Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: PG-13
Prompt : Chad Ochocinco about Cheryl: "Is that really bad for me to love her after four weeks?" (Dancing With The Stars) Vol 2. Week 44 on scifi_muses on LiveJournal
Setting: Season Four Episode: Teliko
"I've got the results on your material analysis," Mulder tossed the paperwork onto her work station, staying well away from the strange, albino body of Owen Sanders. Scully glanced up at him but said nothing as she returned to the work of sewing up the unfortunate teenager, finishing up her grim work in order to send him home to his grieving mother.
"You know, you shouldn't string Agent Pendrell along the way you do, Scully, you are killing the poor guy." A seed cracked between his teeth as Mulder settled on one of the leather-covered stools. He met her cool gaze with an impudent smile and a lift of one not-so-innocent eyebrow.
"I do nothing of the sort, Fox Mulder, and you leave Pendrell alone." She carefully tied off and clipped the surgical thread she was using on her Y-incision, observing her handiwork. "Why do you enjoy taunting him?"
"I didn't taunt him?" Why didn't she believe that? "The man's in love with you, Scully, you'd have to be blind not to notice."
She had noticed…or at least the fact that Pendrell had something of a crush on her. "Agent Pendrell is a respected colleague, Mulder, who takes an interest in our work and what we do."
"And he nearly passes out whenever you walk by in one of those skirts of yours."
Scully's glare could have frozen the entire morgue, but Mulder hardly noticed.
"I don't know, Scully, you should take it as a compliment. You are a highly attractive woman."
"What is with you of late," she snapped irritably, highly uncomfortable with this entire line of discussion. "First you see me as some Madonna figure, now you want to hook me up with Pendrell? When did you become some Jewish matchmaker?"
Mulder quelled slightly under the volley of her verbal assault. "Oh, don't say that word around my mother."
"What, Jewish?"
"No, matchmaker," he grinned as she cut her eyes at him, returning to the business of Owen Sanders body. "I'm not trying to push anything, Scully, I just thought that a nice woman like you should get out there, enjoy life a little."
"Does this have anything to do with the Schnauz case? Any residual guilt because I was carried off by yet another psychotic, serial killer?" If it did, so help her God….she had a scalpel in hand.
"No." She could tell he was lying, the way his eyes automatically diverted down and to the side. Well, two could play at that game.
"I don't know, Mulder…now that you mention it, Pendrell is kind of cute."
That wasn't the reaction he was expecting. He nearly choked on one of his sunflower seeds as she smiled sweetly at him over the body in between them.
"Pendrell…the guy who never leaves the Sci-Crimes lab?"
"Well you know, he and I, we are both scientists, he gets it. And he's always so sweet."
"He's a red head, Scully. Isn't there some law saying red heads can't be attracted to each other?"
"You have a thing for brunettes with long legs, don't you?"
Point. He grimaced uncomfortably, but he was already getting the game she was playing. She knew it wouldn't take Mulder long, it never did. "Getting a tad defensive, Agent Scully?"
"When did you feel you could start commenting on my love life?" Or lack thereof, she grumbled privately.
"Since when did you start getting touchy about a joke?" Now Mulder was seriousness, joking forgotten as he watched her swab down the unnatural, ashy gray skin, removing the blood and fluids. Scully didn't look up at him; she couldn't bring herself to do it. She had over-reacted, for no reason really.
"Why did you invite yourself on my case, Mulder?" She changed her line of attack, eyes sliding to the files he had set down, feeling nettled they were even there.
"Your case?" He drawled the words, indignation and mockery in his nasal monotone. "Gee, Scully, I didn't realize we were getting proprietary about our work."
"It's 'our' work now?"
She knew it was 'their' work, it always was, but she had meant to be peevish, and it worked. Mulder's hurt rose to the surface briefly, before being ruthlessly buried under a veneer of indifference. "I always assumed it was. Perhaps I was mistaken, being your partner and all."
"My partner, yes, but Skinner assigned me to this case." She didn't care how childish that sounded. And yes, she was provoking him. "This is a straight scientific case, Mulder, not an alien or supernatural phenomenon in sight. Why can't you just accept that?"
"Why are you so willing to accept that this is as simple as some CDC hand off to the FBI?" It was Mulder's turn to get angry, eyes flashing gray as he lounged dangerously against the workspace. Mulder was always the most dangerous when he was still like that; all of his usual frenetic energy focused onto one point…this time her. And she had pushed it on purpose.
"Why is it that you can't let me work one case on my own, Mulder? I was asked on this for my medical expertise, for what I bring to the table. They aren't looking for supernatural explanations or strange myths. They want hard, concrete evidence as to what is going on with these boys, what it is that is killing them."
"In other words you don't want 'Spooky' and his crackbrained theories around to make Dana Scully, the serious scientist, look bad."
His sneer gave her pause. That hadn't been what she said. "Mulder, that's not what I meant…"
"Well, Dr. Scully, you can tell your scientist friends that the material sample Pendrell pulled up was a seed, found on the victim. Turns out its from a rare, night blooming plant indigenous only to West Africa."
"Seed…how would it get…."
"I don't know, Dr. Scully, I'm only the pet urban legend expert here, meant to chase after ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night, I wouldn't know anything about science."
She had asked for that petulance…she knew it. She provoked the reaction knowingly. She resented him being there, for taking an interest in her work, for insisting that it was nothing more than a CDC PR job to show that they did care about diseases ravaging young, African-American males. She resented that Mulder would want to make this something more than what it was. Couldn't he once just accept that some cases weren't about conspiracies, ghosts, or monsters hiding under the bed?
Mulder's words rang painfully. I'm only the pet urban legend expert...
Shit. She was the one pinning him to the simple stereotype, the man who was the FBI monster chaser. She hadn't wanted him and his theories, his suppositions, his out of the box thinking. "Mulder, I didn't mean that?"
"What did you mean?" He didn't believe her, and rightly so. A part of her did mean exactly what he implied. Damn Mulder's insight.
"Not everything I do is an X-files, Mulder." It was all the explanation she could give him. "It is nice to know that my knowledge, my skills are called on for other things, purposes beyond the work we do."
"More important things than chasing down aliens, you mean."
"Damn it!" The heels of her palms slammed painfully on the gurney with Owen Sander's body, eyes blazing as she met his angrily hurt glare. She knew that he was right in that too. Perhaps a part of her did consider this more important than monster chasing and conspiracies. "Mulder, you know I have never belittled the work we do."
"But you've not always supported it."
"Just because I disagree with your from time to time, Mulder, doesn't mean I don't support it."
"Right," he snorted, scooping up the files again, turning for the door. "I'm sorry for stepping on your sacred cow there, Scully, I'll take my spooky ass down to the basement again and try to find something more worthwhile of my time and talents."
"Mulder." Scully had started this, all because of a petty grievance that she wanted to do this case without him. It was stupid; really, Mulder wasn't an idiot when it came to practical matters of science, far from it. And in reality, she admitted, she could use his help on this, and not just in handling files from Pendrell.
"I'm sorry," she called out, stopping him at the door. He turned, hands at his waist, classic Mulder confrontation mode. Why had she provoked him so? Was she really that annoyed by him stepping into this case? Did her pride mean so much to her? They were partners, how many cases had she worked with him when only his expertise was called upon?
"I'm sorry for making you feel that you aren't wanted on this case. You are right…we are partners; we work together, and bring our mutual strengths to the table. I suppose…I don't often get called upon for my expertise, Mulder. The FBI has pathologists all over the place. The idea of being asked my scientific opinion…perhaps I got carried away."
Mulder listened, nodding slowly, his anger abating, though she noted the hurt did not. "Perhaps I see conspiracies in every corner, Scully, and efforts to deceive, inveigle and obfuscate. But I also see things that most people don't. And I may be wrong in this, I may be an utter jackass howling at the moon, but if I can turn up one piece of evidence that will keep those boys from dying, isn't that worth more than your ivory tower of scientific inerrancy?"
Scully found she had no argument for that.
"Anyway, the seed Pendrell found, I'm going to go have it analyzed for you, and perhaps go on a bit of a wild goose chase."
"What for?" He was taking off for the door again as she called after him.
"I don't know, maybe nothing." He shrugged, passing through the metal doors without a backwards glance, leaving Scully to stare after his wake.
She had fucked up…big time. There was no doubt about it.