Title: The New Adventures of Scully, Teenaged Wonder.
Author(s): Death and the Jabberwocky! Yay.
Summary: In Which Scully Reverts, And Mulder Gets A Life. Gasp.
Rating: Tame. Seriously. (Subject to change, depending on Death's mood. Just like the weather!)
In other words, PG. (K+)
Disclaimer: The characters and their reactions are not ours. At all. Darn it. We'd swear, but this is family friendly….for now.
Chapter One: What…the…?!
Scully stretched as she began to return to consciousness. She smiled to herself, realizing the nickname had become ingrained in her mind. She was beginning to address herself the same way Mulder did. Her smile widened at the thought of work today. They'd just finished their campaign to successfully re-open the X-Files, after a little stop in Antarctica. Now they would return to work on organizing the mess that the files had become. And of course, resuming any cases that Mulder managed to convince everyone were important.
She finished her stretching, wondering why she felt as if there were no kinks left, even after being sore for the past few days. She'd been sure there was at least a few weeks left to feel the aftereffects of the abduction. There was nothing else it could have been, even though she didn't want to admit to Mulder he was right-yet. Her hands raised to her head to run through her hair as she got out of bed. What should have been not four inches through her relatively shoulder length hair, she stopped suddenly.
There should be more there, she thought. Abruptly she wondered if it was an after affect of being in hibernation, and dismissed the idea after checking her pillow for the remains. Trying to remain calm, she walked at a brisk pace to the bathroom, and then all hell broke loose in her mind. She looked like a eighteen year old.
Her hair was in the style she'd gotten that year, before she turned nineteen. And her body was certainly the same as it had been when she was that age. There was no sign of the weight she'd gained over the years, her desperate attempt to not appear like she had an eating disorder. Even though she knew it was completely natural for her age at the time, numerous people had approached her to ask if there was a problem.
She leaned forward to inspect her face-there was no sign of the maturity she had gained with the years, either. A decade had been erased in a night. Looking closely, Scully saw that the long closed hole in her lip, and those extra in her ears, had opened up again. She cursed out loud, thinking about the years it had taken for them to go away. She certainly could not return to work like this. Vaguely wondering who had done this, or what, Scully reached the conclusion that she'd find out after she talked to Mulder.
He probably wouldn't recognize her, she realized. Her hair was usually dyed, but now it was a darker auburn, excluding the stripe of blonde on the left side, framing her face. She'd never told him about her "wild" youth. Scully sighed, and decided to retrieve the old lip ring from the jewelry box she kept on her dresser as a souvenir. The hole felt too strange without anything in it-and she wasn't about to get into work anyway, the way she was looking.
Then inspiration hit her. If she wasn't going to be able to do her job, she might as well go with this until it was over. Nothing like shocking Mulder to make her day complete. Scully grinned, not for the first time that week.
Well, if she was going to do this, Scully thought, she might as well do it right. She showered before getting dressed in the only clothes that would fit her now-the all of one outfit that was the remainder of her forgotten teen years, retrieved form a box deep in her closet. Putting in her jewelry, she paused before slipping on rings. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that her hair looked-well, bad. It was meant for a certain kind of style, after all. And that involved gel, and maybe a little wax... Smiling slightly, Scully knelt down and began to search through the cabinet under the sink.
Mulder had awoken that morning and fell off his couch, without much ritual except to groan, and began to shed his clothes on the way to the shower. He spent thirty minutes fretting over what to wear for Scully, and getting his hair to calm down. The previous weeks, after nearly loosing her, Mulder had come to the shocking realization that he was In Love with Dana Scully. He locked the door behind him and ignored the bizarre thumping noises coming from his next-door neighbors apartment.
After fighting through the morning traffic, being cursed and honked at more times than he could count (to which he replied with a cheery, "Good morning!" and a middle finger), he arrived at the J. Edgar Hoover building. He also noticed that it looked just as depressing as ever, with the balding, middle-aged men wandering around in tacky, ill-tailored suits ("Hello, A. D. Skinner! How are you this fine morning?" "What are you up to, Mulder?").
But then, after nine-thirty in the morning came and went, with no sign of the enigmatic Dr. Scully, Mulder was beginning to worry.
When there was no answer on her cell phone, he upgraded from worrying to mildly controlled panic. Because of this (and also because, well, who doesn't like to play hooky?) he decided to take a sick day for the afternoon, after picking up some chicken soup for Scully (just in case).
Unfortunately, he managed to time his entrance to the cafeteria at the same time as the hourly tour group. He usually tried to avoid them, but it was hard to know when they might be delayed and show up unexpectedly. Needless to say, he was surprised when an apparent punk rocker teenage girl approached him and began to grab his elbow and lead him away from the tour.
"Hey, Mulder. Any idea what's going on?" she asked. Her hair was sticking up in back, just enough to give a slept-in appearance. Numerous piercings, which would have looked just wrong on some people, were obviously working for her. Wait, what the hell was he thinking, she was probably more than a decade younger than him! Just then he registered that she'd called him Mulder-something only one person did with such a tone. He looked past the hair, the earrings, the frayed jeans, and tight shirt with a band name on it (some group called the Buzzcocks) -to the nose that was the same, suddenly, the blue eyes, the mouth, and the quirked eyebrow.
"Scully?!"