Chapter One.
Special Agent Dana Scully was wrenched from the peaceful world of slumber by the loud chirping of her cell phone on the night stand next to the bed. Her gut instinct, knowing full well who the caller would be, was to roll over and ignore it. But knowing the persistence of her partner, and the likelihood of him trying the landline if she ignored her cell, she reached out with a reluctant groan and pulled the receiver to her ear.
"What do you want Mulder?"
"Well good morning to you too Scully."
"Morning? Mulder it's 3:00am. That barely qualifies as morning!" She sighed. "Why do you always find some excuse to call me in the middle of the night?"
"Would you believe it was because I missed the sound of your voice?" She could hear him grinning and it almost made her smile. But not quite.
"Not a chance. Now if you haven't got a damned good reason for waking me up in the middle of the night, yet again, I'll kick your ass later at work."
"Actually it's good news. Skinner called me earlier. He's giving us a case that's going to take us to the Caribbean for an unspecified period of time."
Scully's eyebrow automatically shot up and her eyes opened for the first time since answering the phone.
"You're kidding me right?"
"Nope. It'll be a lovely vacation Scully, just what you need. A nice little trip to the beach."
Scully's eyebrow rose further, this time through skepticism as opposed to surprise.
"What, just like that nice little trip to the forest you took me on, which ended in us being cocooned alive by brain sucking amoeba?"
"To be fair Scully, they weren't brain sucking amoeba. They only drained your fluid."
"Well, whatever they were, they still left me in quarantine for four weeks, so you'll forgive my lack of enthusiasm."
"You don't need to be enthusiastic, you just need to be at Skinner's office for 9:00am with your suitcase, ready for our briefing."
"9:00am? You mean this could've waiting until 6:00am, when I would've already been up?" There was a loud pause. "Mulder I am so gonna kill you!"
Mulder simply chuckled.
"Kill me now baby and you'll never see me in my Speedos."
The next sound he heard was the dial tone.