Title: Can't You QVC What You've Done To Me?

Author: Neoxphile

Timeline: Fight The Future

Catogory: Challenge fic - details at end

Summary: A bitter Scully has left the X-Files despite Mulder's pleas not to. Will a strange TV experience give her a change of heart?

August 1998
Mulder's Apartment

Mulder looked up from the picture he was holding when Scully came in. "What's wrong?"

"I'm leaving the FBI, Mulder, to go back to medicine. I gave Skinner my letter of resignation."

"You can't quit now, Scully."

"I can, Mulder. I debated whether or not to even tell you in person..."

"We are close to something here! We are on the verge!"

"You're on the verge, Mulder. Probably of a mental breakdown. Please don't do this to me."

"After what you saw last night, after all you've seen, you can just walk away?"

"I have, I did, it's done."

Desperately, he grabbed her wrist. "I need you on this, Scully."

"You don't need me, Mulder. You never have. I've just held you back. I gotta go."

As she walked out into the hallway, Mulder followed her. "You wanna tell yourself that so you can quit with a clear conscience, you can, but you're wrong."

"Why did they assign me to you in the first place, Mulder? To debunk your work, to rein you in, to shut you down."

"But you saved me. As difficult and as frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over. You've kept me honest ... made me a whole person. I owe you everything, Scully, and you owe

me nothing ... I don't know if I wanna do this alone... I don't even know if I can ... and if I quit now, they win."

She gave him a look of pity, then kissed him softly. "I'm sorry, Mulder. I just can't do this any more. Take care of yourself."

Then she turned and walked away from him for the last time.

September 1998
Scully's Apartment

"And next up we have Shania Twain's greatest hits. Don't you just love her music, Cassie?"

"You know I do, Beth. She's one of the greatest song writers today."

"We have this CD collection for the great low QVC price of only twenty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents."

"Wow, that's great. In stores I'd expect to pay eighteen dollars a CD for this music, but we're offering all three CDs for less than thirty dollars?"

"Can't get much better than that."

Scully smiled sourly at the TV when Beth agreed with a fake laugh. Still, however, as annoying as Beth and Cassie's hard sell was, she did want that CD collection. She stubbed out her cigarette, knocking an empty bottle over in the process.

"Shit," she mumbled. "Shania knows what she wants in a man, maybe she'd be a good influence on me. God knows I've only picked losers." Scully sighed. ::Like Mulder::, she thought. "I miss Mulder!" she sniffled to herself.

It was too late to miss him now. She'd told him that she planned to leave the FBI to become a doctor, and she'd done it. Except that finding a position as a doctor was more difficult than she'd anticipated when she'd given Skinner her letter of resignation. Almost four weeks of interviews later she found herself slipping into a depression.

The type of depression only alleviated by smoking, drinking, and running up a credit card bill by buying things off the TV. The problem, however, is once the boxes from QVC showed up, she didn't like the items nearly as much as when she saw them on TV. There had to be something she could buy that would brighten her life. She just had to keep buying things to find it.

"This CD set is going to be it, I can feel it," Scully said to herself as she reached for the phone. "The answers are in song, doesn't everyone say so?" Picking up the phone she eagerly dialed the number and brought the receiver up to her ear.

And heard silence. She stabbed the redial button a few times, fully expecting to hear the numbers dial, but nothing happened. "Damn phone." Scully gave it a baleful look and then realized one thing: it was something she'd bought off of QVC too. "Piece of crap."

For a moment she started to look for her cell phone, but remembered that she'd given it to Skinner along with her letter of resignation. It had been paid for by the Government, so she hadn't been able to keep it.

Scully's head was bent as she tried beating on the phone to get it to work, but she clearly heard Cassie speak. "Folks, we're going to bring the Shania Twain cds back later, but right now we've got a special item up for viewers pleasure. We've brought in a special friend who can tell you all about our next item."

"Here's our friend, Diana," Beth added.

::Wonder if this Diana is a bitch too.:: Scully thought as she continued to whack the phone against the wall. ::Least I have some time now to fix the damn phone.::

"Thanks for having me." Scully's head whipped up, and turned towards the sound of the guest seller's voice. It couldn't be. It was. "I'm really excited to be telling our audience about this next product," Diana Fowley continued.

"We're heard great things about it," Cassie said with a sly laugh.

"Let me just bring it out here-" Diana disappeared off screen for a few seconds, then reappeared with a thick chain in her hand. "Sorry folks, he's a little shy." After Diana tugged for a half a minute, a figure was finally dragged onto the screen. "Here he is."

"What do you call this item?" Beth asked off-screen.

"I call it Fox Mulder," Diana said calmly, ignoring the hateful looks that the chained man threw her.

"This is the first time we're offering this product, isn't it?" Cassie inquired.

"I believe so," Diana agreed.

"I'm sure everyone in the audience is eager to hear all about it."

"Of course." Diana smiled, but Scully was sure that it was a scary smile to everyone, not just her. "This limited edition FBI agent has many great features. He's extremely intelligent-"

"Can he be trained?" Beth asked. "I had a smart dog but he was too darn stubborn to train."

"Believe me, Beth, he can be trained to do any number of things," Diana said. Scully's stomach roiled. "He's fiercely loyal, and has a quirky sense of humor, which makes him great fun at dinner parties. He's handsome as you can see, and you can buy his custom wardrobe too, to give you many dress up and dress down options."

"Does he come with any accessories?"

"Yes he does, Cassie. He comes with a set of conspiracy theories, an FBI ID badge, a glock – bullets sold separately – a cell phone, and a large flashlight." On screen Diana held up Mulder's trusty regulation flashlight.

"You know, Diana, I heard that's not the only big flashlight he comes with," Cassie suggested wickedly.

Diana grinned in the direction of the voice. "This is the only one to require D batteries, though."

"Oh you're wicked." Beth laughed. "But I'm sure you'd know if anyone did."

"Don't talk about Mulder's penis like that!" Scully shouted at the screen. None of the women seemed to have heard her.

"Indeed," Diana agreed. "But I'm sure I won't be the only one to know after the first shipment reaches buyers."

"Speaking of buyers, I'm sure that there are people in the audience who are ready to buy this fantastic product. Why don't we reveal the cost now?"

On her bed Scully desperately whacked the phone against the wall. "I'll save you Mulder, don't worry. If I have to borrow money from my mom to do it, I will."

"Well, Cassie, there's a special pricing on this offer. Instead of money, the purchase requires that you give up your dreams and goals in exchange for this great Fox Mulder and a better set of goals and dreams."

"Wow, that's weird," Scully said aloud. "Who besides me would be willing to do that?"

"That sounds a little steep," Beth said. "But I'm sure it's worth it."

"It totally is, Beth. Most people's goals and dreams aren't realistic or meaningful anyway, so this is a tremendous bargain if you look at it this way."

"Yeah. I didn't even really want to be a doctor anyway. That was my dad's idea. I hate sick people," Scully mumbled. To her shock the phone began to give off a dial tone. "Oh my God. I'm going to save you, Mulder, I really am. Just hold on a second."

"Diana, how many of these Fox Mulders do we have up for sale today?"

"It's a limited edition, Cassie. Just 1,000."

"A thousand?!" Scully shrieked in disbelief.

"Wow, that's a lot. How did you get 1,000 identical Fox Mulders?"

"You see, Beth, the original Fox Mulder stumbled onto a secret military installation a few years back, and while he was there they extracted some of his DNA. Using alien technology I was able to use that DNA sample to create 1,000 clones of him."

"I can't afford to buy 1,000 Mulders!" Scully wailed in horror. "What am I going to do?" Before she could answer herself, the room got very cold, and Diana laughed at her from the TV screen.

Scully stared at Mulder as he pulled something out of her throat. She began to cough. Looking up blurrily, she wondered what happened to her bedroom.

He looked at her in concern. "Scully? Breathe! Can you breathe?"

Coughing violently, she whispered to him. "Cold."

"I'm going to get you out of here," Mulder promised.

She let him put his coat on her, and nearly passed out in relief once she was securely held in his strong arms. Diana wasn't selling Mulder, it had all been a terrible dream. There was no reason to worry that 1,000 other women would investigate the size of his flashlight before she did herself.

End Notes: This fic was written for a challenge at The Songs Of Distant Earth. Each of us was assigned a different scenario to write and/or create artwork for.

Option 3: Dana Scully has resigned from the bureau and has become reclusive. She sits in bed smoking, drinking and watching the shopping channel! When she picks up the phone to dial an order, the line goes dead. It suddenly starts to work again 25 minutes later.

You can see the eleven other assignments here: http://distantearth.proboards38.com/index.cgi?board=hangman&action=display&thread=1129187307