A/N #39 in my list, just a random thought when I saw the prompt, being the geek I am I immediately thought of radioactive half-life's.
For the last 27 hours Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully had been investigating a disappearance, as usual Mulder jumped to the conclusion of it being an alien abduction while Scully on the other hand had delved into the realm of science, not science-fiction.
"Mulder, just because it's an X-File does not mean that it has aliens and tractor beams, it just has to be unexplained!" She was staring at the monitor in front of her. The case they had been investigating required her to watch the screen until something changed in the corpse's physiology. It was pointless but that was the only thing that she could do at the moment that was still within the realms of science. And besides, if anything did change the computer would notify her through a loud, ear-drum-puncturing alarm.
"Scully, you do realise that those are the only unexplained things left in this day and age!"
"Mulder, please, I'm working."
"Oh what, Scully, trying to disprove my theory?"
"What exactly is your theory then Mulder?"
"Well, Agent Scully, my theory is that this man was abducted then had the life drained out of him by another humanoid that stays alive by taking the life from another, thus living a half-life, like the comics."
"So what you're saying, is that you got your theory from a fictional character in a comic book series, am I correct?" She should have seen this coming; Mulder and comic books went together like Peanut-butter and Jam.
"Well I don't see you coming up with any way of explaining this man's death."
"The man was found near an old nuclear wast dump site right?"
"Yes."
"Well, maybe he had been going there for years and by doing that his body would decay at the rate that it did, and is still doing. This means that he would be, um...-"
"Accept it Scully you can't find any proof of that, it was a government site, no-one could even get near it without proper clearance, which he didn't have."
"Okay then Mulder, do you have any of those comic books left?"
Mulder opened his desk drawer and revealed a stack of comic books plastered with the title 'Half-Life'.
Scully walked over and picked up a comic 'not surprising at all' she thought as she sat back down and flipped through the pages.