1993
His day had started out as every other day: alarm going off at 6:30am, got some coffee on his way to work, cursed at the traffic jams, cursed when someone accidently parked their car on his favourite parking spot. Same old, same old.
The security guard from the FBI building greeted him with a nod which he returned with a smile.
Going through security was always the same: the security guards wouldn't even look at him, their eyes glued to the monitors. Ah, politeness, he'd think.
However, when he reached his office – the X-Files office down in the basement -, he was greeted by Section Chief Blevins looking over his latest case, playing with his slides.
"Ah, Agent Mulder." His superior greeted him. Mulder walked towards him and shook his hand.
"Chief Blevins, good morning. Surprise to see you here, given that no one ever comes here." Mulder chuckles, looking around at the mess that is his office and rubs his hand on the back of his neck.
Blevins chuckles. "Yes, well, why would one want to come here?" He puts his hands in his pockets as he looks at the floor. Mulder bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from answering back with a comment that would most likely get him fired.
"Can I help you?"
"Agent Mulder, we thank you for your hard work with the weird cases that fall on your unassigned project outside the bureau's mainstream's lap, but we think you could use some help." Blevins looks at him square in the eye. Mulder is confused. Stunned. All this years he's dedicated himself to the X-Files and no one seemed to care. Why would they want to help him now?
"Excuse me? What do you mean by 'help'? And who's we'" Mulder asks flatly.
"We, your superiors, think that you could use an extra hand with the X-Files. Interesting work you do here, Agent Mulder. You should be proud of yourself." Blevins explains, walking towards a poster hanging on the wall that reads 'I Want to Believe'.
"I'm sorry, but what brought this on? I've always been mocked about work, my beliefs in the unexplained phenomena," my dedication to finding the truth about what happened to my sister, he wanted to add.
"You should be grateful, Agent Mulder. You'll have someone here that'll help you with your work and maybe even get you to believe what you want to believe," Blevins says as he points to his poster.
"I think you're sending someone to spy on me. Finally have the perfect excuse to close the X-Files for good and send me to another department or fire me." Mulder replies truthfully.
Blevins walks to the door and laughs. "If that's what you want to believe, Agent Mulder. Agent Scully will join you shortly." Mulder stares at his poster and hears the door close.
Why would the FBI, all of a sudden, want to send someone to work with him? He's asked before, but they've always rejected his request. His superiors always said that because he was working in an unassigned project, the FBI wouldn't provide him with assistance, other than money. So eventually he gave up.
This Agent Scully was for sure sent to spy on him, debunk the X-Files. Mulder spent the rest of the day doing some research on Scully, leaving his 'unimportant work' - as some called it – aside. He was getting shut down anyway, so who cares?
He expected to find some underqualified person, who would screw up on their first case, giving his superiors the perfect excuse to put a lock on this basement door for good.
He turned out to be quite impressed with Agent Scully. She was a medical doctor, but did not practice – an act of rebellion perhaps? – and taught at the academy. She did her undergraduate degree on physics and, after a little more of in-depth research, he found her thesis. He read the title out loud: "'Einstein's Twin Paradox, A New Interpretation. Dana Scully Senior Thesis.' Rewriting Einstein? Pretty impressive." He set out to read her work and was thoroughly impressed.
The next day, he arrived at the office and decided to put in order the slides that Blevins had taken out and played with. Putting on his glasses, he groaned in frustration when he saw Blevin's fingerprints on them.
Suddenly, a knock on the door. "Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted." Came out his automatic response without looking up. When no one answered back, he turned around.
A small red head with huge blue eyes and a baggy suit smiled at him. "Agent Mulder. I'm Dana Scully, I've been assigned to work with you."
Right then and there, Mulder realised that he didn't care if Agent Scully was a spy sent to debunk his hard work. He was just happy that he was going to work with this beautiful, intelligent woman.
His heart smiled and he shook her hand.