Title: Halloween Eve
Author: Girlie_girl7
Email: Girlie_girl74@yahoo.com
Date: 10-30-03
Rating: PG
Category: bit o'fluff
Spoilers: VS 11, anything up to JS
Archive: Anywhere after two weeks at VS 11
Disclaimer: Fox owns 'em
Summary: Mulder's paranoia takes over on Halloween.


                    ~ Halloween Eve ~


Mulder and Scully were standing in line at Grover's
Market in Georgetown.  Scully was in need of groceries
and as much time as Mulder spent at her place, she
figured he might just as well come along to pick out
his own junk food and carry the bags.

Mulder was leaning over the cart while standing on the
bottom rung, much like a small child would.  "Scully,
did you buy any caramels and apples?  The best part of
Halloween is eating caramel apples."

Scully checked her grocery list one more time to make
sure she had gotten everything.  "Yes Mulder, I bought
apples and caramels.  I always give out apples to the
trick-or-treaters."

Mulder wrinkled up his nose, "Apples, plain old
apples?  Scully kids hate getting apples."

Scully had finally made it to the end of the conveyor
belt and placed the little divider between her
groceries and the customer's ahead of her.  "Mulder, I
am not contributing to the poor eating habits of
children."

Mulder looked around and mumbled, "I'll bet your trick
or treaters wonder where you park your broom."

"What?" Scully asked.

"Nothing," Mulder answered.

Scully was getting exasperated with her partner,
"Mulder, will you stop climbing all over the cart and
help me unload it."  Scully could have sworn she heard
him whine.  He began to put the groceries on the belt
when he stopped and stared at the clerk, then pulled
on the hem of Scully's sweater.  "Mulder, stop that!" 
She said as she batted his hand away.

Mulder looked down at his partner with his back to the
clerk, "Scully, who does that checkout look like?"

Scully tried to look around Mulder but he grabbed her,
"Don't look, don't look!"

Scully got up in his face, "Mulder, how am I supposed
to look at her, if you won't let me look at her!"

Mulder glanced up then looked back down, "Okay, but
look really quick."

Scully turned her head slightly, as she put a head of
cabbage on the belt, "So."

"So?" Mulder repeated while he looked at Scully in
amazement, "Don't you see it?"

"See what?"

"Don't you think she looks like Eve 6?"

Scully whipped her head around to look at the woman
who was currently scanning a case of Yoo-hoo.  "No, I
don't think she does," Scully whispered while she
placed the last of her groceries on the belt and began
to dig out her coupons.

"Scully!  She looks exactly like her."

Scully laughed, "She does not."

"Scully look again, she is even chewing her gum in the
same manor as Eve, when she showed us how she bit that
poor guards eye ball."  

Scully stared at her partner, "Mulder, are you sure
the spirit of the holiday isn't getting to you?"

Mulder was busy rearranging the groceries on the
conveyor belt, trying to act nonchalant while he gave
the clerk the once over.
He leaned against the counter and whispered in
Scully's ear, "It's an Eve, same dumpy posture, thick
thighs, round face, it's gotta be."

Scully glanced up from straightening her coupons,
"Mulder, I'm sorry but I just don't see it."

The clerk began to scan Scully's groceries, "Do you
have any coupons ma'am?"

Mulder was leaning against the counter mouthing, "It's
her."  Scully frowned and hit him with the back of her
hand.  He huffed out a lung full of air and moved to
stand behind her.

"Yes, I do," Scully said, as she handed the Eve clerk
her neatly clipped little pieces of paper.

Mulder walked around Scully and began to pick up the
bags and drop them into the cart when she frowned at
him, and he carefully placed the next bag in.  "So
have you worked here long. . ."  Mulder looked at the
clerk's nametag and swallowed hard, "Evelyn."

He looked over at Scully; she raised her eyebrow in
fact she raised both, he knew now her interest was
peaked.
"You worked here long, Evelyn?"

The clerk continued to scan Scully's groceries, "About
a month, I moved here from San Francisco."

Now Mulder's eyebrow raised, as he spun a can of cream
of mushroom soup Scully had placed on the counter,
"Nice area to live, why'd you move?"

Evelyn shrugged, "I lost my husband."

Mulder stopped the spinning can, "You did, how did he
die?"

Evelyn scanned Scully's bag of apples, "He didn't, he
run off with a twenty year old nurse."

Mulder looked over at Scully, who shrugged her
shoulders.  He grabbed another bag of groceries and
placed them into the cart.  "Halloween's tonight, I
love Halloween."

"Me too," Evelyn chuckled in what Mulder would
describe as an evil chuckle, "I'm going to a party."

"Oh really," Mulder feigned surprise, "what are you
going as?"

"A mad scientist."

Mulder was not feigning surprise now; even Scully's
little ears had perked up with that last statement. 
"That will be 68.52," Evelyn told Scully. 

"What?" Scully replied, lost in the thought that an
Eve might be bagging her avocados."

"68.52," Evelyn said, as she snapped her gum.

"Oh right," Scully got out her credit card and ran it
through the terminal.

Mulder placed the last of the groceries in the cart
and waited for Scully next to the exit while he never
took his eyes off Evelyn.

Scully walked over to him and looked back at the
clerk, "I have to admit Mulder, she does sound a lot
like Eve."

Mulder's eyes narrow, "I'm getting to the bottom of
this."

Scully looked around as they walked to her car,
"Mulder are you sure this isn't just a machination of
your imagination gone wild?"

Mulder opened the trunk and began to put the groceries
into it.  "Scully!  You said yourself, she sounded a
lot like an Eve."

"A lot, not exactly," Scully responded.

Mulder slammed the trunk lid shut and set his jaw,
"I'm going back in there."                  

"And do what?" Scully sarcastically asked, "Buy some
Halloween candy?"

"Good idea!" Mulder said, as he turned on his heels. 
"Well, aren't you coming with me?"

"No, my feet hurt, but if she turns on you and takes
your Goobers, you yell."

Mulder tossed back his head in a silent laugh.  He
walked back in the store and grabbed a cart.  He eyed
Evelyn as he walked to the candy section of the store.
 He tried to keep his eye on the evil clerk as he
tossed bags of M&M's, Tootsie Rolls, Dumb-Dumb's,
Sweet Tarts, and Candy Corn into the cart.  He picked
up the bag of Candy Corn, wrinkled his nose and tossed
it back on the shelf, then he added a bag of bubble
gum and Hershey's Kisses.  

So far Evelyn hadn't done anything extraordinary
except shift her underwear out of her crack.  Mulder
pretended to be reading the nutritional information on
a box of Milk Duds, while he continued to surveil the
evil clerk.  A boy around fourteen had been digging
through the candy section next to Mulder, he looked at
the older man and said, "Hey, if you got to check out
the fat content, you're to damn old to be eatin' that
shit."

Mulder looked down at the pimply faced kid and
frowned, "Go away."

The little geek wasn't deterred, "Oh yeah," he stuck
out his pointy chin, "what cha gonna do to me old
man?"

Mulder pulled out his badge, "Well, I could run your
ass in for that bike you stole or get you for smokin'
weed in the school crapper."

The kid looked wide eyed at the agent, "How'd you know
about that stuff?"

Mulder towered over the little punk, "I've got my
sources."

The kid backed away from Mulder and started to run for
the entrance. "And get a haircut!" Mulder yelled after
him.

He pushed his cart of candy to Evelyn's checkout but
another clerk was waving the good-looking agent over
to her aisle.  He tried to ignore her.  "Sir, sir, I'm
free if you would like to step over."

Mulder coughed and looked down at his shoes and
coughed again, nearly winding himself on that last
one.  Figuring he must be a carrier of walking
Pneumonia the clerk finally gave up.  He moved a
little closer to the head of the line and picked up a
National Star Midnight News and pretended to glance
through it.  He watched her slap a calf's liver on the
scales and weigh it then she pulled a tissue out of
her bra and blew her nose.  Finally his turn had come.

"Hello again," Evelyn said.

"Hello," Mulder smiled, as he tossed his bags of candy
on the conveyor belt.  He looked up at the clerk; "We
forgot to buy candy for trick-or-treat."

Evelyn frowned, "I thought your wife said she was
giving out apples."

"She is," Mulder said struggling to rationalize his
purchase, "but these are for me to give out.  She is
highly allergic to candy so I have to buy it when she
is not around."

The clerk raised her eyebrow, "You each give out
treats?"

"Yeah," Mulder lied, "she gives out apples to the
unhealthy kids and I give out candy to the healthy
ones."

"Okay," Evelyn frowns.

"Since I come in here a lot and will probably be
seeing you, let me introduce myself, "I'm Fox Mulder,
and you are?"

"Evelyn Lichfield."

"Lichfield?"

"Yeah, from the Marin County Lichfields," Evelyn said,
while she cracked her gum.

Evelyn scans Mulders candy; "You sure must have a lot
of trick or treaters in your neighborhood."

"Yes we do," Mulder lied, "we have a family with eight
girls."

"That's a lot of kids," Evelyn said, as she hoisted up
Mulder's first shopping bag of candy.

"Do you have any siblings, Evelyn?"

"One brother Adam."

Mulder very nearly dropped his second bag of candy.  

"That will be 40.15."

Mulder pulled out his wallet and gave her two bills
and a handful of change.  "Thanks, Mr. Mulder."

"You're welcome Evelyn."

Mulder grabbed his last bag and started to head for
the door when Evelyn said, "tell your wife I hope her
feet feel better."

Mulder looked at her, "How. . ."

Evelyn gave him an evil grin, "I just knew."

Mulder nearly ran into a patron while leaving the
store. "Hey watch it!"  The man frowned.  "Mulder?"

"Sir?"  Mulder looked up to find he was staring at
Walter Skinner.

"Sir! Am I glad you're here, I have discovered an
escapee from a mental hospital working in this store. 
I'll need your help in apprehending her."

Skinner shrugged in his trench coat, "How do you know
she's an escapee?"

"Because years ago Scully and I apprehended two of her
sisters."

"Triplets?"

"No octuplets but each one was mad and
institutionalized."

"And just where is this escapee?"

"She's the third clerk from the end."  Mulder pointed
her out.

Skinner stared at the woman and then looked out over
the agent's head, "Mulder that's my cousin, Evelyn
Lichfield.  Her husband left her a few months ago, so
I got her to move to DC from San Francisco, and I got
her this job."

"So she's not a genetic scientist?"

"Mulder, she's not even a good clerk."  Skinner looked
down at his shoes; "Does Scully know you're here?"

"Yeah, she's out in the car."

"Then I suggest you join her."

"Right sir, I don't suppose she comes from a family of
eight girls and eight boys?"  Mulder was grasping at
this point. 

"Nope, only a brother Adam."

"Thank you sir," Mulder dejectedly said.

He pushed his cart full of candy toward Scully's car
and pulled out his keys, unlocking the trunk and
tossed in his bags of candy.

He climbed in the passenger side and slumped down. 
"Mulder, what happened?"

Mulder sighed, "It wasn't an Eve, Scully."

"How do you know?"  Scully asked, without humor in her
voice; she sensed that he was upset.

"Because she's Walter Skinner's cousin, Evelyn
Lichfield," Mulder muttered as he looked out the side
window.

Scully laughed and Mulder glared.

"Sorry Mulder, but you have to admit that is pretty
funny."

"Can we just go home?" Mulder pouted.

Later that night a small child dressed as a pirate,
rung Dana Scully's doorbell.  Mulder pulled the door
open as the kid yelled, "Trick-or-treat!"

Mulder handed him a grocery bag full of candy.  

"Gee thanks mister!"  The kid said, as he tried to
drag the heavy bag down the hallway.

"Yeah, yeah," Mulder grumbled as he shut the door.



                              ~ The End ~