It was a beautiful morning, and the X-files fanfic archivist cheerfully surveyed his little empire. Fanfics of every description were stacked as far as the eye could see in a warehouse that made the Smoking Man's Pentagon storage facility look minuscule by comparison. He smiled widely as he saw his first two visitors of the day approach his little counter, already piled high with manuscripts prepared for filing.

'Good morning, sir, madam!' he beamed. 'And welcome to the Emporium O'Fanfic! What can I do for you this morning? We've lots of MSR just in, fresh this morning. A nice bit of Mulder/Krycek if that's your cup of tea, we've got a delivery of Discipline!Skinner coming in later today if your tastes run that way...'

His voice trailed off. Both the man in the expensive suit and the woman with the red hair who faced him were holding up identification cards.

'We're the canon police. This is a raid.'

The archivist buried his head in his hands. His worse nightmare had just come true...

'I didn't realise there was quite so much of it in here,' the expensively dressed man said wonderingly.

'It's going to be a long day,' the red haired woman said with a sigh.

'Excuse me,' the archivist asked, 'But aren't you...'

'Oh we're definitely not them,' the man with the Armani suit said quickly, as he scanned the tightly packed shelves that stretched to the ceiling high above.

'We look like them, but we're not them,' the red haired woman added. 'Do you have an inventory anywhere?'

'All in my head,' the archivist said proudly. 'We're not very structured here, I'm afraid...'

'Then let's start with the easy ones,' the woman said, producing a list from her briefcase. 'Do you have any alternative universes?'

The archivist's face split into a wide smile. 'Oh, you'll love our alternative universes. We've got all sorts here. We've got the Mulder and Scully getting married ones, we've got Mulder and Scully getting divorced ones, we've got Victorian ones, we've got Jane Austen ones, we've got ones set in the twenty-fifth century... we've even got Mulder and Scully live apart on different continents and have never met ones.'

'Well you can't have any of them,' the redhead said, as she ticked something off a list. 'Alternative universes aren't canon by definition. Sorry. We'll have to take them all away.'

'What do you mean, take them away?' the archivist spluttered.

'It's very simple,' the man in the suit said. 'We're the canon police. We've had some complaints about fanfic being written that's not true to canon so we're here to confiscate it. That's all there is to it.'

'How about crossovers?' the archivist asked plaintively. 'We've got some lovely crossovers in today. We've got your X-Files/Highlander, we've got your X-files/Sentinel, we've got your X-files/Sentinel/Highlander, we got your crossovers with Inspector Morse, NYPD Blue, Homicide, Scooby Doo, Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys, Independence day, Titanic...'

The man in the expensive suit said nothing. He just shook his head.

'They're not canon either,' the redhead said. 'They're all going to have to go.'

'Great,' the archivist muttered. He seemed to deflate a little. 'But there's some great stuff in there. We've got authors taking the characters in new directions, developing relationships and storylines...'

The man in the expensive suit sighed. 'Read my lips, sir. If it's not canon, it's not staying. They've all got to go, except the Millennium ones with Jose Chung in them. We might let you have some of other X-files/Millennium fics back. It all depends what happens in season three, assuming anybody's still left alive in there.'

'And you can keep the Homicide crossovers provided they're set in 1989 and have Detective Munch in them,' the woman with the red hair who wasn't Scully added.

'So Mulder... and Tim Bayliss...?' the archivist asked plaintively.

The man in the expensive suit shook his head reprovingly. 'Is there one thing in canon that says those two slept together?'

'Well no... But there isn't one thing in canon that says that Mulder and Scully slept together either!'

We'll take the Homicide stuff with the rest when we leave,' the woman said. 'And we'll be dealing with the MSR later. Now, do you have any other slash?'

'Well, there may be a few bits and pieces laying around the place,' the archivist hedged.

'All the slash goes,' the woman said.

Her companion nodded. 'Except the ones that describe Krycek's as yet unrequited love with Mulder. Krycek is allowed to give Mulder a peck on the cheek, and Mulder is allowed to stare at him as if he's just been clubbed with a five iron. And you're allowed the ones where Mulder and Krycek flee through the Russian forests together, being whipped by men on horseback, and the ones where a half-naked Skinner manhandles Krycek and handcuffs him to the fixtures and fittings and the ones where Krycek and Mulder get to share a cell together and the ones... Scul... I mean red-haired woman, are you all right?'

The woman was looking a little flushed. 'Fine, expensive suit man. Excuse me. It's quite hot in here.'

'So what do we get to keep?' the archivist interrupted.

The man in the expensive suit turned back to him. 'Well for a start you can lose the shipper stuff. All that MSR is going to have to go.'

The archivist paled and clutched his counter for support. 'No! Not the MSR! Please! It makes up most of my stock! Mulder and Scully love each other! Chris Carter said so! It's only a matter of time before they get it together!'

The man in the suit shook his head. 'I'm sorry sir, but you're going to have to face the possibility that Mr Carter may well be messing with your heads on this one.'

'But in the movie!' the archivist protested. 'They kissed! Almost! They definitely would have done, if it hadn't been for that darn bee!'

The man shook his head. 'I think, in this case, *almost* is the operative word. And when that kiss *actually happens*, you get to have all those stories back. Same with the marriage, the babies, the first time scenes, the hurt/comfort scenarios, the romantic evenings at the FBI costume ball, the Vegas weddings, the smooching in the basement office, the comical romantic misunderstandings, the relationship angst, the amusing novelty condoms and the mother-in-law problems. It's not canon yet, so you can't have it.'

The archivist buried his face in his hands. 'Ok,' he said in a muffled voice. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy, jangling key chain. 'Here are the keys to the 'shipper warehouses. All of them.'

'We're going to want all your Scully/Skinner and your Skinner/Mrs Scully too,' the woman added.

'Great,' the archivist muttered. 'Take it. Just take it. Who cares anyway? That leaves us with Marita/Krycek and Mulder/Fowley. Who's going to want any of that stuff?'

'We might let you have some Fowley/Spender,' the man in the expensive suit allowed. 'Depends how the next season goes.'

'Well *that's* going to keep the MSR lot happy,' the archivist moaned. 'Not! What are you trying to do to me! What's going to happen when the hoards of screaming fans break down the doors only to discover that all I've got for them is Fowley/Spender and UST?'

'That's your problem,' the man in the suit said dispassionately. 'Right, what's left?'

'There's the UST, some Muldertorture and quite a few straight x-files,' the archivist said defeatedly.

The man in the suit rubbed his hands together. 'Right, we're in the home stretch. All the remains to be done if for us to weed out the inconsistencies and we can leave you to carry on, secure in the knowledge that all the fanfic you supply is true to canon.'

'Inconsistencies?' the archivist asked in a small voice.

'Do you have the list?' the man in the suit asked his companion.

The redhead gave a grim little smile, and pulled another, much thicker computer printout out of her briefcase.

'Right here. Let's start with Scully. We're taking anything that says her hair smells of strawberries, anything that implies she wears anything other than sensible underwear, anything that mentions old boyfriends, anything that has her sleep with anyone other than slightly-unbalanced-tattoo-man, anything where she giggles, anything that has her wearing heels higher then an inch, anything that implies that she has a life outside work and anything that involves cats, baby-sitting, or cookery lessons.'

'So what *can* we have?' the archivist asked miserably.

'I'm just getting to that. Scully *may* say 'I'm fine, Mulder', conduct autopsies with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, debunk Mulder's weird theories and suggest sensible ones of her own, point out Mulder's personality problems to him at great length, nag him about his eating habits, get sick and spend time in a hospital bed looking pale and interesting, be woken by Mulder calling her in the middle of the night and get rescued by Mulder slightly more often than she comes to the rescue herself.

'What about Mulder?'

The redhead nodded. 'On to Mulder. We're going to take: anything that implies that Mulder has a healthy, normal relationship with anyone other than his fish, anything in which Mulder wears any clothing other than the Armani, the red speedos or a sweaty tracksuit, anything that has him sleep with anyone apart from the vampire girl from season two, anything that implies that he has any kind of a life at all, of any kind, anything where he watches any TV that isn't either porn or bad science fiction...'

'Can he get beaten up?' the archivist interrupted.

The man in the expensive suit nodded. 'The way Chris Carter's going, it's practically a requirement.'

'Well thank goodness for small mercies,' the archivist muttered.

'But he's not allowed to enjoy it,' red haired woman interjected.

'Darn,' the archivist muttered. 'The BDSM brigade are *not* going to be pleased.'

'Again, sir, not my problem,' the man said.

'But you don't understand,' the archivist said nervously. 'They scare me...'

'What else do you have here?,' the red haired woman asked.

'There are a few parodies...'

'They've got to go unless they deal with classic black and white movies or amusing novelty shapechangers,' the woman said, making another tick on her list. 'What else?'

'I think there are some Mary Sues in there too.'

'Mary Sues being...' the man with the suit asked.

'Where an author puts a thinly disguised version of herself in a story, or uses characters to put forward her own political or personal viewpoint...'

The man sighed. 'You see of any of those authors anywhere on the TV? Hanging around in the basement office, perhaps? Do Mulder and Scully ever pause in the middle of their cases to explain to the public at large that they don't like a particular kind of fanfic?'

'Well no...'

'Guess I really do have to spell it out. If it's not on the TV series, it doesn't go in. That's what canon means.'

'So what if one of these authors wrote a story where Mulder and Scully came forward to present the author's point of view which was that only stuff that was actually canon should appear in fanfic?'

'Oh come on. That would just be silly.'

The archivist nodded morosely. 'Right. Just wanted to check.'

'We're here to help, sir. Now, all we need is anything that has non-1013 approved dialogue and storylines in it, and we're done.'

'Wait a minute - you're actually taking everything that hasn't actually been on the show? There won't be anything left at all!'

'Well we didn't used to be this strict, but I'm afraid we're having to crack down. We can't have people just inventing their own dialogue. We... I mean, Mulder and Scully, aren't their characters at all...'

There was a crash from a nearby shelf, as the red haired woman, who had been conducting a search of the stacks, was almost buried under a teetering pile of badfic.

'Sc... I mean redhead woman, are you all right over there?'

'I'm fine, Mul... I mean, expensive suit man,' the shaken woman said. 'I'm sorry. I just started reading, and there was one where you... I mean *Mulder* took me... I mean *Scully* to the FBI costume ball and they were dressed as Donny and Marie Osmond and it turned out that they'd actually known each other at school and they both thought the other one had dumped them at the school prom years and years before, and Krycek was there, and Marita was there too, and there was something about the Lone Gunmen and a poodle, and it was so bad it was hypnotic, Mulder... I mean expensive suit-man. I just couldn't stop reading it!'

'There are some sick minds out there,' the man in the suit said, shaking his head. 'That sounds almost as bad as the script of the 1982 version of 'I was a Zombie for the FBI', directed by Marius Penczner!'

'Wait a minute...' the archivist said suspiciously. 'You *are* Mulder and Scully, aren't you!'

'No,' the man in the expensive suit said, looking around a little desperately. 'I told you, we just look like them!'

'No! It is you! You called her Scully and she said she was fine. Scully always says that! And only a Z-movie fan with an eidetic memory would know about the film you mentioned!'

'All right,' Mulder said wearily. 'There's no point in denying it any more. Yes, I admit it, we're Mulder and Scully.'

'But you said you were the canon police,' the archivist cried. 'This isn't canon! You shouldn't be here!'

Mulder sighed. 'You're right, of course. By our very presence here, we're breaking the rules we came to enforce. The premise of this whole piece was pretty shaky to begin with. Now it's turned into a full blown paradox. It's not nearly as good as the one where you get to go back in time and shoot your own grandmother, but it's still a paradox. Scully and I will just have to arrest each other for breach of canon.'

'This is so humiliating, Mulder,' Scully said in disgust. 'I told you this would happen.'

'We could arrest Wombat instead,' Mulder suggested hopefully. 'It's her story.'

'It's tempting,' Scully admitted, 'But she's not the only one writing this stuff. It would just take too much time to track them all down one by one.'

'All right, We're going away to think about this,' Mulder told the archivist.

'But believe me, we'll be back.' Scully added in dire tones.

To be continued? Please, no...