"Well, here we are." Darry rolled the wheelchair to a stop outside of Max's tent, which looked more tightly closed than Cal's secret condom collection. "I guess Jael's still got him quarantined."

"I'll go see if I can be of service to any of the rest of the regiment...that is if you get off my lap."

"Huh?"

"Not that you have to..."

"Oh, yeah. Well, I guess I'll see you later..."

"That would be...nice. I had an very..."

"Me too...."

"Well, bye."

"Bye...Cic?"

"Yes?"

"Nothing."

~*~

"She's smitten," Julia said putting down the binoculars. "It's amazing."

Sere picked up the binoculars. "Amazing, hell. It's scary."

"Jael's rather taken too."

"What IS it with these guys?"

"Well one thing's for sure," Julia said,

"What?"

"Certainly isn't because of their fashion sense."

The girls watched Lynne frolic with Juba on the rugby pitch.

"Then again..."

~*~

Darry pushed the empty wheelchair back to the Admin Building and let it go with a heave, where it skidded down the ice covered hallway and crashed into Normal Al, who lay exhausted against the Library doors.

She walked up the stairs to the second floor and down the corridor to Laure's office. Boy, she felt bad.

"Get outta my way," she groused at Cal, who looked at her kinda funny. Darry knocked on the door.

There came a sound of stumbling and then what sounded like a marble bust hitting the floor.

"Ooof."

"Sorry, my bad. I knew I shouldn't have tried to move that to make more room on the desk."

"We're closed. Important therapy session, and all that, you know."

"I'm very vexed at this interruption to my slumber."

"Commo honey, you weren't sleeping."

"True, but whoever it is out there doesn't need to know that."

"Well, it's rather a bit too late for that pretense now, isn't it, Shana?"

"Oops."

Darry sneezed. "Laure, it's me."

"That's nice."

"I need to see you."

"You've seen me for 15 years, a few more hours-"

"Days, my love."

"-days won't matter, right?"

"Argh. Fine, I'll just be in the Library if anyone needs me."

~*~

"Cal, what's a General Jr.? Where's the General Senior?"

"Uh, I don't know, he seems to have disappeared. In fact everyone seems to have disappeared. Now, if you'll just explain what the nature of this appointment is that we have-"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Diebin's set us up with a bunch of appointments."

"Cal, the only appointment you're going to have with me is the kind where my fist is having an appointment with your teeth."

"But-"

"Oh forgive me, you're right." His smile brightened. "It's time for my shoe to have an appointment with your butt."

~*~

Using Crow and a tiger to steady herself, Darry slid down the hall to the Library and used Normal Al's accordion as a battering ram to open the door.

Darry surveyed the scene of the crime.

One of the bookshelves had fallen over.

"Uh huh."

She looked at the remains of a pentagram (drawn in crayon) on the floor and an empty bucket from KFC.

"Uh huh."

Darry stooped down and picked up a videocassette that she found lying next to the bucket.

"Uh huh."

A trail of black and lavender clothes led across the Library floor to a black body-shaped box. She looked into it.

"Uh huh."

~*~

"If you'll just look at this form, it says that you and I have an app-"

Darry slammed Cal's hand in the Library door. His shout should have had the desired effect of waking everyone in the room. Well, it would have if they hadn't all been in a post-coital stupor. God knows what Force enhanced tantric tricks Dorotea had Xani demonstrating to her new guest.

Her new guest.

Darry did a quick math problem in her head as she walked back into the Clinic.

"Uh huh."

Dorotea's Rat Bastard's External Affair application made a nice orange glow in the Clinic's incinerator.

~*~

"Mulder."

"Oh for Christ's sake! I need to talk to Emmy. Well, actually, I need to talk to the General."

"General who? Grant? Lee? Foods? Electric?"

Click.

Darry stepped out onto the ice in the hallway and watched Caeryn, John, Crow, Syd, and a mummy that could have been Mr. Vocab and Tasha wrapped in several hundred Ace bandages playing hockey with Servo's head. Judy, Kendra, JenJen and Kymira watched from the sidelines.

"Ellie!" Darry yelled.

"Here!" said her padawan, leaping to her side.

"Why have you got a handlebar moustache drawn on your face?"

"Long story. How are you feeling?"

"Not too good. I'm still kinda sick. Have you seen Emmy or the General lately?"

"Uh...yes and no."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Lightning flickered at Darry's fingertips. Ellie glanced nervously down at the Nurse's hands.

"Uhh, Emmy said that no one was seeing the General until she had him looking just the way she thought he should."

"Huh?"

"Well, Dorotea made him brownies that made his hair grow."

"Really?" Darry brightened.

"But Emmy doesn't like it. So now his hair is either being perpetually chopped or up in a braid, which I kinda like, but-"

"I want to see him." Darry pushed away from her padawan and headed towards Emmy's room.

"Uh, Nurse Darry, that's what I've been trying to explain," came a vapid voice from her other side. "All your General appointments are with me."

Darry turned her head toward the Padawanabe and reached out a hand. The paper in Cal's fist burst into flame and disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.

"Uh...well, now you don't have any appointments..." Cal said and turned away to try the Mediation Office again.

"Well, shit," Darry said, then sneezed.

"Here sweetie," Judy handed her a flask.

"Thanks." Darry took a swig and nearly choked. "What the hell is that?"

"Chicken soup and Robitussin."

~*~

Darry looked back at the Clinic door.

She didn't really want to face the cleaning nightmare that was sure to greet her when she walked upstairs. And she didn't really feel like sitting at her arrow-filled desk and listen to the sound of the game out in the hall, or the encore performance starting up next door.

So, Xani was "busy." She didn't really feel like dealing with him, anyway.

The General was having a folicular emergency and Emmy wasn't letting him out of her sight. She didn't really feel like going up against the Diva anyway. Not with a cold and sore muscles.

She looked at her fingertips and thought she could hear the strands of 'N Sync wafting by her ear. Damn that Normal Al, anyway.

She picked up her cell phone and pressed #2. "I can't believe I'm doing this," Darry said under her breath.

"Hello, this is Dande," came a lyrical voice.

"Uhh."

"Darry? Is that you?"

"Uh..."

"What's the matter? Is it the General?"

"Uh..."

"One of the Hos?"

"Uh..."

"Oh my god, you sound awful. Wait-- what are you wearing?"

"The Halston."

"Oh, thank god, for a minute I thought you'd gone all Wenchie again. I'm certain that the Collective is not ready to deal...er...undertake such a submission at this time." Dande put her hand over the phone and looked at the tall, long-haired man standing next to her and shook her head vehemently, not dislodging one single strand of hair.

"You do NOT want this one," she mouthed to him.

Darry stood dumbly waiting for Dande to return to the conversation. Wenchie. She DID sound all wenchie. This was horrible. She hadn't sounded all wenchie since...she sneezed again. "Thanks Dande, you're right. I knew you could help!" Darry hung up on the Wench a planet away.

Let's see, it had been about an hour since she'd left Cicero out at the rugby pitch. Where would he be now? He couldn't be taking care of Max; Jael was doing that. She'd find him, though, if it took her all afternoon.

Darry started weaving her way through the hockey players in the hall. She had just made it to the Admin Building door when she slid into someone.

"Get outta my-- Cic? What are you doing here?"

"I was putting up a new tent, since I can't seem to get into my other one and I think I hurt myself."

Darry inspected his hand. "Yeah, that's a real nasty splinter you've got there. I think you better have me look at that." He smiled. She took his hand and they slid back down the hall toward the Clinic.

"Hey, who's that guy?" Cicero asked pointing at John. "He looks familiar."

"One of Caeryn's friends." He blinked. "C'mon, how many hockey players do you know?"

"What's hockey?" They made it to the Clinic and stepped over the tiger that was resting against the door, enjoying the vibrations coming from the Library wall. Darry pushed the door closed behind them. The Halston didn't even make it to the stairs.

~*~

"Ellie! You've got to answer your phone faster if you want to remain in this job."

"Certainly, my master. What is thy bidding?"

"Ben and Jerry's and tell Judy we'll have the usual."

"No problem- I assume I need to be going to Denny's tomorrow?"

Darry sneezed.

End.