#txf s6

edit: thank you to everyone who's been kind on this post <3 it helps a lot and i really appreciate it

— — —

Mulder's anger followed them all the way back to the office, and after hours of wrapping up the case and filling out paperwork, she's about done with it. He didn't say a word at the scene, nor on the drive back, but she can hear him inhaling behind her now.

"What the hell, Scully."

Not a question, not really, and for a second she considers simply ignoring him. There's not much left to do here for her, it's a matter of stuffing files into her bag and getting out as fast as humanly possible—she knows him, though. Knows he won't just let it rest, knows he isn't asking a question as much as starting a fight.

"I did my job," she tells him, back to the door and busy sorting through the mess on the desk. No one was shot, no one was seriously hurt, and everyone's walking away from it with minimal damage. Considering the circumstances, she performed a damn miracle. Yet all he cares about—

"You were reckless, what the hell were you thinking, offering yourself up like that?"

Mulder is pacing now, and she knows the expression on his face without turning around, knows the tension coiling in his shoulders, knows that he doesn't care about what she was thinking. All he can see is her and the gun pointed at her head.

Despite that, she sighs, palms pressed to the wood, nails biting into it, and tries to explain it anyway.

"She was scared, I wasn't; it's as simple as that. Did you even notice her? How terrified she was?"

Because she did. Everyone was staring at the guy with the gun, the woman pressed to his chest as a human shield was little more than a secondary goal. Save her, sure, but more importantly, get him.

Scully has seen hostages die, collateral damage written off as a minor mistake to be avoided next time, and this time, she could actually do something about it.

"What?"

"Melinda. Melinda Scott, that's her name. Or was she nothing but a nameless hostage to you? Unfortunate collateral?"

Her nails are going to leave marks, knuckles fading until they're white as bone. If she looks at him now, she's going to lose whatever remains of her self-control, and it won't be pretty.

Behind her, he stops walking, his gaze burning holes into her back.

"Of course I care about her, you're just—"

"—more important than her? Is that it? I. Did. My. Job. And I did it well. This is your problem, stop trying to make it mine."

Scully expects him to bite back, to argue, to push and push and push until she breaks, like he tends to do lately. Instead, she hears him take a deep breath, then another, and some of the tension leaves her, too, until her palms lie flat against the desk again.

This is new.

"Look, I'm not—I don't know. Can we just drop it and pretend we never fought about it?"

No. "Fine, sure," she sighs, rolling her eyes. "Whatever."

With mildly aching joints, she returns to gathering the paperwork she wants to take home, managing to compile a neat stack before he starts talking again. She grabs her bag from the floor, still pointedly not looking at him, and fits them inside with minimal creasing; almost free. Unfortunately, Mulder remains between her and the door.

"You're angry with me," he says slowly, "more so than usual."

Straightening up, Scully closes the clasp and hangs her bag across her shoulder, already digging for the car keys in her left coat pocket.

"Go home, Mulder."

When she finally turns around, she tries her damnedest to look beside him into the hallway, but he easily steps into her line of sight. Tilting her head back to meet his eyes is instinct, a reflex tuned so finely that not doing it is like holding her breath, and she's all out of air.

Worry and confusion are covering the remains of his quickly fading anger, and she has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from pushing right past him.

"You willingly put yourself in danger, that's all. That's why I'm upset. What I don't get is why you're...," he stops, lifts his hand and then drops it again just as quickly. "Angry."

God, she just wants to go home. In the corner of her eye, she catches him moving his hand again, but he's quick to abort that attempt when her jaw tightens, her head moving side to side exactly once. At least he still knows how to read her. How easily she could lose herself in him again, one moment of distraction, and she's gone.

"We have a dangerous job, Mulder. Stop trying to tell me how to do it."

Impatience is giving her voice an edge, the undercurrent of rage neither new nor different than usual. Today, he just happened to notice it right when she did not want him to. She cannot remember the last time he looked at her this softly. It makes her want to run.

"Dangerous is one thing, you were reckless. Scully, you could have gotten yourself killed."

His genuine concern activates her fight-or-flight instinct in a way she did not foresee nor planned for, and she blames what comes out of her mouth next on a primal desperation to get away. Away from this room, his feelings, the eyes she is drowning in, the potential of her mask cracking and leaving her bare.

It's the truth, but that doesn't matter.

"Actually, what tends to almost get me killed is you."

A low blow. A low fucking blow, but it works. Mulder flinches like he's been hit, somehow managing to hold her gaze even as he scrambles to get the guilt seeping out of him under control. Collateral damage.