2630 Hegal Place, Alexandria, Virginia

6:00 AM

In an apartment in Virginia resides Fox Mulder, known believer in all things paranormal or "Spooky" as he is so affectionately referred and porn addict. His alarm sounds at six, waking him from his slumber where he is unfortunately visited every night where visions of his long lost sister, Samantha, plagues his dreams and nightmares.

Another day, another case

He thinks to himself as his slams his palm on his alarm clock for the silence to fill the room again. He sat up from his couch that doubled as his bed. An image of his sister pleading "Fox!" to him still plays on the back of his eyelids after he wakes. He rubs his face trying to forget that image for just a moment so he will have the momentum to get up and head to work.

His usual routine of coffee and newspaper starts the day, unless the new copy of The Lone Gunman newsletter comes out that month. He feeds his fish, gets dressed, and goes through his mental checklist.

Badge, wallet, keys, phone, files, sunflower seeds... dammit.

Mulder heads downstairs, usually not passing by anyone in the hallway. When he gets down to the next floor, he sees someone's door open with moving boxes in the hall beside the ajar door. It catches his attention until he sees a woman emerge to grab another box, then she captures his attention for a few seconds longer. He can't help but stop himself to assess more. He uncharacteristically approaches the door, and meets the woman outside of her door.

"Hi," She says, giving Mulder a small smile. Mulder can't help himself but smile back.

Her smile is definitely contagious

Mulder thinks to himself, "Hi, I'm Fox. I see we're going to be neighbors. I live in 42 right above you." He reaches out her hand, hoping she reciprocates the gesture. To his delight, she does. "Nice to meet you, Fox. I'm Julie, well I live in 32 so don't play any music too loud." she chuckles awkwardly, not knowing what to say with the little amount of sleep that she has gotten over the last few days. He chuckles also, hoping that this conversation doesn't take an unfortunate turn. "I'll try not to." He replies.

think. Think. THINK.

Mulder continues to think of something to say to say them from this sinking conversation.

The damn Titanic didn't even go down this fast

Julie happened to glance at his badge that from dangling from his lapel. "Oh wow, FBI huh? Not the only G-man in the building now."

"Are you an agent also?" Mulder quickly replies. Maybe even a little too quickly. "Oh no, I'm apart of the White House press office. I was a political journalist before and I had a friend from college set up an interview, so a few flights here, couple of interviews, ya da ya da and here I am."

"Oh, so where are you from?" Mulder says, successfully building upon the conversation. "Well.. you could say I'm a little bit from everywhere, I'm an army brat. My dad was in the Army so we moved quite a bit, but I would claim that I'm from Tennessee. We lived in Memphis for the most extended period of time. After college, I moved back before coming to the Alexandria and DC area." Hearing Memphis immediately lit Mulder's brain afire. "Ah! Elvis. I took some time off not too long ago and visited what I refer to as the holy land." She chuckled more genuinely after his remark. "Oh yes, spoken like a true tourist." Mulder smiled a little more hearing her laugh, which in turn made her smile more also.

God.. don't make a fool out of yourself right now.

Julie thought to herself, absolutely taken with Mulder's charm. Mulder glanced down at his watch

shit

"Well, I have to y'know do my G-man duties and I don't want to distract you from your unpacking." Mulder realizing that he was more than likely going to be late for work.

Well, it's certainly a nice distraction to have

How badly she wanted to say that out loud, wishing he didn't have to leave so quickly. "Too bad I couldn't get any manual labor out of you," She joked. "I wouldn't be much use anyway," He smiled, "It was nice to meet you Julie, good luck unpacking."

"It was good to meet you too, Fox." He walked away.

Oh god, I don't want to turn around and make awkward eye contact.... Or would it be cute?

Mulder wasn't exactly the biggest womanizer, except his looks definitely helped him out in the conversational department. He turned his head as he walked down the stairs, their eyes met as she walked back into her empty apartment with a box in her arms.

935 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC

FBI Headquarters

7:46 AM

Reaching out to press the B button on the elevator was a daily chore for Dana Scully. For the last two years, she has been assigned to The X Files, which her current partner has reopened after some time. As her role was originally to spy on "Spooky Mulder" she has grown to question what she had believed until that point. The things she had seen and experienced could take a lifetime to explain. When the elevator doors opened to the, albeit, dingy basement that was her and Mulder's office, she stepped out to make her way there. She opened the door, hoping to see Mulder there, slide show ready to explain that they're getting on a flight to the middle of no one to investigate crop circles, abductions, cow mutilations, or something completely new. His desk chair sat vacant, until she walked over to seat herself until Mulder arrived.

8:04

Footsteps approached the door, Scully looked up from her watch to see Mulder walk in. "Well, better late than never." She sarcastically remarked, "Don't take that tone with me, Dana." He kidded. "Where have you been?" Scully questioned. "Ah, you know how traffic is getting to DC on a Monday morning." He wouldn't dare tell her about his encounter this morning with his new neighbor. It was reminiscent of hiding an affair from their partner to him, not wanting to hurt their relationship or her feelings. He omitted his newfound friendship.

He always felt this strange feeling with Scully, it was like he wanted to be with her all of the time. Even when she bitches at him about how he always drives or whenever he ditches her on a case, or even whenever he gives her some ambiguous line about what he's doing before he hangs up on her. He never wanted to leave her side, he usually wanted to get to work first so he could spend as much time with her as possible. He doesn't consider it love although, just a trusting and working partnership along with their friendship.

Scully knew that was a bunch of bullshit but if he didn't want to tell her, he didn't want to tell her. "I was looking over this file last night, I think it could be an x file." He said before placing a manilla folder on the desk before her. Scully meticulously opened the file, looking at the medical reports first and foremost. "Marlena Pierson.. cause of death.. there's no cause of death listed, Mulder." She said as she looked up at him. "And neither is there one for Shannon Winslow or Dianne Baker." Mulder quickly loading the projector, showing Scully the photos of these deceased women. "Marlena Pierson, 23, recently graduated from The University of Wisconsin. Shannon Winslow, 22, senior at Wisconsin and Dianne Baker, 24, graduated 2 years ago from the same school." Mulder simultaneously clicked through pictures of these women. "Did they know each other?" Scully asked. "Yes and let me show you how. Have you worked on your Greek alphabet lately, Scully?" She just looked at him with that, "Where the hell are you going with this, Mulder?" look that she probably gives him too often. "All three of these women were in the same pledge class of the Delta Gamma sorority at the university." Mulder says before switching to the next slide to show a photo of seven women. "There's the three women that have been murdered, and here are the other four. Except this one right here," Mulder pointing at one of them, "Lori Stone died during their hazing ritual."

"Yes, I see here. She died from driving her car off of a bridge and eventual drowning was the official cause of death. Mulder, is this just some way to go spend the government's money so you can party with some frat boys for a couple of days?" Scully scanned over the autopsy report. "I did think about that, but no check this out," Mulder changing to the next slide to show the crime scene photos of the three women, "All three of these women has the word "sister" scratched into their neck." "Sister? As in.. sorority sister I'm guessing." Scully stood up to get a closer look at the slides. "There were no other external injuries on their bodies to indicate cause of death. I called Madison PD and they've shipped a body to Quantico that I want you to do a full autopsy to get an official cause of death."

Scully sighed, "Okay, Mulder.. and what if we find a cause of death?"

"Then we're flying out to Wisconsin to find out what the hell is going on."