Reality Bites

Reality Bites

"With all due respect, Sir."

"Silence, Agent Scully. We all know you only make that remark about due respect when you are planning to say something insubordinate."

Scully growled and rolled her eyes. Mulder winced and opened his mouth to speak but reconsidered and said nothing.

"So, Agent Mulder. You've returned from the dead. Again. Do you know the volume of paperwork that causes? Well, do you?"

Mulder clenched his jaw and frowned at the edge of the desk.

The manager looked at Mulder and wondered how the Agent managed to get hold of designer suits on an FBI salary. He considered his own suit with some disdain. Maybe he should ask Mulder if he got a frequent shopper discount at the Armani shop. He turned to look at the redhead, puzzled again by her expensive but oddly unflattering attire. "Perhaps, you'd like to explain yourself, Agent Scully."

Scully sat up looking startled, as if the eye drops had been overdone. "Wh-wh-what? But I didn't do anything wrong."

"I see. Agent Mulder tells us that he was feeling depressed and overemotional following a disagreement with you. Oh yes and the fact that he'd just wasted either the last five or the last twenty five years of his life, depending on your viewpoint. He doesn't remember anything after switching on the video and bursting into tears. However, it would appear that he was kidnapped by someone who left a body to confuse our investigations. You, however tell us you were in full control of your senses and your actions when you identified the body as Mulder."

"I was a little upset." Scully replied stoically.

"So upset that you came into work the following day and proceeded to poke holes in your dead partner's service record?"

"I wanted people to understand that he'd been duped."

"He'd been duped? You identified that body as his and he was duped? And, it's not the first time either."

"Sir?" She replied, surprised that anyone could recall further than last week's case.

"Let me refresh your memory. You've worked with Mulder for more than four years. You were working on a case in which your partner told you quite clearly about the suspect's mastery of disguise. Then you accept some hospital janitor as a replacement for your Oxford educated psychologist colleague. No questions asked, apparently."

"Skinner fell for it as well."

"Yes. Assistant Director Skinner, or should we say public enemy number seven. So, Agent Mulder, I'm sure you've a good explanation for forgetting you had video evidence of Skinner talking to that police detective only minutes before the murder. A murder that probably used Skinner's gun. Except we can't be sure about that, because the gun you apparently found down the drain was unmarked. I thought you were supposed to be spookily good at making connections? Nothing struck you as suspicious about the fact Skinner had developed an inordinate interest in the case, or in impersonating you, or indeed in the fact Skinner obtained a new weapon the following week?"

Mulder shrugged nervously and tried to read the notes lying on the desk, unfortunately without his glasses this was a problem. It didn't help that the writing was green on a red background, apparently to avoid photo copying. Since he'd become color blind, things like that upset him. "I often need to get a new gun myself. And I always thought Skinner was a nice guy."

"Sure. I guess that's why before you died last time, you attacked him in the office?"

Mulder shifted uncomfortably in the seat. Scully considered leaping to his defence and telling the panel that Mulder had been drugged on that occasion. But so far he'd not done much to defend her so she decided to think of snakes and the meaning of life.

The chief continued. "I was forgetting, that was just the start wasn't it, one of the first instances of you getting physically abusive. Then what do we get, you threatening an elderly man in the hospital, an elderly man who was apparently just a friend calling in to see your sick mother. Slapping prisoners around came next. Then intimidating your sick mother. Then shooting at Agent Scully."

"But Sir. It wasn't like that. I was. Well. I had this hole in my head. And there were these drugs. And."

"And Agent Scully forgot everything she knows as a Doctor and as an FBI Agent and covered up your behaviour, your seizures and what looks remarkably like a suicide attempt."

Mulder saw his chance to put in a good word for Scully, maybe she'd do the same for him. "It helps explain why Agent Scully jumped to conclusions over the body at the apartment."

"It helps explain nothing. It fits in with an ongoing series of cover ups that you two have carried out to protect one another at the expense of your jobs as FBI Agents."

"Sir? We never cover up information to protect one another at the expense of our jobs as FBI Agents." The two Agents replied simultaneously.

"Agent Mulder. For how long have you known that Agent Scully was suffering from cancer? For how long have you known it was affecting her judgement?"

"It wasn't affecting her judgement." He replied sheepishly.

"Of course. So you think it's normal for a FBI Agent to take a suspect who she wants to put into a witness protection scheme to a bar? You think it's normal when an FBI Agent who believes she is shooting at a trained assassin who has already killed another Agent not only fails to hit the target but doesn't even notice him escape? I assume she was shooting to kill, like standard operating procedure instructs? Is she that bad a shot?"

"No. When she shot me it was a clean hit straight through a surprisingly fleshy bit of the shoulder."

"And where was she aiming? No, don't answer, it doesn't matter. Let's stick to more recent events. The only time she works in the field alone, she hits the sack with the first man she meets, gets a tattoo, lands herself in the hospital. No one would be surprised if it had happened to Agent Mulder, but Agent Scully has always been a model of rationality."

Scully sat up straight in her seat and crossed her arms to emphasise her disgust. "It wasn't the cancer affecting my judgement. I was fine. I was just rebelling against authority figures."

"Mulder? An authority figure? Are you trying to be funny, Agent Scully?"

Mulder became suddenly animated and leapt back into the discussion. "Sir. I resent this. Not only is there nothing wrong with Agent Scully seeing me as authority figure but I would not hit the sack with the first man I met."

"Yes. Agent Mulder. Let's consider some of your solo work. Los Angeles, you spent the night with a groupie to a trio of vampires on the edge of a forest fire? And as to what went on with Alex Krycek, I don't even want to guess why it occurred to you that running away with him to Russia would be a good move. Which brings me to another thing. Jurisdiction. I'll ignore the outrageous cost of your little excursion to Alaska with its snowmobiles and rescue helicopters, at least it was barely legal. Let's look at some of your other trips. Norway? Hong Kong? Canada? Did you do geography at school? Are you aware that the FBI is a US government organisation?"

"I didn't claim expenses for the Hong Kong trip. And I did apprehend a wanted suspect."

"Yes, Krycek again. So you said. Not that you actually brought him in, of course. What is it with you and Krycek and foreign travel? Don't try to justify it Mulder. It won't happen again. You won't be flying anywhere, you are too dangerous to fly. Need I remind you that you took Roche, a dangerous convict on a civilian flight. Unaccompanied. No US Marshalls. No other Agents. No brains."

"I was under a lot of pressure."

"Of course you were, lucky your accomplice Walter Skinner needed to store a favour up for later use, else you'd have been out of the door. And then there was Max Fenig. You produce some insane story about the plane he's travelling in being shot down because he was carrying a UFO component. So what do you do? You pick up the rest of the component and get on a flight full of people. You take my breath away. Anyway, you're grounded."

"Grounded? For how long, Sir?"

"Three years. Stay clear of epileptic seizures for three years and after psychological screening we'll consider letting you carry a gun and drive a Bureau car. Until then you can do something in line with your medically restricted status."

"Such as?"

"Librarian. And if you start messing around with the magazine subscriptions list you'll be fired. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Now, Agent Scully. I realise that you were not fully responsible for your actions."

"I was wholly responsible for my actions."

"Agent Mulder is a dangerous influence, particularly on a suggestible young Agent such as yourself."

"I am not suggestible, I know what I'm doing."

"You were unwell."

"I'm fine, Sir. And at no time was I unfit for duty. I always carried enough kleenex to deal with any nose bleed emergencies."

"You lied out of loyalty to your partner."

"I never lie."

"I believe that your comments about the lack of validity of the X-Files casework was made at a time of extreme duress and referred only to a small part of what you have achieved."

"I was not under duress. I gave a scientific, balanced appraisal."

"OK, Agent Scully. You win. I was going to give you the X-Files division but that's fine, I'll close it. I'm reassigning you."

"To what, Sir?"

"Ground Based Operational Logistics Officer to the Director. Reporting to the Mechanically Propelled Systems Coordinator."

Mulder sat up, startled. "You're making Scully the Director's chauffeur, Sir?"

"Yes, the Director has been complaining that he misses arguing with cab drivers. He wants someone who'll contradict him in the driver's seat."

Scully took a deep breath and nodded briefly, she loved driving, it was one of the reasons she'd grown to regret her partnership with Mulder. "I'll do my best, Sir."

"I'm sure you will. The Director says he misses the adrenaline surge of rolling up the glass window to cut off the driver. It was one of his favourite power things. You're dismissed. Both of you."

Drrrrriiiinnnggg.

Dana Scully rolled groggily over in the bed at the sound of the alarm clock. She sighed with relief as she realised that it had all been a terrible dream.

It was then she heard the shower. No. No, it couldn't be. That was ten years ago in an episode of Dallas. It couldn't be true, it couldn't be happening again, not on the X-Files. Mulder couldn't still be alive and in her shower, she couldn't just have dreamed the whole nightmare of his death.

She pushed gingerly towards the bathroom. Paused at the door. Watched the steam spilling out above the shower curtain. She moved slowly to the curtain and in a single movement threw it back.

Phew.

It was only the flukeman. Thank goodness.