Chapter Text
The basement office of the FBI had never been mistaken for inviting.
It sat beneath the Bureau like an afterthought, an administrative exile where discarded cases and inconvenient agents were quietly filed away. The air carried the faint smell of old paper and stale coffee, layered with the metallic chill of aging ventilation ducts that rattled every few minutes as if clearing their throats. The fluorescent light above Fox Mulder’s desk hummed with the stubborn persistence of something that had been threatening to die for at least six years but refused to commit. It buzzed overhead like an irritated insect, casting everything below it in a washed-out shade of bureaucratic misery: grey filing cabinets dented at the corners, beige walls scarred by decades of pushpins and tape, government-issued furniture assembled with all the enthusiasm of someone building a coffin.
Mulder leaned back in his chair with the casual sprawl of someone who had long ago accepted that this office was both punishment and home. His feet were propped on the corner of his desk, ankles crossed, chair tilted onto its back legs in a way that would have given a safety inspector an aneurysm. A basketball spun lazily on the tip of his index finger, its scuffed surface whispering against his skin as it rotated. The ball wobbled dangerously. Mulder compensated without looking, adjusting his finger with unconscious precision. He caught it before it fell, tossed it lightly into the air, and caught it again.
Across the room, Dana Scully didn’t look up from the file spread open in front of her. She sat at her desk with the straight-backed composure of someone who treated even basement paperwork like it deserved professional respect. A pen rested between her fingers, the tip hovering above the page as she read. A lock of auburn hair had escaped the neat curve behind her ear, catching the pale fluorescent light as she leaned forward slightly.
“Mulder.”
He hummed absently, the sound low in his throat.
“If that hits the ceiling again,” she said without lifting her eyes from the report, “Skinner is going to personally nail you to the floor.”
Mulder flicked the basketball higher. It rose in a slow arc toward the buzzing fluorescent fixture. “Relax, Scully,” he said, watching the trajectory with easy confidence. “My aim is impeccable.”
The ball clipped the plastic casing with a hollow thunk. The light flickered violently. For half a second, the office plunged into dim shadow before the bulb steadied again with a resentful buzz.
Scully slowly closed the file in front of her. She lifted her gaze.
Mulder winced as he caught the ball on the rebound. “Okay,” he admitted. “Maybe impeccable was an exaggeration.”
Scully folded her arms. The movement was small, but Mulder had learned long ago that it meant judgment was coming. “You have the coordination of a Labrador puppy.”
“That’s unfair,” Mulder said immediately. “Labradors are famously coordinated.”
“And trainable.”
Mulder pointed at her. “Careful, Scully. That sounded suspiciously like optimism.”
She raised one eyebrow. It was a look she had perfected over five years of partnership: scepticism distilled into a single elegant expression. “Mulder, the day you follow a direct instruction the first time it’s given, will be the day the Bureau officially reclassifies you as an unidentified phenomenon.”
Mulder tilted his head thoughtfully. “Ah,” he said. “So that’s why I’m down here.”
Scully tried, truly tried, not to smile. She lasted about two seconds. The corner of her mouth lifted before she could stop it.
Mulder saw it instantly. His eyes lit with victory. “There it is,” he said, pointing triumphantly across the room. “A smile. I knew if I kept throwing things at government property long enough, I’d break through.”
“I wasn’t smiling.”
“You were smiling.”
“I was not smiling.”
Mulder leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice as if they were discussing classified intelligence. “Scully,” he said conspiratorially, “as a trained investigator, I feel compelled to inform you that lying to a federal agent is a felony.”
Her lips twitched again. “Then I suppose you should arrest me.”
Mulder rocked back in his chair again, the legs creaking faintly under the shift in his weight. “Tempting,” he said thoughtfully, his eyes dancing with delight. He studied her across the room. The fluorescent light softened the sharp edges of the office but did nothing to dull the clarity of her presence. Scully had a way of occupying space that made the rest of the room feel secondary: quietly centred, quietly certain. She had one hand resting against the file again, the sleeve of her jacket pushed slightly back at the wrist. A faint trace of perfume drifted across the room whenever the air vent stirred, something clean and subtle that Mulder had long ago stopped consciously noticing and yet always recognised.
He dragged his attention back to the conversation before it wandered somewhere dangerous. “But the paperwork would be a nightmare.”
Scully tilted her head. “You’re avoiding paperwork? I’m shocked.”
Mulder tossed the basketball into the air again. It spun once before settling back into his palm. “Scully,” he said gravely, “there are limits to what a man can endure.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Alien abductions, government conspiracies, spontaneous human combustion: fine. But paperwork?” He shook his head solemnly. “That’s where I draw the line.”
Scully looked at him for a moment. Mulder felt it the way he always did when she did that, the sudden awareness of her attention settling on him like a physical thing. Scully picked up another file from the precarious stack at the corner of her desk, sliding it toward herself with the resigned efficiency of someone who had long ago accepted that paperwork in the X-Files office reproduced faster than either of them could reasonably process it.
“Try doing your actual job sometime.” She announced, but there was no heat in her words.
Mulder made a low, theatrical sigh, the kind designed to communicate deep and personal suffering. “My job,” he said, tilting his chair back another inch, “according to the Bureau, is to chase imaginary monsters and ruin perfectly good budgets.”
Scully didn’t look up right away. She uncapped her pen, the small click sharp against the steady hum of the fluorescent light overhead. The scent of ink mixed faintly with the dusty smell of aging case files. “You do chase imaginary monsters.”
Mulder straightened slightly in his chair, offended in the exaggerated way he often was when she challenged one of his theories. “Excuse me,” he said. “They’re not imaginary.” He caught the basketball as it began to roll toward the edge of his desk, spinning it once against his palm. “They’re just… poorly documented.”
Scully flipped open the folder she’d just retrieved. The brittle pages rustled softly as she skimmed the first report. “Mulder,” she said, without looking up, “the last case file you submitted included the phrase ‘probe-able interdimensional goat man.’”
Mulder held up a finger immediately. “Probable,” he corrected. He leaned forward across his desk, resting his elbows on the scattered papers. “As in supported by evidence, Scully.”
She finally looked up at him. Her expression was calm. Professional. But Mulder had spent five years studying the minute shifts in her face. He could see the scepticism gathering in the slight narrowing of her eyes.
“That word,” she said evenly, “is doing a lot of work.”
Mulder shrugged. “You didn’t see the goat.”
“Because there wasn’t a goat.”
Mulder leaned forward a little more, lowering his voice like he was sharing classified intelligence. “Scully,” he said quietly, “you wound me.”
She returned her attention to the file. “Good.”
Mulder pressed a hand to his chest. “Your lack of faith in my goat-related investigative instincts is frankly devastating.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover.”
Mulder watched her for a moment. Scully had shifted slightly in her chair, one elbow resting on the desk as she leaned over the report. A strand of hair had fallen loose again, brushing against her cheek as she read. She reached up absently and tucked it behind her ear without looking up. Mulder’s gaze lingered a moment longer than necessary. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “one day you're going to regret dismissing my goat man hypothesis.”
Scully flipped a page. “That seems unlikely.”
“History is full of scientists who ignored groundbreaking discoveries.”
“History,” Scully said dryly, “is also full of people who believed they’d discovered Bigfoot in their backyard.”
Mulder tilted his head. “Technically, that one’s still under investigation.”
Scully sighed softly through her nose. “You’re impossible.”
Mulder smiled faintly. “And yet you keep showing up to work alongside me.”
She didn’t answer that. But for a moment, she stopped reading. Her eyes lifted again, meeting his across the small, cluttered room.
There was something familiar in that look, something quiet and unspoken that had been building slowly between them over the years of shared cases, late nights, and long drives through dark stretches of highway. The kind of look that existed somewhere between affection and exasperation. Mulder felt it like a shift in the air pressure. Then Scully blinked and returned her attention to the report. Mulder leaned back again, rocking slightly in his chair as the familiar hum of the basement filled the silence between them. For a few seconds, the only sounds were the soft turning of paper and the faint whir of the overhead light.
Mulder spun the basketball once more against his palm. “You know,” he said.
Scully didn’t look up.
“That goat had motive.”
Her pen stopped moving. Slowly, she closed the file again and lifted her head. “Mulder.”
“Yes?”
“If you say the word goat one more time today —”
Mulder held up both hands in surrender. “Fine. I’ll drop it.”
Scully studied him suspiciously. “You’re not going to drop it.”
Mulder smiled. “Not internally.”
She shook her head. But the corner of her mouth betrayed her again. Mulder noticed immediately. Of course he did.
He leaned forward slightly. “There it is again.”
Scully frowned. “What?”
“That smile.”
“I wasn’t smiling.”
Mulder pointed at her face as if he’d just uncovered critical forensic evidence. “You absolutely were.”
Scully exhaled slowly. “Mulder.”
“Yes, Scully?”
“Do your job.”
Mulder picked up the case file in front of him and flipped it open. He studied the first page for a moment. Then he glanced back up at her. “Technically,” he said, “I am doing my job.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Mulder leaned back again, resting the file against his chest. “I’m maintaining morale.”
Scully looked at him for a long moment. Then she shook her head again and went back to work. But this time, the faintest hint of amusement lingered in her eyes. And Mulder, watching her from across the room, felt the quiet satisfaction of someone who had once again managed to make Agent Dana Katherine Scully smile. Even if she would deny it under oath. Mulder continued to study her for a few more moments. Not casually, the way partners glanced up from paperwork or traded quick looks across a desk. This was the slower kind of attention he rarely let himself indulge in for long, the kind that lingered just a second too long and then pretended it hadn’t.
Scully sat at the desk opposite his, one leg crossed neatly over the other as she leaned over the file in front of her. The fluorescent light above them caught the copper strands in her auburn hair, turning them almost gold at the edges where the light touched. It wasn’t flattering light, not the sort anyone would choose, but somehow it still found the quiet precision in her features.
She had a pen tucked behind one ear, the way she often did when she was deep into a report. A few pages of notes were spread across the desk beside her, covered in her compact, meticulous handwriting. Mulder knew that handwriting better than he knew most people’s voices. The faint crease between her brows told him she was concentrating. The subtle tilt of her head meant she was already building a counterargument to whatever theory he had proposed earlier that morning. It was a look he had seen thousands of times.
And somehow it had never gotten old.
He had spent five years across from this desk. Five years of late nights under the same humming fluorescent lights. Five years of bad motel coffee that tasted like it had been brewed sometime during the Carter administration. Five years of cheap rental cars and endless highways stretching out under dark skies while they argued about science, mythology, probability, and whether Elvis Presley might theoretically have faked his death to escape the pressures of fame.
Five years of chasing things no one else believed existed. Five years of watching Scully raise one eyebrow every time he proposed something ridiculous. Five years of knowing exactly what that expression meant. Scepticism. Curiosity. Amusement she was trying not to show.
Mulder leaned back slightly in his chair, the basketball forgotten for the moment in his hands. There were details he noticed automatically now. The way she rested her weight slightly on her left elbow when she read. The small sigh she made when she reached the end of a particularly poorly written report. The way her hair fell forward when she leaned closer to a page. He didn’t remember when he’d started noticing those things. Just that now they were part of the landscape of his day.
Across the room, Scully finished reading a paragraph and made a quick note in the margin. Mulder realised he had been watching her long enough that the silence between them had changed shape. Scully paused. Slowly, she looked up. Her eyes met his across the cluttered room.
“Why are you staring at me?”
Mulder blinked. He hadn’t realised she’d noticed. “I’m not staring.”
“You’re staring.”
“I’m observing.”
Scully leaned back slightly in her chair, folding her arms with the familiar patience of someone who had heard every variation of Mulder’s excuses before. “You’re staring.”
Mulder picked up the basketball and held it up defensively, like physical evidence. “I’m thinking.”
“That’s worse.”
Mulder frowned faintly. “How is thinking worse?”
Scully gestured vaguely toward him. “Because whenever you’re thinking, Mulder, it usually means you’re about to say something scientifically irresponsible.”
Mulder tilted his head. “That’s a very narrow view of intellectual curiosity.”
“Your intellectual curiosity once led you to suggest a haunted vending machine.”
“It was suspiciously aggressive.”
Scully shook her head faintly. “You tried to interrogate it.”
Mulder spread his hands. “It wouldn’t release the snack cakes.”
“That’s because you hadn’t put money in it.”
Mulder considered that. “Details.”
Scully watched him for a moment longer. There was a small shift in her expression now, something softer than the dry scepticism she usually aimed at him. “Mulder,” she said quietly.
“Yes?”
“Seriously. Why were you staring?”
Mulder opened his mouth. For a moment, the answer hovered somewhere in his chest.
Because you’re the most interesting thing in this room. Because five years somehow doesn’t feel like enough time. Because the thought crossed my mind this morning that if you ever left this office, it would feel unbearably quiet.
The thoughts flashed through his mind in a single, uncomfortable burst of clarity. Mulder shut them down immediately. He leaned back in his chair instead, spinning the basketball lazily again.
“Just conducting a psychological evaluation.”
Scully narrowed her eyes slightly. “Of me?”
“Yes.”
“And your professional conclusion?”
Mulder studied her again, letting the moment stretch. “Well,” he said thoughtfully. “You show classic signs of chronic-Fox Mulder-exposure.”
Scully blinked once. “Is that a diagnosis now?”
“Absolutely.”
“And the symptoms?”
Mulder ticked them off on his fingers. “Excessive eye-rolling. Heightened scepticism. Unusual tolerance for paranormal discussion.” He tilted his head slightly. “And occasional smiling despite your better judgment.”
Scully held his gaze for a moment. Then she shook her head faintly and turned back to the file in front of her. “You’re impossible. And I have work to do.”
Mulder watched her return to work. The quiet settled back into the room again, the hum of the fluorescent light, the rustle of paper as she turned another page. He spun the basketball once more against his fingertip.
The moment passed. Or at least it pretended to. Mulder leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling.
“Still staring,” Scully said without looking up.
Mulder smirked. “Still observing.”
Before Mulder could annoy her further, the phone on his desk rang. The sound cut through the quiet of the basement office like a fire alarm in a library: sharp, insistent, impossible to ignore. Both of them looked at it. The phone sat between the stacks of files on Mulder’s desk; its beige plastic casing scuffed with age. It rang again, shrill and impatient, vibrating slightly against the clutter of papers around it. Mulder didn’t reach for it immediately. He let it ring once more, leaning back in his chair as if the act of answering a phone required a moment of deep psychological preparation. Across the room, Scully watched him over the rim of the file she had reopened.
“Mulder.”
He lifted a finger without looking at her. “Timing is everything, Scully.”
The phone rang again. Mulder finally leaned forward and picked up the receiver. “Mulder.” There was a pause. Mulder’s posture shifted almost imperceptibly. The casual slump left his shoulders, replaced by something straighter, more attentive. “Yes, sir.”
Across the desk, Scully noticed immediately. She had spent long enough around him to recognise the subtle differences between Mulder speaking to a witness, Mulder speaking to a suspect, and Mulder speaking to someone who could technically suspend him. Another pause. Mulder listened, his eyes drifting briefly toward Scully as if checking that she was paying attention. Which, of course, she was. His expression remained neutral, but the small crease forming between his eyebrows suggested whatever Skinner was saying wasn’t routine.
Mulder nodded once. “We’ll be right up.” He hung up the receiver slowly. The phone clicked back into place with a soft plastic snap. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Scully set her pen down carefully beside the open file. “That sounded ominous.”
Mulder drummed his fingers lightly against the surface of his desk, the rhythm quick and absent-minded. “That,” he said, “was our favourite bald authoritarian.”
Scully exhaled through her nose. “Skinner.”
Mulder nodded. “The one and only.”
Scully leaned back slightly in her chair, studying him. “Did he say what this is about?”
Mulder shook his head. “Nope.”
“You didn’t ask?”
Mulder gave her a look. “Scully, if Skinner wants you to know something in advance, he tells you. If he doesn’t…” He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. “…you find out in person.”
Scully folded her arms loosely. “Did he sound angry?”
Mulder tilted his head thoughtfully. “Not… actively.”
Scully grimaced. “That’s not reassuring.”
Mulder pushed himself out of his chair and reached for the jacket hanging on the backrest.
“To be fair,” he said as he shrugged it on, “Skinner always sounds like he’s one bad day away from declaring martial law.”
“That’s because you keep giving him reasons.”
Mulder scoffed. “I give him opportunities.”
“For disciplinary action.”
“Tomato, tomahto.”
He grabbed the basketball from his desk and tossed it lazily toward the battered cabinets against the far wall. It bounced off one drawer with a dull thump and rolled under a filing cabinet, disappearing into the shadows. Mulder didn’t bother retrieving it. Instead, he turned back toward Scully. She was standing now, smoothing the front of her jacket in that automatic, practiced gesture she always made before heading upstairs. Mulder watched the motion. He wasn’t entirely sure why. It was something he’d seen her do hundreds of times before, straightening the lapel, brushing invisible lint from the sleeve, tugging the hemline into place with quiet precision. But something about the small familiarity of it made the room feel suddenly still.
Scully looked up. She caught him watching. “What?”
Mulder blinked. “Nothing.”
Scully’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Mulder.”
He lifted his hands in surrender. “Just thinking.”
“That’s rarely comforting.”
Mulder tilted his head toward the door. “After you, Agent Scully.”
She held his gaze for another moment, as if weighing whether he was actually telling the truth. Then she shook her head faintly. But she walked past him toward the hallway. As she did, the faint scent of her perfume drifted past him again, clean and understated, something Mulder had never been able to identify but had long ago associated exclusively with her. He stepped aside to let her pass. For a moment, they were close enough that their shoulders almost brushed.
Neither commented on it. Scully stepped into the hallway first. Mulder followed a second later, switching off the office light behind them out of habit. The fluorescent hum faded as the door closed. For a moment, the hallway seemed quieter than usual.
Mulder fell into step beside her. Their footsteps echoed faintly against the linoleum floor as they started toward the elevator. Neither of them spoke. But there was something in the silence now, something subtle but noticeable, as if the air pressure had shifted. Mulder shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. Scully glanced sideways at him.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said again.
She didn’t believe him. But she didn’t push. They reached the elevator. Mulder pressed the button. The doors slid open with a mechanical sigh. As they stepped inside, Mulder felt the familiar, fleeting awareness that something about this moment felt… different.
He couldn’t have explained why. Just a faint sense that whatever waited in Skinner’s office upstairs wasn’t going to be routine. And that somehow, inexplicably, the quiet rhythm of this basement office might be about to change. The elevator doors slid shut behind them with a soft metallic thud. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The car gave a small mechanical shudder as it began its slow climb upward through the building, the cables humming faintly somewhere above the ceiling panels. The fluorescent light inside the elevator flickered once before settling into the same tired glow as the basement office. Scully leaned lightly against the brushed steel wall, one hand resting near the control panel. Mulder stood beside her, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, watching the red digital numbers blink slowly as they began to climb.
The silence lingered just long enough to feel noticeable. Scully broke it first. “Do you think this is about the Pennsylvania case?”
Mulder grimaced immediately. “Technically,” he said, “that was more of a misunderstanding.”
Scully turned her head slightly, studying him. “You chased a suspected murderer into an abandoned coal mine without backup.”
Mulder lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I left a note.”
“You left a Post-it.”
Mulder nodded, as if that clarified everything. “Exactly. Efficient communication.”
Scully exhaled slowly. The sound carried just a hint of long-suffering patience. “Mulder, you’re going to give Skinner a heart attack.”
Mulder tilted his head toward her, considering the idea. “He’d need a heart first.”
Scully didn’t respond. But the corner of her mouth lifted again, betraying the small spark of amusement she was trying to suppress. Mulder noticed immediately. He leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice as if sharing a confidential observation.
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“That smile.”
Scully rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the elevator display. The numbers ticked upward. Three. Four. The elevator hummed steadily, the quiet mechanical rhythm filling the small space. Mulder glanced sideways at her.
“You look nervous.”
Scully didn’t look at him. “I’m not nervous.”
Mulder tilted his head slightly, studying her. “You’re doing that thing with your hands.”
That got her attention. “What thing?”
Mulder gestured subtly. “The finger tapping.”
Scully looked down. Her index finger had indeed been tapping lightly against the metal rail beside the control panel. She stopped immediately. Mulder’s mouth curved into a satisfied smirk.
“See?”
She shot him a look. “Mulder.”
“Yes, Scully?”
“If this turns out to be about the expense reports you forgot to submit —”
“They weren’t forgotten.”
Scully turned toward him fully now, folding her arms. “You submitted them three months late.”
Mulder nodded calmly. “I was gathering supporting evidence.”
“Receipts.”
“Yes.”
“You were gathering receipts.”
Mulder spread his hands, as if the entire situation should be self-evident. “You say that like it’s simple.”
Scully stared at him. “Mulder.”
“Yes?”
“Most people obtain receipts at the time of purchase.”
Mulder considered that. “Short-sighted strategy.”
“Short-sighted?”
“Yes. Leaves no room for investigative follow-up.”
Scully shook her head faintly. “You bought sunflower seeds at a gas station.”
Mulder pointed at her approvingly. “And I verified the transaction thoroughly.”
Scully looked at the ceiling briefly, as if appealing to a higher authority. “Skinner is going to suspend you someday.”
Mulder leaned one shoulder against the wall of the elevator, completely unconcerned. “That seems unlikely.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Mulder glanced at her. “Because then he’d have to explain the X-Files to someone else.”
That earned him another reluctant flicker of amusement. Scully tried to hide it. She failed. Mulder caught it anyway.
The elevator slowed slightly as it approached the upper floors, the hum of the motor shifting pitch. The small space suddenly felt quieter. Closer. Mulder became faintly aware of how near they were standing, close enough that he could catch the familiar, subtle scent of her perfume beneath the sterile smell of the elevator. He shifted his weight slightly.
“So,” he said lightly, “if this isn’t about the expense reports —”
“It probably isn’t.”
“— and it’s not about the coal mine misunderstanding—”
“It was not a misunderstanding.”
Mulder ignored that. “Then maybe Skinner just wants to congratulate us.”
Scully raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
Mulder gestured vaguely. “Five years of exemplary service.”
Scully gave him a look that suggested she found that deeply unlikely. The elevator gave a soft chime. The doors slid open. Mulder pushed himself away from the wall as the hallway outside came into view.
Agents moved past carrying folders and coffee cups, the quiet bustle of the upper floors of the Bureau replacing the relative isolation of the basement. Scully stepped out first. Mulder followed beside her. For a moment, they walked in silence toward Skinner’s office at the end of the corridor. Mulder glanced sideways at her again.
“You’re still tapping your finger.” Scully immediately stopped. Mulder smiled faintly. “Definitely nervous.”
She didn’t look at him. “I’m not nervous.”
Mulder nodded thoughtfully. “Right.”
They reached Skinner’s door. Scully lifted her hand and knocked.
“Come in.”
She pushed the door open. And whatever quiet rhythm had carried them through the years of partnership was about to shift.
Assistant Director Walter Skinner sat behind his desk, glasses low on his nose, a file open in front of him. The office was quiet in the deliberate, controlled way Skinner seemed to prefer. The blinds were half drawn against the late morning light, leaving long horizontal bands of shadow across the walls. The faint scent of coffee and polished wood lingered in the air. Skinner didn’t look up immediately when they entered. He finished scanning the line in front of him, turned a page with precise care, and only then lifted his head. “Agents.”
Mulder and Scully stepped inside. The door closed softly behind them. Mulder had been in this office countless times over the years, sometimes for briefings, sometimes for reprimands, occasionally for something that resembled approval. He knew Skinner’s moods almost as well as he knew Scully’s expressions.
And something about the atmosphere in the room felt… off. Skinner removed his glasses slowly, folding the arms and setting them carefully on top of the open file. The small, deliberate movement seemed to carry more weight than usual. Mulder felt something shift in the room. It wasn’t dramatic. Just the faint sense of gravity settling over the space, like the moment before a storm finally breaks. Skinner stood. Mulder noticed that too. Skinner didn’t always bother standing for routine conversations.
“Agent Scully,” Skinner said. His voice was measured. Controlled and professional. But there was something in it Mulder couldn’t immediately identify. Something quieter. Something reluctant. Scully straightened slightly beside him.
“Yes, sir.”
Skinner rested his hands against the back of his chair. “Effective next week,” he began, “you’re being temporarily reassigned to the Los Angeles Field Office.”
The words seemed to land in the room and echo. For a moment, Mulder was certain he had misheard. His brain rejected the sentence entirely, like a piece of information that didn’t fit any known category.
Next week.
Reassigned.
Los Angeles.
He blinked once. Across from him, Scully did the same. Just once.
“Sir?” she said.
Skinner clasped his hands behind his back. “The Bureau has requested your assistance with several ongoing investigations in California,” he continued. “The assignment will last approximately eight months.”
Eight months. The number landed harder this time. Mulder felt something in his chest tighten sharply. Not anger. Not confusion. Something closer to panic. It flared suddenly and unexpectedly, like the floor had shifted under his feet.
Eight months.
His brain tried to calculate it automatically. Eight months meant —
Eight months without Scully sitting across from him in the basement office. Eight months of cases without her voice cutting through his worst impulses. Eight months of empty desks and unanswered observations and motel rooms where the adjoining room stayed unused. The thought struck so abruptly that Mulder almost physically reacted to it.
He stopped himself just in time. Instead, he laughed. The sound came out sharper than he intended. “Eight months?”
Skinner’s eyes shifted to him. “Yes, Agent Mulder.”
Mulder spread his hands in a loose gesture of exaggerated confusion. “So, what,” he said lightly, “we’re franchising the X-Files now?” His tone was casual. Amused. Exactly the kind of response Skinner had come to expect from him. Inside, however, that tight coil in his chest had only grown worse.
Skinner didn’t smile. “This is not a request.” The room went still.
Scully straightened beside Mulder, her posture shifting almost imperceptibly into professional attention.
“Sir, with respect —”
“The decision has already been finalised.” Skinner’s voice remained calm. But the finality in it left no room for debate.
Silence settled over the office. Mulder became suddenly aware of the faint ticking of the clock on Skinner’s wall. Each second sounded louder than it should have. He looked sideways. Scully’s expression had gone very still. Not upset. Not emotional. Just focused in that particular way she did when processing unexpected information. She glanced at him briefly. The look lasted less than a second. Then she turned back to Skinner.
“When would I be expected to leave?”
Skinner didn’t hesitate. “Three days.”
Mulder stared.
Three days.
That flicker of panic surged again, sharper this time. Three days wasn’t enough time. Three days were barely enough to pack a suitcase. Barely enough time to —
He cut the thought off immediately. Mulder forced himself to lean back slightly, adopting the relaxed posture that had gotten him through years of uncomfortable conversations with superiors.
Three days.
Fine.
No problem.
Totally normal.
Skinner’s voice softened slightly. “I understand the timing is… abrupt.”
Mulder forced a crooked grin. “Well,” he said lightly, turning his head toward Scully, “on the bright side, Scully, California has excellent weather.”
The joke landed in the room and fell flat. Scully didn’t look at him. She was still watching Skinner. Mulder’s smile held anyway. Because it was easier than letting that sudden, sharp feeling in his chest show on his face.
Skinner closed the file on his desk with a quiet, deliberate motion. “That will be all.”
Mulder nodded once. “Sure thing.”
Scully murmured, “Yes, sir.”
They turned toward the door. Mulder opened it for her automatically. Scully stepped through first. Mulder followed a second later, pulling the door shut behind them. And the moment it clicked closed, the reality of what Skinner had just said began to settle in. Eight months. Mulder shoved his hands into his pockets as they walked down the hallway. Three days. He forced the same easy grin back into place. Because if he let himself think about it too much... The quiet rhythm of the past five years had just been broken. And Mulder wasn’t ready to admit how much that mattered.
The hallway felt longer on the way out. Mulder had walked this corridor hundreds of times, sometimes after arguments with Skinner, sometimes after briefings, sometimes after being politely told to stop chasing things the Bureau insisted didn’t exist. Usually, the walk back felt quick, almost automatic. Today, the stretch of polished linoleum seemed to go on forever. The muted hum of the Bureau carried through the floor above them: distant voices, ringing phones, the steady shuffle of agents moving through their day. Life continued in that quiet, bureaucratic rhythm that had nothing to do with what had just happened in Skinner’s office.
Mulder walked beside Scully, aware of her in that particular way he always was in close quarters; the quiet precision of her stride, the faint brush of her sleeve near his arm when they turned the corner. Neither of them spoke. Not immediately. Not while they passed two junior agents coming the other direction. Not while the elevator doors opened and closed down the hall. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was something else. Something heavier.
They reached the corner of the hallway where it bent toward the elevator banks. Scully stopped walking. Mulder stopped, too. For a moment, they simply stood there. Agents moved past them, footsteps echoing softly across the floor, but neither of them seemed to notice. Mulder shifted his weight slightly.
Finally, he spoke, too casually. “So.”
Scully nodded once. “So.”
Three days. The number hung between them like an unspoken sentence. Mulder shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, rocking slightly on his heels as if trying to shake off a stiffness in his shoulders.
“That’s… sudden.”
“Yes.” Scully’s voice was calm. Professional. Exactly the way she always sounded when something complicated was happening inside her head.
Mulder studied the floor for a moment before glancing back up. “You ever been to Los Angeles?”
Scully nodded faintly. “Once.”
Mulder lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Medical conference.”
Mulder nodded thoughtfully, as if mentally cataloguing this information. “Good tacos.”
The corner of Scully’s mouth twitched faintly. She looked at him then. Mulder felt it immediately. That quiet, focused attention she sometimes gave him when she was trying to read something beneath his words. Mulder forced a crooked smile.
“Hey,” he said lightly. “Eight months.” He tried to make it sound small. Temporary. Practically nothing.
Scully exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
Neither of them said what they were actually thinking. Neither of them said that eight months was the longest they had ever gone without working a case together. Neither of them said that the thought of walking into the basement office and not seeing the other one there felt… wrong. They had faced things together that most agents would never even believe existed. Aliens. Government conspiracies that stretched back decades. Things that moved in the dark with too many teeth. They had stood in forests where something was hunting them. Sat in hospital rooms waiting to see if the other one would wake up. Trusted each other with their lives more times than either of them could count.
But somehow this, eight months apart, felt worse.
Mulder cleared his throat, suddenly aware that the silence had stretched too long. “Well,” he said lightly, forcing a note of humour back into his voice, “look on the bright side, Scully.” She waited. “You won’t have to listen to my goat theories for a while.”
Scully shook her head. A quiet huff of breath escaped her, halfway between exasperation and amusement. “Mulder.”
“Yes?”
“You’ll still email me about them.”
Mulder considered that. “That’s a fair point.”
Scully’s smile appeared briefly then, small and reluctant, but genuine. The same smile he’d been coaxing out of her in the basement office only minutes ago. For a moment, the tension eased. Then the reality of Skinner’s words settled back in again.
Three days.
Scully shifted her weight slightly, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “I should start making arrangements,” she said quietly.
Mulder nodded. “Yeah.”
“Packing.”
“Utilities.”
“Temporary housing.”
Mulder nodded again, like each practical detail made perfect sense. Like, none of it bothered him at all. “Sounds… organised.”
Scully glanced at him again. “You’ll be alright here?”
Mulder gave a small, dismissive wave of his hand. “Scully, please.” He straightened slightly. “I survived thirty years before you showed up.” That wasn’t entirely true. But it sounded convincing enough. “I’ll manage.”
She held his gaze for a moment longer than necessary. Mulder met it with the same easy, crooked half-smile. Eventually, she nodded. “Good.”
They stood there for another quiet second. Neither of them quite ready to move. Finally, Scully gestured toward the elevator. “We should get back downstairs.”
Mulder nodded. “Yeah.”
They started walking again. Side by side. Not touching. Not speaking. But both of them were carrying the same quiet awareness that something fundamental had just shifted. And neither of them said the thing that frightened them both a little: That after five years of working together, almost every single day, the idea of doing it alone felt like stepping into the dark without a flashlight.
Scully had left early. To begin packing and organising things, she had said. Practical. Efficient. Exactly the way Scully approached everything, like a problem that could be solved if you just broke it down into the correct sequence of steps. Mulder had nodded when she said it, leaning back in his chair with the same easy expression he wore whenever he was pretending something didn’t bother him. Of course, Scully should leave early. There were arrangements to make. Flights to book. Housing to find. Utilities to suspend. A life to temporarily relocate three thousand miles across the country.
Perfectly reasonable. Completely normal.
Mulder had even made a joke about California traffic. She had smiled, briefly, and then gathered her files. And then she had gone. Now the basement office was quiet. The fluorescent light hummed steadily overhead, the same low electric buzz it had produced every day for the past five years. Somewhere in the ventilation system, a duct rattled faintly, the sound echoing through the walls like distant machinery. Mulder leaned back in his chair, staring at nothing in particular.
Eight months.
The words sat strangely in his head. They didn’t quite settle. It wasn’t permanent. Skinner had said that clearly enough.
Temporary reassignment.
Assistance to the Los Angeles field office.
Eight months.
Mulder rolled the phrase around in his mind like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. Eight months wasn’t forever. It also wasn’t nothing. He exhaled slowly and scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. The movement felt automatic, the same gesture he made whenever something complicated was forming in his thoughts. Mulder replayed the conversation in Skinner’s office again. Skinner standing behind his desk. The blinds casting thin strips of shadow across the room. Scully’s voice, calm and controlled, as she asked how long the assignment would last.
Approximately eight months.
Mulder grimaced faintly. Effective next week. Gone in three days. Three days felt less like preparation and more like a countdown. He shifted in his chair, letting it rock back slightly on its rear legs as he tried to approach the problem the way he would approach a case. Logically. Methodically. Without letting emotion cloud the analysis. Temporary assignment. Not punishment. At least not officially. Skinner hadn’t looked angry. Mulder had spent enough years irritating the Assistant Director to recognise that particular expression. This hadn’t been it. If anything —
Mulder frowned slightly.
If anything, Skinner had looked… reluctant. Which meant the decision had probably come from higher up the Bureau chain. Which meant someone above Skinner had decided that Agent Dana Katherine Scully was more useful somewhere else for the next eight months. Or perhaps simply less useful here. Mulder tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling.
Budget cuts. Restructuring. Administrative necessity.
Those were the phrases the Bureau liked to use. Mulder had heard them before. Usually, right before someone tried to bury the X-Files again. He let the chair rock forward and sat up. His gaze drifted across the office. Everything looked exactly the same. The same cluttered desks. The same stacks of case files. The same battered couch against the wall. The basketball was still wedged beneath the filing cabinet where he’d tossed it earlier.
And across the room ...
Scully’s desk.
Her pen still lay beside the open file she had been reviewing that morning. Her chair was pushed back slightly, angled away from the desk as if she had simply stepped out to grab coffee. Mulder stared at it for longer than he intended. It was strange how quickly the room felt different. Objectively, nothing had changed. The same light buzzed overhead. The same air circulated through the vents. But something about the space felt subtly off-balance now. Like a rhythm had been interrupted.
Mulder sighed deeply and sat up straighter in his chair. The leather creaked softly under his weight. For a moment, he just stared at the scattered paperwork in front of him. Autopsy reports. Witness statements. Photographs from the Baltimore case. Normally, Scully would be across from him by now, already organising the evidence into some logical sequence that made his half-formed theories easier to articulate. He glanced toward her desk again.
Empty.
Mulder leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head. Eight months. He tried to picture what that actually meant. Eight months of cases without Scully sitting across from him, raising one eyebrow every time he suggested something improbable. Eight months of explaining his theories to other agents who would almost certainly roll their eyes before he finished the sentence. Eight months of motel rooms and crime scenes and late nights spent chasing things no one else believed existed ...
Without her voice calmly dismantling his worst impulses.
The thought left a strange hollow space in his chest. Mulder frowned at the sensation. That seemed… excessive. It wasn’t like Scully was disappearing forever. She was going to California. Not Mars. They had phones. They had email. They had planes that could cross the country in five hours. He could call her whenever he wanted. Send reports. Argue about evidence the way they always did.
Still, Mulder glanced across the room again. The empty chair at Scully’s desk seemed to stare back at him. He sighed and dragged a hand across his face.
“Well,” he muttered finally, the word echoing faintly in the quiet room. “This is inconvenient.”
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. Mulder leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. And for the first time since Skinner had spoken the words in his office, the thought settled fully into place: In three days, this room was going to feel very, very empty.
Across town, Scully unlocked the door to her apartment and stepped inside. The quiet greeted her immediately. It was the particular kind of quiet that only existed in spaces lived in alone; still, orderly, almost expectant. The faint hum of the refrigerator drifted from the kitchen. Somewhere down the hall, a pipe ticked softly in the wall as the building’s heating system cycled. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it for just a second longer than usual. Her keys slid from her hand onto the small table by the door with a soft metallic clatter. She shrugged out of her coat and hung it neatly on the rack.
Three days.
The words had been echoing in her head ever since she left the Bureau. Three days to pack up her life and move it three thousand miles west. Three days to close down the small, carefully constructed routines that had become her normal over the past five years. Scully pushed herself away from the door and moved automatically through the familiar motions of evening. She flipped on the kitchen light. The overhead bulb cast a warm, steady glow across the narrow room. She set her briefcase on the counter. Poured herself a glass of water. The cold glass sweated slightly against her fingers as she took a slow drink.
Everything felt oddly procedural. Like she was performing a routine she had executed a hundred times before. Only now every step carried the quiet awareness that she wouldn’t be here for a while.
Eight months.
The number felt abstract in a way that didn’t quite register yet. Eight months were long enough for seasons to change. Long enough for the world to shift in small, subtle ways. Long enough for the habits of a partnership to begin to fade.
Scully set the glass down and walked slowly through the apartment. The place was modest but comfortable. The living room was lined with bookshelves that held an uneven mix of medical texts, forensic journals, and the occasional paperback novel she kept promising herself she’d find time to read. A stack of medical journals sat neatly on the coffee table; their corners aligned with the careful precision that came naturally to her. Her laptop sat open beside them. The screen still displayed the autopsy notes she’d been reviewing the night before; the clinical language of pathology reports frozen mid-sentence. Scully reached down and picked up one of the journals.
The pages rustled faintly as she flipped it open. She didn’t actually read any of the words. After a moment, she closed it again and set it back on the table.
Three days.
The practical side of her brain, the side that had gotten her through medical school, residency, and the chaotic unpredictability of the X-Files, immediately began organising the problem into manageable steps.
Packing.
Utilities.
Forwarding mail.
Temporary housing in Los Angeles.
A new office.
New agents.
New cases.
The thought stirred something complicated in her chest. Because career-wise, the reassignment made sense. Los Angeles was a major field office. High-profile investigations. Resources that the basement office in Washington rarely had access to. Working there, even temporarily, would put her in front of people who normally dismissed the X-Files as a curiosity at best. It was an opportunity. A chance to apply her training somewhere the Bureau actually paid attention.
Mulder himself would probably say the same thing if she framed it that way.
She walked into the bedroom and pulled a suitcase down from the top shelf of the closet. The zipper sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet room when she opened it. Scully knelt beside the bed and opened a drawer. She began folding clothes. Shirts. Slacks. Blouses that would be appropriate for Bureau work in a warmer climate. The movements were automatic, practised, the kind of efficient packing routine she’d developed over years of travel for conferences, training, and cases.
But her mind drifted elsewhere. Mulder’s face in the hallway. The way he had leaned casually against the wall, hands shoved into his pockets like the reassignment was nothing more than a minor scheduling inconvenience. The way he’d tried to make a joke about California weather. She could still hear the forced lightness in his voice.
On the bright side, Scully, California has excellent weather.
Scully paused, holding a folded blouse in her hands. Mulder hid things behind humour. He’d been doing it since the day she met him. Sarcasm. Deflection. Ridiculous theories delivered with just enough theatrical flair that no one could quite tell when he was serious. It was one of the few emotional defence mechanisms he possessed that didn’t involve reckless behaviour or questionable investigative techniques. But she had spent five years learning the difference between Mulder joking because he was amused and Mulder joking because something had unsettled him.
This had been the second kind.
She placed the blouse carefully into the suitcase. Eight months. The number settled more heavily this time. Because Mulder might pretend the separation was no big deal. But Scully knew better. For five years, their work had been built around a constant, almost instinctive partnership.
He chased the impossible. She grounded it in evidence. He followed instinct. She followed proof. Somewhere between the two of them, the truth usually emerged.
Eight months meant that balance would be broken.
She opened another drawer. Folded another blouse. Another pair of slacks. The fabric slid neatly into place beside the others. Scully sat back on her heels, staring down at the growing pile of clothes in the suitcase. This could be good for her career. She knew that. The rational part of her mind recognised the opportunity immediately. Eight months working high-profile investigations in Los Angeles could put her in front of people who had spent the last five years quietly dismissing her work in the basement as an academic exercise. It might remind the Bureau that Dana Scully was more than just Mulder’s partner. More than just the scientist assigned to debunk his theories. She was a doctor. A trained forensic pathologist. An agent capable of leading investigations on her own.
The thought should have been reassuring. Instead, it left her with a faint, uncomfortable ache she couldn’t quite explain. Because the truth was, she didn’t want to prove she could do the job without Mulder. She already knew she could.
The real problem was something she hadn’t quite allowed herself to articulate yet. For five years, Mulder had become the constant variable in her life. The one person who understood the strange, impossible cases that filled her days. The one person who never questioned why she kept coming back to the basement office instead of transferring somewhere safer. The one person who had stood beside her when things became dangerous. Or frightening. Or unexplainable.
Scully folded another shirt slowly.
Eight months.
She wondered what the basement office would feel like without her there. Whether Mulder would keep spinning that ridiculous basketball when he was thinking. Whether he would still leave half-finished theories scattered across his desk. Whether the fluorescent light would finally burn out without someone reminding him to stop throwing things at it.
Scully closed the suitcase halfway and sat back on the edge of the bed. The room felt very quiet. For the first time since Skinner had spoken the words in his office, the reality of what was about to happen settled into place. She wasn’t just leaving Washington.
She was leaving Mulder. Just for a while. Eight months. Scully rested her hands on the suitcase and stared at the wall. It was an opportunity. It was the right move for her career. She knew that.
Still ... The thought of walking into a new office in Los Angeles without hearing Mulder’s voice somewhere behind her felt strangely like stepping into unfamiliar territory.
And for the first time since she had agreed to join the X-Files five years ago, Dana Scully realised she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to take that step alone.
Scully straightened slowly from the suitcase and reached for the phone on her nightstand. For a moment, she simply held it there in her hand. The room around her was quiet again, the faint hum of the building settling back into the background. Her half-packed suitcase lay open on the floor, neatly folded clothes beginning to fill one side. The other half remained empty, waiting.
Three days.
Scully dialled the number she knew by heart. The phone rang twice. Three times.
“Dana?”
Her mother’s voice was warm and familiar, carrying the soft background sounds of evening in the Scully house, the distant clink of dishes, the low murmur of the television somewhere in another room.
“Hi, Mom.”
Margaret Scully’s voice warmed immediately. “Sweetheart,” she said, “I was just thinking about calling you. How are you?”
Scully sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping slightly beneath her. “I’m alright.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Not long. Just long enough. “You sound tired.”
Scully rubbed her thumb slowly against the edge of the phone cord. “It’s been a long day.”
Margaret didn’t respond immediately. Dana had always been terrible at hiding things from her mother. Even as a child. There was another small pause. “What happened?”
Scully exhaled slowly. “I got reassigned.”
“Reassigned?”
“To Los Angeles.”
Silence settled on the line for a moment. Margaret absorbed the information quietly. “For how long?”
“Eight months.”
Another pause.
“That’s… quite a while.”
“Yes.” Scully’s voice remained calm, but she found herself staring at the half-packed suitcase again.
“Is it something you wanted?” her mother asked gently.
Scully considered the question carefully. “I didn’t request it,” she explained. “But it’s an opportunity.”
The answer sounded correct. Professional. The kind of response Scully might have given to a supervisor or a colleague asking the same question.
Margaret Scully knew her daughter well enough to hear the space between the words. “I see.” She didn’t challenge it. Didn’t contradict her.
But Scully could almost picture the look her mother was wearing on the other end of the line, the quiet, perceptive expression that had unnerved her since childhood.
“And Fox?” Margaret asked gently.
The question arrived so naturally that it almost felt inevitable. Scully’s gaze dropped again to the suitcase on the floor. The neatly folded shirts. The growing stack of clothes that would soon carry her across the country.
“He’ll stay here.”
Another pause. Longer this time. “I see.” Margaret didn’t press. She rarely did. Not with Dana. Her mother had always possessed an uncanny ability to let silence do the work instead. Dana knew exactly what Margaret was thinking anyway. She had seen the way her mother watched Mulder when he visited for dinner. The quiet curiosity. The subtle knowing. Margaret had never said anything outright. But she had asked enough small, seemingly innocent questions over the years. Did they spend time together outside the office? Did they ever take time off? Was Mulder always like that? And there had been that look once, when Mulder had been standing in the kitchen talking animatedly about some case, and Dana had caught her mother watching them both with a soft, almost amused expression. As if she were seeing something they hadn’t quite admitted to themselves yet.
“Eight months is a long time,” Margaret said quietly.
“It’s temporary.”
“Yes,” her mother agreed gently. “Temporary things can still feel difficult.”
Scully shifted slightly on the bed. “I’ll be busy,” she said. “Los Angeles handles major cases. It could be good for my career.”
“I’m sure it will be.” Margaret’s voice carried genuine warmth. “You’ve worked very hard for opportunities like that.”
Scully nodded slightly, even though her mother couldn’t see her. “Yes.”
Another quiet pause followed. Margaret spoke again, her tone thoughtful. “You and Fox have worked together a long time.”
Scully’s fingers tightened slightly around the phone. “Five years.”
“That’s longer than many partnerships last.”
“Yes.”
Margaret hesitated. Then, gently, “And he’s… important to you.” It wasn’t a question.
Scully stared down at the suitcase again. “Yes,” she said quietly. The word felt heavier than she expected.
Margaret didn’t sound surprised. She had known for a long time. Not the details. Not the unspoken complexity of the partnership Dana had built in that basement office. But the shape of it. The way Dana spoke about him. The way her voice changed slightly whenever his name came up.
“Eight months is a long time,” Margaret said again.
Scully gave a small, thoughtful hum. “Yes. It can be.”
Her mother’s voice softened further. “Distance has a way of clarifying things sometimes.”
Scully looked toward the window. The evening light had faded outside, leaving the glass dark and reflective.
“Maybe.”
Margaret didn’t push. She never did. “Well,” she said after a moment, her voice warm again, “California is beautiful this time of year.”
Scully smiled faintly. “That’s what Mulder said.”
Margaret chuckled softly on the other end of the line. “I imagine he would.”
Scully leaned back slightly against the headboard. “Mom?” She considered what to say for a moment.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I’ll call when I get settled.” She opted for the easy out.
“I’d like that.”
Scully hesitated. Then she said quietly, “Goodnight, Mom.”
“Goodnight, Dana.”
The line clicked softly as the call ended. Scully lowered the phone slowly. For a moment, she sat there on the edge of the bed, the quiet of the apartment settling around her again. Her mother hadn’t said the word. Neither of them had. But Margaret Scully had always been good at recognising love long before anyone else admitted it existed.
The next morning, the basement office looked exactly the same.
The same tired fluorescent lights hummed overhead, buzzing faintly like insects trapped behind plastic panels. The same mismatched filing cabinets leaned slightly against the walls, their drawers stuffed with case files the Bureau pretended didn’t exist. The same battered couch sagged beneath the weight of old reports and yesterday’s newspaper. And the same faint smell hung in the air: coffee, dust, and paper that had been handled too many times. It should have felt normal.
It didn’t.
Something had shifted. Mulder noticed it the moment Scully walked in. He had been sitting at his desk pretending to read a case report that had not actually held his attention for the past ten minutes. His chair rocked slowly back and forth, the front legs lifting slightly off the floor before settling again with a quiet creak.
The door opened. Mulder looked up automatically. Scully stepped inside, the cool morning air from the hallway trailing in behind her for a moment before the door swung shut again. She had shed her coat already; the dark fabric folded neatly over one arm. In her other hand, she carried two cups of coffee from the vending machine upstairs, the thin cardboard sleeves protecting her fingers from the heat. Mulder noticed both of them immediately. He also noticed the faint shadows under her eyes that hadn’t been there the week before.
Neither of them mentioned that.
Scully crossed the room and set one of the cups down on his desk without comment. Mulder looked at it. Then he looked at her. Then he looked back at the cup. He eyed it suspiciously. “You’re bribing me.”
Scully moved around her desk and sat down, setting her own coffee beside the open file waiting there. “It’s coffee.”
Mulder leaned forward slowly, studying the cup like it might contain evidence. “It’s a peace offering.”
Scully opened the file in front of her. “Mulder, it’s nine in the morning.”
“Exactly,” he said, picking up the cup and taking a cautious sip. The coffee was smooth, a bit too sweet, and slightly nutty, but warm enough to chase away the lingering chill of the basement. “Suspicious generosity before noon always indicates ulterior motives.”
Scully flipped through the pages in the folder. “I’m leaving in two days. I’m not trying to poison you.”
Mulder raised the cup slightly in acknowledgment. “Well, that’s reassuring.”
Scully shot him a brief look over the edge of the file. Mulder gave her an innocent smile. For a moment, the room fell into a quiet rhythm again. The familiar sounds returned. The rustle of paper as Scully turned a page. The faint squeak of Mulder’s chair as he leaned back. The distant echo of footsteps somewhere in the hallway above them. Mulder glanced toward her desk again. Scully had already begun reading, pen moving steadily across the page as she made notes in the margin. Efficient. Focused. Exactly the way she approached every case. But Mulder noticed the way her pen paused every so often, just for a second, before continuing again. Scully sensed his gaze after a moment. She didn’t look up immediately. Instead, she finished the line she was writing, capped the pen with a soft click, and then lifted her eyes. Mulder was still watching her.
“What?” she asked.
Mulder shrugged slightly. “Just confirming you’re still here.”
Scully raised an eyebrow. “I walked in thirty seconds ago.”
Mulder nodded thoughtfully. “Still.”
Scully studied him for a moment longer than necessary. “You’re being strange, more so than usual.”
Mulder gestured vaguely with his coffee. “That’s a hurtful accusation.”
“It’s an accurate one.”
Mulder leaned back further in his chair, balancing it carefully on the back legs. “You wound me, Scully.”
She returned her attention to the file. “You’ll recover.”
Mulder took another sip of coffee. For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. The quiet settled again. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Just… heavier than usual. Mulder glanced at the calendar pinned crookedly to the bulletin board beside his desk. Two days. He dragged his gaze away before Scully could notice.
“So,” he said casually.
Scully didn’t look up. “So.”
Mulder tapped his fingers lightly against the side of the coffee cup. “You start packing yet?”
“Yes.”
Mulder nodded once. “Efficient.”
Scully flipped another page. “That’s generally the goal when relocating across the country.”
Mulder tilted his head slightly. “You’re not relocating.”
“Temporarily relocating.”
“Semantics.”
Scully looked up again. “Eight months is not semantics, Mulder.”
He held her gaze for a moment. Then he smiled again, the same crooked grin he used whenever he wanted to push the conversation somewhere safer. “Well,” he said lightly, “think of it this way.”
Scully waited.
“You’re finally getting a break from my personality.”
Scully exhaled softly. “Mulder.”
“Yes?”
“That’s not something I’ve ever needed a break from.” The words slipped out so naturally that neither of them seemed to realise what had been said at first. Mulder blinked once. Scully looked down quickly at the file again. For a moment, the air between them felt suddenly too still.
Mulder cleared his throat. “Well,” he said lightly, gesturing toward the folder on his desk, “we should probably solve at least one more mystery before you abandon me to the Bureau.”
Scully allowed herself a faint smile. “I’m not abandoning you.”
Mulder lifted an eyebrow. “Temporary abandonment.”
Scully shook her head. But the small smile lingered. For a moment, the room felt almost normal. Almost. Because underneath the banter, underneath the easy rhythm they had built over the years, something heavier had begun to settle between them. Something neither of them quite knew how to name yet. Mulder set the coffee down on the corner of his desk, the cardboard cup leaving a faint damp ring on top of a stack of case files that had long ago surrendered any hope of remaining organised. He reached for the folder Scully had placed in front of him. The manila cover was already creased from handling; the Baltimore Police Department seal stamped across the front in fading blue ink. Mulder flipped it open.
“What’ve we got?”
Across the room, Scully leaned forward slightly in her chair, one elbow resting on the desk as she glanced down at her own notes. “Local police request,” she said. Her voice had settled back into its familiar professional cadence, the same tone she used when outlining a case.
Mulder recognised the shift immediately. Work mode. It was something they both did instinctively when things became complicated: bury the emotion under procedure.
“Two unexplained deaths in a warehouse district in Baltimore.”
Mulder hummed thoughtfully as he flipped through the first set of photographs clipped inside the file. The glossy images reflected the fluorescent light in dull flashes as he turned them one by one. A concrete warehouse floor. Two chalk outlines several feet apart. Police evidence markers were scattered across the space like small yellow punctuation marks.
Mulder leaned closer. “Cause?”
Scully lifted her coffee, blowing lightly across the surface before taking a careful sip. “Undetermined.”
Mulder’s eyebrow lifted. “Unusual injuries?”
Scully leaned forward a little more, resting her forearms on the desk as she watched him examine the photos. “That depends on how you define unusual.”
Mulder’s eyes lit up immediately. The faint spark of curiosity that always appeared when a case veered into strange territory flickered to life behind his expression. “Oh,” he said with quiet satisfaction. “I like the sound of that.”
Scully reached across the space between their desks and slid another document toward him. The autopsy report. Mulder caught it before it slid off the edge of the desk. He scanned the first page quickly, his eyes moving rapidly across the clinical language.
“Internal haemorrhaging,” he murmured. He flipped to the next page. “No signs of trauma.”
Scully nodded. “Both victims collapsed within minutes of each other.”
Mulder studied the report again. The room had fallen quiet except for the faint buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead and the soft rustle of paper between his hands. “Warehouse security cameras?” he asked.
“Broken.”
“Witnesses?”
“None so far.”
Mulder leaned back in his chair slowly, the leather creaking under the shift in his weight. He held the report loosely in one hand, his gaze drifting upward toward the ceiling in that familiar way he had whenever his mind started assembling possibilities. “Well, Scully,” he said thoughtfully. “That sounds suspiciously like our kind of problem.”
Across the room, Scully met his gaze. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The quiet stretched between them again. They both knew what this case was. Not officially. Officially, it was a police request for assistance with two unexplained deaths. But in practice, it was probably the last case they would work together for a while.
Mulder glanced briefly toward the calendar on the wall again before returning his attention to her. Scully had noticed the same thing. He could see it in the small stillness in her posture. In the way her fingers rested against the rim of her coffee cup, without moving.
Mulder broke the silence. “So,” he said lightly, forcing his voice back into its usual easy rhythm. “Road trip?”
Scully picked up her coffee again. “Baltimore isn’t a road trip.”
Mulder tilted his head. “Everything is a road trip if you have the right company and snacks.”
Scully sighed. But the faintest smile appeared again. Mulder noticed that too. He always did. For a moment, the familiar rhythm of their conversations settled back into place. The same rhythm that had carried them through years of strange cases and long drives and bad motel coffee.
Scully set her cup down and stood, reaching for her coat. “Mulder,” she said.
He looked up. “Yes?”
“Let’s go solve a mystery.”
Mulder grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and stood as well. “Music to my ears.”
They moved toward the door almost in sync, the practised choreography of partners who had done this hundreds of times before. Mulder flicked the light switch out of habit as they stepped into the hallway. Behind them, the basement office returned to its quiet hum. For the next few hours, there would be evidence to examine. Witnesses to question. The comfortable rhythm of investigation. And for those few hours, they would both allow themselves the same quiet pretence. That nothing had changed. That this case was just another case.
That in two days, Dana Scully wouldn’t be getting on a plane to Los Angeles.
And that Fox Mulder wouldn’t be left behind in the basement office without her.