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Scully was always stressed.
Some of this stress was from things out of her control, like various politicians and the stuff she dealt with for a living.
Other things, like her partner’s tendency to disappear as soon as she took her eyes off of him, were just enough within her control to try and do something about.
Her determination to help some of the daily stress came from spotting a single gray hair while doing her overnight rollers.
She had to put a stop to something, and Mulder’s flightiness was her easiest target.
It had seemed silly at first in the coming morning, and then Mulder had said something vague and power walked into the distance, and suddenly the idea was back on the table. She thought perhaps a leash, but abandoned it immediately, due to a couple reasons.
On one of her rare outings with friends outside of the bureau, Joanna, her friend from med school and now a Veterinarian, mentioned the new popularity of microchipping animals.
Scully quite liked that idea.
Being able to check wherever he was, whenever she wanted to. The next week she met with a veterinarian, flashed her badge a few times and made some malarkey story of finding an incredibly large mutt on the side of the road, that was terribly unfriendly and would never let someone else administer the chip.
As she left the vet’s office with her chip injector and her fancy new Mulder Tracker, she realized she had no plan to actually give this chip to him. As she unlocked her car and saw his apartment key however, a plan began to form.
—-
As quietly as she could, swapping her heels for slippers, she turned the key in the lock, and slid inside. As expected, Mulder was passed out on his couch, his TV left running and conveniently covering the noise of her entrance.
She gently rolled him over, and injected the chip, then rechecked the tracker. Satisfied, she left, locking the door behind her, and drove home.
—-
The Mulder Tracker proved to be one of Scully’s best investments yet, having to barely play any guessing games to where her partner was. She only started to feel guilty of it when she discovered her own implanted chip.
Is this how Mulder would feel if he ever found out? It was a hell of a secret to keep. He already seemed to think someone was spying on his every move, this was a massive betrayal of trust.
But then again; Scully felt a small amount of pride knowing that even with some secret government agency trying to keep track of him, no one had a better lock on his constant location than herself.
Perhaps this feeling is why these so called ‘extraterrestrials’ Implanted her with a chip.
This was a dangerous path to go down, and she went to bed soon after.
—-
It was a Tuesday.
A normal Tuesday, despite that Mulder called out of work. No longer on the X Files, she sat at her new desk set in a more central location, and had an inkling to see what Mulder was up to. After all these years she could practically feel when he was up to something.
She called it her Spooky Sense to herself, but never to Mulder’s face. She pulled the Mulder Tracker out of her pocket, and glanced at the GPS display. Her brow furrowed at the results. It just showed a patch of empty blue. Then the Lone Gunmen filed in, frantic.
This was going to be a long day.
—-
Scully immediately took out the tracker upon getting aboard the Queen Anne. She inhaled sharply when she saw the icon was dead ahead of her, and moving fast.
She took off, leaving the Gunmen shouting behind her. She swerved around corner, trying desperately to keep up, but at this point she was on top of him. Nothing. She could account for the different decks of the ships, but someone with as heavy steps as his moving that fast would have some kind of noise accompanying it, and the Queen Anne was dead silent. The Gunmen caught up, and noticed the tracker immediately.
“Is that-?” Byers was cut off by Scully shoving it back into her pocket.
“It’s nothing.” Out of everyone, the Gunmen would be the most understanding of microchipping someone, and would probably ask about a spare tracker for themselves.
But it felt so intimate after all these years. Scully got to track him, not anyone else. He was her stray, not theirs. She shook her head. The time in the hallway outside Mulder’s apartment was months ago, and they haven’t spoken about it. Maybe this sense of ownership wasn’t romantic in any sense, but it still wasn’t right for her to share it with anyone.
“He’s not here, let’s head back to the boat and search the water some more.”
The Gunmen followed dutifully behind her, making her feel rather powerful.
If only it wasn’t always her chasing after Mulder.
—-
As she was carefully stepping back onto the boat she felt something.
For a brief moment, it inexplicably felt like someone was kissing her.
Hard.
Not something she had felt in years but also not a feeling you forget. She gasped and stumbled slightly, Langley catching her. She shook herself off.
“Slipped.”
—-
He loved her. She had betrayed his trust and privacy and bodily autonomy and refused to acknowledge all of their almosts, and he declared his love her, drugged up on pain meds after almost drowning. She felt like screaming.
—-
It was a few months after the incident with the Bermuda Triangle, and Scully and Mulder found themselves reassigned to the X Files.
It was a rare day that she arrived at work before her partner, and with no presentation of his to view and no current cases, she simply gently spun in the chair, and looked over some reports.
But when it was past his usual arrival time, she began to worry. Mulder had many reasons to be late. He overslept, he got distracted by his TV or a strange letter or phone call, or; endearingly, he once got distracted by watching his fish, and lost a considerable amount of time.
She brought up the tracker, a pang of guilt hitting her chest nearly every time now. On days when she got to work before him, she would sometimes watch his icon get closer and closer, feeling oddly giddy every inch it crept towards her.
The icon now, sat static in his apartment. He would have had to leave at least 5 minutes ago to get here on time.
She frowned, grabbing her keys and heading to the parking garage to go and check on him. Not looking up from the tracker, she ran into to something dense in the hallway.
Mulder.
Right in front of her, his icon on the tracker still at the apartment.
Shit.
But he didn’t mention anything. He just carried on with the strange case of beavers making dams out of bones in Oklahoma, and Scully felt the entire case, plane ride included, pass her by.
It wasn’t until a week later she saw the chip move, having watched it obsessively whenever she could.
It was at the J. Edgar Hoover building.
She braced herself when she stepped into their office. He stood from the desk immediately, something he did most days, but today it made a wave of nausea hit Scully full force.
“Scully. I found this a few days ago, dug it out myself. I didn’t want to show you immediately, it felt wrong to, after everything; but this was in the back of my neck.”
He placed a small glass vial on the desk, the metal chip clinking inside, covered in blood.
Scully stared blankly, running thousands of possible explanations and excuses, and vetoing each one.
She had nothing to her defense.
Mulder took her silence as terror, and maybe it was, but not for what he thought.
“I haven’t gotten any screenings yet, I’m a bit scared myself-“ Scully closed her eyes, devastated she was the one to cause such fears in him, and for nothing. She knew he was perfectly fine.
“Mulder-“ he stopped her, placing his hands on her shoulders.
“Scully, we’ll get through this, I don’t know if I’m nearly as strong as you, but you’ll be okay with or without me.”
she didn’t want to be strong without him, she didn’t want to be strong at all right now.
This scenario he had put them in, untrue as it was, was too upsetting for her to even think about.
He was the one that chased aliens, she was the one that dealt with the consequences.
Not the other way around. Maybe she broke that pattern when she implanted that chip all those years ago, but she didn’t care.
“Mulder, stop. You don’t have cancer. Of any kind.”
She couldn’t look at his eyes, and chose to look at her shoes. He laughed airily, with no humor behind it, a horrible sound to her ears.
“As good a doctor as you are Scully, I’m not sure how you can say that so definitively.”
She shook her head, placing her hands over her face.
“Mulder, It was me. I put the chip there.”
Silence.
All she could hear was the cars outside and the boiler creaking. After a full minute of nothing she continued.
“When I first got assigned to the X files, I found your tendency to run off frustrating, and I- it’s a tracking chip. For large dogs. No extraterrestrial put it there, it was me. I used your apartment key and I implanted it in the back of your neck.”
She shoved the tracker into his hand as proof, sniffling.
“I’m sorry.”
Mulder took the tracker gingerly, and inspected it.
“That’s how you always caught up with me so fast.” When she dared to look at his face, he was smiling. To her horror, he started laughing. A real laugh, not the facsimile from before.
“Old Smokey could’ve stolen this at any time and he had no idea! You amaze me sometimes Scully. It bothered you so badly you chipped me!”
The mood swing was concerning to her Doctor Scully brain but her Dana brain was relieved and starting to giggle herself. Mulder’s hands returned to her shoulders but crept up to her neck and the back of her head.
Exactly where they were back in his apartment hallway.
She vaguely hoped no bees were buzzing around the office.