Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: PG-13
Prompt Connor MacLeod: I've been alive for four and a half centuries, and I cannot die.
Brenda: Well, everyone has got their problems (The Highlander) Vol 3. Week 19 on scifi_muses on LiveJournal
Setting: Season Five Episode: Kitsunegari
Mulder was late. He was never late.
Scully perched on the edge of his large desk, pretending to busy herself with a file, but in reality she was watching the ticking of the clock in the corner. It was eight o'clock. Mulder was usually there before seven and well into some sort of strange file by the time she rolled in a half-hour later. He'd usually already had his morning cup of coffee, three or four pages of outlined notes, and a strange hypothesis or three to throw at her all before she had managed to set her briefcase down.
This morning of all mornings he wasn't behind his surprisingly neat and tidy desk. He wasn't waiting, long legs propped on the corner as he leaned back in his chair, aquiline nose buried in a newspaper or thick file, agile mind wondering at why it was that some woman in Rochester saw the image of Jesus on a piece of toast. Perhaps any other day she would have shrugged it off, noted that Mulder was just late today for any number of personal reasons and gone about her business, waiting for him to show up.
But it wasn't a normal Monday morning in their office. Today was October thirteenth, a day that Mulder usually hardly tried to forget. And for once Scully wasn't going to allow him to slide through the day and try and ignore it. For once she was going to force Mulder to enjoy his own birthday. It had become her private obsession and mission over the last few years, her own small effort to point out to her woe-begotten partner there were those who cared for him. Her first year working with Mulder she had missed his birthday completely, having never even thought to look for it in the files, assuming he would say something about it. Mulder had conveniently neglected to bring it up, however, and it was only months after the fact, when she was checking him into a hospital for a gunshot wound to the leg that she had even discovered the date.
Scully had chastised him of course, to no avail, he had glibly replied he hated his birthday and preferred to ignore it. So she had planned to make it up the next year to him. That was before they had been separated and the X-files shut down. That was before she had been abducted by Duane Berry and had her memories and ova stolen from her, the chip left beneath her skin that controlled the disease that so nearly killed her. When she finally had returned the stress of the events had driven all thoughts of his birthday clean out of both of their minds. They had spent that birthday in quarantine in Washington State after their failed mission to find out what happened to Daniel Trepkos and his Cal Tech team. He'd said nothing then either.
The following year he'd been as equally evasive on the subject. They had been out covering the strange case of soldiers trying to commit suicide and failing, all claiming to be driven to it by a strange entity. They'd been so busy with the case that she had allowed herself to forget the occasion all together, determinedly waking him up bright and early that Saturday with his favorite coffee and donuts, refusing to allow him to mark the day unnoted. For all her fluster on happening on her barely clad partner that morning, she'd been thrilled that he seemed appreciative that she had made the sort of effort few others would bother with for his birthday.
Last year had been considerably less warm. Things had been strained between the two of them, perhaps the most trying period on their partnership to date. The tension between herself and Mulder had been thick, her jealousy over his reaction to Melissa Riedel and her own growing dissatisfaction with her life and her place on the X-files had driven a wedge between them that at the time she doubted would ever be bridged again. They'd spent the evening be regaled by the Lone Gunmen with stories about the mysterious, cigarette smoking figure who seemed to thread his way through the weave of their lives, as Scully tried to pull up the courage to set aside her pride and ask him out for a drink. It had been a small step in the right direction between the two of them. She only regretted that things would become so much worse before they got better.
This year things couldn't be more different in their relationship. Through arguments, hurt, illness, and betrayal the two of them were still together, still friends. The hurt of a year ago was replaced by a stronger partnership, a new resolve between them, and something else. Scully's thoughts flickered briefly to the dance shared just weeks ago while in Memphis, the way Mulder had held his hand out to her, the feeling she had in his arms as they swayed in time to the music. Try as she might in those days since, she couldn't quite put out the fluttering feeling that rose unbidden inside of her, the flush she felt, or the smile that crept into place the minute she wasn't looking.
What that meant she didn't know, nor did she understand. And unlike Karen Kosseff, she didn't want to prod it too thoroughly either. But she did know one thing, Mulder turned thirty-six today. And she wasn't about to allow him to get away with ignoring or neglecting the anniversary of his birth, not even by being conspicuously late. She was resolved on this. The minute he got in, she had planned to take him out again, play a bit of workday hooky, getting out of their stuffy basement office and into the bright colors and brisk air of fall. If there was nothing that her recent illness taught it, she had learned that life was far too short to be constantly stuck inside, chasing after the threads and ghosts of supposed supernatural activity. And for once she was going to convince Mulder of that as well.
If she could find out where he was?
The clock face ticked to 8:15, the phone was silent, and in confusion Scully slid to the floor, crossing to her table and glancing at her own cell phone. No word, no call, no message. Where was he? Had he snuck out of town over the weekend? He wouldn't, he was under long standing orders to always tell her if he was going out, if nothing else so she could feed his fish. Had something come up with him? His mother?
The elevator doors down the hallway rumbled and clanged open, and the scrape of Mulder's shoes against tile nearly made her sigh in open relief. She turned to the door with a welcome smile as he turned the corner, slouching in, papers in hand. He hardly looked up at her greeting.
"Hey there, birthday boy, I was about to…" She paused as he shambled to his desk, hardly seeming to hear her. "Where have you been, I was getting worried."
'Skinner's office," he replied, distractedly rifling through a stack before moving towards the wall of files behind their desks. He scanned the tags for the briefest of seconds, diving at one drawer and jerking it open, absorption bending his head as he pulled out the file he was seeking.
"What's up?" Immediately Scully went on alert, sensing this wasn't just another call up on the carpet for one action of Mulder's.
"We're heading to Lorton Penitentiary," he replied vaguely, flipping through the pages. There was something he wasn't speaking too, she could tell that. His jaw ticked as he worked it, dark eyebrows drawn so tightly together she couldn't tell if he was angry or worried.
"What's at Lorton?"
"Robert Modell." He said it so calmly, as if this were anyone else, just a regular guy they had met on a case. But the name fell like a hard lump in Scully's gut, churning it.
"Pusher? Why?"
"He's escaped." The tense calm about her partner was too perfect, too controlled. Pusher had been one of the most dangerous criminals they had ever encountered and perhaps one of the smartest. No one could explain how it was the man could make his way into people's minds, making them do and act in ways they didn't wish to. Perhaps it was hypnosis, suggestion, hell Scully could almost believe in some latent psychic ability associated with the man's brain tumor. She had seen what he had done to other fully cognizant people. She'd seen a man drop dead at the mere suggestion of a heart attack. She had stood there, unable to stop her partner as he turned his weapon first on himself and then on her in a sick game of Russian roulette.
Mulder had shot Modell through the head instead. Scully had never believed the man would ever recover. Somehow he must have, enough to make it out of a hospital. "Did he walk out on his own?"
"No one knows. No one remembers." Mulder's full lips pressed hard together as he flipped through their report. "He wasn't noticed till early this morning during the regular guard shift change. All the guard on duty could tell anyone was that 'he had to go'. Sound familiar?" Mulder finally looked up at her, his wry humor not reaching his hard, flat eyes. "Skinner wants us over there immediately."
"Mulder," Scully cautioned. She knew she had to, someone did. "This isn't just anyone, this is Pusher. This man played mind games on you like I have never seen done not even in some of our earliest cases together."
"No one knows Modell better than I do, Scully." There was no cockiness in that sentiment, it was only the truth, few in the FBI were as good as Mulder in getting into the minds and actions of other people, and no one could play Modell's games better.
"But he also knows you as well, Mulder, and chances are he's expecting you. And he knows all your weaknesses."
"So what are we supposed to do, Scully let him run around and kill more people because we're too afraid to deal with him?" Impatience finally broke through the tense reserve. "We sent other agents after Modell, and he destroyed them."
Mulder was the only one he hadn't. Scully knew his statement was true, she had watched Modell in action. That wasn't the point. She didn't want it to have to be Mulder as the defacto answer. "When do we go to Lourton?"
"Now," he replied, reaching for his overcoat, grimly snapping shut the file. He's already got at least a ten hour head start on us."
"Right." She grabbed her things as well, mentally cursing Modell as she followed behind Mulder's lengthy strides. That man always did have a knack for ruining their birthday, the last time it had been hers. She only prayed that this time his effect would not be nearly as devastating.