rivendellrose | Halloween fic the third!

This one's for

zinjadu, who requested everyone's favorite FBI agents in a haunted house... a man-made haunted house, not a real one.

No warnings, just some happy Mulder and Scully holiday-ness.

"Hey, Scully, look!"

An old farmhouse crouched by the side of the road, flanked by overgrown patches of pumpkins and tired, lank corn stalks. At the end of the gravel drive, a sign proclaimed "Haunted House - This Week Only!"

"No, Mulder. We're going to be late already."

"It's just a conference... they don't even need us, they just wanted to pad the numbers so the program's budget doesn't get cut. As long as we're signed in before the hotel closes tonight, we're fine. You know how boring the opening speeches always are..."

"Skinner specifically asked that we make an effort with this group, Mulder."

"An effort that involves you chatting up every sweaty, balding, disgusting upper manager who thinks forensic pathologists are sexy?" Mulder veered onto the exit ramp of the freeway.

"Mulder!"

"Just a few minutes, Scully. Come on, it'll be fun - a haunted house that's just a joke, for once."

"They're all jokes," Scully muttered.

"Yeah, but this one's not the ghosts making the joke."

Neither spoke for a moment, the memory of the past Christmas hanging in the rental car like cheap air freshner.

"They're selling hot apple cider and cornbread," Mulder finally commented over the crunching of gravel under the car's tires.

"So they are."

"I'll just grab us some lunch and tickets for the haunted house, then."

Scully sighed. It wasn't worth arguing over. She waited next to Mulder as he bought two big paper cups of hot apple cider - homemade, she noticed, not the powdered kind - and two slabs of hot cornbread, both as big as her whole hand and slathered in butter. He handed hers to her on an orange paper napkin, and then ushered her toward the door to the old farmhouse, reading the little home-printed pamphlet the man had given him.

"Says the place was built in 1872, and hardly been renovated at all since 1912, except to add structural, plumbing, and electrical updates. The additions they've put in to make it a haunted house only stay for the week before Halloween, and then the family that owns it moves back in - it's just their way of getting a little extra cash before the holiday. But they do say they hear strange noises from the attic..."

"The house is over a hundred and thirty years old, Mulder. I'd be worried if it didn't make strange noises. It's not really haunted."

Mulder smiled. The way Scully said that sort of thing made him think that even if it were, it might stop being, just on her say-so. "You sure? We've both seen things we can't explain in old houses..."

"I thought we weren't going to talk about that."

"Right." He took a big bite out of the cornbread, wiping an errant smear of butter off his lip with the back of his hand. "Never again."

"Until next time," Scully grumbled as she climbed the rickety steps and pulled open the creaking front door. "Do you think they repaint it every year, or do they actually leave it this weathered all the time?"

"Martha Stewart wouldn't approve," Mulder agreed, nodding solemnly even as he tried to hide a grin. Scully rolled her eyes, and he gave up hiding the grin now that he'd gotten the reaction he was looking for. He pushed open the door and held it for her. "Ladies first."

As Scully stepped over the gapping boards around the threshhold, she felt a hand clamp around her ankle. Instinct took over before she remembered where they were and the purpose of their little outing, and she stomped down on the offending appendage. A muffled yelp rose from under the porch, and the fingers released her ankle.

"Scully?" Another, more expected hand touched her shoulder, as Mulder leaned down to regard her with concern.

She looked up, eyes wide and cheeks a bit pinker than the cold air would account for. "I think I've been on this job too long, Mulder."