Disclaimer: I got nothin' except Renee and the plot.

Chapter Five: Starting back at 1

Mulder awoke the next morning to see that he was still in the tunnel in the park. He noted that Renee was resting her head on his shoulder and Langly was resting his head on Renee's shoulder. Mulder yawned and wondered why the sun wasn't coming all the way into the tunnel. He looked to his right. He jumped seeing Scully there. "Dana!" he exclaimed.

"What?" she asked innocently as she sat beside him.

Mulder sighed and put his arm around Scully, causing Renee and Langly to fall over. "Nothing's going to be the same after this summer."

Renee hit Mulder for moving and said, "No, it's not. We'll get through it though."

"Yeah, man. Don't be such a downer," said Langly.

Mulder smiled whatever the future held, it was bound to be interesting.

Another perfect summer night six years later, Dana Scully drove to Washington D.C. She had just finished training in the FBI Academy and was on her way to meet her new partner. He'd been in the FBI for three years, working in a mysterious department called the X-Files. His name was Fox Mulder. Scully was excited. She and Mulder had eventually lost touch about four years ago. The distance was too much and life got in the way. The only people that she'd talked to from high school lately were Reyes and Doggett. Reyes was in the FBI also, and Doggett had just been pulled from the police department in New York to go to the FBI Academy. Scully and Renee kept in touch via email. Renee had been in the Bureau but had now transferred to the President's Secret Service, but there were rumors that she left it. Scully knew for a face that Renee wrote novels under a pen name. Jeff Spender was supposedly somewhere in the FBI as well. Frohike, Byers, and Langly had started up their own newspaper in Maryland entitled, "The Lone Gunmen". Scully had read more than a few issues, and she was slightly disbelieving in all the conspiracies that they insisted were going on. Apparently, Renee was a subscriber to "The Lone Gunmen" - in the back of one of her novels she cited the paper and gave it quite a good review. It was strange how everyone ended up in virtually the same place. At the time though, Scully thought nothing of it.

She drove to her new apartment and reluctantly put the key in the door. She'd never liked moving. And now she had the awful chore of unpacking. However, when she opened the door, she was shocked to see that her furniture was already where it should be and there was a fire going in the fireplace. Before she could even get a coherent thought out of her mouth, Renee Knight and Monica Reyes waltzed into her living room. "I think she'll like it," Reyes was saying.

"You're home early, Dana!" Renee said spotting her.

"How did you two get in here?! Or even know where I live?"

Reyes laughed. "Not happy to see us? Your mom told us and gave us a key."

Scully, apparently to shocked to speak, just walked over and hugged her friends. "Aren't you stationed in New Orelans, Monica?"

"I took off for a few days. I figured it was about time I took a vacation!"

Renee, sensing that she would be questioned next spoke up, "I quit the Secret Service. It's a long story and I don't want to bog you down for your first day. I'll tell you both about it later, but trust me, you'll only think I'm crazy." That night, Reyes and Renee took Scully out to dinner, and they all caught up on their lives. In the back of Scully's mind she wondered why Renee had quit a job as important as the Secret Service...

Scully nervously waked down to the basement where Mulder's office was. She vaguely wondered if Mulder would be happy or if he even wanted to see her. With a million thoughts racing through her mind, she knocked on the office door. "No body here but the FBI's most UN-wanted," Mulder shouted. Scully grinned. It looked as though things hadn't changed too much. She walked inside and shut the door behind her.

"Did no one telling you that you're getting a new partner today?"

Mulder, pouring over a case file, had his back to Scully. "Partner? That's funny. I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me," Mulder swivelled around in his chair, seeing Scully and his eyes got wide. He began to write on a note pad and handed it to Scully.It read, "Can't talk here. My office is bugged."Scully folded up the note, putting it in her pocket. "I'm not spy."

"Well, partner. Let's go grab some lunch. I'm starving."

30 minutes later found Mulder and Scully in a secure location talking about Mulder's findings. Scully could hardly believe what she was hearing. "Mulder, this is crazy."

"If it's so crazy then why did both Byers and Renee quite secure government jobs? Why did Frohike and Langly throw their careers out the window to become the Lone Gunmen? Why is my office bugged? How did all of us end up in the same place?"

Scully sat in silence for a moment. It was unusual, she had to admit. But a government sanctioned conspiracy? She did know one way to verify. After work she went to her apartment, finding Renee on the couch and Reyes in the kitchen. "Renee. I need you to tell me why you quit your job."

Renee sighed. "You may want to sit down for this. Reyes, you too." When both sat she began. "I never told anyone this. I guess I was embarrassed. Anyway, shortly after I got transferred to the Secret Service, I met my soon to be fiancé, Eric. To make it short - six months later, a couple of men in the White House made me their confidant. I found out things." Renee stared out the window now. "JFK, Martin Luther King - others that were assassinated, terrorists, all were government sanctioned. I even found out about Roswell, the biggest cover up in U.S. history. I got so involved in finding a way to blow it all open, I never noticed until it was to late, that Eric was one of their terrorists. I left him and then having no proof I quit, hoping to find others who knew that I could work with."

"They let you leave?" Reyes asked.

"I played the part of a frantic overwhelmed woman. They thought I cracked under pressure, but they still try to contact me every now and then."

Scully looked shocked. "And you didn't tell anyone?"

"Who could I tell? I had no proof. I thought I was crazy until I met up with Mulder and the Gunmen who had similar findings."

"Dana what are you doing?" Reyes asked, seeing Scully going over to her cell phone.

"I'm calling Mulder. Apparently we have a lot of work to do."

Fin.