Title: White Noise, White Wave
Author: Shahara Zade(shahara_zade@hotmail.com)
Spoilers: Through S/8
Rating: R-ish for violence. Squick warnings: a minor (as in 
person under the age of 18) propositions an adult (nothing 
happens though).
Disclaimer: 1013's intellectual property is not mine. I don't hold 
the copyright on Scott's or Cameron's brain either. Damn.
Summary: Hard-boiled!Doggett, sixteen years later.
Originally written for the DSR Lyric Wheel. Everything you never 
wanted to see happen. Sorry, folks, I really wanted to write 
something sweet and romantic, but this sinister thing crawled 
out of my brain instead. Thanks to Alicia K. for ultra-speedy beta.


White Noise, White Wave:

The pathetic little thug stroked himself suggestively with a grimy 
hand.

"Come on, make you feel real good. Been a while? No problem, 
I'll go slow." 

He had chipped black nail polish and wide pouting lips, which 
might have been sensuous if less cracked. He probably hadn't 
had a decent meal in days, John Doggett thought, and the thread 
of disgust in his throat subsided.

The human stench in the flop where he had tracked the kid was 
overwhelming. Seven stories of rickety stairs and seedy rooms 
with dark doorways and dismal occupants, wrapped in old coats 
and rags, blinking into his flashlight. Doggett wondered if 
Colonization Prevention was much good to them, or to the 
creature slumped against what must have once been a leather 
couch cushion.

"What's wrong, old man?"

Old man. He was old. Old and tired, and he had long despaired 
of anything good ever happening again; of any questions being 
answered or any justice being served. He should have retired, 
except that Fletcher's guys didn't retire. You don't retire in the 
middle of a war, even a covert one.

"You got a name, kid?"

"Whatever you want it to be, mister." He opened his legs wider, 
inviting, but his voice sounded as flat and tired as Doggett felt. 

Doggett looked away. "Seriously."

"Shakespeare," the kid sighed. "Or Shakes. Everybody calls me 
Shakes, cause when I'm done, I leave 'em shaking."

"You want some breakfast, Shakes?" The kid had to be 
interviewed in safety.

Shakespeare's eyes lit up at the mention of food, then narrowed, 
wary. "Why? We can do anything you want, right here."

"I'm not a...a customer. Wait, I'll pay the going rate, but I just 
wanna talk, okay? I'm here about the other street kids, the ones 
that have disappeared. Do you know what I mean? This whole 
block used to be packed with them. Runaways, Junkies. Now - "

"Now they're gone." Shakes swallowed, pulling his knees up 
close to his body.

"Yeah. They're mostly all gone. So, what I wanted to ask you, was 
if you had seen anything out of the ordinary...any lights, for 
example."

"Look, no offense, man, but I don't think - " The kid was a blur of 
motion. He feigned left, and then leaped right, landing on his 
feet. He sprang for the stairs, and Doggett would not have caught 
him at all without the nano-gun.

He hated infecting the kid with the evolutionary great-grand child 
of the technology that controlled him, even as he rationalized that 
at least the dart would vaccinate Shakespeare against the Rep 
Virus.

He crouched beside the kid where he had dropped.

"No. Nonononono..."

"Easy there. The pain will stop in a minute. We need to get out of 
here. Think you can walk?"

"Leave me alone." Shakespeare struggled weakly.

There was a humming sound from above, a skylight shattered. 
Flickering light. Doggett felt the floor under them begin to 
tremble. They were coming. He pulled the kid up over his 
shoulder in a fireman's carry and ran, dropping disrupter 
grenades behind him as he retreated. 

Protocol indicated that he should have abandoned the Subject. 
Shakes was immune now, it wasn't like they could Rep. him.

The thing was, the kid had her eyes, and he had been haunted 
by those eyes for sixteen long, horrible years. Not that he hadn't 
seen her before. The determined set of her jaw, in some store 
clerk. The precise speech of the woman who dispatched 
Fletcher's assignments. The copper of her hair a thousand 
times. 

But this kid had her eyes. Her eyes the night after they buried Fox 
Mulder, the first time. Her eyes the night he held her and begged 
her, "What can I do? I'll do anything. Anything you want, just tell 
me." 

Her eyes, red ringed, as she whispered, "Make it all stop. I can't 
bring another life into *this* - not without him. I won't make it. We 
won't make it! We struggle and we struggle and we lose...most 
of the time. Mulder was a great man! I believed in him, in us. 
There was the work, and him." Her voice was a raw growl. "I 
never wanted anything else. Can you make it stop, John? 
Please?" 

She had only let him that once, and it was only his hand and her 
hand and it had been more seizure than sex anyway. Just a 
white wave of white noise, momentary peace. He would be 
forever hungry still for more.

They never spoke of it, and then Fox Mulder returned from the 
dead, and he was glad for her. It was a year for death and 
re-birth, and he was lost in files and miracles.

Fletcher, finally, sneering and jaded, brought him back to 
himself. Woke him up again. After Walter Skinner and Fox Mulder 
showed up in the FBI parking garage, each man with his brains 
blown out. After Monica's body was found, stuffed into a women's 
restroom cubicle, off a highway in Georgia. After Dana Scully and 
her baby vanished without a trace.

Fletcher had toyed with the palm pilot almost bored, as Doggett 
was bent over doubled, gasping in pain. "I don't really need this 
stupid thing, do I, John? You're a soldier. You kill things, that's 
the bottom line. And have I got things for you to kill. Oh buddy boy, 
you're gonna love it."


X	X	X	X	X	X	X	


Shakespeare squirmed on the battered vinyl diner bench. He 
stuffed a handful of ketchup covered onion rings into his mouth, 
before responding, "I dunno."

"You don't know how old you are, son?" It was hard to buy, 
something about the cadence of his speech wasn't right. 
Something about the way he had calmed down so quickly, once 
the nanos had integrated with his system, as if he had expected 
it. The kid wasn't leveling.

Doggett switched tactics. He didn't know why he had even kept 
the photograph of her, it hadn't been his to keep, but he pulled it 
out now and pushed it across the table.

"Ever seen this woman before?"

Shakespeare glanced down at the photograph, swallowing. As 
he looked up again, his vibrant blue eyes grew round. The 
cheeseburger he had been about to bite into fell back to the 
plate. His face had gone pale.

"She's coming in now."

"Wha-"  Doggett was cut off by the screams of dining patrons, as 
she knocked over tables and sent chairs and their occupants 
flying. The cold unwavering purpose as she advanced was 
unmistakable. He thought of Billy Miles again, the Reps were all 
the same.

He drew the specialized weapon and stood, firing off three darts. 
Fletcher's crew were equipped with more sophisticated tools 
now, faster ones. In the early days, it would have taken almost a 
full minute for the nanos to destroy the Rep fifteen seconds 
longer than you often had. They had lost some good guys that 
way. 

She - it - stopped mid-step and crumbled. Anti-climactic.

Shakespeare had come to stand beside him. Doggett placed a 
hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to see that, kid."

"Don't be," He shook his head, all trace of the street accent 
evaporated. "That hasn't been my mother in almost a year now, 
John Doggett."

Doggett pressed a call button inside his coat. A Fletcher 
"ambulance" would arrive shortly, to dispose of the remains and 
work the p.r. issues. He crouched beside the body, running his 
fingers over the eyelids to close them. There was no concern for 
contamination, his inoculations were up to date.

"Made it stop, Agent Scully," he whispered, "Sorry it took me so 
long."

END

Artist: Delerium 
Album: Silence [Single]
Title: Silence

Give me release
Witness me
I am outside
Give me peace
Heaven holds a sense of wonder
And I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up 
When the rage in me subsides
Passion
Chokes the flower
Until she cries no more
Possessing all the beauty
Hungry still for more
Heaven holds a sense of wonder
And I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up 
When the rage in me subsides
In this white wave
I am sinking 
In this silence
In this white wave...
In this silence...
I believe I can't help this longing...
Comfort me I can't hold it all in...
If you won't let me...
Heaven holds a sense of wonder
And I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up
When the rage in me subsides
In this white wave
I am sinking
In this silence
In this white wave...
In this silence...
I believe I have seen you...
In this white wave
You are silent
You are breathing
In this white wave...
I am free