Work Text:
Snow crunches under heavy boots as Fox Mulder looks around the campus. He looks down at the file in his hand and back up toward the brick building in front of him.
“Building 24A.” A voice says behind him.
Mulder nods as his partner, Jerry Lamana sidles up next to him.
“Seems like it.”
The two men follow the plowed path in front of them into the building and straight to the classroom they’re looking for. Mulder can’t remember the last time he was on a college campus. Well… that’s not exactly true. He can remember, as it was just a few years ago himself, but he chooses not to for his own sanity. He starts to feel uncomfortable the moment they enter the building and the warmth of it compared to the cold outside makes him sweat. Though he did enjoy college to an extent, academia had not always been kind to his thought process.
He followed Jerry deeper into the building, up a flight of stairs to the second floor. He opened the file once more to have something to do with his hands. Something about this building gave him the heebie jeebies. Inside the manilla folder was a black and white copy of a student file as well as a full debrief of the student herself.
“Dana Scully.” He said aloud.
He’d gone over the file several times. He knew her name already. He’d memorized her face and every piece of information from her file the moment he got his hands on it.
“Yeah. She’s down the hall. Higher ups say she’s great with bodies and death. Might be a match made in heaven for ya, Spooky.” Jerry said, laughing to himself.
Why Jerry had brought him along for a recruitment was beyond him, but he thought it would be interesting to see if and why a medical student would even want to join the FBI. He couldn’t imagine spending that much for med school to throw it away to be a desk jockey. But who knows. He’s met some rather odd doctors. Maybe Dana Scully would be no different.
When they arrived to the door they were looking for, they peeked inside the window. Inside was a small redhead with her back turned toward them. Mulder knocked and opened the door at the same time.
She turned and her blue eyes met his brown ones.
“Very polite of you to wait for me to open the door.” she said sarcastically.
Mulder didn’t say anything in response. He looked back down at his file, specifically at the black and white photo of her. Jerry walked into the room and began his recruitment talk. Mulder looked back up at her speaking with Jerry. He hadn’t expected her hair to be so… red. From the photo itself, he had assumed her eyes to be some type of lighter blue color, but he wasn’t expecting them to be so piercing. They made him think of the color ghosts were in movies. A pale blue. Groovy.
“Mulder… Mulder?”
Mulder snapped back into reality for a moment. Jerry was calling for him and Scully was staring at him peculiarly.
“Yes?” He said.
“I need to make a phone call. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Take some time to get to know Dana for a bit.” With that, Jerry headed towards the door and patted him on the shoulder. “Good luck, Spooky.” He said, exiting, closing the door behind him.
Dana furrowed her brow. “Spooky?”
“Yeah. It’s what they call me back at the headquarters. I solve a lot of crimes, but people find me and my methods a bit…”
“Spooky?” She finished, a small knowing smile on her face.
He smiled back. “Yeah. It’s a hell of a lot better than Fox.” He offered his hand out to her. “Agent Fox Mulder. It’s nice to meet you.”
She shook his hand. It was small in his, but her grip was firm and sure of itself.
“Doctor Dana Scully. Pleasure.”
The two stood in relative silence for a moment. Mulder unsure what Jerry had already told her, and Scully unsure what Mulder was here for in the first place. Mulder finally took in the room, and realized they were in a morgue. To his right was a metal wall with drawers full of cadavers, and to his left, a metal table. He hopped up onto the table and sat. He turned his head toward the lone window in the room. It had begun to snow again. He still wasn’t sure why he was brought here.
“So. You like it here? Researching?” He said nonchalantly.
“Relatively. I’ve done most of the research I came here to do and have studied all that I feel this campus can give me. I’ve been looking for something more challenging.”
“So you think the next step is the FBI?”
“I think it’s a step in the right direction. I believe forensic science is the future in solving crimes and I’d like to be a part of it.” She said, walking toward him. She joined him on the metal operating slab. She’d never actually sat on it before. It felt cold under her. She thought of all the people she had autopsied on this table. She hopped off and crossed her arms, standing across from Mulder instead. “Why did you join?” She said, changing the subject.
“My sister went missing as a kid. I want to find out what took her.”
“You mean who took her.” She corrected.
Mulder smiled. “I know what I said.”
They took another pause, taking the other in, observing each other. It was something they were both used to in their respective fields. Observing.
“You hungry?” He says suddenly.
She nodded her head.
He hops off the table and she follows him out of the room and down the hall toward the stairs. He had passed by a vending machine earlier with Jerry and it had caught his eye while reading her file. They stood in front of it. Inside were the usual vending machine suspects. Chips, pretzels, cookies. Even weird gummy candies and chocolates that had probably melted a little in the warmth of the building. But what seems to catch both his and Dana’s eyes seems to be the holiday animal crackers in a red and white striped package. He opens his wallet and buys one for the both of them.
They snack in relative silence, occasionally going back and forth on their tastes in movies, college experiences, and plans for the holidays. Dana is going to visit family and spend the week there before returning to school. She seems to think she’ll be heading to the academy shortly after that. Mulder told her he didn’t really have time to celebrate the holidays these days because of work (a lie), but she doesn’t need to know everything about him.
“Look!” She says, laughing a little at him, holding up a white frosted cookie with green and red sprinkles in her hand. “It’s a fox!”
He smirk and takes a closer look at it and looks on the back of his animal cracker packaging. None of the cookie animals listed are foxes.
“I believe that’s a donkey, actually.” He says taking the cookie and eating it. “Thanks.” He says sarcastically with his mouth full.
Eventually, Jerry returns from his phone call, shaking off the snow covering his suit. He hands Dana a folder of recruitment information that he had already gone over and thanks her for her time, shaking her hand. She smiles and thanks him graciously before turning back to Mulder.
“Thank you as well.” She says. “I hope to see you again some day.”
Mulder smiles, and he means it when he says, “I hope so too.”
He nods his goodbye. “Merry Christmas, Doctor Scully.”
“Merry Christmas, Agent Mulder.” She says.
Mulder and Jerry exit the building, and the chill of the air bites his skin. On the way back to their car, Mulder can feel his neck tingling. He turns and sees Scully from the window, looking down at him from the second floor. She waves at him. He waves back. For a moment, he hopes his holiday wish of meeting her again is granted. And it is.