Author: X_fairy (Diana_Lesky2@yahoo.com)
Disclaimer: The X-files belong to CC and Mulder and Scully belong to each other, not to me! No infringement intended!
Rating: PG-13 for some cursing
Category: H
Spoilers: a small one for FTF
Archive: Anywhere, with my name and addy, but please let me know!
Feedback: Please! I LOVE e-mail!
Summary: Scully has a very bad day with a surprising end.
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The Queen Of Ice
by X_fairy
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The persistent ringing of her phone woke Scully out of a wonderful dream. "Damn thing," she cursed under her breath and was ready to throw it off her nightstand when her gaze fell on her watch that lay next to it. "Damn it!" she screamed. It was already past 10 a.m. and she was more than late for work. She quickly picked up the phone and said as polite as possible, "Scully."
"Scully, where the hell are you?" her partner asked angrily without any greeting.
"Good morning to you, too," she replied cynically, before continuing, "I'm at home, but I guess you already knew that."
"You were supposed to be at that hearing with Skinner *half an hour* ago!"
"Do you think I stayed away just to get you into trouble? 'Cause that's what it sounds like to me!" He was blaming *her* and acting as if he was her boss - that was about the last thing she needed today! "Don't pull that on me, Mulder!" She threw down the phone.
Next she examined her alarm clock to find out why it had let her down - looked like a power failure, all her alarm times were cancelled. That also meant she'd probably have to shower cold, if the heating was off too. It was - best time of the year for that, probably the coldest February morning in human history.
After a bone-freezing shower, she ran into the kitchen to get some coffee. Luckily, the power was back on now, so she could boil some water - but when she opened her cupboard, another unfortunate surprise awaited her - she was out of coffee. "To hell with it!"
Without breakfast and freezing despite her pseudo-fur coat, Scully left her apartment, only to discover yet another misfortune. The elevator was out of order, most likely also due to power loss. She started to walk down the stairs, but found the door between staircase and entrance hall still locked - in the middle of the morning! She banged on the door of the concierge's apartment. "Mr. Gilligan? Mr. Gilligan, you didn't unlock...." She heard a loud coughing. "Mr. Gilligan, are you alright?"
The door opened, and in front of her stood a man with a nose red enough for Rudolph the Reindeer. He was sneezing and coughing endlessly. "Chan I chelp you, Miff Scully?"
"You better get back into bed fast, but it would be very nice if you could give me the key to the staircase for a moment." He looked ill enough to be suffering from pneumonia to her, and she felt she might just catch it, too.
Finally standing in the parking lot, she searched for her car until she remembered parking it in the street in a hurry. The windshield was frozen, and trying to start the engine to get it free quickly didn't work. She opened the hood to find her worst suspicion confirmed - the battery was empty. She clenched her fists and slowly counted to ten to keep herself from cursing, but that didn't help getting her car started. She began to scratch the ice off the windshield although her breath seemed to be refreezing it immediately, and when she was sure her toes might fall off any moment, a car stopped next to hers. The driver leaned out, "Can I help you?"
She could have kissed him - the first none-unfortunate event on this hell of a day.
But luck didn't share Scully's path any longer than a few hundred yards, she had hardly left her neighborhood when she found herself in the worst traffic jam imaginable to mankind - and the car in front of her seemed to be going especially slow. She honked furiously a few times, until the driver rolled down the window and screamed, "Stop it, you damn bitch!"
"Shut the fuck up, bloody idiot!" she screamed back, but stopped, it started to get on her own nerves too.
Scully reached the Bureau at about half past noon, after nearly one and a half hours for a drive that usually took fifteen minutes. Skinner strangely enough had some sympathy for her misfortune, but her partner was still pissed off that she hadn't made it to the hearing. He greeted her with icy silence.
She sat down at her computer to type a report, but when Mulder was still staring at her when she looked up a few minutes later, Scully exploded. "What the heck is wrong with you, Mulder? I slept in because of a power failure, it's not your fault, but it isn't mine also, okay? Don't look at me as if I was the devil impersonate!"
Now he changed his strategy and began to ignore her completely, staring at a point somewhere just above her head. That was too much. "Two can play the game!" She closed her laptop with an unhealthy snap, picked it up and went to the cantina. The volume level there was not very supportive for her concentration, but it was better than Mulder's reproachful silence. She found a place next to Skinner's assistant Kim and asked her to keep an eye on the computer while she went to get something to eat - her first meal today. As it was already near half past one, she didn't have much of a choice. She chose a rice pudding with cherries and was balancing it between the tables back to her place when someone in her way suddenly pushed his chair back. Scully tripped, and the red cherry sauce splashed on her brand new beige skirt. "Thank you!" she said sarcastically. The agent who had caused the whole disaster quickly jumped up to help her, stumbling an apology, but that didn't help her skirt.
Luckily, Scully had an overnight bag in her trunk, and she quickly changed in a ladies' room, but the pants didn't fit the color of her jacket, and it looked pretty ridiculous.
Entering the office again, she heard Mulder talk to someone, and she learned what they were talking about faster than she wanted - they were being sent on a case to Alaska. Alaska of all places! She had surely had enough of ice and snow for all her life last summer. And if it was minus 5 degrees here, it would be minus 25 there. When Skinner had left, Mulder sank into his chair, cursing under his breath, "Damn it, Scully, what did we do to earn *this*?" His fury was forgotten.
Scully smiled resignedly, the day couldn't get any worse, so she could as well try and get back to good terms with her partner. She tried to cheer him up a bit, "You have to see it this way, nobody has our expertise concerning the polar regions."
"*Your* expertise, you mean."
"Well, if you consider being shock-frozen and unconscious in a glass coffin as expertise..."
That made him smile. "Gives a whole new meaning to that mean nickname they used to call you..."
She laughed, and that broke the last bit of the tension between them. "Then I'm the queen of ice now?"
"Sounds more like an ice-dancer than an FBI agent!"
They both burst out laughing, and Scully couldn't help thinking that this was quite a nice ending for such a bad day.
The End!