TITLE: Close to Perfection

AUTHOR: Jillian

RATING: PG-13 for adult themes, and language. There's a couple of appearances by our friend, the f-word. It's not like you haven't heard it before.

SPOILERS: Millennium, and anything before that is fair game.

TIMEFRAME: Season seven, after Millennium.

SUMMARY: It's always said that partners could be split up for "fraternization;" what if it happened to Scully and Mulder? How would this change their romantic relationship? How would it damage their work on the X-Files?

THANKS: To Tefla for her beta work. Any remaining mistakes are of course my own. To Agent Balinski, who I thank for every story I write. She's the one who's nagging me to write anything.

NOTES: Expect plenty from me, guys, because I'm grounded until school starts. ;-) And, :shameless plug: the story of how I got punished, is over at fictionpress.com, and is called "Twenty-Eight Days." Go read it and review it if you're bored.

Anyway, enjoy the story.

* * * * * *

It all started simply enough.

It was a short time after Mulder got well from his abnormal brain activity. Diana Fowley was dead, we had the X-Files back, and all was relatively well. It was New Years Eve when he lit the spark that set off the explosion.

We kissed. The ball dropped, the crowd cheered, the year changed, and our lips met. It was beautiful, absolutely perfect. Our first real kiss. I still replay the scene in my mind sometimes. "The world didn't end," he said. "No, it didn't." We walked off together, never looking back.

Rather than looking back, let's look ahead. That night, I drove him home. He offered me to come in for some champagne, and I gladly obliged. We sat, sipping the cool liquid from the glasses, just talking. The kiss came up, and one thing led to another... Before I knew it, we had spilled our hearts to one another, both of us knowing it wasn't the champagne talking.

I woke up New Years Day in Mulder's arms. Well, arm, I guess, he'd hurt one on the case... Things from there progressed into the most wonderful relationship I ever found myself in. Of course, I was in that relationship for about seven years; we were just being very well behaved. It was absolutely beautiful, we were in love, we worked together and were best friends.

What could go wrong? Just about everything, we knew. So we laid down the rules. We kept romance out of the office. That was the most important one. At the FBI, fraternization between partners is looked down upon, and is grounds for splitting them up. We didn't want to lose one another or the X-Files, so we had decided to keep things quiet.

Naturally, nobody is perfect. Little things would slip here and there. A flirtatious e-mail sent across the room to lighten up the boredom of paperwork; a squeeze of his hand in the hallway once in a while. One time, the elevator broke, and we were walking up the stairwell... He had said something particularly sweet or romantic, I don't even remember now. I smiled at him, and placed a tiny kiss on his lips. Honestly, it was nothing much. A quick, chaste kiss. I was sure nobody had seen us...

But then again, here at the Hoover Building, there are eyes in the walls.

* * * * * * *

I exhaled, and watched the smoke rise in front of me. I flicked the ash off of the end of my cigarette into the ash tray on my desk. I remember thinking that I was getting too old for this. That my time was running out, and the end was drawing nearer. Fox Mulder had eluded everything I had thrown at him. Everything. No matter what we took from him, or what disease we inflicted upon him or his closest associates, he was still fighting. Still searching.

I had an idea concerning this a week or so before. Maybe we needed to take away that partner of his, Dana Scully. After all, she wasn't fulfilling her intended purpose. I had thought we'd found the most scientific person we could, but she was swaying in Mulder's favor. It was not a question of science, but of integrity. I admire Dana Scully, as I do Fox Mulder. They're unwilling to lie (except occasionally for one another) to get to the top.

That kind of integrity, however admirable, makes them an enemy of mine.

So I decided maybe splitting them up would slow Mulder's quest down. Surely he cared deeply about Dana. I'd been assuming they would eventually become lovers for years now. Believe it or not, there is a softer side to me. I know he loves her, and I know she loves him. I know that one day, they just may have the happiness I never was able to possess.

But not now. No, too many things are going on now. Too many plans have been thwarted. I'm growing too old. I have to make sure that Fox Mulder, however admirable I may find his character, does *not* stop colonization. So I have to slow him down. I have to try and take something else away.

Then, I could put an appropriate partner in place. Someone who would not become a believer. Someone set on their career, not on honesty and integrity. The person we hoped Dana Scully would have been. Yes, that was what we needed. If we couldn't get Fox off of the X-Files, (the chance of that was slim, I knew, considering the options the two would be faced with) we would have to put someone who really *would* debunk his work on board with him.

As usual, I had all the appropriate means of surveillance in place. We watched Fox and Dana throughout the Hoover Building. We listened to their phone calls, we read their e-mails... We had basically everything covered. We were waiting for something incriminating.

I had some of the men working for me always overlook the security tapes at the Hoover Building. We had a mole on the inside who delivered them to us. Specific ones; the cameras around the basement, their office, the elevator, and the stairwell. They also read all of their e-mail.

I don't think these agents know how important they are. Surely they'd find it unimaginable that I had a room full of men working on keeping them under tabs, but it was the truth. They had journeyed too far; gotten too close. We had to slow them down before it was too late. The world couldn't know of the terrible truths that awaited them.

So you can imagine my happiness when one of the younger men working for me called for my attention.
"Sir," he had said, "we've got something you may find useful."

He showed me an interesting clip from the camera in the stairwell. The two agents joined hands and shared a gentle kiss on the lips. It was what we needed. There were people in the Bureau who wanted to see Mulder and Scully gone, and this would help them accomplish that. I knew I could use these men as pawns, having the agents believe it was strictly a Bureau matter.

"Thank you," I had replied, "it'll be most useful." I took the tape from him.


This served my purposes perfectly. I would take it to the man in the Bureau who I knew wanted them out, and that would be that. He was an AD, but he was looking at moving on up to DD. The Director had a liking for him; he was hardworking, practical, and traditional. He hated the methods of Fox Mulder: the lying, the random travel, the strange and unusual cases he chose to follow. All of it went against his character. He was the kind of man who did exactly as told to get to the top. It was as if he lived life through a textbook, the exact opposite of Fox.

I sat in the assistant directors office, blowing some smoke into the air. I always reveled in the fact that I could smoke in these government buildings. I was above the law, and I knew it. There is a great sense of power that accompanies a simple act like smoking a cigarette where one is not allowed to. Then again, there was a great sense of power in many of the things I had done in my life. Whether it was holding a life in my hands, or lighting up in the Hoover Building, it was power all the same.

"Assistant Director Kersh, I understand that you have had a problem with a certain pair of agents in the past. Fox Mulder, and Dana Scully?" I asked.

"Yes, but those agents are no longer under my jurisdiction. They're under AD Skinner--"

"But," I added in, "there's a lot of talk going around about you. Talk pertaining to you becoming a Deputy Director. You have heard that talk, haven't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I have," he answered.

"And that, Assistant Director, would put them under your jurisdiction. Do you really want these agents racking up bills for the Bureau with their random flights out to investigate cases that turn up nothing?"

"No, I don't. Why are you asking me this?"

"Because I can help you," I said, exhaling smoke.

"How?"

"Agents Mulder and Scully are romantically involved, something I'm sure you know is looked down upon between partners. It could cloud their judgment, and is grounds for splitting them up. I know that when separate, even if one of them is on the unit, the work will slow down. You could assign someone to work with the remaining agent to bring down the crusade Fox Mulder has wasted precious time and money on."

"You have proof of this?" he asked.

"Yes. Here," I said, handing it to him.

He looked over the still-frame photo we'd taken from the video tape.

"Surely I can't show them this, they'd know someone was surveilling them," he said.

"I know. What you will do is say you witnessed this kiss in the stairwell, and then retreated. If and when they deny it, we will threaten to check the Bureau security tapes. Once they hear about the kiss, I'm sure they will admit their fraternization."

"I can't go to them on this, it's not my place--"

"I'm aware of that," I interjected, "and I suggest you take the news to AD Skinner. Tell him you're prepared to testify against them in an OPR investigation unless they split up. The Director has a liking for you, Alvin, he'd believe your testimony of the agents, or Skinner for that matter. This is a simple way to eliminate a problem. I'm giving you the damning evidence," I said, handing him the surveillance tape, "don't let it sit and collect dust."

I stood up and went to exit the room.

"Why would you help me?" he asked.

"No good deed is selfless, Assistant Director. They are a greater annoyance to me than they are to you."

With that, I walked away.