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Author: vegawriters
Fandom: Silk Stalkings/X-Files Crossover
Pairing: Rita Lee Lance/Michael O’Hara; Chris Lorenzo/Rita Lee Lance (UST)
Characters: Fox Mulder, Sgt. Rita Lee Lance, Sgt. Chris Lorenzo
Rating: Teen
A/N: I came up with this idea ages and eons ago, after being inspired by the Legendary Wanda’s famous Partners series.
Disclaimer: No infringement is intended to either the Chris Carter or the Stephen J. Cannel camps. They own the rights and the characters in The X Files and Silk Stalkings. I make no money from these stories.
Summary: In twenty years, his eyes hadn’t changed. Beautiful and haunted and full of a history that he didn’t understand. They stared down at her. He was all grown up now, tall and beautiful. The sorrows he carried on his shoulders were palpable. “Rita.” His voice was soft.
How Many Miles to Babylon?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle light?
Yes, and back again.
Somewhere and Nowhere
1970
Smoke filled the dark room. Two men sat across from each other, wrinkled fingers bringing cigarettes to their dry lips.
“It is decided then.”
“He has a young child. Are we willing to sacrifice her as well?”
“She’ll be watched and cared for.”
“I don’t feel right setting him up like this, to take the fall.”
“No one will miss Donald Fontana.” The older of the two laughed. “Well, Karen Krane will miss Donald Fontana.”
“The business community will miss Donald Fontana. He has been a key backer in this project and his relationships with the land developers are important to make this work.”
“He knows to much to be free; even he knows this. After his fall from grace, he will be watched and protected by our esteemed fellows at the FBI. When it comes time for his … untimely death … we will still have him and be able to use him as we need.”
“How will you watch the girl? You’re leaving her in the hands of a state system …”
“She is inconsequential.”
“What if she starts to remember?”
“That has already been taken care of.”
“How?”
“Trust me.”
Palm Beach, Florida
November, 1993
The feast or famine of police work was draining. For the past six weeks, Sergeant Rita Lee Lance and her partner Chris Lorenzo had run the streets of Palm, hunting for a murderer. The perpetrator had turned out to be nothing more than a scared boy who had run when he’d hit the mayor’s daughter with his motorcycle. Sometimes, working the high profile murder cases was enough to make her want to transfer back to vice – at least there scum was all the same. The drug dealers and pimps vice chased after rarely hid behind the Doberman-guarded gates of the multi-million dollar mansions of the East side of the Island. After six weeks of enough pressure that she actually blamed the breaking of two different pairs of heels on the weight on her shoulders from the Mayor’s office, she was now sitting at her desk, bored senseless and wasting away. Even in a slow week she could usually expect to help cover some of the “sludge” cases that Bonner and McKinney worked or to spend endless days in trial preps with incompetent attorneys. Not even that. None of her pending cases were slated for trial; even Bonner was unusually bored.
Slow times usually meant late nights with Chris. They’d pull all nighters, catch the random calls that came in, and when not doing that would get lost in paperwork. They had their best conversations while holed up in interrogation room three, sharing a pizza and comparing notes. But this time, she was stuck alone while he testified in a trial that had seen no less than three different counties before the defense had finally agreed the jury in Miami would be unbiased.
For once, she even had a boyfriend to help fill the downtime between 6 and 9, but luck would have it that Michael was out of town on a dangerous undercover.
So, in the end, it was her, a stack of cold case files, and the department’s weak coffee. It was time to take a break before she went crazy.
The famine of sitting at her desk all week was physically draining and she found she was unable to even hit her usual six minute mile mark on the course. The trainees were leaving her in the dust, and that wasn’t something she wanted getting back to HQ. Her reputation would never hear the end of it. So, she showered and headed back inside, ready to face another four interminable hours of overdue paperwork. Maybe the FBI would finally get back to her on her cold case request.
Rita settled at her desk, cup of coffee in one hand, messages in the other. One from Chris (to go along with the three saved in her voice mail), two from snitches, and one on a scrap of white paper and not written in Gracie’s careful cursive.
Ritzy,
I should have known you’d end up in police work. We need to talk. I’m in Sanibel. BW. R151. Don’t tell anyone.
~F
Shaking, she glanced around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. A quick stop back with Gracie assured her that no one had seen who had come in to leave the message.
It couldn’t be. All these years later. What the hell was he up to?
It couldn’t be. But only one person in her life had ever called her Ritzy.
“Hey, Cap?” She approached her boss’ office. “Would you be opposed to my taking a couple of personal days?”
“You sound distracted. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Rita flopped onto her bed, still not ready to share the day’s strange happenings with anyone, even Chris. Not because the note had demanded it, but she felt incredibly stupid for even going along with the cryptic message that had been left while she was out jogging. “I think I just need a break. You know, head up to that bed and breakfast in Sanibel; dust off the one handed reading.”
“You going to take Michael?”
“He’s on an undercover right now, haven’t seen him in a couple of days. We aren’t joined at the hip, you know.”
“A few days with him might be good for you. Nurture the relationship, Sam.”
The gentle nickname jolted her back to her backyard. Six years old, she giggled as she raced along the edge of the fountain, her best friend following at her heels.
“Come on, Ritzy! You’re faster than I am! Sam! Catch her!”
She rubbed her neck and made a decision. “I need the down time though, Chris.”
“What’s really going on? You’re starting to worry me, Rita. You aren’t telling me everything. What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Nothing happened. I’m just out of it and needing time to get perspective and since you’ve abandoned me to the high profile life in Miami, I think I’ll slink away to the shadows and read for a couple of days. That way, I can’t even get paged in. If I stick around here, I’ll end up working.”
“You’ll tell me everything when you’re ready?”
“I promise.”
“Drive safe, Sam.”
Rita heard the unvoiced, “I love you” and smiled. “Watch your back down there.” She loved him too.
She had three hours before check in time at the Sanibel Cove Bed and Breakfast. Pulling into the quaint looking Best Western, Rita glanced around a couple of times before getting out of the jeep. Slowly, she approached room 151. It took a full minute to work up the nerve to knock. Something told her to watch her back and she was glad she’d had the foresight to clip on her gun.
In twenty years, his eyes hadn’t changed. Beautiful and haunted and full of a history that he didn’t understand. They stared down at her. He was all grown up now, tall and beautiful. The sorrows he carried on his shoulders were palpable. “Rita.” His voice was soft.
It was clear he hadn’t expected her to come.
“Fox.”
“Get inside.”
The motel room was dark and she stumbled over a chair. “You want to turn on a light?” They both blinked in the sudden dim light from the bedside lamp. She looked around, seeing nothing but the room of a frequent business traveler. But then the gun and badge caught her eye. “FBI?”
“Homicide?”
She shrugged and smiled. “How’d you end up there?”
“Same way you did. College and the police academy.” He took the badge and tossed it back onto the table. “It’s been a long time, Rita.”
“Over twenty years. Why look me up now?”
“I was flagged about something. A case I’m working on. You called asking for clearance on a file regarding the late Senator Christiansen.”
“I was curious as to why the FBI had locked what seemed to be a typical homicide.”
“Well, that’s why I’m here.” He looked at her for a long minute. “I’m sorry … I mean …” he sighed and settled on the bed, waiting until Rita took the chair before he continued. “We don’t have to jump right into case stuff. It has been twenty years and I haven’t seen you since …”
Rita looked down and shrugged, forcing away the sudden flash of her father’s dead body in the bathtub. “It’s okay, Fox.”
“Mulder.”
“What?”
“Everyone calls me Mulder now, that’s all.”
“Oh. Okay.” She shrugged. “No one wanted anything to do with my family after what happened with Daddy. And it’s not like you had a choice in talking to me again. We were all just kids.”
“Where did you end up?”
“Doesn’t the FBI have records on stuff like that?”
“You really hate us don’t you?”
She sighed and shrugged. “I’m sorry. Professional rivalry. I went into foster care.”
He winced. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I, but I was lucky.” She searched his eyes carefully. Why was she here? What had happened to him?
“Lance. Married?”
For some reason, her thoughts flashed right to Chris and she smiled, shaking her head. “Uh, no. I … took my foster parent’s name when I turned twenty-one. Most kids who grew up in foster care do that.”
“It’s safer for you that way, you know.”
“You sound completely paranoid.”
He actually cracked a smile. “Work for the FBI and it happens.”
She chuckled, but she couldn’t relax. She needed to know why she was here. “We’ll catch up more later, Fox… Mulder. What’s going on? Why does my calling about a cold Palm Beach case file red flag you over at the FBI and why are you contacting me like this and not through official channels?”
He sighed. “Yeah. Let’s go get something to eat, hm?”
“Senator Christiansen was part of a small, secretive group of men. There’s reason to believe that his death was a part of that, and that’s why the FBI flagged the file.”
Rita popped a piece of garlic bread into her mouth, suddenly wishing for the abject boredom that had set in back in Palm Beach. There was a reason she stuck to local division work. Crap like this belonged at the Federal Level and quite frankly, there was nothing new about secret societies – especially in politics. “Okay?” She prompted him.
He sighed and took a swig of his beer. “They’re quiet, underground, and probably responsible for more death and destruction than anyone can imagine. The secrets they’re holding go deeper than any of us could know or understand without being a part of them.”
“And this is something new? Seriously, why the trip down here, Mulder? Why the sudden rush to meet with me four hours away from where I called you and from where the Senator was murdered? You could have called me and told me to leave my local nose out of the Feds business. It’s a cold case and I probably would have let it drop. I have a lot more cold cases on my desk and many of them are much more interesting.”
“Would you believe that I wanted to see you again?”
“No. If you wanted to just see me, you’d have called me and said hello. You wanted me away from the office. How did you know it was me? Rita is a common name.”
“I’m the FBI, Ritzy. I know things.”
“So you knew that I hadn’t been married.”
“Sorry. Force of habit.” He grinned when she rolled her eyes at him. “You do the same thing when talking to people. You verify what you already know.”
“I do.” She tilted her head at him. “So why are you really here?”
“I have a theory and I wanted to ask you if you’d be willing to work with me. You aren’t the only one who wants to solve the Senator’s murder. But, what we do needs to be below board. No one can know we’re doing it.”
“Fox …”
“Look, Rita, there’s something else I need to tell you.”
“Like the night hasn’t already been full of surprises?”
“Fair enough.”
“What do you need to tell me?”
“Your father may have been involved.”
Rita stopped breathing.
To Be Continued ...