42 Hegal Place
Alexandria, VA
Beep. Beep. Beep. Special Agent Fox Mulder rolled over and looked at the alarm clock, which registered seven o' clock in the morning. He woke up that Monday morning with no life to him at all. He looked at his alarm clock on the night stand next to his bed, and sighed. "Guess this is the start to another week," he said to himself.
Mulder got himself out of bed and headed for the bathroom to take a shower and brush his teeth. His feet drudged on the carpet floor. He walked into the living room half naked and bare foot and into the bathroom.
He turned on the shower, and got inside. He loved the feeling of the warm water flowing down his back, and the steam that filled the room. He lathered and rinsed his hair, then got out and stepped onto the bath mat outside of the tub. He dried himself off with his towel, got dressed, brushed his teeth and went out the door to go to work.
Mulder usually was not late for work anymore, not like he used to be anyway. It was not that he looked forward to going to work so much as it was that he did not want to go without pay, since he did want to keep his apartment. He was a loner. After Special Agent Dana Scully was sent to Salt Lake City six years ago, he had been reassigned to violent crimes, which is where he was placed with his current partner, Agent Alex Marshall. Agent Marshall was considered to be a good agent, but went on hunches and intuition - not evidence. This was a dim reminder to Mulder of his time on the x-files, which was a small project outside of the bureau mainstream. The purpose of the x-files was to investigate paranormal phenomena, something that he had been forced to give up when Scully was reassigned six years earlier.
"Good Morning, Fox," Agent Marshall said. Alexandra Marshall walked up to him. Her blonde hair flowed down her back and she walked. She came at him with a folder in her hand.
" 'Morning, Agent Marshall," Mulder replied. He ran his hand through his brown hair. His eyes stared at the floor.
"Why don't you call me 'Alex', like I call you 'Fox'?" she asked. Although Marshall had graduated from Stanford, she was not always the brightest one. Many of the people considered Alexandra Marshall to be rather ditzy, and not on the ball.
"I call it being professional, wouldn't you?" he retorted. "What is it that you have in your hand?" Mulder motioned toward the manila folder in her hand.
"Well, since you ask, it is a case that we have been assigned to. A young girl of about five years of age was stabbed and decapitated last night, and the Salt Lake City bureau is asking for our help on the matter," Agent Marshall explained.
"Why are the asking for our help?" asked Mulder. He sat down at his desk rather slowly. He was curious to know the nature of the case, but he was more curious to know who else was working on it, for he knew that Scully was also assigned to the Salt Lake City bureau.
"Because they don't have enough agents to spare on this one, and they thought that our expertise might be useful on a case like this, you know, since we are from violent crimes and all," Marshall replied. "Our plane leaves at eleven o' clock so I think that we should get going, don't you?"
"Yeah, we should. Marshall, I'll meet you at Dulles at nine-thirty, okay?" Mulder said as he was already half way out of the room. Mulder did not have an office anymore, he had a desk in a large room with at least fifty other agents. His partner, Agent Marshall, had a desk right next to his.
"Okay," Alex replied. She got her coat off of her chair at her desk and began to follow Mulder out of the room.
Agent Marshall went home and packed her overnight bag. She and Agent Mulder never seemed to go anywhere for more than a night or two, so she thought that this case would not be any different. She looked in her bureau and collected three pairs of socks, three pairs of pantyhose, and other undergarments. She looked through her closet to try to find suitable dress attire; she packed three of those as well.
When she was done packing, she left her apartment and drove to Dulles International Airport. This is where she and Mulder would fly out together to Utah. She parked her car in the overnight parking lot, as she usually did when she went on these trips. She noticed Mulder's car was already there. She went through security and into the terminal where she found Mulder waiting for her.
"Gosh you got here quickly," Marshall said cheerily.
"Well, I happen to need less than a lady does," Mulder replied. The entire time Mulder was at the airport, all he could think about was Scully. He knew that she had been assigned to the Salt Lake City bureau six years earlier, and he was hoping that maybe he could get a chance to see her again. For six years they had very little contact beyond the occasional Christmas or birthday card This could be his chance to get to say more than two sentences to her for a long time.
"Oh, here is our flight. Gate 37A," said Alex. She gathered up her carry on and her purse from where she and Agent Mulder were standing and began to walk over to where the plane would be departing from. Mulder followed her over. He sat down in one of the red seats against the wall and took out a magazine entitled UFO Weekly and began to read.
"You really like that don't you, Agent Mulder," Alex said. A nodded toward the magazine that he was reading.
"Yeah. Yeah, I do," Mulder replied. He did not even look up from his book.
"Why do you like it?" Alex asked.
Mulder put his magazine down, sighed, and said "I like this magazine, Agent Marshall, because not everything in it can be explained with conventional wisdom or knowledge. It is abstract, different, and intelligent, unlike most of the United States." His icy comments sent a chill down Alex Marshall's back. She knew that she was not the most observant person in the world. She knew that she was not always the easiest person to work with as well, but she knew that she wanted people to treat her with the same common decency and respect that they would treat someone with that they did not know.