Chapter Text
In the car, warm air blew steadily from the vents, and the windshield wipers squeaked back and forth against the rain like a lullaby. Mulder would have been asleep hours ago if he hadn't been driving. Instead he got New Jersey in the rain, gleaming pavement under his headlights, and Scully sitting next to him in one more car headed somewhere they couldn't see from here.
A sign flew by, said "Cape May 5 Miles" in an undertone, and Scully checked her watch. "It's almost seven. I'm going to call the Fish and Wildlife office and see if anyone's still there."
"Sounds good," Mulder agreed. "Do you know who we're talking to there?"
"Yes," she said, flipping open her phone. Its keypad lit up green like some high-tech phosphorescent beetle. She poked in the number.
"What was his name again?"
"Agent Derek McNamara," Scully reminded him, the phone's glow turning her face an eerie lime green. "I've told you that five times."
"Hmm," Mulder said, taking their exit.
"But you weren't listening, were you?" She appeared to be joking, but it was dark and he couldn't see her eyes.
"Hmm," he said again, not taking any chances.
"Exactly," she said. "And I'm talking now, so behave."
Scully's side of the conversation consisted of several reasonable questions ("What time should we meet you?" "Is there parking?") and then a series of comments that sounded like directions to Wisconsin's red light district.
"...Quickie Mart, right at the intersection, triple-x...Dairy Queen, uh huh, giant inflatable Santa. Okay. We'll find you."
She ended the call, saying, "We're meeting him at a pub. We've got directions."
"Hey, can we stop at the triple-x Dairy Queen, Scully? I'm looking for something...chocolate dipped," he drawled.
Scully turned away to look out her window, but he thought he heard her laugh.
*****
Like an old dog waiting for its master to return, the Albatross crouched before a long, wet dock and looked out onto the bay. Its weathered paint was peeling from the clapboard in faded grey curls, and the rain fell straight off the roof to the muddy ground under the eaves.
Most of Cape May was crammed inside the two-story Colonial that smelled like fish and old beer. The bar was circled with local kids, a few lonely fishermen, and everyone else who didn't have a place to be on a Friday night. Near the door, the wooden floor was stained dark brown from years of work boots and dripping parkas.
Scully leaned one hand against the wall and bent down to wring out the cuff of her slacks. Mulder had parked with one tire in a pothole and another directly under Scully's door. He maintained it wasn't his fault she had stepped in it. She'd maintained he was a heartless bastard.
"These were new," she muttered.
"Agent Scully?"
Scully looked up from her shoe and Mulder turned around to find a tall guy smiling at Scully.
"Agent McNamara?" she asked, dropping her loafer to the floor and shoving her foot back into it with a damp squish.
"Please, call me Deek," he insisted, smiling some more and shaking Scully's hand.
"Deek," Scully said, and then as if she wanted to try it again, "Deek, this is my partner, Fox Mulder. You can call him Mulder."
More hand shaking. More smiling.
Deek was wearing boots, jeans and a button-down flannel shirt over a thermal undershirt. He had glasses and looked like a frat boy. "Come on, I got us a booth."
Their table was near the dart boards and Mulder eyed the players warily. As the night went on their aim was only going to get worse.
"So, FBI," Deek said, sliding into the booth. "They tell me you know what my critter is."
"Your critter," Mulder repeated, shrugging off his overcoat and hanging it on a peg at the end of the bench, "is most likely human."
Scully was already sitting, and she looked up to give him a friendly glare. "We don't know that for certain," she said pointedly.
"But?" Mulder prompted.
She shook her head and turned back to Deek. "But it does look like something we've seen before."
"Okay," Deek nodded.
"Five years ago, there were a series of attacks in eastern New Jersey near Atlantic City," Scully explained, slipping her shoe off and wiggling her toes inside her wet sock.
Mulder slid in next to her and interrupted with, "Ever hear of the Jersey Devil, Deek?"
Not even blinking at the change of topic, Deek switched his attention to Mulder. "Sure, once a year or so, some poor hiker will wander off the trail to pee, get lost for a few hours and think he sees the devil in the woods." He shrugged. "A scared mind can create all sorts of things."
Scully was smug and Mulder could have predicted what she said next: "That happens to Mulder all the time." Shifting position, she tucked one leg under her on the bench and her wet toes were suddenly pressing into his thigh.
"It's true. I often get lost when wandering off to pee," Mulder confessed, reaching down to give Scully's ankle a squeeze. Her soggy foot retreated. "But you've got a few dead bodies with the tasty bits chewed off, and we happen to know of someone who lives in the woods and--"
This time it was Scully's turn to interrupt. "In Atlantic City, we found evidence of an adult male and female living in the state park and attacking anyone unlucky enough to run into them. The male was supposedly found dead. We never saw the male's body, but the female was shot and killed by the police."
Deek adjusted his glasses. "Hey, yeah, I read about that. Do you think that's what's going on here?"
Mulder nodded and played with the salt and pepper shakers.
"We'll need more evidence before we can justify making it the focus of our investigation," Scully pointed out, using some of her favorite words.
"What we need," Mulder corrected, "is beer and some sort of deep fried something."
"We can do that," Deek said, signaling the waitress over.
Next to Mulder, Scully rearranged herself on the wooden bench again, finally settling with her elbows on the table and one foot just barely brushing against his knee.
*****
An hour later, in a motel room that smelled like mothballs and wet wool, Mulder kicked one ankle over the other and leaned against the headboard. "Read to me," he said.
"Read to you, Mulder?"
"Yeah," he said. "And do different voices."
"Mmm," she replied. With her shoes off, Scully tucked her legs underneath her and sat at the foot of the bed feeling the cheap springs droop at the corner and threaten to catapult her from the Harvard frame. She shifted her weight, holding the file with one hand and steadying herself with the other.
"On August 4th, Rosemary Tanner called local PD saying that a large wild animal had knocked over her garbage cans. PD dismissed it as most likely a skunk or a raccoon, but in the course of the same evening they received two more calls from people in Tanner's neighborhood reporting similar sightings." Scully looked at Mulder, fishing for some reaction. Mulder nodded encouragingly, and she read on. "Dr. Evan Paine described the creature as - quote - a hairy animal four to four and a half feet tall that was able to stand fully erect and maneuver on its hind legs, which ran into the woods when he shined a flashlight at it."
Mulder clucked his tongue and shook his head.
"Mm-hmm?" Scully asked.
"Evan Paine sounds an awful lot like Rosemary Tanner, Scully. I said do voices!"
She threw the file at him, Frisbee-style. He caught it between two hands like a clam and stuck out his tongue.
He was adorable, here. Adorable in socks with matching holes at the heels and a face that seemed to have fewer laugh lines than before, to the point where she had half a mind to ask him what late-night infomercial youth-replenishing product he was using.
Except that she knew what it was -- or who it was, rather -- that kept Mulder, above all things, both glad and young. She dove toward him, leaning over her crossed legs in some sort of yoga stretch to retrieve the file which she flipped open and began reading again.
"At this point, the local police are not ruling anything out," she went on. Mulder growled.
"Voices!" he commanded. She cleared her throat and glared at him, smirking.
"The department of Fish and Wildlife..." Scully started again, louder, ignoring Mulder's squeaky meows. "Was called in to assist with the investigation on eleven October nineteen-ninety-eight. On twenty October, the case was transferred wholly to the control of Fish and Wildlife under the supervision of Agent Derek McNamara."
Mulder threw up his hands, defeated. Scully continued. "Agent McNamara requested autopsy reports on twenty-one October, see attached."
"You know, Scully," Mulder said, squinting as if he were trying to scrape a particularly brilliant revelation from the roof of his brain, "Deek strikes me as the type of guy who'd..."
The phone rang. Mulder picked it up, and from the light that switched on in his eyes, Scully knew who it was.
"Hey yourself," he said to the phone. "I miss you."
Scully busied herself with the file, studying the badly-drawn autopsy diagrams and not wanting to look up.
"Oh yeah?" Mulder teased. "Well then. I guess I'll just have to solve this case and get home."
Scully furrowed her brow and thought about claw marks and rabies.
"Now that's not fair!" Mulder said, laughing. "I'm totally defenseless. You vile temptress." He shot Scully a grin and wiggled the phone receiver.
With a breath, Scully clapped the file shut, swung her legs off the side of the bed and slipped her feet into her shoes. They could talk about this tomorrow.
"I'm going to bed," she mouthed, and Mulder nodded and got up to see her out. The phone cord wasn't long enough and the phone slipped off the nightstand; he caught it with one hand, wedged the receiver against his shoulder and waved at Scully with the other hand.
"See you tomorrow," he mouthed back, and she was gone.