TITLE: Trying To Do the Damned Job
AUTHOR: nikki, 2/01
ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Xemplary, yes. Others, please contact me-I
like to come visit.
RATING: PG
KEYWORDS: Doggett, Kersh, Scully, Mulder, Skinner
SPOILERS: Within
DISCLAIMER: They're still not mine. But if they were, I'd treat them
better.
THANKS: Heaping thanks to Snark, CindyET, Gerry, SEP and Suzi.
SUMMARY: It's blasphemous, I know, but give it a chance...What if
we're not the only ones who think the search for Mulder has been
bogus?
FEEDBACK: nikoleaw@aol.com
Come visit me at http://www.oocities.org/the_xproject


"You requested to see me, Agent?" Although he didn't look up from
the document he was signing, the Deputy Director's tone was
courteous, if not exactly welcoming.

Agent Doggett squinted against the glare of the sun reflecting off
the highly polished surface of Kersh's cherry wood desk. For a
fleeting moment, he wondered if Kersh readjusted the angle of his
blinds throughout the day to ensure that anyone unlucky enough to
find themselves on the other side of his desk had to contend with the
glare of both Kersh and the sun. Ordinarily, he would have dismissed
the thought as nothing more than baseless paranoia, a little bit of
Agent Scully and the X-Files rubbing off on him, but considering why
he was here right now, he wasn't so certain.

Returning his mind to the task at hand, Doggett answered, "Yes, I
did."

Doggett had considered numerous approaches to the issue and had
finally decided that his normal straightforward method was the best
route to follow.

Sitting down, Doggett cocked his head slightly and continued. "I'm
hoping you can tell me what the hell I'm supposed to be doing."

Kersh raised his head slightly at the statement. His voice held no
amusement as he replied, "If you haven't learned how to do your job
after six years..."

Doggett shook his head slightly as he cut Kersh off. "That's not
what I'm talking about and you know it."

Clasping his hands together on top of a small pile of papers on his
desk, Kersh leaned forward and impatiently answered, "No. I don't
know. Enlighten me."

Leaning back in his chair, Doggett studied Kersh carefully before he
spoke. Other than the limited information available in the Bureau's
databases, Doggett knew very little about him. A few brief exchanges
defined the extent of their interactions. Doggett did know that
Kersh, like him, had discovered and honed his instincts and wits
first to survive in a war-torn land far from home, and then to thrive
in the often treacherous environment of law enforcement. Sitting
before him now, Doggett found himself wondering which one of them
would prove to have the better instincts when all was said and done.

"I'm talking about the task force that was created to look for Agent
Mulder. The task force I was supposed to be heading up?"

"What about it?"

Doggett hunched forward in his seat and began speaking as if he was
sharing state secrets with a co-conspirator. "Well I don't know
about you, but I'm wondering what happened to it? We investigated
for a week, then I was reassigned to the X-Files. Now, at first,
that seemed to make sense. I mean, that was Agent Mulder's
department, and working there ensured that I'd have unrestricted
access to Agent Scully, the person who supposedly knew Mulder better
than anybody else. But Agent Scully wasn't on the task force.
So she kept getting new cases assigned. And since I'm supposed to be
her new partner on the X-Files, it's my responsibility to help her
investigate these new cases. Which means that the task force
suddenly has no leader. Now, I know all the other agents on the task
force, and I know they're all good agents, folks who hate leaving a
case unsolved. So even though I'm not there to hold meetings with
them every day, I figure, they'll keep following up leads, and when
they find something, they'll let me know. But then a week goes by,
two weeks, I don't hear anything from any of them. I did some
checking around and guess what I found out? They all got reassigned
on the same day that I did. Which means that no one's been out there
trying to find out what happened to Agent Mulder."

Doggett returned to his earlier, more relaxed position as he
finished. "Now I don't know about you, but I know that if it were me
that was out there missing, maybe hurt somewhere, I'd certainly hope
the Bureau would be making more of an effort to find me. In fact,
I'd expect it."

Kersh's dark eyes were unreadable behind his glasses as he replied,
"Well then I guess you should be grateful that you're not the one
who's missing."

"Goddammit, this is a man's life we're talking about here! And like
him or not, he was one of us. We owe him better than this."

It was Kersh's turn to sit back in his plush leather chair. "What is
this really all about, John? You're concerned about how your failure
to locate Agent Mulder is going to look on your record?"

Doggett blinked rapidly in offended surprise. "What I'm concerned
about, is why everyone suddenly decided to start pretending that
Agent Mulder never existed. Hell, even Agent Scully can hardly stand
to say or hear his name. But at least I can understand her
behavior. It's you and everybody else that's got me confused. You've
all turned him into the biggest damned pink elephant I've ever seen.
And actually, yes, I am concerned about how not finding Agent Mulder
is going to look on my record. What happened to 'Just do the damn
job'?"

"You did the job. And I've said as much in your file. That's why
you got a new assignment. As for Agent Scully, perhaps she's hoping
to put her unfortunate past behind her and revive her career. It's
not a bad choice to make. But you know that already."

The wave of guilt that washed over Doggett. Thankfully, over the
years, he'd learned how to deal with it. Kersh was right in his
implication that he, more than anyone, understood what it took to
bury the memory of a lost loved one and focus on a stagnant career.
It had taken him four years to be able to bear hearing his son's
name. Another two before he could safely carry his photo in his
wallet without fear of breaking down when he saw it. His
primary concern for Agent Scully was less that she was focusing on
unrelated cases in the hopes of salvaging her career, and more that
she was trying to torpedo it by trying to become more like Agent
Mulder. But even that wasn't at the heart of why Doggett had come to
this office today.

Doggett wasn't certain if the smirk he'd thought he saw on Kersh's
face was real or imagined. He found it didn't matter. His eyes
narrowed and his voice lowered in understated menace as he answered,
"This is different. We are talking about a federal agent who
disappeared while on duty..."

"Agent Mulder disappeared while out on one of his countless wild
alien chases..."

Standing up, Doggett placed his hands on Kersh's desk and leaned
forward. "I don't care if he disappeared while he was getting a lap
dance! The point is that he's missing and my job was supposed to be
to find him, but you and everybody else seems to be doing their
damnedest to make sure that I can't. And I want to know why."

Kersh's mouth formed a thin, angry line before he responded. "If
you're having a problem with your case load, or the resources
allocated to you, I suggest you take that up directly with your
division supervisor. Or maybe I should start looking for someone
else better suited for your job?"

Doggett stood back, forcing himself to soften his tone and relax his
posture. "I've already talked to Assistant Director Skinner. He
said that it was out of his hands. That I should talk to you. And I
agreed."

Kersh gave a small nod. "Agent Doggett, I appreciate your
frustration at your inability to solve this case outright. But you
uncovered more evidence in just a few days than..."

"Evidence? Everything I found pointed in some other direction. It
all pointed out the need for continued investigation..."

Kersh went on in a tone that clearly implied that he would not
tolerate being interrupted again. "As I said, you uncovered a great
deal of evidence that clearly indicated that Agent Mulder's
disappearance was not all that it first appeared to be. With an
undisclosed terminal illness and his obvious preparations for his own
death, the most likely scenario was clear."

Both Doggett's voice and statement conveyed his confusion. "But
what about Assistant Director Skinner's testimony? And what I saw in
the desert--the man who may or may not have been Agent Mulder? The
woman who looked like Agent Scully but wasn't? That little boy,
Gibson Praise?"

"Those leads are being followed up by the appropriate parties."

"What appropriate parties? I asked you once before if there were
other people I didn't know about working this case and..."

Kersh selected a pen from the brass holder on his desk and looked
down as he resumed skimming a document on his desk. "Agent Doggett,
if you have no other matters to bring to my attention, I have work to
do. As do you."

Doggett sat in a furious and stunned silence. Unbidden, Skinner's
warning in the cool Arizona desert night came back to him. "You're
being made a pawn in a rigged game...You've been set up to
fail...Kersh will ruin you. I'm betting that was his plan." Until
this moment, Doggett while not forgetting it, had chosen not to
accept it. But now, as he did a quick mental review of the
answers Kersh hadn't given him, Doggett found himself reconsidering
Skinner's words.

Doggett nodded slowly before responding, "Yeah. I do." Then, he
turned to leave.

He'd begun to open the door to let himself out of the office when he
heard Kersh speaking to him. "Agent Doggett, you don't know the
assignments of every agent in Bureau. Just because no one in your
network of associates is active in the investigation of Agent
Mulder's whereabouts doesn't mean there's no one on the case."

Something in Kersh's tone sounded suspiciously like a warning, and
Doggett thought it best not to turn back around as he nodded and
quietly answered, "I'll keep that in mind, sir."

Once outside the office, Doggett stopped and ran his hand through his
hair as he tried to figure out what had just happened. He still
didn't know why his task force had been disbanded and he'd suddenly
been reassigned to the X-Files and he still didn't know who, if
anyone, was conducting the search for Mulder. Kersh's responses had
left him with more questions than answers. But they'd also renewed
his determination to uncover the truth-he'd promised as much to Agent
Scully, and he owed it to himself, and more importantly, to Mulder.

Inside, Kersh picked up his phone and dialed. Skipping any reetings,
he simply said, "He told me to call if there were any problems.
There are."

The End

Sending feedback is easier than trying to understand the motivations
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