Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 09:18:23 -0400 From: Madeleine Partous Subject: NEW: Pilot II: What Scully Saw (1/1) PILOT II: What Scully Saw (1/1) by Madeleine Partous email: partous@total.net Hi again. I've received so many requests for this scene from Scully's point of view that I've decided to give it a shot, if only for the writing challenge. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm not as uncomfortable with her POV anymore, thanks in large part to Cruise and the Pact, although Mulder's quirky mind is still my first love. It's better to read Pilot first, although it's not strictly necessary. Still, the two are closely interwoven. DEDICATION: This is for BeckyD, but she should keep in mind that I'll personally come over with the Schwartzenalien if she ever calls me a mushbucket again. Comments gratefully appreciated, pro and con, as always. SUMMARY: We know how they met -- but what was Scully *really* thinking when she saw Mulder for the first time? CATEGORY: V, MSR RATING: PG for language *********************************************************** DISCLAIMER: The characters and concepts belong to Fox and Chris Carter and have been lovingly borrowed with no possibility of financial gain even in my wildest dreams. Dialogue (except for the last line, which is borrowed from another contemporary icon) is copyright by Fox/Chris Carter and is used verbatim without permission but with a whining kind of grovelling apology. *********************************************************** "Sorry! Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted." Scully stood outside the door and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Boxes loomed in the basement shadows -- ancient files whose dust moted the air and irritated her nose. She'd never been in the FBI basement before. It smelled forgotten, dank, disused. Irrelevant. For some reason, her heart went out to the owner of the sarcastic voice on the other side of the door. A brilliant mind relegated to where paperwork went to die. She'd read all about Special Agent Fox William Mulder, and as she pushed open the door, she cursed herself for the fact that her heart actually had the nerve to race. Appalling. And yet... She'd been disconcerted -- hell, why mince words? -- royally pissed off by the chain-smoking man in the AD's office. Why her? Why did they want her, of all people, to expose this man, a man whose work had been sterling until he'd requested the X- Files? Christ. His work had been sterling since. She'd checked. It just wasn't by the book and it didn't fit their high-profile agendas. And where the hell did that smoke-ridden son of a bitch get off looking at her like that, as if she was some vacuous rookie secretary who didn't know her pretty ass from her elbow? Bastard. Everyone at Quantico knew about Spooky Mulder. The Fox Man. The Weirderator. They mocked him a little, that much was true, but it was a mocking born of envy; right below the jokes, cresting the surface, was a real respect, a kind of tightlipped admiration. Spooky Mulder had paid his dues, and now he was regarded with a certain awe, the kind that only legends get to foster. Scully was only too aware that she was about to meet a master, a renegade who'd forged his own rules and then systematically smashed them, one after the other. It was undeniably exciting. Which is why she wasn't entirely prepared for the sight of a young, lanky, bespectacled man leaning over a darkened desk illuminated only by a pool of light. She wasn't sure what she'd expected to find exactly, but it wasn't this. The office was a disaster. Piles of files listed precariously on every available surface; newspaper clippings and bizarre photographs littered every square inch of wall; there was the smell of old fast food and stale coffee and an overriding mustiness which she assumed drifted from the ponderous old tomes stacked high on shelves. And one splash of colour which caught her eye, a small poster of a UFO hovering in a clear blue sky. I want to believe. She studied the man's back thoughtfully for a moment and registered physical signs of tension: tight muscles and a slightly artificial stance despite what she could see was a show of deliberate indifference. God. He was as nervous as she was, wasn't he? And he wasn't turning around. Evidently, it would have to be her move. She strode up to him briskly and reached out with what she hoped was a firm hand. "Agent Mulder? I'm Dana Scully. I've been assigned to work with you." The man looked up suddenly, peering at her through glasses which glinted in the muted light. Christ. He was handsome as hell, in an unconventional way. She'd seen his picture in the file, of course, but it didn't do justice to the dark intensity of his features. His lips were full, wine red and slightly moist. Scully squinted unconsciously as she tried to see his eyes. He took the hand she proffered, reluctantly, it seemed, softly, without acknowledging the firmness of her handshake. His own hand was warm and just a little damp. "Oh, isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded," he said evenly. "So who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?" He'd looked away with a feigned casualness by this point, but there was no mistaking the tension in his form. It was obvious. He saw this -- her -- as an imposition, an insult, a vague humiliation of some kind. Scully resisted the urge to bite her lip. Unfortunately, he was right. "Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you." All of which was true. But she wanted to say more. Except... There was a bizarre awkwardness between them, bizarre because it rang of familiarity. And then it hit her. It was as though she knew him somehow. As though she'd always known him. Impossible. Absurd. And yet... "Oh, really? I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me." It was true. It wasn't just an impression. Except she had no intention of stepping into anybody's agenda unless it suited her own purposes. Not the AD's. Not that black-lunged bastard's. Especially not his. Right now, Special Agent Fox Mulder's unorthodox theories were infinitely more fascinating. The problem was, he didn't know it yet. He didn't know *her*. He was being understandably cynical. Except she hadn't done anything wrong. Not yet. And he was acting as though she had. It was getting on her nerves. Despite the fact that she understood where he was coming from, his tone was beginning to grate on her. He was acting like a primadonna, and she hadn't done anything to earn that kind of derision. Hell. He didn't know the first thing about her. "If you have any doubt about my qualifications or credentials..." "You're a medical doctor," he interrupted, gazing down at an open file on his desk. It was patently obvious it wasn't hers. She smirked. "You teach at the Academy; you did your undergraduate degree in physics: 'Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation,' Dana Scully's Senior thesis." Impressive. Especially considering that he'd obviously memorized the information. Now *that* was fascinating. Obviously he'd been interested enough to remember details. Why? And now he threw a glance at her and lowered his eyes hurriedly, turning away from her with a strange expression she couldn't decipher. His voice dripped contemptuous honey. "Now that's a credential: rewriting Einstein." Darn tootin', buddy. But for some reason, she suddenly wanted to laugh -- with him, not at him, which she suspected he would probably find unusual. She wanted to see him laugh, just because he was being so outrageous that he had to be on the edge of laughing himself. The Great Fox Mulder was acting like a spoiled and grumpy little boy. "Did you bother to read it?" She tried to keep it testy but there was something so vulnerable about him somehow, despite his petulant goofiness, something helpless and oddly desperate. As if he was guarding a kingdom. As if he searching for some kind of approval, some kind of acceptance. As if... What? And then her eye fell on a framed picture which sat on his desk. A little girl, smiling in bright summer sunlight. Who? A daughter? It was possible. The girl looked between 8 and 10. He was certainly old enough to have fathered her. Except... She looked like him. The child shared a little of his darkness, his loneliness. But there was something about the photograph that she recognized. What? God. That was it. It was old. It had the faded colours of prints made in the '60s and early '70s. She knew because she recognized the tints, the clothes, even the hairstyle. She recognized it from pictures her mother kept of her and her sister. Scully had no idea who this little girl was, but there was a poignancy to the photograph that was compelling. Gripping. She looked up at Mulder, suddenly breathless, and she didn't know why. But he had turned away from her, his voice shrill with an infuriating sarcasm that increasingly made her want to scream. "I did!" he said. And then he stood abruptly, almost restlessly, his back to her, staring with aimless concentration at objects on a shelf. "I liked it!" Like hell he did. He was blatantly humouring her. She wanted to throttle him suddenly and wondered at the mood swings this enigmatic man was able to cause in her within minutes of their first meeting. Christ. Why did he have to make it so difficult? Scully felt a chill and wondered what she'd got herself into. Whatever else it would bring, it was already clear there could be nothing casual about her relationship with this new partner. Everything felt surreal, suddenly, and it was all because of him. There was nothing casual about Special Agent Mulder. "It's just that in most of my work," he continued lightly, "the laws of physics rarely seem to apply." He reached for the light switch just as she caught an odd, tight look on his face, one filled with pain and a strange sort of yearning... As the lights went out and the slide projector coughed into reluctant life, she realized absently that he'd removed his glasses and that he had exquisite eyes. "Maybe I can get your medical opinion on this, though." Scully shook her head and tried to remember what he was talking about. Then she remembered why she couldn't remember; she had no idea what he was talking about. "Oregon female, age 21." She was suddenly blinded by colours and light as the slide's projection ran through her. Mulder had disappeared in the corona of the projector's light and she turned to face the screen. The shape of a girl lying in mud. A young girl who'd been alive once. The image, despite its inherent horror, was strangely soothing. It felt... normal, somehow. It was something comfortable, something she understood. Something she could hang on to. Now that she wasn't actually looking at him, she felt fine. Her old self again. It was a relief. "No explainable cause of death," Mulder's voice continued coolly over the hum of the projector. "Autopsy shows nothing, zip. There are, however, these two distinct marks on her lower back." The next slide showed exactly that: what looked like two pimples near the flare of the girl's buttocks. Bizarre. But why? His voice rose ingratiatingly. "Dr. Scully, can you ID these marks?" So. He was testing her. Fair enough. She turned back and graced his obscured silhouette with a look before facing the screen once again. And then she could feel her eyes widen as she walked right up to the image to take a closer look. Jesus. What the hell was that? What could cause such precisely aligned marks without apparently affecting the surrounding tissue in the least? There was no puffing, no bruising, no redness otherwise. Whatever it was, it had to have come from an extremely powerful source capable of pinpoint accuracy. "Needle punctures, maybe? An animal bite? Electrocution of some kind?" She had to raise her voice anyway so he'd hear her over the infernal racket made by the projector, but she couldn't resist imitating his know-it-all tone a bit. They were okay off-the-cuff guesses. But she knew no animal could've done something like this without mauling the surrounding flesh at least a little, and if a syringe was responsible, it wasn't any she'd ever seen. He didn't let her elaborate as the next image sprang onto the screen. "How's your chemistry? This is the substance found in the surrounding tissue." She stared at the complex molecule diagram for a moment, confused by what seemed at first glance to be entirely familiar, and then her mouth dropped. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Now what the *hell* was this? It had all the right elements, but they were in all the wrong places. "It's organic." That much was obvious. "I don't know. Is it some kind of synthetic protein?" And if it was, who on this planet was capable of synthesizing something like this? Mother of God. This was completely unbelievable. Scully felt excitement flush through her. Whatever trip Mulder was on, it was obvious it wasn't boring. It would take years of painstaking work to develop a molecule like this one. There was no way in hell he could've done it just to throw her for a loop, unless he was even more of a genius than his personnel file let on. And even then, he would've had to spend every waking moment from the age of two working on nothing but this. Plus he would have had to know why he was doing it. In advance. Quite a coup for a two-year-old. "Beats me," he said cheerfully, which pretty much nixed the super-genius theory. "I've never seen it before either." God. He talked as though this kind of weirdness was completely run-of-the-mill. Scully felt another flood of excitement, a strange one this time because it was intellectual, which she was used to, but there was an emotional component to it too, and stranger still a physical surge which licked at her loins with a clenching heat, suddenly, and she felt her body's answering moisture. If Mulder could be this lackadaisical about this, what did that say for the things he'd already seen? It was gonna be one hell of a party. As the next slide slid on to the screen, she allowed herself to acknowledge that while emotional excitement wasn't uncommon for her in the face of a new challenge, physical arousal certainly was. Another body lay spread out before her with identical marks. "But here it is again in Sturgis, South Dakota..." And then another. "...and again in Shamrock, Texas." She turned and gazed at Mulder. Her eyes had adjusted somewhat and she was just able to see his features in the complex play of shadow and light. Son of a bitch. He was actually beautiful. Scully wasn't sure what it was he saw on her face, but it had an immediate impact on him. His jaw slackened and he blinked. Once. Joy ran through her like quicksilver for no good reason at all, and she almost laughed out loud. He was responding to her, to her excitement; his mind and his body alike. She could feel it. She knew intuitively that this was an unusual moment for him, that she'd reached him without knowing how she'd done it. It was powerful and almost overwhelming, but Scully knew it had more to do with the fact that she shared his excitement. Without mocking him. Without expecting him to compromise. When she spoke, her voice bordered on husky. "Do you have a theory?" He stood and continued to gape at her for a moment before coughing once and closing his mouth. Then he walked towards her slowly. She fought the urge to draw back. "I have plenty of theories." He paused for a moment before closing the distance between them. By the time he stopped moving, he was inches from her. She could feel his heat radiate against her skin as he leaned in. Dammit. Screw these tactics. He was obviously trying to unnerve her. She didn't budge an inch and stood firm as his inexplicably salty breath raked her face. "But maybe what you can explain to me is why it's Bureau policy to label these cases as 'unexplained phenomena' and ignore them." His breath was warm and soft as silk. "Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?" He said it like someone who expected derision, who welcomed it, in fact. It was her turn to blink. Of course. He was going to play it as outrageously as he could. He wanted to make her dismiss him as a complete flake. He wanted to make her leave. Hah. It seemed then that he sniffed her but it might have been an illusion brought on by his proximity. Scully took a deep breath. He couldn't make her leave, but there was no way in hell he'd make her lie either. "Logically, I would have to say no. Given the distances needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the energy requirements would exceed a spacecraft's capabilities..." She trailed off as he nodded wearily and rolled his eyes, leaning back. Incredibly, his sudden absence tore at her. "Conventional wisdom," he snapped, and his eyes were suddenly dark. "You know, this Oregon female, she's the fourth person in her graduating class to die under mysterious circumstances." She pursed her lips. That was interesting. It also proved absolutely nothing. "Now when convention and science offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?" The delivery and even the choice of words were melodramatic, but Scully sensed an almost painful sincerity behind them. There was something excruciatingly raw about it. Except... She still had to be true to what she was. "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." He was smiling again, and nodding. There was thinly veiled amusement in the way he did it, but she could've sworn he was pleased too, for some reason. What the hell. He might as well find out now what he was up against. "What I find fantastic," she continued, "is any notion there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there. You just have to know where to look." It proved impossible for her not to stress the word "you" just a little. He grinned at her almost happily, although the sarcasm continued unabated. "That's why they put the 'eye' in FBI." He turned away and walked towards his desk, and yet it seemed in that moment as though all the tension in the air had evaporated suddenly. There was nothing left but a pleasant warmth, a soft new camaraderie. Christ. He'd actually made her take some kind of test, hadn't he? And apparently, she'd passed. The *fucking* bastard. Well. At the very least, it should prove to be an interesting couple of years. "I'll see you tomorrow morning, Scully, bright and early," he said casually over his shoulder as he sat down again and leaned over the slides on his desk. "We leave for the very plausible state of Oregon at 8 am." She smiled. He didn't look back once as she closed the door softly behind her, and at that point she was stunned to find herself grinning widely. God. The poor bastard. He was in for it. Big time. She chortled. "Somebody STOP me..." END