"Sir?" Mulder asked, pulling back Scully's chair while directing a glance at their superior.
Skinner sat behind his desk, lightly holding a pen between two fingers. The soft light of his desk lamp reflected against his glasses and Mulder idly wondered whether the overhead lights actually worked. They never seemed to be on.
"It's come to my attention that a certain woman visited you a few nights ago, before Agent Scully entered the hospital, Agent Mulder, and I've been asked to ascertain her identity."
"On whose authority?" Mulder asked. Scully gave him a light glance but nothing more.
Skinner's jaw set. He looked away and then back at Mulder, somewhat angrily. "If you two didn't have one of the highest case-solved rates in the Bureau, I wouldn't have to put up with this," Skinner said. "For your information, Agent Mulder, the woman in question seems to be a mental patient at a local health center, released in the past few days after passing some minimal tests. I strongly caution you both and suggest that any further contact you have with this woman be brief."
"Duane Barry--" Mulder began.
"Endangered lives, and none of his stories were ever proven--"
"Sir, if I may--"
"Agent Mulder," Skinner broke in, his voice low. "I will not be challenged on this and Agent Scully is here to see to it that you do not go against these orders. You will have no further contact with this woman--"
Mulder stood and looked down at Skinner, his eyes cold. "Sir, you do not understand."
The silence in the room was almost uncomfortable as Scully stared down at her beige pumps and Skinner stared at the door Mulder had just slammed behind him. "Agent Scully," he finally broke.
"Sir," Scully said, looking up at him with eyes that were blue fire. He had not forgotten, nor had she, the extent to which she had lied to him. Her accusations. His partial guilt and his need to atone, expressed through his anger alone.
"I'm not going back on what I said earlier, and even if Agent Mulder does find this woman again, I'm counting on you to make sure that he's not too easily taken in. If some lies do lead to the truth, Mulder has possession of a lie now that could break things apart. This woman is a lie, Agent Scully. Don't forget that."
--
"Mulder, if you need to call me tonight, here's where I'll be."
She handed him a slip of paper. His hazel eyes traced the lines that formed the numbers, and he balled the paper in his fist, shoving it into his pocket.
"What about your cell phone--oh, forget it--"
"Yeah, and it's your turn to write the expense report on how I ruined your jacket and my blazer and that spare set of handcuffs and that pair of pantyhose."
Mulder raised an eyebrow as he sat down at his desk. "Skinner might not take that too well..."
"Wet cotton candy wasn't my idea of a good joke, Mulder."
He smirked, then said, "Why are you staying at Beth's house tonight?"
"Exterminators in the building. No roaches, just ladybugs."
"Aw, Scully, you could've come over--"
"And we'd each have an arm of the couch? Don't think so."
"I do have a bed--"
"In a kitchen cabinet? That's the only place it would fit."
At the same instant both of them remembered what had happened at his apartment. She looked down at her ID, played with it idly while he glanced over at his computer.
"Well," she said, looking up at him again. "See you Monday."
"Sure," he said vaguely, waving at her half-heartedly as she gathered up her briefcase and jacket and left.
--
Mulder was playing computer Tetris with one hand while he picked up the phone with the other.
"Mulder."
"It's me. Remember that case about half a year ago? The swamp monster thing?"
"Oh yes. Son of Flukeman," Mulder intoned. "What about it?"
"The agent we worked with, do you remember her?"
"Yeah, brunette, wasn't she? Didn't really help at all?"
"I had a bad bleeding episode during that, didn't I?"
"Yeah." Mulder's eyes blurred a little and the Tetris game slipped away from him. He sighed and quit the program.
"I just wanted to know," Scully said. "My doctor is trying to document what could've made my cancer turn around like that."
"Always want to help with things like that," he said, his gaze jerking toward the phone. She was telling him something. Something related to that case, that had just come up recently. "Look," he said, "I think that maybe we should see each other tomorrow. I'll call you later and we'll figure out a place, okay?"
"Sure," she said. "See you then."
Mulder thought about it a second. That suit had been ruined, and he had crammed into the corner of his closet. He'd forgotten to get it cleaned.
As he pulled the cord on the bulb and began rooting around, he heard a hurried knock at the door.
"Fox?"
He breathed a curse and turned the knob.
--
"This is what I found." Mulder flipped an evidence bag at Scully. She read the lines of white and black type on the top and then studied the contents of the bag.
"We never did get this to Pendrell, did we." She sounded a little mournful.
"Best lab tech I ever knew." Mulder shook his head and pounded his fist into the opposite hand. "I'm surprised that was in there when I looked for it."
"Was it still in that suit?" Scully's eyes flashed as she studied the object more carefully.
"Yeah. Can you tell by the smell?"
Scully looked up and met his eyes. The corner of her mouth went up a millimeter, and she went back to her perusal of his little gift.
She must be seriously tired if she actually tried to smile at one of my jokes Mulder thought, remembering some rather interesting stakeouts with his then-standoffish partner.
"We should come here more often," Mulder said, looking around.
"I think even the homeless consider us regulars," Scully commented dryly.
They sat on the bench at the memorial, where they had laughed and shot each other's theories down more times than he sometimes cared to remember. Mulder reached into his pocket and found a few sunflower seeds. He offered Scully one, and she took it without comment but turned it over and over between her fingers instead of splitting and eating it.
"Why is this so important again?" Mulder fidgeted like a little boy.
"Not sure." She still sounded distracted.
Mulder shot a glance at his parked car. He could barely make out the shadow moving inside. He prayed Scully didn't happen to look in that direction.
"I think this is important," Scully finally said. She held it up so that the streetlight hit it. "That agent wanted this pretty bad. I think it's related to the one we recovered from the latest 'abduction' site."
"Yeah, they do look similar." He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket, and his hand emerged with a small plastic ziplock between two fingers.
"Obvious conclusion or not-so-obvious?" Scully looked back and forth between the two chips.
"Don't know. I could take 'em by the Lone Gunmen, get whatever whacked-out theories they have about it." Mulder chewed another sunflower seed.
Scully was silent, and finally Mulder looked over at her. "Are you still sick, Scully?"
"No." She turned and met his eyes. "Why do you ask?"
The sunflower seed fell from her fingers onto the bench, bounced off and hit the ground next to the discarded husk of another. Mulder's eyes followed it.
"I need to go," Mulder said, still staring down at the ground next to her feet. He looked up at her.
"What's going on?" Scully said suddenly, standing up and gazing down at him. "What is it?"
The evidence bags fell, unnoticed, from her suddenly senseless hands.
"Later, Scully," he said, reaching out and taking her wrist, holding it a bare second. "I'll call you later."
He tucked the evidence bags into his pocket and walked away, and Scully watched him go, not understanding at all. Samantha Scully thought, remembering what Skinner had told her earlier.
"It's Sam, isn't it?"
Her voice reached him and he hesitated. He kept on walking, though, didn't look back at his partner.
"Mulder, is this what Skinner called us in about? Mulder?"
Now Scully was jogging after him, caught him by the sleeve. He couldn't care if she knew now, he had no one else to tell.
"I'm not going to follow you unless you tell me what's going on, Mulder." Scully's hand dropped from his sleeve and she stood, waiting.
"I don't--"
Her gaze shot to the car. Long curly brown hair framing the pale face of a woman they both knew--
He felt the brush of her hand against him as she ran to the car. As she reached the passenger door and stared inside, her eyes grew wide. She looked up and gazed at him fully. Scared.
