Mulder walked around his office uneasily, lost in thought. The past few days had been quite trying. He and Scully had been called away from investigating E-files in order to help co-ordinate some raids the FBI was involved in on suspected drug smugglers. The raids had failed spectacularly.
The information they had was given to them by a normally reliable informer. When they had gone to the warehouse, which they had been assured, would have dozens of dealers loading and unloading millions of dollars of drugs, they had found nothing. Zip. Just a bunch of empty crates and some lifting machinery.
Not only that but the informer turned up dead a couple of hours later. There were going to be a lot of questions asked and Mulder was frankly sick of the ones he'd already had to put up with. He and Scully had only been called in on the raid a few hours before it was due to happen. They knew nothing much about the case except how wrong it went. He felt put upon. His time was being wasted there were so many unsolved cases waiting for his attention.
Worse still, he was bored.
He wasn't allowed to do anything while he waited to be called once again for another round of tedious questions. Instead he whiled away his time throwing screwed up pieces of paper into his waste paper bin from varying distances. Not exactly how he wanted to spend his time but he couldn't muster the effort to do anything else. The tedious nature of his circumstances had sapped his normally boundless enthusiasm.
Just as he threw a large ball of blue paper the door opened and Scully was hit on the forehead by Mulder's impromptu basketball.
"Oops, sorry Scully." he said with a boyish grin.
Scully sighed and walked across to him.
"Glad to know you're spending the bureau's time wisely Mulder."
"Hey it's what they pay me for."
"Well here's something else they pay you for." she handed him a piece of paper. "We're being sent o follow a trail. Apparently someone managed to dig up a previous connection to our unlucky informant. We've been picked to follow it."
"I'm struggling to contain me excitement."
"Mulder..."
"I'm sorry Scully but I think our time would be better off on other cases" he gestured towards his filing cabinets full of the inexplicable "instead we're going around following up on some no good informer who didn't inform very well."
Mulder got up and headed for the door.
"You may think this is a waste of time Mulder, but perhaps it's what you need. A little time on the ground rather than up in the air. Bring you back to earth for a change.
"Better to have my head in the sky than up my own ass."
Scully sighed and followed him through the door.

The flight took a little under six hours. They had a further five hours driving ahead.
"I'll drive." said Scully.
"No problem it'll give me time to sleep."
Half an hour into the journey Mulder had fallen asleep. Scully took this rare moment of quiet to think back over her short time with her new partner.
He was unique to say the least. One of a kind that was for sure. Despite his quirky sense of humour, his constant distraction from all things mundane there was something vibrant about him. A zest of life that she herself had when she decided to go into medicine hoping to become an FBI agent. She had lost some of this spark through the trials and tribulations that she faced in her day to day job. But being paired with Mulder was making her see things differently.
They'd only been assigned with each other for nearly a month now but his unusual attitude and imaginative way of thinking was causing her to question her own view of life. Think about what she herself really believed in this world.
She had her unshakeable faith in God. That had been her companion throughout her life. She didn't know if it was as a result of her upbringing or perhaps some divine spirit within her she simply knew and never questioned it. But Mulder was far different. He had no discernible religious beliefs. He seemed fixated on the existence of extraterrestrial life. He avidly followed newsletters and internet postings from others like him who believed so deeply.
Things, which seemed far-fetched and implausible to her, caught his attention so firmly he'd think of nothing else until he'd acted on what he thought. He embraced all that seemed weird or 'out there'. Ranging from the yeti to the loch Ness monster. Psychic surgery to voodoo. He tried to convince her about the existence of telepathy the second week after they'd met. He showed her a so-called telepath. She had tested him. He had failed. Yet despite this evidence Mulder still persisted. Taking the view that just because one man could not doesn't mean all men cannot. Technically speaking Mulder was right. Scully had to admit to herself that there is a possibility however small that these weird and fantastical things could exist and be proved by science but a science so far removed from today's understanding as our methods would appear to someone from the tenth century.
Mulder stirred in his sleep. Scully glanced over to see if he was waking but he remained asleep, she was momentarily distracted watching him sleep. He looked very peaceful stretched out as much as he could in the passenger seat. Scully shook herself mentally to remove her wistful gaze.
She remained unconvinced that aliens were visiting Earth though. The distances made it unlikely and why would they possibly want to come to an obscure uninteresting solar system like ours? Unless they has ships powered by poor sitcoms and tacky T-shirts there was very little the Earth could offer to an advanced race. One day she confronted Mulder about his belief in aliens.
"How do you know they exist? How can you tell me they've been here? You have no evidence, there is no proof."
"Absence of proof is not proof of absence." he said enigmatically. Although hat sounded to glib to have been an off the cuff remark. Given his fairly public profile as a believer he'd probably been asked the same questions over and over again. Yet his faith has never been shaken. She couldn't help but admire strength like that however unfounded it may appear. Despite his sarcastic comments and almost constant joking around Scully could sense that there were hidden depths to her new partner. Something fuelled him. Not just his sister's disappearance but there was some inner power driving him onwards.
Oh well, time will tell she thought and stretched one her arms out accidentally nudging Mulder. He stirred and started to sit up.
"Oh sorry. I didn't mean to wake you." she apologised.
"Doesn't matter. You could probably do with getting some sleep. I'll take over the driving."
Scully pulled the car over to the side of the road. They were surrounded by high trees either side. The air was crisp and serene. Only the light drizzle ruined the otherwise wonderful setting.
The agents got out of the car and swapped over. Another twenty minutes down the road and Scully was asleep.

Left alone with his thoughts for company, Mulder started thinking about his new partner. It was largely prompted by a dream she had woken him from. He dreamed of his sister. Except that somehow it wasn't her. In his dream there were many Samanthas all different ages. He then sensed he was in great danger. Someone had betrayed him but he didn't know who. In his dream he was about to die with no one to save him. Precariously balanced over some large smelting pot. All alone. Then Scully had woken him.
He believed in omens. But could this really be one. FBI partners looked out for each other all the time but what could Scully, the rational minded scientist be doing in a situation where his abducted sister had returned?
He dismissed it as being nothing more than his subconscious sorting through the day's events. He had found and old drawing of Sam's inside a book he hadn't read in years. That would surely explain the dream. But his thoughts were drawn to his partner.
It seemed so unlikely that he'd get paired up with someone like Scully. If he had his choice he'd have someone who shared his passion along for the ride. But then he thought again and remembered Diana. They had both believed strongly and had found the E-files together. But their partnership ended rather badly. She was no off negotiating with terrorists now wasn't she? Fox briefly wondered how she was and whether she thought of him any more.
So perhaps a sceptic would be better. Someone to question his methods, his actions, everything he thought. It might be what he needed. He realised that he had become somewhat stuck in his ways. Too used to investigating the mystic, the unusual, the bizarre. Seeing these things through Scully's eyes might give him a fresher perspective, let him make connections that he had failed to do.
He was astonished at her duality though. There she was the ultimate scientist. Nothing which exists cannot be proven. Then she has her faith in God. She couldn't possibly prove it. There was no way she could give him an empirical measurement of the almighty and yet she seems to know in her soul He exists. It gave Mulder hope. If she could believe in God then there was a chance of her trusting him that other things in the world were less obvious than science would have us think. Beyond our realm of understanding, as yet anyway.
He remembered one time when she had asked him for proof of the existence of aliens. He hadn't liked that. The proof was his life long goal. He knew they were there. He even had first hand experience when his sister was abducted, but still he couldn't prove it. It niggled him. A slow drip drip drip at his confidence. Could her ever prove their existence? Would he die without the certain knowledge that they were there? He couldn't rely on his memory of the events around his sister's disappearance; he needed something more concrete. He knew they were there somewhere, but something within him wanted confirmation that he could hold. He needed the truth. But it was ever elusive, despite his best efforts.
And now he had extra incentive to prove it. Scully seemed so dubious when he started talking about aliens. He just wanted to show her. Not as some sort of told you so reaction but he found himself wanting to please her. Proof of the validity of his work. That he wasn't some sort of crazy man off on a fool's errand. He wanted to earn her respect. Her stubborn scientist attitude both annoyed him and fascinated him at he same time. He knew it would be difficult to convince her of what he believed but she was sharing his journey. Perhaps it'd turn into her own road to Damascus. A conversion to seeing all that is contained in the world that can't be programmed catalogues or easily referenced.
He yawned and gently nudged Scully. They had almost arrived.