Chapter Text
Chapter 1 - (Re)introduction
The line for the parking garage was curled round the block again. Muttering under his breath, Mulder steered their new SUV to join the line. The car beeped at him to indicate his proximity to the car in front. He hit what he thought was the button to silence the noise, instead turning on the blinkers. He was still getting used to the bells and whistles that the new Volvo XC40 came with. The vehicle certainly wasn’t his vehicle of choice but as it was ostensibly Scully’s car and she had chosen it after extensive research on the safety record of family vehicles, there was little, he felt like he could complain about.
As he hit the button again to turn the blinkers off, he glanced to the passenger seat where Scully sat with her phone raised so she could reread the personnel file of Agent Zara Odeyemi, the agent-cum-data analyst who was joining them to help with the unprecedented number of incident reports that were being classed as X-files. The proliferation of potential cases caused by the manipulation the Syndicate had undertaken on not only the human genome, but also numerous flora and fauna was becoming a big headache, not only for him, Scully and the FBI, but other federal agencies. It seemed like he and Scully were the first line of defence, essentially the triage nurses for the beginnings of a global crises. The past few weeks following the events at Mistica in Arizona had seemed to encourage higher ups in the various Federal machinery to look at the problem with more urgency. In reality that was a change in pace from glacial to molasses, everything that involved interagency federal government was slow and cumbersome. It had taken Acting Assistant Director Morrison, several weeks to get authorisation through the various budget committees to get even one person allocated to a team that many didn’t even want to exist.
They spent their days trawling through paperwork during work hours and supporting Scully’s former colleague geneticist Dr Karen Jones with her scientific investigations out of hours, and getting nowhere with both. He felt like he was stuck in an interminable limbo. He hated the inaction; it was bad enough he was getting nowhere at work but Karen was apparently no closer to finding a solution to the DNA damage that was occurring globally. Scully assured him research always took time, especially when it was something so groundbreaking, but it didn’t make him feel any better. Not least when she was impacted directly. He returned his gaze to Scully once more. Since her return from Arizona she had been working on controlling her newly received ability to manipulate electric charges. She hadn’t destroyed anymore cellphones or microwaves in the past few weeks. Through she did have a tendency to unexpectedly pop lightbulbs when she got annoyed, scared or excited. As long as she stayed calm and her emotions were regulated, she seemed to be able to control it.
His general morning annoyance deepened for a fraction of a second as Scully took a bite of what he was sure was his breakfast bagel. “Baby hungry this morning?” he asked inching the car forward as if to make the line move.
“Hmm,” she looked across at him and then glanced at the bagel in her hand. “Oh sorry,” she gave him a sheepish smile and handed the bagel to him. Now twenty-five weeks pregnant she had relaxed somewhat. Passed the point of viability and with everything progressing well she seemed to almost be enjoying it despite everything that was coalescing around them and the general discomforts that were associated with pregnancy. He was more than pleased about her enjoying this time. He doubted she managed to enjoy her last pregnancy with his absence and apparent death, and her too common health scares. He was enjoying it vicariously through her, enjoying watching her experience new things long forgotten every day, even if recently, it had meant losing parts of his breakfast, and lunch, and dinner.
“Looks a bit chewed on,” he smirked at the three-quarter portion he had been left with.
“It smelt good,” Scully admitted before glancing back at her phone. “Do you think we we’ll be long? Maybe I should get out and walk I don’t want Agent Odeyemi waiting for us. It’s hardly a good first impression.” As if to answer her query the line began to move.
“You working your magic?” Mulder stuffed the bagel into his mouth so he could properly steer the car around the corner towards the entrance of the parking garage. Just at the point that it seemed about to fall from his mouth, Scully grabbed it back, scrumptiously tracing her little finger to scoop some of the avocado filling that had spilled from the side, the expression on her face pure innocence as she savoured the taste though Mulder could see the teasing glint in her eyes.
The parking garage was separate from the Hoover Building now, supposedly for safety but with all the additional security measures such as vehicle numberplate recognition it just seemed to slow everything down and he wasn’t sure of the logic as it caused a daily line of agents who were kind of sitting ducks for any nefarious persons who wanted to take issue with the FBI and it’s personnel. As he entered the parking structure, they sat in silence as they looked for an open spot. It took to the fifth level for spaces to open up. Scully pointing to one relatively near to the elevator bank. Mulder maneuvered the silver SUV and began backing it into the space.
“Wait!” Scully suddenly interjected undoing her belt. “I need to get out.”
“Give me two seconds and I’ll be parked.”
“Mulder look at the space either side.”
“Loads of room.”
“Now look at me.” Scully requested softly.
Mulder paused to look down at her burgeoning stomach. Given the numerous safety features the car was bedecked with, the doors where a good six inches thick. Meaning that once parked, there wouldn’t be much space between the door and the door frame to squeeze through if they didn’t want to hit the car parked beside it. “Right,” he nodded in acknowledgment and applied the parking break so she could get out. Once he was certain she was a safe distance he resumed parking the car, sliding it back into the space before exiting the vehicle with some difficulty of his own. He rolled his eyes as Scully stifled a smile at his twisting and turning. “A downside of your vehicle choice.”
“A downside of this parking garage.” She smiled weakly, self-consciously pulling her long wool coat around her. “I don’t remember this problem last time.”
“I don’t remember this problem last year,” Mulder shimmied himself free of the car and slammed the door shut. “I’m surprised it’s not bulletproof. These are nearly as thick as the Beast’s doors,” he muttered referring to the presidential limousine which reportedly had 8-inch-thick bulletproof doors.
“At least it isn’t as expensive,” Scully waited for him to join her so they could walk in step towards the elevator bank. They paused in front of the bank of doors before glancing at each other. With a quirk of his eyebrows Mulder placed his hand on the small of Scully’ back and guided her towards the stairwell, neither of them wanting to get stuck if Scully unintentionally caused an electrical surge. “Though that’s not to say I wouldn’t have considered it, were it in our price range. It is one of the safest cars on the planet.”
“Irish security bollards notwithstanding,” Mulder chuckled as they moved into the cold echoey stairwell of the parking structure. They continued to banter back and forth about cars and safety features as they made their way through the FBI complex and various security points. As they eventually rounded the corner to their office, they saw that Zara Odeyemi was already waiting for them outside the door. Dressed in a light grey suit and a white blouse it was clear the young agent was nervous by how she was observing her sensible black loafers with great interest, and by how tightly she was grasping the grip of the single elbow crutch she held in her left hand.
Despite knowing she was a fully qualified agent Mulder felt like he was looking at a kid fresh out of high school. Either everyone was getting younger or he was definitely getting older. He didn’t remember being that young but he had joined the Bureau at the same age as she had, fresh out of college. Odeyemi had been on the fast track, specialising in digital profiling, her skills as a data analyst rating her 2nd in her class. One of her few trips into the field had led to disaster and diverted her course. When called to support a massive manhunt, when all available personnel had been needed, Zara had answered the call, only to find herself fighting for her own life and her ability to walk following been stabbed in the back. For whatever reason A.A.D. Morrison felt that this newly returned to work Agent was perfect for the X-files needs. Knowing from the case history of her injury that he was at a distance, similar to her attacker, 6ft white male with greying brown black short hair, he paused to let Scully make the initial introduction.
She glanced over her shoulder as she noticed his sudden distance, and then gave a faint nod in understanding. “Agent Odeyemi?” Scully spoke striding forward with her hand held out in greeting. “I’m Agent Scully.”
Odeyemi gave a slight jolt in surprise before looking up and giving Scully a beaming smile. “Nice to meet you, Agent Scully.” She pumped Scully’s hand, her eyes drifting down to Scully’s middle, eyebrows raising in surprise before catching Scully’s look of faint indignation. “I …er…sorry.” She smiled nervously. “Sorry. It’s really great to meet you. My Dad said you taught him at the Quantico,” Zara followed Scully into the office. “You failed him,” Scully set her laptop bag on her desk and turned to look at the young agent in bemusement. “Apparently he vomited in a cadaver.”
“That will do it,” Mulder chuckled as he followed them in at a respectful distance. “I’m Mulder.”
“Nice to meet you,” Zara gave him a soft smile. “He left soon after and joined the IRS instead, so I guess I should thank you, as that is where he met Mom. They’re auditors, well Mom was a clerk when they met but she went back to college when she had me and got her Bachelors, and is an auditor now” Odeyemi fell silent as Mulder crossed to Scully to take her coat, watching their interaction. When he turned to take the coat to the coat stand, he noticed her quickly rearrange her expression from one that you might have when looking at cute puppies, quickly replacing it with eager professionalism. “Sorry,” Odeyemi blushed at being caught out. “I didn’t realise you were an actual couple. I thought my old section chief was joking.” She waved her hand as if to silence herself. “You kind of remind me of them. My Mom and Dad I mean, not my old SC.” She closed her eyes and looked downwards and Mulder thought he heard her mutter “crap” under her breath.
“We remind you of…” Mulder shook his head as he hung up the coats. “I can feel my arthritis worsening. What did your old section chief say about us then?”
“Sorry,” Zara scrunched her nose up in embarrassment, she looked up sheepishly. “I haven’t really talked to a lot of people since my accident. I guess I’m out of practice. Just. You know. The whole ‘How do you work with Mulder and Scully. You don’t, see yourself out.’ Or something like that…” she trailed off, her eyes fixing on the case file boxes stacked at the back of the office behind Mulder. “Oh! Is that all for this case?”
“That’s just the physical files.” Mulder nodded. He strode over to the stack and pulled out a thin file. “Each one of these is filled with at individual incident reports.” he held up the file. “And that is the reason you are here.”
“There must be thousands of reports!” Zara looked between them. “All relating to the same case?”
“It would appear so,” Scully crossed to join Mulder by the stack of boxes that came level with her head. “It’s become unmanageable and all we seem to be doing is admin work not actually investigation. We need a better way of categorising the risk and also determining if the report is legitimately part of the wider case or something else. ”
“AD. Morrison said we were getting some of the profiling class to support this,” Zara’s eyes travelled up and down the stack. “Do you have any thoughts on how you need to categorise these?”
Scully took the file that Mulder was holding. “I’ve some initial thoughts, but there are several different methodologies we could use.”
Mulder took a step back letting Scully take the lead. “I’m going to be over here,” he pointed at his desk. “Trying to get your height adjustable desk sorted out while I turn into dust.” He noted that Scully and Odeyemi had a near identical reaction to his joke, a slight flick of their eyes skywards before they returned to animatedly talking about various methodologies.
After several hours of finding himself stuck in a loop of instructions and procurement forms that were not the ones he needed and with Scully and Odeyemi still deep in discussion he rose and went in search of coffee, and admin support.
Clutching his own Americano, he entered the outer part of the Assistant Director office and held out a coffee to Arlene, AD. Skinner’s and now AAD. Morrison’s trusted Personal Assistant. “Vanilla Oat milk latte, hope it’s still your drink?”
“It is,” Arlene peered at him over her screen. “She’s not available this afternoon. I might be able to find you a slot tomorrow?”
“Actually, I was here to see you. I need to get a height adjustable desk for our new agent and…” he mulled his next response “I’m being useless. It’s like following Alice down a rabbit hole trying to find what I need to fill in.”
Arlene took a swig of her coffee and gave him a pitying smile “I can get it arranged. She has an occupational health authorisation?”
“Yes,” Mulder held out the sticky note he had hastily written the authorisation number on. “Thank you,” he smiled gratefully at Arlene and turned to leave the room. “Enjoy your coffee.”
“Agent Mulder?” Arlene called him back. “I tried to visit Walter at Birchbrook but I need to be on a list. Apparently only you can authorise me being added.”
His eyebrows rose, he hadn’t thought about anyone else wanting to visit Walter Skinner as he lay in his comatose state in the long-term care facility. “I’ll call them,” Arlene gave him a genuine deep smile. A thought struck Mulder and he turned back to the desk. “Do you have any idea why he named me his medical proxy. I don’t…”
“He trusted that you would make the right choice for him, if it came to it,” Arlene interrupted him. She looked down at her keyboard her eyes intently focused on her hands “but I hope it doesn’t ever come to that.”