Authors: Anne Hedonia and spookycc

Rating: spooky: my part is G :-) Anne: mine is, surprisingly, only PG-13.

Summary: Scully learns something of Doggett’s past. And Doggett learns something of Scully.

Classification: V A, DSR

Spoilers: For S8 so far.

Disclaimer: spooky: No characters, human or canine, are ours. (Anne: no matter how much
we’d really, really like them to be, in real life.)

Feedback welcomed at spookycc@earthlink.net / ahedonia@yahoo.com

Dedication: spookycc: As ever, to Doggett's Bitch (f/k/a "Fox’s Vixen" :). My soulmate, always.
And for girlassassin, you know why. :) Special thanks to Anne for letting me bask in her limelight.
And SHODDSsisters, you all rock!

Anne: To spooky, for coming up with this idea and suggesting it to me, and letting me be associated
with the OD (Original Dipper <g>), and to the SHODDS bunch, for existing. :)
 
 

***

Semper Fi

We lost an agent today, a good agent. A hostage situation gone bad. We got the hostages out, but
sacrificed one of our own to do it. Even so, we were lucky. The men holding the hostages were loose
cannons, all of them. Hours of negotiation and two canisters of teargas later, we got the hostages out alive.

We all enter the Bureau knowing that this might happen, but somehow it’s easy to reassure ourselves
with the false confidence that it’s always someone else who takes the fall.

It was someone else, today. But it was almost Doggett. I shudder a bit, involuntarily.

"You okay?" His voice breaks into my contemplative mood. I’d almost forgotten how quickly he
picks up on every move I make – what it might mean, whether something is the matter.

"Yeah – I’m fine. It’s just that – well, that was a scare today." He nods, his worry thus eased, and
turns once more within himself.

I feel badly for the man who was killed in the line of duty. I feel for the man’s family. I know the pain
of losing someone. I know it too well.

I try to jar Doggett back to the here and now. "How about you? Are you alright?" I wonder if his
introspection is seated more deeply than just sadness at the loss of a colleague.

His eyes brush briefly over the bandage on his arm, and he dismisses it with a shake of his head.
"I’m fine. It’s nothin’." It is so like John Doggett to ignore his own problems and worry about someone else’s.

There is silence for a few moments. I say his name twice, and he finally looks up.

He looks at me. He looks through me. His mind is not here, I know. I want to help, and I wish he’d let me.
He lowers his gaze for a long moment. And I take that moment to lay a hand gently on his uninjured arm. "What is it?"

He is silent for too long. When he does speak, his voice is subdued, somber. "It’s my fault."

"What’s your fault?"

He heaves a huge sigh. "Adams. Today."

"You know that’s not true." How can he even entertain that thought? If it weren’t for Doggett’s
actions, we would have lost more than one agent today.

Of course, he doesn’t see that. All he sees is that he should have been able to save Adams. Somehow.

"It is true!" he barks too sharply, and I back off, just a bit. Troubled territory. He senses my
discomfort and his tone is immediately softer. "I’m sorry. It’s just that - I blew it back there, just like-"

A pregnant pause. "Just like *what*?"

He just shakes his head, and lowers his eyes again. "Hey," I keep my voice low. "I want to help."

He raises his head only very slowly, as if it takes enormous will to do so. I place a hand softly
against his cheek; turn his chiseled face to look directly at me. "Please… Tell me."

He nods. And I learn the story – pulled from him bit by bit – of a tragedy that occurred when he
was a Marine.

"I met Robinson at the USMC Amphibious Warfare School at Quantico. We were gonna serve
a couple hitches, and then maybe go into the Bureau together. He was a Staff Sergeant, I was just
a Sergeant. Ended up he was my C.O. in Lebanon."

"We were at HQ. Just routine, helpin’ the U.N. task force. ‘Til some kamikaze terrorist decided it
would be a great public forum for a… a display of rebellion."

I have to prod him gently to continue. And what he states next comes out as bluntly as though he’s
narrating it by heart from a newspaper clipping. "On October 23, 1983, a lone terrorist destroyed
the HQ building in Beirut. We lost 241 Marines and sailors. Over 100 more were wounded."
I suddenly realize this must be his way of distancing himself from the event.

"You were one of those," I guess I’m not really asking.

He nods, and falls silent again.

"What else?"

He throws me a look I’m not sure how to read.

"Long story short? I made it. Robinson didn’t." Years ago, yet the pain is still fresh on his face.
"I got a freakin’ Multinational Force and Observers Medal and a medical discharge. Robinson
came home in a box, along with a lot of others."

He tries to pull away, but I don’t let him put distance between us. This noble man has known so much
loss, so much sorrow. Yet he dismissed it without apparent thought and took on my crusade to find
Mulder. Made it his own…

And, in his own mind, he failed there, as well, when he and Skinner found Mulder dead. I can’t see
how he could consider any of these as personal failures, least of all the tragedy in Lebanon.

"John." He is pulling further within himself. I need to draw him out, to let him share his pain, his guilt,
so he can be rid of it. At least some of it…

He sits slumped, shoulders hunched over, and I realize he is crying. Softly. He doesn’t want me to see.
He wants to spare *me* of *his* pain. As he's always done. I move closer, and wrap an arm around
him. I would never have guessed that this outwardly strong man had so much grief inside him. It begs
for release.

"You need to let it go," I rub a hand across his back, feeling his hard muscles play beneath my fingers.
"It’ll help. Let it go."

He sighs, a huge wracking sob caught before it can escape. "He was the best friend I’d ever had.
Sure we were young, cocky even." He nods. "But we were close. Really close. I never thought I’d
lose him so quickly."

"Go on..." I encourage him.

"I was working security that day. *That* day."

I pause for a moment. "Surely one man isn’t responsible for the entire base security." He shakes his
head – there were others involved, but he takes the blame on himself.

This complex man I once thought simple. Layer after layer is revealed to me, here, tonight.
But I sense there is something more.

"What else?"

Silence that stretches too long before he answers.

"I failed him then. And I failed him again, years later."

"How could that be? John?"

"Staff Sergeant Robinson. His name was ‘Luke’." His voice catches within his throat.

"Oh, God." My breath catches in my throat. Mulder told me of Doggett’s son. Was Robinson
the man from whom Luke John Doggett took his first name?

Doggett turns to face me, hearing my slight gasp. I nod slowly. "I know about Luke."

He levels me with a questioning gaze.

"I read Luke's file. When Mulder was helping you and Agent Reyes look into the Jeb Dukes case."

Doggett nods in acknowledgement, no doubt glad he doesn’t have to explain the significance to me.
Then he rests his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands…

Footsteps sound in another corridor. Soon a nurse pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair rounds
the corner, the two of them joking softly as they go by. I feel John tense, watch his shoulders rise
and fall as he sucks in a steadying breath, blows it out quietly. I watch what was so close to the surface
a minute ago get shoved down toward where it’s been, for so long. He doesn’t move again, even after
the pair have passed.

I suddenly realize that this hospital corridor is too public – even if he does trust me, he’s far too
proud to let any show of emotion happen here. I let my hand slip up his back, then gently pull
his head closer and whisper. "Let’s get out of here."

He nods, rises to let himself be led. I take a chance and carefully grasp his hand. I find he not only
lets me, but after a moment, repositions our fingers so that they intertwine. I warm at the contact and
glance at him, wondering if I really do see goose bumps on his neck, near where I was whispering.

I guide him along the labyrinth of halls and nurse’s stations, not completely sure what my plan is - I figure
something will occur to me. The hall we’re in merges with another, widening into a waiting area. The
couches are mostly empty, except for one long one, which is packed with a group of family members.
The people there hold onto one another, listening to a doctor’s news with rapt disbelief. The doctor speaks
softly, his haunted eyes filling in the words I can’t hear. The mother of the group wails out loud, and the
other family members pile tighter onto her, trying to absorb her grief.

The hand I hold suddenly clenches mine like a vise. I look to Doggett’s face and his eyes are squeezed
shut, fighting to stem the flow of emotion before it engulfs him, before he breaks his own iron code and
shames himself in front of strangers. I look around quickly, and see an exit that apparently leads to a small,
sheltered garden space. A "reflection area", the sign says. Perfect. A few steps and we’ve disappeared
through the door.

Doggett breaks out ahead of me, into the cool, quiet, dappled shade, and stands with a hand covering his face.

His shoulders tremble, quaking for release. He’s still not willing. I want so much to see him heal, and hate
watching him do the same things to himself that I used to do, years ago. Bottling it all up, reaching for no
one, waiting until the pain became too big for *anyone* to contain before I showed it, and only then
because I had no choice.

I know that many lessons can’t be taught, that each person has to find his own way to the truth,
but I can’t stop myself from urging him forward. I walk quietly to his side and, after a moment,
rest my head on his shoulder, my hand slipping down to grasp his. "If there’s one thing my life has
taught me," I whisper, "it’s that sometimes, real courage is allowing yourself to be vulnerable."

It breaks from him in sobs that build quickly, jerky and choking, too much emotion trying to come
through one body. His face clamps shut with the shame of letting go, but even so I can feel his relief.
He turns impulsively and embraces me, and I him. He holds onto me hard, though my heart breaks a
little to realize he’s still obviously mindful of the difference in our sizes, still seeming to protect, to enclose
me, wrap around me. I rub his back and whisper soft encouragement as together we let his pain and
grief be carried away by the quiet breeze.

After a few moments, he’s quieted, sobs softened into a crying that he can manage. "Too much," he
sighs, over and over. "Too much..."

"Too much what?" I ask gently.

He sniffs loudly next to my ear, pauses to collect what he can. "Too much loss, and...all at my hands."
His voice is breaking again into a ragged whisper. "When will it ever stop? When will I ever stop
failin’ people? When will I ever get it right?"

I’m horrified to hear these are his beliefs – the man who’s given me my life back over and over in
the space of a just few months thinks he’s done nothing but fail? – but I know how the mind works,
and that a simple stating of my opinion won’t change how he feels. I tell him the truth. "When you let go.
When you stop telling yourself you’re to blame."

I feel him breathe, as he ponders this. When he speaks his low voice is uncertain and vulnerable.
"I dunno if I can."

My heart swells. I can hear him opening just a bit to the ‘extreme possibility’ of ending his personal
war. It’s enough. I pull back to see his face, and try with everything I have to burn my belief into him.

"You can do anything, John," I say sincerely.

I stare into his teary eyes, and see them beginning to lighten with the faintest of uncertain smiles. He
seems in silent awe of my kindness, of my giving to someone such as him, and not judging him for
needing it. For accepting his weakness – for loving it, when he does not.

My own realization hits me, and I gulp in quiet shock. I do love all of his sides, I realize. And I don’t care
what they look like, and would even vow to embrace those I haven’t yet seen.

A neglected tear leaks down onto his cheek. Without thinking, I slip a hand straight into his inside coat
pocket and pull out a handkerchief, one that the months together have taught me that he carries. I gently
wipe his face...then look up to meet his eyes as something dawns in them. The familiarity of my move has
warmed them, and made them spill over with an entirely different emotion.

He squeezes his eyes closed as though trying to stop himself from proceeding... and then opens them,
their clear blue decisive. He lets it all go, visibly, and I feel goose bumps rise all over me. He leans quickly
to claim my mouth with his, pulling my body close, reaching up to cradle my head reverently with his hands.
I can feel him offering up every bit of his soul, flooding me with it, wanting nothing more than to meld with me.

I am overwhelmed. I asked for him to let his feelings out, and now he has, in a way I never expected.
My pulse is racing and I am trembling with a thought I cannot justify, but which is nonetheless overriding
every other – please, I plead with him silently...please...don’t...*ever*...stop.

I must not be clairvoyant, because a moment later he pulls back silently, leaving me bereft. He’s looking
down and away, eyes squeezed shut again, the shame back in his features. "So sorry," he murmurs.
"Please, I didn’t mean... forgive me."

I bring his face back gently with both hands, my own head swimming. "No," I gasp. "No, John..." I have
no idea what to say. I look into his tortured face and blurt the first thing that I feel. "Come home with me."

He looks confused, then embarrassed, misunderstanding. "The way I’m actin’, you wanna keep an eye
on me," he guesses quietly.

I shake my head emphatically, willing him to understand what I am too shell-shocked with my own
discovery to express. <I want to keep a lot more than my eyes on you>, I think. What I say is "No,
I need you...near."

His eyes widen in surprise, and search mine, darkening a bit as it dawns. "You’re not the only one who
needs a shoulder sometimes..." I say, looking down in sudden self-consciousness. I raise my face again
and when I open my mouth, my voice is husky. "Don’t leave me with just this...little taste of you."

His eyes storm instantly with emotion, with grateful redemption and raw need. I welcome the feel of
his body and mouth as I am pulled against him again. I sink into his urgent ministrations and reel with
blissful astonishment.

He slows after a moment, his kisses becoming sweeter and softer, then pulls away so that his face still
hovers near mine, nuzzling me contentedly. He sighs. We take a well-needed moment to catch up with ourselves.

"You’re not followin’ your own advice, y’know." I open my eyes to see the smile his voice hinted
was there. I smile back, quizzically. He brushes his fingers through the hair at my temples, looking quietly
awed, like he just realized such a gesture was allowed.

"You told me to stop thinking that savin’ people was my responsibility, but yet here you are, spending all
this time today...savin’ me." His eyes have welled again, and this time he doesn’t shrink from it. His true
self is on display, and I am receiving my own private viewing. I warm with awe at the privilege.

"Maybe I did," I say, with fake nonchalance. "But I figure, when we get to my house, you can pay me back."

I feel a surge of very masculine hunger flare off of him. My knees weaken. "Oh, that I can do," he growls
softly. "In fact, I may like payin’ you back so much that I won’t wanna stop. I’ll have to go get in trouble again."

My insides quiver at what we are negotiating, and I pull myself closer. "If you do, I’m here."

His face grows soft with gratitude and revelation. "I know."

***

end