Title: Interregnum VI: Disintegration (1/1)
Author: Horatio
E-mail: Horatio1013@aol.com 
Summary: Scully and Doggett walk through the valley of 
the shadow of death.
Spoilers: This Is Not Happening 
Rating: PG-13 (for language) 
Category: Scully/Doggett, Doggett-friendly, angst
Archive: Fine with me! Just let me know so I can visit.
Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property of 
1013 Productions and the Fox Television Network. 

Notes: This story is part of a loosely-knit series of 
Doggett/Scully vignettes that take place in a slightly 
altered season 8 emotional landscape. While each stands 
alone for the most part, the stories make most sense if 
they are read in order. This story takes place the day 
after "Interregnum V: Connections," and is a between-the-
scenes look at TINH.

Many thanks to Deb and Meridy for technical assistance.



INTERREGNUM VI: 
DISINTEGRATION 


John Doggett was whistling, the tuneless melody bouncing 
cheerfully off the walls of the basement hallway. When his 
cell phone rang, he answered it with a lilt in his voice. 
"John Doggett."

"It's me. Scully."

As if he wouldn't recognize her voice. "Agent Scully, 
what's up?" he said as he unlocked the door to their 
office.

"I'm about to leave for the airport, but I can't find the 
Knoxville files."

"I'm pickin' 'em up right now. I left them at the office 
last night." He paused. "Had other things on my mind." 

"I imagine you did." Her voice was soft, undoubtedly 
remembering how nervous he had been when he'd delivered the 
amniocentesis results to her.

Doggett paused at his desk. "I hope you slept well last 
night."

She was quiet. Then, "I did," she replied. 

"You deserved that good news." 

"Thank you. I'm just relieved."

"Me, too." A healthy, normal baby. Doggett hadn't thanked 
God for much lately, but he did last night.

Once again there was quiet on the other end of the line. 

"Oh, Agent Scully?" Doggett went on as he picked up the 
files and headed out of the office. 

"Yes?"

"I was thinkin', when we're in Tennessee you should try 
some real southern food. Ever had fried catfish and black-
eyed peas? Or how 'bout hushpuppies?"

"Was that standard fare in New York?" 

He chuckled. "Georgia born, Agent Scully."

"Then I'll look forward to your expertise on the cuisine, 
Agent Doggett."
 
If it was possible to hear a smile through a phone, Doggett 
did. "It's a deal, then. See you at the airport."

He turned the lock on the door, and at the same moment 
heard the fax machine beep inside their office. He closed 
his eyes and cursed. Then he sighed. Might be something 
important. Opening the door, he pulled the first sheet off 
the tray and read it quickly. He blinked, and his mouth 
turned downward. He read it a second time, then the pages 
that followed it out of the machine.

Slowly Doggett moved to his desk and lowered himself into 
the chair, choked by a sickly combination of dread and 
hope. 

There would be no catfish dinner. They wouldn't be going to 
Knoxville. 

They were going to Montana instead.


         *                *                *


Scully had taken the news of the discovery of Teresa Hoese 
with a galvanized intensity, which fizzed and crackled 
around her like an electric field. She was silent on the 
drive to the airport, and held onto the silence as they 
took to the air. 

Across the aisle from Doggett, Skinner read reports. While 
Doggett watched him, the Assistant Director laid the papers 
down on his tray, took off his glasses, and rubbed the 
bridge of his nose. Glancing across at the other row of 
seats, he met Doggett's eyes, and the two traded looks. 
Skinner's mouth was pressed in a tight line. Then he 
replaced his glasses and returned to his reading.

Next to Doggett, Scully sat very still, almost rigid. 
Whatever warmth he'd felt from her over the phone this 
morning was gone, in its place a chilly brittleness. He 
held himself stiffly, too, as if he was 8 years old and
back in his grandmother's house, surrounded by porcelain
vases and glass figurines. He was afraid that any 
sudden movement would cause his partner to shatter. 

Suddenly Scully spoke up, startling Doggett out of his 
reverie. "This is a hopeful sign," she said.

"In a way, yes," he said carefully.

She looked at him, her eyes unnaturally bright. "Teresa 
Hoese is alive."

He didn't speak for a moment, choosing his words with care. 
"Yes. She's alive. But we need to be cautious with our 
hope." Lightly he touched her hand on the armrest. 
"Remember, she's hangin' onto life by a thread."

Scully snatched her hand away. Doggett returned his to 
his lap, feeling a flush rise to his cheek.

"I was clinging to life when I was returned from my 
abduction," she said. "This is the pattern for these kinds 
of abductions, Agent Doggett, whatever you think the cause 
of them may be. If Teresa has been returned alive, we have 
reason to hope that others will be returned, too."

He bit off the impulse to tell her that he didn't need to 
be lectured, and instead said, "Let's hope that Teresa 
Hoese's outcome is as positive as yours was, Agent Scully."

She met his eyes briefly, then turned away. Doggett felt 
other eyes on him, and looked across the aisle. Skinner's 
look seemed to say, We're in a minefield here. Doggett gave 
his superior a surreptitious nod of acknowledgment, then he 
closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat 
as a vise tightened around his chest. 

He hoped to God they wouldn't all be blown to smithereens.


         *              *              *


"Teresa Hoese is alive."

It was lifeline, a prayer to which Scully had clung on the 
long flight to Montana, through the changes in St. Paul and 
Great Falls, all the way up the steps of the hospital 
itself. When she finally saw the tortured wreck of a woman, 
the lifeline snapped.

Grasping at air, Scully felt herself falling. The nightmare 
that jolted her awake that night was only the punctuation 
mark on a horror that was being written on her soul.

It's only a dream, only a dream, she told herself as her 
heart crashed against her ribs. She tumbled out of bed, 
clammy in her sweat-soaked pajamas, and crossed to the 
window, where she parted the curtain with a shaking hand. 
The stars were bright in this Big Sky country. Her eyes 
welled and spilled over. "Oh, Mulder!" she whispered. 

The terror of the nightmare again assaulted her, and she 
covered her face in a vain attempt to block out the images 
of torture. Doggett's words from earlier came back to her:
"As much as you want to find Mulder, you're afraid to find 
him, too." Everything was unraveling: her life, her hopes, 
her prayers, her fragile dreams for the child within her. 
Without thought she stripped off her pajamas and pulled on 
the clothes that she had discarded earlier. 

A few moments later she found herself standing outside the 
door next to her room, hardly aware of how she had come to 
be there. But if she didn't know the how, she knew the why. 
She needed to voice the question that hammered in her head 
like a bad migraine. She needed other ears to hear the 
question. She needed to hear an answer, any answer. Perhaps 
she even needed the comfort of arms around her.

She needed. She just needed. 

Scully stared at the door, shivering. The hoot of an owl 
rippled over the night, and still she stood rooted, unable 
to raise her hand to knock, her intentions suddenly clouded 
by confusion. Inside her chest she felt a fluttering of 
fear. She couldn't face the sleeper on the other side of 
that door. Couldn't bare her need to him. Couldn't accept 
those arms.

Turning, she moved to the next door and rapped. 

"What if he's dead?" she asked.


Doggett lay very still, listening to the murmuring voices 
outside. He couldn't make out the words, but her voice was 
unmistakable. He would be able to pick it out from hundreds 
in a crowd.

The tangled covers around his legs bespoke the restless 
hours he'd put in, his senses on alert to any sounds from 
next door. He had heard Scully gasp, and had almost bolted 
out of bed himself. A nightmare, most likely. He had 
listened to the creak of her mattress, footsteps padding 
across the room, the sound of her door opening and closing. 
He heard her steps stop in front of his door. And then 
nothing. 

He held his breath till he thought he'd pass out. Finally 
her steps moved on, and he heard a knock one door down. He 
exhaled slowly, his muscles sagging with disappointment. 

Tossing back the covers, Doggett rose and peered through 
a gap in the curtains. He watched Skinner cross to the 
courtyard to join Scully. Heads turned up to the sky. Low 
voices. 

He pulled the curtain closed and stood for a moment, head 
bowed. Then he returned to his bed, and fixed his weary 
eyes on the ceiling. Deep in his chest a heavy weight 
pressed on his heart.

  
       *                *                 *


"More coffee?"

Doggett looked up at the waitress. "Thanks," he said.

The woman topped off his cup and departed, and Doggett 
returned to his cheeseburger. Across the table, Scully 
picked at her salad. 

They had hardly spoken since they exchanged sharp words on 
a Montana hillside almost twelve hours ago. The day had 
started badly with Teresa Hoese's disappearance, and the 
introduction of Agent Reyes had only inflamed raw nerves. 
Scully's brittleness had taken on a new texture since this 
morning; it was now laced with an edgy moodiness. Doggett 
granted her every right to be tense -- they were in a 
hellish situation -- but her aloofness made him feel like 
they were back at square one, and it saddened him. He 
recalled the tableau outside his motel room the night 
before, and how childishly wounded he'd felt. 
Unconsciously, he shook his head in self-reproach. 

Scully saw the gesture and wondered at it, but the question 
she posed was along a different line. "Where's Agent Reyes 
tonight?" she asked.

"She went for a drive. Said she wanted to think."

Scully moved the lettuce around on her plate. "I talked to 
her this afternoon. She's an interesting woman."

His eyebrows arched. "You didn't seem to think so this 
morning. What changed your mind?"

"She knew about implants. She seemed to have a more open 
mind than I gave her credit for, and doesn't seem wedded to 
any particular theory." She paused a beat. "Unlike you."

He looked at her sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That UFO cult theory. You'd like to believe in that, 
wouldn't you?"

"The only thing I believe in is pursuing every lead to get 
at the truth."

Scully stabbed a tomato. "That's not a lead, it's a theory. 
And a pretty ridiculous one, too."

"The hell it is. Cults are real, and UFO cults are real, 
too. You know that as well as I do." He made an effort to 
control his voice.

"What I do know is that Mulder wasn't involved in any 
cult." Her blue eyes pinned him. "You'd like to believe 
that he was, but that's not the reality, Agent Doggett."  

"Look, maybe Agent Mulder wasn't part of any such cult. But 
maybe he and Teresa Hoese fell into the hands of people 
like that."

She looked at him in exasperation. "We talked about that 
yesterday. Do you seriously believe that *people* did that 
to Teresa Hoese?"

Doggett inhaled and exhaled, striving for patience. 
"Whoever, or *whatever*, did that to her, it was a man 
that Richie saw out in that field."

"Or someone who looked like a man."

"God almighty, not alien bounty hunters again!" He flung 
his hamburger onto his plate.  "Whoever Nike man was, Agent 
Scully, he's out there somewhere right now. He's our only 
lead. And Agent Reyes' UFO cult theory is the only working 
hypothesis we've got to go on. Alien mumbo-jumbo isn't 
gonna help us right now."

Scully felt her face get hot. She had let herself trust 
this man, and now he wanted to undermine that trust with 
some half-baked theory that was an insult to Mulder. "Well, 
believe what you want, Agent Doggett. I'm here to find 
leads on Mulder, not to concoct cult theories."

Doggett took several calming breaths. "We're both here for 
the same reason, Agent Scully," he said quietly.

Her eyes flashed at him. "Are we?"

He looked at her across a gulf, nonplussed. What the hell 
had gotten into her? The edginess he understood, 
considering what she was afraid of. He was afraid of it
too. But why attack him? 

"Aren't we?" he repeated.

Scully watched a muscle twitch in his jaw, his fingers 
tapping the table, the tense brightness of his eyes. 
Breathing. Heart beating. Alive. Inexplicably her anger 
redoubled. "You're here because it's your *job*, your 
assignment."

"Do you think that's all it is for me? A damn job?"

"When has it ever been anything else?" Her voice was hard, 
accusatory. 

"Since I met you," Doggett returned. "Since I came to know 
you."

She regarded him. "And knowing me has changed things."

He didn't answer her. He didn't need to.

Scully kept her eyes fastened on him. "Maybe it's changed 
things more than you think," she said in a low tone. "Maybe 
you no longer want to find Mulder that much." 

He sat back as though struck. "What the hell do you mean by 
that?" Heads in the restaurant turned in their direction at 
his raised voice.

With her straw Scully stirred the ice in her glass. A few 
days ago she had walked on a beach with this man. She had 
let him have feelings for her, had let him get too close. 
He couldn't see what it was doing to him. "I think your 
feelings may be interfering with your ability to look at 
*all* the evidence, and weigh *all* the theories. Not just 
your pet ones." 

Doggett's eyes grew wide, and he felt a vein throb in his 
temple. "Christ!"

Conversation at neighboring tables ceased, and across the 
room the waitress paused, pen in hand, in mid-order. 
Doggett glanced around, then pushed his chair back, dug out 
his wallet, threw some bills on the table. "Let's get outta 
here," he growled.

Scully's heart quickened. Under his fury she had seen the 
hurt, and her conscience was pricked. Doggett waited, 
watching her. At last she crumpled her napkin and rose, and 
followed his angry back as it threaded its way through the 
tables and curious stares.

As soon as they were outside, Doggett rounded on her. "I 
don't appreciate havin' my professionalism attacked!"

"I'm suggesting that you have mixed motives. That finding 
Mulder may not be in your best interests anymore."

He exploded. "That's *BULLSHIT*!" 

"Is it?" Her voice rose also. "Then why do you dismiss as 
'mumbo-jumbo' anything that doesn't fit into your narrow 
worldview? Why do you refuse to consider other 
possibilities? What *are* your motives here, Agent 
Doggett?"

He leaned into her, his face inches from hers. "I got only 
one motive here, Agent Scully, and that's to do whatever I 
can to help *you*! All I want to do is to find Mulder -- 
for *you*! Don't you get it?"

She had to exert an effort not to stagger backwards under 
the blast of his outburst. Her mind groped for a response 
while at the same time it was racing to process his words.

Doggett turned away from her and put his hands on his hips. 
He was breathing heavily. "Jesus!" he exclaimed, looking up 
at the night sky. Then he turned back to face her. "How 
could you think that I'd let any feelings I had for you -- 
which, by the way, right now I almost regret ever havin' -- 
interfere with finding Mulder? How could you believe that?"

Scully was stung by his regrets -- quite irrationally, she 
realized. She hugged herself against a cold that rose up 
from within. "I--" she began.

He didn't let her finish. "How could you think I'd want you 
to be unhappy? All I've ever wanted was to keep you from 
bein' hurt." 

Scully's throat swelled, and she looked away as her heart 
began a strenuous gallop in her chest. Dammit! She had it 
all backwards; thought his feelings were an obstruction 
when they were only an engine that powered his efforts on
her behalf. But why had she twisted it? What was 
obstructing *her* vision? 

They stood in silence for a long interval. Doggett watched 
her averted face, which was half-illuminated by a 
streetlight and half in shadow, straining in vain to 
understand her. When it became apparent she was not going 
to speak, he sighed, and shook his head in resignation. 
"You dislike me so much?" he asked.

Scully huffed slightly. "Don't be silly." She turned her 
gaze from the parking lot to him. To that flinty, honest 
face of the man she liked so very much.

And suddenly her folly was clear.

Scully let out a whispering "Oh!" and closed her eyes.

"What is it?" asked Doggett.

She took in a breath and looked at him. "The problem isn't 
your feelings. It's mine." 

Doggett was very still as Scully struggled visibly to pull 
her thoughts together. "Ever since we got the news about 
Teresa, I--" Her voice wavered as the doctor's words 
echoed and re-echoed in her mind. *Tissue damage in a 
linear pattern.* *Organ tissue in her abdomen scooped 
away.* Along with them came the terror of her nightmare. 
She swallowed with difficulty before continuing. "Since 
then, all I can think about is Mulder. He's all I have room 
for. And you--" She dropped her eyes, then raised them 
again, and they were moist. "I think you confused me."

Doggett blinked slowly. Of course. Why hadn't he seen it? 

"Guilt makes people do strange things," Scully went on. "I 
guess I had to invent reasons to push you away." She 
paused, and gulped oxygen. "Everything's such a mess," she 
observed, her voice cracking.

Doggett rubbed his hand through his hair. Shit! Her heart 
was breaking, and he had stood here hurling curses at her. 
The 8-year-old had careened through the porcelain valuables 
and done his damage.  

"Look," he said, "I've been an ass. We shouldn't be havin' 
this conversation. Not with what you're goin' through." He 
looked at her swimming eyes, and cursed his thick-
headedness. How he wished he could hold her! "We didn't 
mean anything we said. Let's just forget it."

Scully regarded him for another moment. "I can't forget 
that I hurt you."

He met her look, and said softly but firmly, "Forget about 
me." 

She only shook her head.


         *                 *                 *


Doggett would have gladly endured her hurts a thousand 
times over, rather than see her suffer like this.

He closed his eyes to blot out the vision at his feet, but 
was immediately assailed by a sensation of vertigo. So he 
opened them again, to look down upon Dana Scully huddled 
over a shrouded body, her hand, a pale smudge in the 
darkness, clutching at the rough wool. Her soft weeping, 
muffled by the blanket against which her face was pressed, 
traveled like lightning to the farthest reaches of 
Doggett's frayed nervous system.

He had been too late. Again. 

It had been a nightmare of a night. From the discovery of 
Gary Cory's body, to the autopsy from hell, to a man called 
Absalom and a camp full of abductees. 

And finally, this.

He had been afraid that it would end this way. But that 
didn't diminish the shock he'd felt when his flashlight 
beam had illuminated the scarred face of a dead Fox Mulder. 
Doggett didn't need to press his fingers against the cold 
neck to know that he would find no pulse. He was well 
acquainted with death.

God help me, he'd begged. Not this. Not again. Not another 
silent soul in a silent wood. Hang on, John. You can't 
throw up now. 

Scully's muted sobs brought him back to the present moment. 
Skinner shifted next to him. Doggett couldn't look at the 
other man, couldn't turn his head, couldn't move a muscle. 
He felt like his body was encased in irons. He sensed 
Monica's eyes on him from across the grim circle, knew she 
understood the double blow this tragedy held for him. But 
he wouldn't meet her eyes. He didn't want to see what was 
in them, or have her see the tears that threatened to spill
out of his own. 

Doggett thrust balled-up fists deep into his pockets and 
pressed his lips together tightly. Where the hell was the 
coroner? It seemed like hours since he'd phoned this in. 
That had been after Scully had wrenched herself from his 
arms and fled into the night. 

"He needs help!" she'd cried.

Jesus Christ almighty. Doggett thought he'd prepared 
himself to face a shattered Scully, but an irrational 
Scully was a world off its axis. His trembling fingers 
could hardly find the nine and one on his phone. 

When she returned some time later, gone was the raging she-
wolf frantic over her slain mate. In its place was a 
fragile woman moving slowly on Skinner's arm. Eyes red 
and bewildered. Face wet. Staggering blindly through the 
crowd to fall on her knees before the man under the 
blanket. "Oh, Mulder!" she whispered, stroking those 
brutalized cheeks, burying her face on the stilled chest. 

Now her cries were subsiding, replaced by exhausted gasps. 
Doggett wanted to reach out to her, to touch her, but his 
leaden body wouldn't move. He hunched his shoulders. He was 
mortally cold.

Above Scully's hitching breaths he heard a new sound: 
leaves crunching under feet.

Skinner crouched down next to Scully. "Dana, the coroner is 
here," he said softly.

Doggett's hand swiped the corner of his eye. He had failed 
her. Failed her irrevocably. 

He'd found her a corpse.


        *              *               *


Voices murmuring. A cart being wheeled across the floor. 
Hurrying footsteps. Scully lay on the emergency room 
stretcher and listened dully to the sounds beyond the 
curtain. People going about their work, about their lives. 
Why were they still doing that? 

Curtain rings sliding across a pole. She turned her head 
listlessly to look. The attending physician had pulled back 
the curtain slightly and was standing in the opening. 
"Agent Scully, you've checked out fine. You can go now."

He turned, and nodded to someone behind the curtain, and 
then he left. Into his space stepped John Doggett. 

"How you feeling, Agent Scully?" he asked hesitantly. 

Her head was turned in his direction, but her eyes were 
blank, lifeless. She had shut down; he recognized the 
numbness. He had never seen her look so ravaged: eyes 
rimmed with red, dark shadows underneath, colorless lips. 
The hurt he had wanted to protect her from, the pain, the 
horror, were writ in ugly letters on her face. 

Scully didn't answer his question. "Mulder. Where?" she 
asked him. 

"A.D. Skinner accompanied his body to the morgue. He's 
there with him now."

She stared past him, through him. Doggett felt like he 
didn't exist for her anymore. 

"They said. Passed out." 

A part of Doggett's mind registered that she couldn't form 
a complete sentence. He nodded. "Just as they were putting 
Agent Mulder into the wagon." He saw her again, pushing 
people away from the gurney, demanding a minute before they 
took him away. The men had parted for her, and she had 
leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Mulder's forehead. 

And then she'd dropped like a stone. Doggett and Skinner 
had barely caught her before she hit the ground. 

"Don't remember," the lifeless voice said.

"I'm not surprised." She had remained unconscious all the 
way to the hospital, cradled tenderly in Doggett's lap 
while Agent Reyes drove.

Scully was silent. Eyes seeing nothing. "If we hadn't..."

She trailed off, and Doggett waited expectantly. "Hadn't 
what?"

"The compound. Raided it." Her chest rose and fell as 
though she were straining at something. Returning her gaze 
to the ceiling, she covered her eyes with her hand.

Doggett shifted uncomfortably. If we hadn't raided the 
compound, what? 

Scully spiraled into an inky blackness of horror. Her hand 
over her eyes couldn't hide the abomination of what had 
happened, of what they'd *done*. 

*I was trying to help him.* Jeremiah Smith's words stabbed 
her over and over and over. 

The darkness swirled dizzyingly, and for a moment she 
thought she would be sick. But then it swirled away again, 
and the lifelessness, the numbness returned. "Mulder. In 
the morgue?" she asked.

Doggett swallowed. "That's right." 

The darkness behind her closed eyelids was suddenly 
illuminated by refrigerated rooms, steel drawers, toe tags, 
tables laid out neatly with sharp instruments. Oh, God! 
Scully dropped her hand and looked in Doggett's direction. 
Her eyes were wide. Horrified. 

He quickly stepped closer to her. "It's all right," he
reassured her. "Nobody's gonna touch him."

She seemed to focus on him a little. "You're sure?"

"Positive. They have orders."

The fear retreated from her eyes like an ebbing tide, and 
the dullness returned. "Want to go there now." 

Doggett frowned. "You need to rest, Agent Scully."

"Need to be with him."

She stared at a point on his chest, but she was looking 
through him at nothingness, at a future bereft of hope. 
Doggett had never felt so invisible. "Yes," he sighed, 
resigned. "You can go there now."

Scully pushed herself to a sitting position with 
difficulty. Doggett made a motion to assist her, but 
checked himself. She had not appreciated his touch lately. 

She swung her legs over the side and sat there for a 
moment, propping her weight on her arms, looking down. 

"Agent Scully." 

She raised her head apathetically. 

"Your shirt," he said softly.

She looked down at her blouse. It hung open over her chest, 
still unbuttoned from the ER team's ministrations. She 
hadn't even noticed. She began to fumble at the buttons, 
but for some reason her fingers couldn't remember what to 
do. The buttons would not go in the holes. Shame burned on
her cheeks. "Can't do it," she said, her voice harsh. 

Doggett blinked away something obscuring his vision. "Do 
you want me to help?" 

Scully looked through the Invisible Man, at the wall, and 
nodded.

He stepped up to her and gently buttoned the top button. He 
moved down the blue shirt, fastening it over her bra, his 
knuckles brushing her breast. His hands were shaking. For 
crying out loud, John, get a grip! Over her pale skin, to 
the last button, just over her stomach where the baby was 
growing. A baby who would never know its father. All the 
while she sat impassively. All the while his hands 
trembled.

When he finished, he saw Scully's dull gaze again pass 
through him. He felt himself as she must see him: 
transparent, insubstantial, useless. 

Suddenly, she grabbed him by the lapels. Doggett's heart 
began to pound erratically. What the hell?

But she only pulled him close and leaned her head against 
his chest. Her shoulders rose up and down as though  
breathing was an effort. To Doggett's relief, she didn't 
weep. He was hanging by a thread, and if she broke down, he 
was afraid he would go, too. His arms hung awkwardly at his 
sides, so he folded them around her and lowered his head 
till his chin rested lightly on her hair. With the contact 
his heartbeat began to return gradually to its normal 
rhythm.

After a long interval, she murmured into his shirt, "I'm 
afraid."

"I know," he said.

"Can't feel anything." 

His lips brushed her hair. "You will," he whispered with  
immense sadness. More than any human being should ever have 
to, he added silently. Doggett closed his eyes. Somewhere a 
monitor beeped steadily, someone coughed, but the sounds 
floated to him muffled, as though something was wrong with 
his hearing. 

Scully clamped her fingers around the fabric more tightly. 
She sensed, roiling somewhere beneath her, a pain so deep, 
so vast, that she would spend the rest of her life plumbing 
its reaches. At present she merely skated on its cold, hard 
surface, where only the simplest sensations pierced her 
consciousness. 

Wool, soft. Sternum, hard. 

Breathe, Dana. 

Sweat, pungent. Heartbeat, loud. 

A long time elapsed, during which Scully felt a measure of 
strength seeping into her. Finally, she unbent her aching 
fingers from Doggett's jacket. As he took a step back, she
looked at him at last: shoulders hunched, sallow 
complexion, cheeks darkened with stubble. A face furrowed 
with failure. She had never seen him look so bleak, so 
defeated, and something lurched inside her. 

"Ready?" Doggett asked softly.

Their eyes met and held, asked and answered, spoke silently 
of sorrow and regrets. "I think so," said Scully. 

She hesitated a moment, then held out her hand. Doggett's
moribund heart started awake, and instantly he clasped her 
hand firmly in his and steadied her as she stood. 

Scully shuddered with relief. In a dead world, his grip was 
strong and sure. A lifeline.


End