breasts in his hand and bent his mouth to the other one to hide his look of smug amusement. It still amazed him how making love could turn his calm, rational Scully into a wildly passionate woman who was barely capable of coherent speech. He wrapped his opposite arm firmly around her waist to maintain the contact and friction between their bodies.

Being stimulated from so many different angles at once quickly overwhelmed Scully. She soon convulsed around him and whispered his name.

Once Scully had completed come down off her high, Mulder asked, "Would it be okay if I rolled us? I'm close, but I'd really like to be on top when I finish."

"Sure, Fox."

Without pulling out, Mulder flipped them so that she was beneath him. After only a minute or so quick, hard thrusts he climaxed insider her.

"I love you, Dana."

"I love you, too, Fox."

He pulled out and she pillowed her head on his chest while he lightly stroked her hair.

"Hey, you never did really explain why you and Yves were the only ones not effected by that stuff?"

"Do you remember when we investigated the monkey babies and I postulated a theory that was so startlingly obvious that the doctor confessed he might never have thought of it: that the reason the five babies had the same genetic abnormality was because, despite having five different mothers, they all had the same biological father?"

"Dana, please don't tell me that Eddie Van Blundht was involved in this somehow!"

"No, of course not. It's just that the reason neither Yves nor I were effected was so *obvious* that it took me a while to figure it out."

"What do you mean? Granted, you and Yves are both women, but so are Suzanne and several other convention goers who were effected."

"Fox, what's the most obvious thing about Yves at the moment? I mean, for someone who's never met her before, what's the first thing they'd notice about her?"

"Probably that she's pregnant."

Scully didn't say anything just smiled deeply into her husband's eyes.

Mulder's eyes went wide and then he whispered, "You're pregnant, too?"

Scully's smile grew even wider as she nodded her head.

Mulder whooped with joy as he rolled Scully over and kissed her deeply. When they finally came up for air, he whispered, "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I didn't know before. My period was only due to start yesterday. Under normal circumstances, it would never have occurred to me to perform a pregnancy test when I was less than 24 hours late, but I finally considered the possibility that it *might* be the one thing Yves and I have in common."

"I'm so happy, Dana!"

"Me, too, Fox!"

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