Chapter 15

Astrid, Peter, and Olivia were sitting in the Quantum Jolt Café, taking a long coffee break after spending half the morning trying to figure out if Walter was high as he lectured them on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Astrid, still researching UFOs to try to figure out what she and Peter saw in the Nevada desert, was using her down time to read reports from Project Blue Book.

"And in this report from 1968, a UFO was tracked on radar for over ten minutes doing all sorts of seemingly impossible aerobatics, and then it just disappeared. The blip was there one second, and then just gone the next."

"Okay, so UFOs can evade radar. What's your point?" Peter asked.

"To start with, it was showing off. You wondered why the one we saw had lights. Whoever's flying these things want us to know they're here. They want us to know what they can do. But also, it disappeared off radar, and other eyewitnesses say the UFOs they saw just faded away right in front of their eyes. Guys, I think we're missing the obvious here."

"They can become invisible," Olivia suggested.

"No; they're not from outer space at all. They're not crossing interstellar distances to get here. They're coming from another universe, another parallel Earth!"

"Do you ever wonder what the baristas think of us?" Peter joked.

Olivia and Astrid laughed. Then Olivia said, "Of course, that still leaves the question of why they want us to know they're here."

Astrid shrugged. "Maybe it's so when they make official contact it won't come as too much of a shock. Or maybe it's to make us more likely to surrender if they invade. I don't know. What do you guys think?"

"I think you might be onto something," said Mulder as he walked up to the table.

They looked up at him, then at the woman beside him.

"Who's this?" Peter asked.

Astrid stood up slowly, eyes wide. "Dana Scully?"

"Scully," Mulder said, " this is Agent Astrid Farnsworth, Agent Olivia Dunham, and Peter Bishop."

Olivia and Peter also rose to greet her. Astrid shook her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Agent Scully. I've been reading so much about you."

"Thank you. Mulder's been telling me all about you, too."

"But how is this possible?" Olivia asked. "Where have you been? How did Mulder find you?"

"Actually, she found me," he said.

"It's going to take a while to explain," Scully stated. "And I'd rather not do it here."

"Well, Agent Scully," Olivia said, "you've been officially missing for fifteen years; I'm sure another twenty minutes won't hurt anything. Let me buy you a coffee. This place makes a great flat white."

"Thank you. I'd appreciate that." Scully sat down at the table. Mulder sat beside her.

"And as the team's unofficial weirdness ambassador," Peter said, "let me be the first to say: welcome to the fringe."

"Considering who we're talking to," Astrid amended, "I think that should be 'Welcome back'."

The End