Author's Notes: This idea was from Holly Elizabeth on a Facebook X-Files group. The minute I saw it, I had to write it and did this in two hours. When it sticks, it really sticks in my filter.

Summary: Daniel visits Scully at the office after the events of all things.

Spoilers: Takes place a week after the episode all things

Thank you to Holly Elizabeth for the idea, and the great beta as well.

It's Like That
Suzanne Feld
Rated PG-13

I heard raised voices as soon as I got off the elevator. I had no idea who Scully was arguing with, but I was glad it wasn't me. Her tone was icy and clipped even though I couldn't make out the words. Yes, I very often deliberately antagonized her to get her Irish up, but I usually knew where to stop before she got to this point. She was not just angry; she was furious. And I didn't like being on that end of her stick.

Who could have pissed her off that much, I wondered as I walked quietly down the hallway between the gray shelving, hoping my shoes wouldn't creak. I knew she'd never talk to Skinner that way. Unless her brother Bill, who couldn't stand me, had found out about us I had no idea who she'd be talking to that way.

I could finally hear them clearly by the time I was about six feet from the door. It was barely cracked open otherwise I'd have been able to make out the words a lot sooner. I stepped back against one of the shelving units, glancing over my shoulder to make sure I wasn't going to knock anything over, and listened.

"That's not what I'm saying, Daniel. I'm saying that it was over long ago and you just can't see that."

Waterston! What the fuck was he doing here?!

"It didn't sound like that when you were by my bedside."

"I had a moment of weakness, remembering what we did have. But that's gone, long gone."

"It didn't seem like that to me, Dana. If you just give me one more chan—"

"I keep telling you, that's not going to happen. What about Maggie and—"

"We've made our peace, and she understands that you're going to be in my life again."

"I'm not, Daniel. Can you please get that through your thick skull?"

Okay, enough. She sounded absolutely livid. I went a few steps back towards the elevator, then turned and headed for the office again. I was walking normally and letting my feet thud on the floor enough that they should have been able to hear me. But apparently they didn't, because they were still arguing when I pushed the office door open. I feigned surprise as they both fell silent. "Scully, sorry, I didn't realize—oh, you must be Sc-Dana's, uh, friend Daniel Waterston I've heard so much about recently."

We sized each other up for a moment as I walked into the office, going to stand by the grey metal filing cabinets as Scully was sitting behind my—our—desk. He wasn't bad-looking for an older man, I had to admit, with a headful of thick gray hair and a distinguished face. He was dressed casually, wearing a dark blue sweater with a brown leather jacket over it, and tan Dockers. But then Scully would never have gone out with anyone subpar, I knew. He seemed rather gaunt but then I remembered that he had just been in the hospital with heart problems.

He stood and held a hand out towards me. "I am. You must be Fox Mulder, Dana's partner. I've heard about you as well, and some of the, um, interesting work you two do."

I wanted to smirk and say I'm more than that to her now, but knew better. "That's me," I said easily, stepping forward and shaking his hand with a firm but not bone-crushing grip like I wanted to. His grip wasn't as strong as I would have expected, even from someone probably just out of the hospital. I wondered about that. If we were dick-waving—and what else was this? —shouldn't he have tried to crush my hand?

I stepped back to the filing cabinets, leaning against them and folding my arms across my chest as he sat down again. The plane tickets in my inside jacket pocked crackled comfortingly, and reminded me of where Scully and I would be tonight. I looked over at my partner, who I could tell was still furious by the absence of expression on her poker face. Her eyes were like glacial chips of blue diamond. "I took care of our travel arrangements, and we need to leave within in the hour," I told her. Mostly because I planned to nail her the minute we were in one or the other of our apartments before we went to the airport.

"Oh, a case?" Waterston said, looking up with interest. It was then that it hit me: Scully hadn't told him about us. Of course, we had agreed to keep our new romantic relationship between us. Especially since the FBI frowned on partners sleeping together though there was no hard and fast rule against it. Still, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed. God knew I wanted to brag that I was sleeping with her.

"Yeah, we're flying to Florida this evening," I said. I wanted to reassure Scully that this wasn't another water monster case but also didn't want to say something like that around Waterston. "Counterfeiting case." Well, that and a few white-sand beaches…

"Sounds interesting." He stood, then looked pointedly at Scully. "Give me a call when you get back, Dana."

"I won't be doing that, Daniel." She got up as well and walked over to me, standing with her shoulder just touching mine. I wanted to put my arm around her, but decided to wait and see what she did. My heart was singing. "I've moved on, and I suggest you do as well."

His eyes widened, then narrowed. "Oh, so it's like that, is it?"

"It is, even if it's none of your business." Scully stared him down until he dropped his eyes. I was fighting a grin. She so outclassed him.

"I wonder if your bosses would be interested in this information?" he sneered.

I laughed humorlessly. "They don't care," I said, lightly bumping Scully's shoulder. "Do you a have any idea how many FBI agents are couples? It's like any other job, there are office romances and some are even married. As long as we don't screw around on government time it's no one's business but ours."

He glared over at me, folding his arms over his chest. I wasn't sure if he was mocking me or not paying attention, but I really didn't care either way. Then his eyes moved to Scully. "I see you're following your usual modus operandi, Dana. Sleeping with a co-worker."

I was surprised that he fought so dirty in front of me, but before I could say anything Scully snapped, "You have no idea what my modus operandi is, Daniel. You were the biggest mistake of my life, one that I'm not going to repeat."

Now I couldn't resist a smirk over at him. As usual, Scully didn't need anyone to fight her battles for her.

"Agents, is there a problem in here?" Our boss appeared at the doorway of our office.

Scully stood up straight but didn't move away from me. "No, sir. My visitor was just leaving."

"I suppose you're sleeping with her, too," Waterston glared at Skinner, then pushed past him and stomped away down the hall. I mentally put five bucks on him getting lost when he got off the elevator, if he even found the right floor. The Hoover was a maze even for those of us who knew it.

Skinner looked blankly back and forth between us. "Excuse me?"

Scully shook her head and went to the desk, perching on the edge of it. "My ex," she said shortly. "I ran into him last week and he's been dogging me ever since. Sorry you had to see that, sir."

He shrugged. "I came down to ask about this report," he said, brandishing a file at us, then walked over between the two chairs and set it on the desk, opening it and beckoning me over as Scully got up and turned to look at it. "Agent Mulder, when you had to fire your gun at Rob Roberts, you said it was suicide by cop?"

I barely paid attention as he reviewed parts of the case. My mind was consumed with what Scully had told me about her relationship with Waterston. Apparently he had been a great love of her life, though she hadn't known he was married until his wife confronted her several months into their affair. After that she tried to break it off with him but found herself letting him come back over and over again. It wasn't until she found out that he had a daughter that she'd been able to make a clean break, which had been joining the FBI and moving to D.C. I knew she deeply regretted the hurt she'd caused as well as mourned the loss of what they could have had if he hadn't lied to her about being married. I also kept thinking about what she had told me after we made love the first time, that I was the man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with and that all paths had led to me. I was the luckiest man on the planet to have her, and I knew it.

After Skinner left, I plopped down in one of the chairs in front of the desk, the same one Waterston had been sitting in. I was replacing him in more ways than one. "I was going to ask if you're okay. But after seeing how you handled him, I don't have to," I said with a lazy grin at Scully as she sat behind the desk. "Damn, remind me never to come back after you if we break up, God forbid."

"Sssh! Skinner could still be around!" she hissed at me, glancing at the wide-open door, but her eyes were sparkling with amusement. "So, what time do I need to be at the airport?" she said in a normal tone of voice.

"Our flight's at seven, so I'll meet you at the gate no later than six-thirty."

"Oh, I see we didn't exactly need to leave right now," she said, glancing up at the clock over the door. It was just after two.

"I didn't know that you didn't need my help to get rid of him when I said we needed to leave," I said in a lower voice, scooting the chair closer and leaning over to rest my crossed arms on the desk. She also leaned forward so our heads were only a foot or so apart. "You think I'd know by now that you're not a damsel in distress."

She gave me a wry, close-mouthed grin. "If there's one thing I know how to do, it's handle Daniel," she said in an equally muted tone. "Unfortunately, he's just as stubborn as I am. I knew the only way to finally get through to him was to make it clear that I had moved on. You did show up at a good time or we could have gone on and on. Or I could have lost my temper and shot him."

"Do you think he'll really go to Skinner? And if so, should we admit it?"

She glanced towards the open door again, then shrugged. "What the hell. I'm sure everyone thinks we've been sleeping together for years. Let's just not telegraph it, okay?"

"As we agreed. Partners at work, nothing more, nothing less," I agreed, then sat back and raised my voice to a normal level again. "Listen, I'm going to head home and get packed. See you… at the airport?" I hope she read my tone rather than my words.

"Yeah, I should get going too so I'll see you there." She winked at me and my heart soared; I would call her on my cell when I got outside but my guess was that she was coming over to my place for a bit of slap-and-tickle before we had to leave. We'd only been lovers for about a week and were insatiable; as I'd always suspected, we were as good in bed as we were investigators. And though Scully didn't know it, this case in Florida was less about solving a crime and a more about us. That was why I'd booked travel on a Thursday; we'd get this simple case solved and then have all weekend to concentrate on each other. I owed Rasmussen a six-pack for the lead but I was glad to pay it.

As I got up, I was smiling so widely that my face hurt. I hadn't smiled as much in the last ten years of my life as I had been in the past few days. I knew damn well that I'd never been as happy before and while a little leery of it with the bad luck I've always had, I was still enjoying every moment of it. Any other time I thought I'd been in love paled in comparison against how I felt about this tiny, determined redhead who had turned my whole world upside-down—for the better.

I had ridden the train to work this morning, so instead of taking the elevator up just one floor to the garage, I rode to the main floor where the employee's entrance was. As I stepped out of the elevator, however, I saw a tall drink of water with headful of gray hair standing across the hallway. He was staring—or pretending to stare-at one of the directory signboards on the wall. Was Waterston waiting for Scully? If so, he had a wait; she always drove since her apartment was too far to walk and the subway was out of the way. I went over and came up behind him. "Are you waiting for Sc—Dana?" I said.

He whirled, clearly startled, and then I remembered that he had heart problems. I wouldn't have minded if he'd dropped dead at my feet but I didn't think Scully would have appreciated it. Or would she?

"No, I got turned around and can't find the lobby," he grumbled, glaring at me.

"Just like a man, can't ask for directions," I said, fighting a laugh. Had I called it or what? "Come on, this way," I said, waving him towards the other end of the hall. "If you hadn't stomped off one of us would have walked you out. We all know how confusing this building is."

We didn't talk as I led him down three hallways then out to the lobby. "Have a great life—somewhere else," I said as I turned away. He barked something in reply, but I couldn't make out the words and didn't go back to find out. I had far more important things to do, such as getting home and naked for my woman when she arrived.

finis