what_wings_dare | 🅧 Please explain to me the scientific nature of 'the whammy'

"It's fine. They were eating us alive out there." He gives her an easy smile, setting the candle on the bedside table. Would it be inappropriate to pat the mattress and suggest she stick around? Probably. Instead, he says, "You sound a little shaken. Want to sit down?"

There's a chair. There's also the rest of the bed, and the floor. Hell, there's the rest of the bed, and he can sit on the floor.

"I--"

She should go, right? But the desire not to be alone is intense enough that she can't ignore it. With a little sigh, she steps further into the room, tries to unclench her hands from the fabric of her robe. (The robe, too, is blessedly unsexy; a flattering crimson, but thick rather than silky.)

"Maybe that's a good idea," she relents, heading for the unoccupied chair. "I'm not going to get work done with the power out, anyway." Her heart rate is finally slowing, her breathing a little less ragged. After a moment, she adds--

"Thank you."

Mulder leans lazily on one side, and if there was a moment of sexiness in the bug bite examination, it's disappeared into something merely friendly. Slumber-party-esque, even. "Any time. I'll let you know if I have any bumps to investigate, but so far all my itches are highly visible."

He lifts an arm, as though to demonstrate.

This time she does manage to smile. It's a little watery, but it should still count for something. In the wake of her small-scale nervous breakdown over a bug bite-- bug bites, Dana, really-- she might have feared he'd turn patronizing, but his support seems genuine, any teasing gentle and good-natured and, admittedly, deserved.

"I feel a little silly." She looks at the floor, wills her cheeks not to flush. "Maybe if I'd been able to get a better look myself-- but by candlelight it could've been anything. I don't even know what I thought..."

It's too dark to catch her cheeks darkening - and even if he could see it, he'd never see the red. It's impossible to miss the awkward shape of her body, though, or the way she looks away. Embarrassment colors her clearly, and unnecessarily.

After all, if she was that concerned by the bumps on her skin, she's at least somewhat convinced of the situation. It might be unconscious belief on her part, or conscious hedging of bets, but it's an improvement over pure skepticism. He'll take it, gladly.

"We lost time," he points out lightly. "Under the circumstances, we have to consider all possibilities."

"We can't prove that," she reminds him automatically, but softens. "Though I'll admit it was... a strange day."

Understatement of the century, really. It's exhilarating, in a strange way-- discounting this moment of panic. Whatever is happening here, she's sure there's a scientific explanation but that doesn't have to be mundane. She hadn't quite known what to expect from the case, but so far-- she's fascinated.

(Is that gruesome, to be fascinated?)

(Was it gruesome, all those years ago?)

"Are all of your cases this... surprising?" It's the wrong word, but the best she can do.

"The best ones are." Some come to nothing, there's no denying that. Some end up having an explanation so mundane that it feels pointless to have X-filed them in the first place. This feels like a major breakthrough precisely because it's full of surprises.

And because there's someone else at his side, someone who hasn't yet betrayed him or his principles. He can't bring himself to trust, but part of him wants to.

After a moment, he adds, "This probably isn't where you were hoping to end up when they handed you your badge. What were you really aiming for?"

There's certainly a way in which that's the truth. She didn't join the Bureau with any intention of looking him up, and certainly never dreamed she'd be autopsying-- whatever that was in Soames' grave. Not human, certainly, but maybe not so easily written off as she'd imagined.

"When I was recruited, I don't think I really expected a field assignment at all. Not with my specialty. I joined because I wanted to help make a difference," she says, regarding him thoughtfully. "But I meant it, when I said I was looking forward to working with you."

And because she was running away from certain choices, but never mind that. She draws herself up a little in the chair, shifting so she's leaning toward him.

"I probably should have told you this earlier... But we've met before, actually."

That catches his attention - of course it does, the notion that he could spend days with someone and fail to recognize them as familiar. It knocks his polite curiosity about Scully's shoulda-coulda-wouldas straight out of his head. Mulder sits up a little straighter, peering at her through the gloomy night.

Not from university, he'd remember another American. Not from around town in Alexandria or D.C., unless she rates standing in the same deli line as meeting. Not from the Vineyard, obviously, but when he was living with Dad -

Maybe then. It seems like a long shot, but you can't antagonize a girl's brother and forget her completely. Wasn't she named Dana, too? Dana or maybe Diane. It feels like an awfully long shot.

"Was it a while ago?" he asks carefully. He's burning with an intensity he can't control, the curiosity that always snatches him up when he's presented with a puzzle.

It doesn't surprise her that it piques his interest-- even if it's just a piece of trivia, it's trivia he didn't figure out on his own. And privately, she rather likes even that moment of having the upper hand. People might call him Spooky, but no one disagrees that Fox Mulder is pretty brilliant; she could tell he thought he had her wholly figured out from the beginning, so it's nice to have a card up her sleeve, no matter how unimportant.

"1979?"

The memories of Craiger are... difficult, to say the least, but distant enough that she can talk about it. At least some of it. In spite of herself, she feels a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

Mulder's eyes light up. "The New Age girl!"

Which is to say: He does remember her, given sufficient context clues. With those details - and with her hair a little fluffier than it was when they started the day - he can see the girl she was. He might be kicking himself for not figuring it out earlier, but at least he has it now.

"Did I end up getting you into hot water?" he asks, since it's not like he ever got the answer at the time. "With your family, I mean."

She can't help laughing at that-- though from his perspective it's a sensible enough thing to call her.

"You're only saying that because you didn't meet my sister," she says with a smile that's small but suffused with warmth. Melissa would've been a better encounter for him than Bill, though she might not have lived it down either way.

"But no-- it was fine. Bill didn't say anything." Which she'd half expected. "Anyway-- I've never me another Fox, so it stuck in my memory."

Danas are a dime a dozen, probably. She's not offended that he didn't remember.

"Neither have I," he says wryly, and in the back of his mind, he realizes he has to think back months to remember anyone other than his mother calling him Fox.

If she'd ended up getting bawled out for their afternoon together, it wouldn't have made a difference in the long run - she's made it to the FBI, she's fine - but it's nice to know that her brother seethed for a while without letting his issues boil over on her. At the time, it seemed like it just ate him up to see his sister talking to a boy.

After a moment, he adds, "I thought about going back, seeing if I could find you again. But I ran out of time - and after a few years out of the country..."

Priorities change. Dana becomes an odd little summer memory, and Mulder moves on with his life.

"We didn't stay in Craiger long," she says with a shrug, like it's not a big deal. But it is a big deal, and she can't entirely ignore it-- she hasn't really known Mulder very long but chances are good he'd suss it out, left to his own devices, just out of a sheer need to know everything that can be known.

"I think my parents stopped feeling safe. That autumn there were a series of murders," she admits. "We didn't even finish out the school year."

"What happened?" The inevitable question, that need to know everything coming through - albeit with sympathy written in his brow. "I didn't hear about that."

Not surprising, considering he was half a world away by then, but it's still strange to hear about it now, and know - distantly - that death had found its way to Dana Scully's door.

She sighs, leaning back a little in the chair, as though relaxing her body might actually relax her.

"It involved someone from the store, actually. Not Carinda-- one of the other employees, a man calling himself Sunlight." Easy, casual, just things that happened. She tries not to picture him. She manages, through long practice, not to shudder.

"He was trying to build a cult-- he was utterly delusional-- and he murdered several people who didn't turn out to be the cultists he wanted. They were made to look like accidents. Mostly teenagers-- I imagine they tried not to let it get much publicity, out of respect for the families."

His expression grows faintly sour as he listens. "I don't remember Sunlight very well, but I remember disliking him. Nice to know that was justified."

If she'd asked before explaining, though, he'd never have thought he was capable of starting a cult, let alone committing serial murders. That he hadn't heard about it isn't surprising - even if it had garnered media attention, it probably wouldn't have crossed the Atlantic - but it's disquieting to encounter the subject now. "How close were you to the victims?"

Closer to being one than knowing them, she thinks, but doesn't say. Thinks of Maisie, because no matter how hard she's tried to forget that impossible experience, she can't. (Mulder might have a field day with that. Bad enough he knows so much about Beyond Beyond.)

"Not very," she finally says, because it's true enough. "We were so new in town we didn't know many people, not before school started, and the deaths had started before we moved in though everyone thought they were accidents. I guess we were close to it because my sister and I spent time at the store, but we didn't really know the kids who died."

"Must have been tough." He's not sure he believes her when she speaks - she's choosing her words too carefully, even more so than she already does - but this is the kind of story she needs to be able to tell on her own. "Even being in the same high school, and knowing Sunlight, you'd have been affected."

She nods.

"Our parents weren't thrilled with how often we went to begin with," she says with a shrug. Just childhood mischief, really. Getting drawn into psychic cults by self-declared Nephilim. Who couldn't relate?

"I was certainly closer than I should've been. I guess I had no room to criticize your looking for trouble," she adds with a rueful smile.

"I didn't find nearly as much trouble at Beyond Beyond that time. Must have been your good influence." He smiles back. The thought of her back then - a gawky teenager, braces and the confidence of someone who was sure she was right - is strangely warming. It's possible to see a little of that girl in the woman sitting across from him, if only in her self-certainty. "So what other kinds of trouble did you get into, Agent Scully?"

"Not very much." The normal kind-- smoking cigarettes, buying beer for parties, but nothing of real note. The kind of trouble that isn't really trouble, especially when it comes after what happened in Craiger.

"We moved back to California, I went to medical school, and then... the FBI was recruiting pathologists." She shrugs a shoulder. "I'm glad you didn't run into any trouble with Sunlight, at least."

"Somehow, I have trouble believing that." At this point, he's teasing; it's purely a fishing expedition, a vague desire to see if she'll give him a glimpse of what she's not telling him. (And inevitably, he thinks, there has to be something. Everyone has a few skeletons in their closets.) "The most Sunlight did was come on to one of my friends - at least, that's what it felt like when I was 18."

She offers a smile that's warm, but bears no hints as to what skeletons might yet be disinterred. (Jack, she figures, is probably a lost cause; people gossip, and it was a lesson she needed and deserved to learn. She should've learned it with Daniel, but the best she can hope is that no one needs to find that one out.)

"Or he was trying to gauge whether she'd be a good cult target. I'm not sure that's better." It's an awful thought. She hesitates a little, before adding.

"Carinda wasn't involved-- I really believe she had no idea before it all came out. I don't know if you ever ended up talking to her but... I think she meant well."

Jack Willis is a subject that needs no discussion, if only because Mulder's connections to Bureau gossip are tenuous at times. He's aware that the story's out there - at least somewhat aware - but he struggles to believe it. Straight-laced, by-the-book little Dana Scully ignoring basic principles in favour of sleeping with a Quantico instructor? As of this evening, that seems wild even to Spooky Mulder.

"A little," he says, because probably he did, who would go back and check. "We spent most of our time in one of the classes. I didn't develop any magickal powers, unfortunately."

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faithfulskeptic - 2024-08-04 02:20 (UTC) - Expand

[ n a m e ; ]	Dana Katherine Scully
[ c a n o n ; ]	The X-Files
[ g a m e ; ]	spicy times in noctiumrp