Character: Dana Scully

Fandom: The X-files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Free-Empire Records Soundtrack Vol 5

Setting: Season Three Episode "Oubliette"

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She didn't know what to expect out of Mulder first thing Monday morning, not after her impromptu visit at his apartment. Perhaps a thank you, perhaps he would brush it off, as seemed to be Mulder's typical fashion, she couldn't particularly be sure. It was by far not the first time she had ever surprised him with a random gift, nearly ever Christmas gift exchanged between the two had been more surprise than expectation. But it was much more the fact she had gone so out of the way to do something nice, just for him, without being asked and without expectation.

After all, she reasoned to herself, the man had saved her life, had refused to give up the search for her when others would have, and trusted her even when common sense probably told him he shouldn't. What were a little coffee and a few donuts on his birthday? After all, who else besides his mother would even remember, she reasoned. The tragedy of Mulder's family was that it left him so very alone, not just in terms of his own mutual kin, but in terms of his other human connections. And what little comfort Scully could give him as a friend she didn't begrudge.

But she did wonder about it was beginning to define the parameters of their working relationship. Perhaps, before her abduction, she would have considered their partnership that of friendly co-workers, those who shared the same working goal…the X-files and the truth that was in them. But her abduction, his illness, their mutual losses, through that they had forged some sort of bond strong than just friendly co-workers. Now they were much more friends who happened to work together, people who could be frank and honest with one another. No longer did she fear Mulder's tirades and anger when she called him on the carpet, or when his personal demons got in the way of clear judgment. And he had given her his trust, even if he still tried to shove her away and keep her out of the worst of his usually dangerous escapades. At least she believed it was more or less out of his fears for her and not out of his distrust of her involvement in his work.

So much had changed…and yet, Mulder's inability to not call her at ungodly hours of the morning had not. Perhaps, she groaned as she reached for the phone at her bedside, this was some sort of divine payback for having woken him with birthday donuts and coffee. However, it could hardly be justification, after all she had done something nice for him, something to cheer up what would have been a forgotten commemoration of the day of his birth. And besides, she groused, how many times had Mulder called her at all hours to discuss things as meaningless as the Home Shopping Network?

"Scully," she managed to croak into the phone, the static sounds of Mulder's cell phone crackling over the air of her phone receiver.

"It's me," Mulder supplied, almost needlessly. "Sorry to wake you, but we've been called on a case."

"Called on a case," she frowned as she glanced at her bedside clock. It read 6:30, about the time she would wake up anyway. "Mulder, where are you?"

"Dulles, look I'm on a plane that leaves for Seattle in twenty minutes…how fast do you think you can get there?"

"Seattle," her sleep-addled thoughts flew to visions green, glow in the dark bugs, crazed geologists running from mutant spores, and mentally deficient twins being possessed by their more intelligent brothers. "Do you realize the Pacific Northwest has it out for us, Mulder?"

"I'm beginning to wonder about that," Mulder chuckled on the other end of the line, his voice sounding thin and reedy over his phone. "This time it's a kidnapping, a fifteen year old girl, straight from her home, the only witness her younger sister."

"A kidnapping?" Alarm bells began to sound in Scully's brain as she came more fully awake, sitting up in her bed and throwing off her covers. She didn't need to hear the details to see a picture of the story forming before her, a young girl taken without warning from her home, a sibling who was the lone witness, distraught parents, few to no leads…it was a tale now as familiar to her as it was to Mulder. And it was a case her partner of all people had no business being on.

"A kidnapping should go to Missing Persons, Mulder, how did you get this case?"

"When the Seattle field office reported the it, I got wind of it and asked if we could be put on it." Mulder was utterly shameless in admitting this, and Scully was hardly surprised. It wasn't a particularly unusual tactic of Mulder's, horning himself in on a case that he shouldn't be on. What was worrying her is that Mulder knew he was emotionally compromised by this specific work, and yet he did it anyway."

"Mulder, Skinner isn't going to be terribly thrilled to hear you took this, and personally I'm wondering what in the hell you are thinking?" She couldn't help but sound thunderous, something inside her very Catholic, guilt-ridden soul was appalled at the lengths that Mulder would go to expiate his own imagined sins. "Mulder, you were the one who just told me to back down on the Trimble case when the boy died. How can you expect any less from me?"

"I don't, Scully…that's why I want you there." His response surprised her in its honesty, and it caused her rising anger to at least quell itself briefly. "Look, I know how this looks, and I know my own faults…but there is more to this case than just a simple kidnapping. And I think I have a connection that may be of some use for this missing girl, if I can get there fast enough and convince this person to help."

"Person…I'm afraid I don't follow you."

"I'll explain more when you get there," Mulder tried to assure her, the noises of the air terminal behind him as one of the typical service announcements sounded over the air port PA system. "I don't think that the victim has a lot of time, Scully, so we have to move quickly, try to get her out of there and back home in one piece."

Back home…his last words were delivered with Mulder's frenetic, energetic focus, but she could hear the underlying hurt and determination just below the surface. No matter what Mulder said, how he tried to spin this, she knew why he took this case, and she knew whom it was he was trying to bring back home. Certainly, bringing back the missing girl was his priority, but it wasn't the little girl in his heart he was trying to recover.

"Mulder…for a moment, won't you ever be free…just for the moment won't you just put those demons to rest and not chase those demons?"

If it had been as recent as a year ago, she perhaps couldn't have said that to him without him becoming angrily defensive. Instead he was quiet on his end of the phone, as if thoughtful. She couldn't tell if he was truly hurt by what she said, or if he was simply formulating what to say next. The distance of advanced communications meant that her ability to read her partner's body language was non-existent here. If only she could read him across a cell phone.

"I'll see you in Seattle when you get there, OK?" His response was far from curt, but there was a heavy weariness she had not heard from him before whenever she brought up Samantha. "Bring an umbrella, it looks like the weather is getting nasty outside."

An odd statement from him…but it was one of avoidance. He was done with the topic, for now. "All right, I'll see you when I get into Seattle. I'll give you a call."

"See you then," he clicked off the phone, leaving Scully to stare at the ringing receiver in her hand heavily, worrying creasing her brows. As a responsible agent, she should force Mulder off this case; use Skinner's leverage to take him off. And perhaps a more responsible Scully at a different point in her career would have. But as Mulder's friend, she knew what he was asking from her was her support, her help, and her understanding, knowing what this case will do to him. And as his friend, she couldn't do anything less than fly to Seattle and stand by him on this case.

Without thinking she dialed her mother's number. She doubted her mother would be terribly surprised. "Hi Mom, I have a case in Washington state, you think you can come and grab Queequeg for a couple of days?"

She hoped, for Mulder's sake, they found the girl quickly, and alive.