Room 312 by Maureen B. Ocks (Maureen_B_Ocks@yahoo.com) Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully and all other familiar X Files characters belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and FOX. No copyright infringement intended. Archive -- Sure, as long as my name stays with it. Spoilers: Through the movie with a U.S. Season 6 rumor. Keywords: Scully musings/stream of consciousness I wrote a vignette and got some really nice feedback. Thank you all. Several folks wondered what Scully was thinking while Mulder was musing in "Pocatello". This is my try at Scullyfic. "Pocatello" isn't required reading for this. PG13 for language === AmeriTel Inn, Room 312 Pocatello, Idaho 9:45pm I loved that suit. It survived a frogstorm in New Hampshire, an all-night flight to Alaska, an FBI hearing to get my job back, a trip to get Mulder back from an Iowa hospital, a trip to get Mulder back from Paterson's planned hell, my first trip to the oncologist, several blood tests and MRIs, a trip home from the hospital, a run through the Michigan mud, Texas vampires, still more Mulder- madness in a Midwestern suburb and the fiery death of the X- Files office. It also survived hundreds of changes from business suit to scrubs in a variety of morgue scrub rooms, business suit to packed pajamas in seedy hotels, business suit to sweater and jeans in my apartment. I loved that suit. And it is covered with cow manure. Mulder and I are in about the most depressing place we've ever been and that is saying something. Our new assignment, Domestic Terrorism, has us here in Pocatello capturing one Jimmy John Davis who tried to buy anthrax with -- get this -- a secured Visa card he got from watching Joe Bob Briggs on TNT. He used his AOL account goboom@aol.com to make this transaction over the internet. I have no idea what Jimmy John was going to do with his planned purchase. Here's a scary thought -- lethal chemicals in the hands of a man who found ninth grade so interesting that he did it twice. Mulder was in rare form. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. If Jimmy John tripled his IQ, he'd be a low end fool. Mulder asked Jimmy John if he knew how to pronounce anthrax because it was Beavis's favorite band. That was one of his gentler questions. Mulder figured out where Jimmy John kept his hidden anthrax stash. He figured out the one place the "big city F. B. of I Agents" -- Jimmy John called us that in his confession -- wouldn't think to look. I don't even want to know why Mulder thought a barn stall with a large cow would be a great hiding place, but he knew. As I sat in the car making flight plans back to DC, Mulder worked on getting our awful smelling suits home. After we put them in garbage bags he charmed out of housekeeping, he planned to Fed Ex them to the Hoover Building. Oh, and he put his old office number on the address slip, "Force of habit Scully". I can just see it now -- Jeffrey Spender weighing which is worse, this hideous smelling box sitting in his badly lit, poorly ventilated basement office or walking it to Mulder's and my rather large new office on the 4th floor. Hmmm...boggles the mind. Despite his one true moment of enjoyment today, at Spender's expense, Mulder hates this. His Pennsylvania pleas for a rural life without modern conveniences aside, Mulder is lost without taxis, bright streetlights and four lane highways. There is nothing like seeing a true "city boy" in wingtips and what had to be a $600.00 suit walking around in a barn. Mulder's aliens would have been more at home here. Mulder also hates Domestic Terrorism. His "hunch" in Texas which saved a building full of people belatedly brought us to the attention of the FBI brass. After they decided we wouldn't hang for finding the right building, we became Domestic Terrorism's Wonderteam. The FBI couldn't transfer the two agents who saved 500 lives to a quiet basement division -- no we're back on the bureau's fast track. And Spender, who Mulder probably hates most of all, has the one thing that means anything to him, the X Files. I take that back. I've learned there are things that means more to Mulder. He's being a good boy -- OK, a good boy for Mulder -- lately. We are racking up the success stories, we are playing well with the locals and we are building a bank account of favors. We're playing the game so we can win. And we will win, because losing is unthinkable. Lately things have opened up between Mulder and me. A blast from his past, Diana, made me reassess what Mulder was to me. Partner -- yep; friend -- the best; the only man who ever truly respected me for my mind, my skills and my abilities -- we have a winner. My Father adored me, but thought joining the FBI was a bad decision, a waste of all he and Mom invested in me and colored every thing we ever shared after that. Bill loves me, but thinks everything I've done since Dad died was Mulder's idea. Both thought I failed them but couched their disappointment and disrespect in wanting the best for me. Mulder never dreams I'll fail and know my success -- our success -- is the best for me. Diana also made me reassess what I was to Mulder. An anchor weighing him down, a guaranteed no when he needed a yes, a noose around his neck. Well, not that bad. But Diana thought like him, had his background, worked with him before I did and they shared something more. I thought maybe he wanted all of that back, tiring of working too hard for what was easy for him professionally and Hannah Hooters in "There's Something Inside of Mary" personally. Mulder's startling hallway confession after I threw in my papers is still the strangest thing that has happened to me in the six years and that is also saying something. I made him a whole person. Jesus Mulder, where did that come from? Actually, I should have seen that coming. Weeks earlier he told me I was his one in five billion. It was manipulative but oddly heartfelt. Before that, he wanted to tell me his role in an FBI sting, but Skinner said no. Mulder was for full disclosure and sharing with me. Wow. Mulder uses the word trust the way most men use the word love. Rarely. And yet, he's told me I'm the only one he trusts. I keep him honest. God, honest -- I'll be honest. I mean more to Mulder than anything. He fought my mother and my sister because he knew I would survive and because leaving was not an option. He traded his sister for me because he needed me and thought he could have his cake and eat it too. He traded the DAT tape so I could be with my sister because of all people he knew what it was like to lose one. He almost traded his sanity and his future to help me beat cancer because again, leaving was not an option. As for me, honestly, nobody has respected, engaged, infuriated, challenged, pleased, educated, annoyed or fascinated me more than Mulder. I taught Mulder as I learned from him. I showed him proof based on science -- something I love -- and he showed me the stars, the heavens and the possibilities out there, something he yearns for. He called me one night -- oddly enough leading to another case with manure a few years ago -- and mentioned I wasn't one to stare at the skies and think about life out there. Well, I wasn't when I met him, but I find myself doing it more now. Not necessarily because I think there are things "out there", but because of the beauty and tranquility that is there. Mulder showed me that. And I realize I've shown Mulder things. Before the hearing where he implicated Blevins, he said that I would stop him from doing the wrong thing. Not that I'd stop him, just stop him from making a mistake. That was the voice I should have listened to when I saw Mulder with Diana. That was the voice I should have listened to as a ran from his apartment after Dallas. That is the voice that speaks to me now because Mulder's spent the last year letting me in. Or letting me in, Mulder style. I brought wine and cheese to his room one night, hoping to have a nice long conversation with him. He ran off into the woods with me at his side. One night later, he's hurt, I'm trying to light a fire and we're having conversations about death, life and Betty Rubble's breasts. I figured something out that night as Mulder slept and I sang "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall". Mulder and I don't do normal conversation well but put us in an odd place with danger all around and we're a pair of Chatty Cathys. So now I'm here and Mulder is two rooms down. If I had wine and cheese I'd bring it to him but I don't think accounting wants to hear why Mulder and I were in the Idaho woods looking for mothmen's Northwestern cousins. I want to talk with him soon though. Talk about the near-miss kiss and that after we've checked for bugs -- both bees and listening devices -- I'd like to try again. I'd like to talk like we do when its life and death when its just life and life. Finally, I'd like to tell him that despite the hell we've been through over the last few years, I wouldn't change a thing. Even the flukeman thing. Looking, and unfortunately smelling, my suit in the Glad trash bag, I remember one last thing about this blue Donna Karan. Of all things Mulder and I have been through, the oddest thing of all happened in that suit. A strangely shy Mulder asked me to dance one night when I wore that suit. I should have retired it there and then -- it was the best day that suit ever had. --- End --- Feedback would be greatly appreciated Maureen_B_Ocks@yahoo.com