Mulder opened the door to his and Scully's shared office, the familiar musty air swarming around the both of them. He let Scully in first before shutting the door behind him. Scully took her usual seat in front of Mulder's desk and Mulder took his normal position behind his own desk, studying some papers that had been handed to him on the way to his office.
"Scully, I've seen this before!" Mulder exclaimed, pointing to a file in the blue folder he was carrying.
Mulder reached for another folder on the corner of his desk when a black mass scurried out from underneath the pages. Mulder immediately recognized it as a bug. He jumped back, the rolling chair at the back of his desk going with him. Scully, seeing Mulder's actions, crossed the room to stand next to Mulder. She too saw the bug scurry underneath the desk, and they both crouched to see where the bug went. What Mulder saw revolted him.
Mulder saw an entire bed of cockroaches scurrying about on the underside of his desk. His stomach churned as he almost automatically reached for the phone to report the matter. A panicked string of sentences and long, panicked breaths ended with Mulder finally hanging up and telling Scully that maintenance was on their way.
A single man stepped through the threshold of the basement office, a bag hanging from his left hand.
"Special Agent Fox Mulder?" His query broke the silence of the office.
Mulder nodded and directed the man to the nub of the issue, which was the underside of his desk in this instance. He grimaced at the sight of the infestation and soon pulled out the walkie-talkie on his belt to radio the other maintenance men. They too were appalled at the sight and eventually escorted Mulder and Scully out of their own office.
"We think you might have an infestation of cockroaches- we're still double-checking on that- but it looks like the office is going to have to be fumigated for the remainder of the day. If you want, I can call your supervisor and inform them about it."
"That would be much appreciated, thank you." Mulder smiled and quickly left his office.
Scully caught up with him out in the hall.
"Well, we still have work today, but we need your files. In your office."
"We can't work today," Mulder stated, barely containing his anxiety. "We'll just have to take today off."
"Okay, let's just take today off."
"Bye, Mulder."
And with that, Scully left Mulder with the fumigators in the hallway, suddenly faced with a day off.
The ride home was short, but Scully was thankful to not be in the office. With her work at the FBI, her personal life had almost come to a standstill, never able to move forward. She was finally able to relax. Scully's first order of business was to clean her handgun. It had been months since the last time she had cleaned it, and it was past due for another round. She pulled the gun from its place on her holster and placed it on the table. She gathered the supplies necessary to clean the weapon. After that, she disassembled her gun.
The gun-cleaning process was shorter than normal. It managed to occupy at least two hours, and Scully had anticipated the task to take at least a little longer. She found herself slowly slipping into a trance, her thoughts focused on that of her partner and how he had saved her life just last week. As she continued to do her chores around her house the thought of Mulder remained a constant companion in the back of her mind.
Scully kept herself busy with all of those "rainy day" tasks, that she didn't even notice it had become dark outside. She was pleased with her progress and started to feel just a slight twinge of guilt, when the phone rang. She answered it and immediately suspected Mulder knew exactly who was responsible for their sudden day off.
