Disclaimer: No infringement intended.

A/N: Sorry, Sorry, Sorry! What can I say, but sometimes life just gets in the way of creative energies!!!

Chapter Nine

The warm inviting aroma of pancakes and sausage assaulted Mulder as he descended the stairs. He yawned sleepily and rubbed his eyes, having a suddenly flashback to Saturday mornings as a kid at his parents house. He paused on the bottom stair and watched Scully silently as she bustled around the kitchen making the morning meal. I really could get used to this, he thought mindlessly admiring her form. And that scares the crap out of me. He took the final step to the hallway just as the doorbell rang.

"I got it," he mumbled and smiled as Scully jumped at the sound of his voice. Mulder padded over to the door and opened it to find Nester standing on the stoop. "Morning Nest."

Nester eyeballed Mulder's bed-head look and walked past him into the house. "Just get up?" he asked watching Mulder nod his head. "Hope you brushed your teeth."

"Of course," Mulder sneered. He peered out the door at the side of the garage and then pointed wordlessly to the front yard. "Ah…."

Nester shook his head. "He's not coming." He watched Mulder nod again and shut the door behind them. "He's learning how to work the backhoe. He and some guy from the street department will be up later to dig the hole."

"Ah," Mulder replied. "There's special training to run a backhoe?"

"Yeah, who would have thought?" Nester laughed. "God it smells great in here. Hey Scully!"

"Nester," Scully greeted him leaning over the breakfast bar. She pushed two cups of coffee toward the men and set the container of creamer on the counter. "Where's Driscoll?"

"Backhoe school," Nester said dumping the cream in the steaming cup. "I guess if you want to look legitimate, you need to practice how to operate the thing. And you know what a perfectionist Dris is," he took a big sip from his cup and set the cup down. "How was your dinner date?"

Mulder straddled a bar stool and sat down. "Uneventful wouldn't you say, Scull?"

Scully smirked. "That's an understatement. Not only do the Vesch's have normal everyday jobs, they're completely grounded and …. drama free."

"Yeah," Mulder chimed back in. "I can't even figure out why they're on the association board. They certainly don't fit the mold like the rest of the board members."

"If we had met them back in D.C., we could have been friends," Scully added.

"Okay … stop!" Nester blurted. "The shit is getting thick!"

"I'm serious," Scully replied defensively. "Gordy is a techno geek. He would fit right in with the Gunmen."

"Mulder?" Nester called for reinforcements.

"Well, the friend thing is pushing it, but she's right about being a geek," Mulder remarked winking at Scully. He noticed she was pulling the plates out of the cupboard. "Are we ready to eat?" he asked changing the subject.

"Yeah, can you give me a hand with some of this?" Scully called as she tried to juggle plates, glasses and the juice pitcher.

The threesome moved to the patio and enjoyed breakfast outside in the warm morning air under a sunny sky. They were joking about old times when Nester caught Scully looking around the neighborhood cautiously.

"You okay …Sc-Laura?" Nester asked stumbling over her cover name. "You look like you're about ready to pull your gun."

"Yeah, I just feel like someone is staring at us," she whispered.

"Well, they are," Mulder replied as he leaned forward on the table. "They're envious of our defiant behavior." He reached over and squeezed her hand.

Nester watched the exchange between his friends. Their lovely attitude was a little nauseating, although fitting for their role. Gag me, he thought as he leaned his elbows on the table and steepled his hands in front of his face. He was quiet for a second when he suddenly realized why Scully was so nervous.

"Wait, you're not supposed to be sitting out here are you?"

Scully let go of Mulder's hand and went back to eating her breakfast. "Not exactly."

"Isn't there a rule about it?"

"The code book isn't exactly specific about it," Mulder replied. He stood up from the table and walked back into the house to the get coffee pot. He came out and warmed up their cups and then set the pot down on a trivet on the table. "It just says no wicker outdoor furniture on the patio."

"They make wicker outdoor furniture?" Nester asked perplexed.

"My thoughts exactly," Mulder responded. "We borrowed this from our new best friends."

"The neighbors?" Nester asked, a little too loud for Scully's tastes. She glared at him with a look that would melt ice. "Sorry," he replied sheepishly lowering his voice. "The Veschs?"

"I convinced them to eat dinner on their patio last night," Mulder laughed. "I felt like we had snuck some contraband into study hall."

Scully laughed aloud at Mulder's comment. "It was rather liberating actually. Rob tossed out the bait and the Vesch's were totally into it."

"Board members breaking the rules?" Nester mocked. "What next? Running naked in the yard."

"Naah! I already suggested that," Mulder replied with a sly grin. "I got the impression they didn't give a crap anymore. Didn't you … Laura?"

"Yeah, Rob," she agreed. "After their little slip."

"Okay, knock it off!" Nester blurted out, tired of their encrypted dialogue. "What happened?"

"Well, when we were having cocktails before dinner, Sissy said they were going away for the rest of the week and when I pressed her…." Scully started.

"Quite impressively, I might add," Mulder interrupted.

"Thank you poopy head," Scully replied, knowing full well that the "cutesy" talk was making Nester gag. "Basically they're moving. I took them to the airport early this morning. They're going house-hunting upstate somewhere and will send movers to pack up their house once they find something."

"Interesting," Nester guffawed processing the information. "Get outta dodge before dodge gets you?"

"So it would seem," Mulder remarked. "Gordy claimed he was getting relocated for his job, but I suspect that he has seen the writing on the wall. Big Mike, Paul Acton, Kami Shroeder … it was just a matter of time before he ended up on the police blotter as a missing person."

Nester was quiet for a second as he fit the pieces together in his head. "So how does that leave you with the patio furniture?" he asked mindlessly.

"We're house sitting," Scully replied flatly. "She gave me the keys this morning."

"Ahh, an interesting turn of events," Nester replied with a grin. "Does that mean we'll be having another bonding session today while Mulder and Dris are playing in the sand box?

"Uh huh," Scully replied with a smirk. "Just promise me we won't get trapped in the basement."

Mulder chuckled to himself as Driscoll haphazardly swung the backhoe arm around in the front yard, in a futile attempt to dig a uniform hole. The foreman from the street department stood in the background and shook his head in disbelief and after a few minutes waved at him to trade places. Driscoll climbed down from the machine and stepped over to Mulder with his hard hat in his hand.

"Performance anxiety?" Mulder mumbled to him under his breath. He nodded to the small crowd that was beginning to form at the end of his driveway.

"That's harder than it looks buddy," Driscoll retorted defensively.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch," Mulder replied with a smirk. "You've got an audience you know."

Driscoll turned his head and watched the crowd forming near the bottom of the drive. "Nothing like a good peep show," Dris replied as he headed down the driveway to usher the viewing audience away from the back of the machine.

Mulder sighed and walked to the front door of the house, feeling useless just standing there. The crowd at the bottom of the drive way was actually a good thing, considering Scully and Nestor were on a reconnaissance mission of their own at the neighbors. Mulder ducked inside the house for a moment to grab a coke and returned to the front door to find Rick Sams standing there.

"Hi Rick!" Mulder exclaimed as he opened the door just as the man was about to knock. "What brings you down this way?" He asked innocently knowing full well what brought the man to his door.

"Ahh, hi Rob," he said nervously looking back at the backhoe. "Got some activity going on in your yard there….did you, ah, get that approved with the association board?"

"What?" Mulder said acting like he couldn't hear him over the sound of machine.

Sams waved him out of the doorway and walked over toward the garage. Mulder followed with a quizzical expression on his face. This outta be good, Mulder thought as he formulated his response to whatever Sams was about to ask. When they had distanced themselves from most of the noise, Rick turned about around to Mulder.

"Did you get that approved with the association?" he asked pointing in the direction of the backhoe.

"No," Mulder replied defiantly.

"What?" Sams replied with a shocked look on his face. "Dude there's a rule about digging in the yards without association approval."

"What? It's my yard!" Mulder argued.

"Yeah, well, you obviously missed that clause in fine print at the bottom of the bill of sale. We just think it's our yard," Sams replied shaking his head. "Ultimately the association owns everything."

Mulder walked over to the van and pulled open the door. He picked up the huge CC&R binder and flipped through a couple of pages. "Well, I did check the rules before I started digging and I didn't see anything that specifically said I needed association approval."

Sams guffawed and shifted his weight on his feet. "Yeah, good luck with that one. This place isn't specific about anything." He looked over at the backhoe and surveyed the yard for a moment. "Well, that's not what I came down here for, bud. I was going to ask if you wanted to shoot hoops up at the park, but you're obviously busy."

"Yeah," Mulder replied trying to act remorseful. "Try me later this week." Mulder watched Sams as he headed down the driveway then turned his attention back to the yard.

The crash and thud on the ceiling above her caused Scully to drop what she was looking at and run up the stairs. She found Nester kneeling on the floor picking books up from the floor in the first room at the top of the stairs. "What happened?" she barked as she made her way to the top of the stairs.

"Nothing, I just backed into these books," Nester mumbled as he gathered the books and stood up. He looked at her noticing the scowl on her face. "Geezus relax, it's not like the home owners are coming home anytime soon."

"Just because they aren't coming home doesn't mean you can tear up the place," she retorted defensively.

Nester stared at her quizzically. "Are you PMSing?"

"What?"

"That's it isn't it? This whole week, the whole bitchy thing?"

"Excuse me?" Scully stared at Nester in disbelief. Why do men always blame everything on PMS? Can a person just have a bad day?

"Oh, it all makes sense now," Nester chuckled under his breath. "I can' believe I forgot the 'signs' … moodiness, nausea, irrational behavior …"

"Nester!" Scully yelled at him, interrupting his train of thought. "I am not having PMS!"

"Are you sure about that?" he asked her calmly slightly surprised at her reaction. "Because you seem a little off. Out of sorts one might say."

"Grrr, whatever!' Scully growled and stomped out of the room.

Nester watched her leave and shook his head. Yup, that's definitely PMS at work. He smiled smugly and went back to snooping on the desk. Nester continued nosing around the second level for another hour and then ran down the stairs to see what Scully was up to. She was sitting on the couch staring blankly at the fireplace. "Find anything?" he asked as he approached her from behind.

"No," she replied flatly.

"What're you doing?"

"Nothing."

"I see that," Nester remarked leaning over the couch to look at her face. "How long have you been sitting here doing nothing?" He watched her head turn slightly and noticed the glassed over expression in her eyes. "Scully?"

"What?" she answered as her eyes refocused on him.

"Are you…."

"Stow Nester!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I was just thinking, that's all." She stood up from the couch and turned to face him. "Did you find anything up there?"

"Not really," Nester said pushing himself off the back of the couch. "I mean, there are some papers up there that link them to the association board, but nothing more." He looked around the first floor, staring at the walls and floor. "Did you find ummm, a trap door to the crawl space?"

"Uh huh," she replied shaking her head. "I fished for that last night, but Sissy said they didn't have one and I didn't see anything down here that looked like one."

"Did you pull up the carpet?" Nester felt the eye daggers of her blazing stare bore straight through him. He stood his ground and stared back at her. Geezus, if looks could kill, he thought as he watched her. "It was just a question," he conceded and shrugged his shoulders. He walked across the floor to the front door, listening for a difference in the sound of his footsteps. It sounded uniform to him and he turned to retrace his steps, only to find Scully standing behind him with her arms crossed at her chest.

"Satisfied?" she replied smartly.

Nester paused a moment before responding to her. Man does she have a bug up her butt, he thought as he looked back down at the floor. After a moment he sighed, "yeah, I guess," Nester mumbled and then looked up at the ceiling. "Now that I think about it, this place wouldn't have a crawl space, because there wouldn't be a way to connect to the tunnels."

"What would the tunnels have to do with the crawl spaces?" Scully asked.

"Well, the other board members houses linked to the tunnels …the Vet's, Acton's, Shroeders …it just seemed logical," Nester replied.

"Mulder told me that Gogolak's house didn't have a link," Scully replied.

"Not directly under the house, but the tunnel ran right by the house," Nester countered. "I think that's a little too coincidental."

Scully thought about it for a second and tilted her head. "What if he found the tunnels after he moved in?"

"Huh?"

"Well, I assume that Gogolak's house was one of the first built in the subdivision," Scully stated. "What if he discovered the tunnels later and then linked the other houses to them?"

"Why not all the houses?"

"I don't know," Scully replied. "Maybe he linked just to the board members." She paused a second and then chuckled. "Never mind, this house isn't linked, so that blows that theory."

Nester put up a finger. "No wait! I saw something in the office upstairs. The Vesch's just became board members about a year ago." He ran up the stairs to the office with Scully following close behind. He walked quickly into the office and shuffled the papers in a desk drawer until he found 'Welcome to the Board' letter and handed the paper to Scully.

She scanned the document quickly. "Okay, that explains why there isn't a crawl space under this house. I'm curious why they became board members," Scully muttered.

"What'd'ya mean? If they were voted in?"

"Well, that and why? Did someone leave the board unexpectedly or…?"

Nester shifted the weight on his feet and tilted his head. "was killed off? Looks like we need to find out who was on the original association board," Nester replied taking the letter from her hand and putting it back into the desk drawer.

"How are we going to do that?" Scully asked him. "Its not like those records are public."

"They might be at the library," Nester replied quickly heading back toward the stairs. "Or we could just go have another conversation with the Jackson's. They're in protective custody for more than just their protection you know."

Mulder walked down the sidewalk to the driveway admiring the handiwork in the front yard again. The hole the street department had dug was about ten feet wide and six feet deep. He spied Driscoll and the Street Department employee down in the hole looking at something in the dirt which Mulder prayed was human remains. Anything that would allow an excavation team out here, please! Mulder thought to himself as he looked up at small crowd standing at the end of the driveway. Suddenly Driscoll and the street department man climbed out of the hole and walked over to the backhoe. Mulder caught Driscoll's attention and his partner shook his head. Crap! Mulder thought when he realized there were no bones as of yet.

"Oh, my gosh!" a woman screamed from the street.

Mulder looked up to see a woman in a flowery skirt and pink sweater running up the driveway Pat Berlander, the welcome wagon, Mulder processed as she ran toward him with a panic stricken expression on her face.

"What in god's name are you doing?" she shrieked.

Mulder looked at her with an innocent expression on his face. "Putting in a pool," he remarked calmly.

"In your front yard?" she questioned him with a distressed tone. "Are you insane! Did you even look at the CC&R's? You can't just put in a swimming pool…"

Mulder shook his head. "Not a swimming pool," he countered defiantly. "A reflecting pool. I checked the rules," he continued walking over to the van. "There's nothing in the rules about putting in a reflecting pool." Mulder picked up the CC&R binder and flipped the book open to the page about pools and pointed to the passage. He looked up at Berlander and found her craning her neck to look at someone standing behind them. The woman's face was ghostly white and there was fear in her eyes. "It's very tranquil," Mulder added taunting her distress with his word. "You'd like it."

Berlander glanced back at Mulder and stammered over her words for a few seconds, then scampered down the driveway and headed up the street towards Shroeder's house.

Mulder watched her go through the windows of the van and then stepped to the end of the driveway and waved at Shroeder and Gogolak who were standing there watching him. The three some stared at him for a few moments and then disappeared up the driveway.

TBC