Title: Everyone's Irish On St. Paddy's Day Author: Dana Quell Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: "Ghost in the Machine", "The End" Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, AD Skinner, and anyone else you recognize from the show aren't mine; they belong, of course, to Chris Carter, 1013, and 20th Century Fox (or whatever it's become now that the 21st Century is here). Lunch Lady and the leprechauns are all mine, though. You can use 'em if you really really want to... just try to keep them in character and give credit where credit is due. Author's Notes: I searched everywhere, and I mean everywhere, on the Net for leprechaun lore and came up with (virtually) nothing. So nearly everything written here about leprechauns is made up by me. PS: Don't read if you don't have a sense of humour. Everyone's Irish On St. Paddy's Day By Dana Quell The halls of the J. Edgar Hoover Building were decked in green. Not a pale, easy-on-the-eyes pastel green, but a horrid, brilliant neon, pukish green- the colour green that one only finds around St. Patrick's Day. When walking down the halls, one was tempted to avoid looking at the walls in order to avoid looking at the decorations in that bright, horrible colour. Of course, to do that one would have to risk a glance down at the floor, where one would find the tiles there decorated with tiny, leprechaun-sized footprints coloured with the same green. And from the ceiling was no reprieve- there hung paper spirits and leprechauns who smiled down upon the agents with wide, toothy grins. That wouldn't have been nearly so bad if their teeth weren't that green colour. Special Agent Dana Scully walked quickly through the hallways, keeping her eyes straight ahead and wishing that Assistant Director Skinner's office was closer to the basement office that she and her partner, Fox Mulder, shared. Their office had been untouched by the decorations, probably overlooked by whoever had adorned the rest of the building. Finally reaching her destination, she ignored the giant green shamrock hanging on the door and went inside, finding the assistant director raging around his office, tearing down anything that was coloured green. Scully waited patiently for him to stop his rampage before coughing to let him know she was there. "You wanted to see me, sir?" "Oh. Agent Scully. I, uh... didn't know you were there. I was just, uh, redecorating," he hastened to explain, moving around his desk to sit behind it. Scully suppressed the urge to grin. "I see," she said, sitting down in her normal seat. "Speaking of redecorating, did you see the rest of the building?" "I'd have to be blind not to," Skinner retorted, his hand inching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you and Mulder about. Where is he, anyway?" Scully shrugged. "I don't know. He wasn't in the office when I left, but I did leave him a note fo him to come up here." "Knock, knock. Is this a private meeting, or can anyone join?" a voice from the doorway asked. Scully turned. Mulder breezed in, giving her a quick glance before taking his seat next to her. Then he did a double-take. "Nice antennas, Scully. Going for that Irish alien look, huh?" Her brow furrowed in confusion as her hand reached up to her head. "Antennas? I don't have any- how did that get there?" she said as her fingertips brushed against the cool bite of metal springs. She took it off her head, bringing it down to eye-level, and began to examine it. It was one of those springy antennas, where at the top of each spring was a shamrock. The headpiece was the same sort one could get at a St. Patrick's Day parade, with one exception- instead of the green glitter, this one was the same offensive green that the rest of the J. Edgar Hoover Building was decorated with. Scully grimaced and threw it in the trash with the decorations that Skinner had torn down. Skinner took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose again, trying to thwart a major migraine before it started. "This is what I've called the both of you in here for. It seemed right up your alley when it started happening." "What did, sir?" Mulder asked. "This," the assistant director replied, gesturing around the room. Scully noticed it was decorated with even more greens than it had been when she first entered it. "These decorations weren't here yesterday when I locked up the office, but somehow my office was decorated when I unlocked it this morning. When I tried taking them down, three more popped up in place of every one. And it's not just my office- the J. Edgar Hoover Building is covered in green decorations that no one will admit to placing there." "Last time I checked, it wasn't against the law putting up a few decorations," Scully replied. Skinner's face clouded a dark maroon with irritation. "It's not. But understand if there are decorations up for one holiday, then we have to decorate for every single other holiday. Understand, Agents; my superiors do not want the FBI turned into a three ring circus everytime a holiday comes up. Just imagine what sort of decorations we'd have for Halloween." "The rest of the building might look like our office," Scully replied jokingly. Mulder didn't answer. Instead, he was looking thoughtfully at the chartreuse shamrock paperweight that had magickally appeared on Skinner's desk. "I've heard of this happening before, but never actually seen it myself. This sudden appearance of unsightly decorations in this colour, I mean." "Do you have a theory?" Scully asked. "I have plenty of theories," Mulder replied. Skinner let out an exasperated sigh. "Want to share with the rest of the class, Mulder? Or did you just want to get right to work finding this aspiring interior decorator and bringing them to me?" "I think we'll just get to finding this thing right away." Mulder stood and walked out the door without further comment. "Thing?" Scully asked after him, standing herself and scurrying after him, not bothering to wait for the assistant director to dismiss her. She caught up to him by the elevators, where he was holding one, waiting for her. "Mulder, what did you mean by thing?" He put one finger over his lips as he stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the basement. "I'll tell you when we get into the relative security of our office." "Fine." Scully could play this game as well as he could, probably better. So she waited patiently until they reached their office. Then she stood, arms crossed, watching as Mulder looked through file after file in the cabinet. "Ah-ha!" Mulder shouted as he found the one he was looking for. He pulled it out and laid it on the desk so both of them could look at it. Scully looked at it, then looked at Mulder. "It's that awful green colour, and you took that long to find it?" He shrugged. "It wasn't green when I last saw it. Our little interior decorator must have been in here. Not that the office needs decorating, of course." "Of course," Scully said, rolling her eyes. "Can we get back to the file?" "Look here. Last year, the 10th and 13th precincts both reported prowlers who 'decorated offices with cheap St. Patrick's Day ornaments and tasteless chartreuse greens'. And there were probably other reports of the same phenomena, except those records would have been destroyed in the fire two years ago." "Wait, wait- let me guess what you're thinking. Aliens trying to get into the spirit of St. Patrick's Day got drunk off their asses and decided to plaster the FBI Building with 'cheap St. Patrick's Day ornaments and tasteless chartreuse greens'?" "No, Scully." Mulder walked closer to her and brushed his lips next to her ear. "Leprechauns," he stage-whispered as he moved past her. "Mulder, you can't seriously think that lep-" Mulder cut her off. "Don't say it- you'll get our office redecorated by saying it." "You don't honestly believe that the little people are behind redecorating the J.Edgar Hoover Building?" "You don't?" Mulder gave her a look. "Leprechauns are known pranksters, Scully. You should know that- you're Irish, aren't you?" "That's beside the point. Besides, everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day." Scully gave a little sigh. "Even if it is a leprechaun doing all of this, how are we going to find it?" Mulder grinned. "Why, Scully, didn't you see all the little green footprints around the FBI Building? All we have to do is follow the footprints, and we'll find our leprechaun." *** After 4 hours of wandering the halls of the FBI in circles, Mulder and Scully were no closer to finding the leprechaun, if even it existed. The only thing they had accomplished was tiring themselves out. "Mulder, can't we take a break? We've been at this for hours now," Scully complained. She was tired, hungry, and for some reason her black pumps were now chartreuse. "I guess we can take a five minute break," Mulder replied. Scully gave him a look. "Ten minutes?" She still stared at him. "Break for lunch?" She smiled, and together they headed down to the cafeteria the FBI offered employees who didn't want to go out for lunch. When they saw the food selections, they glanced at each other. The pizza was green, the drinks were green- even the vegetables (normally a lovely reddish-brown hue) were green. Scully caught the attention of the kitchen lady. "Excuse me, but has anything odd happened to this food since you've prepared it?" The lunch lady coughed and looked at it. "Yeah, the vegetables are green. They were black when I cooked 'em. And somebody's picked all the hairs out of the beans." "Could you tell us when this happened?" Mulder asked, trying to swallow his disgust at the food. Lunch Lady shrugged. "I dunno. They were black five minutes ago, but when I turned around to get some more plastic forks, they were gone. I figured it's better- this way more people will eat them instead of dumping them in the trash. Now do you want some beans or not?" "I think we'll pass," Scully replied, grabbing Mulder's elbow and starting to pull him out of the cafeteria. Lunch Lady shrugged again, then served the next unwitting victim on the line. "Scully, the leprechaun was here," Mulder hissed as he allowed himself to be led away from the potentially hazardous food. "Mulder, if he was here, it was five minutes ago. He could be anywhere right now." Mulder chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully as he stared at the wall above Scully's head. "There is one place we didn't think to look." "Where?" Hadn't they checked nearly every office, hallway, and elevator shaft already? Mulder pointed to the grating that led to the ventilation system and waggled his eyebrows. Warning bells inside Scully's head began to go off. "Mulder, you can't be serious." He moved to the wall and removed the grating. "Come on, Scully, I'll give you a lift." "Mulder, the last time I was in one of those things, I almost got sucked into a fan!" "This time it'll be different. I'll be in there with you." "Oh, that makes me feel so much safer," Scully replied, rolling her eyes even though she was more comfortable knowing he wouldn't be without her supervision. "Big macho man's gonna protect little old me." "You got that right, Scully," he said, taking a deep breath and puffing his chest up as he helped her up the ventilation shaft. Once they were both in, they began to crawl on their hands and knees around the ducts, making only left turns. To pass the time, they talked of many things- of high heels and motherships and pencils stuck in the ceiling, and of small potatoes and good cheese. Mulder, crawling behind Scully, commented once about the view he had. For that, he learned the true meaning of high heels, even green ones. While Mulder was groaning in pain, there was a giggle from the duct to the right. Mulder and Scully froze. "Did you hear that?" he whispered, excited by the prospect of seeing a real, live leprechaun. Scully's eyes grew wider. It wasn't a leprechaun- it couldn't be. It had to be an echo from some office on the floor. "I think so. Did you?" she asked, turning around. Mulder's grin said it all. "Let's go check it out." Before they could move towards the sound, another giggle came, this time from the left. So they began to move towards that giggle. But another one came from in front- and then another one from the back. "Ever get the feeling that other people are messing with our heads?" Mulder commented dryly. Suddenly the whole duct turned green, blinding the agents momentarily. When they could see again, they realized that they were now standing in their office- their very green office. "How did we get here? We were just in the duct," Scully said, confused. She couldn't help it- everytime there was a question she couldn't answer with science, she stated the obvious. A giggle came from the ceiling, and they looked up. There were three leprechauns hanging there, grinning their green toothy grins. All were still. "You shoot one, and I'll shoot one, and if the one leftover doesn't move, we'll know we've got him," Mulder suggested. "And have Skinner shoot us for firing our guns in the building? I don't think so. Let's just take all three leprechauns up to Skinner and have him deal with it." Mulder nodded his agreement and stepped up on a chair to unhang the hanging leprechauns. He handed them to Scully. She nearly dropped the first one he handed to her. "This thing weighs a ton." "A whole lot more than you do, anyway, and it's smaller," Mulder said, agreeing as he handed her the second one and took down the third. She would have hit him had she not been carrying a three hundred pound leprechaun. *** Skinner was very pleased to see that they had caught the culprit, even if they didn't know which one it was yet. They had lined up the three leprechauns next to his desk, and now they stared at them, trying to decide how to figure out which was the real leprechaun. The assistant director had taken it very well when Mulder and Scully had shown up carrying three very heavy leprechauns and been told that one of those leprechauns was the FBI's new decorator. Scully supposed Skinner was used to Mulder's out-there theories. "Maybe if we pinch each of them, one of them will yell. Then we'd know which one was real," Mulder suggested. "How about we just cut it open? If it's got more than plastic inside-which I doubt-then it was a real leprechaun," Skinner replied. Mulder stared at his boss. "That would be very inhumane. You'd kill a leprechaun?" "It messed with my office. Don't I have a right to revenge?" "So mess with his office!" "Leprechauns don't have offices!" "How do you know?!" "Because I know-!" "STOP!" Scully shouting, interrupting the whoever-can-shout-loudest-must-have-the-most-testosterone shouting match and winning it at the same time (<- just a joke, folks. Take it easy). "Why don't we just pinch them?" "Ok," Mulder and Skinner said simultaneously. They looked at each other for a moment, then Skinner pinched the first leprechaun. "Ow!" it cried. "That's it! That's the leprechaun!" Mulder shouted, jumping up and hitting his knee on the table. "Ow!" "Ow!" cried the first leprechaun. "Ow!" cried the second. "Ow!" cried the third. The three FBI agents stared at the leprechauns. "Guess we'll have to cut them open after all," Scully said. "No!" cried the second as it ripped off its own head and shrieked with fear. "Yagh!" Mulder, Scully, and Skinner stared at the thing standing in front of them. Below the neck it was a normal, green leprechaun (as normal as one could be), but above its neck was the face of the truth of which Mulder and Scully had sought for seven years. It was the gray pallor of a little green man. Its huge black eyes stared at the trio for a few seconds, unblinking, then threw back its head and laughed- not really a laugh as humans knew it, but a high pitched whine. Then it gave out a little belch that smelled of alcohol, took a device out of its pocket, tapped a few buttons, and was insta-beamed out before Mulder could say, "I told you so." Skinner's jaw dropped so far it hit the ground. Scully felt for the seat behind her and sat down with a loud thump. Mulder gave a wide grin. "You're right, Scully. Everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day."