By Barbara D. and haphazard method
E-mail: firesalefic@yahoo.com.
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Takes place just after Arcadia. We're
following this sixth season timeline: Events in Agua
Mala were followed several cases later by those in Two
Fathers/One Son, with Arcadia serving as M&S's first
official case back on the X-Files.
Spoilers: Anything up to and including Arcadia
Summary: What if Mulder and Scully weren't the first
pair to work on the X-Files, and Roswell was not the
beginning of the Conspiracy? A mysterious fire in Los
Angeles sheds light on the origins of the X-Files and
the nature of partnership in the 1950s and the 1990s.
* * *
Prologue
* * *
The problem with fire was that it overwhelmed so many
senses at once. The light blinded him, the stench
nauseated him, the heat made him sweat. Or maybe it
was the fear that made him sweat. And maybe, just
maybe, if he could keep his eyes closed a little
longer, this would turn out to be a dream, and he'd be
home in bed instead of at Tule Lake, backed up against
the rough pine boards the Army had slapped up into
barracks, feeling splinters burrow their way into his
palms. His lungs wouldn't be choked with sickly sweet
smoke, tangy, like a roast his mother would cook on a
Sunday afternoon, but she hadn't done that in years,
and her roasts didn't have hair that crackled or faces
that melted or flames like fingers that reached for
him or, oh God, whose screams still echoed....
"Hey, someone get him out of here!"
His eyes shot open when strong fingers circled his
wrist and he found himself staring into the brown eyes
of one of the doctors. He had no idea which one. To
him, they all looked alike.
"Go. You must leave." The doctor shoved him towards
the door. He would have fallen except for the iron
grip around his wrist. "There is nothing for you
here."
He stumbled towards the door, surprised to find his
hat still in his hand. "I don't understand."
"You're not supposed to understand. You're supposed to
follow orders." With that, the doctor gave him a final
shove and he ricocheted off the door frame, turning to
see what he should not, what no one should have to
see, not her, not here, what is she, why is, how did
she get here, and there she was, calling out to him,
reaching out for help, and he was yelling no, not her,
not any of them, what are you doing, and --
"Get out." A lieutenant in Army fatigues and giant
black boots loomed over him. "Forget what you saw. You
can't help her, you can't help any of them. This is a
matter of national security."
He turned to look. Bad mistake. He felt the scream
bubble up in his throat, blistering, like caustic
bile. "Let her go, let her go, let her go--"
He woke suddenly, hearing only his own asthmatic lungs
wheezing in the humid night air. Hot even at -- he
peered at the red numbers on the clock -- 10:14. Damn
it. He reached down to release the footrest, shifting
his weight to bring the lounger to an upright position
and tossing the blanket over the side. The dingy
room's air was almost too thick to breathe; he'd have
to start chewing soon. He shuffled his feet on the
linoleum around the chair, searching for his slippers,
finding them, but not before his foot knocked the
mostly empty bottle of whiskey into the glass he'd
used to empty it.
Standing now by the screen door, he could breathe a
little better. His skin felt clammy as his sweat
cooled. There would be no sleep for him any time soon.
He sighed and turned back towards his chair, reaching
up under the lampshade to turn on the light. The L.A.
Times was tough to get down here in Florida, but
sometimes people he knew sent him things. The
newspaper clipping rested where it had landed after
slipping from his drink-deadened fingers, the headline
mocking him still. "Mysterious Garment District Fire
Kills 28, Source of Flames Unknown."
He reached towards the floor, bracing himself with one
hand on the edge of the table, to right the fallen
bottle. Without thinking, he tipped the last of the
whiskey into the glass and straightened up. Again the
clipping caught his eye. With the hand not clutching
the glass he crumpled the newspaper and flung it to
the side. Turning, he let gravity do the work of
getting him back in his chair without spilling a drop,
the whiskey peat-smoke warm on his tongue. Over the
top of his glass he could still see the balled-up
paper. With a grunt, he put down the glass and picked
up the phone.
"Agent Mulder, this is Arthur Dales calling..."
* * *
Chapter 1
* * *
Northbound San Diego Freeway
February 27, 1999
11:25 am
"What do you think, Scully, one 'l' or two in tulpa?"
"Hmm?" She squinted as sunlight flashed off the bumper
of the big rig chugging down the freeway in front of
them at a gear-grinding fifteen miles per hour.
"How do you spell tulpa?" Ensconced in the leather
seat beside hers, Mulder tapped at his laptop, brow
knitted in concentration. "It's not in the spell check
dictionary in this computer."
"How about C-H-A-L-U-P-A?"
"Tulpa, Scully. We're talking garbage here."
"Yes," she said, glancing at the fast food wrappers
littering the floor around his seat, "we are."
"Yo no quiero Taco Bell? What kind of California girl
are you?"
"A temporary one. What time is our flight out, again?"
A small squeak from the chair preceded his answer.
"Two o'clock."
"Two? I thought it was four." She gave her watch a
worried glance.
He squirmed again, then cleared his throat. "Two
o'clock tomorrow."
"Mulder, I thought we were going to leave today." Even
though his body was separated from hers by a good two
feet of taco-scented air, she felt him tense. "I
understand we're leaving from Los Angeles instead of
San Diego because they asked us to return the minivan
to the L.A. office," she continued, priding herself on
her reasonable tone, "but there's still plenty of time
to catch a flight out this afternoon."
A smile covering a distinctly guilty look around his
eyes was her only response.
"Mulder," she said, "what are you not telling me?"
"We've got a lot of lost time to make up for, Scully.
Are you ready for your second X-file of the week?"
"Yes, of course. As soon as Skinner approves it, and
we fill out the 302s."
The smile turned taunting. "I think we just left your
version of heaven, Scully. Lots of dead people and a
big fat rule book."
She drew a sharp breath and turned back to survey the
road, wishing the minivan had four-wheel drive so she
could slam it on and climb out of the claustrophobic
traffic. "I thought we were going to work the X-Files
together this time, Mulder."
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him blink at her.
"We are."
"Not when you pull cases out of your... hat without
any notice or discussion. I thought we...." She gave
up in frustration, and began to do an underwear
inventory. If she acquiesced to his plans, she
realized with a grimace, she would be doing laundry in
the sink at whatever fleabag motel they ended up in
tonight.
The rapid-fire tapping on the keyboard next to her
eventually slowed, then halted. "I want to check on an
old friend." The sentence had the tone, if not the
words, of apology. "She lives in Pasadena."
An old friend, she mused, temper still simmering. How
many brunette she-wolves on stilts do you have stashed
around the world, Mulder? "Fine. You do that, I'll
return the van, and I'll meet you at LAX." She gritted
her teeth. "Tomorrow."
"Not an old friend of mine. An old friend of an old...
um, friend. You might like to meet her, in fact. She
used to work for the Bureau."
She glanced over at him, interest piqued in spite of
herself. "BSU?"
A renewed smile creased his face, though he kept his
eyes on the computer screen. "Not exactly. There was
no BSU when she worked there. No female agents,
either. She was a secretary, I think, or maybe a file
clerk. A friend of Arthur Dales."
"Arthur Dales. Arthur
let's-go-hunt-sea-monsters-in-Florida-during-hurricane-season
Dales?"
"The one and only."
She snorted. "And that's all he wanted, for you to
check up on.... What's her name?"
"Dorothy Bahnsen," came the smooth reply. "Mrs.
Dorothy Bahnsen of Pasadena."
"Was she transferred to the LA office?" She and Mulder
exchanged a brief look, charged with memories of Salt
Lake City and a transfer that almost happened, until
she turned back to view the now-unmoving traffic with
equal intensity. "Or did she retire out here?"
"Neither. Dales said she left the Bureau a long time
ago, before he did."
A prism of light arced across her vision, piercing her
protective sunglasses, and Scully frowned at the
sparkling diamond on her finger. It was the safest
place to keep it until they could turn it in along
with the minivan, trading the trappings of a normal
suburban life for their own... not-normal ones. She
couldn't wait, she told herself.
"And she and Dales kept in touch? Were they...?" She
stopped in confusion.
Mulder was quiet, as if waiting for her to finish.
When she maintained her stubborn silence, he said,
"She named the X-Files." At her startled look, he
continued, "Dales told me it was her job to file the
unsolved cases, and she would show them to him
occasionally. That's... sort of how he got
interested."
"Why 'X?’ Did he tell you?"
"She ran out of room under 'U.'"
"Sounds like your kind of filing system, Mulder. So
there were lots and lots of files, even back then."
"Yeah. And we didn't back up a lot of those old ones
on disc. I was going to scan them, but I never got
around to it in time. I hope Old Smoky gets haunted to
his grave for that. By the ghost of J. Edgar in his
prettiest dress." He ran his fingers lightly over the
keys of the computer, and the plastic rattling noise
almost covered his muttered follow-up. "Since I can't
put the files back together, I wanted to meet..." He
folded his arms across his chest.
"The person who put them together the first time
around."
"Yeah."
"And that's all Dales wanted?" Scully persisted. "Just
for you to check up on Mrs. Bahnsen?"
"Well, he did mention..." He uncrossed his arms and
started shifting in his seat again.
"A case," she finished. This is terrific, she thought.
We pretend to be a married couple for just a few days,
and I'm finishing his sentences. "Our second X-file of
the week. We're getting off to a fast start on this
reassignment." She slanted a glance at him. No point
in keeping her eyes on the road. It wasn't going
anywhere, and neither were they, by the looks of the
four-lane parking lot stretched in front of them.
There was a metaphor in there somewhere, but she
wasn't in the mood to decipher it.
"I got the impression that he really wanted me to
check on her, next time I-- we--" he caught her eye,
then continued in a firm tone, "we came out here. But
his main reason for calling this time was the case. It
sounds like a classic X-file. Not crap like I thought
the tulpa thing was, this is a real X-file."
She mouthed the word 'Crap?' back at him, and wrinkled
her nose at the smirk on his face.
"Come on, Scully." He dropped his voice. "I know what
you like."
She wasn't deaf to the eagerness and the conciliatory
note in his voice, and as always, she filed them away
in the mental drawer marked "Why I should give Mulder
a break." He obviously wanted to pursue this case, and
just as obviously wanted to pursue it with her. That
was a step in the right direction. Wasn't it?
She turned slightly in her seat, starting the ritual
by giving him her best go-ahead-and-dazzle-me look. Of
course, he often did just that, though she'd never
admit it. That was part of the ritual too. She'd
missed the ritual.
He leaned down and pulled a disc from the computer bag
at his feet. After inserting it into the laptop, he
turned the screen toward her, now glowing with genuine
excitement. Obviously, Mulder had a favorite part of
the ritual, too.
She gave a low groan as the PowerPoint logo flashed on
the screen. "Mulder, we're in the middle of traffic."
He grinned at her and pulled down the menu for a slide
show. "We're in the middle of a traffic jam, Scully."
She sighed. "Okay, shoot."
Mulder cleared his throat, and punched a key with a
flourish, as if presenting her with a view of her next
vacation spot. The first slide popped up, showing a
photo of a rundown warehouse with black smoke pouring
from its second story windows. "Are you ready?"
"For what?" she asked, frowning up at him. "It's a
burning building."
"But what started the fire? Don't you want to know?"
"Not really," she murmured.
"Spontaneous human combustion."
"Oh, Mulder, no," she moaned, "not spontaneous human
combustion." She stared in fascinated horror at the
picture on the screen, then surprised herself by
laughing. It had a rusty sound. "You're making this
up, aren't you?"
"Not unless the L.A. Times has started printing
fiction." He tapped a key and the next slide popped
up, showing a copy of the Times On-line headline page.
"'Mysterious Garment District Fire Kills 28, Source of
Flames Unknown,'" she quoted, then peered at the date.
Eight days ago. "I didn't even know Los Angeles had a
garment district." Her eyes moved rapidly down the
first few paragraphs before she continued. "It says
investigators found an unusual burn pattern, but no
mention of spontaneous human combustion, Mulder. Is
this some sort of special compulsion that happens to
people who work on X-Files, that you see spontaneous
human combustion as the source of every suspicious
fire? And should I be worried about developing it?"
"Not at all. I expect you to prove that it was, in
fact, spontaneous human combustion. With hard
evidence." He grinned at her. "The harder the better."
She jumped at the angry sound of a horn behind them,
then turned forward and stepped on the accelerator,
realizing the road before them was clear. Cars that
had formed a metal cage around them only moments
before were whizzing by, their occupants giving the
motionless minivan derisive glances and obscene
gestures. She chanced a sideways glance at him as they
picked up speed. "Where am I supposed to find this
nice hard evidence, Mulder?"
"L.A. County Coroner's Office," came his prompt
response. "Coroners to the stars."
"Something tells me none of those twenty-eight people
were stars."
"No." His voice sobered. "They weren't. This place was
a sweatshop, Scully. I guess you can imagine what kind
of conditions they were working in."
"So, why spontaneous human combustion, when there are
surely more plausible causes? Sweatshops are notorious
fire traps."
"It's further down in the story. The source of the
flames seemed to be the people themselves."
"Or something flammable they were in very close
contact with," she shot back, "like dress material.
Even the fiber that floats in the air in those places
is combustible, Mulder. Any of those things could
result in an unusual burn pattern."
"Dales seemed to think otherwise."
"Why?"
"The pattern they mentioned reminded him of an old
case. A really old case, from the early fifties. He
caught it after he'd been working unofficially on the
X-Files for a while, and Dorothy-- Mrs. Bahnsen --
apparently found something similar, even older in the
files. He said he couldn't remember the details
though. And the files don't-- aren't.... They're all
gone."
She bit her lip at the mourning in his voice.
"Anyway," Mulder continued, "he thought I should check
it out."
"And maybe Mrs. Bahnsen might remember something?"
"Maybe. Maybe she believes in spontaneous human
combustion. We could bring her in as a consultant. One
for my side."
Her throat tightened. She glanced in the rearview
mirror, then turned to look over her shoulder before
accelerating into the carpool lane. "I'm on your
side," she muttered.
Two miles of bumpy freeway passed under the minivan's
tires before Mulder said to his computer screen, "My
side would be lost without you, Scully."
* * *
End Chapter 1
* * *
Chapter 2