An Angry Scully

by

Trycee

Time-Line: Season 7

Disclaimer: This is written for fun not profit.

If looks could kill Mulder knew he'd be a dead man at that moment. Mulder kept touching the back of his head as if a small hole would slice through to the back of his skull from Scully's glare. He tried to joke about the situation but Scully wasn't having any of it. She glared at him from the side passenger seat, not saying a single word.

"OKAY," Mulder said, finally. "Next time I won't take a case in the middle of Minnesota in the dead of winter, Okay?"

Scully continued to glare at him, her eyes icy cold. Mulder shifted nervously in his seat. Their rental SUV was covered in snow and the windows were quickly clouding over. "The park ranger told us to buy blankets, tissue, soap, food", he said, glancing back at the two camping backpacks they'd bought in Silver Bay. "And this cabin has pots and pans and everything we'll need, Scully," Mulder said, "Including a fireplace that we can cook in."

Scully was silent, her eyes drilling into him and Mulder was frightened. He parked on the side of the snow covered road and stared at the map the park had given him. "According to this we can either hike to the cabins...but it's a 3.5 mile hike OR," he said, nervously. "We could take the shorter route and hike up a steep hill for 1.5 miles through the woods. Either way, we have to carry in our supplies."

Scully's eyebrow were raised and she turned away from him, her arms crossed in front of her. Mulder drove on, choosing the shorter route. He parked near the service road and Scully immediately threw open the door of the SUV, jumping down into deep snow. "Oh!", she yelped. Mulder jumped out and rushed to her side, a smirk on his face as he looked at his serious partner buried up to her neck in ten feet of deep snow. The wind was whipping past their faces, coating icicles on their cheeks. "Remind me to kill you, Mulder."

He smirked and attempted to lend a hand but Scully smacked it away. Mulder sighed and then reached past her as she struggled to move in the deepening snow and pulled out the snow shoes they'd bought in town. They were surrounded by woods deep in the middle of a State park in Silver Bay, Minnesota in the Dead of Winter and Scully could not be angrier. They'd been in the state over a week already and she was ready to just go home, slip into a nice bath and shut away both the Entire World and MULDER for at least a month.

Mulder was too busy organizing the sled they had purchased, placing their food supplies in the center and tying it down. He hadn't noticed that Scully had climbed back into the SUV, her traditional snow shoes danging in the air, as she waited to follow him through a well worn path in the trees, completely covered in deep snow. Mulder sighed to himself. He had convinced Scully to come with him based on the evidence that the sightings of the red haired Big Foot were reported in the thousands with photos of foot prints in the snow, documented by numerous visitors over the years.

Silver Bay, Minnesota was a extraordinary place with high cliff-faces, tall sky-reaching trees and a cascading waterfall down into the Mic Mack Lake. They had hired a guide, at Scully's insistence, and tromped around in the woods for several days, finding nothing but broken branches and a fallen, or in Mulder's version, thrown by Bigfoot, rock or two. They had camped out for several days in tents on the cold earth until returning to the hotel for one last night before heading back to D.C. They had turned in their hotel keys and checked out of the hotel but, having been in the woods for several days, they had missed the weather reporting. There was a major storm rolling in from Duluth all the way up North bringing with it several feet of snow on top of the already ten feet in certain areas. There was no way out of there. And that's when Scully had become angry. It wasn't just that she was still shivering from spending several nights in a sleepy bag on the cold wet ground with a flimsy tent to protect her from bears or the wind but they also had to spend the night in an empty airport, shifting on hard plastic seats with no one but a creepy security guard walking past them, coming ever so close to her with every sweep of the area he made. Their flights at the Silver Bay Municipal Airport had been canceled indefinitely, the storm was going to hit that next night stranding them in Minnesota. But this storm was only the tip of the iceberg. And as luck would have it, another Snow Storm was going to hit directly after that one.

With all of the hotel rooms booked up with either nervous travelers or vacationers who hunted in the winter, they had no place to stay to hunker down during the storms. The hotel told them to try the Tettegouche State Park cabins. Mulder scrambled, calling the Park Ranger who warned him that the Park was probably not the best place to wait out a snow storm. They already had a ton of snow among the hilly isolated forests. The cabins were equipped for winter bunkering but there would be no Park Rangers on staff to help them if they decided to stay. There was a total of four cabins and three of them were already packed full with families who were comfortable vacationing in a swarth of snow. The one remaining cabin was one room with wood stacked on the front porch awaiting them once they trekked nearly two miles up a snowy hill. The Park Ranger told them to expect to hunker down for over a week and to bring in as much supplies as they could strap on their backs or carry on a sled. He would leave the cabin door open for them and they were free to stay until the area had been shoveled out but warned that the area often had snow that could reach over twenty feet, and so reaching them might take awhile. So, Mulder and Scully had headed straight for the Camping Supply Store and stopped at the overrun Grocery store, buying up what was left on the shelves, as much as they could using the Bureau's credit card. Scully could picture Skinner's head exploding in her mind. He would not be pleased. They'd left a message on Skinner's phone but that was before they knew they'd be staying in the State Park and before the wind and snow had knocked out their cellphone service. Scully was certain that Skinner would be worried about them.

Mulder placed snow shoes on his own feet and then grabbed up his pack, placing it on his back. He watched as Scully jumped down, this time landing on top of the snow. He helped her slide her pack on to her back. He stepped back to look at her. The pack was taller than she was, stuffed to the brim with warm clothes and other necessities. Mulder had made sure that he was carrying the heaviest supplies and grabbed onto the loaded sled he would pull behind him. He handed Scully her head lamp and then slid his over his hat. It would probably be nightfall before they reached the cabin. He bundling up his Parka and watched as Scully pulled the string of her fluffy hood down over her face, with only her eyes and nose exposed. Mulder too pulled the string of his fluffy hood and then he locked the SUV before stepping out into the snow forming a path. "This must be what it's like to be in Alaska, huh?", he said, turning back at his partner glared at him as she began to move. Mulder sighed. This was going to be a long hike.

All Scully could see in back, in front, and to the sides of her were gigantic Pine and Ash trees and an enormous amount of the whitest snow she had ever seen. Scully was in awe at the beauty of their trek. The brown tops of trees were coated with white snow and reached as high as the eye could see. The path they were walking was lined on either side with massive trees and snow that outlined their path. The sky was turning grey and she was sure they would be tromping through the snow in the dark. It was so incredibly quiet, as they marched on, with Scully following in line with Mulder's footprints a few yards ahead. The only sounds Scully could hear was the bitter wind whipping across the hill they were slowly climbing and the occasional cry from an unknown animal far away. It was absolutely stunning but she wasn't about to let Mulder know that. She watched as Mulder turned back occasionally towards her. Once he felt comfortable that the gap between them had shrunken, he would continue his steps in front of her. "We wasted all that time camping out looking for Bigfoot when we should've come here. This looks like Bigfoot will jump out at us at any minute."

Scully stared at her partner. She could see the side of his face red as he turned back to her. He was freezing cold as much as she was. And for a brief moment she felt guilty for being so angry with him. He looked lost without her communication but she wasn't in the mood and this long trek in the middle of nowhere wasn't helping either. "Mulder, if Bigfoot comes out, I hope he eats you."

Mulder sighed. At least she was speaking to him again.

Nearly two hours had passed, before the roofs of their cabin came into view. The night had fallen and the area was dead quiet as they made their way in the darkness downhill to the valley. They had long switched on their headlamps so they could see in the distance. Without the headlamps, they would be cast into pure blackness, despite the whiteness of the snow beneath their feet. There was no streetlights in sight, and they both knew that there were bears in the woods. They could see the other cabins far off with smoke billowing up from the chimneys. Scully though was focused on the tiny log cabin whose roof was covered in heavy weighted snow that would be home for them for at least a week.

They finally came upon the tiny cabin, and Scully stopped as her legs burned from the hike and her face stung from the cold. Mulder turned around, waiting for her to catch up to him. He was panting as he struggled to catch his breath in the bitter cold. Mulder pushed open the screen door of the e enclosed porch, grateful to be shielded from the cold. He helped his partner step inside and they went about removing the packs from their shoulders and unlatching their snow shoes. Mulder untied the food bundle from the shed and brought it in. They stripped out of their coats, hats and gloves, hanging them on the wooden hooks on the wall. Mulder then pushed the front door open to the log cabin, grabbing up a few pieces of firewood that was stacked on the porch by the front door. The first thing Mulder noticed was that everything in the tiny cabin was wood. Wood paneling and log furniture with a table with two chairs to their left along with a kitchnette which was more like two kitchen cabinets and at the bottom was a mini fridge. There was a tiny amount of counter space shared with a four burner cooktop. He turned to his right and there was a fireplace in the middle of the room. He continued his gaze and next to the front door there was a smug log sofa, a tiny dresser and an even more smug log bed, JUST ONE.

Scully stepped inside and turned around, her eyes landing on the bed. She blinked a few times and then turned towards her partner. "One bed?"

Mulder glanced towards the couch and noticed it was not long enough for him to sleep on. It was smaller than a loveseat and the sofa cushion were surrounded by massive logs that barely looked comfortable to sit on let alone attempt to fit his tall frame into it. And from the chill of the home, Mulder knew he couldn't sleep on the floor. Scully continued to stare at him. "There's no bathroom or shower or running water either?"

Mulder pointed to the wall. "There's a 2 gallon water jug they provided. I'm assuming there's a water spiket around here somewhere."

"What about bathing?", she said, horrified. She had told herself the entire hike up the hill that she would at least get to take a bath when they reached the cabin, but there was no tub and no toilet to be seen.

Mulder pulled out the map he'd been given. "Ah," he said, nervously, as he approached his fierce partner. "The showers are over here, " he said, pointing a distance away. "And the toilets are over there," he said, pointing in a totally different direction.

Scully shook her head in disbelief. "Is that a half a mile's walk to either of those places, Mulder?"

He opened his mouth. "I don't think it's that far."

"It's not inside this cabin or in a freakin' outhouse, is it?", she snapped. " It's A HALF MILE HIKE IN THE SNOW? With TWO BLIZZARDS COMING AT US WITH TEN FEET OF SNOW OUTSIDE THIS DOOR?"

He swallowed hard. "Look, Scully. I know your mad at me. But, that's not going to do any of us any good. We're stuck here for over a week together. Let's at least try to figure this out."

"That's easy for you to say, Mulder. You could just go in back of the cabin and just whip it out. But, I would have to put back on my snow shoes and walk god knows how far to go use the bathroom or to take a shower."

Mulder threw up his hands. "I did the best I could, Scully. Could you help me out here, a little."

Scully softened as she stood in front of him. "Okay, Mulder, fine. I'll try. But, if I get eaten by a bear trying to find the bathroom, my death is on your hands."

Mulder nodded. "There you go. There's that sweetness I expect from you," he said, sarcastically.

Scully cut him with her glare as she zipped her coat back up and placed her snow shoes back on. She put the headlamp on and turned back to face him. Mulder could swear that he had melted from her scrutiny.

"You want me to walk you?", Mulder asked, handing her the heavy metal jug off the wall. "Help you bring back water?"

Scully whipped out her weapon. "No, I want you to start that fire and unpack the food so we can cook something for dinner," she said, snatching the jug from his hand. "Besides, in this dark," she said, cocking her gun. "I might mistake you for BigFoot," she said, pushing the screendoor open and slamming it closed.

"Shit," Mulder hissed as he shook his head. He'd gotten on Scully's bad side before but she usually didn't hate him this much and for this long.

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