As she walked up to the crime scene -- a dilapidated house in rural Virginia -- local police and her colleagues shot each other bemused looks, ushering coy smirks off their lips. Some turned to their partners to whisper and cover a snicker behind their hands.
She returned their loaded glances with passing annoyance, unsure why she was getting the New Girl In the High School Cafeteria welcome, but her mind was on the case and her partner who, by the looks of his car out front, had beat her to the scene.
She had been elbow-deep in the autopsy bay investigating the suspicious death of a fair-skinned, red-headed female scientist and Mulder had been chasing some leads on a possible suspect when they got the call that they needed to come out to this house right away to see the latest development.
Mulder, who barely let Scully out of his sight since the murder, convinced it was a warning before coming after her next, wanted to drive back to the office and go together, but Scully said it would waste time. She’d meet him there.
Driving to the house, Scully thought about the case and decided it was absurd -- egotistical, even -- to think that her life was in danger because someone killed a scientist who happened to have red hair.
Mulder was being his usual overbearing self. It could be sweet, but she hated being treated like a porcelain doll about to fall off a shelf.
She didn’t need protecting.
When she pulled up to the house, it was crawling with authorities, state and federal.
As she headed up the creaking, cobweb-covered front steps, she pulled out her cell and pursed her lips at the several missed calls from Mulder. She must have accidentally silenced her phone in the rush to get here.
“Oops,” she said, before he came bounding out of the house and practically ran into her.
“Oh thank God,” he said, his strong hands clutching each of her shoulders. “I was just coming to look for you.”
“She’s here,” he called back into the house. “I’ve got her.”
Confusion settled over Scully’s face as she started to head inside the house.
“Mulder, what’s going on?” she asked.
He gripped her by the arm as he looked out toward the law enforcement and detectives watching the two of them with raised eyebrows and cocky grins. His jaw set, and his eyes turned dark as he stared them down.
When they began to whisper and giggle, a vein popped out of his head as his face turned a deep, angry red. He was almost shaking in rage, Scully noticed.
“Scully, let’s get out of here,” Mulder said, his eyes still on the agents, one of whom let out a wolf whistle.
Scully wasn’t paying the other agents any mind.
“Mulder, I haven’t seen the scene yet,” she said. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Mulder stood in front of Scully, blocking her entry to the house.
“Scully -- please, I’ll explain in the car,” Mulder said. “Don’t go up there, Scully, I--”
Scully, head strong and a head short, pushed past Mulder and plowed into the house.
“Mulder, we were called out to this scene,” she said. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I can handle it.”
After all, she was the one with the iron stomach who dealt with dead bodies for a living and had seen far more than her eyes would allow her to believe in her time with the FBI. Mulder was just being his over-protective self, as per usual.
As Scully juked around him and bounded up to the second floor, Mulder was hot on her heels pleading with her to come back, finally resigning himself to standing in an upstairs bedroom doorway that led to a ramshackle master bedroom crowded with police dusting for fingerprints.
Before entering, Scully donned protective gloves and shoe coverings and Mulder stood in the doorway with his hands clasped on the back of his head, unable to meet her eyes.
Expecting some disfigured body or a dead child or blood and guts, Scully took a steady breath and entered the room to find....an empty bedroom that had gone from buzzing with chatter to so silent, you could hear the shutter of the police photographer’s camera snapping away.
All eyes were on her.
Scully looked back at Mulder, who was looking at his shoes.
“Mulder, what is going o -- “ Scully started, before something caught her eye.
The walls were wallpapered in something that made her quirk her head. Something that looked familiar. A paper she recognized.
The little flowers in the corners of the pages were the same as -- she stepped closer to the walls -- were the same as the ones in her journal.
She inhaled sharply and stepped up to the wall.
The walls were wallpapered in her journal pages. Hundreds of them.
The journal she had been keeping for years. The ones in which she spilled her deepest fears, desires, dreams, insecurities and even wrote poetry she couldn’t bring herself to read again after she wrote it out.
Her gloved hand gingerly reached out and slid down the wall covered in her innermost thoughts.
Her innermost thoughts that -- lately -- had been mostly about the man standing in the doorway.
Her bottom lip quivered, but she remained glued to the spot, frozen in this nightmare along with everyone else who had stopped what they were doing to watch her.
Her handwriting on the walls was girlish and loopy, different from the stern, blocky letters she used when writing for work.
Her eyes were quickly filling with tears threatening to spill over, but even through a wall of water, she could see one name printed over and over in different entries, through different years, in different formats, different color pen -- some poems, some pro/con lists, some memories, dream logs, frustrated venting and outright gushing.
Mulder. Mulder. Mulder. Mulder. Mulder. Mulder.
“Scully...” she heard softly from the doorway.
His voice snapped her out of her head, and she turned on her heels and fled the room, beelining past him and down the stairs.
“Scully, wait,” Mulder called after her, bounding down the steps behind her.
As she tore out of the front door, A.D. Skinner blocked her exit, and she practically snarled at him. She was sick of men with badges hulking over her.
“Sorry, Agent” he said, not meeting her eye. “Because of....the nature...of the scene, we can’t let you go. This madman is out there, and he’s made it pretty you’re a target. We have to ask you some questions about the, uh, evidence...”
“Can you just give her a minute, Sir?” a soft voice muttered from the stairs.
Scully whirled around and glowered in Mulder’s general direction. She was sick of being spoken for, ordered around, investigated, poked, prodded. She was sick of it all, and she was sick of being hopelessly, pathetically, agonizingly lovesick over the pouty-lipped, long-eyelashed man in front of her.
And she was sick that now he knew it -- confirmed in ink -- in front of his sickeningly big, brown eyes.
Skinner sucked in his lips and gave a curt head nod, stepping aside to let Scully pass, which she did dramatically, her long trench coat kicking up a cloud of dust behind her.
She exited the house, avoiding the stares that she now resented, and took a sharp turn to go toward the back of the house which featured, among other sterling amenities, a back porch swing that she took her chances on despite its rickety appearance and grimy seat cushion.
She dropped her head in her hands and realized upon contact that she hadn’t peeled off the oversized gloves, which she did, dramatically yanking them off and throwing them to the ground, making a mental note to pick them up and properly dispose of them before departing.
Her head swam.
Her journal pages written up as evidence. For all her colleagues to see. Her journal snatched from her bedside table by a murderous madman. A murderous madman who had an eye for her and broke into her home, rifled through her things. She looked up and out into the wooded forest that backed up to the house, wondering if he was watching her at this very moment.
“You know what, you’re free to come and get me,” she mumbled under her breath. “Please hurry.”
“Over my dead body,” a voice mumbled behind her.
She craned her neck to find Mulder hanging a few steps back, his delicious forearms crossed over his lanky frame.
He ambled up to the porch swing and pointed to the spot next to her.
“May I?” he asked,
She looked up at him, a frustrated tear slipping down her cheek, and nodded wordlessly.
He took a seat and wiped the tear away with his thumb.
Scully’s lips upturned into a small smile.
“I’m so sorry, Scully,” Mulder said.
Their knees bumped as the swing rocked gently, and he rested his hand on top of her kneecap.
She flinched away from his touch at first but then settled into it, a warm blush creeping up her neck despite her objections.
She clasped her hands on her lap and fidgeted with her fingers, choosing silence over a crack in her voice she could feel pinching the base of her throat.
“I asked for another field office to investigate, I asked if New York could take over --”
Scully’s head snapped up, and her eyes narrowed in anger.
“I -- I just thought -- somebody is going to have to read them all, Scully, and I thought it would be better if -- I mean, I thought you’d prefer strangers, but, anyway, it would take too long for them to get here. I’m sorry, Scully, I just thought...I wanted to make it better.
Scully understood and nodded again, still fidgeting with her fingers.
Mulder loosened his tie, wondering how long she’d stay silent, but countered in his mind that her nearly every thought was plastered loud and clear upstairs for anyone to read. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck again.
“How much did you read?” Scully asked, her voice croaky and small.
She stared at her hands.
Mulder paused, taking a breath before answering.
“Well, when I got here, they didn’t know what they were looking at,” Mulder said. “They were looking for a body or something unusual and then someone shouted that there was something all over the walls upstairs. When I went up there, the officers said it looked like a diary. And when I first looked at it, I didn’t know it was...I had no idea who wrote them because it didn’t look like your handwriting, Scully.”
He looked over at her, and she nodded down at her hands.
“So I kept reading and then I saw my name all over the --” Mulder paused, clearing his throat. “I saw that they...were yours. And I stopped. Right away. I would never want to breach your trust, Scully, I would never read something private of yours like that, and I won’t read any more. I’m...so sorry.”
A brief silence stretched between them, aching and uncomfortable.
“What did you read?” Scully asked, breaking the tension.
Now it was Mulder who looked down at his lap and didn’t speak.
“It’s OK, you can tell me,” Scully said in a voice too high to be OK.
Mulder turned to look at her, holding her gaze for the first time in a while, and wore a pained expression on his face.
“Scully, I --” he started. “I don’t know if...”
“Mulder, my every private thought is on display,” Scully said. “The least you can do is give me some honesty.”
Mulder chewed on his lip and nodded solemnly.
“Um, I think one was a poem?” he whispered.
“Fuck,” Scully muttered, scooting off the porch swing and walking further into the backyard toward the woods.
Mulder stood and caught her arm as she went, and she stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“Scully, it was beautiful,” Mulder said, gently. “It was a beautiful poem.”
He would never forget it.
I thank the rays of sun
I thank the dirt below
I thank the April rainstorm
They nurture you to grow
A tiny sprout breaks through the earth
Potential yet unseen
But soon a mighty stem spurts forth
A brilliant, verdant green
In time, a bud peaks from the stem
Quenched by a spring rain shower
Warm rays tease the bud to unfurl
Into a radiant sunflower
I tip my hat to Mother Earth
For this flower, so bright and yellow
Its beauty is unmatched, it’s true,
But for a certain fellow
The sunflower’s charismatic petals may as well be a weed
For it’s not the sight that thrills him
Rather, just the seed.
I thank the rays of sun
The dirt below, the rain drops strong
Because without their nurturing care
I’d never know my favorite song.
The crunch of a sunflower seed lulling me to sleep
A pair of salty lips beside me
I dream they’re good enough to eat.
“You said...you said you saw your name?” Scully asked, breaking through Mulder’s remembrance.
“Mhmm,” Mulder answered, softly.
“What did you see?” Scully asked, dread dripping from her voice.
“It was...” Mulder said. “Uh, I think...you had a dream about me?”
“Fuck,” Scully said, pulling her arm away and walking further into the woods away from him.
“I told you, Scully, I saw my name, and then as soon as I...understood, I turned away and I stopped reading. I didn’t even finish it, so I don’t know if we --” he stopped himself.
“If we what?” Scully said, a groan in her voice that indicated she really didn’t want to know the answer to the question she just asked.
“I don’t know if we...kissed,” Mulder finished, quietly. “It seemed like things were heading that way, but I could have misread, also, I wasn’t sure if --”
“No,” Scully said, leaning against a tall tree at the edge of the woods. “No, I can assure you you didn’t misread.”
Mulder walked closer to her and cupped her trembling chin with his strong hand.
“Scully, I dream about us, too,” Mulder said. “I have dreams where we --”
The slamming of a door startled the pair who jumped half out of their skin and turned toward the house where they saw Skinner walking toward them, his eyes, graciously, turned skyward.
“I hate to intrude, but we’ve got a murderer on the loose, and we need to start interviewing you, Agent Scully, to find out when this guy could have gotten into your apartment,” Skinner said, gently.
Scully nodded knowingly and clasped her hands together.
“Alright,” she said. “Who do I have to endure here?”
“Just me,” Skinner said. “I told those other guys in there to buzz off. It’s just me.”
“Alright, Agent Scully, can you take me through your day today?” Skinner asked, straightening up FBI paperwork strewn across an expansive wooden kitchen table left behind in the abandoned Virginia home.
He tried to be overly-professional, projecting an heir of detachment, coolness, like this was a routine meeting and not probing into fresh wounds for one of his favorite agents.
Scully and Skinner sat opposite each other at the table while Mulder hovered in the kitchen doorway -- her back to him -- unable to let Scully out of his sight but not wanting to make her feel more uncomfortable than she already did. He nipped at a frayed hangnail on his thumb and pretended not to listen.
Scully took a deep breath before diving in, opting to look out the window behind Skinner while talking rather than make eye contact.
“Yes, sir, I woke up at 7 a.m., made coffee, showered. Agent Mulder had promised that I call him as soon as I was up, so I gave him a call and let him know that I was OK.”
Mulder wondered if she was still in her towel, hair dripping wet, cheeks pink from the steam when she called...
“I read the paper, ate a banana and some toast, got dressed, and I left my house just shy of 8 a.m. I stopped at our favorite coffee shop --”
Mulder’s stomach flipped.
Sure Scully wasn’t looking at him, Skinner flicked his eyes toward Mulder and gave him a milisecond’s eyebrow raise and a small smile.
Our favorite coffee shop, Mulder mused in his mind. Our favorite. He was a part of her our. His favorite and her favorite.
The word “our” bounced around in his head while she proceeded, and he turned his back to Skinner so he could collect himself and wipe the stupid grin off his face.
“ -- got my muffin and Mulder’s coffee to-go and headed into the office,” Scully continued.”
“OK, Agent, when you left your house, do you remember locking your door?” Skinner asked.
“Yes, I always lock my door,” Scully replied.
“But do you specifically remember?” Skinner asked.
Scully paused.
“Yes, I remember because I --” she stopped. “I just remember.”
Scully remembered running her thumb over her favorite keychain, Apollo 11, and feeling the smooth, cool etchings on her skin before she headed out.
Mulder caught the hitch in her voice but couldn’t see her face, didn’t know whether she simply had a lapse in memory or remembered something she’d rather keep to herself.
Skinner was taking notes, and Scully pressed on.
“I got to the office, parked, walked down to the basement, gave Mulder his coffee, and then he told me we got the body of the scientist, so I headed to the autopsy bay and got to work on that.”
The scientist’s name was Brenda Wallace, and she worked as a researcher at Georgetown University. Her current research was focused on cervical cancer.
She had been in her lab, white coat and all, when a skillful intruder with a hood up and a ballcap on had slipped past security and inside her lab where he stabbed her to death.
There was one wound, straight into the stomach, and Wallace bled out on the pristine white tile of the lab’s floor until a colleague found her. Her crimson hair and the blood pooled around her lab coat made for startling crime scene photos ingrained in Mulder’s brain.
A redhead in a white coat dead on the floor was too close to comfort for him. Between the hair, the profession and the cancer connection, Mulder was certain the killer was hinting at his partner.
Scully wasn’t sold.
Against his better judgment, he left her side while she investigated Brenda Wallace’s body. He went door-knocking to interview associates, family, friends of Brenda who might be able to share a helpful detail or two that could give them some suspects. Maybe there was a reason the killer picked Brenda, too -- an old flame, a neighbor, a disgruntled former student, something.
He hadn’t found any leads when he and Scully got the call that something was amiss at a house that belonged to Brenda’s grandmother who died about five years prior.
Local police found the front door swinging open and when they got closer, they found Brenda Wallace’s ID badge lying across the kitchen table. That’s when they rang the FBI who looped in Mulder and Scully.
“ -- And then I got here and found myself in some sort of John-Hughes-meets-Stephen-King horror movie, and that’s where we are now,” Scully finished with a self-deprecating smile on her face, looking at Skinner for the first time since she began speaking.
He smiled back sympathetically as did Mulder, behind her.
“Right,” Skinner said. “OK. Well. Where did you keep the -- “ Skinner cleared his throat. “The evidence.”
“In my bedside table drawer,” Scully said. “I have a couple in there from over the years.”
“OK, and when was the last time you saw the diaries?” Skinner asked.
Scully pursed her lips and flicked them to the side of her face as she considered the last time she wrote in her journal.
“Diary” sounded so juvenile, and it made her cringe.
She remembered, and blood rushed to her cheeks.
“Saturday, sir,” Scully whispered.
Mulder’s ears perked up, immediately noticing her change of demeanor and volume.
“About what time, Agent?”
Ugh.
“Saturday night, sir,” Scully muttered, barely audible. “About 1 a.m. or so, technically Sunday morning.”
Scully bit her lips and squirmed in her seat, attempting to turn her head casually enough to see if Mulder was still standing behind her and whether he was paying attention.
He had never been paying closer attention, but he saw her flushed cheeks and the look of sheer agony painted across her face and decided now would be a good time to give her some dignity.
“Sir, I’ve gotta make a phone call,” Mulder said, pulling out his cellphone. “I’ll be back in a few.”
Mulder walked to the backyard again and thought back to Saturday night.
XXXXXXX
The gunmen had invited Mulder to a dive bar in their neighborhood to play pool and be nerdy in the public sphere.
Mulder called Scully and begged her to go with him. She relented, pretending it was much more of a favor to him than it felt to her. She spent too long picking an outfit that read as “hot-but-effortless” -- nice-fitting jeans, black heeled boots, a snug white T-shirt and a green suede jacket. She put on lipstick and a suggestion of perfume.
When she sauntered into the bar, Mulder looked like a cartoon character seconds away from an “AWOOGA” thought bubble appearing above his head.
She smiled coyly. The gunmen whistled, and she blushed, picking up a pool cue as a distraction, slowly leaning over the pool table and acing a sweet shot that sent two balls into a corner pocket.
Her companion’s jaws dropped, and she held the pool cue up to her brown lips, blowing on the end of it like a smoking gun.
“What’s a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?” she said, and the gunmen fumbled to the bar as Mulder laughed and came to drape his arm around his partner’s shoulders.
“You know, it makes sense that an excellent shot like yourself would be good at pool, but it’s great to watch it live,” he said, taking a drag off his beer.
Scully’s game got better the more she drank, and drink she did.
Mulder had never seen her drink so much, but he was enjoying this flirty, uninhibited Scully finally having some fun and loosening up.
By closing time, Scully had whooped all their asses many times over, and the gunmen walked home with their tails between their legs.
Mulder, who only had a couple beers and was fine to drive, decided to wait for Scully to sober up a bit before taking her home. He wanted to make sure she was OK before leaving her.
“Wanna go for a walk?” he said, as they stepped out out into the darkness.
“If you can help me stand up straight,” Scully retorted, leaning heavily on her tall, solid partner.
He wrapped his arm around her small waist and pulled her closer.
“Always,” he said, chuckling.
She and Mulder walked to a park, recounting funny moments of their evening. When they got to a patch of grass, he shrugged out of his jacket and spread it on the damp grass, motioning for Scully to sit. In a fight with gravity, Scully plunked down too hard and laughed between exclamations of “ouch.”
“Sorry, Scully,” Mulder laughed, lowering himself to the floor. “I should have helped you down.”
Scully feigned shock.
“Held me down?! Mulder!” she squealed.
“HELPED,” Mulder clarified, a twinkle in his eye. “I said HELPED, Scully.”
“Oh,” Scully said, starting a giggle that ended in a hiccup.
Mulder thought she was just about the cutest drunk person he’d ever seen.
“Muldeeeerrr” Scully whined. “Mulder, I -- I need -- Oh no.”
“What do you need, Scully?” Mulder said, faux bravado in his voice.
“I really need to pee, Mulder,” Scully whispered in a hiss.
“Oh,” Mulder said, seriously.
“Uhhhhhh....” He stood up and scanned for public bathrooms but couldn’t see any.
“Can you....hold it until I get you home, Scully? I really don’t see anywhere around here, and all the businesses are closed by now,” Mulder said.
Scully bit her lip and wiggled around on his jacket.
“I....God, I feel so stupid,” Scully said. “Um. I think I’m gonna have to go behind those bushes or something, Mulder, it’s sort of urgent.”
He was reminded of his delinquent days walking back from bars, taking turns dipping into alleys while others stood guard, seeking relief from a night of heavy drinking and smiled to himself.
“That’s OK, Scully,” Mulder said. “Happens to the best of us. I’ll go over there and stand guard for ya.”
“MULDER, you are not coming with me,” Scully said, staggering to her feet. “Absolutely not. I will not allow it. I am not going to give you a peep show while I relieve myself behind some bushes”
Mulder scoffed.
“I am not looking for a PEE-p show,” Mulder said, teasing Scully with his enunciation. “It’s after midnight, it’s dark, we’re in a public park, and you always seem to find trouble. Forgive me, but I don’t think you hanging out in a bush by yourself with your pants down is a good idea. I won’t look! I’ll just be nearby.”
Scully gave an exasperated sigh and started off for the bushes.
“I don’t have time to argue with you, but I swear to God if you so much as peek or, or, laugh or mention this EVER again, it will be the last thing you ever do, Fox Mulder,” Scully said, stumbling her way to the bushes.
Mulder bit back a smile.
“Fine,” he said. “Deal.”
When they got to their destination, Scully looked at Mulder with wide, wild eyes.
“Go!” she said. “You’re standing right next to me!”
“YOU go,” he said. “I just want to make sure you’re OK! Look, look, I’ll turn around, but I want to be close enough that I can actually do some good if some creep jumps out.”
“Muuulldddeeeerrr,” she whined, dancing in place.
“OK, OK,” he said. “Look, I’ll stand on the other side of this tree. Totally blocked from view.”
He could hear her zipper coming down.
“FINE,” she said, squatting.
“Ugh, Muldeeerr,” Scully whined. “I can’t with you so close!”
Mulder covered his mouth to hide a chortle.
“YOU PROMISED NOT TO LAUGH,” Scully shouted.
“OK, OK, look, I’m putting my fingers in my ears and--,” Mulder said. “Jeremiah was a bullfrog,” Mulder belted. “Was a good friend of mine....never understood a single word he said but I helped him drink his wine....”
Mulder got a few “joy to the world’s” deep before a red-cheeked Scully fighting an amused grin on her face appeared before him, squirting hand sanitizer into her palm.
He popped his fingers out of his ears and smiled at her, ruffling her hair and pulling a green leaf out of it.
“Thatta girl,” he said. “Now, let’s get you home.”
By the time he had driven her back to her apartment, Scully’s head had tilted against his passenger seat window, and her eyes had gently shut. Her mouth was hanging slightly open, and he could see a small pool of drool threatening to drip over the side of her mouth.
He wanted to swim in it.
Instead, he got out of the car, gently shutting his door and opened Scully’s making sure to catch her as he eased her door open.
Her eyes blinked open.
“Hey,” Mulder said, smiling.
“Hey,” she said, smiling in return.
“We’re here,” he said, gesturing up at her apartment.
“Oh,” she said, with a frown.
“C’mon, I’ll help you up,” he said, scooping her to her feet and wrapping his arm around her as he helped her up the stairs and into her building.
When they got to her apartment, she handed him her key, and he opened the door and set her down at the kitchen table while he poured her a glass of water, made her some toast with peanut butter and got out her bottle of aspirin for the morning.
He picked out an oversized T-shirt -- his -- that was in her pajama drawer and some cotton pajama bottoms and set them on her bathroom counter, leading her inside before stepping out and closing the door. He heard a loud clattering noise and laughed to himself, imagining her knocking over toiletries.
“You OK?” he called.
“Yeah...” a groggy voice returned.
When she stumbled out of the bathroom, drowning in his T-shirt in a way that did something funny to his stomach, he led her to bed, peeled back her comforter and tucked her in. He wiped a stray hair from her face and said “Goodnight, Scully.”
She caught his arm before he turned around.
“Mulder,” she said, a sleepy lilt to her voice.
“Hm?” he answered.
“I want you to....” she looked over at the empty side of her bed, longing in her eyes.
He froze.
She caught herself, starting again.
“I want you to sing that song to me again sometime in much different circumstances,” Scully said.
He chuckled.
“OK, Scully,” he said. “Deal.”
Her eyes closed, and he backed out of her room, hitting the light on the way out.
He stood in her empty apartment, longing for this to be his final destination, before letting himself out and locking the door with his spare key.
********************************
After a while, Mulder moseyed back inside the Virginia house and resumed his spot in the kitchen doorway. The mood in the room had shifted.
It was quiet, for one. Scully’s head was sunk into her hands on the kitchen table. Skinner was looking out the window behind him.
Mulder’s appearance roused Skinner’s attention back to him.
“Ah,” he said. “OK, we need to get moving.”
“Where are we going?” Mulder asked.
“Well, our guys are already at Agent Scully’s dusting for prints and checking it out,” Skinner said. “Scully needs to head over there and see if she sees anything out of the ordinary, and then she’s going to pack a bag and we’re going to get her somewhere secure. A hotel with a guard --”
“I want to be among the guard,” Mulder said.
“I figured,” Skinner flatly. “So the two of you will be somewhere secure, but, Mulder, we need you somewhere you can work, so we’ll put you inside the hotel.”
“OK, am I making calls or starting a report or what?” Mulder said.
“Mulder, you’re our best profiler,” Skinner said.
“...OK...” Mulder said, slowly, not understanding Skinner’s point.
“We’ve got guys upstairs collecting the...” he glanced down at Scully, who was still hiding her face in her hands. “Evidence. You’re going to have to go through them all. It looks like he may have written things on some of the pages. There’s handwriting over the pens that doesn’t match and --”
“No,” Mulder said. “I’m not going to read them. Someone else can do it.”
“Mulder,” Skinner said. “There is a man out there after Agent Scully, and he’s willing to kill to get to her. You’re our best shot. We need you.”
“I -- I can’t, sir, I just--”
“Goddamnit, Mulder, he’s right,” Scully said, slamming her tiny fists on the table, causing the paperwork to flutter. “You know he’s right.”
