This is the thing that separates Natalie Scatorccio from Fox Mulder: that Gen X disaffection, even if it's not quite as fashionable as it was when Eddie Vedder was giving the Grammys shit. He would have killed for someone to listen to him, but the girl in front of him would rather stonewall him.
On one level, he understands it. This is a coping mechanism after an intensely traumatic episode in her life; nearly a tenth of the time she's spent on the planet so far was out in those woods. But in his bones, he'll never understand that desire to hold back.
"Well," he says, aware that they both already know the answer, "I'll make it as painless as possible. We can stay here, if you want to."
There's a difference between finding, looking, and not want wanting shit to get found. Natalie sees the little beads of sweat at the back of this guy's neck, and remembers fat cooking over a fire, bubbling on meat. Her lips curls despite her best efforts, but nobody likes a problem child, a mean girl. She schools her face back into stony indifference-- not hard when you're already a little stoned.
She wants him to go away, so she thinks of the quickest way to make a cop either bounce or arrest her. Either would suit the need for dramatic confrontation quickening inside her. "You can stick around, if you join in."
She walks past him, away from him, back to the beaten-down lawn chair she was squatting in before, under the half-shade of a dying laurel.
Mulder raises a brow, following her over. "How about if I watch?"
Arresting her is so far below his paygrade that it doesn't occur to him for more than a moment. If she wants to drink, he'll supervise, and maybe they can get to a point where they can talk about what actually matters. What she needs is help, and she clearly isn't getting it at home.
She opens another can of cheap, warm beer. Her chunky boots thunk, one and then the other, onto the tree stump she's been using as an ottoman. "Kinda creepy, old man."
"I can show you my badge, if it helps." He pulls up another broken chair, jagged plastic where the back of it should be, and sits down, leaning in a little. "I know talking to the FBI probably wasn't part of your plans for today, but I'm just looking for information. I want to understand what happened."
If he's not going to arrest her for being mouthy, fine. She can push it. She pulls her joint back out, and makes a show of how long it takes to light the thing again. "Why does the FBI care about crashed planes? Shouldn't you guys have been more concerned with finding us?"
"Some of my colleagues were on your case." Inwardly, he's rolling his eyes at the joint, but she's just trying to get a rise out of him. It's one of the least subtle efforts he's ever seen. He's going to smell skunky after this, but the goal is opening the conversation wide enough that they can try again when she's sober. "Finding you was a full-time job for some of them. My department works a little differently - I'm more interested in the things that happened when you were out there."
That catches her off guard, and it shows. She hasn't quite learned, yet, how to keep the artifice of nonchalance firmly in place. She stares at him. She puts the blunt away for the second time, and curls up in her chair, arms cradling her torso. Her legs disappear under the too-large jacket she's wearing, too warm and dark for this weather.
They tried. He wasn't on the case, but his people were. He wasn't assigned to it; that's not his fault.
"We didn't do anything illegal," she lies, and it's a bad lie. "It's not our fault."
"See, that's my working theory, too." Not the question of legality - she literally just lit up a joint, he wouldn't place money on the idea that illegal happened out there - but it's not our fault. Mulder's tracked the worst criminals the world has to offer, the kind who could light an old lady on fire in a crowded street and walk away without a care in the world. That's not Natalie and her teammates. Whatever else is true, they're victims of the wilderness and the mysteries still lurking deep within it.
And in that moment, he thinks he can see the hint of a girl who wants to open up. One who's hiding behind a false front of anger, but who's in there still. "You didn't ask for that plane to crash. Or for search and rescue to miss the wreckage. But you can help us now - and maybe, we can keep it from happening to other people in the future."
It's strange, hearing her opinions said back to her. She can't think of anyone who agrees with her in a meaningful way, or the things they agree on are so deeply impressed into the backbone of the relationship it doesn't get said. But she wants to hear it. She wants to know.
She wants to feel something.
"So, you're... you're helping us with the suit?" Against the airline company. "They FBI are on that?"
Mulder shakes his head, already aware that it'll likely be a disappointment. A civil lawsuit could bring in good money for all the survivors, and judging by her surroundings, Natalie could use it more than most. "My partner, Agent Scully, and I - we investigate cases that other departments would call 'unsolvable.' A lot of them involve extreme possibilities: aliens, psychic phenomena, ghosts, things like that."
He lets the idea sit there between them, waiting for her reaction. Pushing Natalie too hard will only throw up more walls between them.
It sounds like bullshit. Sober, Natalie would say so. But she's coming into the calm part of the high, where everything is a little detached, and nothing really matters all that much. What she'll do tomorrow, the next day, with the rest of her empty, crooked life doesn't really matter. This conversation can't mean that much.
"Nah, I think critical engine failure crashed the plane." That's the boring part, and it's the reason the girls probably won't need the FBI's help to shake some cash out of the airline. "I think the story really starts after you landed."
Nat curls a bit up on herself, too high to realize these obvious tells. She pulls away, rocking back in her chair. "Yeah," she says, "I wanna see the badge."
It occurs to Nat only belatedly that she doesn't actually know the difference between a real FBI badge and a fake one. She'd have thought, once, there was no point in fooling someone as unimportant as her with something as elaborate as a badge, but the world is now incalculably strange, painfully alien, and there's nothing she can do about it.
And then she sees the name Fox, and has to stifle a laugh. It's embarrassing, so she covers her face with her whole hand for a second, before she realizes she's doing it. "I, uh," she sucks in a breath. Natalie forgets to regret being high, and instead regrets this strange man isn't high with her.
"So, you think ghosts were in the cabin?" She paws at her face again. "I mean, we did too. But we got over it when winter happened."
When everything ended.
"The police- FBI... guys, they checked it. We showed 'em the freaky corpse in the back." (But not the bonepit.)
He doesn't answer her question. Right now, it doesn't matter what he thinks - not when she's so close to telling him something true. If he really has to, maybe they can get into the details of his current theory, but Mulder has the feeling it won't help them build trust. Not with how little he knows.
"Why'd you change your mind?" he asks instead, his hands folding together in the air between his knees.
There's a reason she can disappear into this coat. There's a reason she's been smoking so much more than she used to. It makes it easier to eat, because she's still skin and fucking bone. "According to the shitty doctor your colleagues made me see, I'm malnourished. I'm missing-" She sticks a finger in her mouth, digs back to missing molars. "I'm missing fucking teeth, man. What do you think?"
He doesn't look away from her open mouth, but he doesn't squint into it, either. Privately, he wonders just how bad this doctor was, if he can ask Scully to look the kid over. Maybe Scully'd do better with this one. It sure seems like he's striking out.
"I think that you experienced something that the people around you can't understand," he says. Calm, even-toned - she might respond if he rises to the bait, but she won't respect him. "But I might."
She'd smack him if he wasn't a weird cop or whatever. "Stop fucking fishing! Jesus Christ. Say what you think. I'm so fucking sick of reporters giving me this shit, I'm not gonna take if from you. You don't even have a camera!"
"Okay. I think you could tell me more about what happened out there - a lot more. But something's holding you back." It's a big swing, one he's not convinced will work - but if Natalie won't offer them anything, maybe she'll say something that'll connect to whatever Scully's learning from Taissa Turner. "What is it? What's keeping you from talking about what happened, Natalie?"
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On one level, he understands it. This is a coping mechanism after an intensely traumatic episode in her life; nearly a tenth of the time she's spent on the planet so far was out in those woods. But in his bones, he'll never understand that desire to hold back.
"Well," he says, aware that they both already know the answer, "I'll make it as painless as possible. We can stay here, if you want to."
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She wants him to go away, so she thinks of the quickest way to make a cop either bounce or arrest her. Either would suit the need for dramatic confrontation quickening inside her. "You can stick around, if you join in."
She walks past him, away from him, back to the beaten-down lawn chair she was squatting in before, under the half-shade of a dying laurel.
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Arresting her is so far below his paygrade that it doesn't occur to him for more than a moment. If she wants to drink, he'll supervise, and maybe they can get to a point where they can talk about what actually matters. What she needs is help, and she clearly isn't getting it at home.
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They tried. He wasn't on the case, but his people were. He wasn't assigned to it; that's not his fault.
"We didn't do anything illegal," she lies, and it's a bad lie. "It's not our fault."
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And in that moment, he thinks he can see the hint of a girl who wants to open up. One who's hiding behind a false front of anger, but who's in there still. "You didn't ask for that plane to crash. Or for search and rescue to miss the wreckage. But you can help us now - and maybe, we can keep it from happening to other people in the future."
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She wants to feel something.
"So, you're... you're helping us with the suit?" Against the airline company. "They FBI are on that?"
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He lets the idea sit there between them, waiting for her reaction. Pushing Natalie too hard will only throw up more walls between them.
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"Sooo... you think ghosts crashed the plane."
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She can flip it open herself and look at the metal badge, the ID photo, and the cursive signature that quite clearly reads Fox Mulder.
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And then she sees the name Fox, and has to stifle a laugh. It's embarrassing, so she covers her face with her whole hand for a second, before she realizes she's doing it. "I, uh," she sucks in a breath. Natalie forgets to regret being high, and instead regrets this strange man isn't high with her.
"So, you think ghosts were in the cabin?" She paws at her face again. "I mean, we did too. But we got over it when winter happened."
When everything ended.
"The police- FBI... guys, they checked it. We showed 'em the freaky corpse in the back." (But not the bonepit.)
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"Why'd you change your mind?" he asks instead, his hands folding together in the air between his knees.
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"I think that you experienced something that the people around you can't understand," he says. Calm, even-toned - she might respond if he rises to the bait, but she won't respect him. "But I might."
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