F.B.I. Field Office

Salt Lake City, Utah

5:14 P.M

"Agent Scully, Agent Foster, the two agents from Washington are here," said one of the agents. He popped his head into the room where the other agents were gathering.

"Where are they?" asked Scully. She looked up from her work.

"They are outside in the lobby, do you want me to go get them?" he replied.

"Yes, that would be helpful, thank you, Agent Rice." she answered.

Scully went back to her desk, put on her reading glasses and sat down in her chair to start typing her profile of the killer. Scully was forty now. You could see that she had aged a little. She wore her reading glasses for more than when she had a headache now. She even used them to drive a lot of the time.

A minute later Agent Rice came back into the room with the agents from Washington. One of them was a woman, who she thought could be no older than thirty-three years old. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. She appeared to be somewhat naive at first glance. When Agent Scully looked at the man, she could not believe who it was. She blinked twice, took off her reading glasses and got up from her desk and walked over.

"Mulder!" Scully cried. "You're here to help me?" She was in disbelief.

"Scully, oh, my god. I can't believe it's you," Mulder smiled. He walked over to her and gave her a hug. For the first time in six years, he was going to be working with the one person that he trusted implicitly, who knew everything about him, and was his best friend.

"Wow, I can't believe it's you. I never thought that I would be working a case with you again," she said.

"I know. Hey, Scully, this is my partner, Agent Marshall. She has been with me for about a year and a half," Mulder explained.

"Hi," she said, "Just call me 'Alex', or as Agent Mulder prefers, 'Marshall'." She shook Scully's hand.

"Hi, I'm Special Agent Dana Scully. This is my partner, Nate Foster. We've been working together for two years," Scully explained.

Agent Foster came over, when Scully said his name. He was a shorter guy than Mulder, but equally intelligent. "Hi, I'm Nate," replied Agent Foster. He shook Mulder and Marshall's hands. "So enough getting to know each other, let's get down to business, shall we?"

The Agents took their seats while Scully presented the case to them. This was the first time since she had been in Utah that she had the same rush that she had while she was in Washington. She felt strong and proud to be an F.B.I. agent.

"This is the victim," Agent Scully said. "Her name is Alison Marie Greene. She is the daughter of Julia and Matthew Greene. She is their middle child. She has an older sister, Amanda Jean Greene, who is eleven, and a younger sister, Laura Ashley Ann Greene, who is two years old. The house was locked from the inside, both of her parents were home, and so were both of their daughters. They live in a fairly new development in Morgan, Utah, a small suburb.

There were no signs of forced entry, and the body and head of the child was found outside of the house, three miles away at the local park. There were no signs of foul play. The coroner's office has concluded that the child died of asphyxiation, and that it was a seven-inch blade on the knife that did the decapitating of the head; however, they do not know what kind of knife it was. The decapitation was post-mortem. This is all the information we have right now.

I would like Agents Rice and Walters to start by collecting evidence at the park. Agent Foster will collect evidence from the house. Agent Anderson will start by writing a profile of the killer. Agents Marshall and I will talk to the parents first, and Agent Mulder will talk to the children first. This is the fifth victim in the fifth state, which has been killed like this, let this be the last one, shall we? "

She gathered up her slides and her notes from the front of the room and went back to her desk. Just as she was getting ready to leave, Mulder came over to talk to her.

"Scully, should we go over and start to question the parents now?" Mulder asked.She looked at her watch. She knew she needed to go home to her daughter and her husband.

"Mulder, it's nine-thirty at night. Somehow I doubt the Greenes would want to be bothered at this hour after losing a child. Besides, I have to go home," she replied.

"Why do you have to go home, could we go get a drink or something?" Mulder asked.

"I - I don't know Mulder. I mean it's nine-thirty, I should go home," Scully answered.

"What are you married or something?" Mulder chuckled.

"Yes, I am, Mulder," Scully explained. "And that is why I can't go have a drink with you. I need to go home."

Mulder looked at her in disbelief. Although he knew that he and Scully had drifted apart, he did not realize how far apart. She was married, something which he thought would never happen. Even though he was happy for her, at the same time, he was jealous. Mulder watched Scully walk out of the room to go home.

After she left the room, he decided that he would round up Agent Marshall and get going to the hotel for the night. He walked over to where she was on the other side of the room. She was standing talking to Agent Rice and Agent Walters.

"Should we get going back to the hotel now?" Mulder asked Agent Marshall.

"I guess. We aren't starting this tonight, are we?" she replied.

"No. No we're not. We are going to reconvene here tomorrow at seven-thirty in the morning, so we had better go and get our sleep, don't you think?" Mulder answered.

"I guess. I will see you guys later, okay?" Agent Marshall said to the other two agents. Agent Marshall grabbed her briefcase off of a desk, and she and Mulder walked out the door.

Mulder was very quiet when he walked down the hallway. He seemed distant, and angry. Mulder could not understand how Scully could go off and get married after all she had seen and done with Mulder for six years. They had been though everything together, or so it seemed at the time. He thought that maybe they had more than just a working relationship; however, he proved himself wrong. Agent Marshall looked at him with a sympathetic glance.

"So you know that Agent Scully, huh?" she asked him. Alex wanted to know more about Mulder and his past.

"Yeah. We, uh, we used to work together," Mulder said. He remembered fondly the times that he and Scully had spent investigating cases.

"In violent crimes? How long did you work together?" Marshall asked him. Even though they had worked together for a year and a half, she did not know very much about him.

"No, actually. I was working on something called the x-files. In fact, you may have heard of it when you were at the academy. I started working on the x-files back in 1991 with an old friend. In '93 she was reassigned to a different area. That was when Scully came to work with me. The section chief put her on the x-files to 'spy on me', initially, but as a tribute to her honesty and integrity, she didn't. She worked with me for six years. It seemed like we had been through everything together," Mulder explained. He opened the door to the Ford Crown Victoria that they had rented from the rental car agency.

"What happened?" asked Agent Marshall. She got into the car.

"We had this case in Dallas. We were working with a bunch of agents to find this bomb which was supposedly in the federal building; however, they were wrong. It was in the building across the street from the federal building. The bomb went off because it was not defused in time, and Scully and I were blamed for it. The x-files were closed, and she was sent to Utah. I was reassigned to violent crimes. You may have heard about it, I don't know," Mulder replied.

"Yeah, I heard something about it. It was on the news, I remember. Wow, so that is what happened. Were you guys close?" she asked.

"Yeah, I guess. But after she moved out here we drifted apart, and now, I don't know her anymore, really," Mulder sighed. He turned on his blinker to turn into the hotel parking lot.