They Fight Crime!
by Amal Nahurriyeh

Email:  amalnahurriyeh@gmail.com
Summary: The consultant and his handler reach a detente. And save
the world.
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG 
Universe: Mulder-containing.
Timeline/Spoilers: Begins post-Five Times Mosely Drummy Wishes
He Never Met Fox Mulder, and continues through to
post-Machines of Freedom. 

Author's Note: Written for MaybeAmanda, for her generousity
during the help_haiti fandom telethon. Many thanks to wendelah1
for the beta, and for encouraging my OC problem. Many more
thanks to Isk Nahurriyeh, for allowing me to crib all the dialogue in
the fourth scene from my daily life.


  
*** 
  
Mo let the phone ring.  Mulder never picked up; it used to annoy
him, but, frankly, they'd worked enough cases together at this point
that Mo had worse things to be annoyed about, so he'd stopped
caring.  He flipped through the crime scene photos while he waits
for the machine.  Runes.  He hated runes. 
  
But the machine didn't pick up, and there was a weird clicking
noise, and then more ringing.  It was like it was forwarding
somewhere, maybe?  He shrugged slightly, and waited. 
  
"Yeah, Mulder," Mulder said suddenly. 
  
Mo was momentarily thrown by the unexpected presence of a
human on the other end of the line, but he recomposed himself. 
"Mr. Mulder, it's Agent Drummy." 
  
"Hey, Mo.  What's up?" 
  
The informality was not something he had gotten over being
annoyed by.  "I've got a case that I'd like to consult with you about,
if you're available." 
  
There was a little pause before Mulder answered.  "I've got time,
but I'm not really in a position to be able to travel right now.  Can I
do it from here?" 
  
That was new.  Mulder had seemed to relish the days spent in the
Hoover building, now that he had his consultant clearance. 
"Certainly.  I can drive the file out to Othma tomorrow, if that isn't
an inconvenience." 
  
"I'm not in Othma.  I'm in Richmond.  Hold on, let me give you the
hotel address." 
  
Mo's jaw dropped a little.  Holy shit.  A hotel in Richmond?  What,
had Scully finally kicked him to the curb?  Was he under house
arrest or something?  He managed to take the address without
betraying his reaction.  He hoped. 
  
His curiosity mounted the next day as he drove down to Richmond,
found the hotel (nice, but not extravagant), and knocked on the
room door.  Mulder let him in after a moment, but pressed his
fingers to his lips as he gestured him in. The reason was apparent as
soon as Mo entered the room: Dana Scully, enormously pregnant,
was sleeping on the big king bed, wrapped in a blue chenille robe
and cradling the remote in her hand.  The tv was playing the surgery
channel. 
  
Mulder gestured him into the bathroom. Mo decided not to think
too much about this and followed him.  Mulder turned on the vent
fan and shut the door behind them.  "Sorry.  I just don't want to
wake her."  He sat down on the closed toilet lid and held out his
hands for the file.  "So, what's the case?" 
  
Ten minutes later, Mo was shifting awkwardly on the edge of the
tub and listening to Mulder ramble about runes.  He didn't need to
pay attention to this part; it was part showing off, and part white
noise while Mulder thought, and part excited geekery.  No, the
actual conclusions wouldn't start until after Mulder'd been quiet for
a few minutes.  He'd gotten pretty good at this. 
  
Just as the monologue was starting to slow down, Mulder's head
snapped up, and he shut up completely, his whole body going still. 
After a moment, Mo heard it: a soft female voice calling "Mulder?"
over the roar of the fan.  Mulder was up like a shot, out the
bathroom door before Mo realized what he was doing.  By the time
he'd managed to get to his feet and out the door, Mulder was
helping Scully sit up, holding the photos under his arm.  "I didn't
want to bother you," he said quietly. 
  
"I just didn't know where you'd gone," she said, running her hand
over her face.  He pulled her to her feet, balanced her as she
teetered for a moment.  She rested her hand on his chest, and Mo
wanted to look away, but then she stepped back and
acknowledged that they weren't alone.  "Nice to see you again,
Agent Drummy," she said as she began to waddle off towards the
bathroom.  She paused in front of the tv and critically examined
whatever was happening on screen.  "They're dissecting that bile
duct incorrectly," she muttered. 
  
"Are you sure you're allowed to cut up live people?" Mulder asked. 
  
"I could demonstrate," she said, brushing past Mo as she walked. 
  
Mulder watched her until the bathroom door closed.  Then he
seemed to shake himself awake again, and turned to spread the
crime scene photos out on the table.  Mo went to stand next to him. 
He felt like he had to say something, as Scully was literally the
elephant in the room, but he was at a loss.  "Congratulations," he
managed pathetically. 
  
And Mulder smiled at that.  "Thanks." 
  
"How soon?" That was the extent of the logical baby-related
questions he could come up with, so he hoped they could get back
to mutilated, rune-inscribed corpses soon. 
  
"Two more weeks, so it really could be at anytime.  You see why I
didn't want to come to DC."  Mulder smiled even as he was
arranging the photos.  "Do you have kids?" 
  
"No."  In fact, his vasectomy had been a crucial condition of
Michelle's agreeing to marry him, but he decided that was
over-share. 
  
Mulder nodded, and his hand on the photos suddenly went still. 
Mo reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook. Mulder
glanced up and smiled.  "I'm that predictable?" 
  
"No," Mo said.  "I'm just very observant." 
  
Mulder laughed.  He turned back to the photos.  "It's about
control," he said.  Control, Mo wrote in his notebook.  Behind
them, Scully sat back on the bed and began to channel surf. 
  
*** 
  
"I'm telling you, the connection's bigger than that," Mulder said.  He
was standing in the kitchen, Sadie cradled in one arm, sucking
greedily on the bottle.  He used his elbow to point towards the
open file.  "Look at Ariadne's school records.  She's the key." 
  
"But she was the fourth one taken," Mo said, exasperated.  "Not
the first one kidnapped, not the first one killed.  How can you say
she's the key?" 
  
Mulder shook his head.  "But it's where the UNSUB changed how
he was thinking about them, how the girls mattered.  It wasn't when
he started killing, but it was when he started thinking like a killer.  It
just took him three more abductions to figure out how to do it."  He
pulled the empty bottle away from Sadie's mouth and lifted her up
to his shoulder. She pounded on him vaguely with her tiny fists as
he rubbed her back. 
  
The front door opened, and Mulder leaned backwards out of the
kitchen.  "Mama's home," he said conversationally to Sadie, who
pounded on him some more. 
  
Scully came into the kitchen, and paused next to Mulder.  "Hi,
honey," she said sweetly, and Mo was surprised until he realized
she wasn't talking to Mulder, but the the half-conscious five month
old on his shoulder.  She stroked Sadie's cheek softly, and then
rested her hand on Mulder's bicep for a moment.  He smiled down
at her. "I can take her," she said.

"She needs changing."

"Oh, well, then, I can wait a minute." 

"That's what I thought." 

She kissed Sadie on the head and then walked over to the fridge.
"Good evening, Mo."  

"Good to see you again, Dana," he said politely. 
  
"I'll be right back," Mulder said.  "But I'm telling you, his closest
connection's to Ariadne.  And if you go through her background,
you'll find it." He turned and started walking away with the baby. 
  
"Mulder, that's insane," he called out after him.  "It doesn't make
any sense."  Mo closed his eyes, leaned back in the chair, and
fought the desire to yell amorphously. 
  
"Here."  He looked up.  Scully had gotten two beers out of the
fridge and was holding one out to him.  "You could use it." 
  
He considered the propriety of drinking in front of a consultant, and
then decided that it was worth it.  He took the beer, and let her
open it with the bottle opener from the fridge.  "Sorry you walked
in on this." 
  
"It's fine.  You sound like me fifteen years ago."  She leaned against
the counter and took a long sip. 
  
He has no idea how a woman who is, to all appearances,
completely sane put up with Mulder for eight years at the Bureau,
never mind how many years since.  "It's like arguing with a brick
wall." 
  
"In essence, yes." 
  
He sighed.  "Any tips?" 
  
"Yeah.  Don't sleep with him.  He sounds a lot more convincing
once you've seen him naked." 
  
Mo choked on his beer.  Scully just grinned. 
  
"Hey, Scully," Mulder called from upstairs. "Can you bring up a
new thing of diaper cream?" 
  
"Got it," she called back, and smirked at him for a moment before
she went upstairs.  He took another long drink from his beer, and
reached for Ariadne's file.  Damn it, he was probably right. 
  
*** 
  
Michelle adjusted his tie in the elevator.  "You look nice.  You're
just nervous." 
  
"Assistant Directors don't generally make a habit of inviting agents
over for dinner."  He cracked his neck.  "I have no idea who's
going to be there.  I don't even work for Skinner half the time." 
  
She took his arm.  "Honestly, Mo.  Just don't be an asshole, and let
me do most of the talking.  You'll be fine." 
  
"If I have to talk about football, we're leaving early.  We should
have a sign." 
  
"We don't need a sign.  Now shut up." 
  
Skinner opened the door a moment after he rung the bell.  "Agent
Drummy.  Nice to see you." 
  
"Good to see you, sir."  Do you call your boss sir at a party at his
house?  There was no FBI etiquette course.  This was a major
oversight.  "This is my wife, Michelle." 
  
"It's a pleasure.  Come in." 
  
Mo wasn't sure what he'd been expecting.  But it was not Mulder,
Scully, and two other people he didn't know sitting around the
coffee table, looking up expectantly at them as they entered.  
  
This did not look like a dinner party.  
  
"I'm afraid to say I've invited you here until false pretenses," Skinner
said.  He took a seat on the couch and gestured to a pair of chairs
that would complete the circle around the table.  "But it was
important that we have a reasonable cover for meeting with both of
you in relative privacy.  You already know Mulder and Scully.  This
is John Doggett, of the Counterterrorism Division, and Monica
Reyes, formerly of Counterterrorism as well." 
  
Mo and Michelle shared a glance. This was going to be worse than
talking about football, he was pretty sure. 
  
"We've asked you here," Skinner continued, "to recruit you into an
ongoing network of government employees and others who are
working to prevent an upcoming catastrophe that would be deadly
to the entirety of our species.  A catastrophe that is not terrestrial in
origin." 
  
"Think of this," Mulder said, "as the most complicated time-share
pitch you'll ever sit through." 
  
Mo looked around the room.  Everyone was watching them,
entirely focused.  He took a deep breath, and glanced over at
Scully.  "Dana?  Is this for real?" 
  
She nodded.  "It's real." 
  
"I never get tired of hearing you say that," Mulder said.  
  
He looked over at Michelle again.  Do we do this? he tried to ask
without saying anything, and she looked around the room and then
nodded, just slightly.  He nodded back.  "OK," he said.  "Convince
me." 
  
*** 
Mulder was in full spiel, and Mo was desperately trying to keep up.
*Check EZ-Pass records at the turnpike exit. Symbolism to the
placement of the ribbons on the wrists--something about past
suicidal ideation--probably history of diagnosed mental illness.
Looking for someone who's lived near the state border his whole
life, who doesn't have a problem disregarding it.* He stopped and
sighed. "I don't know how much more I can give you. There's not
really enough data here to draw a full profile."

"Six bodies isn't enough data?" He threw his pen down.

"Not really. Seriously, no leads? You can't have six murders in a
three county area in three months and not have anyone notice
anything."

"That's what I said. Somebody's not talking. A whole bunch of
somebodies."

"Da."

Mulder glanced up at the door. "Sadie, Daddy's working. I'll be out
soon."

"Cuh." She banged her little plastic cup against the gate between the
living room--which has been transformed over time into a
wasteland of toys and padded flooring--and Mulder's office.

"You want more juice?"

"Cuh. Pyee." She banged a little harder.

"Thank you for saying please. I'll get you some juice, and then you
have to let me finish with Mr. Drummy, okay?" He stood. "Hold up,
I'll be right back." The gate took about four steps to open. Sadie
handed the cup over. "You're too smart," he said, patting her head.

"Da." 

"Yes, exactly." He smiled, and headed out to the kitchen. "Mo, you
want anything?"

He hadn't been doing this for two and a half years without catching
on that Mulder generally had good food in the house. "Sure,
whatever."

Sadie walked through the gate and began looking around the office
with a proprietary air. Mo realized he was the grown up in charge
here, but, well, the only kids he ever saw were his nephews, and he
thought the generally dictatorial parenting style his brother favored
wasn't a good predictor for how to behave around a kid who was
told to watch TV in the living room while her dad profiled serial
killers ten feet away. "Sadie, I don't think you're allowed in your
dad's office."

The look she gave him very clearly said, "And do you live in this
house? I think not."

He had to not mentally voice the kid as a Bond villain. It wouldn't
end well.

She walked over to the spare chair, pushed back against the wall.
After a small struggle, involving laying on her stomach and kicking
her feet in the air, she managed to climb it. Should he go over and
take her off the chair? Be prepared to catch her if she fell? She got
to her feet and began to look at the clippings on the wall. There
was a photo there of the two-headed dog they'd found back on the
Bannon case. She pointed to it and turned to him. "Pup."

Technically, she was correct, but he wasn't quite sure she should be
encouraging her. "Uh-huh," he said.

She examined the rest of the photos. A blurry shot of some sort of
lake monster. A photo of a girl who, the headline read, had
accurately predicted the deaths of three of her classmates in a car
accident. A postcard from the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in
Felton, CA. She pointed to the picture of Bigfoot. "Ca."

"Um." He wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

"Sadie?"

"She's in here," Mo said. 

Mulder came in with the cup in one hand and a plate of sandwiches
in the other. "There you are. Here, I brought you your juice." She
gave him a dazzling smile as she took it, and immediately tipped her
head all the way back to drink out of it. "Slow down, it's not going
to run out," he said. 

She pulled it away from her mouth and shook it. "Cuh!"

"Yes, I know, you love juice. Don't get it on the wall, please."

She slapped his arm. "Da!"

"Hey, no hitting. Do you want to go back and watch TV?" She
gave him the Bond-villain look. "OK, then. But we have to work
now, Sadie." She nodded. 

He sat back down in the chair across from Mo. "Sorry about this.
If I'd known Scully was going into surgery before you were on the
road, I would have told you to come down tomorrow."

"It's fine." Mo picked up one of the sandwich halves. "I mean, she's
not that much of a disturbance."

"We have been lucky in that regard." Mulder picked up a sandwich
himself. "So, tell me about the secrets people aren't telling you yet."

Mo chewed while he thought of the best way to say it. "I think
everyone knows who's doing it. And they think because they
know--"

"That they'll be able to avoid becoming victims." Mulder nodded.
"People are idiots."

"Exactly."

"Da! Ca!" Sadie said, pointing to the postcard again.

"Sadie, Bigfoot is not a cat." 

This kid was going to grow up really weird, he was pretty sure.

***?

He stood by the front door while Mrs. Scully edged towards the
phone, not concealing the gun in her hand.  Look on the bright side,
he told himself.  She could have made you wait on the porch. 
  
She gave him the side eye again as she stood with the phone
pressed to her ear.  "Yes, I'd like to speak with Robert, please. 
My name is Margaret Scully.  Yes, I'll hold."  Her grip on the gun
was all wrong, and she hadn't taken the safety off.  But getting shot
by a little old lady was not something he was in the mood for, so he
kept his mouth shut. 
  
"Hi, Mr. Drummy!" said a cheerful little voice from the stairs. 
  
"Cassandra!" Mrs. Scully snapped.  "What are you doing awake?" 
  
"Mr. Drummy's gonna take us to Mama and Daddy."  She was
wearing a pink nightgown, and holding a stuffed shark by the dorsal
fin. 
  
Mrs. Scully examined him for a moment.  "Sadie, you know this
man?" 
  
"Mr. Drummy works with Daddy.  He's his boss."  She banged the
shark's head against the banister. 
  
Mrs. Scully's glance at him was incredulous.  "Mr. Mulder does
consulting work for the Violent Crimes Unit at the Bureau.  I'm his
designated contact."  The word that got used in the bullpen was
handler, but that was a bit rude, he thought, for a guy's mother in
law. 
  
Someone must have spoken on the phone, because Mrs. Scully
jumped.  "Yes, thank you for picking up.  There's a gentleman
here--"  She paused.  "Yes, that's an accurate description.  Yes. 
Yes.  All right."  She held the phone out to him.  "He wants to talk
with you." 
  
He crossed and took it.  "MCD-1764," he said into the receiver. 
  
"Hey, Mo, it's John.  Can you give me access code echo?" 
  
"1-3-7-victor-5-9-0-kilo."  He was lucky he only had five access
codes; apparently everyone at the mountain had twenty-five.  He'd
never keep them straight. 
  
"Got it.  I'll just tell Mrs. Scully you're the real deal.  See you soon." 
  
"You too, John," he said.  He handed the phone back to Mrs.
Scully.  After being reassured he was not a nefarious assassin, she
hung up.  "Ma'am," he said calmly.  "there's some time pressure
here.  If you like, I can move Sadie's car seat to my car while you
get your things together." 
  
"Yes, that would be helpful."  She handed him a keychain from the
little dish on the telephone table.  "We'll be ready very quickly. 
Come on, Sadie, let's get you dressed." 
  
On the drive to the airstrip, he tried to block out Sadie's monologue
about going to see Mama in a mountain--seriously, how much had
they told her?  This kid was a security breach waiting to happen. 
He hadn't allowed himself to admit he was nervous until he saw
Michelle with her clipboard standing at the fence.  She climbed into
the empty passenger seat--Mrs. Scully was in the back with
Sadie--and buckled herself in. "You're the last one.  Fifteen more
minutes, and I had orders to leave without you." 
  
"Yeah, I don't see that happening," he said, as they drove towards
the charter jet. 
  
"Hi, Mrs. Drummy!" Sadie said cheerfully.  "We're going on a big
big plane." 
  
"Not so big," Michelle said. 
  
"To see Daddy and Mama." 
  
"That's right, baby."  Michelle picked up her radio.  "MDR-5643 to
all personnel. Five minutes to wheels up."  She patted Mo's leg as
he parked the car.  "Okay then.  Let's go save the world." 
  
On the plane, he and Michelle were across from Sadie and her
grandmother.  Sadie hopped and bounced in her seat, and Mo
watched Mrs. Scully begin to wilt with exhaustion.  He knew he
wouldn't sleep on this flight, as much as he needed it.  "Ma'am?" he
said quietly.  "If you'd like to get some rest, I can look after Sadie
for a while." 
  
She looked relieved.  "That would be nice, Mr. Drummy, thank you
for offering." 
  
Sadie unbuckled her seat-belt and jumped out of her seat.  "What's
the sky look like over there?" she asked, climbing into his lap and
leaning over Michelle to look out the window. 
  
"Same as the other side."  He patted her back.  Michelle rolled her
eyes at him. 
  
After half an hour of prattling and four times through each of the
three books in Mrs. Scully's tote, she nodded off on his lap.  He
could have put her back in her seat, he supposed.  But he wasn't
sure how well she'd sleep like that, so he reclined his seat and
settled her in against him. 
  
Michelle was paging through drive time estimates for tomorrow's
pickups, making corrections.  She smiled at him.  "You are such a
chump," she said. 
  
He shrugged.  "I'm a nice guy, that's all." 
  
*** 
  
The problem with having saved the world is that everything after it
seems a little lackluster.  The tech guys had it easiest; they just
moved on to the next gig, which was universally a better-paying and
cooler one.  But, despite the fact that, as veterans of the Stark
Insurgency, he and Michelle were national (and global) heroes, and
probably in line for a collective Nobel Prize or something, well, he
was still an FBI agent, and she was still a wedding planner, and
nothing, really, had changed. 
  
They'd talked about him quitting his job; the money from the tech
was starting to get distributed, and even their small share would
probably be enough to pay off the mortgage and buy them some
time to do not much of anything.  As silly as she found her clients
half the time, she liked her job; he, on the other hand, was finding
his uninteresting for the first time in twelve years.  But what else
could he do?  He'd only ever had one job, really; he wasn't a big
enough name to be a consultant without ungodly amounts of
schmoozing; he didn't have any marketable skills that didn't involve
knowing about dead bodies and weapons.  So they went around
and around, and maybe, if he figured out an alternative, he'd leave. 
Or maybe the world would end again.  That he thought he could
handle. 
  
It was May, and he was sitting at his desk next to a stack of
paperwork.  Not a single interesting case had crossed his desk
since he'd gotten back.  Desperate to avoid work for a few more
minutes, he checked his email. 
  
The third new message (after an all-agent announcement about the
changes to the weapons re-certification requirement and an email
from one of his ADs inquiring about the paperwork) was from
Mulder.  GHOST HUNTING was the subject line.  He clicked, a
little apprehensive.  It read: 
  
*Mo-- 
  
So apparently there's this barn in Fluvanna County that's got a train
of reliable apparition sightings around the sixteenth of every May. 
Scully's going to London for another one of those things no one else
understands, and Sadie's not reliable backup for at least another
few years.  You in? 
  
-M.* 
  
He contemplated.  He looked at a map.  He looked at a calendar. 
He Googled.  He contemplated some more. 
  
He replied. 
  
*Mulder-- 
  
There's no such thing as ghosts. 
  
When do we need to be there? 
  
--Mo.*