Chapter Text
April 22, 1993
Outside Rumford, Maine
Scully sighed. “Look, I’m just saying that I don’t see why aliens would come all this way just to play doctor across the state of Maine.”
Mulder didn’t respond immediately, looking over at her instead.
He could see the tension in her shoulders and the small frustration lines creasing her otherwise soft face. She sat behind the wheel of their cheap rental car, driving them back to Washington D.C after a long and fruitless week investigating. He wasn’t sure if her source of stress was him or the case, but he was inclined to think it was probably both.
They’d spent the better part of the week driving across Maine, an otherwise beautiful part of the upper east coast. They’d been called in to investigate a particularly violent string of murders in several towns that had all taken place over the last week. The victims had all been mysteriously disemboweled despite no apparent external wounds on any of the bodies.
Scully thought it was just a single sick and twisted individual perpetrating all of these crimes. Mulder wasn’t buying her theory. And of course, she wasn’t buying his either.
“So instead, you think that someone was travelling across the state, every single day – hell, sometimes multiple times a night – and murdering these people without leaving a trace?” Mulder contested, leaning forward in his seat to look directly at her.
Scully shot him an annoyed look. “They didn’t leave no trace, Mulder, and you know that.”
Mulder threw his hands up in the air. “You said yourself that it was amazing someone could have gotten so many organs out of someone’s mouth without dislocating a single jaw!”
“I said amazing, not impossible.”
Mulder huffed. “Same difference.”
“No, it’s not and you know it.”
Mulder pouted a little, hoping Scully was focused enough on the road that she couldn’t see. But in the short time he’d worked with her, he’d learned that nothing ever seemed to get by Scully.
“Mulder, I entertained all of your theories this entire week. I spent half of my time elbow deep in autopsies while you got to spend every day going out on a joyride with Detective Horn.”
Mulder rolled his eyes. “We were investigating the crime scenes.”
Scully scoffed. “I’m sure you were. Is that why I saw her slipping you her phone number this morning?”
“It was a professional courtesy.” Mulder crossed his arms in front of him, feeling a little like a child. “And she listened to my theories.”
Scully snorted. “I’ll bet she did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Scully, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.” He knew it might be a bit of a reach, but he wanted to get a reaction out of her.
“What would I be jealous of? I didn’t want to get to know Detective Horn.”
Mulder raised his eyebrows. "Well now that you've put that thought in my head..."
Scully glanced at him briefly. “Don’t get any ideas, Mulder.”
“Don’t worry, I used up all of my best ideas and theories this week.”
She begrudgingly smiled a little at that. “Be careful. There’s still time for me to request a transfer.” Her words didn’t have any bite, so Mulder knew she wasn’t being serious.
“Maybe I could get Detective Horn to join the Bureau.” Mulder waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Scully laughed at that. “In your dreams.”
“Well, I do have very vivid dreams.” He smiled broadly, but Scully didn’t grace him with any sort of acknowledgment.
Mulder and Scully fell silent. Mulder had hardly known Scully for more than a month and yet she already seemed to confound him at every turn. She’d come in as a scientist, a skeptic, assigned to do nothing but discredit his work until he found himself unable to justify keeping the X-Files open any longer.
He’d been prepared for her to shut him down and ignore him. What he hadn’t expected was for her to genuinely challenge him. And he certainly hadn’t expected that he would actually like her.
Mulder leaned his head back against the seat, making himself comfortable. Maybe he wouldn’t have to scare her off like he’d done with all of the other agents who had been assigned to him in the past.
With Mulder lost in thought, Scully finally broke the silence. “Mulder, why don’t I ever get to drive?”
“You’re driving right now.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever driven in the month and a half we’ve worked together,” Scully protested. “And it’s only because you were too busy talking to the Detective to notice it was time to leave.”
“Do you want to drive more?” Mulder asked.
“We are partners, aren’t we?”
Mulder turned a little more serious. He did like her and respect her and, against all the odds, wanted her to stay on the X-Files with him. “Of course.”
“Well then it only seems fair.”
“Then you can drive whenever you want.”
Scully nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Besides, I had to do all the dirty work this week.”
Mulder laughed. “So why would you want to have to do all the driving too?”
“I want to be able to pull off and stop the moment I see an ice cream parlor.”
Mulder put his arms behind his head, relaxing further into his seat. “Well, you wouldn’t have had to do much convincing to get me to agree to that.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
“However, I will not acquiesce that easily on our report to Skinner. I still think it was aliens.”
“Luckily, our reports don’t have to match.”
“Scully, I have to justify every mis-matched report.” Mulder ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a nightmare.”
Scully smiled. “Good, you earned it after this one.”
Mulder pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Do you think you’ll ever agree with my theories?”
“If presented with the appropriate empirical evidence, which validated your claims, I could foresee a situation in which I would possibly…”
“But do you really ever think you’ll agree with them?” Mulder cut her off.
Scully chuckled. “Probably not.”
Mulder sighed. “Well, this probably wouldn’t be a good partnership if you did.”
Scully smiled. “Then this partnership is sure to last a lifetime in that case.”
Mulder laughed and Scully flicked on the turn signal as they approached an exit with a sign for Amish dairy products. At least that was one thing they could agree on.