Character: Dana Scully

Fandom: The X-files

Rating: PG

Word Count: 604

Prompt: You seem a decent fellow... I hate to kill you.... Inigo Montoya wk 19 (From scifi_muses at LiveJournal)

Setting: Season One Episode: "Fallen Angel"

As she stepped carefully from Max Fenig's RV, Scully took a deep breath of the much cleaner, fresher air outside, and let out a low, long whistle as she shook her head.

"Wow, Mulder," she murmured as they crossed the parking lot to the hotel. "I never thought I'd live to say this, but that man made even you look sane."

Mulder seemed amused. "Yeah, you run into that sort a lot in this racket. I don't know, Max seems all right, decent enough sort of guy. Just…off beat."

"Off beat like a white guy at a hip hop concert," Scully snorted, glancing back towards the trailer sitting innocuous in the parking lot.

"His type are harmless enough," Mulder reassured her. "I think he had a crush on you though?"

She eyes flew up to his own laughing ones, startled as she realized he was teasing her. "What made you say that?"

"Enigmatic Agent Scully," he kidded. "I don't know you're not so mysterious as all of that."

"I hopefully am to him," she replied, horrified at the idea that her own life might be a book to a whole army of Max Fenig's, roaming the country and swapping stories about her.

"He doesn't know you like vanilla-chocolate swirl ice cream, which you like to eat while writing reports at home, or that you have a shoe addiction that would make Imelda Marcos look like a light-weight, bong toker."

"How do you know those things," she glared at him, knowing it was the response he wanted as he danced just out of the reach of her grasping fingers.

"Simple observation, Scully, you wear a different pair of shoes practically every day, except when out in the field." He immediately glanced down at her heels, which she admitted were different than the ones she had worn just the day before.

"And the ice cream," she crossed her arms in front of her, cutting her eyes at him suspiciously.

"You smeared some of some paperwork you took home."

She stared at him, truly disturbed. "You are very strange, Mulder."

"You know my powers of observation have gotten me very far in life."

"Not this time," she replied sharply. "Mulder we have to be back in DC by 10, you have a hearing. And if you don't go, your career at the Bureau is without question finished."

He didn't look concerned. In fact, he pulled out his car keys instead, and seemed to ignore any warnings she had on the nature of his career.

"I haven't spoken to the widow yet," he said as he unlocked the car, turning to look at her.

"Widow?"

"There was a victim in that crash, a forest ranger named Wright. His widow lived nearby; she's likely at the evacuation sight. I want to know if she has been told anything about why her husband was killed."

"Mulder…" He climbed into the car, as Scully stood there, torn as to what to do. She should force him back to Washington that instant, convince him that he was only making matters worse, and return him to McGrath for his public spanking.

Yet she had a feeling she wouldn't get very far trying that line of tact with Mulder. And she knew she would be much more successful if she let him look through all of his lines of investigation, hit his dead end, and pack him on the first plane back, whether he liked it or not.

"Fine," she murmured under her breath, as Mulder watched her speculatively, rounding the car to the passenger's side. "So much for reining you in."