The Roush Affair
by Barbara Barnett
Barbara462@aol.com

Disclaimer:  Not mine.  No profit.  Just for fun and feedback.

Spoilers:  Any episode through season 5 and FTF

Rating: R (eventually)
Classification:  XA--heavy UST (maybe borderline MSR)...much love and caring

Summary:  Mulder and Scully are lured into a dangerous game involving the
conspiracy, that may cost them their reputations and lives. (So what else is
new?)
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Scully opened the door to the basement office.  The place still smelled too
much like fresh paint.  The sour sweet smell still flavored her coffee,
leaving her queasy; still nullified her perfume.  The X-files had been
reopened, but few cases were sent their way.  Mulder had insisted that Skinner
was trying to give them time to ease back into it after Antarctica.  Rebuild
the files, the research, the library.

Mulder was already there, sitting in the dark.  Scully regarded him quietly
for a moment as he stared intently at a video monitor.  He started at the
click of her heels as she approached.

"I thought all your tapes were burned in the fire."  Her words were meowed,
voice intentionally seductive.  She was teasing him.  He wasn't buying it.
Ignoring her, he pointed at the screen, while glancing, in the dim halogen
light on the desk, at the file now poised there.

"Three women, all in their 20s, disappeared in three successive months.  They
disappeared each for one week before being returned.  Two weeks after each was
returned to their home apparently unharmed, a film like this one was delivered
by email to their significant others.  In two cases a husband and in the
other, a lover.  The women had no memory of the film being made or of their
time away and only vague memories of where they had been and how they had
gotten home.  In each case, the woman was found dead within 48 hours along
with the Significant other in an apparent murder-suicide.  In each case both
bodies had been found to have lethal concentrations of potassium cyanide in
their bodily fluids and at the scene."

Scully listened as Mulder impassively related the case histories.  "I don't
get it, Mulder, is there an X-file here?  Seems all pretty straightforward.
Or am I missing something?"

"Agent Scully, there is *very* little you *ever* miss.  But this one was sent
to me.  Anonymously.  With a note."  He pointed in the general direction of
his desk.  There was nearly nothing else on it.  Mulder's desk was devoid of
the usual organized mess of the old days.

Scully lazily moved to Mulder's desk, examining the post-it note in the
center.  It had one word written upon it:  "Roush."  Scully's head jerked back
toward Mulder, a puzzled look on her face.  She took in a deep breath, her
eyes wide, seeking his.  Mulder continued to sit in the reclining rocker,
tilted far back, watching her.  A smile spread over his face, making his eyes
crinkle at the corners as Scully made the connections.  Scully couldn't help
but return the smile, despite her apprehensions and the possible meaning of
the note.  The chase was on.  Again.

Part of her was overjoyed to see that smile, it was overdue.  Long overdue.
The Mulder of late lacked two traits from before the arson.  She had always
thought them annoying, irritating traits.  Now she longed for them.  Yes, the
new Mulder lacked that childlike, zealous enthusiasm that caused him to make
leaps of logic only he could follow (despite the fact that he was more often
right than not)--and he was no longer reckless.  In fact, if she would
describe Mulder to anyone these days, she would say he was tentative,
apprehensive, even, when it came to following leads not sent via proper
channels.

"Roush?"  She tilted her head, an unspoken question communicated.

"I'm guessing that whoever sent this all to me believes that victim pairs each
had some connection to our friends at Roush.  The first muder-suicide involved
a lobbyist  working the HHS Senate subcommittee and his girlfriend, a
kindergarten teacher.  The second was the manager of an assisted living
facility in Falls Church and  her husband,  a lawyer.  The third, was a
reporter for a local Alexandria newspaper and her newlywed husband, an OBGYN.
They were found last night in their apartment, dead."  Mulder looked down,
breaking eye contact with Scully.

"In Alexandria?"

"In my building.  They lived upstairs.  Directly upstairs."  Scully didn't ask
the question.

"I found them.  Smelled them actually.  I don't think I'll have any new
upstairs neighbors for a while, Scully.  Too high a mortality rate on that
apartment," Mulder said flatly, standing abruptly.

"You said someone sent you the file anonymously."

"This morning.  It had been slipped under my door.  It could have been someone
in the local PD.  They know I'm FBI.  Maybe they want my help quietly.  Maybe
it was someone else."

"But that note.  Roush.  Someone made the connection, obviously.  Or wants you
to make it for them."

"It would seem that way, wouldn't it?"

"And?"

"And what?"

"What are we going to do?  Where do we start?"

"I'm not sure we should, Scully."  Now Scully was confused.

"But," she pointed to the post-it.  "Roush.  We both knows what that
connection implies."

"I'm not saying we shouldn't look into this, I'm just saying that we need to
be cautious.  We've been set up before, and I refuse to play accomplice to my
own...our...demise.  That's all."

Scully was stunned.  Now he'd said it, verbalized it.  It was out in the open.
He was afraid.  Not for himself.  Of that she was certain.  He was afraid for
her.  Antarctica was too fresh a wound.  He'd played along and nearly lost
both their lives.  He'd told her that morning when she had tried urging him
on.  That people were now listening.  That she was ready to shout it herself
from the hilltops, girded for battle.

"No, Scully," he'd said to her, his eyes hard, sad.  "I will not watch you die
for some hollow cause of mine.  Go be doctor.  Get away from me.  As far as
you can."   She had known then how hard it must have been for him to say it to
her.  That he believed he was granting her freedom from association with him.
She knew, too, how hard it was for him to watch her suffer.  And that that,
too was a part of his reticence.

"Mulder..."  He voice was cajoling.  She needed him to know that this was,
finally, her battle.  She'd seen...what had she seen, exactly?  It was all so
hazy, as if  a dream. "Mulder," she began again.  "I need to know, too, you
know.  It's changed, this quest of yours.  It's not a personal cause of yours.
It's our battle.  And it's not hollow.  These men are dangerous.  They're
criminals and they've escaped justice for 50 years.  No one else in the bureau
will touch this, and you know it.  We have to keep trying."

"I'm afraid, Scully."  His fingers drummed anxiously on his desk.  Scully
approached him, pulling a chair along with her.  She sat opposite him, her
knees nearly touching his.

"I know.  I'm afraid of the same thing.  But we have to try.  We can't give
up."  She smiled, echoing his own words of three years earlier.  "As long as
the truth is out there."

"But it's different now," he countered, ignoring the irony of his words
emerging from her mouth.  Scully cocked her head, taking his hands in hers,
waiting for him to go on.  

"How?"  Her voice was soft, tender.  It enfolded him, emboldening him, giving
him courage.

Mulder sighed, still refusing to meet her eyes.  "Scully," he sighed her name:
a whisper.  "I..."  He couldn't say it; didn't need to.  She understood,
smiling wanly.  She brushed the back of her left hand gently across his right
temple tenderly.  Mulder's eyes closed involuntarily, relishing the feeling,
drawing energy from her warm hand.

"Me, too, Mulder.  Me, too."  Her voice was resigned, but teasing.  When
Mulder opened his eyes, she was smiling at him.  "It will be OK, you know,
Mulder."

He breathed.  "Just you and me against the world, eh, Scully."  He arched an
eyebrow conspiratorially toward her.

"Yep, just you and me partner.  Now lets go get the bad guys."

"What if they're setting us up?" 

"Why don't we just use that as an operational possibility we'll both be aware
of.  If warning lights go on for either of us, we step back and reevaluate.
In the meantime, let's see if there's a real connection, or someone's just
sending us hate mail."

"Oooo, Scully, sounds like a plan.  I love women who take charge."

End part 1/?

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