TITLE: Sucker Bet 
AUTHOR: Susanne Barringer
EMAIL: sbarringer@usa.net
ARCHIVE: Anywhere okay, but drop me a line when you get a 
chance.
CATEGORY: V
SPOILERS: Through Empedocles
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Post-ep for Empedocles. I imagine there's one thing to 
which Doggett had a hard time adjusting after Mulder's return.
DISCLAIMER: Characters borrowed from all the appropriate people.  
No infringement intended.

Thanks to Sue Schramm for saving Doggett from an unintentional 
eye injury, among other beta duties.

________


Sucker Bet
by Susanne Barringer


I hear them before I've even rounded the corner to their office.  
I've never fooled myself into thinking it's mine, not with those 
UFO pictures plastered all over the walls. The door is open and 
their voices carry loudly through the hallway.

"Scully, give it to me! It's mine!"

"Let go of me, Mulder, you're squishing me!"

"You're too big to squish."

I hear the sharp intake of breath on her part, the feigned 
offense.  "Oh, you are so dead!"

"I've already been dead, Scully. Remember, it didn't stick?"

She squeals suddenly, then laughs. "Get OFF me or I'll make it 
stick!"

I'm not in time to catch the action. When I enter, Agent Mulder 
is reaching out to touch Agent Scully's enlarged belly, and she 
is flushed and out of breath. I have no idea what I've walked 
into, but I have a feeling I should be glad I wasn't a minute 
earlier.

They seem to sense my presence at the same time, looking back 
toward me in surprise.

"Hi," says Agent Mulder, before dropping his hand from her 
stomach. "We were just..."

"Flipping a coin," finishes Agent Scully. She holds out her hand 
to reveal a shiny quarter. "It's heads," she adds, looking up 
toward Mulder with a grin of triumph and a look that could bring 
a man to his knees in devotion.

"Oh, yeah?"  Mulder slaps at her hand, sending the quarter flying 
in my direction. I duck as it sails over my head and plinks 
against the wall behind me.

"Ohhhh, sorry!" Scully looks sheepish as she stifles a laugh.

The one thing that has taken some getting used to since Mulder's 
return is how much Scully smiles. She is truly happy, and 
beautiful in that happiness. The return of the missing part of 
her has changed the person she is, the person whom I've known.  
It's like trying to get to know her all over again.

I have never scored a smile like that from her, not even close, 
and I wonder what it would take. Seven years of arguing over 
aliens and monsters? Coming back from the dead? I'm hoping for 
something simpler.

"It was not heads," Mulder objects, hands on his hips.

"Yes, it was.  You saw it yourself, you cheat."

Clearly, it makes absolutely no difference that I'm here. They 
stand and smile at each other while I wait uncomfortably.

"I just came to get some notes," I finally say, and they both 
turn toward me as if noticing for the first time that I'm 
standing here.

"Sure," says Mulder with a shrug, "it's your office." There 
isn't a bit of sarcasm behind his words, which I appreciate even 
if the statement isn't true. Instead, it's Scully who laughs. I 
still can't get used to it.

I make my way over to the desk and flip through the pile of files 
stacked there. I can't help but watch the two of them--the way 
they stand close, but not too close, the way they look at each 
other, but not too much. They're talking about something, but 
softly enough so I can only catch a word every now and then.  
It's intimate in the most couple-ish of ways, even though, from 
what I hear, it appears they're simply talking about where to go 
for lunch. Scully smiles about every thirty seconds on average.  
How does he do that?

Frankly, I'm jealous. It's not so much their romance, although I 
certainly miss the intimacy and companionship, but how amazingly 
their relationship has blossomed and strengthened from tragedy 
and death. My experience has been the opposite, and it's too 
late now for me to do anything but wish that it had turned out 
differently.

I have seen how loss destroys those who are left behind, how 
grief becomes anger, then solitude.  How depression comes from 
that, and then resentment, and then distance from all that you 
have known in your life.

I have seen how the loss of one results in the loss of everything, 
until trust is gone and the only one left who you love seeks out 
what she needs from someone else--someone who can never give her 
what she really needs, but who doesn't look at her with eyes that 
reflect what has been lost.

I have seen what evil of paranormal strength destroys, and I have 
seen what the most basic humanness can destroy. The former 
happens in one fell swoop, a stab to the heart that creates 
unbearable pain. The latter happens over time, slowly eating 
away at what is valued, piece by piece, until the ache builds up 
enough to overwhelm life. It is hard to tell which takes the 
longest to recover from.

I have seen all of that, so I know that what Mulder and Scully 
have defies all logic, defies everything I know about what comes 
from tragedy.  My son, my marriage, my entire life--I lost it all 
in a sucker bet on happily ever after.  I know nothing else, yet 
I see how they, together, have beaten the long odds every time.

Just a week ago, Mulder and I had a conversation outside Agent 
Scully's hospital room about evil.  Mulder theorized that it 
spreads like disease, perhaps even threatening those weakened by 
tragedy and loss, those whose immunity has been compromised by 
sorrow and grief.

I never said the one thing I was thinking, of which I have now 
seen proof.  If there is anyone who represents the opposite of 
that epidemic of evil, it is Agent Scully. I can't miss the 
history of good that passes through her, spreading out to others.  
I see everyday the thread of truth running through her, and I 
have seen the visions that her courage to believe has created.

As I watch her now, smiling at Mulder during their little tete-a-
tete, I see it in spades. Maybe she can help him; maybe she can 
bring him fully back to life.

Because I see something else, too, something in Mulder's eyes. A 
lost look, like he's not sure quite where he fits, like he 
doesn't feel comfortable in his new skin.  I imagine it's the 
look that comes from being dead for three months and finding that 
the world has moved on without you and you can't get it back.  
Would you forever feel three months behind, three months out of 
the loop?

She doesn't see it, or if she does she hides it behind those 
glorious smiles of hers. He doesn't let her see it, I think, 
covering it up with jokes about making up for lost time, when he 
knows they have lost much more than that.

We have all lost more than time, something we would willingly 
sacrifice to get back everything else. All the smiles in the 
world can't replace what they, and I, have spent a lifetime 
losing, but perhaps those smiles of hers can stop the disease, 
the infestation.

Is it impossible to believe that she simply willed Agent Mulder 
back to life? I've read enough X-Files to know that there are 
exceptions to everything, including death, and believing Scully 
wanted Mulder alive makes as much sense as any of the other 
possible explanations that have been dished up by her or A.D. 
Skinner.

I certainly understand that need, the devastating desperation of 
willing someone back to life, of wishing away a tragedy. If 
wishes were horses, I would be a world-class equestrian.

They finish their conversation and step apart. I immediately 
return to my files, realizing it's taken me far too long to look 
for a few notes.  

Scully approaches my desk. "Mulder and I are going to lunch. Do 
you want to come?"

I look past her to Agent Mulder, who gives a little shrug.  
Ladies' choice, apparently. I can't help but imagine the coin 
flip was about this, although that makes me seem paranoid.  
Heads, we invite Doggett. Tails, we leave him here alone where 
he belongs. Somehow I suspect the odds were never in my favor.  
It doesn't feel good to have become so trivial, although I'm not 
sure I was ever anything but.

"Uh, thanks, Agent Scully, but I need to review my notes from the 
Thompson case."

Mulder turns immediately toward the door, relieved no doubt, but 
Scully persists.

"Come on, Agent Doggett. You have to eat." And then she smiles.  
At me. Just like that.

I consider the options but decide that being a third wheel is not 
what I need today, smile or no smile. "I really do have to get 
this done."

"Fine, but next time for sure, okay?"

"Yeah, okay, next time."

She smiles again and I might as well have won the Kentucky Derby 
for as good as it feels.  No wonder Mulder came back from the 
dead.

"See ya later." She walks toward the door where Mulder is 
holding up her coat for her. She slides into it, then he 
straightens out her collar where it has folded under behind her 
neck. He pats her on the arm when he's done, and she shoots him 
a smile over her shoulder. It's so goddammed easy for him.

I stand in the doorway, listening to their banter as they round 
the corner and wait for the elevator.

"Mulder, it was heads and you know it. I pick, you pay."

"Not fair when you're eating for two. Nearly three, judging by 
breakfast."

"You try hauling around a small person and see how you do."

"Hey, I've been hauling you around for years and did you ever 
hear me complain?"

"Shut up, Mulder."  

It's a fair bet she smiles as she says it.


~~~~~~~~~~

END


A little practice Doggett before I do a bigger Doggett story.  
Let me know how it went. sbarringer@usa.net

All my fic can be found at http://www.oocities.org/s_barringer