Jade arrived at her new assignment early that monday morning, or at least what she thought was early. She arrived at the basement office to find that Agents Mulder & Scully had been there for a while already.
"Good morning, Agent Mulder. Agent Scully." Scully greeted her with a perfunctory nod while Agent Mulder spoke, both Agents barely glancing up at her.
"Morning, Rileigh."
"If you don't like calling me 'Agent' you should just call me Jade." She tells him coolly. "Where is my work space?" Her & Mulder look around the room as though expecting a desk to magically appear while Scully watches from her space, amused.
"Pick a spot, Agent Rileigh." Mulder states with emphasis on the 'Agent'.
"What, do they hate the X-Files so much you've been limited to only 1 desk or something?" At this Scully smiles as Mulder's is wiped off his face & he ignores her. Jade sighs as she walks over to one of the tables behind Mulder's desk & clears it off for her to use. The newspaper clippings on the wall catch her eye & she scans them reading a few here & there.
All three sit in silence apart from the odd shuffling of papers from Jade until it becomes unbearable.
"Anyone want coffee? I promise I won't poison it." Her offer is met with silence & she rolls her eyes & walks out to get some for herself. When she comes back she searches the other table for a coaster to put her mug on & finds a file with her name on.
"What the hell is this?" She demands holding it up. Scully's head shoots up as she sees the generally pleasant agent's demeanour change while Mulder, having seen her temper once before, remains calm & turns around.
"Its your file."
"No shit, sherlock." She states sarcastically. "Why do you have it? Its my personal file."
"Its not your official file." He explains & she opens it & reads some of the contents.
"No it isn't, you tried getting dirt on me. Find anything incriminating?" Mulder shakes his head stiffly.
"My sources couldn't find anything on you before age 18 except your flying records." He grudgingly admits. She smiles sadly.
"I had those files destroyed after the FBI checked them out." This time its Scully who talks.
"And why is that?" Jade turns to her.
"I don't believe that's anyone's business." She turns to Mulder. "You know, I wouldn't have minded too much if you'd read my FBI file, it has all you really need to know & more, but trying to get at my hospital records? You need help. All I hear from senior agents about you is about how fantastic you used to be & now you just run around after mutants shouting 'Trust No-One'. How are you supposed to trust people if they can't trust you? I have tried being friendly & I thought I may have proved myself a worthy agent to you on that plane but it seems like I was wrong. My mistake." She spits out in frustration.
The rest of the day passes in awkward silence, Mulder & Scully completing paperwork & being wary of Agent Rileigh who had taken to organising the filing cabinets & tidying the office. When it turns 5pm she can't get out of there fast enough & is out of the door without a word before Mulder & Scully can even stand up.
The first thing Jade did that night was go home & get changed into a pair of jeans & a green sweater. The second thing she did was walk to the closest bar to her apartment, Casey's Bar & Grill. She seated herself at the bar at the very last seat in the corner so as not to be noticed too much.
"2 shots of whiskey & a cider." She told the young blonde barmaid. The shots came first & went just as fast as they were poured. Instantly she felt looser & less inclined to care about that stunt Mulder had pulled. Her cider arrived & unlike the shots she savoured it, taking 20 minutes to finish it then ordering another. She was halfway through it when the barmaid started paying attention to her.
"That's your fourth drink & you haven't even been here an hour. Wanna spill your guts out to a person who'll forget it by morning?" Jade chuckled.
"Nice to know some people in DC are totally honest." She mused, draining her glass. The barmaid smiled & started wiping down the bar. "I'm an FBI agent & I've just been given my first assignment." She began. The barmaid gestured to her glass & Jade nodded, taking a sip when a full glass was set in front of her. "I've been assigned to 2 agents on a 'special' division, reputed to be great agents with an amazing record in solving their cases. The female agent is really sick so I'm supposed to be helping with her workload & if she dies I guess I'll take her place. Anyway the other agent is really paranoid. So much so that he pulled some strings & tried to find out everything about me. If I had a boring life I wouldn't mind so much, it would sting but I'd get over it, but there are things that people I work with shouldn't know. Work is work & my private life is just that, private. Or at least it should be." She takes another gulp of her beverage. "What the bastard doesn't know is that I was given the chance to read both of their personal files & I turned it down. Even if I was approached right now & given that chance again I'd turn it down again because I respect their privacy. They may not trust me but I don't trust them either, they need to earn the right to know that information." She chugs down the remainder of her third cider. "Two more shots, please." She orders & picks at her cuticles till they arrive & barely pays attention to the man, who has been listening to her rambling, that sits down on the stool next to hers.
"You know, if you drink like that after every bad day you're going to kill your liver." She faces the man & sneers.
"Like you give a shit. Urgh, I can't get away from you for the night?"
"You could, but this is my regular haunt." Jade raises her eyebrow.
"Spooky." Her shots arrive & she orders another cider before gulping them down.
"Those are your sixth & seventh drinks, how are you not on the floor giggling your ass off like most other women?"
"I have Irish in me, I can hold my alcohol." She tells him. "Didn't your father ever teach you to hold your liquor, Fox?" This time when her drink arrives she takes it slowly.
"Just Mulder." He states.
"We're not in work, therefore calling you Mulder is rude. Plus we're in a bar, I call you Fox people will think we're flirting & therefore leave me alone."
"Can't argue with your logic, but as soon as we leave its back to Mulder. And don't use my name too much."
"Sure thing... Fox."
XOXOX
Another cider down the line for Jade & 3 beers for Mulder & 6 more shots collectively, they stumble out the bar. Well, Mulder stumbles, Jade merely hobbles, her heeled shoes creating blisters on top of blisters.
"Typical all american male, can't hold his liquor." She mutters under her breath as she grabs his arm to stop him falling. She sits him on a nearby bollard & holds him up one handed while using the other hand to slip off her shoes & puts her wrist through the straps. "Where's your house, Fox?"
"Not Fox." He slurs. "Take me to Georgetown."
"Is that where you live?"
"No, that's where Scully lives." He states as though talking to an imbecile.
"We're not disturbing Agent Scully at 1am in the morning."
"Why not?"
"Because she's probably sleeping." She reasons. He sighs dramatically.
"Arlington." He tells her his address.
"Not far from me then." She states.
"I know." He pouts childishly. "I read it in your file." Jade smiles sadly.
"I know you did."
XOXOX
She finally gets him to his apartment safely & sits him on his couch. As she looks around the apartment searching for his bedroom, to finally realize it was full of crap without a bed, she doesn't notice the answering machine flashing furiously.
"Where do you sleep?" She finally asks him. He pats the couch. She shakes her head disapprovingly then kneels down & starts pulling his shoes off.
"Trying to undress me already?"
"You should be so lucky." She takes his tie & jacket off along with his trousers & lays him back on the couch, covering him with his indian blanket. She wipes his hair off his forehead, leaves a glass of water on the table along with an aspirin for later & makes her way to the door. When she opens it & brushes past it her sweater gets caught on the handle & pulls it up making her look rather rumpled. She gets to the elevator & starts straightening her sweater when the doors ding & open revealing a rather concerned looking Scully.
"Hello, Agent Rileigh." She greets cautiously.
"Agent Scully, its rather late isn't it?"
"I could say the same thing to you." Scully replies. "Where's Mulder?"
"Asleep, he's quite out of it honestly." Jade says while continuing to fix her sweater. Scully raises her eyebrow & stays in the elevator when Jade enters. "Weren't you going to see him?"
"I just needed to know he was okay, he wasn't picking up. Now I know he is I can leave."
"You trust my word?" Jade asks doubtfully.
"I don't think you're here to hurt us, physically, not after what Mulder told me happened on the plane. But so help me god I will find out what you're hiding about your past & if you try to hurt Mulder or the X-Files in anyway I will use it to take you down. Even if this disease kills me I will come back as one of Mulder's X-Files." Scully threatens.
"First things first, Agent Scully, I'm not here to hurt anyone or anything, I've just been assigned to you to help take all the work off of you. Secondly, I've destroyed my past for a good reason, its irrelevant to my life now. Every trace of it is gone, everything, so the only way you find out about my past is if I tell you & I don't believe that will ever happen. Its my business & mine alone." The elevator reaches the bottom floor & Jade walks purposefully out & home.
XOXOX
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