Title: Marines and Cops Author: JS Michel E-mail: jsm25@hotmail.com Classification: Scully/Doggett friendship. MSR. Mulder-lite. Spoilers: Season 8. Takes place between "Alone" and "Essence" Rating: PG-13 for language Archive: Sure, just let me know and include this header. Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. Feedback: Yes please. Summary: "...anybody who fit such a perfect Bureau mold couldn't possibly understand the X-Files." -- She pressed the doorbell a second time but didn't wait, retreating down the steps instead. Away from the picket fence and around back, ducking the rainbow spray of the lawn sprinkler under the sweltering noonday sun. "Agent Doggett." He looked up, startled, from the sloped roof of the tool shed, hammer mid-swing, a stack of shingles at his side. "Hey, Agent Scully. Hang on a second, be right down." Yard-work. The damp sweet scent of freshly-cut grass, the manual push-mower propped up against the tool shed. The open toolbox and tarpaper trimmings and his carpenter's tool belt. She absorbed the scene as she watched him climb down the stepladder. A memory from her childhood, Dad home from the sea, a hot day in July when they'd built the playhouse out back. Her father with a mouthful of nails showing her how to wield the hammer. Billy flinging shingle scraps Frisbee-style off the roof -- he'd clipped Charlie's head with one: Blood, sweat and tears intruding on their sunny afternoon. The everyday sort of life she hoped she still had time for... "What's up?" He wiped the side of his face against his T-shirt sleeve. This man must have known such a life once, before it was swept away, shingles in a hurricane. "Mulder." She handed him the Gunmen's printout, feeling tired and old. The baby pushed his toes up against the inside of her ribcage. He read it silently. She watched him frown, could imagine what he was thinking. "He mention this to you at all?" he asked. "No, he didn't." Probably because he knew she'd object. "I'm sorry about the short notice, Agent Doggett, I just received this an hour ago. I tried to call you on my way over but your cell phone must be off." He pulled the phone off his waistband, glanced at it distractedly, his attention still on the report. "It's on. I probably didn't hear it over my neighbor's damn ridin' mower." He looked up from the sheet. "What's this... about an airshow...?" "A UFO." No sense beating around the bush. "Course," he nodded with a sigh. He looked around the backyard, at the tools and half-finished roofing job, then over at the carry-on she'd dropped at the edge of the walkway, registering it for the first time. "Uh uh," he shook his head. "Come on, you can't be flyin' now, Agent Scully. A.D. Skinner'll have my ass. I'll take care of this. " She stood her ground. "You might need my help if he's run into trouble." Dammit Mulder. After everything we've been through these past months... These days, much to her consternation, she frequently caught herself looking at him through Doggett's eyes. Why had it been so much easier to be the believer while he'd been missing...? Doggett was eyeing her with concern. "I really don't think you should be flyin'," he repeated. He frowned and turned towards the tool shed. "Lemme put this stuff away first." He placed the hammer back in the tool box, closed the lid, slid it into the shed. Hung the tool belt on a nail inside the door. Carried the lawnmower and stepladder inside, then secured the latch with a padlock. Shutting up his attempt at a normal week-end in forty-five seconds flat. He wiped his face against his arm again. "I got time to shower?" He'd weighed his options and come to a decision. She'd discovered over the past months that it took a lot for this man to ditch her for her own good. His was a different approach to respect. -- While he got ready she watched for the cab, sipping the orange juice he'd poured her and wandering around his living room. She wouldn't have pegged him as the bookish type when she'd met him. Her own prejudice, or maybe her father's: Marines and cops didn't read. She scanned the titles with curiosity, her eyes instinctively targeting ones familiar to her: The worn hard-cover spine of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird", one of her all-time favorites. Benjamin Franklin's "Autobiography and Other Writings". On a hunch she tipped Franklin's autobiography out of its spot. The telltale creased binding cracked open in her hands. "The Death of Infants". Her abdomen tightened reflexively around the life within. Yet he managed to function. Or seemed to function. Did he, really? His house, his job, his appearance, his dependability, his sociability... all suggested Normal. How much of it was a good paint job? How much of him was rusted numb inside? She placed the book back, gently touched a small pewter frame on the adjacent shelf. An innocent smile gazed back at her through the dust-free glass. She'd honestly had no clue he was a survivor. Marines and cops didn't read. Fathers of murdered boys didn't play Bureau football. Didn't crack jokes with the other agents. She'd resented him so much, initially. Because he was a stranger, yes. Because he didn't believe, that too. But also because anybody who fit such a perfect Bureau mold couldn't possibly understand the X-Files. Pain, grief, guilt, life on hold: this was the X-Files. Not Saturday afternoon touchdowns with a bunch of male-bonding Bureau jocks. So unlike Mulder, whose pain lurked just beneath the skin, spurting alarmingly at the slightest scratch. John Doggett's pain was buried deep; he seemed to have distilled its essence; encapsulated it; swallowed it whole. By the time she'd discovered it he'd already earned her trust on his own. His football games had now become a thing of the past. Casualty Number One. What next? Conspiracy magazines on his coffee table, trading the picket fence for a barren apartment, sweeping for bugs, implants in the neck? Was this the irony of his fate? That he'd managed to pick himself up after such an unspeakable loss, only to be yanked down again by someone else's? The high price of the X-Files. She knew it intimately. Why did you stay, Agent Doggett? Why didn't you get out while you still could? "Ready to go?" His voice was quiet behind her. She hadn't heard him come down the stairs. She nodded, carefully replacing the boy's picture, wondering how long he'd been standing there. His gaze shifted to the photo and for a moment she thought he was about to say something. But he simply dropped his black duffel bag near the door and turned towards the kitchen. Didn't seem resentful that she was nosing through his bookcase, or that she'd interrupted his handyman's week-end for something that wasn't technically a Bureau matter. She should apologize, or thank him, or something. "The cab's on its way," was what came out of her mouth. He nodded and opened the fridge, poured himself a glass of juice. His fern was drying out, she noted as she rinsed her glass in the sink. It had been green the first time she'd seen it, when she'd been taken aback by this bright, tidy kitchen with its California shutters. Marines and cops didn't keep houseplants. How could he not resent the fact that she had stereotyped him so completely? -- "Y'okay?" She nodded, back from her third trip to the bathroom. Little room for that glass of orange juice in her pancake-flat bladder. Ever since he'd learned her secret he'd been giving her the aisle seat. No stranger to pregnancy, this one. She'd had to flash her badge and assert her medical credentials to be let onto the plane. Been made to sign a Release form: I, Dana Scully, agree not to Release My Baby aboard your aircraft. He'd looked concerned, but had backed her up. Backed her up. Watched her back. Partners. Three careers, this man had had, responsible for someone's back. On the field and in the field, trusting another to reciprocate. Outside a night-lit diner: <> One of the few reproaches he'd ever voiced aloud to her. She'd let him down, hadn't meant to but -- No, she *had* meant to. She regretted it now. Wondered if he knew that. "Agent Scully, can I ask you somethin'?" She looked up. Watched his face, at least, if not his back. His eyebrows were knitted in a look she'd learned to appreciate. "Why does Mulder pull this stuff?" "He wants the truth." He shook his head. "No, I mean, why does he pull this stuff with you. Runnin' off and leaving you to pick up the pieces?" And suddenly she knew what he was really asking. Not, <> but rather <> Except he was too careful with her to say it. It was uncharacteristically oblique of him. He was learning to tiptoe around her moods, just as she'd learned to tiptoe around Mulder's over the years. In her mind, Mulder's brilliance and intuition had excused his moodiness. What excused hers, in Doggett's mind? "We've always gotten good results that way," she heard herself saying, a tad too curtly. Her defense sounded transparent even to her own ears. John Doggett nodded unconvincingly. Still frowning. She suspected everything was already crystal clear in his mind, had been from the moment he'd found her asleep on that bed, Mulder's shirt clutched against her cheek. He shifted his gaze to look out the plane's thick-glassed window. "You started thinkin' of names?" he asked after a minute. "Names?" He glanced at her belly, then back up at her almost sheepishly. "For the baby." He was changing the subject for her. "No, not yet." "A good name's important." He was reaching under the seat now, rummaging through his duffel for something. "So many people just pick the dad's name without thinkin' hard enough about it." She felt herself flushing with an odd sense of betrayal. He'd never mentioned paternity. The whole Bureau had suspicions, she knew. She'd heard rumors of an office pool. But he'd been completely decent, never alluding, never hinting. Not once. Why now? He sat back up, a paper bag in his hand. He must have noticed her expression because he paused suddenly, as if replaying what he'd just said. She saw him wince almost imperceptibly. He rubbed the back of his close-cropped hair in embarrassment. "I uh..." he trailed off. He fiddled uncomfortably with the bag he'd retrieved. "I've, been meaning to give this to you, just thought you might find it useful. That's all I meant, Agent Scully." He passed her the bag across the armrest, apology evident on his face. She reached in, pulled out a ribbon-bound paperback: The Very Best Baby Name Book Ever. "Oh." He'd been trying to give her a gift. Goddammit you're a paranoid shit, Dana. She took a breath, managed a smile as she mentally berated herself. "Thank you, Agent Doggett. This is just what I needed." She removed the ribbon, thumbed deliberately through the entries, felt rather than heard his silent exhale beside her. "It lists potential nicknames, too," he pointed out as the tension faded. "My dad shoulda read this, mighta avoided his embarrassment at my bein' called J.J. for the first eighteen years of my life." "J.J.?" She glanced up at him in amusement. "Up until I joined the Marines," he grinned ruefully. "For John Jay. My dad was a bit of a history buff." John Jay, first chief justice of the Supreme Court. Wasn't he burned in effigy? She raised an eyebrow. "He was shocked that anybody'd shorten a Founding Father, but you know how kids are. I didn't mind, but he sure did. That's why you gotta choose carefully," he nodded, good-natured blue eyes meeting her gaze. In that brief moment she was struck with the realization that she could very possibly find happiness with someone like him. His no- bullshit world, so different from Mulder's. A world where he'd somehow managed to salvage picket fences and shingle repairs and Harper Lee from the hurricane wreck of his former life... managing to rebuild something thoroughly decent in the process. The fleeting feeling was mildly disconcerting. She'd spent the last eight years convincing herself she was exactly where she was supposed to be, finally felt sure of that. ***Kersh is already burning you in effigy, John Jay Doggett. Why didn't you get out while you still could? Why did you stay?*** ***Just watchin' your back, Agent Scully. Look out for those shingles.*** Blood, sweat and tears on a sunny afternoon. That's what he was getting in return. -- "Sorry, nobody gets through." The young corporal studied Doggett's ID case impassively. "This is a restricted military zone." "A military zone?" she asked, leaning forward to see the corporal, her belly pressed against the incarcerating seat belt. She felt like a beached whale. "This is a national park." "A Restricted. Military. Zone." Self explanatory, his tone implied. As if he were talking to an idiot. "We're tryin' to track down a man named Mulder, former FBI. We have reason to believe he was last seen in these woods." Doggett's voice held the same military tone she remembered from her father. Respectful insistence. He'd basically kept to the truth, she noted; she guessed he was no better at deception than she was. The corporal's voice now echoed Doggett's, dropping the Idiot Tone he'd used with her. "Sorry, Sir. This is a restricted area. If the FBI is conducting an investigation they'll have to go through proper military channels. I have to ask you to turn back, please." Three armed soldiers stepped forward. Doggett frowned in frustration, then slowly began backing the car away from the barricade. "Whaddya think?" he asked her as they turned onto the narrow dirt road. "You don't put up armed guards and barbed-wire in the middle of nowhere without a good reason." "Maybe they're just field-testin' some new piece of equipment," he suggested. "We did it in the Marines all the time. Not the kinda thing you want civilians stumblin' over, but not exactly a UFO." "When you were in the Marines, how often did you shut down a national park to run your field-tests?" Was she Scully the Believer again? Or Scully the Devil's Advocate? He shrugged. "If you want, I could jury-rig a batterin' ram on the front o' the rental car and we could go back and try to change the corporal's mind." Straight-faced, eyes fixed on the dusty road. She glanced over at him with poorly-masked amusement. "That'd put us in Kersh's good book." Like a scene out of The A-Team, she envisioned. She knew he was joking, but a small part of her brain suspected he might do it if he thought it would please her. She'd never quite understood this, his subtle need for her approval. It was both flattering and vaguely disturbing. He chuckled dryly and pulled the car over to the side of the road, the barricade now out of sight in the woods behind them. He'd left his window down after their encounter with the corporal. Now that they'd stopped rolling the steamy air wafted in, carrying with it the fragrance of pine trees and the buzz of cicadas. The sun was starting to set. She leaned back against the head-rest, still nursing a smile over his suggestion. Lethargy was washing over her. "So... whaddya wanna do?" he asked after a minute. She turned to look at him, his earnest face. High school: Pulling over on a dirt road, Marcus' eyes bright in the setting sun, total innocence. <> ***Whaddya wanna do, Agent Scully? 'Coz I think we're overheating...*** ***I...*** ***You name it, Agent Scully. I'll jury-rig it for you. On the front o' the rental car, if you'd like...*** She blinked, her fleeting sanity reinstated. For crying out loud, Dana, hormones or no hormones... He was staring back patiently, waiting for her decision. About Mulder and that military barricade. There was no way to know whether Mulder was just in the woods waiting for "The Airshow", or if he'd been caught and was being detained somewhere. Another flashback, this one chilling: <> The look on Mulder's face, lost and vulnerable, had haunted her for weeks. She was suddenly so tired. Tired of having to worry about him all over again. Having to protect him, rescue him. Over and over again, her life caught in an endless loop. How could she ever keep this up once the baby was born? ***Might do you some good to spend a night in an army compound, Mulder. Give you time to think about pulling these stupid stunts again.*** ***Think about what, Scully? They've erased my memories...*** The baby shifted inside her, a guilty reminder that she'd ignored her growing hunger. John Doggett shifted beside her. In the confined heat of the car his musky pheromones mingled with the surrounding pines, reminder of a different hunger she'd been ignoring. Her heightened awareness of him was irritating to her now. She frowned, tried to concentrate on the matter at hand. He was still watching her silently, still waiting for her to decide. The sun was disappearing through the trees. Rose and set around Fox Mulder. Why do you let him pull this stuff with you, Agent Scully? She had missed him so desperately, her world spinning down into oblivion as she prayed for the miracle of his return. Her prayers had been answered, her world righted. Except it always *had* spun in a frustratingly convoluted orbit, hadn't it...? Goddammit, Mulder. ***Whaddya wanna do, Agent Scully...?*** The crescendo of cicadas was deafening. Focus, Dana. Analyze, organize, prioritize. How *did* cicadas make that noise, anyway? The baby kicked. Her stomach rumbled. "Let's get something to eat," she decided at last. First things first. "It'll be dark soon and we can try another road in." He pulled the car into gear. "You're the boss." -- "Piece o' danish?" he offered, pulling a squashy pastry from the bag on the darkened dashboard. She shook her head, watched the danish disappear in three easy bites. He crumpled the paper into a tight wad and jammed it into their makeshift trash bag on the floor of the back seat. "Mind tellin' me what we're waitin' for?" he'd asked her two hours ago. "The Airshow." He'd given her a skeptical look. "You'll know it if you see it," she'd reassured him. He'd considered that, then simply nodded. Loosened his tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves. The weather had refused to cool. Even with all the windows rolled down the car was stifling in the breezeless starry night. More than once she'd been tempted to ask him to run the engine, just for a few minutes of air-conditioned bliss. The car reeked of stale french fries: a summer holiday smell, the four of them crowded into the back seat of the Plymouth. <> <> Greasy fingers, torn paper packets spilling their salt on the upholstery, ketchup oozing on the floormats. A quick lunch break between Ausable Chasm and Fort Ticonderoga, where rusted amputation saws awaited behind glass cases strewn with teeth-marked bullets... "You shouldn't be sittin' for so long in your condition, Agent Scully. Aren't you riskin'... blood clots, or some damn thing?" She eyed him with amusement. "Thank you, Doctor." He sighed and checked his watch, reaching to the cup-holder for his cold black coffee. "It's after eleven. You wanna grab some sleep?" he ventured again after he'd downed the remains of the cup. "I'll wake you when the aliens land, or whatever." Had he been a wonderfully caring husband, or an annoyingly patronizing one? A fine line, no doubt. "I'm not tired," she assured him. "But I think I will stretch my legs, though." They were starting to cramp, and he was right about the risks of venous thrombosis. "Watch the ditch," he cautioned. She nodded dutifully, maneuvered her swollen belly out of the seat with the grace of a penguin. The moon was nearly full, the dirt road washed in muted silver. She contemplated her moon-shadow. The full moon, mother to the world. The barricade was dark in the distance. What *are* we waiting for, anyway? The Airshow...? She tried her cell phone again without success. Goddammit Mulder, where the hell are you? She rolled her shoulders, loosening taut neck muscles, hands supporting her lower back. She could feel Doggett's eyes on her. ***I've got your back, Agent Scully.*** She headed back to the car self-consciously. Tried to keep the waddling to a minimum. "Back in a minute," he announced simply after she'd wedged herself into the seat. He got out of the car and crossed the ditch, wandering off towards the trees. Not, she guessed, to thwart venous thrombosis but rather that cola he'd gotten conned into Super- Sizing. Despite the heat she'd purposely minimized her fluid intake all evening, not relishing the prospect of having to bare her teetering pregnant butt to the moonlit grass. ***I've got your backside, Agent Scully.*** "FBI! Stop right there!" His distant shout tore through her. She was out of the passenger seat in a flash, gun drawn, peering desperately over the hood of the car in the direction she'd last seen him. Dark smudges, shadows in military fatigues, disappeared into the trees. "Agent Doggett!" No answer. "Agent Doggett!" Answer, goddammit... Seconds that felt like hours. Finally: "Agent Scully! I've got him! It's Mulder!" His shadow rising from the ground, double-headed, a limp arm half- draped over his shoulder. She didn't remember jumping the ditch. "He's okay he's alive he's got a pulse!" Doggett called out as she reached them. Reassuring her. That's why he'd taken so long to answer, she realized. He'd been checking for a pulse before calling out to her. Didn't want her rushing over for nothing but a cold corpse. Again. She was wondering vaguely how long he would've waited if he *hadn't* found a pulse, when all at once the night sky lit up overhead in a twinkle of colors. He froze, his gaze turning up towards the heavens. "What the fuck," he managed breathlessly. "What the hell is that?" "The Airshow," she answered softly. "Let's move, Agent Doggett." Her hand gripped his free arm now, gently but firmly steering him towards the car. He complied without protest, his eyes wide with disbelief, arm and shoulders still supporting Mulder's unconscious form. -- She closed the door behind her and spotted Doggett finishing off the stack of paperwork at the nursing station. She sank down into a chair in the tiny lounge, allowing herself to relax at last. He's okay he's okay he's okay. Her mantra of eight years. Goddammit Mulder, it's a good thing you're cute. She saw Doggett hand back the forms and wander over. His arms and face were a deep equatorial red, matching her own, she knew. He dropped into the chair beside her. "How's he doin'?" "He's asleep," she filled him in. "The painkillers have kicked in. Toxicology results won't be back until morning, but neurologically he seems okay. Except he doesn't remember the last twenty-four hours." "Judgin' by the severity of his burns, I'd say that might not be such a bad thing." His comment was sincere, lacking any trace of dark humor, and though she was fairly certain Mulder wouldn't see it that way she knew Doggett meant it kindly. In this man's experience perhaps it was sometimes better to forget. "Thank you..." she began tentatively, "...for coming out today. If you hadn't--" "Don't," he cut her off tiredly, shaking his head. "Doesn't take a whole lotta detective work to stumble over a body while lookin' for a tree with my name on it." He looked drained. "Remind me, Agent Scully, next time Mulder goes missin', to just save myself a lot of trouble, take a coupla six-packs to the woods and get myself piss- drunk. Results'll be the same, screw the NYPD and Quantico and their dumb-ass investigative techniques," he grumbled. She studied his face, sensing his frustration, knowing it didn't stem solely from tonight's incident but from the long series of events that had occurred since he'd joined her in the basement. "You know," he continued in a more subdued tone, "I still don't understand what the hell we saw out there. Some kinda stealth-plane prototype?" She didn't answer. He glanced at her. "You really believe that was a spaceship, don't you..." She shrugged in gentle sympathy. "You can tell yourself it was a plane if it makes you feel better, Agent Doggett." He sighed, his brow furrowed. He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, clenched jaw against clenched knuckles. Apparently fascinated with his shoes. They sat in silence for a long time. "How'd you get over it?" he asked her, very quiet now. "Stuff defyin' criminal investigation, blowin' away logic, laughin' in the face of your trainin' and your expertise..." "I'm not sure I've ever really gotten over it," she admitted softly. "Not completely." "Well, you're miles ahead o' me. I've seen how you accept things, paranormal, extra-terrestrial, alien healer, whatever..." He studied his reddened forearms. "...goddamned sunburns in the middle o' the night. Dead people --" he swallowed visibly, "Dead people comin' back to life, throw away the medical books and detective work and goddamned logic, you just gotta believe, like frickin' Peter Pan..." He stopped to take a breath. Glanced at her sideways. "I'm sure as hell no philosopher, Agent Scully. But I thought I'd gotten a pretty good grip on the world. You know?" She nodded, recalling that long-ago feeling herself, as he went on. "Didn't particularly like what I saw a lot o' the time, but hey, that's life, huh?" She glimpsed muted pain in his eyes. "I just always gave it what I believed was my best shot. Thought I did everythin' possible, covered all the bases. And now..." She wanted to reach out to him, squeeze his hand, reassure him. Knew there were no words that would comfort him. "It scares the shit out of me, Agent Scully," he admitted. "Nothin's scared me for a long time..." I'm not afraid of anything, he'd affirmed to her under the starry desert sky last spring. She'd taken it as tough-guy talk, cop-talk, Marine-talk: Marines and cops aren't afraid of anything. Never guessing he meant every word. He'd already faced the worst fear he could ever imagine, and emerged. Emerged. Got himself out of bed every morning. What more could anyone have asked of him? What bigger act of bravery? Fathers of murdered boys had no reason to fear anything. There was nothing left to fear. Death was, if nothing else, at least reassuring in its earthly finality. And now the X-Files had taken that away from him. Casualty Number Two... He pulled his head away from the wall. "It's after two, Agent Scully," he said wearily. "I'm beat, and I think you and little J. Edgar here," he glanced at her belly, "should get some sleep too." She nodded, got herself out of the chair, knowing he was speaking only out of a sense of responsibility, a sense of concern for her and the baby. Cops could sleep. Marines... maybe. But John Jay Doggett, she suspected, would spend tonight staring out his motel window, searching the sky for answers. Blood, sweat and tears. That's what he'd get in return for his trouble. -- Author's Comments: Been six years since I last submitted fanfic. Mulder can be fascinating but it was Doggett who brought me back. Scully always rocks, of course. Thank-you to JPM for educating this Canuck on the John Jay historical reference. Feedback would be great... I'm beta-less so grammar/typos appreciated too. -- JS Michel -- (jsm25@hotmail.com)