DISCLAIMER: THE CHARACTERS YOU RECOGNISE DON'T BELONG TO ME, THEY BELONG TO CHRIS CARTER, FOX AND 10-13 PRODUCTIONS.

His Master's Voice

"Hi. I'm Franchesca Mahoney, Franki for short, and I'm answering the ad you put in the paper for a roommate. Am I too late?"

Twenty year old Dana Scully looked at the dark haired green eyed girl on the doorstep. The ad had only started to run this morning, and it was only just after seven. Obviously she wasn't taking any chances.

"No, you're not too late. Come in. She stepped back and let the girl in. Her manner reminded Dana of her older sister Melissa, and she liked how the girl looked. Instinctively she trusted her, an instinct honed by years of traveling from Naval base to base and having to find the best friends possible in the shortest conceivable time.

"I just got here from Boston, my parents wanted me to move into the dorms, but shit, I can't take the hassle and the extra money, I can put it to good use." Franki smiled as she followed Dana into the large airy living/dining room. The apartment itself was a large second story one, it had two bedrooms and Dana had put an ad for a roommate for more for companionship than out of financial necessity.

Dana showed the Irish girl around the apartment, evaluating how she conducted herself, and if she would make a good roommate. Franki silently took in everything, then asked, "Do you have a car?"

Dana frowned. "No. Why?"

Franki took her to the window and pointed out a VW Beetle convertible that was crammed full of stuff and parked on the street in front of the house. "That's why you need me. I can make your life safer." Dana laughed and handed the other girl the keys to the house.

They sat on the floor in Franki's bedroom, unpacking boxes and suitcases.

"My mother is American, my father Irish, and he's a diplomat. I've lived in Ireland, Britain, Barbados, Italy and France." Franki explained in the strange accent that Dana had tried hard to place all day. She shrugged. "I like it and I hate it. I mean, it's really exotic, but what I really hate is the false friends that swarm to you like flies and the really good friends you have to give up when you move." Dana nodded, knowing exactly what the other girl meant.

"My father's in the Navy." Dana replied, unpacking books from a crate. "I've had to move when he moved. I used to cry when we did. My mother told me I used to throw some real temper tantrums." She tossed her auburn hair ruefully. "It's the combination of the red hair and the Irish in me. The famous Scully temper. I'm the middle child. I guess I was looking for attention. My brothers and sister usually ignored me."

Franki laughed. "I'm an only child. I've had more attention than I ever wanted. I'm an eighteen year old wild child that feels like one hundred and three."

"You look older." Dana admitted. "I had you pegged at twenty four." Franki laughed even harder, rolling onto her back and holding her sides. "Geez, that's the best remark I've heard all day."

"What are you going to major in?" Dana asked some time later, when they were taking the empty boxes down to the garbage disposal unit in the basement.

"God, I don't know. Something to save the world, maybe. I may do General Ed for the first two years till I sort out my major." She sighed. "I love to read."

"I know, I unpacked most of the books!"

"Funny. Anyway, I think I will do a double major, English Lit and a language. Maybe Italian or French. Probably Italian, then get a job in the UN or something. It wouldn't be hard. Uncle Bill has many connections."

"Uncle Bill?"

"My mother's brother. He works for the government, research, I think." Franki shrugged. "I've never been sure. He just comes and goes."

The two girls went back up to the apartment. Dana watched her new roommate and smiled. This was promising to be a great friendship.

The sparsely furnished, darkened room was filled with smoke. There were two occupants in the room; the taller of the two stood in the corner, lazily exhaling clouds of blue smoke and being deceptively quiet. His piercing eyes missed nothing, specially not the discomfiture of the man before him, a departmental head. He had his subordinates in his iron grip and in their eyes was second only to God. That was only because the deity had been there a tad longer than the mortal.

"Well?" The cigarette smoking man demanded.

"All went as planned. She was a good source of information..." he stopped and pushed play on the tape recorder on the table in front of him.

A young girl's voice filled the tiny room. "Yeah mom, its been great. I've found a really cool roommate, her name is Dana and she knows exactly what I've been through. Her father's Navy, she's had to move as much as I've had to."

An older woman's voice was heard now, her accent refined and cultured, the product of many generations of correct breeding. "And who are her family, dear?"

A grimace could be heard in the younger woman's voice,"Per-leeze mother, no one wants to know *that* any more!"

"Who, Franchesca?" her mother asked, a warning note in her voice.

"Geez, she's a Scully, a East Coast Scully, her father's currently stationed in California." There was the crackle of static, and Franchesca said, "Mother, this line is really bad. Is this the only decent line you could out?"

"You know how it is in these countries. I swear, your father finds these places just to aggravate me." The wearied resigned tone and implied condescension could be heard loud and clear. Franchesca knew better than to reply. She wasn't going down that muddied track, not today. "I'm teaching Dana how to drive, she wants to be a doctor. I told her all doctors gotta know how to drive. Can you believe she's twenty and can't drive?!"

He pushed stop, forever cutting off whatever was about to be said about twenty year olds who had committed the unpardonable sin of not having a driver's license.

"We're in the process of checking, sir." He told the glowing red tip in the corner. "I will have a complete report tomorrow."

The cigarette smoking man merely made a sound that was both a reply and a dismissal. The other man left, wanting to run, but kept his pace steady. It didn't do for his superior to see him sweat. He already had his family in the palm of his nicotine stained hand. He would hate for his favorite niece to get there too.

Dana marveled at how fast the week was flying. She was jogging up the steps of the apartment building and up to the front door of their apartment after a full day of school. Registration was over, she was getting back into the swing of things and -- she unlocked the apartment and the first thing that hit her was the smell of cigarette smoke. Jesus, Franki had to have been smoking in here. Funnily enough, the other girl had not mentioned a smoking habit, but then it wasn't the kind of thing that cropped up in normal conversation.

*Pass the salt, dear, by the way, do you smoke?*

Dana realised that the smoky smell pervaded the whole apartment, and seemed stronger in her room. She could smell it every were. On the bed sheets, in the half open closet she had left open in her haste to leave that morning and -- she grimaced as she opened her lingerie drawer to push back in a garment she had inadvertantly left sticking out -- even in her lingerie drawer. She cast a glance at the old grille that was positioned near the ceiling; she wasn't sure what it was for she supected it was an old chimney, but it connected the upstairs apartment with hers. Some nights when she was *really* lucky, she could hear the married tenant entertain his married mistress. Maybe it had been him that had been smoking and the smoke had filtered down here, defusing it into the room...her logical mind quickly sought and found a logical explanation, conveniently overlooking the fact that there was no grille in the hallway or any other part of the apartment except her room...

The file landed on the table with a heavy thud, displacing the smoky air very briefly.

"She seems suitable, her grades are excellent, she seems the kind of person we will need to --" he paused briefly, his face contorting hideously in what he called a smile -- "*mold* into the perfect agent. We will recruit her when she is finished, her grades are excellent enough to merit our looking at her without creating any suspicion." He sucked on the tar filled stick, making the red tip glow more intensely before stubbing it out and immediately lighting up a next one. The other man knew he was dismissed and started toward the door, but was arrested by the sound of his master's voice. By the way, give my regards to your family, your lovely wife and especially your son. How is his studies? I understand Oxford is *quite* beautiful this time of year."

His hands clenched into fists. How like him to remind him precisely of were his priorities lay. But he had a plan, he wasn't a fool, and someday he would get that cancer ridden bastard for what he was doing...

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