Chapter Fourteen
Mulder/Scully Apartment, New York, New York
April 9th, 2000, 8:26 a.m.
Scully moaned and rolled across the bed to stare at the digital alarm clock. Damn. She had seriously slept late this morning. Okay, perhaps it was not so 'late' now that she thought about it. After the hilarious toilet episode last night, she had stayed up for another hour as penance to finish listening to her autopsy notes. She did make a few observations on her notepad in shorthand, but it had been very difficult for her to focus.
To be blunt, she had been finding it more and more arduous for the past couple of cases to keep her mind only on the case. As much as she tried to fight it, she did have feelings for Mulder that went way past the boundary of partnership or even friendship. They had been sharing a great deal more of personal information recently, too. Not that she minded it--she found the revelations to be an outlet for her recent tension. God knows that there was a tremendous amount built up in her no thanks to their recurrently stressful situations.
She willed herself out of bed reluctantly and tied a robe around herself. There was no smell of coffee coming from the kitchen, so she assumed Mulder was still asleep. Scully opened a cupboard and began to reach for the coffee, but reconsidered the thought and took a few tea bags instead. She had been trying to switch herself over to tea instead since it was much healthier for the body than coffee. Tea had nowhere near the appeal of a freshly brewed pot of java to her; yet she made the sacrifice. A thought just occurred to her: would Mulder be so willing to make such a sacrifice? He drank the stuff like there was no tomorrow. A normal day at the office would equal two ten cup pots of coffee, and when they were on assignment, a mug of coffee was like an extra appendage extruding from his palm.
She could only imagine what his days were like when he worked as a profiler. As she filled up the kettle with water and set it back onto the burner, she put only one tea bag in the pair of mugs resting on the island. Scully journeyed down the short hallway and knocked twice on Mulder's door. "Mulder, are you up?"
When there was no answer, she opened it up and found an empty bed. There were no noises coming from the bathroom, and she almost tripped over a pair of his dress shoes on the way back to the kitchen. The remains of his tie were hanging out halfway in a wastebasket, and the rest of his clothes from yesterday lay in several pools strewn about the floor. She then sighed in relief when she saw his wallet, badge, and gun still resting on the bedstand nearby. He most likely went for a run--at least he had the common sense to take his cell phone with him.
As Scully returned to the kitchen, the kettle was whistling loudly and she relieved it from its burner to fill up just one mug. Good. She didn't need him around anyway right now--his presence would only deter her from ironing out the details of their field report to Skinner. But it'd be nice if she could speak with him briefly about how to decipher the hieroglyphs he'd made all over the Times yesterday. Where was that newspaper anyhow?
Thankfully, he'd left it predictably on the coffee table last night. He probably wanted to make some more notes to himself as he watched the basketball game. Although he was quite flippant about their undercover assignment outwardly, Mulder's fervent notes all over the paper showed the opposite.
She had to admit to herself that even though the idea that aliens would own a restaurant on Earth, let alone blend into the human culture flawlessly, seemed like a fabricated stream of nonsense, she did not mind how peacefully paced this investigation was. It was almost sluggish in comparison with most of their previous alien encounters. But damnit, sometimes they needed a rest. Well, this wasn't precisely a rest...the motion centered more around inquiries and research rather than running and shooting. She promised herself that should nothing come out of this X-File to accept the result with dignity and grace. Perhaps that's what Mulder was alluding to two days ago. She had been quite verbose with him about how it was becoming once too often that there was no actual ending or conclusion to their cases. But she attributed that to pressure from Skinner and the scientist in her. Part of her wanted to believe in some of the things they had discovered.
Yet Scully pondered if it was just because she wanted to please Mulder--like she had wanted to please her father once. Was her heart truly into looking for the truth or just seeking for his approval?
Scully removed the tea bag and booted up the laptop that was resting on the kitchen table. She tossed the newspaper beside it and retreated back to her bedroom for her own notepad and Walkman. As she commenced to type, she stopped for a moment to think how nice it was to hear silence. She shoved the thought away, sipped some tea, and leaned her notepad against the screen.
Forty-five minutes later...
"What the hell is this jumble of words supposed to mean? I swear, Mulder, interpreting your handwriting is no more difficult than it is for a Bible scholar to translate the Dead Sea Scrolls!" Scully yelled to no one and threw down the newspaper in exasperation. "I think I need to eat something before I start breaking things," she told herself and got up from her chair.
The mug was bone dry of tea, too, so the kettle was turned on again after she started to rummage through the cabinets. Plain oatmeal was her best option, unfortunately. Well, maybe some cut up apples, brown sugar, and cinnamon would do the trick.
By the time she had the apple cut, the kettle was again crying for attention, and she measured out the appropriate amounts into both her mug and bowl. Scully had just finished stirring in her ingredients when the apartment phone rang. She was about to answer it but thought better. No one besides Skinner knew that they were here, and she hadn't made the call to the landlord to complain about the toilet yet. She and Mulder had both agreed to stick to cell phone calls for security's sake based upon previous experiences with bugged land-lines.
Oh, what the hell--might even be a wrong number. "Scullet," she answered and thanked God that it was a cordless phone as she attended the oatmeal.
"Scullet, it's me."
"Glad you called--I was beginning to wonder if you ran all the way to Queens from here."
"How'd you know?"
"You must have left a lot earlier than I thought."
"I mean, how'd you know I went for a run?"
"Well, I didn't hear the shower going or any commotion through the bathroom, you left your weapon and wallet on your nightstand, plus there was no coffee made. Therefore, I came to the most logical and simple conclusion. You should try it sometime over a leaping and bounding guess. It works most of the time."
"It just doesn't steal my wool, dear Scullet, you should know that by now." Scully snorted softly with her mouth full and sat down at the table to eat. "Have you had your coffee yet?"
"No, I had tea this morning, as a matter of fact. I'm on my second mug now. Why?"
"I was going to ask you to join us down at the restaurant."
"Us?"
"Yeah. I happened to run into Drew and Angela on the trail in Central Park, and I'm actually eating breakfast there right now with them. Why don't you come down and join us?"
"I would, Mulder, except for the fact that I'm consuming a bowl of oatmeal right this very moment. And," she paused to swallow her mouthful, " I have to call the landlord to report the leak. Unless you already called him earlier this morning."
"Uh, no, I kind of forgot. Must be because I didn't have my caffeine first."
"Mulder, remember how I asked you last night to...--tsk, I have to go to the lab today. I promised the technician that I'd come in and help him. Are you going to be much longer?"
"Well, I was thinking about getting a paper in a little while..."
"Can you make it as soon as possible and get back? You can read it while you're here waiting on the plumber or landlord or whoever's coming to repair this damn thing."
"All right. I'll come back soon. By the way, Drew and Angela are quite lovely aliens. You'd never know it by the look of them, though. They've managed to adapt to the New York culture perfectly and have invited us back there this evening should we want to do some critiquing."
"Since you're there, is there any way for you to sneak into their galley and check for anything suspicious?"
"I don't think so since I don't have you here for a distraction. I'm talking to you right now in their bathroom, which is impeccably spotless, by the way."
"Well, see if you can finagle anything else out of them. I've got to call Skinner before I leave."
"Aha, I knew it! How far back do these secret long distance 'progress reports' go?"
"Excuse me?"
"Maybe there was some truth in that web of fiction spun up by our boss that we viewed on the silver screen, Scullet. How often have you been exchanging some stimulating conversations?"
She stifled a very large groan and rolled her eyes.
"We've managed to keep them down to once a week, if you must pry. But if you really want to know who's currently as you put it last night 'melting my butter' intellectually, you might want to check with a certain walnut-haired, hazel eyed companion of mine. Now come back home this instant before I lose my temper with him!" With that, she pressed the talk button and finished her breakfast.
Scully felt better after she had showered and dressed, but she thought that Mulder would be back by that time. The man sometimes was too elusive. She snatched her cell phone off of her own bedstand.
"Yes, Agent Scully, I do remember that progress report. You need not repeat the information to me. I'll just review to clarify any gray areas," Skinner closed the manila folder and rested his folded hands on top of it. "At that particular time, you said you had found traces of trimethoxy...uh, help me out here, Agent..."
"Mescaline trimethoxy phenethylamine," she responded and nonchalantly switched crossed legs.
"Yeah, that was it. And you were going to go do some further research on it. I remember that you also were going to fax me your preliminary field notes. I still haven't received those notes, by the way." He eyed her as she leveled both legs to the ground and primly straightened her skirt. "How much time did you spend back at the regional office's lab?"
"No more than three hours, I would imagine, because the technician wanted to break for lunch...and probably for some relief for his brain."
"Relief?"
"Yes, sir, relief. I don't know if you've ever spent any significant amount of time in a research lab, but, once you've exhausted all medical and scientific resources currently known to man for a new organic compound, it can be quite frustrating. But," she added, " it can be quite a rousing experience at the same time."
"What kind of effect does this drug have on humans? I understand that you and Agent Mulder chalk up that lethal accident last week to the drug found in their systems, right?"
"The details have yet to be sorted, but, yes, I would say that's correct. The effects are as follows: fits of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions, and loss of balance. I would say with the proper dose, the drug could definitely be fatal. But it looks like in our case, the two victims suffered the side effect of loss of balance."
"Hmm. What made you go over to the restaurant?"
"I could not reach Agent Mulder on his cell phone or at the apartment. I knew something was not right because we had discussed why his expeditious return to the flat was much needed that morning. So since I had the transportation, I made my way down to the place."