FIC: Five Times Mosely Drummy Wishes He'd Never Met Fox Mulder
Title: Five Times Mosely Drummy Wishes He'd Never Met Fox Mulder
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh
Summary: The exsanguinated bodies were the easy part. It's the consultant who's the problem.
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13 (coarse language)
Timeline/Spoilers: Post-IWTB. Exists in the same universe as my stories The Keeping of Secrets and Whiteboard, but not necessary to have read them.
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
A/N: Why, you might ask, should someone write fanfic about Special Agent Mosely Drummy? Well, because black characters get the shaft in XF canon, and fic is one of the ways we fix screwed-up canon; because he's a potentially interesting character, and is still alive within the universe, unlike a lot of folks; because the poor guy's name is MOSELY, which buys him my sympathy.
There may be further stories in this universe. We'll see. Many thanks to idella and wendelah1 for amazing and super-fast betas.
Oh, and I made a small bunch of Drummy icons, since I wasn't able to find any others. They're from anniemarie75 's screen grab archive, and anyone can take them, alter them, whatever. My icon skills are of fail, but, well, it's something.
1.
Dakota's funeral was boring in a way that only white people's funerals can be boring. He's a terrible friend for thinking it, but he was, the whole way through. Her parents' understated crying, the priest's amazingly monotone voice, the organist having to talk everybody through all that Catholic stand-then-sit-then-stand-then-kneel, the truly, truly terrible singing. She had come to his mother's funeral, two years back. Six months later, when they were both deeply drunk one night when they'd failed to catch a kidnapper in time, she had confided in him that she'd had too much fun at it to consider it a funeral at all. "Clapping, Mo," she'd said. "There was applause."
"The choir was doing percussion," he'd argued back.
"Applause," she had said, waving her double scotch around so the tiniest bit sloshed down her wrist. "I want people to clap at my funeral. And shout things. It was fantastic."
There was no applause, and no shouting. Michelle held his hand and he tried not to feel like it was his fault, like she'd died because he hadn't noticed that Russian fucker sneaking around with a head in a box. At the cemetery, he took time to look at all of the flower arrangements as he waited to say something pointless to her parents. Michelle ran a gloved finger over one bunch, some strange spiky orange things. "Birds of paradise," she said. "Why doesn't this one have a card?"
He stared at it for a while, and knew, deep in his gut, it was from Mulder. Him, he had no trouble blaming; if he'd just stayed with his fucking girlfriend and left the hell alone Dakota would have been in the office with him; she probably would have seen the Russian, too. The flowers are dusted with snow from the flurries settling around them. It's snowed too much this winter. It's weird. He hated weird. "How should I know?" he said, and dug his fingers deeper into his coat pocket.
2.
He didn't even let AD Skinner get the sentence out. "What use would he be?"
"Look, Agent Drummy," Skinner said, not unkindly. "You haven't made any progress on the case. The physical evidence isn't getting us anywhere and the profilers' can't make anything of the signature. I know that your situation is less than ideal--"
Drummy snorted. Yeah, having your partner impaled on a spike tends to put a dent in your solve rate.
"But Mulder has experience working cases like this. We no longer have access to the X-Files themselves to check for a pattern, which means a consult is our only option. And, frankly, he was a damn good agent, and he was useful to you on the Bannon case." Skinner closed the file and slid it across the desk. "Call him in for a consult on the latest crime scene."
"How do we even know he's still there? He's got a passport now. For all we know he's decamped to Cuba or the middle of the Amazon or something." He took the file and stood to go.
Skinner smirked. "Because I had dinner with them last week. Trust me. He'll take your call."
Drummy managed not to curse out loud until he was alone in the elevator. Back in his office, he stared at Dakota's desk for ten minutes before he picked up the phone. Was this how it was going to be? Poor Mosely on the third floor, he lost his partner, better get him some old-timer to help him out. Don't put him on important cases; after all, he was the one working that weird-ass case, the one they said might reopen the X-Files. Not like he solved it anyway.
Once he'd gotten his bitter on to full strength, he picked up the phone and dialed. After the answering machine beeped, he said, as calmly as he could, "This is a message for Fox Mulder. This is Special Agent Mosely Drummy, trying to see if you're available for a consult on a serial murder case with ritualistic overtones in Virginia and North Carolina. You can reach me at 202--"
"Yeah, hey, I'm here," said a voice, and Mo hated him for not even granting him the dignity of just letting him leave a message.
3.
Mulder had his hands in his pockets, his parka unzipped, his eyes focused on the ground. Why doesn't this fucker ever wear a hat? Mo thought, leaning against a tree twenty feet away. The snow had melted in a freak warm snap the week before, and Mulder was pacing around the crime scene, trying to glean any sort of detail that the forensic team had missed.
"Is that him?" Agent Rajagopalan said, coming up next to him with the results of her Starbucks run.
"In action," Mo said, fishing his coffee out of the paper tray.
"I heard he caught a pedophile who escaped from custody once, because he figured the guy's address from his prison library records." She sipped her coffee and watched Mulder crouch next to where the body was found, fingers tracing through the leaves.
"Yeah? I heard he was the one who let him escape," Mo said, and walked over to the forensic van, where the photos were splayed out on the back hatch. "Matt, anything good?"
"Exact same MO--the body placement, the series of cuts on the body, the repeated carving of the letter alpha into the palms of the hands," Matt said, tucking his hands into his armpits. "Christ, I wish I hadn't forgotten my gloves."
"That's why you need a husband, man, someone to put them in your pocket so you don't forget." Mo pushed through the photos, pulled up one of the body which showed the way the leaves were disturbed. There was something there, he just couldn't see it yet.
"So that's Spooky Mulder," Matt said, nodding towards Mulder, who had stood now and was walking towards the tree line. "You know, I've read the Propps monograph, but I never pictured him so...I don't know...rugged. Those BSU types, not the sharpest lookers in the Bureau, know what I mean?"
"I don't know, he seems psycho enough," Mo said.
"All the best ones are," said Matt, with an actual touch of longing in his voice.
Honestly, at this point Mo would rather talk to Mulder than hear anyone else talk about Mulder's awesomeness, so he went over to where Mulder was kicking up the leaves.
Mulder looked up as he approaches. "Anything off the forensics?"
"Nothing conclusive, just that it's the same guy," Mo said. "What do you have?"
"Not much. Mostly I'm just trying to avoid hearing the word 'spooky,'" Mulder said, and Mo almost felt bad for him for a minute. "There's something about the leaves near the body, did you see that?"
"Yeah, yeah I did," Mo said, and followed Mulder as he walked back over there.
"I don't know. I'm going to need to see the whole file, but I think we can get something out of how he's transporting the bodies." Mulder kept staring at the ground, like it was going to just appear to him, like magic or something.
Mo rolled his eyes. "What?"
"Nothing," Mulder said quietly. "It's just. I've gotten unused to looking for dead bodies everywhere I go. I guess you never lose the touch." He kicked the leaves again and looked up. "Look, bring me the full file the first chance you've got. I've got to head home. There's nothing more to see here." He walked off without saying goodbye, fumbling in his pocket for his cell phone. Mo watched him until he realized everyone else on the team was, and then pointedly looked somewhere else, just out of spite.
4.
He was pissed he drove all the way out here, pissed that he's three hours from DC and won't be home for dinner, pissed that he couldn't just fax this out (but no, the photos needed to come), pissed that he knew that Mulder was probably going to break the fucking case sitting in his little shack in the country. The gate was the last straw, and he seriously considered turning around and driving back. Sorry, Assistant Director Skinner, but I refuse to consult with survivalists.
Also, there's a sign that told him, fairly specifically, to go away.
But he rang the buzzer, and was a little surprised they let him through without interrogation. They must have a telescope on the gate or something. He pulled up behind a little white sedan that needed some serious paint work, climbed the rickety stairs, and knocked on the door. Honestly, he doesn't have the time to install a doorbell?
Dr. Scully opened the door, cordless phone pressed to her ear. Her hair was in a messy braid, she was wearing scrubs, and she had on these little glasses balanced unevenly on her nose. There is no way a man as batshit insane as Fox Mulder should get to bang someone that good-looking, he thought uncharitably. She let loose a stream of incomprehensible German into the phone, and gestured him in.
"Is Mulder--"
She held her finger to her lips and pointed towards a door on the other side of the room.
Mulder was putting things in a filing cabinet over by the window labelled "Scully's Area" with a crooked permanent marker sign stuck on with a magnet from Bermuda. "Agent Drummy." He gestured to a chair near the cluttered metal desk. "Sorry, I just wanted to get this last file away so I can focus."
"What are you working on?" Mo asked, checking the chair for structural integrity before he sat in it.
"Nothing I'm particularly interesting in telling the federal government about, thanks," Mulder said, closing the cabinet and locking it. "You bring the file?"
He handed it over as Mulder settles in at his desk. "Skinner managed to get you full clearance."
"Yeah, he's useful like that." Mulder offered a bowl of sunflower seeds which Mo refused to acknowledge. "Is there new tox stuff on this latest victim?"
"It's all in there. And the photos. No one else has been able to see anything in the leaves."
"Doesn't mean it's not there." Mulder braced one booted foot against the edge of the desk and started to pick at seeds. Mo watched him, silently, as he flipped back and forth between different reports. There wasn't even a ticking clock, just the sound of the occasional honking goose, Scully's one-sided German conversation which he couldn't completely follow, and the shuffling of reports. The room doesn't have much to recommend it--just piles of paper pinned to the walls and covering every available surface. He doesn't even have a picture of himself with Scully in here, Mo realized, just that girl on the back of the door--the dead sister, maybe?--and a crappily lit polaroid propped up on the desk of Mulder holding a little newborn baby. Must be a nephew or something; neither of them have kids, their files said so.
Scully appeared in the doorframe, phone held between cheek and chin, and rolled her eyes. Mulder waved her over, silently, and held out the tox screen. She said ja into the phone a bunch of times as she read it. He pointed to something. Not interesting, she mouthed. He pointed to something else. She shrugged, pointed to something further down the page, handed the report back, and wandered out, muttering nein this time.
"I don't think it's a body dump," Mulder said, holding up a crime scene photo. "I think he's killing them at the site."
"But they're exsanguinated."
"I know that."
"And there's no blood at the scene."
"I know that."
"So it's impossible."
Mulder put both feet on the floor again and leaned over the photos spread out on the desk. "He's collecting it. There are lots of occult reasons why he might be, or it could be garden-variety serial killer psycho logic of some sort. My guess is the latter, since I think if it were ritualized we'd be seeing more signs. I don't know, though, he could take the ritual elements away with him." He pushed the photos around, trying to find an order he liked. Mo repressed his desire to tell him to that they had an order before.
A soft knock on the doorframe. Scully was holding a whiteboard. She's wiped something out, and written DO YOU WANT TO GO TO GENEVA in red marker. "Sure," Mulder said out loud.
"Ja, ich und funf andere," she said to whoever was on the other end.
"Scully's winning the Nobel Prize or something," Mulder said, examining the photos.
The red marker hit Mulder in the head. Both men turned to look at her again. Written in bigger letters on the white board was DON'T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT MULDER. She shook the board emphatically. "Nein, vier Zimmer," she says, and stalks away.
"Or something," Mulder said, and turned back to the photos. "At least in Stockholm, there would be Swedish girls."
"My wife spent a year in Geneva in college," Mo said. "She made us go there on our honeymoon."
Mulder tilted his head noncommittally. "I suppose it has its charms."
Two hours later, he finally managed to pry enough coherent leads from Mulder to be able to leave. Mulder tried to get him to stay for dinner, but he declined as politely as possible as soon as it was clear that Mulder was the chef. He regretted it once he got out on the state road, driving through hill country that was not some place a black man, even with a gun and a badge, was advised to stop and nose around. He rumbled around through the bag with his notes in search of a protein bar, and stopped dead when he found a plastic bag he didn't recognize. He pulled it out. In the bag was a sandwich, with a post-it note saying YOU WERE HUNGRY, I KNOW THESE THINGS. The tuna salad with pickles on rye was actually pretty good, he decided as he ate and drove. But still, it was the principle of the matter; a man says he's not hungry, you don't sneak a sandwich in with his crime scene photos.
Four weeks later, he got a postcard of Lake Geneva delivered to his office. There was a marker sketch of some sort of lake monster drawn in the back corner, and on the back was written WE CAN DREAM. M. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to throw it out, and dropped it into the bottom of his least-opened desk drawer.
5.
The deputy director shook his hand a tad too long. "An excellent solve, Agent Drummy," he said, in a voice that seemed to be intended mostly for all the upper management in the room. "You deserve this commendation."
"Just doing my job, sir," Mo said. Mostly, he's glad he would never have to think about blood transport tubing ever again. Hopefully.
"We all appreciate you bringing a killer to justice," the deputy director said, clapping him on the shoulder. By which he means, Mo thought, he appreciates that now the media will shut up about the FBI's incompetence until they are next proved incompetent. "And there was some fascinating detective work in there from you, Drummy. The hospital supply records in particular. I'm impressed with your creativity."
Mo wished for a minute he didn't have to say it. But it wouldn't be right, and he's too damn fair-minded to just let it pass. "We had a lot of assistance on the case. Other agents. There was a consultant who was particularly useful."
"I know we all are impressed by Agent Drummy's work," Skinner cut in. He gave Mo the death glare, and Mo wondered, not for the first time, exactly what Mulder did to make so many enemies upstairs. Given the quality of upstairs, he got the feeling it was something fairly badass. "Agent, I'll have a new assignment for you tomorrow."
Mo could recognize a dismissal when he heard one, so he took his commendation letter and got the hell out of the conference room. Back in his office, he put his feet up on his desk. Dakota used to yell at him for that. He looked over at her desk. Still empty; they hadn't managed to find him a partner yet, something about budget cuts. She had earned them a stack of commendations in the four years they'd worked together. It had all been her. She was the flashy one, the one given to bursts of inspiration, the one who followed weird hunches and ended up cracking the case. He was the follow-through guy, the one who made sure they got it done.
Mo opened his desk drawer and put the commendation in. He'd take Michelle out for dinner tonight to celebrate, probably. He'd get a new partner next week or the week after, who would sit at Dakota's desk, and he'd have to have the insight from now on. And upstairs might have their heads up their asses, but, as much as Mo hated it, right was right. He picked up the phone and called Mulder.
The machine beeped. "Mr. Mulder, this is Mosely Drummy. I'm calling to let you know that we've caught the suspect in the case."
A fumble as Mulder picked up the phone. "Drummy? Hey, that's great news. Congratulations."
"I couldn't have done it without your assistance. Everyone here appreciates the work you put in."
"That's bullshit, but thank you," Mulder said, sounding amused. "Well, I mean, feel free to give me a call the next time there's something freaky going down at the FBI. My dance card is pretty open."
Mo thought of the cabinet of files. "Seems like you have a lot of projects going on. Anything interesting?"
"Well, that depends. Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?"
And Mo regretted that he ever met Fox Mulder, because he was pretty sure this was going to get complicated.
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh
Summary: The exsanguinated bodies were the easy part. It's the consultant who's the problem.
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13 (coarse language)
Timeline/Spoilers: Post-IWTB. Exists in the same universe as my stories The Keeping of Secrets and Whiteboard, but not necessary to have read them.
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
A/N: Why, you might ask, should someone write fanfic about Special Agent Mosely Drummy? Well, because black characters get the shaft in XF canon, and fic is one of the ways we fix screwed-up canon; because he's a potentially interesting character, and is still alive within the universe, unlike a lot of folks; because the poor guy's name is MOSELY, which buys him my sympathy.
There may be further stories in this universe. We'll see. Many thanks to idella and wendelah1 for amazing and super-fast betas.
Oh, and I made a small bunch of Drummy icons, since I wasn't able to find any others. They're from anniemarie75 's screen grab archive, and anyone can take them, alter them, whatever. My icon skills are of fail, but, well, it's something.
1.
Dakota's funeral was boring in a way that only white people's funerals can be boring. He's a terrible friend for thinking it, but he was, the whole way through. Her parents' understated crying, the priest's amazingly monotone voice, the organist having to talk everybody through all that Catholic stand-then-sit-then-stand-then-kneel, the truly, truly terrible singing. She had come to his mother's funeral, two years back. Six months later, when they were both deeply drunk one night when they'd failed to catch a kidnapper in time, she had confided in him that she'd had too much fun at it to consider it a funeral at all. "Clapping, Mo," she'd said. "There was applause."
"The choir was doing percussion," he'd argued back.
"Applause," she had said, waving her double scotch around so the tiniest bit sloshed down her wrist. "I want people to clap at my funeral. And shout things. It was fantastic."
There was no applause, and no shouting. Michelle held his hand and he tried not to feel like it was his fault, like she'd died because he hadn't noticed that Russian fucker sneaking around with a head in a box. At the cemetery, he took time to look at all of the flower arrangements as he waited to say something pointless to her parents. Michelle ran a gloved finger over one bunch, some strange spiky orange things. "Birds of paradise," she said. "Why doesn't this one have a card?"
He stared at it for a while, and knew, deep in his gut, it was from Mulder. Him, he had no trouble blaming; if he'd just stayed with his fucking girlfriend and left the hell alone Dakota would have been in the office with him; she probably would have seen the Russian, too. The flowers are dusted with snow from the flurries settling around them. It's snowed too much this winter. It's weird. He hated weird. "How should I know?" he said, and dug his fingers deeper into his coat pocket.
2.
He didn't even let AD Skinner get the sentence out. "What use would he be?"
"Look, Agent Drummy," Skinner said, not unkindly. "You haven't made any progress on the case. The physical evidence isn't getting us anywhere and the profilers' can't make anything of the signature. I know that your situation is less than ideal--"
Drummy snorted. Yeah, having your partner impaled on a spike tends to put a dent in your solve rate.
"But Mulder has experience working cases like this. We no longer have access to the X-Files themselves to check for a pattern, which means a consult is our only option. And, frankly, he was a damn good agent, and he was useful to you on the Bannon case." Skinner closed the file and slid it across the desk. "Call him in for a consult on the latest crime scene."
"How do we even know he's still there? He's got a passport now. For all we know he's decamped to Cuba or the middle of the Amazon or something." He took the file and stood to go.
Skinner smirked. "Because I had dinner with them last week. Trust me. He'll take your call."
Drummy managed not to curse out loud until he was alone in the elevator. Back in his office, he stared at Dakota's desk for ten minutes before he picked up the phone. Was this how it was going to be? Poor Mosely on the third floor, he lost his partner, better get him some old-timer to help him out. Don't put him on important cases; after all, he was the one working that weird-ass case, the one they said might reopen the X-Files. Not like he solved it anyway.
Once he'd gotten his bitter on to full strength, he picked up the phone and dialed. After the answering machine beeped, he said, as calmly as he could, "This is a message for Fox Mulder. This is Special Agent Mosely Drummy, trying to see if you're available for a consult on a serial murder case with ritualistic overtones in Virginia and North Carolina. You can reach me at 202--"
"Yeah, hey, I'm here," said a voice, and Mo hated him for not even granting him the dignity of just letting him leave a message.
3.
Mulder had his hands in his pockets, his parka unzipped, his eyes focused on the ground. Why doesn't this fucker ever wear a hat? Mo thought, leaning against a tree twenty feet away. The snow had melted in a freak warm snap the week before, and Mulder was pacing around the crime scene, trying to glean any sort of detail that the forensic team had missed.
"Is that him?" Agent Rajagopalan said, coming up next to him with the results of her Starbucks run.
"In action," Mo said, fishing his coffee out of the paper tray.
"I heard he caught a pedophile who escaped from custody once, because he figured the guy's address from his prison library records." She sipped her coffee and watched Mulder crouch next to where the body was found, fingers tracing through the leaves.
"Yeah? I heard he was the one who let him escape," Mo said, and walked over to the forensic van, where the photos were splayed out on the back hatch. "Matt, anything good?"
"Exact same MO--the body placement, the series of cuts on the body, the repeated carving of the letter alpha into the palms of the hands," Matt said, tucking his hands into his armpits. "Christ, I wish I hadn't forgotten my gloves."
"That's why you need a husband, man, someone to put them in your pocket so you don't forget." Mo pushed through the photos, pulled up one of the body which showed the way the leaves were disturbed. There was something there, he just couldn't see it yet.
"So that's Spooky Mulder," Matt said, nodding towards Mulder, who had stood now and was walking towards the tree line. "You know, I've read the Propps monograph, but I never pictured him so...I don't know...rugged. Those BSU types, not the sharpest lookers in the Bureau, know what I mean?"
"I don't know, he seems psycho enough," Mo said.
"All the best ones are," said Matt, with an actual touch of longing in his voice.
Honestly, at this point Mo would rather talk to Mulder than hear anyone else talk about Mulder's awesomeness, so he went over to where Mulder was kicking up the leaves.
Mulder looked up as he approaches. "Anything off the forensics?"
"Nothing conclusive, just that it's the same guy," Mo said. "What do you have?"
"Not much. Mostly I'm just trying to avoid hearing the word 'spooky,'" Mulder said, and Mo almost felt bad for him for a minute. "There's something about the leaves near the body, did you see that?"
"Yeah, yeah I did," Mo said, and followed Mulder as he walked back over there.
"I don't know. I'm going to need to see the whole file, but I think we can get something out of how he's transporting the bodies." Mulder kept staring at the ground, like it was going to just appear to him, like magic or something.
Mo rolled his eyes. "What?"
"Nothing," Mulder said quietly. "It's just. I've gotten unused to looking for dead bodies everywhere I go. I guess you never lose the touch." He kicked the leaves again and looked up. "Look, bring me the full file the first chance you've got. I've got to head home. There's nothing more to see here." He walked off without saying goodbye, fumbling in his pocket for his cell phone. Mo watched him until he realized everyone else on the team was, and then pointedly looked somewhere else, just out of spite.
4.
He was pissed he drove all the way out here, pissed that he's three hours from DC and won't be home for dinner, pissed that he couldn't just fax this out (but no, the photos needed to come), pissed that he knew that Mulder was probably going to break the fucking case sitting in his little shack in the country. The gate was the last straw, and he seriously considered turning around and driving back. Sorry, Assistant Director Skinner, but I refuse to consult with survivalists.
Also, there's a sign that told him, fairly specifically, to go away.
But he rang the buzzer, and was a little surprised they let him through without interrogation. They must have a telescope on the gate or something. He pulled up behind a little white sedan that needed some serious paint work, climbed the rickety stairs, and knocked on the door. Honestly, he doesn't have the time to install a doorbell?
Dr. Scully opened the door, cordless phone pressed to her ear. Her hair was in a messy braid, she was wearing scrubs, and she had on these little glasses balanced unevenly on her nose. There is no way a man as batshit insane as Fox Mulder should get to bang someone that good-looking, he thought uncharitably. She let loose a stream of incomprehensible German into the phone, and gestured him in.
"Is Mulder--"
She held her finger to her lips and pointed towards a door on the other side of the room.
Mulder was putting things in a filing cabinet over by the window labelled "Scully's Area" with a crooked permanent marker sign stuck on with a magnet from Bermuda. "Agent Drummy." He gestured to a chair near the cluttered metal desk. "Sorry, I just wanted to get this last file away so I can focus."
"What are you working on?" Mo asked, checking the chair for structural integrity before he sat in it.
"Nothing I'm particularly interesting in telling the federal government about, thanks," Mulder said, closing the cabinet and locking it. "You bring the file?"
He handed it over as Mulder settles in at his desk. "Skinner managed to get you full clearance."
"Yeah, he's useful like that." Mulder offered a bowl of sunflower seeds which Mo refused to acknowledge. "Is there new tox stuff on this latest victim?"
"It's all in there. And the photos. No one else has been able to see anything in the leaves."
"Doesn't mean it's not there." Mulder braced one booted foot against the edge of the desk and started to pick at seeds. Mo watched him, silently, as he flipped back and forth between different reports. There wasn't even a ticking clock, just the sound of the occasional honking goose, Scully's one-sided German conversation which he couldn't completely follow, and the shuffling of reports. The room doesn't have much to recommend it--just piles of paper pinned to the walls and covering every available surface. He doesn't even have a picture of himself with Scully in here, Mo realized, just that girl on the back of the door--the dead sister, maybe?--and a crappily lit polaroid propped up on the desk of Mulder holding a little newborn baby. Must be a nephew or something; neither of them have kids, their files said so.
Scully appeared in the doorframe, phone held between cheek and chin, and rolled her eyes. Mulder waved her over, silently, and held out the tox screen. She said ja into the phone a bunch of times as she read it. He pointed to something. Not interesting, she mouthed. He pointed to something else. She shrugged, pointed to something further down the page, handed the report back, and wandered out, muttering nein this time.
"I don't think it's a body dump," Mulder said, holding up a crime scene photo. "I think he's killing them at the site."
"But they're exsanguinated."
"I know that."
"And there's no blood at the scene."
"I know that."
"So it's impossible."
Mulder put both feet on the floor again and leaned over the photos spread out on the desk. "He's collecting it. There are lots of occult reasons why he might be, or it could be garden-variety serial killer psycho logic of some sort. My guess is the latter, since I think if it were ritualized we'd be seeing more signs. I don't know, though, he could take the ritual elements away with him." He pushed the photos around, trying to find an order he liked. Mo repressed his desire to tell him to that they had an order before.
A soft knock on the doorframe. Scully was holding a whiteboard. She's wiped something out, and written DO YOU WANT TO GO TO GENEVA in red marker. "Sure," Mulder said out loud.
"Ja, ich und funf andere," she said to whoever was on the other end.
"Scully's winning the Nobel Prize or something," Mulder said, examining the photos.
The red marker hit Mulder in the head. Both men turned to look at her again. Written in bigger letters on the white board was DON'T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT MULDER. She shook the board emphatically. "Nein, vier Zimmer," she says, and stalks away.
"Or something," Mulder said, and turned back to the photos. "At least in Stockholm, there would be Swedish girls."
"My wife spent a year in Geneva in college," Mo said. "She made us go there on our honeymoon."
Mulder tilted his head noncommittally. "I suppose it has its charms."
Two hours later, he finally managed to pry enough coherent leads from Mulder to be able to leave. Mulder tried to get him to stay for dinner, but he declined as politely as possible as soon as it was clear that Mulder was the chef. He regretted it once he got out on the state road, driving through hill country that was not some place a black man, even with a gun and a badge, was advised to stop and nose around. He rumbled around through the bag with his notes in search of a protein bar, and stopped dead when he found a plastic bag he didn't recognize. He pulled it out. In the bag was a sandwich, with a post-it note saying YOU WERE HUNGRY, I KNOW THESE THINGS. The tuna salad with pickles on rye was actually pretty good, he decided as he ate and drove. But still, it was the principle of the matter; a man says he's not hungry, you don't sneak a sandwich in with his crime scene photos.
Four weeks later, he got a postcard of Lake Geneva delivered to his office. There was a marker sketch of some sort of lake monster drawn in the back corner, and on the back was written WE CAN DREAM. M. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to throw it out, and dropped it into the bottom of his least-opened desk drawer.
5.
The deputy director shook his hand a tad too long. "An excellent solve, Agent Drummy," he said, in a voice that seemed to be intended mostly for all the upper management in the room. "You deserve this commendation."
"Just doing my job, sir," Mo said. Mostly, he's glad he would never have to think about blood transport tubing ever again. Hopefully.
"We all appreciate you bringing a killer to justice," the deputy director said, clapping him on the shoulder. By which he means, Mo thought, he appreciates that now the media will shut up about the FBI's incompetence until they are next proved incompetent. "And there was some fascinating detective work in there from you, Drummy. The hospital supply records in particular. I'm impressed with your creativity."
Mo wished for a minute he didn't have to say it. But it wouldn't be right, and he's too damn fair-minded to just let it pass. "We had a lot of assistance on the case. Other agents. There was a consultant who was particularly useful."
"I know we all are impressed by Agent Drummy's work," Skinner cut in. He gave Mo the death glare, and Mo wondered, not for the first time, exactly what Mulder did to make so many enemies upstairs. Given the quality of upstairs, he got the feeling it was something fairly badass. "Agent, I'll have a new assignment for you tomorrow."
Mo could recognize a dismissal when he heard one, so he took his commendation letter and got the hell out of the conference room. Back in his office, he put his feet up on his desk. Dakota used to yell at him for that. He looked over at her desk. Still empty; they hadn't managed to find him a partner yet, something about budget cuts. She had earned them a stack of commendations in the four years they'd worked together. It had all been her. She was the flashy one, the one given to bursts of inspiration, the one who followed weird hunches and ended up cracking the case. He was the follow-through guy, the one who made sure they got it done.
Mo opened his desk drawer and put the commendation in. He'd take Michelle out for dinner tonight to celebrate, probably. He'd get a new partner next week or the week after, who would sit at Dakota's desk, and he'd have to have the insight from now on. And upstairs might have their heads up their asses, but, as much as Mo hated it, right was right. He picked up the phone and called Mulder.
The machine beeped. "Mr. Mulder, this is Mosely Drummy. I'm calling to let you know that we've caught the suspect in the case."
A fumble as Mulder picked up the phone. "Drummy? Hey, that's great news. Congratulations."
"I couldn't have done it without your assistance. Everyone here appreciates the work you put in."
"That's bullshit, but thank you," Mulder said, sounding amused. "Well, I mean, feel free to give me a call the next time there's something freaky going down at the FBI. My dance card is pretty open."
Mo thought of the cabinet of files. "Seems like you have a lot of projects going on. Anything interesting?"
"Well, that depends. Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?"
And Mo regretted that he ever met Fox Mulder, because he was pretty sure this was going to get complicated.