Christmas Adventures of Paul and Kathy
By Anna Otto and Ashlea Ensro
Email: annaotto1@aol.com & morleyphile@yahoo.com

Best if you read Theater of the Absurd already. For those curious it's 
located at

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/1495 or
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dreamland/7599

Category: SH (parody)

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: none

Feedback: sure!

Archive: only by our permission.

Summary: how Paul and Kathy went to find Santa Claus because they 
wanted presents. A parody on Theater of the Absurd. 

Disclaimer: all characters you recognize, except Santa and reindeer, 
belong to CC, 1013 productions and FOX. What, you think they would 
willingly let us do this new horror to them? Right, we are doing it 
without permission... but not for profit.


It was a dark and stormy night. All around the town, nice people 
were putting up Christmas trees and hanging up the stockings on their 
fireplaces. And in a big skyscraper, in the gloomiest room of all, 
several men in dark suits with morose expressions stared miserably 
at one another contemplating an unexpected disaster.

It was the night of the annual Consortium Christmas party. The tree 
had been hung with glow-in-the-dark ice picks and flashing alien 
implants, the punch had been spiked with LSD, and the smoky room on 
46th St. was ready for a party. There was just one, small, nagging 
problem.

The floor under the Christmas tree was bare. Completely and utterly 
bare. No surveillance equipment wrapped with a red bow, no new Zippos, 
not even a pretty white box.

Santa Claus was nowhere to be seen.

"We have a problem, gentlemen," a very fat man stated the obvious.

"Santa Claus was supposed to be here a long time ago," the Englishman 
replied acidly, glancing at his companion with displeasure. The guy 
had to stop eating these little cakes they prepared for the party, 
or there wouldn't be enough for everyone. "But it seems he'd 
forgotten his obligations."

The Smoking Man smiled enigmatically. "I am sure we could persuade 
him to remember..." he let the words trail off. "There are ways. He 
will have no choice," he was mumbling now. "There is that little 
collection of photographs that Mrs. Claus would love to see, I am 
sure..."

"Your...extreme practices have no place here," the Brit snarled.

"Have you got a better solution?" The Smoking Man leaned back, 
confident in his value to the Project. His colleagues often 
underestimated the effectiveness of pure, simple blackmail.

"I have a better solution."
 
The voice came from somewhere in the shadows of the shadowy room. 
Ancient, watery eyes turned to face the speaker.

"We hunt down Santa, run his sled off a bridge, and hold him at gun 
point until he brings us our presents," Kathy Mott jumped up 
excitedly.

"No, Kathy, we discussed this," her partner, Paul Bartlett, offered 
a weary smile. "We track down Santa and erase his memory so that he 
conveniently forgets that we have once again found ourselves on his 
naughty list this year."

"Oh," Kathy pouted, chagrined. She really was hoping to finally see 
some *action*, but apparently her partner was trying to be 
reasonable. As usual. "One of your sublime methods."

The Smoking Man resisted a proud smile. The partners really were 
the best Christmas present he could ever hope to get... but it 
wouldn't do to show that he didn't much care for Santa's stuff. 

Either way, he was hoping to get this really cool lighter with an 
inscription of  "We'll make you deny the lie." 

"I will help you," Martin smiled insolently at the partners. "I 
can lead you to the last place where Santa was spotted. We put 
surveillance on his dwelling in the woods." 

Paul frowned. There was something deeply disturbing about the 
snarl of Martin's lips... and he thought about refusing the offer. 
But it was Christmas Eve, and they had to love one another. 
Sighing deeply, he nodded. Martin was a lying, double-crossing, 
alcoholic son-of-a-bitch, but they had to trust him on this one. 
He was, after all, one of their best.

"Well," he looked from Martin's smug face to Kathy's. "Shall we 
go, then?"

Kathy giggled. She reminded herself that dark and shadowy 
conspirators were really not supposed to giggle, but then again, 
she and Paul were a new breed of conspirators, the Consortium's 
brightest hope, and she could damn well giggle any time she felt 
like it.

"Let's go," she said. Because she was also a ruthlessly efficient 
conspirator, and time was running out.

"May God be with you, my children," the fat man intoned suddenly, 
stuffing another little cake inside of his mouth.

The Englishman shuddered. There were some things about the past 
life of their first elder that he just didn't want to know. The 
background checks were sometimes incomplete.

The Smoking Man watched Paul and Kathy march to the door, and 
Martin follow in their footsteps stealthily, covering his tracks 
already. "They will succeed," he whispered ominously. "They 
must."

The Englishman glared at him darkly. The best gift that he could 
get for Christmas was the smoker's dead body, but it would really 
put a damper on things for Paul and Kathy who were quite valuable. 
And Paul and Kathy had to be kept happy or else. He sighed deeply 
and reached to swipe another cake from under the fat man's nose. 

The snow outside swirled in the cold wind...

* * *

Meanwhile, in the J. Edgar Hoover building, a lone light 
illuminated the haunted features of the bald man in eyeglasses, 
a.k.a. Walter Skinner.

Skinner had a reputation at the FBI for being a hard-nosed, no 
nonsense former Marine entirely lacking in sentiment. Which was 
true, really, for the most part. Or at least it had been, up 
until two years ago, when his two best agents mysteriously 
disappeared into thin air.

Nowadays, he was prone to occasional bouts of sentimentality. 
Especially now, when it was Christmas, and he was alone in his 
office without any friends or family. It was getting late, and 
it didn't seem that even his cigarette-smoking nemesis was 
going to drop by tonight.
 
So Walter S. Skinner did what any lonely, haunted Assistant 
Director would do on Christmas Eve.

He sat at his desk, and thoughtfully composed a letter to 
Santa Claus.

"Dear Mr. Claus," he wrote down. "Most of all this year, I 
wish for peace on Earth, and Monica Lewinsky's self-destruction. 
But, aside from these non-selfish wishes, I had a few personal 
things to ask for. First of all, I want to be the Director of 
the FBI. Second..." he suddenly couldn't think of such mundane, 
unimportant things. It was no use denying that what he wanted 
the most was for Mulder and Scully to be back. For Mulder to 
sit on this empty chair in front of him and enchant him with 
tales of the wonderful and the weird. He was such a good 
storyteller! He had such overactive imagination. And then 
Scully would wipe the sweat off his brow, and tears off his 
eyes had such measures been required, and her lips would shape 
in this beautiful smile...

Such thoughts were only too exhausting. "Santa, if you'd ever 
loved me. I will even forgive you that time when I asked for a 
little machine gun and instead you brought me a Barbie doll. 
But please, bring Mulder and Scully back home and make this 
everlasting nightmare go away!"

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and Skinner's 
secretary came in to give him a letter that lacked an address. 
"Sir, this just came for you from the mailroom," she murmured 
innocently, too naive to realize that mailroom was already 
closed. No, this letter was of a much more sinister nature. 

"Dear Mr. Skinner,

I have reason to believe that you may have knowledge of the 
address or whereabouts of one Mr. Santa Claus, a.k.a. Kristopher 
Kringle, a.k.a. The Jolly Red Suit-Wearing Man. This information 
is of vital importance to my organization. So vital, in fact, 
that in exchange for this information I could perhaps be persuaded 
to give you some information of my own - say, a hint or two about 
the fate that may or may not have befallen those two agents for 
whom you seem to care for so strongly.
 
If you want to deal, meet me at the Vietnam Wall in an hour.

If not, have yourself a merry Christmas.

Sincerely,

Your Informant."
 
Skinner's eyes wandered over the letter. There was no mistaking 
the incoherent sentence structure, the smell of cheap whiskey 
clung to the pages - metaphorically of course. It was none other 
than his latest Consortium emissary.

He sighed heavily and reached for his coat. It wasn't like he 
had any plans this evening anyway.

* * *

Martin knew that he looked sinister in the wide-brimmed black hat. 

Skinner thought the man looked ridiculous, resembling a little 
snowman. "Why are you so interested in the whereabouts of 
Santa Claus?" he started, wanting to get out of there before 
they were both snowed in. 

Martin smiled. According to the unwritten conspiracy rule of 
"deceive, inveigle, obfuscate," he couldn't tell the truth even 
if it was as innocent as getting a few undeserved presents for 
the baddest of the bad guys from the shadiest of all fringes of 
government. "He possesses some abilities that could... further 
our research," he declared finally. There. That looked evil 
enough to be believed, and besides, he had to maintain an image.

Skinner blinked, slightly worried about the old jolly fellow. 
"You wouldn't..." he exhaled, chilled to the bone by the sheer 
evil of these men. God only knows what they did to Mulder and 
Scully. Probably turned them into frogs or forced them to live 
apart in misery. 

Martin's teeth clicked happily. This was too much fun. "You 
underestimate us, Mr. Skinner. As well as you underestimate 
your friend Santa. That little song... 'he knows when you've 
been sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows when you've 
been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.' That fellow 
knows a whole lot. Even more than we do. And we certainly 
would like to find out... how he manages to keep tabs on the 
population of the entire planet."

Skinner was possessed by a sudden, horrifying vision of the 
jolly old elf, complete with red cheeks and twinkling eyes, 
smoking Morleys and kicking back with the Consortium. He 
shivered, and not just because of the cold.

"No," he told himself, "No..." To Martin, he said, "What makes 
you think I know where this Santa Claus fellow is lurking?"
 
Martin gave a strangely innocent laugh. "Why, Mr. Skinner, you 
managed to dig up the Smoking Man's home address? I marvel at 
your investigative capabilities." Time to quit the act - he 
lunged forward with a snarl. "Give me his location or the next 
time you see your agents, they will be floating in a cloning 
tank."

"You...you wouldn't..."

Martin tipped the brim of his hat a notch lower. "Oh, we have 
our ways."

Skinner backed closer against the wall, feeling for his gun. 
He had an obligation to protect Santa - an innocent civilian 
beloved by billions of children around the world. The man he 
once was - the pragmatic soldier who had survived Vietnam and 
assassination attempts - would have weighed the importance of 
the happiness of those children against the trite significance 
of two lives. The man he once was would have thought it out, 
balanced it, then made a calculated and logical decision.

But Skinner was not the man he once was, and it was a cold and 
miserable Christmas eve, and all he wanted were his two best 
agents back.

So he reached for his pen, and hiding the tears that seemed so 
inevitable, wrote down the address on the back of the letter 
Martin had sent.

Martin pocketed the page with a sense of pride and satisfaction. 
"I will be in touch, Mr. Skinner," he rattled off a familiar 
phrase. "I will make sure that Santa gets your little letter."

With those words, he disappeared into the darkness leaving 
Skinner alone to contemplate the ramifications of what he'd 
just done. 

Christmas would never be the same again.

* * * 

If Kathy Mott's eyes were an aquarium, a fish could drown in 
their blue depths. Deep woods surrounded her, but she plunged 
ahead bravely, ignoring the snow, the howling wind, the dark 
skies, and the grunts of her partner who didn't seem to be too 
happy to be on this trip.

"Kathy, are you sure we are going the right way?" Paul groaned. 
"We've been walking for hours."

"This is the diagram that Martin gave me," Kathy replied, then 
looked around uneasily. "Did you hear this?" she whispered. 

Paul listened carefully. "Yes," he drew his gun out of the 
holster. It never hurt to be prepared. Who knew what dangerous 
things lay ahead? A good conspirator had to be prepared for 
any circumstance - wolves, snowstorms, unexpected alien 
invasions, and IRS machinations. And one never knew what they 
could encounter in this wilderness. "The laughter... over to 
your left."

Slowly, guns drawn, they walked towards a clearing in the woods. 
They were both silent, listening to the cackling maniacal 
laughter, which grew louder and louder as they approached.

Someone was losing it, and it sure as hell wasn't Santa Claus.

Paul drew in a quick breath and swung around the trunk of a tree, 
aiming his gun at the hunched figure in the snow, rocking back 
and forth with hysterical, sobbing chortles. Kathy followed suit, 
squinting at the woman, who was dressed in a blue terrycloth 
bathrobe.
 
She looked familiar. Sort of.

The woman raised her head and stared directly at Kathy.

"DANA!!!" she shrieked, with a pitch that might have exploded 
their inner ears, if their inner ears had been just slightly 
more sensitive. She bolted into Kathy's arms, clinging to her 
with a violent forcefulness.

"Ugh! Get her off!" Kathy staggered back as Paul peeled the 
older woman off of her.  Who was she? She looked so 
familiar...
 
"It's me, Dana! It's your mother Margaret!" The woman was 
babbling now - Kathy could see her partner working up a 
psychological profile already. "I've been heartbroken ever 
since you disappeared, Dana, I've missed you so much and now 
you can come home and we'll have a turkey dinner, and-"

"You *drooled* on me!" Kathy hissed.
 
The woman named Margaret gave another shriek and tried to 
wrestle the gun from Kathy's hands. "You...you...monster...
you..." Kathy pulled the gun from her and started to stomp 
away. Paul quickly followed suit, casting a final nervous 
glance at the madwoman in the snow.

"DANA!!!" The cries echoed through the woods as the partners 
resumed their journey.

"What was that all about," Paul whispered to his partner 
softly. 

"Hell if I know," Kathy shuddered. She certainly wouldn't 
want to be this woman's daughter, not for any amount of turkeys 
or chocolates or high-tech gadgets in the world. "But you tell 
me what *this* is all about."

Paul glanced up only to see a small black-haired woman stare 
at them as if they were evil incarnate. Which, of course, 
was a completely false appearance. Paul and Kathy were, in 
fact, really good conspirators, and they were helping to save 
the world. And they were also very modest, so they couldn't 
explain this to all the people who didn't know just how 
humane the Project really was.

"Excuse me," Kathy started out with a friendly smile, because 
she was a very good person, and wished for nothing but peace 
on Earth. "We were looking for Santa Claus.."

She didn't have a chance to finish as Holmes' breath hitched 
and eyes rolled out of their sockets from righteous anger. 
Holmes didn't realize that Paul and Kathy were only trying to 
save the world, and for some reason she had a problem with 
their methods. "You are looking for Santa Claus? So you can 
put him in a little cage and perform your evil experiments on 
him? See what makes him tick? Do some research?"

Paul could see Kathy's eyes glimmer as if she just realized 
how good of an idea that was. His partner had a very 
inquisitive side to her and she liked to see what was inside 
of all things and people alike. He coughed delicately to 
distract her. "No," he explained to the irate woman. "We just 
want to get our presents." Especially a guide to blowing up 
buildings efficiently, quickly, and leaving absolutely no 
evidence behind, he added mentally. And a teddy bear.

Holmes cocked her gun at them. She was a good girl all year. 
"You are my present," she informed them happily. This year, 
there was only one humble request on her Christmas list. 
"Dear Santa," she wrote. "I would like to wreck vengeance 
on the people who ruined my life."

Kathy tore her mind from thoughts of dissecting Santa and 
creating little elf clones to deal with the situation at hand.
 They were obviously in some kind of danger. Holmes did not 
seem to understand the importance of their mission, how they 
really were working for the greater good, and that if the 
general public, FBI included, knew the reasons behind their 
actions, *it* would all fall apart. Not to mention that they 
were lost in the middle of the woods in the freezing cold with 
a woman who did not exactly seem to be the poster child for 
mental stability. 

They had to get out of here. Immediately.

Paul, meanwhile, was frantically cutting a deal with Holmes, 
the stakes which appeared to be a cure for Marsel's paralysis, 
a couple classified secrets, and one of those cool alien ice 
pick things. Holmes did not know what they were used for, she 
just thought they looked pretty neat.

"Holmes..." a weak voice suddenly sounded from the left, and 
the threesome turned to look at the source.

There, with a beatific gentle smile on his lips, ex-Agent 
Marsel sat on his wheelchair. He was getting sort of sick 
of playing the role of this angel, but among these 
present-hungry mongrels, someone had to be unselfish enough to 
think of the greater good. "Holmes, let these people go," he 
repeated, smiling wider and wider. 

Kathy was a bit frightened by the unnatural happiness of this 
crippled young man, but decided to use the momentum and pushed 
the wheelchair in the direction of Holmes. Suddenly, the wheels 
were spinning out of control, and Marsel was soon sprawled on 
the forest floor, his shiny new wheelchair lying beside him. 

Despite his precarious position, the smile on his face did not 
lessen a notch. He smiled up at his ex-partner. He smiled up 
at Kathy. He even smiled up at Paul, who was playing with his 
gun and wondering if he should use it.

"Marsel, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be in the 
hospital!"

He pulled himself up, trying to climb back into his wheelchair. 
Holmes considered helping him, but she was rather occupied with 
holding the two conspirators at gunpoint. "I've come to teach 
you the true meaning of Christmas," he chirped.
 
Holmes had always gotten along with her partner - they were 
the perfect combination of reason and intuition - the best 
partnership the Bureau had seen since Mulder and Scully had 
disappeared. They worked incredibly well together. They
meshed on a personal level.

Right now she was about ready to throttle him.

"Marsel..." Holmes' voice was a warning.
 
"Don't you realize the pointlessness of all this violence? I 
mean, I'm sure these conspirators have our best interests at 
heart..."

"Like hell they do," Holmes snarled.

Marsel ignored her. "This is the season for love and 
forgiveness," he continued, "Holmes...*Tanya*...if I can find 
it in my heart to forgive..."

Just as Holmes swung her gun around to aim at her partner's 
head, Paul and Kathy took the opportunity to vanish back 
into the woods.

The shot sounded from behind the trees and Kathy glanced 
backward, horrified. Though this smiling could make a saint 
consider the use of lethal weapons, shooting one's partner just 
wasn't right, especially on a Christmas Eve. 

"I'd never shoot you," she murmured to Paul. "Unless of course 
you decided to quit the Consortium. Then I would have to kill 
you so you couldn't help the enemies with information."

Her partner smiled reassuringly, feeling a surge of pride for 
the many sacrifices Kathy made for the Project. "I know. 
Though may I advise, in the future, trying to erase memories 
of people who leave the Consortium rather than outright 
violence? It's always so messy," he cringed distastefully.

Kathy snorted. He was never going to learn. Her brow furrowed 
as she looked around and realized that they were lost in the 
scary dark woods and that Martin probably misled them. "Why 
would our friend do something like this?" she whispered 
brokenly. "Doesn't he know that we all work towards one goal?"

Paul shook his head in chagrin. "Sometimes I think that maybe 
Martin doesn't like us," the realization was staggering. "I 
wonder why? It couldn't be that we are more valuable or more 
interesting or more attractive or more talented than he is?"

Kathy couldn't believe Martin would be so shallow as to 
consider any of these things. "We can't dwell on our own 
pain while our friends are waiting for their presents. Our 
priority must be to find Santa."

Suddenly, there was a strange light in the sky and they looked 
up mesmerized. Paul stared at the bright flashing lights that 
looked so familiar... he was sure he'd seen one of these things 
before. Though it didn't involve reindeer or these annoying 
jingle bells. One of the pet projects of his was devising a way 
to get rid of all annoying Christmas songs. And to think that 
there were some people who thought Consortium weren't working 
for the good of all mankind. 

Kathy nudged him with her elbow. "This is Santa's sled! Let's 
run after him!"

Paul sighed and followed in her footsteps. There had to be a 
way to make sure she didn't accidentally use one of her 
"simple" methods. 

"Stop! FB-" He broke off abruptly. Where had *that* come from? 
He cringed intuitively as the sled drew to a halt in the snow 
before them. Kathy approached first, her weapon trained on the 
jolly old fellow.

The sound of footsteps echoed through the trees before them. 
Paul looked around to locate the source. The sound did not come 
from his partner, who stood perfectly still. And it certainly 
did not come from Santa Claus, who sat in his sled, frozen 
with fear.
 
A tall, muscular man, his bald head gleaming in the moonlight, 
approached from somewhere among the trees. Paul recognized him 
instantly as he felt Kathy prod him.

"Hey, isn't that the guy whose spirit we were supposed to 
break?" she whispered.

"Uh...yeah...that's him." He cleared his throat. To AD Skinner, 
he said, "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Mul...Scul...what...the...who...why...?"
 
Kathy groaned. She wondered what it was about their presence 
that always seemed to reduce this otherwise eloquent man to 
spells of incoherent nonsense. She shrugged and pointed her 
gun at him, because, after all, sometimes the simple methods 
were so much more expedient.

Skinner got himself together quickly. "I came here to intercept 
Santa Claus and warn him of a possible threat to his well-being," 
he said, "I see I have come too late."

Paul was genuinely surprised. "Threat to his well-being? Who do 
you think we are, Mr. Skinner?" he asked softly, anguish in his 
words. "Just because we carry guns and work outside the law 
doesn't change who we are on the inside," he swallowed painfully, 
unable to deal with this apparent mistrust in the goodness of 
their natures.

Kathy was becoming more and more upset by the minute seeing that 
her partner was this unhappy. Deciding to take the matters into 
her own hands, she stepped closer to Skinner, gun aimed at his 
chest, then spoke to Santa who was paralyzed in shock in his sled. 

"You will come with us," she said to the jolly old man. "Or this 
guy gets it!"

Santa was very frightened and for a few seconds he debated letting 
this bald man die - but then he remembered that he was supposed to 
be a good guy and uphold the image. "I will come with you," he 
informed them in a shaky voice. "But wouldn't you rather get a 
few presents?"

Paul was interested. "Were we really on your list this year, 
Santa?" his heart fluttered with excitement, but then he reminded 
himself that they deserved presents, that they were the good 
conspirators. "What did you bring me?"

Santa shifted from one foot to another. "Um..." he mumbled. Every 
year, he made the same mistake. Instead of giving gifts to all the 
worst thugs of the planet, he gave gifts to meek, nice people who 
had no power and couldn't give him anything in return besides their 
thanks and cookies. And really, how many cookies could one eat, 
especially once the diabetes hit? 

Paul gave him a knowing glance. "You forgot us," his countenance 
grew darker. "Again."

Santa fidgeted, trying to stall for time. "I...um...I...uh...
brought...uh..." He looked through his sack. He was nearing the 
end of his route, and all that remained were a couple broken 
candy canes and an asphyxiated puppy.

Kathy clicked the trigger of her gun. She knew damn well that 
Sig Sauers weren't supposed to click for whatever reason, but 
regardless, it was an intimidating gesture.

"Wait!" Skinner cried, "You can't do this!"

"Why not?" Kathy asked, strangely curious.

"Because...because it's wrong...because...oh, hell, because 
you're Mulder and Scully."
 
"WHAT?" The two voices spoke simultaneously.

"You're Mulder and Scully, and you've been kidnapped and 
brainwashed to work for the Consortium, but really you're good 
guys who would never, ever shoot an innocent person, and wouldn't 
even really shoot a bad guy unless he *really* deserved it, and 
even then you'd spend weeks feeling genuinely bad about it, 
and..."

A flash of concern crossed Kathy's face. "You know, I think 
this man needs help."

Santa nodded in agreement, doing another once-over of his sack 
to check and see if he might have missed a bottle of Prozac, 
hiding way in the bottom. No such luck.
 
"I think both of you had better come with us," Paul said.

"What will you do with us?" Santa asked nervously. 

Paul smiled enigmatically in a perfect imitation of his best 
smoking friend. "We will make you happy."

Skinner sighed and prepared for the worst. Really, these two 
people were nothing like Mulder and Scully... the souls of his 
missing agents were long gone, and all that remained were these 
happy shells.

The horror was only beginning.

* * *

Meanwhile, Martin Ng was in heaven. He discovered Santa Claus' 
secret lair and was only too relieved to find it deserted. 
Hopefully Paul and Kathy would be dead before the night was 
over, and then he would never have to worry about them taking 
his righteous place away from him. 

One day, Martin would run the Consortium from the shadowy room 
on 46th St.

He would be a benevolent ruler of the world. He would let people 
vote alongside of aliens, and he would maybe even give a shot 
of vaccine to some of them... maybe to those who really deserved 
it.

Opening another door, he discovered a roomful of Furbys of all 
colors and shapes who all cooed at him softly and offered to be 
his friends. So the old man wasn't as clean as he appeared to 
be! This was the entire reason for the current deficit... the 
Consortium itself couldn't generate such madness over alien 
abductions. His respect for the old jolly man rose up a notch.

Picking up a few friends, Martin loaded a cart with a few choice 
items for everyone on his own Black Christmas list. Here were 
cookie-cutters for the first elder, a blue nail polish for the 
Brit, a Nicoderm patch for the smoker, a man-sized bottle of
whiskey for himself...

If he weren't a king of this Christmas party, there was 
something very wrong with this harsh, cruel world.

* * *

Skinner would have never expected to even be present at the 
annual Consortium Christmas party, let alone to be having as 
much fun as he was. His eyes wandered around the room, 
wondering about these people whom he had once regarded as 
so frightening and mysterious.

Santa Claus and the First Elder were having a contest to see 
which one of them could fit more of those little cakes into 
his mouth without actually gagging, while Krycek had drunkenly 
challenged the Englishman to an arm-wrestling contest. Marita 
was singing Christmas carols and decorating the tree with 
ceramic bees. The smoker, who had so frequently haunted 
Skinner's office with a brooding menace, was excitedly showing 
off his new lighter to anyone who cared.
 
Paul and Kathy were sprawled out underneath the Christmas tree, 
happily unwrapping their presents. Kathy had received a shiny 
new microscope, while Paul had wound up with some fancy 
surveillance equipment. Neither of them seemed to have 
regained any more memories, but then again, they were much 
more cheerful and jolly than Skinner remembered, so he 
figured the hell with it.

And reached for more of that mind-shattering Christmas Eve 
punch.

Suddenly, the door opened with a clatter of bells. Kathy ran 
up to answer it, giggling because there was mistletoe over 
the doorway.
 
All activity stopped immediately, every eye in the room turned 
towards the black-clad figure in the doorway. And Kathy hoped 
to hell her trademark skepticism would rule out any mistletoe 
activity.

"Hello, Martin," she said coldly.

"Kathy," Martin tried not to lose his cool. "I brought you a 
present!" He figured that he could always share a Furby. 
Furbies were friendly to everyone even to the bad conspirators 
like Kathy. 

"We know everything," Paul growled, standing beside his partner. 
"You led us to the woods to die! And you stole all these 
presents from Santa."

Santa Claus stopped eating the little cakes and came to glare 
at Martin. "You wanted to hurt Paul and Kathy?"

The room sighed in collective indignation. 

"Nobody hurts my agents!" Skinner backed up the jolly old man.

Paul groaned. The guy was really delusional but he was 
obviously useful. "Say, Skinner, would you like to join 
the Consortium?"

The Assistant Director was touched by the offer. He could 
work with Mulder and Scully again and everything would be 
right with the world. "Yes," he cried and hugged his long-lost 
friend. Paul rolled his eyes wondering at the strangeness of 
this bald man but hugged him back merrily enough.

Santa Claus felt all warm and fuzzy inside. This was the 
happiest Christmas ever, and he finally was getting into a 
position of power. "I would like to join too," he offered 
shyly. "As an honorary member."

The first elder brought him a little cake to celebrate, and 
there were cheers from everywhere in the room. The feeling 
of warmth was overwhelming and everyone forgot about Martin 
who hugged all of his Furbies closer to him and went to sit 
in a dark corner and nurse a tall glass of whiskey.

"I want to be your friend," one Furby said looking at him 
with those big blue sad eyes. 

Martin blinked. A haunted whisper slipped his lips. 

"I will be in touch."

END

Merry Christmas, everyone!
And Theater of the Absurd 2 (the real thing) is coming.