And The Signs Say
S J Smith

Rating: Teen, maybe, for language.

Summary: Mulder's having a Very Bad Day. Scully, as usual, doesn't care.

Disclaimer: While I was born on the 13th, it certainly wasn't in October…nor am I Chris Carter. Drat it all.

A.N.: Written for a challenge, with the prompt being, "...and, it's snowing."

Dana Scully looked up from the file on Mulder's desk as the man himself walked into the office, looking much like a well-loved toy after the neighborhood bully had gotten to it. His hair was rumpled; tie askew; long coat covered in…things best not considered, Dana thought after a second or two as Mulder squelched with each step he took.

"Rough day coming in to the office?" She snatched up her coffee cup, leaning far back in the chair, wrinkling her nose at the odor that wafted off her partner.

Lower lip poking out, Mulder eyed her coffee cup with eyes that would win a begging championship, letting out a sigh that seemed to roll all the way up from his squelchy shoes.

"Maybe you want to go home, shower, change and try this again?"

Another heartfelt, mournful, pleading sigh, with added blinky eyes. Damn, the man was good.

Fortunately, Dana considered herself immune to Mulder's charms – especially when he stank like that. "You're not getting my coffee, Mulder. And I won't be able to work with you smelling up the office like that." She waved her hand in front of her nose in punctuation. "Go home, get cleaned up, come back. I'll cover for you until you do."

He ramped up the pitiful. "You don't even want to know what happened?"

Dana took a determined sip of her coffee. Her, "Not really, no," earned her a long, incredulous look that twisted back to miserable when she actually glanced his way. "Go home. Shoo."

"But, Scully…." Mulder could really do a good whine, too, she thought, though she didn't let it affect her.

Nope. Not at all. She leaned back further in the chair, smiling a catlike smile at him. "Go home, Mulder."

With a little huffing, 'you don't understand me, no one understands me,' sound, Mulder turned around, shoulders slumped, head hung down. He glanced back over his shoulder, one more piteous attempt to drag her into whatever it was that he'd gotten himself in to –

- and the window behind Dana's head suddenly shattered, glass and wet raining down over her. With a yell, she dove for the space under the desk, coffee cup flying, file sliding off the desk top to explode in a confetti of paper.

There was a long pause afterward, where Dana became aware of a few things, namely that she had a scrape across the back of her left hand that was bleeding, her hair was falling in her face and a very uncomfortable draft was crawling up her ass. "Mulder?"

"Uh huh?"

"Are you all right?"

A little pause and Dana thought she could see that smirk on his face. "Just fine, Scully, how are you?"

"What the hell just happened?" Cautiously, she crawled backward, hearing the crunch of glass under her knees and the toes of her shoes, rising up to peer over the top of the desk.

The concern on Mulder's face was immediately wiped away by a put upon expression. "Just some weird, random event. Like every other weird, random event that I've run into this morning." He was warming up to it, Dana could see it in his eyes. "I have a theory, wanna hear?" Before she could open her mouth and say, 'no,' he was off. "At first I thought it was aliens," her snort made little inroads into her partner's insanity, much to Dana's chagrin, "but then I realized that was stupid." Mulder shot her a glance that had Dana rolling her eyes. "So I started looking into unexplained phenomena and through some totally amazing deductive reasoning, found out that the planets are in line and causing problems with certain people."

"Certain people." Dana carefully stood up, moving around the desk, not wanting to slip on the glass.

Mulder nodded solemnly.

Dana used Mulder's name plate to scoop some of the glass out of the way, leaning her hip on the edge of the desk. "Mulder," she pushed hair out of her eyes, tugged at the hem of her jacket to situate it properly, wondered just what had happened to her coffee, "you've been reading your horoscope again, haven't you?"

A grunt of surprise escaped him at the direct hit. "Scully! How could…you know I wouldn't…that's…horoscopes aren't real!"

"Uh huh." Folding her arms, Dana pushed off the desk, taking great care to avoid her stinky partner as she made her way to the door. "Go home. Get cleaned up. I'll call someone to come fix this window." The draft was working up to a severe wind.

"But Scully!" Mulder whined again.

"Do it, Mulder." She stood in the hallway, tapping her fingers on her elbow. "Now."

White flakes drifted in with the wind, swirling around, landing in Mulder's hair. He let out a heavy sigh. "…and, it's snowing."

"Go." Dana pointed down the hall toward the elevator, stepping aside as Mulder actually squelched out of the office, still giving her the hangdog look. She returned it with an imperious one, reminding him that he might be senior agent but she was not putting up with this for another instant.

Another long sigh and Mulder obeyed, his shoes making a terrible sucking sound as he made his way to the elevator, pressing the button. Dana waited to make sure he actually got into the car before going back into the office. "Horoscopes," she muttered under her breath, dialing maintenance.