Final gift for maidenjedi
Title: The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
Author: idella
Pairing/Character: Scully/Fowley; implied Mulder/Scully
Word Count: 4,062
Rating: PG-13
Classification: Story, Angst
Spoiler Warning: Spoilers for 5x20 "The End" and Fight the Future.
Other Warnings: None
Summary: Five times Dana Scully and Diana Fowley talk about sex. (AU that splits from canon after Fight the Future.)
Many, many thanks to bravenewcentury for patient and skillful beta work, and to amyhit, who has not read this story, for surreptitious encouragement.
Happy New Year, maidenjedi! Thank you for the excuse to write Scully/Fowley, and I hope you enjoy your story.
1.
Dana Scully is sitting at her brand new desk in her brand new office, pouring over information on supposed alien/human hybridization, when she hears a knock at the door. She purses her lips in annoyance. Diana Fowley walks in before Scully has a chance to ask who her visitor is, or acknowledge that he or she can enter, and her annoyance level shoots up a hundred percent. At least. Scully closes her file on genetically altered pollen and slides it in her briefcase.
Fowley stands in the doorway, wrinkling her nose. There are boxes upon boxes containing charred files stacked between Scully's desk and the wall, making the office smell like smoke. She had been so immersed in her research she'd forgotten they were there, but if the stench discourages company, Scully is all for it.
"Settling in?" Fowley asks. She eyes the boxes closest to the door, the ones with the flaps open.
Scully clears her throat. "Is there anything I can help you with, Agent Fowley?"
Fowley turns her back to Scully's desk and examines the contents of the room's nearly empty bulletin board. "I was wondering if you and Agent Mulder ever made any progress with the Gibson Praise case."
"We've been a bit busy lately," Scully says blandly.
"Yes, I heard about what you did on your summer vacation," Fowley says. "I spent mine recovering from surgery for a hole to the lung."
"Gibson Praise is probably enduring a lot worse," Scully says witheringly.
"You need him more than ever, don't you," Fowley says. "To justify this." She turns and indicates Scully's office.
"He's a little boy who's been through a hell of a lot. Add the fact that he's been hunted down by monsters who are probably performing heinous experiments on him as we speak and I'm far more concerned about his safety than I am about his usefulness to the realm of science."
"I wonder what it would be like, to have all that knowledge at your fingertips," Fowley muses. "He'll have a head start when it comes to girls, one would think."
Scully cannot even believe this woman's audacity. "I'm going to have to ask you to-"
"Where's Agent Mulder?" Fowley interrupts. She takes the seat across from Scully's desk, the one Scully has deliberately not offered, and tries to stare her down.
"He left the Bureau to pursue other interests," she says.
"Bullshit," Fowley says pleasantly. "I want to know where he is."
"I don't know where Agent Mulder is," Scully says. She should have fliers made up, she thinks. Or a poster. She could pin it to her bulletin board and just point. "Even if I did know, why the hell would I trust you with that information? Who are you working for, anyway?"
"The same bureaucracy as you, Agent Scully. The same Federal Bureau of Investigation that informs me on this, my first day back at work, that Agent Mulder is no longer employed here. What I can't seem to find out is why." Fowley pushes her thick, perfectly-styled hair off her face. She looks upset, whether on Mulder's behalf or because she's out of the loop, Scully can't tell.
"I should be asking you where he is," she says. "Since the two of you have worked so closely in the past." The second she says it, she wants to take it back, resentful that she's brought emotion to this argument.
Agent Fowley spreads her arms in an imitation of openness. "All I know is the official government story, the one you just tried to feed me, and if there's one thing that doesn't represent Agent Mulder's interests, it's official government stories."
Really, Mulder should be here, fielding inquiries about his own disappearance. It's the least he could do, considering Scully has no earthly idea where he is. She's a little vague on why he's on the run, too, while she's making a list. He'd actually called it that-"Hey, Scully, I'm going on the run,"-sounding like the tagline for a badly-scripted action movie rather than someone who was really thinking this through. He said it over the phone, too, which made her feel really stupid about telling him she was quitting in person. "Why now, Mulder?" she asked him. "We just got the X-Files back, against all odds. What happened to, 'if we quit now, they win'?" Her other question went unsaid, but it left invisible fingerprints all over Scully's side of the conversation. "You'll continue the work, won't you Scully?" he said. He sounded distracted.
She is, of course, skeptical that Mulder has voluntarily removed himself from the game, or at least the more or less sanctioned game taking place in public, but her avenues of investigation seem to confirm this is the case. Mulder insists on it, leaving her a circumloquacious note with the Gunmen that makes her feel better about his safety and worse about every other possible implication. His friends write this off as semi-normal behavior, and seem more bemused than worried. Frohike says she should trade in life as a G-Woman for that of a Lone Gunwoman. Langly says there's room for her in the underground bunker, in a way that makes Scully feel like she's supposed to know why, exactly, a bunker will be needed. She admits to herself that after five years working alongside Mulder, she has some ideas. Byers asks her what she's going to do next.
Scully takes a long weekend in Utah. On the flight back over middle America, after doing what she decides passes as soul-searching, she decides to stay where she is. She has a personal stake in the future, after all. She is now the senior agent assigned to the X-Files, and partnerless, though there are rumors swirling that Jeffrey Spender is going to be assigned to the unit.
She picks a box at random and plunks it on her desk. "I have a lot of work to do," she says. She makes a show of looking through fragments of old files carefully removed from the top of the box.
"Who are you working with?" Fowley asks.
"I don't really see how that's any of your business," Scully says, not looking up.
"It seems to me the X-Files division is going to need someone with an open mind," Fowley says. Scully doesn't say anything, and after a minute Fowley continues, "I'll leave you to your work, then. It's good to see you again, Agent Scully."
Scully manages a nod. Fowley is almost to the door when Scully notices there's a piece of paper trapped under the heel of her shoe. She's tempted to let her walk away with it, but it could be something important. She reluctantly points it out to Fowley, who bends down to pick it up. Scully thinks she sees a worried expression flicker across Fowley's face, but when she presents the piece of paper, she looks unaffected by what's in her hand.
Scully's eyes narrow at the Morley cigarette wrapper Fowley is holding. "I don't smoke," Fowley says. "Like you said, it's your office." She crumples the wrapper and tosses it in the garbage. Scully can hear her heels clicking all the way to the elevator.
2.
When Scully gets to work Thursday morning, there's a sex scene unravelling on the projection screen in the office. She sees it with her peripheral vision while she's hanging up her coat and it reminds her of Mulder, but her smile fades as she remembers how angry she is with him for leaving. Scully is perfectly willing to carry on the work by herself, it's just that she doesn't much like this life, that doesn't have him in it every day.
Agent Fowley is sitting on top of the desk across from Scully's, long legs crossed, watching an old black-and-white movie play out on a new screen that's exactly like the one Mulder used so often for slide shows. Scully stays where she is for a moment, staring at nothing, before setting her briefcase very carefully on her desk. It's either that, she thinks, or throw it across the room.
She clears her throat, and Fowley reaches over and presses the eject button on the VCR. The office is starting to full up with the clutter all offices seem to accumulate without trying: filing cabinets, a coffee maker, even a pair of asparagus ferns. Scully keeps most of her real work, the little information she's gathered on the Consortium, either locked up at home or with the Gunmen. When Fowley turns to face Scully, her face looks eerie against the blank blue window projected onto the screen. "Good morning," she says.
"Agent Mulder either watched porn at work, or, for obscure reasons of his own, wanted me to think he did." She watches Fowley's face to see if she betrays anything at the mention of Mulder's name. She's never been entirely convinced Fowley didn't have some hand in his leaving.
Fowley, damn her, looks as composed as ever, except for one raised eyebrow. Scully bets this is due not to the subject matter, but to the fact she's broken their unspoken agreement about mentioning Mulder. There probably isn't a lot about Mulder's sex life that surprises Fowley, she thinks sourly. Scully sees Fowley's eyebrow and raises it one of her own.
"Pre-Code," Fowley explains. "Early Hollywood movies are a lot more risqué than people think. It wasn't until the 1930's that they started censoring like mad."
Scully decides to ignore the jab. "And you're watching it here because...."
"I was taking a break from piecing together old files," Fowley says mildly.
It's only eight o'clock. Scully wonders if Agent Fowley had been home at all last night, though the suit she's wearing today is more flattering than the one she'd had on yesterday. Not that she would ever stoop to complimenting Fowley; she makes a point of talking to her partner as little as possible. Right on cue, Fowley says, "I think that's the most interesting thing you've said to me since we started working together."
Scully pulls a file full of slides off the corner of her desk. "Can you get the projector set up so I can show these," she says. She pulls out her cell phone and turns her back to Fowley. "I've got a quick call to make."
She paces the hallway while she punches numbers on her phone. She usually hears from Mulder about every six or seven days-she's taken to running all her errands during the week, and staying in on weekends, so she can be by her home phone and her computer as well as her cell. Her mother is starting to get annoyed that she never visits anymore. She didn't hear from him last weekend, nor this week.
"Hello, Langly?" she says. "Turn off the tape."
Agent Fowley will be hearing Mulder's name more often around here, she says to herself. A lot more often.
3.
The black clouds that have been gathering all evening start spilling rain just after the sun goes down, and Scully fumbles with the side of the steering wheel, unfamiliar with the switches on this particular rental car. She finally manages to flick the wipers on. The rainfall alternates between heavy and light, and Scully keeps having to switch wiper speeds, and she had hardly slept at all last night, and honestly, all she wants to do is pull over to the side of this endless country road and let the rain pound on the car while she has a nice long nap. She doesn't know how safe that would be, with a killer skulking around this part of Nebraska, though she supposes if he's killing with his mind, like the locals claim, it doesn't much matter where she is. That the killer could in fact be female is not something she's dismissing, though local law enforcement representatives, not shy about expressing their surprise at working with not one but two female federal agents, probably are.
Agent Fowley peers out the passenger window. "Here's our road," she says, and Scully turns right.
Scully's partnership with Fowley is not as tempestuous as she would have predicted. She suspects this is simply because she does not care enough about what Fowley thinks to waste time arguing. They agree, or they don't, and Scully turns in her little reports and gets on with her life, such as it is.
Mulder is prone to trusting Fowley, but then he had been prone to trusting her, too, before he had any reason to. Scully has a bit more empathy for the Mulder of the early days of their partnership. She has nagging doubts about her current partner, but she has exactly no evidence that she's up to anything suspicious. So far, anyway.
Fowley doesn't go in for chummy midnight confessions; when she talks about things that matter, they're usually related to the case they're working, though she does put effort into making occasional small talk. She's been exceptionally quiet today, and Scully wonders if it's because of the nasty comments made earlier. What could she say that Fowley doesn't already know? Fowley could spout the same platitudes at her. Scully slows down for a red light. "Small towns, you know," she says. "Small minds."
Fowley snorts. "Only in Washington could the X-Files, newly assigned to agents other than Fox Mulder, lose even more credibility." Scully can't argue with that, unfortunately.
Fowley shifts in her seat and pulls her blue wool coat tighter to her throat. "Have you heard from Fox?" she asks.
Scully shakes her head. It's been fifteen days. No phone calls with no one on the other end of the line, no new one-time-only e-mail addresses in her inbox. The light changes, and Scully accelerates too quickly, her tires skidding all over the wet road before she gets the car back under control. Just as she does, Fowley's cell phone rings. They both start at the sound.
"Hello," Fowley says. Then, "I can't talk right now." She stays on the phone, though, presumably at the insistence of the other party, and Scully listens in. "No," Fowley says. Six more 'no's,' getting progressively curter. "Just a minute," she says. She lowers her voice and angles her body toward the passenger window.
Scully strains to hear, but she can only make out a few words that seem important: 'access' and 'Agent Spender.' She files this information away and continues to drive. She pays attention to the side streets now that they're in town, looking for the cutoff to their motel.
After she hangs up, Fowley reaches into the backseat for her briefcase, from which she extracts, after much digging, a package of cigarettes. Scully opens her mouth to tell her to forget it, but stops when she sees the expression on Fowley's face. Fowley rolls the window down partway, and cool air rushes into the car. Her fingers are shaking when she replaces the cigarette lighter.
"I thought you didn't smoke," Scully says finally, as she pulls into the nearly empty parking lot outside the local Motel 6. She turns off the car, and the rain spattering against the windshield becomes more distinct, nosier.
Fowley tries to smile. "I'm fine," she says. Scully doesn't believe her.
4.
Diana Fowley smokes all the time, now. She smokes in rental cars, windows cracked open while Scully drives; in motel rooms with 'No Smoking' signs tacked to the doors; in all public buildings that are not, in fact, hospitals; even-and this should not surprise Scully by this point-at 37,000 ft in the air.
Agent Fowley is gone from her seat on the Chicago to D.C. flight for so long that even Scully begins to wonder. She raps on the door of the bathroom, sees the lock slide after she identifies herself to Fowley, and Fowley says, diffidently, that she can come in. Scully hesitates, then steps inside, closing the door behind her.
Fowley is sitting on the lid of the closed toilet seat, tapping cigarette ash into the sink. The bathroom smoke detector is resting, disabled, on the tiny counter. Scully isn't claustrophobic, but she feels uncomfortable, hunched over in this small space. "You do realize you're committing a federal offense," she says. She resists the urge to cross her arms.
Fowley looks up at her, and Scully can tell something is wrong. Her stomach lurches. "Is it-is it to do with Mulder?" she asks quickly. "Is he okay?"
For a split second, Fowley looks puzzled. Not Mulder, then. Scully lets out a breath.
Fowley doesn't say anything, or make any move to get up. Scully doesn't know what either of them are doing here. She looks around, but there's not much to see. A smudged mirror, an extra roll of toilet paper tucked inside the bathroom's only shelf. Her partner, looking like she hasn't been sleeping well, either.
Fowley finally breaks the silence. "You know what people are going to assume, Agent Scully."
She does, and it's not funny, she thinks, even as she laughs, sharply.
Fowley leans forward. "Did you and Fox ever-"
Scully cuts her off before she can get it out. "Did you and 'Fox'?" she counters.
Fowley takes a long drag on her cigarette and doesn't answer. "We're the only ones here right now," she says.
This isn't the way it's supposed to be. Scully resists the sudden, violent urge to reach over and strangle Fowley with her bare hands. She takes a couple of deep breaths instead, tries to stay calm. She really, really doesn't want to have this conversation.
"I barely know you," Scully says, "I don't particularly like you, we work together, I'm seeing someone else. Should I continue?"
"You're not seeing anyone else," Fowley says.
Scully doesn't dispute what is, after all, the truth.
"Loneliness," Fowley goes on. "Curiosity. Have you slept with women?"
"No," Scully lies.
"Convenience, then. Sheer boredom."
Fowley's cigarette smoke combines with their mingling perfumes and threatens a pounding headache. She closes her eyes, trying to reduce sensory input. "What the hell is going on here," she says, exactly as if she doesn't know.
She thinks she can hear Fowley shrug. "I'm an attractive woman. I like sex, and I'm good at it."
Scully shakes her head, afraid of what might come out of her mouth if she opens it. She opens her eyes to see Fowley using the sink to extinguish her cigarette.
"Suit yourself," she says. She exits the cramped bathroom without touching Scully, though Scully can feel the heat of her breath against her neck as she sidles by. She puts a hand on the counter to steady herself.
Scully pees, then rests her forehead against the bathroom wall and thinks about almost kissing Mulder. She lets herself remember the hallway, the space between their bodies decreasing at the same rate as Scully's reasons for creating it. The memory makes her chest actually, physically hurt, and she idly diagnoses the pain as psychosomatic at the same time as she welcomes it.
She washes her hands and reassembles and replaces the smoke detector before returning to her seat. She doesn't touch the soggy cigarette butt in the sink.
5.
Scully lies in bed in a depressingly average motel room and stares at the ceiling. Sleep isn't coming tonight, and it's too late to take anything for it-she would be so groggy in the morning it wouldn't be worth it. The first chance she gets when they're back in D.C., she's taking a sleeping pill and not setting her alarm. Or maybe not. Maybe she'll be spending time putting her things into storage, or maybe she'll just pack a bag. Her apartment can become a shrine just as easily as Mulder's has.
She's going to be doing something very decisive, very soon, she thinks. The FBI offers a lot of resources, and she's been taking advantage of them on projects as diverse as stopping Colonization and finding Mulder, but she can see why he relied on mysterious sources for certain information. She tracks down Krycek to put a gun to his head, but he doesn't know anything. She still doesn't know why she let him live. Skinner was shocked when she did the same to him, but Scully thinks he'll get over it. It was a bit of a gamble regarding continued employment, but if she has to leave the FBI, go underground to find him-
She hears the soft click of a door closing nearby. She listens. There's someone outside; she can hear footsteps through the motel's flimsy wall. Her hand has been on her gun since the first noise, and she climbs out of bed and walks quietly to the door.
She doesn't have to use her weapon, it turns out. It's only Agent Fowley, fully dressed, carrying her suitcase, her briefcase, and her purse. She stops when she sees Scully, sets the suitcase down on the sidewalk that runs in front of all the rooms. Scully keeps her gun lowered, but she's ready to raise it in an instant if she feels threatened.
Fowley smiles tightly. "Do you mind if we have this conversation inside?" she asks. Scully uses her gun to indicate the open door to her room.
The clothes Scully wore earlier today are draped over the room's only chair. Normally she would use such a chair to set out the next day's outfit, but lately she can't seem to work up the energy. Agent Fowley sits at the end of Scully's unmade bed instead. Scully picks her robe up off the floor and puts it on, one-handed, her gun casual in her other hand.
"We have an appointment with Sherriff Hincks at nine tomorrow, and we're to head over to the psychiatric hospital after that," Scully says. "I can see you're not going to be able to make it, though." She waits.
Agent Fowley sits on the bed and said nothing.
Scully loses patience. "Tell me where Agent Mulder is," she snaps.
"I don't know," Fowley insists. "I told you, that was a long time ago."
Scully crosses the room in three quick strides and presses her gun to Fowley's head. She doesn't flinch, but she looks like she's paying attention now. Scully takes a step back, keeping her gun trained on her partner. "Who's after you?" she asks. "Are they after both of us?"
Fowley shakes her head. "I wasn't supposed to be here," she says. "I pulled strings to get this assignment, strings that turned out to be even more dangerous than I'd thought. I have to disappear for a while."
"Why did you want access to the X-Files?" Scully demands. "What are you up to?"
Fowley's expression is guileless. "I wanted to protect Fox's interests," she says. "I didn't think you were interested in doing that."
Moonlight streams through the window, sliding over her partner's face when she stands up. She steps closer to Scully, disappearing into darkness again. She's close enough that Scully can smell the wool of her coat. Almost without thinking, she lowers her gun.
Fowley reaches out and pushes Scully's hair behind her ear, fingers glancing her jaw line. Scully feels her forehead crease in a frown, feels Fowley remove her hand. "No," she says, involuntarily. She shakes her head to clear it.
When she opens her eyes, Diana is standing with her head to one side, looking at Scully consideringly. Scully touches her wrist. It's cold and smooth, and Diana leans forward and kisses Scully. The past two months are pressing down, and the weight of them makes her sag against Diana. When she pulls away, she realizes she's still holding her weapon. "You should go," she says.
"I was wrong," Diana says. "Just so you know."
Scully stands in the doorway, shivering, and watches Diana load her luggage into their rental car and drive away. She wonders what Mulder is doing tonight, and misses him with a fierceness that doesn't really surprise her. She's going to have to get herself over to the rental agency and pick up a new car tomorrow, she thinks. The Bureau won't figure it out until tomorrow, but as of right now, they're down both agents from the X-Files division.
"Tomorrow," she says out loud, and heads for bed.
END
Author: idella
Pairing/Character: Scully/Fowley; implied Mulder/Scully
Word Count: 4,062
Rating: PG-13
Classification: Story, Angst
Spoiler Warning: Spoilers for 5x20 "The End" and Fight the Future.
Other Warnings: None
Summary: Five times Dana Scully and Diana Fowley talk about sex. (AU that splits from canon after Fight the Future.)
Many, many thanks to bravenewcentury for patient and skillful beta work, and to amyhit, who has not read this story, for surreptitious encouragement.
Happy New Year, maidenjedi! Thank you for the excuse to write Scully/Fowley, and I hope you enjoy your story.
1.
Dana Scully is sitting at her brand new desk in her brand new office, pouring over information on supposed alien/human hybridization, when she hears a knock at the door. She purses her lips in annoyance. Diana Fowley walks in before Scully has a chance to ask who her visitor is, or acknowledge that he or she can enter, and her annoyance level shoots up a hundred percent. At least. Scully closes her file on genetically altered pollen and slides it in her briefcase.
Fowley stands in the doorway, wrinkling her nose. There are boxes upon boxes containing charred files stacked between Scully's desk and the wall, making the office smell like smoke. She had been so immersed in her research she'd forgotten they were there, but if the stench discourages company, Scully is all for it.
"Settling in?" Fowley asks. She eyes the boxes closest to the door, the ones with the flaps open.
Scully clears her throat. "Is there anything I can help you with, Agent Fowley?"
Fowley turns her back to Scully's desk and examines the contents of the room's nearly empty bulletin board. "I was wondering if you and Agent Mulder ever made any progress with the Gibson Praise case."
"We've been a bit busy lately," Scully says blandly.
"Yes, I heard about what you did on your summer vacation," Fowley says. "I spent mine recovering from surgery for a hole to the lung."
"Gibson Praise is probably enduring a lot worse," Scully says witheringly.
"You need him more than ever, don't you," Fowley says. "To justify this." She turns and indicates Scully's office.
"He's a little boy who's been through a hell of a lot. Add the fact that he's been hunted down by monsters who are probably performing heinous experiments on him as we speak and I'm far more concerned about his safety than I am about his usefulness to the realm of science."
"I wonder what it would be like, to have all that knowledge at your fingertips," Fowley muses. "He'll have a head start when it comes to girls, one would think."
Scully cannot even believe this woman's audacity. "I'm going to have to ask you to-"
"Where's Agent Mulder?" Fowley interrupts. She takes the seat across from Scully's desk, the one Scully has deliberately not offered, and tries to stare her down.
"He left the Bureau to pursue other interests," she says.
"Bullshit," Fowley says pleasantly. "I want to know where he is."
"I don't know where Agent Mulder is," Scully says. She should have fliers made up, she thinks. Or a poster. She could pin it to her bulletin board and just point. "Even if I did know, why the hell would I trust you with that information? Who are you working for, anyway?"
"The same bureaucracy as you, Agent Scully. The same Federal Bureau of Investigation that informs me on this, my first day back at work, that Agent Mulder is no longer employed here. What I can't seem to find out is why." Fowley pushes her thick, perfectly-styled hair off her face. She looks upset, whether on Mulder's behalf or because she's out of the loop, Scully can't tell.
"I should be asking you where he is," she says. "Since the two of you have worked so closely in the past." The second she says it, she wants to take it back, resentful that she's brought emotion to this argument.
Agent Fowley spreads her arms in an imitation of openness. "All I know is the official government story, the one you just tried to feed me, and if there's one thing that doesn't represent Agent Mulder's interests, it's official government stories."
Really, Mulder should be here, fielding inquiries about his own disappearance. It's the least he could do, considering Scully has no earthly idea where he is. She's a little vague on why he's on the run, too, while she's making a list. He'd actually called it that-"Hey, Scully, I'm going on the run,"-sounding like the tagline for a badly-scripted action movie rather than someone who was really thinking this through. He said it over the phone, too, which made her feel really stupid about telling him she was quitting in person. "Why now, Mulder?" she asked him. "We just got the X-Files back, against all odds. What happened to, 'if we quit now, they win'?" Her other question went unsaid, but it left invisible fingerprints all over Scully's side of the conversation. "You'll continue the work, won't you Scully?" he said. He sounded distracted.
She is, of course, skeptical that Mulder has voluntarily removed himself from the game, or at least the more or less sanctioned game taking place in public, but her avenues of investigation seem to confirm this is the case. Mulder insists on it, leaving her a circumloquacious note with the Gunmen that makes her feel better about his safety and worse about every other possible implication. His friends write this off as semi-normal behavior, and seem more bemused than worried. Frohike says she should trade in life as a G-Woman for that of a Lone Gunwoman. Langly says there's room for her in the underground bunker, in a way that makes Scully feel like she's supposed to know why, exactly, a bunker will be needed. She admits to herself that after five years working alongside Mulder, she has some ideas. Byers asks her what she's going to do next.
Scully takes a long weekend in Utah. On the flight back over middle America, after doing what she decides passes as soul-searching, she decides to stay where she is. She has a personal stake in the future, after all. She is now the senior agent assigned to the X-Files, and partnerless, though there are rumors swirling that Jeffrey Spender is going to be assigned to the unit.
She picks a box at random and plunks it on her desk. "I have a lot of work to do," she says. She makes a show of looking through fragments of old files carefully removed from the top of the box.
"Who are you working with?" Fowley asks.
"I don't really see how that's any of your business," Scully says, not looking up.
"It seems to me the X-Files division is going to need someone with an open mind," Fowley says. Scully doesn't say anything, and after a minute Fowley continues, "I'll leave you to your work, then. It's good to see you again, Agent Scully."
Scully manages a nod. Fowley is almost to the door when Scully notices there's a piece of paper trapped under the heel of her shoe. She's tempted to let her walk away with it, but it could be something important. She reluctantly points it out to Fowley, who bends down to pick it up. Scully thinks she sees a worried expression flicker across Fowley's face, but when she presents the piece of paper, she looks unaffected by what's in her hand.
Scully's eyes narrow at the Morley cigarette wrapper Fowley is holding. "I don't smoke," Fowley says. "Like you said, it's your office." She crumples the wrapper and tosses it in the garbage. Scully can hear her heels clicking all the way to the elevator.
2.
When Scully gets to work Thursday morning, there's a sex scene unravelling on the projection screen in the office. She sees it with her peripheral vision while she's hanging up her coat and it reminds her of Mulder, but her smile fades as she remembers how angry she is with him for leaving. Scully is perfectly willing to carry on the work by herself, it's just that she doesn't much like this life, that doesn't have him in it every day.
Agent Fowley is sitting on top of the desk across from Scully's, long legs crossed, watching an old black-and-white movie play out on a new screen that's exactly like the one Mulder used so often for slide shows. Scully stays where she is for a moment, staring at nothing, before setting her briefcase very carefully on her desk. It's either that, she thinks, or throw it across the room.
She clears her throat, and Fowley reaches over and presses the eject button on the VCR. The office is starting to full up with the clutter all offices seem to accumulate without trying: filing cabinets, a coffee maker, even a pair of asparagus ferns. Scully keeps most of her real work, the little information she's gathered on the Consortium, either locked up at home or with the Gunmen. When Fowley turns to face Scully, her face looks eerie against the blank blue window projected onto the screen. "Good morning," she says.
"Agent Mulder either watched porn at work, or, for obscure reasons of his own, wanted me to think he did." She watches Fowley's face to see if she betrays anything at the mention of Mulder's name. She's never been entirely convinced Fowley didn't have some hand in his leaving.
Fowley, damn her, looks as composed as ever, except for one raised eyebrow. Scully bets this is due not to the subject matter, but to the fact she's broken their unspoken agreement about mentioning Mulder. There probably isn't a lot about Mulder's sex life that surprises Fowley, she thinks sourly. Scully sees Fowley's eyebrow and raises it one of her own.
"Pre-Code," Fowley explains. "Early Hollywood movies are a lot more risqué than people think. It wasn't until the 1930's that they started censoring like mad."
Scully decides to ignore the jab. "And you're watching it here because...."
"I was taking a break from piecing together old files," Fowley says mildly.
It's only eight o'clock. Scully wonders if Agent Fowley had been home at all last night, though the suit she's wearing today is more flattering than the one she'd had on yesterday. Not that she would ever stoop to complimenting Fowley; she makes a point of talking to her partner as little as possible. Right on cue, Fowley says, "I think that's the most interesting thing you've said to me since we started working together."
Scully pulls a file full of slides off the corner of her desk. "Can you get the projector set up so I can show these," she says. She pulls out her cell phone and turns her back to Fowley. "I've got a quick call to make."
She paces the hallway while she punches numbers on her phone. She usually hears from Mulder about every six or seven days-she's taken to running all her errands during the week, and staying in on weekends, so she can be by her home phone and her computer as well as her cell. Her mother is starting to get annoyed that she never visits anymore. She didn't hear from him last weekend, nor this week.
"Hello, Langly?" she says. "Turn off the tape."
Agent Fowley will be hearing Mulder's name more often around here, she says to herself. A lot more often.
3.
The black clouds that have been gathering all evening start spilling rain just after the sun goes down, and Scully fumbles with the side of the steering wheel, unfamiliar with the switches on this particular rental car. She finally manages to flick the wipers on. The rainfall alternates between heavy and light, and Scully keeps having to switch wiper speeds, and she had hardly slept at all last night, and honestly, all she wants to do is pull over to the side of this endless country road and let the rain pound on the car while she has a nice long nap. She doesn't know how safe that would be, with a killer skulking around this part of Nebraska, though she supposes if he's killing with his mind, like the locals claim, it doesn't much matter where she is. That the killer could in fact be female is not something she's dismissing, though local law enforcement representatives, not shy about expressing their surprise at working with not one but two female federal agents, probably are.
Agent Fowley peers out the passenger window. "Here's our road," she says, and Scully turns right.
Scully's partnership with Fowley is not as tempestuous as she would have predicted. She suspects this is simply because she does not care enough about what Fowley thinks to waste time arguing. They agree, or they don't, and Scully turns in her little reports and gets on with her life, such as it is.
Mulder is prone to trusting Fowley, but then he had been prone to trusting her, too, before he had any reason to. Scully has a bit more empathy for the Mulder of the early days of their partnership. She has nagging doubts about her current partner, but she has exactly no evidence that she's up to anything suspicious. So far, anyway.
Fowley doesn't go in for chummy midnight confessions; when she talks about things that matter, they're usually related to the case they're working, though she does put effort into making occasional small talk. She's been exceptionally quiet today, and Scully wonders if it's because of the nasty comments made earlier. What could she say that Fowley doesn't already know? Fowley could spout the same platitudes at her. Scully slows down for a red light. "Small towns, you know," she says. "Small minds."
Fowley snorts. "Only in Washington could the X-Files, newly assigned to agents other than Fox Mulder, lose even more credibility." Scully can't argue with that, unfortunately.
Fowley shifts in her seat and pulls her blue wool coat tighter to her throat. "Have you heard from Fox?" she asks.
Scully shakes her head. It's been fifteen days. No phone calls with no one on the other end of the line, no new one-time-only e-mail addresses in her inbox. The light changes, and Scully accelerates too quickly, her tires skidding all over the wet road before she gets the car back under control. Just as she does, Fowley's cell phone rings. They both start at the sound.
"Hello," Fowley says. Then, "I can't talk right now." She stays on the phone, though, presumably at the insistence of the other party, and Scully listens in. "No," Fowley says. Six more 'no's,' getting progressively curter. "Just a minute," she says. She lowers her voice and angles her body toward the passenger window.
Scully strains to hear, but she can only make out a few words that seem important: 'access' and 'Agent Spender.' She files this information away and continues to drive. She pays attention to the side streets now that they're in town, looking for the cutoff to their motel.
After she hangs up, Fowley reaches into the backseat for her briefcase, from which she extracts, after much digging, a package of cigarettes. Scully opens her mouth to tell her to forget it, but stops when she sees the expression on Fowley's face. Fowley rolls the window down partway, and cool air rushes into the car. Her fingers are shaking when she replaces the cigarette lighter.
"I thought you didn't smoke," Scully says finally, as she pulls into the nearly empty parking lot outside the local Motel 6. She turns off the car, and the rain spattering against the windshield becomes more distinct, nosier.
Fowley tries to smile. "I'm fine," she says. Scully doesn't believe her.
4.
Diana Fowley smokes all the time, now. She smokes in rental cars, windows cracked open while Scully drives; in motel rooms with 'No Smoking' signs tacked to the doors; in all public buildings that are not, in fact, hospitals; even-and this should not surprise Scully by this point-at 37,000 ft in the air.
Agent Fowley is gone from her seat on the Chicago to D.C. flight for so long that even Scully begins to wonder. She raps on the door of the bathroom, sees the lock slide after she identifies herself to Fowley, and Fowley says, diffidently, that she can come in. Scully hesitates, then steps inside, closing the door behind her.
Fowley is sitting on the lid of the closed toilet seat, tapping cigarette ash into the sink. The bathroom smoke detector is resting, disabled, on the tiny counter. Scully isn't claustrophobic, but she feels uncomfortable, hunched over in this small space. "You do realize you're committing a federal offense," she says. She resists the urge to cross her arms.
Fowley looks up at her, and Scully can tell something is wrong. Her stomach lurches. "Is it-is it to do with Mulder?" she asks quickly. "Is he okay?"
For a split second, Fowley looks puzzled. Not Mulder, then. Scully lets out a breath.
Fowley doesn't say anything, or make any move to get up. Scully doesn't know what either of them are doing here. She looks around, but there's not much to see. A smudged mirror, an extra roll of toilet paper tucked inside the bathroom's only shelf. Her partner, looking like she hasn't been sleeping well, either.
Fowley finally breaks the silence. "You know what people are going to assume, Agent Scully."
She does, and it's not funny, she thinks, even as she laughs, sharply.
Fowley leans forward. "Did you and Fox ever-"
Scully cuts her off before she can get it out. "Did you and 'Fox'?" she counters.
Fowley takes a long drag on her cigarette and doesn't answer. "We're the only ones here right now," she says.
This isn't the way it's supposed to be. Scully resists the sudden, violent urge to reach over and strangle Fowley with her bare hands. She takes a couple of deep breaths instead, tries to stay calm. She really, really doesn't want to have this conversation.
"I barely know you," Scully says, "I don't particularly like you, we work together, I'm seeing someone else. Should I continue?"
"You're not seeing anyone else," Fowley says.
Scully doesn't dispute what is, after all, the truth.
"Loneliness," Fowley goes on. "Curiosity. Have you slept with women?"
"No," Scully lies.
"Convenience, then. Sheer boredom."
Fowley's cigarette smoke combines with their mingling perfumes and threatens a pounding headache. She closes her eyes, trying to reduce sensory input. "What the hell is going on here," she says, exactly as if she doesn't know.
She thinks she can hear Fowley shrug. "I'm an attractive woman. I like sex, and I'm good at it."
Scully shakes her head, afraid of what might come out of her mouth if she opens it. She opens her eyes to see Fowley using the sink to extinguish her cigarette.
"Suit yourself," she says. She exits the cramped bathroom without touching Scully, though Scully can feel the heat of her breath against her neck as she sidles by. She puts a hand on the counter to steady herself.
Scully pees, then rests her forehead against the bathroom wall and thinks about almost kissing Mulder. She lets herself remember the hallway, the space between their bodies decreasing at the same rate as Scully's reasons for creating it. The memory makes her chest actually, physically hurt, and she idly diagnoses the pain as psychosomatic at the same time as she welcomes it.
She washes her hands and reassembles and replaces the smoke detector before returning to her seat. She doesn't touch the soggy cigarette butt in the sink.
5.
Scully lies in bed in a depressingly average motel room and stares at the ceiling. Sleep isn't coming tonight, and it's too late to take anything for it-she would be so groggy in the morning it wouldn't be worth it. The first chance she gets when they're back in D.C., she's taking a sleeping pill and not setting her alarm. Or maybe not. Maybe she'll be spending time putting her things into storage, or maybe she'll just pack a bag. Her apartment can become a shrine just as easily as Mulder's has.
She's going to be doing something very decisive, very soon, she thinks. The FBI offers a lot of resources, and she's been taking advantage of them on projects as diverse as stopping Colonization and finding Mulder, but she can see why he relied on mysterious sources for certain information. She tracks down Krycek to put a gun to his head, but he doesn't know anything. She still doesn't know why she let him live. Skinner was shocked when she did the same to him, but Scully thinks he'll get over it. It was a bit of a gamble regarding continued employment, but if she has to leave the FBI, go underground to find him-
She hears the soft click of a door closing nearby. She listens. There's someone outside; she can hear footsteps through the motel's flimsy wall. Her hand has been on her gun since the first noise, and she climbs out of bed and walks quietly to the door.
She doesn't have to use her weapon, it turns out. It's only Agent Fowley, fully dressed, carrying her suitcase, her briefcase, and her purse. She stops when she sees Scully, sets the suitcase down on the sidewalk that runs in front of all the rooms. Scully keeps her gun lowered, but she's ready to raise it in an instant if she feels threatened.
Fowley smiles tightly. "Do you mind if we have this conversation inside?" she asks. Scully uses her gun to indicate the open door to her room.
The clothes Scully wore earlier today are draped over the room's only chair. Normally she would use such a chair to set out the next day's outfit, but lately she can't seem to work up the energy. Agent Fowley sits at the end of Scully's unmade bed instead. Scully picks her robe up off the floor and puts it on, one-handed, her gun casual in her other hand.
"We have an appointment with Sherriff Hincks at nine tomorrow, and we're to head over to the psychiatric hospital after that," Scully says. "I can see you're not going to be able to make it, though." She waits.
Agent Fowley sits on the bed and said nothing.
Scully loses patience. "Tell me where Agent Mulder is," she snaps.
"I don't know," Fowley insists. "I told you, that was a long time ago."
Scully crosses the room in three quick strides and presses her gun to Fowley's head. She doesn't flinch, but she looks like she's paying attention now. Scully takes a step back, keeping her gun trained on her partner. "Who's after you?" she asks. "Are they after both of us?"
Fowley shakes her head. "I wasn't supposed to be here," she says. "I pulled strings to get this assignment, strings that turned out to be even more dangerous than I'd thought. I have to disappear for a while."
"Why did you want access to the X-Files?" Scully demands. "What are you up to?"
Fowley's expression is guileless. "I wanted to protect Fox's interests," she says. "I didn't think you were interested in doing that."
Moonlight streams through the window, sliding over her partner's face when she stands up. She steps closer to Scully, disappearing into darkness again. She's close enough that Scully can smell the wool of her coat. Almost without thinking, she lowers her gun.
Fowley reaches out and pushes Scully's hair behind her ear, fingers glancing her jaw line. Scully feels her forehead crease in a frown, feels Fowley remove her hand. "No," she says, involuntarily. She shakes her head to clear it.
When she opens her eyes, Diana is standing with her head to one side, looking at Scully consideringly. Scully touches her wrist. It's cold and smooth, and Diana leans forward and kisses Scully. The past two months are pressing down, and the weight of them makes her sag against Diana. When she pulls away, she realizes she's still holding her weapon. "You should go," she says.
"I was wrong," Diana says. "Just so you know."
Scully stands in the doorway, shivering, and watches Diana load her luggage into their rental car and drive away. She wonders what Mulder is doing tonight, and misses him with a fierceness that doesn't really surprise her. She's going to have to get herself over to the rental agency and pick up a new car tomorrow, she thinks. The Bureau won't figure it out until tomorrow, but as of right now, they're down both agents from the X-Files division.
"Tomorrow," she says out loud, and heads for bed.
END