The meeting was complete bullshit. I was thankful I chose the pantsuit over a skirt today because in the corner of the director's office stood a man I had never seen before, and something about him just sent shivers down my spine and made my hair stand on end. I couldn't wait to get out of there. I could feel his eyes on me the entire time.

And now here I was on my way into the depths of the building, heading down the hall, the smell of mildew filling my nostrals. What did I do to deserve this? I knew the kind of reputation this Fox Mulder had. When I joined the bureau I didn't join it to spend my days chasing after little green men. I stood for a few minutes in front of a door marked "Special Agent Fox Mulder" collecting my thoughts. I took a deep breath and knocked loudly.

"Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted" came from behind the door. Clearly manners and chivalry were dead in this office. I turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door.

There he sat, back turned to me, looking over what I assume were slides. "Agent Mulder? My name's Dana Scully. I've been assigned to work with you" I extended my hand towards him as he turned around.

With a complete lack of any social skills aparent, he continues to load slides into his slide projector. "Oh isn't it so nice to be so highly regarded. So who did you tick off to get stuck with this possition... Scully?" He raises his eyes to meet mine and I instantly feel on guard. Almost threatened. Like he is challanging me. I take a quick glance around his office. Who does he think he is? I'm not going to take it either.

"Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you." Stand my ground.

He snickers at me. "Oh really? Because I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me."

"If you have any doubts about my qualifications or credentials..."Before I can even stop myself, I find myself beginning to defend my qualifications. Its that brain to mouth filter I strongly lack. Great Dana, piss him off. Wave your accomplishments in front of him. Come off as a boasting bragging bitch. That's the way to get him to respect you. It's not a pissing contest! Fuck. Now he is smiling. I'm a joke. I want to hide. I can't.

"You're a medical doctor. You teach at the academy. You did your undergraduate degree in physics" He takes his glasses off and shoots me a look as if to say "did I miss anything". He looks down at the file he is holding which I realize is my personal file.

"Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation. Dana Scully Senior Thesis. Now that's a credential, rewriting Einstein."

Fuck, that's not my file, he has a copy of my thesis. Not that he likely read it. It doesn't seem like his type of reading material from what I gather looking around an office full of UFO posters and calendars of half dressed women on cars.

"Did you bother to read it?"

He stops and looks at me and contines loading his slides. " I did. I liked it"

I can feel my face getting hotter. I'm just making a huge ass of myself and I dont understand why. Something about this man is getting under my skin. He comes off as cocky, spoiled. I can't tell if he is being serious or making fun of me. I've never had someone throw my emotions for such a loop. I pride myself on my levelheadedness and my cool composure but right now I am sounding like a complete moron.

He breaks the awkward silence. "It's just that in most of my work the laws of physics rarely apply." He walks past me, brushing my arm as he turns the lights off, and I send him a glare. I don't know if he did it intentionally or not, but I can't help myself. He hits the slide projector and an image of a woman appears on the screen. "Maybe I can get your medical opinion on this though. Oregon female, age twenty-one, no explainable cause of death. Autopsy shows nothing. Zip." The slide changes to a picture of the same victim's back with three small bumps. "There are, however, these two distinct marks on her lower back. Doctor Scully, can you ID these marks?"

The way he calls me Dr Scully almost sounds condescending. I'm not sure if it's sincere or a jab at my credentials again. I study the slide a little bit and can feel his eyes on me. Like he is almosy waiting for me to say something stupid. "Needle punctures maybe. Or an animal bite. Electrocution of some sort" The truth was, I had never seen anything like that in my life but I wasn't about to say that.

Another slide, this time of a molecular compound. "How's your chemistry? This is the substance found in the surrounding tissue."

I study the slide for a moment. Chemistry was never my favorite. "It's organic. I don't know, is it some kind of synthetic protein?" I look over to him, trying to judge his reaction. Was this some kind of test, a sort of hazing he was putting me through?

The look on his face, if anything, says nothing. Why is he so hard to read? I always put stock in my ability to read other people, to make a quick judgement on their temperament and their mannerism. On his answer I catch almost a snicker. "Beats me, I've never seen it before either." He changes the slide to one of a man, face down, same marks. "But here it is again in Sturgis, South Dakota." Slide clicks again. "And again in Shamrock, Texas"

My mind begins to start to pull some logic out of this. But even it is struggling to make some sense. Since this Mulder character is so experienced in this, it is time to test his credentials. "Do you have a theory?"

"I have plenty of theories" He is now standing so close to me I can smell his cologne, the mint of his toothpaste, the scent of his shampoo. I can feel myself becoming breathless, almost a mix of fear and excitement. My face is becoming flushed, I can feel the blood flowing to my cheeks. Keep it together, keep it together. What the hell is wrong with me?

"Maybe what you can explain to me is why it's bureau policy to label these cases as "unexplained phenomenon" and ignore them. Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?" His breath is warm against my neck. His low tone and over exageration of the word extraterrestrials almost sends me over the edge.

I snap out of it almost as quick as it came over me. "Logically I would have to say No" I can feel the blood returning to my extremities, and my heartrate lowering. Whatever that was that just happened, I need to learn to control that. Not that it's likely he caught on. He crosses me as pretty clueless when it comes to women. "Given the distances needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the energy requirements would exceed a spacecraft's capabilties th..."

He cuts me off midsentece, clearly not happy with my answer. "Coventional wisdom. You know this Oregon female? She's the fourth person in her graduating class to die under mysterious circumstances. Now, when convention and science offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?"

Now he is just irritating me. I don't have time for this back and forth banter with him. Any sort of attraction I thought I felt in that brief moment of lapse of judgement instantly has faded. "The girl obviously died of something. If it was natural causes, it's plausible that there was something missed in the post-mortem. If she was murdered, it's plausible there was a sloppy investigation. What I find fantastic is any notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there. You just have to know where to look." I snap back a little harder than I had meant to. I half expect him to get pissed at me, ask me to leave his office and never cross paths with him again. And at this point with my day I would be just fine with that. But a smile comes across his face. Almost like this was the reaction he was hoping for.

"That's why they put the "I" in "F.B.I." See you tomorrow morning, Scully, bright and early." He walks back over to his desk and sits and I straighten my stance. "We leave for the very plausible state of Oregon at eight A.M."

He turns back to whatever is on his desk. I crack a smile walking out of his office. Because this is my life. I was planning to spend the weekend car shopping and maybe taking in a movie with a friend, but instead I am going on a wild alien hunt with a man I just met that can singlehandly make me want to strangle him and drop to my knees all in the same conversation.