Scully mentally shakes herself, ordering her mind to stay on task. She feels her fingernails bite into her palms as she intercepts a glance from Skinner to Mulder. Her partner replies with an almost imperceptible shrug.
Her mind wanders again. She distances herself from what she knows is coming. From what she thinks she knows.
" - you cannot testify if Sparks' men kill you."
She awakens from her reverie, growing steadily angrier. Feeling her soul grow cooler, icier. Frosty. "Sir," she begins calmly. "What you are about to suggest is - "
"Agent Scully, do you presume to know my mind?" Skinner interrupts severely.
He watches Mulder watch his partner with growing concern. There is an underlying current of tension between the two which he is only now beginning to acknowledge.
"No, Sir, of course not," Scully replies. She glances at Mulder, a silent entreaty. She waits for him to object, to come to her defense. He sits serenely, saying nothing, occasionally looking up from his notebook to smile benignly at his partner. He scrawls another item on his list.
"Thank you, Agent Scully, your concern is noted. Nevertheless, the two of you are essential to this case, to the conviction of Julian Sparks. I don't need to remind you that this man has connections with the men from whom you seek answers," he concludes, his voice growing quieter.
Mulder suddenly becomes animated, leaning stealthily across Skinner's desk.
He uses the same quiet, deadly tone of voice his superior used. "Are we assured complete safety when we leave?" he asks. His eyes darken in concern. He turns back to his notebook, schooling his features into an exact replica of the Scully-Mask: showing no emotion.
If he shows emotion now, he is lost.
Scully objects forcefully to his words. "When we leave, Mulder? I - "
"The arrangements have been made, Agent Scully. You are assured complete safety, Agent Mulder." Skinner continues as if there had been no outburst.
"In two months you will reappear and testify." He reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out two plain manila envelopes. He hands one to each of his agents.
Scully opens her envelope quickly. She had expected this meeting to take another direction entirely. Expected Mulder and Skinner to come together to force her out, to send her into early retirement. To go home to die. She in no way imagined that she would be sent into hiding from an assassin. A real, living assassin. In all likelihood she will retreat to this mountain cabin to hide from the case-related assassin, only to die there, from the silent assassin that invades her body.
"Agent Mulder," Skinner says meaningfully. "I expected you to be the one to object to this."
Scully chokes back rising indignation. Bites it down, swallows it, shoves it into the deepest recess of her mind. Saves it to dish out to Mulder later.
"Agent Scully - "
She decides she cannot remain silent regarding this any longer. "Sir," she continues, throwing him glare for glare, challenging him with every word.
She ignores him completely in her fervor. "I do not think these few pathetic attempts on our lives warrant flight. They are an inconvenience at best - "
"You don't run away from anything, do you Agent Scully?" Skinner muses. Mulder glances up sharply at that, as if in denial of that statement.
"Agents, my decision is final," Skinner says, tossing them another glare for good measure. Mulder nods absently, obediently. He enjoys playing the 'good agent' every once in a while. "You are both relieved of duty effective immediately. You must be out of town by six tonight." To Scully's challenging glare Skinner responds, "Or I'll kill you myself."
