Chapter Text
When Fox asks her to join him on a case, Diana jumps at the opportunity to prove that she should be his partner. She’s been laying the groundwork for months now, and it appears that Fox is finally ready to accept the truth. They belong together, in work and life. They just make sense.
He wants her to come with him to a small island that the locals insist is haunted by a murderous witch, but the actual details of the case aren’t important. She’s brushed up on occult symbolism enough to impress Fox when they get out there, and that’s what this is really about.
“This case is fascinating,” Diana tells him when she arrives at the dock, flashing a winning smile. “Thank you for including me.”
“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” Fox replies, introducing her to the local officers, Alice Jones and Dan Roberts.
They’re both thoroughly average looking—and that’s being generous. Diana can’t help but notice that she and Fox look like glamorous movie stars by comparison. Speaking of unremarkable nobodies…
“Will Agent Scully be joining us?” Diana asks, feigning innocent curiosity.
“Absolutely not,” Fox says, his eyes flashing with something like fear. “I don’t want her anywhere near this.”
Trouble in Paradise, Diana muses. This is going better than she could have ever imagined.
Adding a delicious twist, who should arrive uninvited but Agent Scully herself? She pulls into the small parking lot by the dock, her face a study in quiet fury as she exits the vehicle and spots Diana.
That’s right, sweetheart, Diana thinks. He wants me here instead of you.
Fox rushes to talk to Scully privately, probably letting her down gently. Such a gentleman.
“She can not come with us,” Office Roberts mumbles to his partner. “Can you imagine?”
Ah, so even the locals can tell Scully is a dud.
“So you keep saying,” Officer Jones sighs. “Once again, thank you so much. I get it. I’m old. Quit rubbing it in.”
“Aww, you know I don’t mean it that way,” Roberts knocks her shoulder like an old pal. Jones glares at him.
Diana feels lost. What are they talking about?
“Agent Scully is a scientist,” Diana offers charitably. “The occult is not her field of expertise.”
They both look at her like she’s an idiot.
“That’s not why they don’t want her to come,” Alice Jones corrects her. “They think the witch will try to suck out her soul because she’s so young and pretty, unlike the pair of us old hags. Isn’t that right, Danny?”
Diana’s jaw drops slightly. That cannot be accurate.
“No one said hags,” Officer Dan Roberts rushes to assure them. “It’s just that the victims meet a certain… criteria.”
“Yeah, young and pretty,” Alice Jones snarks grumpily.
Diana spins around to confront Fox about these outrageous allegations. He and Scully are exchanging quiet words, his expression a mix of exasperation and—well, clearly not love but—
“We’re good to go,” Mulder announces, rejoining the group. “Agent Scully has agreed to do some research at the library.”
Diana notices that Agent Scully no longer seems angry. She appears resigned, yes, but not entirely unhappy. Scully retreats to the rental car, but she doesn’t have the air of defeat that Diana would have expected.
“Fox, can I talk to you a moment?” Diana asks, grabbing his arm and taking a few steps away from the local cops.
She doesn’t know what she wants to say exactly. Hey, did you invite me because you think I’m too old and unattractive to be in any danger? No, impossible.
“Why don’t you want Agent Scully to come with us?” Diana asks instead.
“You read the victim profile,” he says, as if that should clear it all up. His face scrunches in confusion as if he can’t imagine how she doesn’t already know.
“The witch steals youth and beauty,” Diana recalls flatly, her mind spinning at the unthinkable implication that Dana Scully possesses these things while she, Diana Fowley, does not.
“Exactly,” Fox seems relieved that she gets it. “We need to be able to examine the crime scene without providing the witch with any… temptations.”
He does not even seem aware of the possibility that Diana might find this insinuation to be offensive. Nope, he’s just stating the facts as he sees them. Completely and utterly oblivious.
Diana would like to punch him in the face.
“Then let’s go,” Diana forces herself to say, half hoping that there is an ancient witch and that it does attack just so that Fox has to live with the guilt of so foolishly underestimating her value.
They find no sign of a witch.
Later, when she suggests that they work so well together that perhaps she should be his permanent partner, he looks so perplexed and uncomfortable that she has to pretend that she was joking.