A/N: Thanks for the reviews I've gotten so far. I love feedback, good or bad. This story may up being longer than I thought it would be, but I'm going to try some stuff out.

Disclaimer: CC owns them, not me, I'm just having fun.

CHAPTER 5

Alexandria, Virginia

Sometimes Mulder didn't need the help of the alarm to wake up. Most times it was because he hadn't slept. Other times it was because of the brightness of the morning sun as the light would come pouring through the windows. Today, it was because some lunatic was stupid enough to pound at his door at 5:45 in the morning.

He grumbled as he pulled himself off of his couch and shuffled to the door, rubbing his face to become coherent. The obvious questions of who would be outside his apartment this early and what they would want was the only thing driving his feet to move.

He looked through the peephole in his door and with some confusion, unlatched the chain to open it.

"Diana?" he asked groggily.

Agent Fowley smiled slightly and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She was dressed for work and kept looking around, suspicious that someone might see her. In her hand, she carried a dark brown briefcase with a serious looking lock on it.

"I'm sorry to come unannounced and so early," she said uneasily. "Can I speak with you?"

Mulder opened the door wider for her to enter. She walked in slowly and proceeded to the living room where she took a seat on Mulder's "bed."

"What's going on?" he asked hesitantly as he stood in the living room doorway.

Fowley took a key out of her pocket and opened the briefcase. Inside were many files, but it was the one on the top of the pile that Fowley took out and handed to Mulder.

"An X-file?" Mulder asked as he flipped through the pages.

Fowley closed the briefcase and sighed.

"No," she explained. "It's a case I worked a few years ago in Prague. It involved a terrorist cell whose members were planning to use chemical weapons they had gotten from black market operatives in the east. Serious weapons that contained VX gas components. A lot of people would have died, but we got lucky. It didn't come without a price though."

Mulder continued to look through the file with interest as Fowley went on:

"One of our agents was shot and killed during the raid. Special Agent Sarah Holcomb." Fowley handed Mulder another file, this one was Holcomb's personnel file.

"Sarah was brilliant. Top of her class at Berkeley. Top of her class at Quantico. She spoke 14 languages fluently. The CIA wanted her but she wanted the FBI. So she was assigned to the foreign terrorism office with me."

Mulder looked at the woman's picture and then turned the page to a copy of her death certificate.

"What happened to her?" he asked, beginning to wonder why she was telling him this. Fowley stood and closed her briefcase.

"She was shot during the raid. When she was killed, her family petitioned everyone, the FBI, Congress, even the military for a full investigation into the cause of her death."

Mulder frowned and looked at the autopsy report.

"It says here she died as the result of a gunshot wound to the head. What made them think otherwise?"

Fowley stood for a second and then walked closed to him, creating a strange uneasiness Mulder hadn't expected to feel.

"Sarah was a great agent, but she and I didn't always see eye to eye, to put it mildly. There were cases where she would deliberately leave me out of the loop and occasionally, I did my best to keep her out of my hair as well. It created a lot of tension. I don't know what or who led them to believe this, but her family became convinced that when Sarah died in that raid, it wasn't as the result of enemy fire."

Mulder closed the file and stared at Fowley.

"They believe I shot her, Fox," she said slowly. "Even though there were 13 other agents there that witnessed Sarah's death. They still believe I killed her out of nothing more than pettiness."

She reached out to take the file from Mulder, grazing his fingers with her hand.

"Of course the FBI's internal investigation exonerated me from such claims, but it still haunts me. I may be many things, but I am not a murderer."

Mulder put his hand on her shoulder and lightly massaged it.

"I know you're not Diana," he said. "But why are you telling me all this?"

Fowley reached up and squeezed his hand, then began to walk toward the door.

"I wanted you to know my side before someone else brings this up to you," she said.

Mulder was confused again. "Who would do that?"

Fowley opened the door and stepped into the hallway. "I received word that an agent from our office was in San Diego this week interviewing Sarah's family about the incident. Maybe it's because I've been assigned to the X-files now. But regardless, someone is going through a lot of trouble to dredge up something that isn't there. I don't have a conclusive ID yet, but according to passenger manifests only one agent from the Washington Office took a flight to San Diego this weekend."

She handed him one more piece of paper, a printout of a flight manifest:

Americana Air FLIGHT 1013

Mulder felt a knot tie in his stomach as he searched the list of names, already knowing what he would find.

Roberts, Theresa

Rueland, Grace

Scully, Dana K.

Smith, Joseph

Smith, Renee

"Scully," he breathed.