Post by blaidddrwg on Oct 5, 2014 1:01:43 GMT -6
Title: I Do Believe
Author: blaidddrwg
Rating: Mature/NC-17
Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Tom Hiddleston, Ten
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Other tags: X-Files, government conspiracy, aliens, Doctor Who, time travel
Word count: 2765
Summary:
Special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are veterans still working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation managing their X-Files Unit, a special section of the FBI established for cases it cannot solve. When their daughter returns home from college to work for them over the summer, she's in form more than she anticipated when her father's crackpot alien theories come to real life when she witnesses an actual alien - a time traveling doctor inside a blue box. Will Ali give the Doctor and his box over to her father and mother, who have been tirelessly trying to prove the existence of aliens for decades, or will she honor the newly-made friendship she made with this strikingly handsome Time Lord? What's more - will she fall for him, or the sexy office intern, Tom?
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of The X-Files or Doctor Who.
Series: 1
ONE
It was my first day working for Mom and Dad and actually getting paid for it. I’d spent years coming in and doing paperwork for them as they headed out to do their field research or if they got a call someplace in the U.S., but this was the first day they were actually employing me to work for them. It took Dad more time to get used to it than Mom – she’d been pushing for me to dive into the “family business” since I was twelve. But my Dad always seemed hesitant to let me into his and Mom’s world of the x-files. I wasn’t sure why, but I told myself it’s because I was his little girl (his only little girl) and he wasn’t ready to watch me grow up yet. But no matter how many times I told myself that, I could never explain why he was always so protective of me in practically every other area of my life as well.
It didn’t matter that I was a Mulder. To my father, I was still a baby.
The corporate office seemed much brighter as I walked up its steps. It felt odd having driven myself, dressed professionally with a briefcase in hand (I added that personal touch myself – I honestly only had about ten sheets of paper in it with some pencils). The white buildings were a little brighter despite contrasting with the overcast sky. People seemed to be in a better mood walking up and down the stairs and saying hi to each other that I felt compelled to say hi to them too. Even the air smelled a little nicer.
I entered the building and walked down the long, white hallway with meeting rooms full of people already engaged in serious discussion on either side of me when I reached security. Doug the security guy tipped his hat to me like he’d done ever since I was a little kid and went through the normal procedure of scanning my body and inspecting my briefcase.
“I hear today’s the day,” Doug said as he plopped my suitcase on the counter. “Finally got Mulder to accept ya’ full time, huh?”
As odd as it sounds, my father was never called by his first name. He was always “Mulder” to everyone who knew him. Even Mom called him that. She was always known as “Scully” to everyone she knew as well (it was her maiden name). I only called them “Mom” and “Dad” when I was nervous or in need of something.
I chuckled. “Had to cave sometime,” I replied, walking through the terminal. “It’s all about persistence, Doug. These government dogs, they just need to be yanked on their leashes until you got them under your control.”
Doug smirked. “You ever use that metaphor in front of him?”
“I wouldn’t be standing here right now if I did.”
We both shared a laugh, said our goodbyes, and off I went. It’s funny – growing up, I’d always walked past the meeting rooms and the office lounges and wished I could go in them. I even went into a lounge once when I was really small, but I was chased out after being told it was for “staff” only. Mulder put up a big fit about it to his boss, Skinner, claiming I was just a kid. “Are you really going to chase a young child out of there?” he’d say. Scully told him to drop it, though I sensed an annoyance in her eyes as well. These corporate guys didn’t mess around.
But now that I was headed for Mulder and Scully’s office on the bottom floor, I didn’t take a second glance at the offices and lounges. I didn’t belong in them, that was made very clear, but I didn’t want to belong in them. I, like my mother and father, was meant for basement work. That’s where their office was situated. The government despised our family so much, they put them on the bottom floor and let them work on their schemes and theories there. The government was a firm believer in the “out of sight, out of mind” ideology.
Luckily for us, that just meant more privacy so we could scheme of a way to expose their lies.
I buzzed the elevator and hit the “B” button for the basement. The inner gold of the elevator reflected my appearance. I gave myself another glance over – I barely recognized myself. A pantsuit and a briefcase. Usually when I went to the office, I’d be dressed in my sweats and a T-shirt. I almost mistook myself for my mother – I had her ginger hair and her small frame, but I had Mulder’s stone-cold eyes that always seemed to be calculating something, his intense demeanor that was always contemplating a problem and trying to find a solution. I couldn’t have been prouder than I was in that very moment of representing the both of them, but I was even prouder to call myself their daughter.
I got into the elevator on the second floor, and as it came to the first floor, it stopped. The doors opened to reveal a guy around the same age as me in a white, button-up shirt and black slacks, with the curliest yet most stylish hair I’d ever seen on a man before. He was skimming over a piece of paper in a manila envelope, and as the elevator doors opened, his eyes glanced up off the page and caught mine. I glanced away quickly, but I caught just enough of his sky-blue eyes to feel my cheeks turning red. I kept a professional poker face and flashed him a small smile as he entered the elevator.
“I’m going down,” I announced, in case he had to go up and got confused.
“That’s where I’m headed too,” he replied as the elevator shut in front of us.
There was an awkward silence in the elevator as I wondered what he could be doing on the bottom floor. Only my parents worked there, so why was he headed there? I didn’t ask him any of this, just letting the silence continue.
“I’m sorry,” he suddenly said out of nowhere, “you don’t happen to know who Dana Scully is, do you?”
My eyes flashed toward him. How did he know Mom? “I do, actually.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you look just like her?” he asked, looking at me with the most intense blue eyes. I blushed and chuckled to myself. “What?” he asked, joining in my chuckling. “You must get that a lot, huh?”
“Well, she is my mom and all,” I replied, watching his eyes widen in surprise.
“Oh! You’re Mulder and Scully’s daughter!” he exclaimed, shifting the manila envelope in his hand to the underneath of his opposite arm to extend his hand toward me. “It’s a pleasure meeting you! I’m Tom, their intern.”
I reached out and shook his hand, an electrode shooting throughout my body when I felt the warmness of his grip. “It’s nice to meet you, Tom. I’m Alison.” I hesitated for a moment. “But you can call me Ali.” Ah, much better. I couldn’t stand it when people called me by my full name.
Tom smiled. “So nice to meet you, your parents talk about you all the time,” he remarked as the elevator doors opened up. He sidestepped to let me out first and we walked down the hall together. “They say you go to Columbia?”
“During the year, yes,” I said. “I’m on summer break.”
“So you’ll be working here for the summer?”
“Yep, just clerical stuff while my parents go out and do the field work. I’ve been doing it for years, now I’ll just be getting paid for it.”
“Nice,” Tom remarked as we approached the office door. Agent Dana Scully and Agent Fox Mulder were embossed on the door, as if to compensate for the fact that no one would need to come find them in the basement. Tom opened the door for me. “After you, Miss Mulder,” he said, flashing me a smile. I thanked him kindly as I walked in.
As usual, Mulder’s face intensely reading some case file was the first image I saw upon entering the office. His glasses on and his hand propping up his chin, he was startled as the two of us entered the room laughing, a siren into the silence of the room. But upon hearing my voice, the stress melted away from his jaw and a smile popped onto his face.
“Al!” he said, getting up from his seat. “I swear I thought you were your mother for a second.”
I peered at Tom. He looked at me matter-of-factly and I rolled my eyes. “That’s what I was going for,” I replied, even though I really just wore a pantsuit because it was the only professional-looking thing I owned in my wardrobe. “Where is she anyway?”
“Up in the lab running some tests, she’ll be back in a bit,” Mulder said, leaning against his desk with his hands folded. He looked at the two of us with a slight smirk on his face that I couldn’t read. “How do you two know each other?” he asked at last.
“We met in the elevator,” Tom said, pointing at the doorway. “I thought she was Scully for a minute, too. I swear I had to do a double-take.”
“I was just telling him how I’m working here for summer break,” I added.
“Well, you’re in luck. So is he,” said Mulder. I turned to Tom and he smiled.
“From NYU,” he explained.
“Tom here’s our number one intern,” said Mulder proudly, putting an arm on his shoulder. “He does excellent work for us; has been for about a year now, haven’t you, Tom?”
“A year next Saturday,” Tom replied, his cheeks blushing. “And I’m your only intern, might I add.”
“That’s only because the men upstairs only allow us one student to sponsor,” Mulder explained, his tone dropping as he mentioned his bosses as it usually did. “Any more employees, and they’ll come shut us down, I’ll bet you any amount of money. But you play your cards right, kid, and you’ll be moving from a paid internship to a full-time agent.”
Tom beamed at the offer. I could tell he’d been dreaming of that position for a while, and this led me to assume this was the first time the offer was finally on the table. I saw years and years of hard work finally feel worth it in Tom’s gleaming eyes and I couldn’t help but feel proud of him too, even though I’d only known him for ten minutes.
“Will Tom be working with me today?” I asked, perhaps a little too hopefully. Mulder cast me a sideways glance, almost reading my secret affections embedded in my heart.
“Tom is sort of our emissary between the upper and lower levels,” Mulder explained, walking around his desk to sit back in his chair. “He relays messages to Skinner, receives lab results, buys us food, that sort of thing. Until we need him to take us places or help us on a case, then he usually accompanies us. But you’ll be staying here doing the paperwork.”
I was a little bummed I wouldn’t be working in close perimeter to Tom, but it was enough to be this close to him through my parents already. “Of course, leave me the secretarial work while you big wigs get to go see the real action,” I jeered, straightening some papers on Mulder’s desk. “Typical office-room misogyny. Haven’t you learned anything from Scully?”
“Why would I have to? You fill in for her when she’s gone,” Mulder joked back. “Between the two of you, I might as well become a professor of feminism.”
Tom and I laughed, and all three of us conversed for a few minutes until we heard the door open. Scully entered the room still in her white lab coat, which she proceeded to hang on the coat rack by the door.
“Just received a call about a missing groundskeeper in Allentown,” she said with her back to us. Turning around, she saw Tom and I standing in front of the desk. Her eyes lighted up.
“Oh Ali, you’re here!” she said, coming up to wrap me in a hug. “This is going to be great. When did you arrive?”
“About fifteen minutes ago,” I said into her fluffy orange hair, which smelled of raspberries and lilacs. “When do you guys have to leave?”
“In about an hour,” Scully replied, looking at Mulder. “Sheriff wants us in to inspect the scene by tonight, and I figure it’s probably a two, three hour drive from here. Tom, would you mind checking us out a car?”
“Right away, madam,” he replied, walking towards the door. “It was great to meet you, Ali. Maybe I’ll see you tonight?”
I nodded and smiled. He reciprocated and shut the door behind him. Scully, ever my mind-reader, turned back to give me a sly smile. “I did that on purpose,” she whispered in my ear, gesturing toward the door. “Just because I knew you’d be working for us one day.” I rolled my eyes and playfully pushed her shoulder.
“Don’t get any bright ideas,” Mulder remarked, easily irritated by the implication. “You don’t need any distractions and neither does he. This is serious business, Ali, and we need you to take this professionally.”
“Mulder, you’ve got a picture of an alien on our wall,” said Scully, picking up the case file on his desk. “How serious do you think this place is?”
“I’ve been working here for eight years, Dad. I know the ins and outs of this place better than he ever will,” I retorted. Scully chuckled and nodded in approval.
“Atta girl,” she said.
Mulder and Scully took the remaining time they had to tell me what I needed to do while they were gone. There were crime reports I had to finish that Scully started and case files I needed to read through and determine if they were worthy enough to pursue, if they could wait for a later time, or if they belonged to a different department. There were correspondents I needed to get back to, calls I had to make, reservations to be placed. At least I’d have a busy first day, despite the fact I’d be alone the whole time.
“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to stay back?” Mulder asked as he slipped his black overcoat on. “I can always stay back with you and let Scully go with Tom. This place gets pretty mundane with all the paper work.”
“Then how would I trash this place and contaminate all the files?” I sarcastically asked. Mulder laughed. “Really, Mulder, I’ll be fine here. I’ll put my feet up, put some music on, and sort through as much as I can. You’ll be calling me anyway with updates on what to do, and no doubt Skinner will be down here at some point. I’ll see you all later tonight or tomorrow morning.”
Mulder and Scully both smiled. Mulder wrapped me in his tight embrace and I laid my head on his chest, just like I’d done as a child. He always smelled like Old Spice and laundry detergent, an aroma I’d come to recognize as a distinctly “Mulder” aroma. He kissed the top of my head.
As he went out the door, Scully took me in her arms. “You’ve really proven yourself, Ali,” Scully said gently into my ear. “I have no qualms placing all of this into your care. I know you can do it. You’ve got Scully blood in you.”
“You forgot about the Mulder blood,” I retorted.
She chuckled. “Let’s not think about that,” she replied, and we shared a laugh. “By the way, I have a fridge hidden in the back. Take whatever you want, your dad and I do all the time. He makes you think like this is all serious business, but let’s face it – this is kiddie stuff to you. In no time, this hovel will be your home away from home.”
I smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll make you two proud,” I said as I opened the door for her.
She turned to leave, but before she left, she turned around and whispered, “I’ll make sure to talk you up to Tom.”
I rolled my eyes and pushed her out the door.
Author: blaidddrwg
Rating: Mature/NC-17
Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Tom Hiddleston, Ten
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Other tags: X-Files, government conspiracy, aliens, Doctor Who, time travel
Word count: 2765
Summary:
Special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are veterans still working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation managing their X-Files Unit, a special section of the FBI established for cases it cannot solve. When their daughter returns home from college to work for them over the summer, she's in form more than she anticipated when her father's crackpot alien theories come to real life when she witnesses an actual alien - a time traveling doctor inside a blue box. Will Ali give the Doctor and his box over to her father and mother, who have been tirelessly trying to prove the existence of aliens for decades, or will she honor the newly-made friendship she made with this strikingly handsome Time Lord? What's more - will she fall for him, or the sexy office intern, Tom?
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of The X-Files or Doctor Who.
Series: 1
ONE
It was my first day working for Mom and Dad and actually getting paid for it. I’d spent years coming in and doing paperwork for them as they headed out to do their field research or if they got a call someplace in the U.S., but this was the first day they were actually employing me to work for them. It took Dad more time to get used to it than Mom – she’d been pushing for me to dive into the “family business” since I was twelve. But my Dad always seemed hesitant to let me into his and Mom’s world of the x-files. I wasn’t sure why, but I told myself it’s because I was his little girl (his only little girl) and he wasn’t ready to watch me grow up yet. But no matter how many times I told myself that, I could never explain why he was always so protective of me in practically every other area of my life as well.
It didn’t matter that I was a Mulder. To my father, I was still a baby.
The corporate office seemed much brighter as I walked up its steps. It felt odd having driven myself, dressed professionally with a briefcase in hand (I added that personal touch myself – I honestly only had about ten sheets of paper in it with some pencils). The white buildings were a little brighter despite contrasting with the overcast sky. People seemed to be in a better mood walking up and down the stairs and saying hi to each other that I felt compelled to say hi to them too. Even the air smelled a little nicer.
I entered the building and walked down the long, white hallway with meeting rooms full of people already engaged in serious discussion on either side of me when I reached security. Doug the security guy tipped his hat to me like he’d done ever since I was a little kid and went through the normal procedure of scanning my body and inspecting my briefcase.
“I hear today’s the day,” Doug said as he plopped my suitcase on the counter. “Finally got Mulder to accept ya’ full time, huh?”
As odd as it sounds, my father was never called by his first name. He was always “Mulder” to everyone who knew him. Even Mom called him that. She was always known as “Scully” to everyone she knew as well (it was her maiden name). I only called them “Mom” and “Dad” when I was nervous or in need of something.
I chuckled. “Had to cave sometime,” I replied, walking through the terminal. “It’s all about persistence, Doug. These government dogs, they just need to be yanked on their leashes until you got them under your control.”
Doug smirked. “You ever use that metaphor in front of him?”
“I wouldn’t be standing here right now if I did.”
We both shared a laugh, said our goodbyes, and off I went. It’s funny – growing up, I’d always walked past the meeting rooms and the office lounges and wished I could go in them. I even went into a lounge once when I was really small, but I was chased out after being told it was for “staff” only. Mulder put up a big fit about it to his boss, Skinner, claiming I was just a kid. “Are you really going to chase a young child out of there?” he’d say. Scully told him to drop it, though I sensed an annoyance in her eyes as well. These corporate guys didn’t mess around.
But now that I was headed for Mulder and Scully’s office on the bottom floor, I didn’t take a second glance at the offices and lounges. I didn’t belong in them, that was made very clear, but I didn’t want to belong in them. I, like my mother and father, was meant for basement work. That’s where their office was situated. The government despised our family so much, they put them on the bottom floor and let them work on their schemes and theories there. The government was a firm believer in the “out of sight, out of mind” ideology.
Luckily for us, that just meant more privacy so we could scheme of a way to expose their lies.
I buzzed the elevator and hit the “B” button for the basement. The inner gold of the elevator reflected my appearance. I gave myself another glance over – I barely recognized myself. A pantsuit and a briefcase. Usually when I went to the office, I’d be dressed in my sweats and a T-shirt. I almost mistook myself for my mother – I had her ginger hair and her small frame, but I had Mulder’s stone-cold eyes that always seemed to be calculating something, his intense demeanor that was always contemplating a problem and trying to find a solution. I couldn’t have been prouder than I was in that very moment of representing the both of them, but I was even prouder to call myself their daughter.
I got into the elevator on the second floor, and as it came to the first floor, it stopped. The doors opened to reveal a guy around the same age as me in a white, button-up shirt and black slacks, with the curliest yet most stylish hair I’d ever seen on a man before. He was skimming over a piece of paper in a manila envelope, and as the elevator doors opened, his eyes glanced up off the page and caught mine. I glanced away quickly, but I caught just enough of his sky-blue eyes to feel my cheeks turning red. I kept a professional poker face and flashed him a small smile as he entered the elevator.
“I’m going down,” I announced, in case he had to go up and got confused.
“That’s where I’m headed too,” he replied as the elevator shut in front of us.
There was an awkward silence in the elevator as I wondered what he could be doing on the bottom floor. Only my parents worked there, so why was he headed there? I didn’t ask him any of this, just letting the silence continue.
“I’m sorry,” he suddenly said out of nowhere, “you don’t happen to know who Dana Scully is, do you?”
My eyes flashed toward him. How did he know Mom? “I do, actually.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you look just like her?” he asked, looking at me with the most intense blue eyes. I blushed and chuckled to myself. “What?” he asked, joining in my chuckling. “You must get that a lot, huh?”
“Well, she is my mom and all,” I replied, watching his eyes widen in surprise.
“Oh! You’re Mulder and Scully’s daughter!” he exclaimed, shifting the manila envelope in his hand to the underneath of his opposite arm to extend his hand toward me. “It’s a pleasure meeting you! I’m Tom, their intern.”
I reached out and shook his hand, an electrode shooting throughout my body when I felt the warmness of his grip. “It’s nice to meet you, Tom. I’m Alison.” I hesitated for a moment. “But you can call me Ali.” Ah, much better. I couldn’t stand it when people called me by my full name.
Tom smiled. “So nice to meet you, your parents talk about you all the time,” he remarked as the elevator doors opened up. He sidestepped to let me out first and we walked down the hall together. “They say you go to Columbia?”
“During the year, yes,” I said. “I’m on summer break.”
“So you’ll be working here for the summer?”
“Yep, just clerical stuff while my parents go out and do the field work. I’ve been doing it for years, now I’ll just be getting paid for it.”
“Nice,” Tom remarked as we approached the office door. Agent Dana Scully and Agent Fox Mulder were embossed on the door, as if to compensate for the fact that no one would need to come find them in the basement. Tom opened the door for me. “After you, Miss Mulder,” he said, flashing me a smile. I thanked him kindly as I walked in.
As usual, Mulder’s face intensely reading some case file was the first image I saw upon entering the office. His glasses on and his hand propping up his chin, he was startled as the two of us entered the room laughing, a siren into the silence of the room. But upon hearing my voice, the stress melted away from his jaw and a smile popped onto his face.
“Al!” he said, getting up from his seat. “I swear I thought you were your mother for a second.”
I peered at Tom. He looked at me matter-of-factly and I rolled my eyes. “That’s what I was going for,” I replied, even though I really just wore a pantsuit because it was the only professional-looking thing I owned in my wardrobe. “Where is she anyway?”
“Up in the lab running some tests, she’ll be back in a bit,” Mulder said, leaning against his desk with his hands folded. He looked at the two of us with a slight smirk on his face that I couldn’t read. “How do you two know each other?” he asked at last.
“We met in the elevator,” Tom said, pointing at the doorway. “I thought she was Scully for a minute, too. I swear I had to do a double-take.”
“I was just telling him how I’m working here for summer break,” I added.
“Well, you’re in luck. So is he,” said Mulder. I turned to Tom and he smiled.
“From NYU,” he explained.
“Tom here’s our number one intern,” said Mulder proudly, putting an arm on his shoulder. “He does excellent work for us; has been for about a year now, haven’t you, Tom?”
“A year next Saturday,” Tom replied, his cheeks blushing. “And I’m your only intern, might I add.”
“That’s only because the men upstairs only allow us one student to sponsor,” Mulder explained, his tone dropping as he mentioned his bosses as it usually did. “Any more employees, and they’ll come shut us down, I’ll bet you any amount of money. But you play your cards right, kid, and you’ll be moving from a paid internship to a full-time agent.”
Tom beamed at the offer. I could tell he’d been dreaming of that position for a while, and this led me to assume this was the first time the offer was finally on the table. I saw years and years of hard work finally feel worth it in Tom’s gleaming eyes and I couldn’t help but feel proud of him too, even though I’d only known him for ten minutes.
“Will Tom be working with me today?” I asked, perhaps a little too hopefully. Mulder cast me a sideways glance, almost reading my secret affections embedded in my heart.
“Tom is sort of our emissary between the upper and lower levels,” Mulder explained, walking around his desk to sit back in his chair. “He relays messages to Skinner, receives lab results, buys us food, that sort of thing. Until we need him to take us places or help us on a case, then he usually accompanies us. But you’ll be staying here doing the paperwork.”
I was a little bummed I wouldn’t be working in close perimeter to Tom, but it was enough to be this close to him through my parents already. “Of course, leave me the secretarial work while you big wigs get to go see the real action,” I jeered, straightening some papers on Mulder’s desk. “Typical office-room misogyny. Haven’t you learned anything from Scully?”
“Why would I have to? You fill in for her when she’s gone,” Mulder joked back. “Between the two of you, I might as well become a professor of feminism.”
Tom and I laughed, and all three of us conversed for a few minutes until we heard the door open. Scully entered the room still in her white lab coat, which she proceeded to hang on the coat rack by the door.
“Just received a call about a missing groundskeeper in Allentown,” she said with her back to us. Turning around, she saw Tom and I standing in front of the desk. Her eyes lighted up.
“Oh Ali, you’re here!” she said, coming up to wrap me in a hug. “This is going to be great. When did you arrive?”
“About fifteen minutes ago,” I said into her fluffy orange hair, which smelled of raspberries and lilacs. “When do you guys have to leave?”
“In about an hour,” Scully replied, looking at Mulder. “Sheriff wants us in to inspect the scene by tonight, and I figure it’s probably a two, three hour drive from here. Tom, would you mind checking us out a car?”
“Right away, madam,” he replied, walking towards the door. “It was great to meet you, Ali. Maybe I’ll see you tonight?”
I nodded and smiled. He reciprocated and shut the door behind him. Scully, ever my mind-reader, turned back to give me a sly smile. “I did that on purpose,” she whispered in my ear, gesturing toward the door. “Just because I knew you’d be working for us one day.” I rolled my eyes and playfully pushed her shoulder.
“Don’t get any bright ideas,” Mulder remarked, easily irritated by the implication. “You don’t need any distractions and neither does he. This is serious business, Ali, and we need you to take this professionally.”
“Mulder, you’ve got a picture of an alien on our wall,” said Scully, picking up the case file on his desk. “How serious do you think this place is?”
“I’ve been working here for eight years, Dad. I know the ins and outs of this place better than he ever will,” I retorted. Scully chuckled and nodded in approval.
“Atta girl,” she said.
Mulder and Scully took the remaining time they had to tell me what I needed to do while they were gone. There were crime reports I had to finish that Scully started and case files I needed to read through and determine if they were worthy enough to pursue, if they could wait for a later time, or if they belonged to a different department. There were correspondents I needed to get back to, calls I had to make, reservations to be placed. At least I’d have a busy first day, despite the fact I’d be alone the whole time.
“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to stay back?” Mulder asked as he slipped his black overcoat on. “I can always stay back with you and let Scully go with Tom. This place gets pretty mundane with all the paper work.”
“Then how would I trash this place and contaminate all the files?” I sarcastically asked. Mulder laughed. “Really, Mulder, I’ll be fine here. I’ll put my feet up, put some music on, and sort through as much as I can. You’ll be calling me anyway with updates on what to do, and no doubt Skinner will be down here at some point. I’ll see you all later tonight or tomorrow morning.”
Mulder and Scully both smiled. Mulder wrapped me in his tight embrace and I laid my head on his chest, just like I’d done as a child. He always smelled like Old Spice and laundry detergent, an aroma I’d come to recognize as a distinctly “Mulder” aroma. He kissed the top of my head.
As he went out the door, Scully took me in her arms. “You’ve really proven yourself, Ali,” Scully said gently into my ear. “I have no qualms placing all of this into your care. I know you can do it. You’ve got Scully blood in you.”
“You forgot about the Mulder blood,” I retorted.
She chuckled. “Let’s not think about that,” she replied, and we shared a laugh. “By the way, I have a fridge hidden in the back. Take whatever you want, your dad and I do all the time. He makes you think like this is all serious business, but let’s face it – this is kiddie stuff to you. In no time, this hovel will be your home away from home.”
I smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll make you two proud,” I said as I opened the door for her.
She turned to leave, but before she left, she turned around and whispered, “I’ll make sure to talk you up to Tom.”
I rolled my eyes and pushed her out the door.