Title: Beauty of the Rose
Author: FirePhile
Keywords: Doggett, Scully, D/S UST
Spoilers: Daemonicus
Summary: Sometimes, you don't need water to feel seasick.
Category: VA
Rating: PG-13
Distribution: Anywhere.
Disclaimer: They belong to 1013, CC&Co, FOX...the usual
suspects, not me.

More notes at end.
 

"Do me a favor, when I reach my hand out
Would you please just cut it off
So I can understand a little more of the situation."
-"Beauty of the Rose"
The Gits

"You want her, but...she feels sorry for you," Doggett heard in his
mind over and over, an unending thread of conciousness.

In a few words, a psychopath got to him, struck him where
years of criminals, girlfriends, a wife, and
authority had failed.

In that moment, he could have ripped the guy's throat out and gone for
a celebatory drink.

As it turns out, that might have saved everyone some
trouble.

A drink was a great idea anyway, which was why he sat in some
nondescript Virginia bar and tried to wish the world away. He was only
on his first beer, but he already felt sick in some indescribable way.

Damn it, that bastard could be out there murdering people and all he
could do was sit and nurse a watery, too expensive, beer that
tasted like crap anyway. Not to mention that he himself had
killed an innocent man. He'd been trying to forget that, ever
since they got the phone call from the police.

"We found the guy...but it's not him.. " the woman on the other end had
said, her voice quietly upbraiding him.

Worse, he had almost gotten Dana killed, if he'd misread the rules, if
the end game had changed just a bit...Fuck it. The first thing he
learned on the beat as a NYC cop was that recrimination solved nothing
and blaming yourself for honest mistakes only caused sleepless nights.

Still, there was so much he didn't understand, and that lack of
knowledge only seemed to get people killed. He'd feared becoming
like Monica, believing everything with that wide eyed look of hers,
because she was as much to blame for what
happened as he was...because neither could have stopped it, really.
No, there was probably only one person who could have actually figured
out the end game before it happened...as Kolbold had said...but maybe
not. If he remembered his history correctly, the long lost Agent
Mulder would have swallowed Kolbold's story hook line and sinker.
There was only one person alive who understood how he felt right now,
who could help.

Want her? Kolbold couldn't know how he felt. It was more than lust,
or desire. It was respect, admiration, and the need to hold her -- the
need to have the right to hold her and make her laugh, or just the
ability to keep her safe, bring a smile to her oh so serious eyes. He
wanted to stop her tears and replace them with giggles, or maybe
sighs...

Hell this was a dangerous path, very dangerous path.
He walked out of the bar, went to his truck, and
before he could actually rationalize or consider what he was doing, he
was driving towards her place. It was 11PM on a Saturday, late but
not so late, and besides, he knew she didn't sleep. He remembered lots
of sleepless nights when Luke was first born. He could almost think
of his poor son without the bad memories overtaking the good. Almost.

The tricky part was how to knock on the door. The doorbell would wake
the child, a knock might scare him, he almost wished that he could
psychically transmit his presence to her. Damn, he was hanging around
Monica too much. As it turned out, a light knock was enough. The
security downstairs wasn't exactly lax, but, someone else was going in
at the same time and they sort of recognized him. He wasn't sure why
that made him smile.

Scully opened the door wearing cotton pj's and a
bedraggled off-white robe. Her eyes were watery, her nose slightly
red, her face pale and she carried a box of tissues.

"Agent Doggett?" Her normally soft but strong voice was slightly
higher and more nasal than usual.

"I know it's late, did I wake...?"

"No, he's at my mom's. I have a cold." She sneezed
and grabbed a tissue.

"Bless you, it wasn't very important..." It seemed that
she spent more time with dead bodies than her son and although it
wasn't his business, he couldn't help but wonder if she knew that she
was missing time she'd regret later. He almost turned away, berating
himself for the weakness that only she could cause.

"No, no... that's okay..." She moved aside, and
invited him in with a small smile. He wasn't expecting her to be like
this. She was different than the woman who watched him write on the
board. She looked hollow. The happiness and homelike atmosphere he
expected to feel when he stepped inside her apartment wasn't there.
Instead, he felt claustrophic.

As he looked around, he noticed the fish tank near her door, and the
lost look in her expression, the diaper bag, the notes on the
refrigerator, and the baby bottle on her table.

"How long have you been sick?"

"Since last night...I forgot how easy it was to catch things at
Quantico." She sat down on the far end of the couch.

He sat down, already forgetting why he came
over. But he found himself staring into her eyes for a moment,
getting lost in their blueness like the ocean...like the ocean under
the Staten Island ferry that Luke used to love to ride....

Scully sniffled miserably and he almost asked if she
wanted tea, or a blanket, or a massage. The need to take care of her,
which he never entirely stopped wanting to do, was almost
overpowering. He forced himself to look away, at the fish tank, and
the diaper bag, the crowded table, and the empty bassinet.

"How are the fish doing?" Not the question on his
mind, but the one that somehow came out.

"Oh, they're fine..." she had this vague faraway look and she sneezed
again and again.

"Bless you." Automatic after all this time, all that time of telling
Luke to say bless you and please and thank you and those
messages made their way into Doggett's
subconcious. Sometimes he found himself hearing children talk and
had to resist the urge to tell them to mind their manners. "Mind your
manners," as his mom always said...he wondered if Dana would ever
begin giving William those lessons.

He couldn't talk about her baby, any questions about him seemed to
shut her off. He didn't want to see her struggling not to cry
anymore....

"I hate being sick." She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

"I usually carry around Nyquil in my coat pocket."

She opened her eyes and laughed slightly and began to
cough. After a few moments she straightened up and looked over at
him. "Was there something you needed?" she said, as if she'd
forgotten to wonder or think about it before.

He saw her wide eyes and expectant expression, the
box of tissues, and the small plastic bag at her feet and smiled
slightly. Truthfully, he didn't really have a reason for being there.
All he knew was she was in no shape for anything deeper than light
conversation.
But then again, she never really was open for anything else.

"Nothing that can't wait 'til Monday," he said.

"How are you doing?" she asked. He was surprised,
but he knew she asked more out of politeness than anything else. And
he suspected that what she really wanted to know was how the X-Files
were doing. But maybe there was a genuine interest in how he felt...
And for a moment he wanted to tell her, but with all the problems she
had, he couldn't burden her. He never wanted to share his problems,
only wanted to help her...

Still, he had to say something. "Feeling frustrated."

She sneezed.

"Bless you."

"Thank you," a moment of silence, her fingers played with a string
from her robe. "Don't worry. It only gets worse." She looked down at
her fingers. " I used to think that believing would be easy...it's
not." It was the closest thing to an actual feeling he'd heard from
her in weeks.

Then, she fell back into "wise old sage" mode. He'd started seeing
her that way lately. She would hand out advice, give opinions, act as
an almost "mentor" to him but he didn't want to be her
student...didn't need a teacher, not really. It was as if the part of
her he wanted to know was cordoned off with police tape. What he got
was the professor. He wanted the woman.

"There are times to follow science and there are times that you have
to look beyond it. But, John, never accept
anything because you fear the alternative." She looked right at him,
and he saw concern in her expression, and thought for not the first
time that maybe there was something else she wanted to say, but
couldn't.

"That's good advice." He said because she seemed to be waiting for a
response.

"Well, I am a teacher." She smiled slightly, but that lost look was
back.

All the questions floated to the surface, things he was afraid to ask
because of possible answers and her reaction.

He still remembered her throwing him out of her apartment because he
accidentally crossed a line he couldn't even see. At the same time,
he couldn't help but notice how thin she was getting and while most
mothers couldn't shut up about their child...she never talked about
him unless directly questioned.

The swirling thoughts came out as a few simple words. But she did ask
first. He wondered why he devoted more
time to thinking about her than anything else in his life.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine." Well, that was a lie, and there was a fun way to spend a
few minutes John, self torture can be fun. If he was smart, he would
avoid her, he could now. She wasn't officially in the field and Monica
would love to sit at her feet and catch the scraps of knowledge she
 threw out.   No, that wasn't fair, and he could no more avoid seeing
her than he could stop the need to protect her. He looked down
and noticed the papers scattered over the floor.

"What were you doing before?"

"Oh, looking over information for Monday." She
sneezed again and sighed. That was probably a lie too, but this kind
of conversation was par for the course.

"Well, I should let you get back to your work." Because suddenly he
couldn't quite breathe and she looked so fragile, and talking with her
lately was the best example of a snake eating its own tail.

She stood and walked him to the door. "I'm always here if you need
anything," she mumbled, looking away from him, as if she revealed too
much.

He nodded, unable to think of a good reply and she sort of smiled,
although you'd have to know her to recognize it.

She stood near him but she was miles away
and he wanted to pull her into his arms but he didn't want a
perfunctory hug and her heart wasn't free. It wasn't chained either,
it was just...blocked off with that damn tape.

He looked at her, and touched her shoulder slightly, comfortingly,
feeling the stiff cotton that at one point was a new robe.

"Feel better."

She blinked quickly and looked at him, really looked at him, not
through him.

"Drive carefully."

After she closed the door and he heard her pad away to destinations
unknown inside her apartment he walked
downstairs and sat in his truck for a few minutes.

He was in over his head and the ground under his feet was as unsteady
as a docking ferry.

END

Author's notes: My first attempt at an actual Doggett loves Scully
story. I want to thank my beta readers and the people who have
supported me while writing :) Comments? Feedback? Ideas? Send them
here: FirePhile@aol.com