Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: John Constantine: You've waited twenty years for me, Lu. What's another twenty seconds? (Constantine) Vol4.8.2011 on scifi_muses on LiveJournal
Setting: X-files: Drive, Season Six
If patience was a virtue, Scully wondered if she was a saint.
"Hey, Scully, look, their football field is blue, I think we should check it out."
Scully hardly bothered take her foot off the excelerator, let alone glance at the large stadium they drove past, the home of the Boise St. Broncos. "I hardly think it merits a stop."
"Come on, Scully, it's so blue, I could see it from the plane as we landed. It's like they took a million Smurfs and scrubbed their little bodies against the ground."
That was not a visual Scully particularly liked having in her head. "Mulder, I know it is difficult for you to accept this, but we are here to do a job. Yes, it is a boring job, checking the licenses of farmers and making sure they are allowed to buy giant amounts of fertilizer. But in the wake of Oklahoma City, it's a necessary job, and right now it is ours. And I'm sorry you are so bored, but I'd rather get here, get done, and not have to explain to Kersh why it is you felt the need to buy two football tickets on the FBI's dime."
"You don't think Kersh likes college football?"
Scully bit her cheek and counted to ten. "I don't know what he likes, Mulder. But I do know that he likely won't buy your Smurf abuse story as a reason for stopping."
Mulder grumbled quietly, sliding lower in the passengers seat, cracking sunflower seeds loudly between his teeth. Since last evening when she had blown up at him regarding Diana Fowley and his petulant refusal to listen to a word Scully had to say, no matter how much sense it made, Mulder had vacillated between childish and petulant, landing annoyingly on both at the same time. To say he had been less than thrilled with their assignment from their new Assistant Director, Kersh, was an understatment. Even as a raw rookie, fresh out of the Academy, Mulder hadn't had to do grunt work. He had been the Bureau's darling then. But that was a decade ago, long gone, and now he was reaping the reward of having pissed off the powers that be too many times.
Why she was stuck in a car with him in moments like these must be the punishment Scully was meant to endure. Whether it was the FBI brass or the Lord above who deemed her transgression could only be extirpated by babysitting a pouting man-child for the next five days while driving through southern Idaho and western Oregon, she couldn't say. All she knew was that there better be blessings in heaven after this trip. Quite possibly she could cut her time in purgatory…unless this was purgatory? Wouldn't it be fitting, she thought sourly, that this would be the way by which she could atone for her venial sins, dealing with a man who didn't believe in God, but sure as hell believed in aliens.
"We are talking about potato farmers, Scully, I don't think sedition is high on their list of activities. None of the people we were sent to check out appear on any watch lists, there's been no reports of any suspicious behavior, and the most threatening thing to the US government that's occurred in these parts was a group of frat kids drunkenly taking a piss on the steps of the Idaho state capitol building. And frankly, at this moment, I understand that urge."
"So you did do your homework after all." That surprised her, when she left Mulder the night before, he had still been piecing together X-files outside of Kersh's order. She had angrily called him out on his behavior, his blind trust of Diana Fowley and his sneering distrust of the data she had presented him. "I assumed you stayed in the office all night with the light out, gluing files back together."
"Who needs glue with new fangled technology, Scully, I simply scanned them and let the computer try to rebuild the images." He sounded pleased with himself he had managed to work the highly expensive new software by himself and without the need of Frohike to hold his hand.
He was bound to get caught sometime, she scowled darkly at nothing in particular as they drove through the rolling landscape around them. If it wasn't for trying to piece the files together, it would be because Mulder couldn't resist a strange case if his life depended on it. Kersh's orders were clear, neither of them were to even get within a hundred yards of anything that smelled of an X-file. They were barely out of Boise, and already Mulder was looking for something, anything weird and bizarre, anything but the job they were supposed to be doing.
She had little sympathy for him at the moment. He was the one who got himself…the both of them really into this mess. And he could pout, sneer, and drag his feet all he wanted. For the next month they would be visiting every tiny potato farm, beet farm, wheat farm, even cow pasture if that's where Kersh wanted to send them.
"I know you hate this, Mulder," she tried to sound reasonable, even sympathetic at least. "I can't say I'm thrilled with this either. But for now, till events play out otherwise, you have to behave yourself."
"Why," he asked simply, dark eyebrows raising in challenge to Scully's surprise. Did he think this was a game?
"Because you have angered the powers that be, Mulder, and they want to punish you, or at least put you down for a while. We've been through this before, several times, you know the routine, you keep your nose clean, you do what they want, and eventually you will get your work back. They are kidding this time, Mulder. You've spent months upsetting people and turning everything upside down. For now, till you can do otherwise, you have to put up with doing agriculture checks."
"That wasn't why I asked, 'why', Scully." Mulder turned from petulant to grave in an instant. "After all these years, I'm the first person to catch on to what they are doing here. My question is why behave myself? Why can't I, from time to time, indulge in what I do best?"
"Because it's dangerous," she snapped, perhaps a little more forcefully than she meant to. "Because every time you've done it of late you've managed to screw it up."
She had a point, and he knew it. First Gibson Praise, then Dallas and all the extenuating circumstances around that, then Phoenix. Any more of this, and Mulder would be drummed out of the FBI without getting a finger back on his beloved X-files, leaving his entire worked to Diana Fowley. And she may respect it, but Scully didn't trust the woman to keep it or protect it like he would. And she would be no closer to the justice or answers she sought either.
"For now, Mulder, you need to behave yourself, you can't get out of it."
He clearly didn't like hearing that, his long legs knocking peevishly against the glove compartment as he threw his seat back with a loud thump. "What are you, Scully, my babysitter?"
"Wasn't that my whole purpose in the first place, debunk your theories, make you behave, and generally piss you off?" Her words cut with the hurt of their argument the night before, the hurt she still felt acutely, and he had yet to apologize for.
She felt him stir guiltly at her words.
"If you are going to take a nap," she intoned darkly as she glanced at his long frame stretched out in the leaned back seat. "Try not to snore, it's a long drive, and all I have is country music to drown you out with."
For once he had no snappy or sarcastic reply as he settled, disquieted but no less fractious, into the passengers seat. Less than twenty minutes into their weeks long road trip, and this was how it started, with petty bickering and childish tetchiness? Suddenly, the silver ribbon of road in front of Scully looked interminably long and hostile. Agriculture certificate checks…how mundane could this be?
Why had she come back for this?
