Solo
By: afg
Rating: NC17 for graphic violence, sex and expletives. 
Category: Casefile, Scully/other, MSR 
Disclaimer: Not mine and no money is being made.
Summary: While Mulder is suspended and on medical leave, 
Scully gets assigned to Violent Crimes.
Thanks: To audu2, for giving her time and much needed skill,
also to Xangel for help and encouragement.
For: The delightful AnubisKV5.  See what your simple 
request has unleashed! Bet you're sorry now.
Feedback: Would be lovely. siggy.63@btinternet.com
Website: www.ofnoconsequence.com
Note: This story is set season 5 before 'Travellers' but it 
doesn't follow canon.


~oOo~


Chapter Five.

Violent Crimes Section
FBI Headquarters
Washington DC

08:15am


Scully walked into the offices of Violent Crimes. Her lower 
back ached after another night of upholstery induced insomnia. 
She'd managed a brief, tense check on Mulder, a quick 
breakfast of coffee, and a disapproving look from her mother 
on the side. She'd been more than happy to get out of the 
apartment, which in turn made her feel guilty. It seemed that at 
the moment she couldn't spend five minutes with Mulder 
without hostilities breaking out and it was her fault. She felt off 
kilter, out of control and she wasn't enjoying the experience.

She suddenly noticed that someone was whistling loudly. It 
took her a moment but then she recognized the tune, It was the 
atonal opening notes to 'The Twighlight Zone' 

She gave the whistler a withering look "You know Agent, that 
just never gets old."

"Just trying to make you feel at home, Agent Scully." The man 
shrugged his shoulders innocently.

Scully ignored him and walked towards The SAC's office. She 
saw that Prebetich was leaning on the door frame, his dark eyes 
on the whistler. "Agent Jessup, have you typed up all the 
statements from the nightclub yet?"

"No, not yet. I just got in."  

"They should have been done yesterday." 
 
"I was busy." Jessup almost sounded petulant.

"We're all busy, Jessup. Just get the statements typed up."

Jessup nodded, his cheeks flushed pink.

"Agent Scully, could I see you in my office?" Prebetich smiled 
at her and stepped aside to usher her into the small office. 
"Take a seat, Agent." Prebetich sat down behind the desk, 
which was piled high with files and loose papers. "Does that 
happen a lot?"

"Sometimes, due to the nature of the X Files. We do tend to 
attract a certain amount of ribbing." Scully gave a tight smile. 
"You get used to it."

Prebetich looked at her for a long moment, "You and Agent 
Mulder have been partners for quite some time, haven't you?"

"Yes, we have." Scully wasn't sure where this conversation was 
going.

"Have you ever considered transferring to another 
department?" Prebetich leaned back in his chair. "You must 
know what an asset you would be to Violent Crimes."

"Agent Prebetich, are you trying to poach me from the X 
Files?" Scully arched an eyebrow, both a little pleased and a 
little annoyed at his full on approach.

"I'm not one to beat around the bush, I've read your file; you've 
done excellent work within the X Files. I won't pretend to 
understand even half of your cases, but you've got an 
impressive solve rate." Prebetich leaned forward in his 
enthusiasm. "At the risk of offending, you're in a career cul-de-
sac; you could fly in this department. Agent Mulder is a 
brilliant agent, there is no doubt about that and I wish I had him 
here, but from the looks of it he's made the X Files his own 
personal quest, it doesn't have to be yours." 

Scully was stunned she looked at the man in front of her, his 
eyes sparkling with purpose. She hadn't expected this at all. 
"I'm not sure I know what to say. I'm flattered by your interest; 
however Mulder and I have invested a great deal both 
professionally and personally in the X Files. It's not easy to 
leave something like that." She couldn't meet his eyes in case 
he saw how tempted she was. A sharp stab of guilt pierced her 
gut, she felt like a traitor for even discussing the possibility of 
leaving. Her vague thoughts about a new direction had 
suddenly crystallized into sharp reality and it made her heart 
beat faster in her chest. 

"I'm sorry Agent Scully; I didn't realize that you and Agent 
Mulder were involved." Prebetich looked a little chagrined.

"We're not, I didn't mean personal in that sense. Things have 
happened to me that make my connection to the X Files a very 
individual one." She somehow found it easy to talk to this man. 
There was something about his quiet confidence that was 
alluring.

"Okay, I can understand that, and I'm not going to push, but 
will you at least think about it?" 

Scully knew that he could have no idea what he'd offered, his 
timing seemed inexplicably synchronous. "Let's try and get this 
case solved and then I'll give it some thought."

"That's fair enough." Prebetich relaxed back in his chair once 
more. "Speaking of the case, I want to go and talk to our 
victim's house-mates. I've arranged to interview them at home.  
I'd like you to come too." He nodded toward the outer office. 
"As you can see by the fog of testosterone out there, I'm rather 
short on female agents at the moment. I think these women 
might respond better to you."

"Have you got time to look at something before we go?" Scully 
reached into her briefcase and pulled out a folder.

"Sure, what have you got?" 

Scully handed him the folder, "It's a new profile."

"BSU haven't said they were updating the profile." Prebetich 
opened the folder and quickly scanned the first few paragraphs. 
"This is Agent Mulder's work?" He looked up at her, a gleam 
of excitement in his eyes.

"Yes." Scully knew that Mulder's profiles read like no others. 
There was something vaguely eerie about the way he wrote, he 
would often forget to use the clinical PR language of the BSU 
and sometimes it felt as though you were reading the thoughts 
of the actual killer. "I know that you can't use this officially, 
but I couldn't, with good conscience, turn down something that 
might help us catch our killer."

Prebetich gave her a grin "Well than we'll have to make sure 
we keep quiet about this and secrete it into the investigation in 
a subtle way. We are the FBI after all, we can do subtle."

Scully smiled back at him, "Okay." She felt some of the 
tension leaving her shoulders at his easy manner.

Prebetich fished in his jacket pocket and brought out his car 
keys, he tossed them to Scully. "You drive Agent Scully. I'll 
have a look at what Agent Mulder has to say on the way to 
Baltimore." Prebetich stood up and grabbed his coat. "Let's go 
then."

"Buoyed by his enthusiasm, Scully got up from her chair and 
followed him out of the office.

~oOo~

Mulder's Apartment
10:00 am

    
Mulder was beginning to wonder if anybody had ever been 
driven insane by the vacuous pap that was daytime TV. He was 
even beginning to think of writing a paper on the subject. He 
was bored and frustrated; he'd tried phoning the Gunmen but 
remembered that they were at a conference on the evils of 
Microsoft's use of subliminal pop-ups, or something equally 
bizarre.  He'd opened his laptop to catch up on some work, but 
he just couldn't concentrate. He really wanted a run or even to 
jerk off, but he was on so many pills that he could've had an 
entire troop of strippers in his bedroom and he still wouldn't 
have managed to rise to the occasion. What he wanted most of 
all was to talk to Scully...really talk...without the shouting or 
storming off that seemed to be the outcome of their latest 
attempts at conversation. He watched as yet another blonde 
with dark roots waltzed onto the studio floor, eager to tell Jerry 
Springer of her affair with her brother's poodle or something 
equally soul destroying. He flicked a sunflower seed husk at 
the offending television, horrified as it ricocheted off the screen 
and hit a surprised Maggie Scully on the cheek.

"If you don't want a cup of coffee, you only have to say." She 
said, dryly.

"Sorry, Mrs. ...Maggie." He took the cup from her, looking 
sheepish "Thanks."

"Are you getting bored, Fox?" Maggie looked at him 
sympathetically.

"You could say that." 

"How about I teach you to knit?"

Mulder wondered if he'd heard correctly. "Knit?"

"Yes, you know, wool, knitting needles, that sort of thing. Bill 
used to knit. He used to say that when his ship was on 
deployment, it relaxed him when he wasn't on watch."

He nodded slowly, trying hard to imagine Scully's father 
running up a pair of socks on his off hours.

"Boris Karloff used to do it." 

"Do what?" Mulder was beginning to get a headache.

"Knit."

"Really?"

"Oh, Yes. He would do it in his dressing room between takes, 
often in full Frankenstein costume."

"Monster"

"I'm sorry?"

"Dr Frankenstein was the mad scientist, Boris Karloff played 
his creation."

"Well, whatever he was he used to do it. So, would you like to 
have a try?"

 Mulder wondered if she had slipped him something in his 
coffee. "You know Maggie, that's a great offer but I don't think 
I'm cut out to be a knitter."

"Really, then how about a game of cards?" 

He suddenly realised that she was probably just as bored as he 
was. "Okay, what do you want to play?" 

"Can you play gin rummy?"

"Yes." Mulder waited as she quickly went to get her pack of 
cards. Marvelling at how odd it was to spend time with Maggie 
Scully when she wasn't weighed down with worry about her 
last surviving daughter's health. She was surprisingly light 
hearted, not at all how he'd imagined her to be. He wondered if 
this was how Scully might have been without the trappings of 
career. He tried to imagine his partner, surrounded by a 
husband and children, going on the school run, doing the 
housework and god forbid, knitting. He just couldn't do it, or 
perhaps he didn't want to. An all too familiar wave of guilt 
rolled over him at the thought of what she had lost over the 
years they'd been partnered.

"Here we are Fox." Maggie breezed back into his room waving 
a pack of cards.

Mulder smiled and shifted over a little on the bed so that she 
could sit down. "I have a feeling that I'm not going win to 
many hands." he said as she efficiently shuffled the pack and 
swiftly dealt out the requisite amount of cards.

"Don't worry Fox. I promised to be gentle with you."
Mulder laughed. "You are a wicked woman, Maggie."

"You just concentrate on your cards."

"Yes ma'am."

Over the next hour Mulder had discovered that there was a 
whole lot more to Maggie Scully than he'd imagined. Not only 
was she an evil card player but she had managed to wheedle 
information out of him that he'd never discussed with anyone, 
not even Scully.  He'd even told her about the horribly 
embarrassing incident with the corsage and his unfortunate 
prom date. Maggie had been quite sympathetic once she'd 
stopped laughing. The last ten minutes had been spent in 
companionable silence as Mulder headed towards another 
defeat.

"Dana is not an easy person to love."

Mulder looked up surprised at Maggie's words. He waited for 
her to elaborate

"Melissa was always such a happy child, very carefree, but 
Dana was born serious, she had such a scowl on her face when 
the midwife handed her to me." Maggie smiled at the memory. 
"She was always so driven, even as a little girl. She wanted to 
have best grades at school, she even wanted to fight better than 
her brothers, which she did I might add. I've never met a child 
as independent as Dana." She looked up at Mulder. "Mothers 
need to be needed, somehow I always felt that Dana didn't need 
me. Even through her fight with cancer she pushed me away, it 
hurt that I didn't know how to help her."

Mulder took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "Maggie, you did 
help, she loves you very much."

"I didn't say that she didn't love me, Fox." Maggie returned the 
squeeze and placed her other hand on top of his "I said she 
didn't need me. She is very like her father. You know, my 
mother didn't want me to marry Bill. She said he always looked 
cross but he wasn't really, underneath he was the sweetest man; 
he was a stern father though, he pushed the children to succeed, 
especially Dana because she was so clever he knew she could 
do great things. When she became a Doctor it was the proudest 
moment of his life. He never understood why she gave that up 
to join the FBI and he made it clear to Dana that he 
disapproved. I think it was the one time that she did something 
totally for herself and not to gain her father's approval.

Mulder nodded "She's brave that way."

"Yes she is." Maggie dropped her gaze to the cards. "I think 
I've let her down badly, Fox."

"I'm sure you haven't."

"Yes, I have, the whole family has. I don't know much of what 
you two do, but I know that it's taken an enormous toll on you 
both. I'll tell you the truth Fox. I haven't wanted to know, 
because even from the little I've seen it frightens me. The idea 
that my husband and my sons and now my daughter have 
dedicated their lives to a government that has people in it who 
can lie and kidnap it's citizens, that can experiment on them for 
god knows what purpose, that use children as if they were lab 
rats…" Tears started to run down Maggie's face, and she 
angrily brushed then away. "I'm glad Bill is not here to see it, it 
would have broken his heart."    
  
Mulder put his arm around her shoulder and drew her to him, 
feeling her body shake with the effort not to cry. "Maggie, it's 
alright…"

"No, it's not." She pulled away from his embrace. "Fox, I want 
to know. I want to know everything, don't sugar coat it, don't 
spare me the details. I've ignored what's going on for too long, 
it's time I opened my eyes and saw the truth." 

"Are you sure, Maggie. There are some things that you might 
be better off not knowing it might not be safe. "

"I need to know, Fox. From what I can gather, I'm not safe 
whether I know or not.  

Mulder suddenly saw Scully's face as he looked at Maggie's 
fiercely determined expression. "You're more like your 
daughter than you think, and you're wrong."

"About what?"

Mulder smiled. "Dana is not hard to love at all."

Maggie smiled back and nodded to concede the point. "So are 
you going to tell me?"

"If you're sure?" Mulder looked at her steadily.

"I'm sure."

"Then get comfortable Maggie, it's a long story..."