Title: Marines and Cops
Author: JS Michel
E-mail: jsm25@hotmail.com
Classification: Scully/Doggett friendship. MSR. Mulder-lite.
Spoilers: Season 8.  Takes place between "Alone" and "Essence"
Rating: PG-13 for language
Archive: Sure, just let me know and include this header.
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em.
Feedback: Yes please.
Summary: "...anybody who fit such a perfect Bureau mold couldn't
possibly understand the X-Files."

--

She pressed the doorbell a second time but didn't wait, retreating
down the steps instead.   Away from the picket fence and around
back, ducking the rainbow spray of the lawn sprinkler under the
sweltering noonday sun.

"Agent Doggett."

He looked up, startled, from the sloped roof of the tool shed,
hammer mid-swing, a stack of shingles at his side.  "Hey, Agent
Scully.  Hang on a second, be right down."

Yard-work.  The damp sweet scent of freshly-cut grass, the manual
push-mower propped up against the tool shed.  The open toolbox and
tarpaper trimmings and his carpenter's tool belt.  She absorbed the
scene as she watched him climb down the stepladder.  A memory from
her childhood, Dad home from the sea, a hot day in July when they'd
built the playhouse out back.  Her father with a mouthful of nails
showing her how to wield the hammer.  Billy flinging shingle scraps
Frisbee-style off the roof -- he'd clipped Charlie's head with one:
Blood, sweat and tears intruding on their sunny afternoon.  The
everyday sort of life she hoped she still had time for...

"What's up?"  He wiped the side of his face against his T-shirt
sleeve.  This man must have known such a  life once, before it was
swept away, shingles in a hurricane.

"Mulder."  She handed him the Gunmen's printout, feeling tired and
old.  The baby pushed his toes up against the inside of her ribcage.

He read it silently.  She watched him frown, could imagine what he
was thinking.  "He mention this to you at all?" he asked.

"No, he didn't."  Probably because he knew she'd object.  "I'm sorry
about the short notice, Agent Doggett, I just received this an hour
ago.  I tried to call you on my way over but your cell phone must be
off."

He pulled the phone off his waistband, glanced at it distractedly,
his attention still on the report.  "It's on.  I probably didn't
hear it over my neighbor's damn ridin' mower."  He looked up from
the sheet.  "What's this... about an airshow...?"

"A UFO."  No sense beating around the bush.

"Course," he nodded with a sigh.  He looked around the backyard, at
the tools and half-finished roofing job, then over at the carry-on
she'd dropped at the edge of the walkway, registering it for the
first time. "Uh uh," he shook his head.  "Come on, you can't be
flyin' now, Agent Scully.  A.D. Skinner'll have my ass.  I'll take
care of this. "

She stood her ground.  "You might need my help if he's run into
trouble."  Dammit Mulder.  After everything we've been through these
past months...

These days, much to her consternation, she frequently caught herself
looking at him through Doggett's eyes.  Why had it been so much
easier to be the believer while he'd been missing...?

Doggett was eyeing her with concern.  "I really don't think you
should be flyin'," he repeated.  He frowned and turned towards the
tool shed.  "Lemme put this stuff away first."

He placed the hammer back in the tool box, closed the lid, slid it
into the shed.  Hung the tool belt on a nail inside the door.
Carried the lawnmower and stepladder inside, then secured the latch
with a padlock.  Shutting up his attempt at a normal week-end in
forty-five seconds flat.

He wiped his face against his arm again.  "I got time to shower?"

He'd weighed his options and come to a decision.  She'd discovered
over the past months that it took a lot for this man to ditch her
for her own good.  His was a different approach to respect.

--

While he got ready she watched for the cab, sipping the orange juice
he'd poured her and wandering around his living room.  She wouldn't
have pegged him as the bookish type when she'd met him.  Her own
prejudice, or maybe her father's:  Marines and cops didn't read.

She scanned the titles with curiosity, her eyes instinctively
targeting ones familiar to her:  The worn hard-cover spine of Harper
Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird", one of her all-time favorites.
Benjamin Franklin's "Autobiography and Other Writings".  On a hunch
she tipped Franklin's autobiography out of its spot.  The telltale
creased binding cracked open in her hands.

"The Death of Infants".

Her abdomen tightened reflexively around the life within.

Yet he managed to function.  Or seemed to function.  Did he, really?
His house, his job, his appearance, his dependability, his
sociability...  all suggested Normal.  How much of it was a good
paint job?  How much of him was rusted numb inside?

She placed the book back, gently touched a small pewter frame on the
adjacent shelf.  An innocent smile gazed back at her through the
dust-free glass.

She'd honestly had no clue he was a survivor.

Marines and cops didn't read.  Fathers of murdered boys didn't play
Bureau football.  Didn't crack jokes with the other agents.

She'd resented him so much, initially.  Because he was a stranger,
yes.  Because he didn't believe, that too.  But also because anybody
who fit such a perfect Bureau mold couldn't possibly understand the
X-Files.  Pain, grief, guilt, life on hold: this was the X-Files.
Not Saturday afternoon touchdowns with a bunch of male-bonding
Bureau jocks.

So unlike Mulder, whose pain lurked just beneath the skin, spurting
alarmingly at the slightest scratch.  John Doggett's pain was buried
deep; he seemed to have distilled its essence; encapsulated it;
swallowed it whole.  By the time she'd discovered it he'd already
earned her trust on his own.

His football games had now become a thing of the past.  Casualty
Number One.

What next?  Conspiracy magazines on his coffee table, trading the
picket fence for a barren apartment, sweeping for bugs, implants in
the neck?  Was this the irony of his fate?  That he'd managed to
pick himself up after such an unspeakable loss, only to be yanked
down again by someone else's?

The high price of the X-Files.  She knew it intimately.  Why did you
stay, Agent Doggett?  Why didn't you get out while you still could?

"Ready to go?"  His voice was quiet behind her.

She hadn't heard him come down the stairs.  She nodded, carefully
replacing the boy's picture, wondering how long he'd been standing
there.  His gaze shifted to the photo and for a moment she thought
he was about to say something.  But he simply dropped his black
duffel bag near the door and turned towards the kitchen.

Didn't seem resentful that she was nosing through his bookcase, or
that she'd interrupted his handyman's week-end for something that
wasn't technically a Bureau matter.

She should apologize, or thank him, or something.

"The cab's on its way," was what came out of her mouth.

He nodded and opened the fridge, poured himself a glass of juice.

His fern was drying out, she noted as she rinsed her glass in the
sink.  It had been green the first time she'd seen it, when she'd
been taken aback by this bright, tidy kitchen with its California
shutters.  Marines and cops didn't keep houseplants.

How could he not resent the fact that she had stereotyped him so
completely?

--

"Y'okay?"

She nodded, back from her third trip to the bathroom.  Little room
for that glass of orange juice in her pancake-flat bladder.  Ever
since he'd learned her secret he'd been giving her the aisle seat.
No stranger to pregnancy, this one.

She'd had to flash her badge and assert her medical credentials to
be let onto the plane.  Been made to sign a Release form:  I, Dana
Scully, agree not to Release My Baby aboard your aircraft.

He'd looked concerned, but had backed her up.

Backed her up.  Watched her back.  Partners.  Three careers, this
man had had, responsible for someone's back.  On the field and in
the field, trusting another to reciprocate.  Outside a night-lit
diner:  >>You're supposed to watch my back, Agent Scully...<<  One
of the few reproaches he'd ever voiced aloud to her.  She'd let him
down, hadn't meant to but -- No, she *had* meant to.

She regretted it now.  Wondered if he knew that.

"Agent Scully, can I ask you somethin'?"

She looked up.  Watched his face, at least, if not his back.

His eyebrows were knitted in a look she'd learned to appreciate.
"Why does Mulder pull this stuff?"

"He wants the truth."

He shook his head.  "No, I mean, why does he pull this stuff with
you.  Runnin' off and leaving you to pick up the pieces?"

And suddenly she knew what he was really asking.  Not, >>why does he
pull this stuff with you,<< but rather >>why do you *let* him pull
this stuff with you.<<  Except he was too careful with her to say
it.

It was uncharacteristically oblique of him.  He was learning to
tiptoe around her moods, just as she'd learned to tiptoe around
Mulder's over the years.

In her mind, Mulder's brilliance and intuition had excused his
moodiness. What excused hers, in Doggett's mind?

"We've always gotten good results that way," she heard herself
saying, a tad too curtly.  Her defense sounded transparent even to
her own ears.

John Doggett nodded unconvincingly.  Still frowning.  She suspected
everything was already crystal clear in his mind, had been from the
moment he'd found her asleep on that bed, Mulder's shirt clutched
against her cheek.

He shifted his gaze to look out the plane's thick-glassed window.
"You started thinkin' of names?" he asked after a minute.

"Names?"

He glanced at her belly, then back up at her almost sheepishly.
"For the baby."

He was changing the subject for her.  "No, not yet."

"A good name's important."  He was reaching under the seat now,
rummaging through his duffel for something.  "So many people just
pick the dad's name without thinkin' hard enough about it."

She felt herself flushing with an odd sense of betrayal.  He'd never
mentioned paternity.  The whole Bureau had suspicions, she knew.
She'd heard rumors of an office pool.  But he'd been completely
decent, never alluding, never hinting.  Not once.  Why now?

He sat back up, a paper bag in his hand. He must have noticed her
expression because he paused suddenly, as if replaying what he'd
just said.  She saw him wince almost imperceptibly.

He rubbed the back of his close-cropped hair in embarrassment.  "I
uh..." he trailed off.  He fiddled uncomfortably with the bag he'd
retrieved.  "I've, been meaning to give this to you, just thought
you might find it useful.  That's all I meant, Agent Scully."

He passed her the bag across the armrest, apology evident on his
face.  She reached in, pulled out a ribbon-bound paperback:  The
Very Best Baby Name Book Ever.

"Oh."  He'd been trying to give her a gift.  Goddammit you're a
paranoid shit, Dana.  She took a breath, managed a smile as she
mentally berated herself.  "Thank you, Agent Doggett.  This is just
what I needed."

She removed the ribbon, thumbed deliberately through the entries,
felt rather than heard his silent exhale beside her.

"It lists potential nicknames, too," he pointed out as the tension
faded.  "My dad shoulda read this, mighta avoided his embarrassment
at my bein' called J.J. for the first eighteen years of my life."

"J.J.?" She glanced up at him in amusement.

"Up until I joined the Marines," he grinned ruefully.  "For John
Jay.  My dad was a bit of a history buff."

John Jay, first chief justice of the Supreme Court.  Wasn't he
burned in effigy?  She raised an eyebrow.

"He was shocked that anybody'd shorten a Founding Father, but you
know how kids are.  I didn't mind, but he sure did.  That's why you
gotta choose carefully," he nodded, good-natured blue eyes meeting
her gaze.

In that brief moment she was struck with the realization that she
could very possibly find happiness with someone like him.  His no-
bullshit world, so different from Mulder's.  A world where he'd
somehow managed to salvage picket fences and shingle repairs and
Harper Lee from the hurricane wreck of his former life... managing
to rebuild something thoroughly decent in the process.

The fleeting feeling was mildly disconcerting.  She'd spent the last
eight years convincing herself she was exactly where she was
supposed to be, finally felt sure of that.

***Kersh is already burning you in effigy, John Jay Doggett.  Why
didn't you get out while you still could?  Why did you stay?***

***Just watchin' your back, Agent Scully.  Look out for those
shingles.***

Blood, sweat and tears on a sunny afternoon.  That's what he was
getting in return.

--

"Sorry, nobody gets through." The young corporal studied Doggett's
ID case impassively.  "This is a restricted military zone."

"A military zone?" she asked, leaning forward to see the corporal,
her belly pressed against the incarcerating seat belt.  She felt
like a beached whale.  "This is a national park."

"A Restricted.  Military.  Zone."  Self explanatory, his tone
implied.  As if he were talking to an idiot.

"We're tryin' to track down a man named Mulder, former FBI.  We have
reason to believe he was last seen in these woods." Doggett's voice
held the same military tone she remembered from her father.
Respectful insistence.  He'd basically kept to the truth, she noted;
she guessed he was no better at deception than she was.

The corporal's voice now echoed Doggett's, dropping the Idiot Tone
he'd used with her.  "Sorry, Sir.  This is a restricted area.  If
the FBI is conducting an investigation they'll have to go through
proper military channels.  I have to ask you to turn back, please."

Three armed soldiers stepped forward.  Doggett frowned in
frustration, then slowly began backing the car away from the
barricade.  "Whaddya think?" he asked her as they turned onto the
narrow dirt road.

"You don't put up armed guards and barbed-wire in the middle of
nowhere without a good reason."

"Maybe they're just field-testin' some new piece of equipment," he
suggested.  "We did it in the Marines all the time.  Not the kinda
thing you want civilians stumblin' over, but not exactly a UFO."

"When you were in the Marines, how often did you shut down a
national park to run your field-tests?"  Was she Scully the Believer
again?  Or Scully the Devil's Advocate?

He shrugged.  "If you want, I could jury-rig a batterin' ram on the
front o' the rental car and we could go back and try to change the
corporal's mind."  Straight-faced, eyes fixed on the dusty road.

She glanced over at him with poorly-masked amusement. "That'd put us
in Kersh's good book."  Like a scene out of The A-Team, she
envisioned.  She knew he was joking, but a small part of her brain
suspected he might do it if he thought it would please her.  She'd
never quite understood this, his subtle need for her approval.  It
was both flattering and vaguely disturbing.

He chuckled dryly and pulled the car over to the side of the road,
the barricade now out of sight in the woods behind them.

He'd left his window down after their encounter with the corporal.
Now that they'd stopped rolling the steamy air wafted in, carrying
with it the fragrance of pine trees and the buzz of cicadas.  The
sun was starting to set.

She leaned back against the head-rest, still nursing a smile over
his suggestion.  Lethargy was washing over her.

"So... whaddya wanna do?" he asked after a minute.

She turned to look at him, his earnest face.  High school:  Pulling
over on a dirt road, Marcus' eyes bright in the setting sun, total
innocence.  >>I think the engine's overheating, Dana.  Gotta let it
cool.  So... whaddya wanna do...?<<

***Whaddya wanna do, Agent Scully?  'Coz I think we're
overheating...***

***I...***

***You name it, Agent Scully.  I'll jury-rig it for you.  On the
front o' the rental car, if you'd like...***

She blinked, her fleeting sanity reinstated.  For crying out loud,
Dana, hormones or no hormones...

He was staring back patiently, waiting for her decision.  About
Mulder and that military barricade.

There was no way to know whether Mulder was just in the woods
waiting for "The Airshow", or if he'd been caught and was being
detained somewhere.  Another flashback, this one chilling:  >>They
erased my memories, Scully...<< The look on Mulder's face, lost and
vulnerable, had haunted her for weeks.

She was suddenly so tired.  Tired of having to worry about him all
over again.  Having to protect him, rescue him.  Over and over
again, her life caught in an endless loop.  How could she ever keep
this up once the baby was born?

***Might do you some good to spend a night in an army compound,
Mulder.  Give you time to think about pulling these stupid stunts
again.***

***Think about what, Scully?  They've erased my memories...***

The baby shifted inside her, a guilty reminder that she'd ignored
her growing hunger.

John Doggett  shifted beside her.  In the confined heat of the car
his musky pheromones mingled with the surrounding pines, reminder of
a different hunger she'd been ignoring.  Her heightened awareness of
him was irritating to her now.  She frowned, tried to concentrate on
the matter at hand.

He was still watching her silently, still waiting for her to decide.

The sun was disappearing through the trees.  Rose and set around Fox
Mulder.  Why do you let him pull this stuff with you, Agent Scully?

She had missed him so desperately, her world spinning down into
oblivion as she prayed for the miracle of his return.

Her prayers had been answered, her world righted. Except it always
*had* spun in a frustratingly convoluted orbit, hadn't it...?

Goddammit, Mulder.

***Whaddya wanna do, Agent Scully...?***  The crescendo of cicadas
was deafening.

Focus, Dana.  Analyze, organize, prioritize.  How *did* cicadas make
that noise, anyway?

The baby kicked.  Her stomach rumbled.

"Let's get something to eat," she decided at last.  First things
first.  "It'll be dark soon and we can try another road in."

He pulled the car into gear.  "You're the boss."

--

"Piece o' danish?" he offered, pulling a squashy pastry from the bag
on the darkened dashboard.

She shook her head, watched the danish disappear in three easy
bites.  He crumpled the paper into a tight wad and jammed it into
their makeshift trash bag on the floor of the back seat.

"Mind tellin' me what we're waitin' for?" he'd asked her two hours
ago.

"The Airshow."  He'd given her a skeptical look.  "You'll know it if
you see it," she'd reassured him.

He'd considered that, then simply nodded.  Loosened his tie and
rolled up his shirt sleeves.

The weather had refused to cool.  Even with all the windows rolled
down the car was stifling in the breezeless starry night.  More than
once she'd been tempted to ask him to run the engine, just for a few
minutes of air-conditioned bliss.

The car reeked of stale french fries:  a summer holiday smell, the
four of them crowded into the back seat of the Plymouth.  >>Billy
you jerk!  Dad, he ripped my Hamburglar puppet!<<  >>Did not,
tattletale.<<  Greasy fingers, torn paper packets spilling their
salt on the upholstery, ketchup oozing on the floormats.  A quick
lunch break between Ausable Chasm and Fort Ticonderoga, where rusted
amputation saws awaited behind glass cases strewn with teeth-marked
bullets...

"You shouldn't be sittin' for so long in your condition, Agent
Scully.  Aren't you riskin'... blood clots, or some damn thing?"

She eyed him with amusement.  "Thank you, Doctor."

He sighed and checked his watch, reaching to the cup-holder for his
cold black coffee.

"It's after eleven.  You wanna grab some sleep?" he ventured again
after he'd downed the remains of the cup.  "I'll wake you when the
aliens land, or whatever."

Had he been a wonderfully caring husband, or an annoyingly
patronizing one?  A fine line, no doubt.

"I'm not tired," she assured him.  "But I think I will stretch my
legs, though."  They were starting to cramp, and he was right about
the risks of venous thrombosis.

"Watch the ditch," he cautioned.  She nodded dutifully, maneuvered
her swollen belly out of the seat with the grace of a penguin.

The moon was nearly full, the dirt road washed in muted silver. She
contemplated her moon-shadow.   The full moon, mother to the world.

The barricade was dark in the distance.  What *are* we waiting for,
anyway?  The Airshow...?

She tried her cell phone again without success.  Goddammit Mulder,
where the hell are you?

She rolled her shoulders, loosening taut neck muscles, hands
supporting her lower back.  She could feel Doggett's eyes on her.
***I've got your back, Agent Scully.***

She headed back to the car self-consciously.  Tried to keep the
waddling to a minimum.

"Back in a minute," he announced simply after she'd wedged herself
into the seat.  He got out of the car and crossed the ditch,
wandering off towards the trees.  Not, she guessed, to thwart venous
thrombosis but rather that cola he'd gotten conned into Super-
Sizing.

Despite the heat she'd purposely minimized her fluid intake all
evening, not relishing the prospect of having to bare her teetering
pregnant butt to the moonlit grass.  ***I've got your backside,
Agent Scully.***

"FBI!  Stop right there!"

His distant shout tore through her.  She was out of the passenger
seat in a flash, gun drawn, peering desperately over the hood of the
car in the direction she'd last seen him.  Dark smudges, shadows in
military fatigues, disappeared into the trees.

"Agent Doggett!"

No answer.

"Agent Doggett!"  Answer, goddammit...

Seconds that felt like hours.

Finally:  "Agent Scully!  I've got him!  It's Mulder!"

His shadow rising from the ground, double-headed, a limp arm half-
draped over his shoulder.

She didn't remember jumping the ditch.

"He's okay he's alive he's got a pulse!" Doggett called out as she
reached them.  Reassuring her.   That's why he'd taken so long to
answer, she realized.  He'd been checking for a pulse before calling
out to her.  Didn't want her rushing over for nothing but a cold
corpse.  Again.

She was wondering vaguely how long he would've waited if he *hadn't*
found a pulse, when all at once the night sky lit up overhead in a
twinkle of colors.

He froze, his gaze turning up towards the heavens.  "What the fuck,"
he managed breathlessly.  "What the hell is that?"

"The Airshow," she answered softly.  "Let's move, Agent Doggett."
Her hand gripped his free arm now, gently but firmly steering him
towards the car. He complied without protest, his eyes wide with
disbelief, arm and shoulders still supporting Mulder's unconscious
form.

--

She closed the door behind her and spotted Doggett finishing off the
stack of paperwork at the nursing station.  She sank down into a
chair in the tiny lounge, allowing herself to relax at last.  He's
okay he's okay he's okay.  Her mantra of eight years.  Goddammit
Mulder, it's a good thing you're cute.

She saw Doggett hand back the forms and wander over.  His arms and
face were a deep equatorial red, matching her own, she knew.

He dropped into the chair beside her.  "How's he doin'?"

"He's asleep," she filled him in.  "The painkillers have kicked in.
Toxicology results won't be back until morning, but neurologically
he seems okay.  Except he doesn't remember the last twenty-four
hours."

"Judgin' by the severity of his burns, I'd say that might not be
such a bad thing."

His comment was sincere, lacking any trace of dark humor, and though
she was fairly certain Mulder wouldn't see it that way she knew
Doggett meant it kindly.  In this man's experience perhaps it was
sometimes better to forget.

"Thank you..." she began tentatively, "...for coming out today.  If
you hadn't--"

"Don't," he cut her off tiredly, shaking his head.  "Doesn't take a
whole lotta detective work to stumble over a body while lookin' for
a tree with my name on it."  He looked drained.  "Remind me, Agent
Scully, next time Mulder goes missin', to just save myself a lot of
trouble, take a coupla six-packs to the woods and get myself piss-
drunk.  Results'll be the same, screw the NYPD and Quantico and
their dumb-ass investigative techniques," he grumbled.

She studied his face, sensing his frustration, knowing it didn't
stem solely from tonight's incident but from the long series of
events that had occurred since he'd joined her in the basement.

"You know," he continued in a more subdued tone, "I still don't
understand what the hell we saw out there.  Some kinda stealth-plane
prototype?"

She didn't answer.

He glanced at her.  "You really believe that was a spaceship, don't
you..."

She shrugged in gentle sympathy.  "You can tell yourself it was a
plane if it makes you feel better, Agent Doggett."

He sighed, his brow furrowed.  He leaned forward in his chair,
elbows on his knees, clenched jaw against clenched knuckles.
Apparently fascinated with his shoes.

They sat in silence for a long time.

"How'd you get over it?" he asked her, very quiet now.  "Stuff
defyin' criminal investigation, blowin' away logic, laughin' in the
face of your trainin' and your expertise..."

"I'm not sure I've ever really gotten over it," she admitted softly.
"Not completely."

"Well, you're miles ahead o' me.  I've seen how you accept things,
paranormal, extra-terrestrial, alien healer, whatever..."  He
studied his reddened forearms.  "...goddamned sunburns in the middle
o' the night.  Dead people  --" he swallowed visibly,  "Dead people
comin' back to life, throw away the medical books and detective work
and goddamned logic, you just gotta believe, like frickin' Peter
Pan..."

He stopped to take a breath.  Glanced at her sideways.

"I'm sure as hell no philosopher, Agent Scully.  But I thought I'd
gotten a pretty good grip on the world.  You know?"  She nodded,
recalling that long-ago feeling herself, as he went on.  "Didn't
particularly like what I saw a lot o' the time, but hey, that's
life, huh?"  She glimpsed muted pain in his eyes.  "I just always
gave it what I believed was my best shot.  Thought I did everythin'
possible, covered all the bases.  And now..."

She wanted to reach out to him, squeeze his hand, reassure him.
Knew there were no words that would comfort him.

"It scares the shit out of me, Agent Scully," he admitted.
"Nothin's scared me for a long time..."

I'm not afraid of anything, he'd affirmed to her under the starry
desert sky last spring.  She'd taken it as tough-guy talk, cop-talk,
Marine-talk:  Marines and cops aren't afraid of anything.  Never
guessing he meant every word.  He'd already faced the worst fear he
could ever imagine, and emerged.  Emerged.  Got himself out of bed
every morning.  What more could anyone have asked of him?  What
bigger act of bravery?

Fathers of murdered boys had no reason to fear anything.  There was
nothing left to fear.  Death was, if nothing else, at least
reassuring in its earthly finality.

And now the X-Files had taken that away from him.   Casualty Number
Two...

He pulled his head away from the wall.  "It's after two, Agent
Scully," he said wearily.  "I'm beat, and I think you and little J.
Edgar here," he glanced at her belly, "should get some sleep too."

She nodded, got herself out of the chair, knowing he was speaking
only out of a sense of responsibility, a sense of concern for her
and the baby.

Cops could sleep.  Marines... maybe.   But John Jay Doggett, she
suspected, would spend tonight staring out his motel window,
searching the sky for answers.

Blood, sweat and tears.  That's what he'd get in return for his
trouble.

--

Author's Comments:
Been six years since I last submitted fanfic.  Mulder can be
fascinating but it was Doggett who brought me back. Scully always
rocks, of course.  Thank-you to JPM for educating this Canuck on the
John Jay historical reference.  Feedback would be great...  I'm
beta-less so grammar/typos appreciated too.

-- JS Michel -- (jsm25@hotmail.com)