Title: Just Another Day on the Oil Rig Author: Vickie Moseley Summary: Bits and Pieces connecting the dots from the beginning to the end of Vienen through Mulder's point of view. Rating: strong language, no adult situations Category: post ep, MSR, MA Disclaimer: no copyright infringement intended Comments: please! vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com Author's notes: This one has been brewing a long time and finally let me write it. I just couldn't understand how Mulder could allow himself to walk away at the end. My muse gave me one possible answer. Just Another Day on the Oil Rig by Vickie Moseley Hoover Building 7:35 am It's dark down here in the basement. The window well is full of leaves again, probably has been since last autumn. If they're left there, they clog the drain and cause water to back up and pretty soon we get a nice shower right here over the desk. Somebody needs to call maintenance to have Henry clean it out. But this morning, I'm glad it's dark. I can sit in this old chair, put my feet up on the desk and pretend it's really fall of 1999 and I'm just waiting for Scully to get in. Oh, wait. I don't remember much of the fall of '99. I was busy having unsolicited brain surgery that fall. OK, fine, whatever. The fall of 1998, yeah, much better to remember. The fall of 1998 and oh, shit, that's right. I wasn't down here in the fall of '98. That little shit Spender -- even though he later redeemed himself -- had knocked me off the mountain. He was down here with Diana. Nope, don't want to think about that time right now. Fall of '97? Scully was dying of cancer and I'd committed 'mock' suicide. Bad time. '96? Shit on a shingle, no wonder I'm having trouble remembering the good times. When the hell did I have a good time down here, and no I won't wander down my long held fantasies of Scully and the slit up the side of the skirt in her oh so conservative black suit. I told Scully I didn't know where I fit in and I think she might have taken it the wrong way. At the time she gave me a doe-eyed look like I'd just told her I wanted my fraternity pin back. Sure, there she stands, 8 months pregnant with my progeny and she thinks I would dump her just because I spent most of the last six months either being a living alien science experiment or dead? What kind of a man does she think I am? But that has always been a question I'm not ready to have answered. No, I didn't mean I didn't know where I fit in Scully's life. I know where I fit there. Off to the side, just far enough away that she can see I'm there, hanging on for any crumb of attention she deigns to offer, but not close enough to dirty up her perfect existence. Bitter? No, I'm not bitter. I'm just a moon, orbiting her with no possible release, spinning on my axis and hoping one day she'll let me see the sun again. I know my being gone was hard on her. Hell, it was hard on both of us, in ways too numerous to put down. But was it hard on Scully because she missed me with the aching loneliness of one missing part of their very soul, or did she just miss not having me an arm's length away? One of these days when I'm feeling either really suicidal or drunk I might find the nerve to ask her -- not that she'd answer that one, either. I'm more concerned, at this moment in time, where I fit in this basement. Yup, this little musty old copy room that I dug out of the ashes -- these file cabinets crammed full of files I pieced back together by hand. My home, for more years that anyone around here cares to count. Where do I fit in here, now that there's another big dog peeing in the corners? John Doggett. I'm sure Scully's brother Bill has him on his Christmas card list already. Straight up guy, 'above reproach', former Marine (I saw Skinner checking his ass on the way out of the office the other day). Perfect husband-slash-father material, if you don't count the failed marriage on his track record. Hey, anybody can have an off decade or two. Former NYPD. All kinds of friends, including one Alvin Kersh. Well, at least when they looked for replacements for me, they went for the top of the line. Scully seems totally suckered by him. And how does that make you feel, Agent Mulder, my seldom-used inner Freud asks. Sort of like yesterday's fish dinner, actually. It was good when fresh, but now it's stinkin' up the joint. He's got my chair, my desk, my poster, my office, my files, and it appears, he has my partner AND her trust. When I tried to tell Scully that Doggett set me up at the Federal Data Center, she would hear none of it. To make matters worse, she muttered something about Diana and 'chickadees' under her breath as she stormed from the room in that special 'angry waddle' she's perfected lately. All thoughts of calling her on it, any chance of 'clearing the air' was put on indefinite hold when she had a partial abruption of the placenta. I know more about Scully's inner plumbing than any self- respecting bachelor should, but under the circumstances, she was more forthcoming than she was with her cancer. Thank the heavens for that, I guess. But that left my lingering doubts about the man filling my shoes to fester for a while longer. He also seems to have no idea what the hell he's doing down here, which, when taken with the rest of the above-mentioned sins, pisses me off, big time. A file Skinner gave me with the strong odor of black oil all over it still lays orphaned on his/my old desk. An oil rig in the middle of the Gulf, two dead workers, one body washed ashore with extensive burns consistent with radioactive exposure. Sure, just another day in the glorious offshore petroleum industry. I bet Doggett couldn't wait to deep six this one. Well, Scully probably won't understand all the implications but at least one of the 'old' partners who occupied this office remembers why we were here. If even Skinner has questions, somebody needs to get out on that rig. USCG helicopter en route to Galpex-Orpheus Platform Gulf of Mexico After all these years, you'd think I would remember how fucking boring it is to travel to the far corners of the continent to find an X file. Well, it's really only this boring because I left Scully behind. I know that she will consider this a ditch. I know that I will be paying hell an exorbitant amount of flesh for this transgression. I can even understand where I'm probably causing her undo stress at a time when it's the last thing she needs and I do feel guilty for that. Well, guilty, but not enough to stop me from going. Because when all is said and done, there are only two people on this planet who understand the true threat of the black oil to our entire species, not to mention one tiny little human yet to see the light of day -- and one of us is currently banned from flying by her OB. When I first woke up and looked around after my exhumation, I thought Kersh was part of the consortium. I've now decided that if he is, it's merely for comic relief. That man is so stupid as to make it a joke that he's part of a worldwide plot to hand the planet over to alien colonists. I'm not so certain that Agent John Doggett isn't playing the role of Kersh's straightman. So it was painfully obvious that if something hinky was going down in the Gulf, I'd better get my sorry son of a bitch ass down there and find out. Doggett claims he read all the files. Well, it should be noted he read all the 'remaining' files because even I have to admit that I wasn't able to piece every single burned and singed particle back together. Sixty percent, tops. The rest of the files are all in my head. So, OK, Doggett could quote chapter and verse from the investigation of the Zeus Faber. He can read, I'm happy, he can make connections, I'm thrilled. He just can't or won't follow the evidence -- that's where I'm a little disappointed. Scully says he's 'above reproach'. I'm not quite sure how to take that. Most of the time when Scully likes a person, she'll give me a straight up answer. 'Mulder, be nice to the new lab tech, the guy worked his ass off for me yesterday' or 'Give Willison a chance -- he's only being an ass because you called him an idiot in front of his ASAC'. In our 8 years together I can honestly attest to the fact that Scully has never used the term 'above reproach' in regards to another human while in my presence. Maybe it's the hormones talking (and I'm not entirely sure it isn't my testosterone or her increased estrogen) but that was a little too formal for my liking. Not to mention twisting a phrase. 'Above reproach' -- not beyond reproach. The phrase keeps circling my brain like that stupid inflammation, making me want to tear my hair out. And it takes me down some terrible paths. If John Jay Doggett, former USMC and NYPD is 'above reproach', what did she tell him about me? Doggett thinks he's such a Big Man on Campus because he 'read' all the files. Well, I did a little reading this morning while I was waiting for 'he who keeps Banker's hours' to show up in the basement. Interesting reading. Interviews from the investigation into my 'disappearance'. Love that -- 'disappearance'. They used the same word in relation to Samantha. But those interviews were very revealing. I noted that Skinner's interview, or debriefing, actually, was heavily redacted. I couldn't figure out why in the world they would find it so important to strike his record, until I realized he was probably telling the truth. He probably told exactly what he saw. I was on the inside, but he had to have seen the ship as I was being sucked into its belly. Kersh could never have allowed that to remain part of the official record. Then I came across Scully's interview. It was a written transcript, no audio included even though it was recorded. So I couldn't hear her inflection, the sound of her voice. Didn't matter, in the end. I could hear her words just as clearly as if she were speaking in my ear. She was pissed. When Scully is pissed her sentences are clipped, she bites off the end of her words and she's more likely to give one word answers to questions that would otherwise merit at least a small thesis from her. I think her entire interview had no more than 15 words in response to 10 questions. She was ready to rip somebody to shreds. Then I read the notes at the bottom of the interview. Handwritten notes signed with the initials JJD. Apparently Doggett did a little 'pre-interview' interview. OK, yeah, I'm not only familiar with the procedure I've done it myself -- on suspects. But Doggett did it on my partner. My partner whom, if I have my timeline correct, had just learned within the previous 24 hours that 1) her partner and Friday night bed buddy (me) had been abducted by a flying vessel of unknown origin and 2) even though she had been told by no less than 4 different fertility specialists that she was barren, she was now inexplicably pregnant. No stress there. Just another day at the office. That slimey, no-good bastard. Scully tells me he's all 'above reproach', but Kim Cook is not so forgiving. Maybe all those little Fannie Mae chocolate covered cherries I've doled out on past Administrative Assistants Day were worth a little loyalty. Whatever the reason, Kim was kind enough to give me the low down. She wasn't there, but the administrative staff grapevine is a notch better than the NCIC database, so I took her at her word. First, Doggett didn't bother to identify himself. As a matter of fact, at least two admins claim they saw him purposely turn his ID so that the back was showing before he sat down in the waiting area where Scully was directed (by his slimeball friend Gene Crane) to sit. The slimeball (Doggett, not Crane) even got up to fetch her a cup of water, to soften her up, no doubt. They were sitting outside the 5th floor conference room, the mini-bullpit surrounding them so privacy was out of the question. So was decorum, from what my informant told me. Now, I don't care what people call me and I sure as hell don't care what people say about me. Shit, if I were bothered by talk behind my back, I would have gone on a homicidal rampage three days into my stint under Patterson. So it was no big surprise that Doggett decided to stoop to the old attorney trick of disparaging the victim's reputation. But to sit there and tell a pregnant woman that the man who very likely got her that way had been talking about HER behind her back -- to any one of a dozen or so one night stands -- that I find unforgivable. Above reproach? Not by a long shot! Oh, sure he probably didn't know she was pregnant. Scully certainly would have kept that information to herself as long as she could. But he did know that we had been partnered for over seven years and there isn't a person in the Hoover Building who would be surprised to find out we're intimate. So if he checked into our partnership at all, he would know that accusing me of being unfaithful AND not trusting her would be enough to push Scully over the edge. That's what he intended. From what I hear, that's exactly what he got. I'm just surprised all he got was wet. If I'd tried that, I likely would have gotten another bullet for my trouble. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I know all about the handful of cases they worked in the months I was missing and, well, buried. Six months. From my count, not including the search for yours truly, there were 11 cases. Scully and I would knock off four or five times that number in the same time period, but it wasn't a really good time for her right then and I can understand. But of the 11 they did work, Scully was right in every case according to the field journals and Doggett managed to not screw them up. Yes, he saved her life a couple of times -- something she and I have yet to discuss, but by and large his performance was less than stellar. If anything, he seemed to be running just a few yards behind the whole time. I wonder if he'll ever catch up, but I seriously don't see how he can. The pilot is signaling that we're about to land this bird. I'm not sure what I'm going to find out here in the middle of all this water, but I'm pretty sure I won't like it. If it is connected to the black oil, we're in a shitload of trouble. Gulf of Mexico 56 hours later Standing on this platform, I'm seriously rethinking this whole endeavor. OK, Scully. You were right - - not when you said I was needed out here the other morning. You were right years ago when you told me one of these days I would stick my finger in something and pull back a bloody stub. It's coming home to roost, rapidly, in a fiery inferno behind us and the inky blackness of miles and miles of ocean below. As Doggett gives us a count to leap into certain death, I have only two wishes: I want to see Scully to beg her forgiveness for being such a prick all my life and I want to see my child come into this world. As I hit the water and the shock of the cold quickly makes breathing impossible, I vow with everything in me that I will make those wishes into reality. I hear someone calling my name a split second before I am slapped hard on the left cheek. I just have time to pull my eyelids apart when I see Doggett pulling back to try again. I grab his arm to stop him and roll forward so I'm now sitting on the deck of this chopper. "You were out of it," he says with a smile. "And you just couldn't resist waking me with a kiss," I growl in return, rubbing my face. "Aw, that was just a 'love tap'," he grins back. I have a chance to look at him. He's dripping wet, there are a few minor scorch marks on his shirt, soot on his face -- he looks like he just walked away from the gates of hell -- or through them. I notice the helicopter we're sitting in looks pretty stripped down and the crew is all military. When Scully calls out the troops, she means business. "We made it," Doggett says, as if I couldn't deduce that one for myself. "Yeah, I see that," I assure him. I cough up half a lung of water, stopping Doggett just before he slaps me on the back. "Would you kindly stop hitting me?" I ask politely when I can talk again. "Sorry. For a minute I thought I'd hafta use CPR," he admits. Not on this planet, I start to tell him but one of the crew members interrupts us. "We'll be landing in about ten minutes. You two gotta buckle in." He points to the jump seats and straps along the back. I slowly pull myself up to the seat and work myself into the harness. My stomach and my chest are at war with each other over who is going to decorate the floor of this bird as we swoop in for a landing. Finally, we're on terra firma. I must look pretty bad because Doggett is helping me out of the harness and standing, grabs my elbow to steady me as we jump out of the chopper. Visions of stumbling to my knees and kissing the ground swirl around my head, but I don't embarrass myself. A little unsteadily I follow Doggett over to a humvee. I don't know how I manage, but the next thing I know, Doggett is shaking my shoulder, waking me up. "We're at the airport. C'mon, our flight is in 30 minutes." I look over at him. We're both more than slightly damp, there's what looks like seaweed tangled in the laces of his shoes and he leaves wet footprints as he walks toward the doors to the concourse. I glance around -- we're at George Bush International in Houston. Doggett points to the security check in and we head that direction. I notice he has a duffle bag that he passes through the X ray machine. I'm not carrying my weapon, since it's more than likely at the bottom of the Gulf right now and Doggett's piece probably is sharing the same fate, so check in is easier than usual. When we met up on the other site, Doggett tosses me the duffle. "Grabbed us a change of clothes," he explains. I open the bag, pull out a pair of olive green sweats, a brown tee shirt and a pair of Army drab green socks and toss the bag back to him. We hit the men's room across from our gate and do a quick change. On the way back to find seats, we look like very old recruits who just escaped boot camp. All I want to do at this point is climb aboard that big plane, settle back and sleep till we land at Dulles. Unfortunately, my new best pal Doggett has other ideas. "Tell me somethin', Molder." Every time the guy says my name it's like nails on a chalkboard. I pry open my eyes and stare over at him. Maybe if I stare unblinking long enough, he'll get the hint and shut up. "Why did you do such a dumb ass thing as this?" Maybe he won't shut up. I'm doomed. It's bad enough I'll get the silent treatment from Scully when I get back, and the third degree from Skinner. Now I have to endure the Inquisition from Doggett? I can't win. I should have just drowned. But it's a long flight and he looks like the kind that won't let sleeping nutcases lie. "Which dumb ass thing are you referring to, Agent Doggett?" I ask with a heavy sigh. "Taking this case from my desk, flying out here without authorization, yankin' my chain -- pretty much everything you've done for the last, oh, 72 hours." He's quiet for a moment and then adds "Oh, yeah, and worryin' Agent Scully when it's the last thing she should be doin'." That pisses me off. I want to tell him to let me worry about Agent Scully, but the bastard has a point. My Scully, my partner of seven years Dana Scully MD wouldn't have minded me running off, as long as I let her know where the hell I ran off to. The 'new' Scully, pregnant beyond all hope or expectation, the woman whose bed I left to fly out to Oregon and basically pull the most final of ditches, she's the one he's referring to. Maybe he knows the new Scully better than I do and that thought pisses me off more than I can clearly express. "When I read that report, I saw a connection to past cases and I followed the evidence, Agent Doggett. I don't know what's been going on for that last six months, but before I left for Oregon, that's how we did things in the basement." And fuck you very much, I want to add for good measure, but restrain myself. "That black oil stuff." When he says it, it really sounds pretty stupid. "Yeah," I answer. "That black oil stuff." It's everything I can do not to squirm in my seat. He should thank his lucky stars that he's never been strapped down with chicken wire and had that shit poured on his face, lie there while the little fuckers wiggled under his skin, felt his nerve endings explode like a fucking nuclear reaction in every synapse. Yeah. That black oil stuff. "That's it?" he presses. "Agent Doggett, if I told you about the black oil and what it means, you wouldn't believe me. So why waste my breath?" "You mean about the aliens and colonization and all that stuff?" I touch my finger to the tip of my nose and smile. "You gotta be kiddin' me," he huffs. "But what if I'm right, Agent Doggett? What if I'm right and you could have done something to keep the world as we know it from mass extermination? Would you ignore me then? Can you take that chance?" He sits there, but at least now he's not staring at me. I figure I've finally won enough of this argument to merit a little shut-eye and attempt to find a comfortable position. "You know, you ain't the only one who's seen things," he says, almost as if he's talking to himself. "I hope to hell I'm not. Then I really would be delusional," I reply. "I don't know if I can buy into that whole aliens taking over the planet package you're spouting. But I do know somethin' ain't right. There's definitely something goin' on. I know that much. I know someone needs to keep lookin'. Someone needs to . . . hell, I don't know. Do something." "Well, that's where we agree, Agent Doggett. Someone needs to do something and that's exactly what I did -- 72 hours ago." "But you have other things you need to think about, Agent Mulder. You have loved ones, one in particular, who is being hurt by your actions. Maybe it's time you thought about that." Of all the crappy times to do it, Doggett decides it's time to get some shut-eye. My mind won't let me sleep. I've got too much to think about. Dulles International Airport 6 hours later Somehow, Scully made it past the security check point and is waiting at the end of the jet way. She gives her new best friend a hug and a kiss on the cheek before turning her attention to her wayward charge -- me. She doesn't speak, just not too gently probes the small bandage on my forehead, clucks her tongue once and sighs. "C'mon Mulder. I'm in 15 minute parking and I won't be held accountable if I get towed." So much for the 'I'm so glad you're back home safely, darling' speech. Not that I really expected it. But it might have been nice under the circumstances. She opens her mouth to speak again, but it's not directed at me. "Do you have your car here, Agent Doggett? If not, I can give you a lift." Yeah. Just what I wanted -- more time with Mr. Above Reproach. But then, I can only assume that he's never ditched his partner to go running off into a suicide investigation. Hey, Scully, why not drop me off at my place first and then you and your 'partner' can go have a cup of coffee (decaf, of course) and talk about what a major fuck up I am. Yes. That would be perfect. In the next moment, I realize I've been wrong all these years. There is a greater power at work in the universe and whoever they are, they answer prayers. "No, thanks, Agent Scully. My car's out in long term. But thanks anyway. I'll see you both tomorrow." And with that, he makes a grand exit, as fast as possible before the small nuclear device that is Scully on a tear goes off. Come to think of it, maybe I should call him back and ask him for a ride. I don't get that chance because Scully grabs my elbow and starts off down the crowded concourse at full speed -- which is pretty amazing when you consider her . . . no, I won't use the word 'girth'. That would very likely get me drawn and quartered if Scully ever experienced mind-reading like I did last year. In very short order (I have no idea if it's in the 15 minutes since I don't know how long it took her to get past security) we are at her car and she's hitting the remote to open the doors. I think, just for a fleeting moment, about asserting a little authority and insisting that I can drive, but one look at her over the top of the car makes that thought wither along with other parts of my anatomy. I get in the car like a good little soldier and we start the torturous route out of Dulles. She waits till the parkway to the city to glance over at me. "Well. What did you find?" she asks and it strikes me that she doesn't seem sarcastic or angry or even miffed. Curious. She's curious and maybe a little anxious about what I have to say. On top of that realization is the thought that maybe she didn't lay into me in front of Doggett because it's none of his damn business what we talk about and she wanted all the information in the privacy of her car, where bugs are a lot less likely and easier to find when they do happen. I take a breath before starting. "Should I take it from our last conversation on the ship to shore?" She shoots me a glare and I realize my mistake. "OK, from the top. Skinner gave Doggett the file about the death of the Mexican oil worker." "I know. He admitted as much to me after I couldn't contact you." She doesn't take her eyes off the road but I can see her shoulders tense. "You know Doggett ignored the file," I reply. She bites her lip. "Mulder . . . you have to understand -- " "No, Scully. I don't. That file contained a legitimate investigation. You and I wouldn't have hesitated to look into the information immediately. So why don't you explain to me why Agent Doggett, an agent in the X files Division, decided unilaterally to ignore it?" She sighs and tilts her head. "It . . . Mulder . . . He doesn't . . . " She sighs again, heavier this time. "I didn't see the file. I didn't know he was ignoring it." "Doesn't matter, Scully. You used to start investigations, you never needed my imprimatur." "Mulder, Doggett doesn't think that way." "What way? Enlighten me, Scully. Please," I say, probably a bit more forcefully and with a touch more anger than the request deserves, but damn it -- I want to know what she thinks. "He's not as . . . curious as we . . . as you . . . " "Last time I looked, curiosity is a major attribute of a good investigator. But maybe I'm wrong," I shoot back, refusing to even look at her. What the hell is going on with her? "Look, Doggett is by the book. I know that. I wish . . . I wish I could tell you that he's as good at these cases as we were. But I can't." Her shoulders droop with that revelation. "So why do you think he's so above reproach?" I demand. I know, I'm a class A bastard for pressing that issue but it's still a sore spot and I want an answer. "Because . . . " She stops and clears her throat and I see a tear streak down her right cheek. She takes her left hand off the steering wheel long enough to wipe it away and then continues. "Because I couldn't do it by myself, Mulder," she admits and I can tell that confession is killing her. "I tried, I really did. It wasn't my idea to bring him down to the basement, but then I tried to investigate something on my own and I . . . I ended up . . . it didn't go well." "The cult," I answer quietly because my gut is suddenly taking up all the room in my throat. "Yeah. Forgive me if I've lost my taste for escargot," she says with humorless smirk. "And when you think about it, Mulder, there aren't that many agents beating down the Director's door trying to get a slot in the basement with the Spooky Patrol!" "At least not any sane ones," I chime in and get a real grin for my efforts. "Anyway, Doggett isn't my idea of a dream agent. He's hard headed, he's opinionated, he's obnoxious when he thinks he's right and he always thinks he's right -- " "So far he seems to fit the job description I got when I started down there," I tease. "Yeah, well, he's missing one key ingredient -- " "He's not curious," I conclude. Her nod is definite. "But Mulder," she says, laying her right hand on the top of her very swollen lap, "who else will go down there? How can I go out on maternity leave?" "Maternity leave? Scully, you mean you haven't just been carrying a basketball on your stomach all this time?" I say it just to get her to smile again but I know she's right. Kersh will never let me back down in the basement. It's my punishment for not staying dead. We've played right into his hands. I'll be stuck for the rest of my time in the Bureau doing bullshit work and there will always be a shadow over whoever resides in the basement. Unless I change the dynamic. "Scully, there was a guy on the oil rig platform, a worker by the name of Garza." "Yeah, I remember Agent Doggett mentioning that Garza would be evacuating with you but he might resist." "They killed him, Scully. When Doggett searched for him when we had to leave, he'd been irradiated - - just like the others." Scully sighed. "So the evidence . . . " "Is once again at the bottom of the ocean," I finish. "Same old story, different day," she sighs. "Maybe not. Scully, I didn't find Garza -- Doggett did. He talked to him, he was the one who suggested to me that Garza was the link, the only person on the platform alive who wasn't infected." "Doggett made that connection?" she repeated. "Yeah," I tell her. "And in order to make that connection -- " "You have to make a leap of faith," she concludes my thought. "And to even get there to begin with -- " I prod. "You have to be curious as to the cause," Scully replies with a grin. "I think you've been rubbing off on him, Scully," I tell her proudly. She grins back at me then grows serious. "I think it might be a little too late. According to the 5th floor Women's Room grapevine, Deputy Director Kersh has been sharpening his hatchet and he has Agent Doggett's name on it." "What? That's insane! Scully, as you just mentioned, you go out on maternity leave in a couple of weeks, if not sooner." "Yeah. Which will give good ole Alvin the perfect opening to shut down the files -- for good." "You're taking the Quantico position, aren't you?" I ask. "You're right, Mulder. And you have no idea how much it pains me to admit that," she grins. "But the other day when you pointed out that Kersh couldn't send a pregnant woman to investigate that case -- he can't very well send the nursing mother of a newborn. That means the X files will be vacant for longer than a 3-month maternity leave. We're talking more like 9 months and you know how much can happen in that amount of time." I knew she'd been offered the job teaching at Quantico but she hadn't said anything more about it. Now I could see where she'd been thinking about it for some time. And I still don't think I know how to broach the subject of _my_ taking care of the little tike -- especially when I still have a job, too. Not that I really envision my next career as being a stay at home dad, but I don't see any other opportunities falling in my path. "So this new oil field -- it's alien," she says so matter of factly that I almost lose the ability to speak. This new Scully is taking a lot to get used to but this is a totally new development. She believes -- finally! "Yeah. I believe that. Not that we can do much about it," I reply breathlessly. She nods. "But the rig was destroyed." "From what Doggett was able to find out from the Coast Guard, yeah," I agree. "That alone could prevent Galpex from continuing to explore in that area. If the death of a worker threw a monkey wrench in the operation, exploding an entire platform will really muck up the US territorial waters -- so to speak." Someone's been watching Sunday morning programming, and I'm not talking the golf channel. "Yeah. I'm almost positive they won't be drilling there again in the near future." She does something that shocks me. She reaches over and grabs my hand. "And you got off safely. Well, mostly." She nods toward my bandage. To be honest, I've forgotten I had a headache on the plane. "Mulder, I know you don't want to hear this, but -- " "I shouldn't have gone out there," I beat her to the punch. "Scully, I used to run off on these -- goose chases -- by myself because I wanted to protect you. But I get the feeling, I'm not protecting anyone when I do it. Least of all you." She lifts her eyes toward the ceiling of the car. "Thank you, God," she mutters. Then she looks over at me. "So, no more running off like this on cases that aren't yours?" "I promise. As a matter of fact, I guarantee it." "Don't make promises you can't keep, Mulder," she sighs, releasing my hand to grip the steering wheel once more. An idea has been forming all through our talk and now I'm more sure of it than ever. If Deputy Director Kersh says the FBI only wants agents who are 'above reproach', why fight it? Especially if we can get one who can be trained to look a little beyond the obvious. Someone who has seen first hand what we're up against and didn't shrink from it. I think I know the perfect person. Besides, it sounds like I already have my partner back in all the ways that are important to me. "Oh, I'll keep this promise, Scully. You just wait and see."