Author's Notes: Sequel to Dealbreaker/Dreambreaker. You must have read those two stories to get this one. A reminder that Mulder left the FBI after The Host but Scully stayed on the X-Files; I try to stick to canon as much as I can within those parameters.

Spoilers: absolutely none.

Third in the Dealbreaker series, with one more to come.

Thanks once again to beta Mimic117, who does an amazing job of straightening out my convoluted plot lines.

Dealmaker
Rated PG-13
Suzanne Feld

"Yes."

"What? Yes, to what?"

"Getting married, Mulder. Making us a real family."

Mulder stared down at her, speechless for one of the rare times in his life. He glanced around at the police cars and fire engines with their flashing lights strobing red and blue over the scene, wondering if someone was going to leap out and shout "April Fools!" although it was long past. Mulder was no longer FBI but they had just solved the case together, they were surrounded by the local sheriff's department and agents from the field office as well as fireman putting out the black bones of a ruined barn, and she was just now answering his not-a-proposal from three weeks ago?

Dana grinned up at him, the dimples in the corners of her mouth peeking out. "You look like I just hit you over the head with one of Will's plastic mallets," she said. "Though this situation is not amusing, the look on your face is."

He shook his head as if to clear it. But it was clear all right, just confused. Before he could say anything, the sheriff came over to them and he forced his attention away from Dana. "I think we're all set here, Agent Scully. Why don't you come to the station tomorrow to finish up the paperwork and pick up your gun? I think you've done enough tonight."

"Thanks, Sheriff Lewiston, I really appreciate all the help," Dana said as they shook hands. The officer almost had to lean over, he was so tall and she so short without her usual 3" heels. She was wearing casual clothes and a pair of teeny sneakers, which had turned out to be smart since she'd had to walk quietly across a wooden floor and then sprint across a horse pasture. The sheriff towered at least four or five inches over Mulder and while he wondered if the other man had been a basketball player, you didn't just ask someone who appeared to be almost seven feet tall. If yes, there was a chance that he would regale them with boring stories of his career and if not, he would probably be annoyed hearing it again. Lose-lose either way, so he kept his curiosity in check.

The sheriff walked away and Mulder turned to Dana. "Okay, what was all that about?"

"That I suddenly want to marry you, or why a man who looks like he could have had a career in the NBA is a Podunk-town sheriff?"

"Do you want to forget you said it?"

"No… no." She took him by the fold of one sleeve and led him towards her Harrisburg field office pool car, which was parked nearby. Her disgraced partner, who had slept through the entire chase, fire, and shooting, had been sent back to the sheriff's department with one of the deputies earlier. "It's this case, Mulder. I think, for the first time, I realized that us dancing around the subjects we've been ignoring—us moving in together, your proposal, are you going to come back to the FBI or not—could end with one of our deaths and never be resolved. Either, or both, of us could have died tonight. So I decided to take care of one of the subjects. But I do have something to tell you before we go any further, and it's why I wouldn't let you propose to me in the first place."

# # #

Three weeks previously

Though they didn't often manage real dates because of her schedule, Dana had reluctantly given William to her mom for the night and let Mulder take her out. Though he hadn't told her, he had asked Maggie to take the baby so he could get Dana alone, and was very nervous about what the night could hold. If he could only get up the guts to do it.

They went to a new Mexican restaurant, one that Dana had mentioned wanting to try. Though he wasn't sure if salsa and refried beans were romantic, they certainly were good. Shortly after the entree dishes had been cleared and they were waiting for their flan, Mulder leaned over and took her hand, which was resting on the table. They were in a quiet corner of the restaurant, partially screened by a pair of large potted plants with huge broad leaves that almost hid them from the other diners. "So Dana… I've been wondering… where do you see yourself in a year?"

"Career-wise? I'm the department head of the X-Files division—even if it is just two of us—and while I don't want to leave it, I do want to move up, eventually, at least to SAC," she said, clasping his hand lightly in return. "What about you?"

"No, I mean… your private life," he said, trying to get an idea of whether or not she'd be receptive to his proposal. He'd never even thought about asking a woman to marry him before and while he knew what to do from seeing it many a time on TV and in the movies, it was more difficult to work up to than he'd expected.

"You mean us?" At his nod, she relaxed and smiled. "I don't see it being much different from where we are now, Mulder. I'm pretty happy with the way things are going. How about you?"

"Well, I've thought about changing a few things… but if you don't want…" He tried to pull his hand away but hers tightened on it.

"Mulder, I love how everything is right now. Between you and William I couldn't be happier, and the X-Files is more challenging than I'd ever dreamed and there's even talk of expanding the division. Why… what were you thinking of?" Her eyes were wary despite the slight smile on her face.

"I don't know… have you ever thought about getting married?" There! He'd said it!

To his shock, she threw her head back and laughed as if he was joking. "Me? Right. I can see that about as much as I can see you getting married. We're together because we want to be, Mulder, not because some piece of paper says we have to. I don't plan to change that anytime soon. I think my mom has a problem with me being an unwed mother but seriously, it's the nineties. No one cares anymore."

He felt like he'd been gut-punched but made himself not show the embarrassment that was roiling through him. Thank God he hadn't actually asked her! Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "So… what do you, uh, think of one of us moving in with the other?"

"Let's have that discussion… later… at home," she said, leaning towards him with a gleam in her eye that he knew very well. It looked like a certain recently-best-selling author and ex-FBI agent was going to get lucky tonight. With that promise he was fine with tabling the talk… for the time being.

# # #

But as the weeks went by she didn't bring up the subject of cohabitating and so he didn't, either. He was pretty sure that she hadn't forgotten but was afraid to ask why she didn't seem to want to talk about it. Mulder knew that Dana was very independent and liked having her space, so he had planned to suggest that they pick out a new, larger apartment together where they would each have room for their own office. With her salary and how well his book was selling he didn't think that would be a problem. But he let it go; if there was one thing he knew about Dana Scully after being around her for four years, it was that the more she was pushed, the more she shoved back.

To his surprise, however, he had gotten a call from Walter Skinner the previous week asking if he'd consider coming back to the FBI and if so, to call back and set up a meeting. A few days after that, Skinner emailed him about possibly working on the X-Files again. He still hadn't answered, though he admitted to himself that he was seriously thinking about it.

Then, just a few days ago, she got called away on a case in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. When she told him that she had an out of state case Mulder offered to watch William; at not quite a year he wasn't much trouble, and a lot of fun to play with when he was awake. Besides, Mulder was slowly moving his stuff into Dana's apartment and he could haul a few more loads over and hide it in the closet in William's room while she was gone. If she wouldn't talk about it, he'd just do it. Hell, he spent pretty much every night there anyway and his apartment had become nothing more than a storage space for the last few months.

That night she called to give him an update on the case, and he was instantly intrigued. "A haunted barn?" he said delightedly.

"I never stated that it was haunted, Mulder," she said with disapproval. "People have reported seeing things in there that they can't explain. Even in daylight."

"Things like what?"

"Flickering lights, wispy white shapes, objects that move and then disappear, seen out of the corner of their eyes. The people who heard the screams and found the body of the groom or stable hand or whatever she's called, said that there were curls of mist coming off of her, though it was gone by the time the police arrived and a good ninety degrees in that tack room. Phew."

"Did you check for dry ice?"

"How I've missed having you tell me the obvious," she said drily, and he grinned. "Steve and I looked around the barn today, and found absolutely nothing. Other than all the hay and chaff I'm still shaking out of my clothes and shoes."

"So how did your victim die?" He tried not to image her taking off her so-proper business suit and being dressed in delicate Victoria's Secret lingerie underneath. She had done that to him once or twice and it still drove him insane just to think about her having that lingerie on all day beneath the professional clothes. No use getting all steamed up now, however, she'd made it clear in the past that nothing was going to happen over the phone. But later, after the baby was down for the night, it would be fun to think about.

"Looks like a heart attack, though she was only thirty-seven."

"Can't extreme fear cause heart attacks?"

Her sigh came through loud and clear from over a hundred miles away. "Mulder…"

"Day-nah…" he drew her name out, barely keeping from laughing. God, how he loved to yank her chain.

"Asshole," she said affectionately. "I'll give you a call tomorrow, hopefully we'll be able to wrap this up soon. Give Will a kiss for me."

When she called the next afternoon, he went from interested to excited. "You saw it? You're sure?"

"It wasn't a ghost, Mulder, I don't know what it was, but I will admit it's possible that our victim was, indeed, literally scared to death. I just about jumped out of my skin when it went flying past me and then disappeared, and it was broad daylight."

"So what do you think it is?"

"I have no idea, but Steve and I are going to stake out the barn tonight and—"

"Wait, wait, wait. I'll come up—"

"You're not bringing William up here!"

He had momentarily forgotten about the baby in his excitement. "I'll see if your mom can take him—if that's ok?"

Her voice calmed. "Fine with me, and I wouldn't mind having you here on this. Skinner's going to love it if he finds out we're working a case together."

"I haven't said if I'm coming back yet, so we don't have to tell him."

An hour later he dropped William at Maggie Scully's and hit the freeway. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive that he was hoping to make in much less time, and flash his badge if he had to if he got pulled over. But despite an accident on I-495 and a thankfully-brief traffic backup thanks to an Amish horse and buggy on US-15 near Gettysburg, he made it in an hour and forty minutes.

He met Dana and Steve at the Harrisburg field office, then they went out to the farm in the Bureau pool car. It was between Hershey and Harrisburg, not too far from a main highway with several other large farms surrounding it. They drove up the winding driveway between white-fenced fields of horses then past a large white Colonial-style house and parked behind a shed off to one side of the barn. It was getting near dusk; they arrived just in time.

After some discussion and planning he and Dana went into the barn and climbed up into the hayloft, shifting around and then hiding behind a few bales of hay so that they could see down into the barn while no one on the main floor could see them. Steve stayed in the car, watching both house and barn from outside. The farm's owners had gone out for the evening and didn't know they were there.

Mulder was glad to see that Dana had worn slacks, since he didn't want to be picking hay out of her underwear later although a skirt would have made him consider trying to talk her into a quickie when they were out of sight.

A few hours passed, but they weren't bored as they spent the time sitting shoulder-to-shoulder talking in low tones, discussing her cases and his new book. Then, just past midnight by his watch, they heard the sliding door open and peered out over the bales. A line of dim bulbs over the main aisle were always left on, even when the horses weren't inside like now, and they were able to make out a dark figure going into the tack room where the body had been found. They glanced at each other and nodded, then Dana moved silently towards the ladder while Mulder stayed in position. Though he hadn't told her, he had his own gun and now drew it from the holster under his arm, holding it ready but with the safety on.

Dana had tested the boards both in the loft and on the ladder when they'd first come into the barn and found that they didn't squeak much if stepped on slowly and carefully, and so she gradually moved to the other end, her tennis shoes silent on the loft floor. But as she started down the ladder he smelled something familiar which he couldn't place right away, it was so out of place. Then it hit him: gasoline!

Even as he jumped up he saw Dana hurrying down the ladder without regard for sound and ran to that end of the loft. She looked up and saw him, and mouthed "hurry." He nodded and stuffed his gun into the waistband of his jeans before starting down.

The stench of gasoline evolved into the smell of smoke by the time Dana reached the bottom. As her feet silently landed on the floor, a figure wearing a black hoodie with the hood up slipped out of the tack room just a few feet away and turned towards her, then froze. "FBI! I'm armed! Get down on the ground!" Dana barked, fumbling around her back for her gun.

The suspect barreled into the agent, shoving her aside and running for the other end of the barn. Dana went flying, bouncing off one of the wooden stalls and then collapsing to the floor. "Are you all right?" Mulder yelled to her as he reached the bottom of the ladder, hesitating.

"I'm fine—go, go!" She coughed, waving him on.

Mulder caught the smaller figure just as they were about to push open the large sliding doors. He grabbed the back of the dark hoodie and swung them around, throwing them back inside the barn where they stumbled and fell face-first on the floor. He glanced up and saw the flames were quickly spreading from the tack room to the loft above, as well as catching on the bits of straw and hay in the aisle. Tendrils of smoke were beginning to fill the air with a harsh smell.

He felt the old worm of terror trace up his spine and took an inadvertent step back, then made himself stop in place. There was no way he was ever going to let Dana see him like that again, a quivering mass of scared Jello because of something as normal as fire. But now he couldn't move, frozen in place, as Dana ran over with gun drawn. She swung around, dropping on the suspect before they could do more than try to get up, jamming one knee in their lower back while holding her gun with her right hand and grabbing one black-clad arm with her left, twisting it up behind them. A very feminine scream rang out. "Ouch! Asshole!"

Mulder forced himself to reach down and fling back the hood that hid the suspect's face, concentrating on the case rather than the fire. "Who's this, Dana?" he asked as a woman's pale face with tangled blonde hair around it was revealed.

"Karen Drake, the owner of the farm," she snapped, holstering her gun and patting her sides with one hand. "Mulder, could you see if I dropped my handcuffs outside the tack room?"

He looked up and shook his head, fighting the urge to bolt. The only thing that was keeping him in place now was that he wouldn't leave Dana alone in a burning building. "Fire's already there. Sorry, I don't have any."

"I didn't expect you to." Dana sighed. "Listen, Karen. You try to get away and I will shoot you dead in the chest, you hear me? I'm going to let you up now and don't try anything."

"I won't, I won't," the other woman said sullenly.

Dana didn't let go of her arm just yet. "But first, I want to know why you're burning down your own goddamned barn."

"Oh fuck it. So you guys wouldn't figure out how we were doing the ghost illusions, and to get the insurance if we got away with it. Yeah, we were trying to draw tourists to the 'haunted barn' but I didn't know that numbskull Marie was in here when I was testing the system. It worked pretty well, actually."

"And since she screamed bloody murder before collapsing and people came running, you didn't have time to hide the body." Dana got to her feet but stayed bent over, holding Karen's arm behind her back though not as high as she had at first. "Put your other hand behind your back, and clasp them together."

Mulder coughed from the smoke and when he looked up from the woman on the floor, it was with alarm. "We'd better get out of here. Good thing there's no horses in the stalls." Half of the barn was on fire already and swiftly eating its way closer, wisps of flaming hay falling from the loft and drifting closer by the moment.

"Seriously? I may be desperate but I'm not a complete moron."

He helped Dana lift the grumbling woman to her feet with a warning to keep her hands together and they frog-marched her out of the sliding doors, already hearing sirens and seeing flashing lights in the distance. Mulder assumed that Steve had seen the fire and called in the troops, though he wondered where the older man was. Out of curiosity he asked Karen, "So why did you start the whole ghost thing? Just to get your name in the papers?"

"God no, you idiot." The blonde woman, barely taller than Dana without her heels, glared up at him. "We were going broke. Our horses weren't winning and we needed to do something, and we figured if tourists thought our barn was haunted we could do paid tours or something."

"Of all the stupid…" Mulder shook his head.

"Mulder, hang onto her, I don't see Steve, God I hope nothing happened to him," Dana said worriedly, pushing the woman towards him.

He took ahold of Karen by her clasped hands with one of his, putting his other on her shoulder, and held her in front of him as Dana headed for the FBI pool car parked next to the shed a short distance away. Then he heard the whooping of the sirens growing close and glanced back to see where they were. The moment his attention was diverted Karen Drake sprang into action. She yanked her hands out of his grip and swung one leg at his ankles, kicking hard so that he yelled hoarsely and hopped away, pinwheeling his arms so he wouldn't fall. "Dana!" he shouted, wincing at the sharp pain that shot up from his right ankle when he stepped down on it where she'd connected.

He looked up to see Karen running full-out, heading for a white fence where a bunch of horses stood watching, and took off after her. Luckily she was easily visible in the flickering light of the barn fire behind them. As she neared the fence she let out an odd warbling whistle and one of the horses reared, the others startling and scattering. He had almost reached her when she threw herself under the fence, rolling and coming up on the other side. Mulder knew he'd never fit and jumped instead, catching the top board with both hands and vaulting over it. By the time he'd landed, he saw that Karen was hanging onto the horse's mane and that it was dragging her across the ground; though it wasn't running, it wasn't far from it.

He started after them and as he watched, she managed to somehow bounce up from the ground and swing herself onto the horse's back. But instead of running away, she whirled the horse straight at him and he barely threw himself aside as the large animal brushed past. He landed with a jolt flat on his back, knocking the air out of his lungs momentarily.

"No witnesses!" she yelled, whirling the horse again. Mulder moved to roll aside as he gasped for air but she anticipated him and turned the horse towards where he moved, then the huge dark animal reared up over him and he realized that if those hooves landed pretty much anywhere on him, he was probably dead or, at the very least, badly injured.

A shot rang out and the woman crumpled from the horse's back, slithering off to land on the grass behind it. Mulder managed to roll the other way, gasping to catch his breath, as the horse came down on all fours just a few inches from his head with a thud that shook the ground, then galloped off.

"Mulder! Are you all right?" Dana's voice came from nearby, though he couldn't see her.

He lifted an arm and waved as he tried to get up, unable to speak while trying to suck air into his lungs. He was unable to get farther than his hands and knees. "Fine," he finally wheezed, staggering to his feet. "Not hurt. You okay?"

She reached him, grabbing him around the waist and helping him to stand upright. "What's wrong?"

"Knocked—air—out of myself," he gasped as he stood on his own. "And she—kicked my ankle. Hurts like hell."

"I can't believe I lost my cuffs. I'm going to start carrying an extra set or two of zip-ties," Dana said as she moved away, going to check Karen. After a moment or two she straightened and said, "Damn it, she's dead."

"I'm impressed that you hit her while she was on a moving horse," he said. Dana slid his arm around her shoulders and they headed back. Though he didn't really need her support, he limped perhaps a bit more than he needed to so she'd stay next to him. "Is Steve okay?"

"Oh, that old fart. He was sleeping, Mulder, believe it or not. Out like a light. I suspended him without pay and now I have to find a new partner."

He stopped and turned to face her, cupping her shoulder pads in his big hands. "No you don't, Dana. Me. I'll be your partner again. Remember, Skinner called me a few days ago and asked if I'd come back to the FBI. Now I have my answer."

"Really? Seriously? Oh my God, that would be wonderful!" She beamed up at him. Then she looked past him and he turned to see a half-dozen uniformed sheriff's deputies leading the charge across the field. He still wondered who had called the fire department, but figured they'd find that out eventually. "We'll finish this later."

"You know we will!"

# # #

So here they stood a couple of hours later, staring at each other in the flashing strobe lights over the top of the Ford. "Okay, so what is this, uh, momentous news, Dana?"

"The reason I wouldn't let you propose to me is… I can't have any more children, Mulder. I didn't know how to tell you. They tied my tubes after William was born, because to have another baby would likely kill me." Her brows drew down above her shadowed eyes. "If that's a dealbreaker for you, I understand. You didn't know that when you were going to propose to me." She gave him a wry close-mouthed smile. "Yes, I did know what you were doing and I didn't want to let you get any further so I wouldn't have to say no."

"What makes you think that your being able to have more children has anything to do with it?" he said with some exasperation as it sank in. "We've got William, and that's good enough for me. I'll survive without passing along the wunderkind Mulder genes—and besides, my father's still alive and who says he can't have another son if that's what he wants?"

Dana blew out a breath and smiled over at him with relief as she opened the door on her side. "Thank God. I was afraid you'd break it off with me."

"Not a chance." He got in, grinning back at her across the console in the harsh light of the dome. "Well, at least now I don't have to wonder what kind of birth control you're on any more. When you said it was taken care of I trusted you, but I did wonder."

The overhead light went out as they closed their doors and she started the Ford, then stopped and turned to face him with one hand hanging over the steering wheel. "This just occurred to me—we can't get married and be FBI partners. Shit."

"You let me take care of that, Dana. If the FBI wants me back that bad, they'll figure out a way because I won't do anything other than work on the X-Files," he said with easy confidence. "And you're the department head, so you're not leaving either."

She shrugged and shifted the car into gear. "Okay, if you say so."

They drove down the long graveled driveway, bumping along slowly in the dark. As they moved away from the flashing lights behind them she flipped on the brights. Casually he asked, "So, uh, we gonna get a new place?"

"Considering how much stuff you have at my apartment, Mulder, you may as well just finish moving in and then we'll see if we need more room," she said, then glanced at him with a sly grin. "What, did you think I didn't notice? I am a trained investigator."

"That you are, Dana, that you are," he said warmly, reaching over to place a hand on her thigh and squeezing it lightly. "And I think when we get to the motel I am definitely going to have something that you'll want to investigate."

She flashed him a full-on grin. "You can count on it."

Epilogue—some time later

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Do you think I'd have brought you this news if I wasn't?"

The Well-Manicured Man heaved a sigh and shifted in his big leather chair, shaking his head. "Mulder back on the X-Files. I wouldn't have thought it."

In his curiously flat voice Elder said ponderously, "This is not good. Mulder must not continue his investigation of us, he got too close the last time."

Across the room, the Smoking Man lit another cigarette, his deeply lined face briefly illuminated before he cast the match into the fireplace and said, "It's of no concern. If I have to, I can use Dana Scully, who is now his wife, to control him."

"You had better, Spender, you had better."

finis