Character: Dana Scully

Fandom: The X-files

Rating: PG

Word Count: 1847

Setting: First Season Episode: "Pilot"

(AN: Nope, still don't own them. You can read the most current arts of the series at livejournal under 1breath.)

"You're leaving Quantico," Tom Colton nearly snorted beer up his nose. Scully handed him a napkin ruefully, as he coughed and spluttered all over the dark mahogany of the divvy, Georgetown bar.

"Yeah, up to the Hoover building, new assignment." She waited for him to gain control of himself, his face red as he cleared the phlegm from his throat. "I guess some of my scientific work has finally got noticed by somebody."

"Scientific," he croaked, wiping streaming eyes, and swigging another sip of Budweiser to try and clear his throat. "Ehm...you working in the labs up there?"

"Not exactly," she wasn't sure what to tell him. She knew the moment she told him the truth, she would hear the disbelief and the laughter. It was why she even hesitated telling Colton. He had never understood that her reasons for joining the FBI were never about climbing some power structure to the top. He had already set his sites for some cushy office one day, and had made for himself a comfy spot in the Baltimore field office that promised to be most rewarding, if he played it right.

"Look, with your brains, Dana, they would be crazy not to make you a full field agent," Colton wheezed as he finally gained control of himself. "I mean, seriously, how many times can you teach a bunch of green-faced kids how to cut up a dead body."

"I like teaching," she murmured in mild self-defense. "And I'm a doctor, Tom, it's not like I can throw away four years of medical school."

"No, but you can apply all of that skill and knowledge to case work. I'm surprised you haven't tried till now."

"What, and get thrown into the bullpen and hope to make it through the old boy's club, kissing ass till I get noticed finally," she arched a dark, red eyebrow at him, till he finally gave in, grinning. "Don't think I don't know that's how the game is played, Tom."

"You won't hear me deny that," he smiled weakly, coughing slightly still from choking on his drink. "What will you be doing here in Washington?"

"I've been assigned to a department that is a bit…unusual," she said slowly, sipping at the glass of cabernet sauvignon and praying to keep her face as schooled as possible.

"What, Counter-Terrorism?"

"Not as glamorous as that, no," she murmured.

"Don't tell me you are doing surveillance detail for the DEA."

"Tom, the DEA is hardly that unusual."

He looked thoughtfully at his bottle of beer. "Are they starting some new forensics lab that finds things no one else can?"

"I wish," she shook her head. "That would make my job a hell of a lot easier."

"Where," he was mystified, and he shook his dark-blonde head slowly.

"Promise not to laugh?" She felt herself cringe even as she asked it.

"It can't be that bad," he urged.

"Ever heard of the X-files?" She dropped the words casually, but felt her cheeks flare a soft pink. She hid her face behind her wine glass, not daring to look at her old friend and former flame from 'ye-old-Academy' days.

"X-files….no…" he frowned thoughtfully, before it hit him, causing his face to crack open with dawning realization. "Isn't that old Spooky's detail?"

"Old Spooky, yes," she bit her lip at the nickname everyone in her class at the Academy had heard was given to the brilliant special agent who had gone from being the FBI's rising star to chasing after little green men and things that went bump in the night. "He's my new partner, you know."

Tom stopped in mid-swig, Budweiser bottle halfway to his open mouth as he stared at her. She decided that it was a good time to polish off the rest of the glass she had been nursing. It caused her face to flush even more as she swallowed it quickly, the fermented cabernet grapes leaving an acid coating on her tongue.

"You are being partnered up with Spooky," Tom finally asked, lowering his beer bottle in disbelief.

"You know his name is Fox," she offered pointedly.

"What sort of name is that, anyway," Tom didn't miss a beat. "Why Dana? He's like a black hole down there, anything that is attracted to his orbit will be sucked in and be destroyed."

"I know a thing or two about black holes, Tom, I did get an undergraduate degree in physics," Scully hoped to derail him, but he leaned in close to her, setting his beer on the bar top, his eyes intense under his worried frown.

"The guy's a whack job, Dana," he urged. "Says alien's kidnapped his sister or something."

"That's funny, I thought he got his nickname because of the way he was able to get into people's heads when he was a profiler. I heard he had the highest completion rate in the history of the FBI."

"Yeah, I think a few of those nut jobs he profiled maybe cracked his own brain," Tom growled, leaning back again in his chair. "Look, I'm not saying Mulder wasn't brilliant in his day. I've heard all the commendations he got back then, guy could have paved his way to an Assistant Directorship with those things. But he let the work get to him; he let whatever demons were inside his head get to him. He's bad news, Dana, and no matter how smart he is, or how smart you are, he'll drag you down with him."

"That's funny, I've been asked to debunk his work. That's where my science comes in."

"Really," Tom didn't seem impressed. "Dana, trust me, they are setting you up here. Something about all of this smells fishy."

"Setting me up," she laughed at the idea. "I've been nothing but a model agent and a forensics teacher, Tom, what in the hell have I done to ever piss off the powers that be enough for them to want to tear me down." Her own words reminded her of Mulder's sardonic smile as he asked her, "So who did you piss off to get this detail?" He believed she must have.

"It's not who you pissed off, it's who he's pissed off." Tom's expression was dark as he reached for his beer again. "Mulder's made a few enemies. You hear things through the grapevine you know. People don't like some of the accusations he's making, and he throws shit out of his ass all over people and hopes that some of it will stick. If they get a scientist in there, someone with half a brain to go through his crack-ass schemes and prove him wrong, they have all the incentive they need to boot his ass to the curb."

Scully knew that. She had suspected it from the moment Section Chief Blevins had opened his mouth. She had known it for certain when she had looked into the eyes of the smoking man standing behind him, watching her with gimlet eyes, lazily watching the proceedings for no apparent reason.

"They're using you to snap Mulder's neck," Colton warned thickly. "You're the bar that comes down and catches him as he goes for the bait."

Scully thought of the man in the office, with his long cigarette, his beady eyes looking her up and down. "How do I know I'm not supposed to be the bait?"

Colton glanced sideways at her ruefully. "I heard Mulder prefers them taller."

"Heard," she was curious now how Colton would have heard something like that.

"He's been going through the office pool in DC like it was going out of style," Colton leered, snorting softly. "Heard there was some bad break-up for him. Came after he'd taken to hiding in the basement. Ehhh, he wouldn't be the first man who tried to fix a broken heart by fucking everything he sees." Colton shook his head. "Still, I don't think that's the reason, Dana."

"You seemed to find me attractive enough," she teased, causing him to blush.

"It's not that you're not," he stammered. "Damn it, Dana. This just looks bad all the way around. It's not good for your career."

"Why should you care if I help get Mulder kicked out of the FBI, you don't even like him?"

"It's not that," Colton rolled his eyes in a patronizing tone, "Dana...look…I know a thing or two about how games are played in the Bureau. There is a right way of doing things, and a wrong way. I won't say you are the first partner to be assigned to reign in a hothead. But it can backfire on you."

"I see," Scully wasn't terribly sure she liked where Tom was going with this.

"You tear Mulder down too viciously, there might be sympathy for him amongst the ranks. Some people might think that you are using him as a stair step to some better position."

"I thought that was what someone like you should suggest," her sarcasm was heavy and thick with her wine, but Colton was already into his beer too much to notice.

"Yeah, but you have to make it subtle, you know, you have to be careful how you do it. You have to make sure that you don't hurt yourself while you do your job."

"Do my job," Scully chuckled in sad irony. "Did it ever occur to you, Tom, that maybe I might actually help Mulder further his work?"

Colton nearly snorted his beer again. He laughed as he swallowed his mouthful, shaking his head.

"You always were funny, Dana, help him further his work. Let me know when you find the little green men."

Scully felt her mouth tighten hard on the biting retort she wanted to say. It was Colton, she reasoned, pushy, ambitious Colton, he didn't realize how much of an ass he was at times. It was better to ignore it now; he rarely meant any real harm out of it.

"Besides, give it a couple of months to lay the whammy on a few of his cases, let Blevins see the work you do…and maybe I can do something for you."

"You," now it was Scully's turn to nearly choke on her drink.

"Hey, I know some important people, you know," Colton sounded slightly nettled; hurt she would laugh at him. "And unlike your pal Mulder, I'm not about to piss all over a good thing. Just say the word, Dana, I'll see if I can get you out."

"I don't think it will come to that, Tom," she shook her head. "Honestly, you make this sound as if this is some sentence to a ruined career and an embittered life." Just like Fox Mulder, she realized.

"I just don't want to see you trapped in someone else's attempts to throw his own life away, OK." Colton patted her shoulder sympathetically. "Anyway, it's getting late, and you have an 8 AM flight to…where again?"

"Oregon," she rose from the bar. "We are exhuming a body in Oregon."

"Sounds like a great time," Colton drawled sarcastically.