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Shades of Similarity Pt. 1

by Cheryl De Luca
Disclaimer:  These characters are not mine, and I thank Chris Carter for
allowing me to take them out and play with them for a while.
Category:  Doggett / Scully Fic. Doggy POV

Feedback:  Please.  Emiliod@sympatico.ca
Spoilers:  Through TINH, with some minor forshadowing for Dead Alive.
Summary: Scully is thrown into a situation where she is forced to come to
Doggett for help.

    It has been a week or so since she requested desk duty, though I had
suggested it to her many times prior to that. It's not that I felt any less
safe in her hands, to the contrary I trusted her as a partner should, wholly
and completely. It is just that my experience with children - my own child
in particular - has taught me the preciousness of life and the last thing I
would want would be to have something happen to the baby she is carrying. It
is getting close to her due date, and the buzz here at the bureau is rife
with commentary and speculation. She carries it well for someone her size,
yet around about the sixth month she bloomed like a beautiful rose, and the
fact that she was indeed pregnant became very much an issue. It is also 4
months post Mulder. Though the sadness and grief she wears about her makes
it seem like only yesterday. My wife Brigette was ecstatic when she found
out about her pregnancy, she experienced the greatest pleasure in shopping
for baby clothes and indulging in all of those
wonderful things that every expectant mother enjoys.

I wish it were the same for her. I was hoping that at some point she would
move past her hurt and embrace the gift she has been given. But it seems she
hasn't been able to. And that is my biggest fear. I know what it is like to
hurt and feel alone. After my son was murdered I watched the light slowly
fade from my wife's eyes until one day she could no longer take it and
decided to join him in his fate. This is something that has haunted me every
night for the last 4 years. I still see her body as they wheeled across the
morgue floor for identification. If only I had anticipated it... But at the
time, I too was in a very dark place, alone, afraid, and hurting.
"Agent Scully?" She looks up at me, no response, but there is a question in
her eyes. "I bought somethin' the other day...." Truthfully I bought it a
month ago and it has taken me this long to get up enough nerve to give it to
her.
She stares at me, her curiosity peaked, but still no words. I am totally at
a loss but I need to hear her talk to me. I also need to share. I reach into
my desk and into the bag I had snuck in this morning. It's not much, but I
know that with this I have stepped way over my bounds. Yet, I couldn't help
myself.
I rise from my chair and bring the nondescript bag over to her. It gives no
hint of what is inside and for this I am grateful. I know she hasn't shopped
for her baby, because despite orders to do the opposite, she has spent every
waking minute in this office, including weekends. I hope that this will
help. Perhaps jump start something in her that will make her want to live
again, perhaps help her gain some pleasure from what is supposed to be a
happy time in a woman's life..
She takes it from me tentatively and stares at me for a moment before
peeking inside. A tuft of tissue paper comes out along with the mobile that
I picked up.

"Uh..." I'm at a loss for words so I say to her the only thing that can
explain my actions. "My son.. Luke.. He had one when he was a baby, saved my
wife's sanity a few times." I back away trying to ignore the tears as they
begin to fall. I know she doesn't want me to acknowledge them, she never
has. She seems to be very good at denial. Once again something I recognize
from my own past experience.
Things are silent again and I am back at my desk before she turns to me.
"You have a son?" Her tears are gone wiped away hastily in an effort to
forget.
"Had" It is my turn to look away. This is something we have never talked
about and I'm not sure that this is a conversation that I want to have. I
rarely discuss Luke, though I hold my memories of him close to my heart and
I ache for him everyday. Her brow furrows, and she is silent a moment before
the next words fall from her mouth. "What happened?"
I stand up grabbing a few files from my desk and head over to the file
cabinet. I feel my own tears well up. It was my fault. To this day I can
accept no other explanation. My hands begin to shake as though it were
merely a recent memory rather than something from another lifetime. Almost
unconsciously the words roll of my mouth. "Work followed me home.." I turn
around but avert my eyes from her own questioning gaze. I'm afraid to look
at her. I know that right now look in my eyes is the same haunted one that
she has been wearing for the past five months.

Silence reigns for a moment. I know she is waiting for more of an
explanation and not for the first time since I started this conversation, do
I wish that I hadn't. It was meant to be her opening up, not me. My wounds
lie fresh on the surface the scabs still tacky, as do hers. Yet, she has
something to live for, the important part of my life is gone. I'm just
killing time here, probably because I am too much of a coward to do what my
wife did. Or perhaps for the same reason that I have been telling myself all
these years. I want to make a difference.

Something inside of me resigns itself to the retelling of this tale, so I
drop the files on top of the cabinet and grab a my chair moving it only a
few short feet from her. My first instinct is to touch her. I want to take
her hand, as much for my own comfort as for my need to make contact with her
to share with her, what I am feeling. Instead I rub my trembling hands on my
pants and look her straight in the eye. I don't care if she sees the tears
now. This is a time for honesty. "I was workin' the periphery on a pedophile
case. Not quite as Dalmeresque or sensational as a lot of the cases we get.
But it was grim." My voice waivers, and I fight like hell to gain control
again. "If you ask me any case dealin' with kids is bad."

She nods at this, a gentle smile forming. She's been there, I know. I've
read the files.
"He was a sick little fuck who liked young boys." I look away for a moment.
The memory of the asshole's face is something I will carry with me forever.
I need to fight to regain control over the anger seeping into my voice. I
look back at her, her face is unreadable now, her crystal blue eyes
betraying nothing. "At first he was just an abuser." I feel the bile
rising in my throat. "He had been molestin' children for years, nothin'
more, just gettin' his ya yas off. But he'd escalated. At first we simply
thought the boy had gone missin', maybe a result of an abduction - broken
marriage maybe the father. Then another kid goes missing the another."
The story pours out of me now, no emotion, it is mechanical. These are
details. They do not hit close to home. That part comes later.

"He was classed as a serial, the FBI was brought in too. The MO was exact
and ritualistic, a little sick, a little twisted but by sensation standards
pretty run of the mill. If anyone can ever call that kind of thing run of
the mill, yah know?"

She nods at me. Her hand going protectively to her burgeoning abdomen.
"So I was one of a team of 7 set up to track him down. At the time I was
still working with the NYPD. We had some leads, one suspect looked
promisin', Bob Harvey a professor at Pace University, but there wasn't
enough evidence to charge him with anythin'. We ragged his ass for days and
then another kid disappears, so there is no way that this is the guy. But we
were sure it was him, certain key evidence pointed to him yet he was under
surveillance when the boy goes missin'. I always thought he was involved in
some way but there was nothin' to really connect him, other than the loosely
circumstantial evidence."

I stop, the anger in me fresh once again from the betrayal of our instincts.
How wrong could we have been? We had wasted so much time at the expense of
another child. I rise to my feet and begin to pace a little.

"Anyway, we started back trackin'. Linin' up some other possibilities. Then
we find the fourth boy. This one was bad. He was the youngest, only five.
But the killer had gone a step further this time and had tried his hand at a
little experimentin'." I stop and look at her, my stomach knotting with the
unforgettable scene as we pulled the boys small mutilated body from a ditch.
I shouldn't be telling her this. I'm sure it will give her nightmares or
something.

I move back to the chair thinking that I have to stop this conversation, as
much for her sake as for mine. I change the subject. This time my hand
reaches out without my thinking. It finds comfort on the warm smooth mound
in front of her. I look her in the eye again. "Do you know if it's a boy or
a girl?" The heat from her body is magical. I am in awe, as I feel the life
inside her move slightly. This is what miracles are made of.

Her eyes stray from mine, and she looks away awkwardly, surprisingly not
because of my touch. "I..." She clears her throat slightly and looks down at
her belly. "I didn't ask."

I nod slightly and begin to pull my hand away. Yet before I can, I feel her
fingers close over mine. "Tell me the rest." She urges.

There is something about her tone that tells me she needs to hear this. So I
drop my eyes and stare at the ancient thick linoleum under her chair. For a
moment I wonder if perhaps this precious child was conceived here. Did they
ever make love here on the floor? On the desk? I shake away the thought.
Yet, I know the exquisite torture and relief of being somewhere where you
have built memories with someone you've loved and lost.

She squeezes my hand prompting me to continue. "We knew the guy was smart.
He clearly stalked his victims, studied them and then waited for his
opportunity. We also knew that he probably already had another victim
chosen. What we didn't know....." There is a lump in my throat the size of a
tennis ball, and I can feel myself beginning to tear up. Another squeeze. I
clear my throat and keep my eyes trained on the thin material separating my
hand from her soft rounded flesh. "What we didn't know was that he had
fixated on me. And that Luke was his next victim."

My tears have begun to flow freely and it is I who am now holding her hand
as if it were a life line. "Bridgette used to take him to the public pool
all the time. He loved the water." I smile at the memory. His gleeful canon
balls into the deep-end As he yelled "Hey, dad watch this!" . The smile on
his sweet face as he splashed and chased the other kids.
"She was talkin' to one of the other moms. She swore she'd only turned away
for a moment...."
My words are coming heavily, my free hand going to my face, swiping
shamelessly the my emotional evidence. "She thought he'd just gone into the
change room.."

"I got the call as we were going over the preliminary coroner's report on
the last victim. I didn't know what to do. I had no idea... We.." The utter
terror of the moment is still fresh in my mind. I lose my breath suddenly
almost as though I have been hit full force with the heavy end of someone's
work boot. Doubling over I pull my hand free, only to feel the warmth of her
hand on my shoulder. My head finds a place resting in my palms. I can taste
the salt of my tears still wet on my lips. This was a very bad idea. I take
a moment to compose myself, thinking that I could still leave now with some
element of my manhood intact, but her touch tells me otherwise. It is
insistent. I can't look at her now.
"We had no idea it was him. I was still combin' the pool and the park
surrounding it when the case broke wide open. The professor we had
suspected, had been havin' an affair
with one of his students. All along I thought it might have been more than
one perp. All along I though Harvey was in on it, but as it turns out the
student could not be accounted for and had ample time and opportunity to
plant the evidence since they'd been meetin' at the professor's apartment
regularly...." Hindsight is 20 / 20 and there are a million what ifs, and
should haves that swirl around in my head constantly. "If only we'd figured
it out sooner... By the time they found him hidin' out at his mother's house
it was too late. We found Luke about 10 miles away layin' face down in the
middle of a field. There was very little evidence to tie him to the guy, but
we were sure it was him. Never the less the case still remains unsolved." I
can feel my hands begin to tremble at the memory of my son's lifeless body
lying in the tall grass, discarded like yesterday's garbage.. My voice
cracks this time my tenuous composure is completely shot. "If only we'd been
earlier, or put it together before then....."

Her hand slides down my arm, and there is a quiver in her voice. "Did you
kill him?" I look up at her, her blue eyes heavy with tears of her own.
I shake my head. "One of my colleagues did. The official report said that he
was shot trying to escape. Though we were never really certain that it was
him. I would have just liked to hear him say that he had done it, alone."

Her eyes shift away from me. "At least you got some satisfaction." There is
something akin to envy in her voice.
"No.." My hands come up to gently grip either side of her head. I force her
to look at me. I want her to see the empty shell of a man that I am. I want
her to know that whatever revenge I managed to gain that day means nothing.
I have lost something that can never be replaced. "I've been where you are.
Nothin' will change what has happened, Agent Scully and no vengeance will
help, despite what you think. But you have a second chance, somethin' I
never did." I rise, my hand dropping to gently graze the swell of her
abdomen. I walk over to the door and grab my jacket off the hook. I can't
look back at her. I need to go home and get shit faced.


* * * * * * * * *

I'm only part way towards oblivion when there is a knock at my front door.
In my somewhat inebriated state I am more complacent with the idea of
pretending I am asleep and perhaps hiding out until whomever it is goes
away. I take another gulp of Jack Daniel's ignoring the burn of it as it
hits the back of my throat and seers it's way into my empty belly. The pain
of it hitting my newly acquired ulcer is nothing compared to the pain I have
been carrying for years and I am sure that I will have to kill more than the
entire bottle to numb that.

So much for my half-assed attempt at psychotherapy. All I managed to do is
fuck with my own head. I drop the glass back onto the table as the door bell
sounds this time, it's loud throng accompanied by some more knocking. It is
insistent. My TV is not on and the house is dark. Why doesn't whoever it is
just go away? The knocking turns to banging, so I rise from the chair and
make my way towards the door, trying not to trip over anything in the
process. Between the lack of light and my lack of sobriety, the fact that I
actually make it to the door without a major injury to myself is a miracle
in and of itself. If this is the friggin' paper boy he's in for a big shock.

I throw the door open and to my surprise there is a emaciated Indian man
standing there, a look of fear spreads across his face as he fumbles for
words and points to the taxi parked in my driveway. "She tell me bring her
here." His English is broken and his words barely intelligible, but his
frantic gestures cause me enough concern that barefooted and shirtless I
make my way out the door past him. He follows behind me, pointing and
mumbling. "She sick, no mess car..."

A flash of brilliant red hair through the back window causes a rush of
sobriety and I run to the car. Throwing the door open I peer in at the woman
I left just a few short hours ago. Her eyes are half closed and her face
contorted with pain. Shit. Instinctively I pull back her light jacket
looking for any sign of blood or injury. "Agent Scully..."

She moans slightly and her eyes flutter open and focus on me. "Help me..."
Her words come as thick utterances.

"Come.." I motion to the driver, but he shakes his head, no. Damn.. Reaching
in I slide my arms under her back and legs. I am in no condition to be
carrying anyone let alone her. Despite the baby she is carrying she weighs
no more than 130 lbs, but in my state that's a lot. Terrified, I make my way
towards the door her arms encircling my neck. She lets out another huff of
pain, followed by something akin to a whimper. Jesus...

The cement is cold and the small pebbles sharp against the soles of my feet,
but this has a surprisingly sobering effect. Slowly, I make my way up the
steps praying to god that we don't fall.

Kicking at the door, I curse quietly as my naked toe comes into contact with
the heavy metal kick plate, thankfully though the door opens slightly
allowing me to wedge my knee into it and force it open fully.

"Oooohhh....." Dana utters another groan of pain. Her face drenched in
sweat, my heart drops into my belly as I make my way across my living room,
my shoulder hitting the light switch as I pass by. She can't be in labor. I
tell myself and place her carefully on the couch. But she has the decidedly
uncomfortable look of someone laboring. Jesus....

I look back at the door in time to see the taxi pulling out of my driveway.
Making my way over to the door I note that the driver has been kind enough
to leave her two small travel bags lying in the middle of my lawn.

This day has suddenly gone from nightmare bad to worse. Another moan ushers
forth from the woman on my couch. "My bag..." The words are heavy with pain.
I look at her for a moment like she is crazy but heed her request and run
out and grab the two bags from their undignified place on the front lawn.

By the time I return she is whimpering again, so I make my way across to her
and drop her cargo unceremoniously on the carpet beside the couch. Bending
over her I place my hand on her forehead. It is slick from sweat, but she
doesn't have a fever. Fear rushes through me I have no idea what to do here.
This seems to be a common thing with me as of late.

Inexplicably, she grabs my hand and places it on her belly. She lets out a
small moan as I feel the muscle under my touch become rock hard. No words
are needed..

Shit shit shit.... She is definitely in labor. And this is bad, very bad. I
am drunk and a mess and even if I wasn't drunk I would still be a fucking
mess. "Okay. Let me call an ambulance, Agent Scully."

Her hand grips mine with a physical strength I wouldn't have expected from
someone so small. "No..." She huffs slightly. "No doctors..."

Is she fucking crazy?

"Please my bag... Inside the black one."

I reach down and throw open her black bag, a loose assortment of clothes
comes tumbling out. Revealing a cardboard box.

"The box.." she mumbles. So I remove it carefully from it's nesting place
and open it. Inside there is tubing, a lot of it, along with assorted IV
bags. This cinches it. She is crazy. What the hell am I supposed to do with
this? "Magnesium sulfate." The words are foreign to me. I look down at the
bags and note that a couple of the other smaller ones say Magnesium, too. "I
need you to set up the IV...." Her words trail off as another contraction
hits. Intuitively, my hand goes to her belly and I begin to massage until I
feel the muscle underneath begin to relax. Her hand closes over mine again.
"The IV..."

"I... I can't.." And I won't. I'm no doctor, but I know if I do this wrong I
could kill her. "Let me call an ambulance.."

She shakes her head animatedly. "I can't trust them.... Please." There is a
panic in her eyes that I have only ever seen one time before, and that was
when she realized that the man she called Jeremiah Smith was gone.

I can't do this and I won't. I have downed more than half a bottle of JD and
my hands are shaking. "Hold on." I rise from the coffee table and grab the
phone from it's cradle on the end table. She clutches at my hand again half
rising from her place on my couch. "NO..." She looks like she is trying to
leave, and I have no doubt that despite her difficulties she will if I don't
listen.

"Relax..." I move to her again and push her back onto the couch. For a
moment she looks as if she is going to fight me, so I drop the phone and
place my hands on either side of her face forcing her to look at me and
listen to me. "I can't do this Dana. I have been drinkin' and I don't trust
myself to do it. I'm goin' to call my sister in law. She is a nurse, and she
lives only five minutes away. She'll come." The fear in her eyes is still
there. "You can trust her, remember that day in the hospital? I promised you
that I would take care of you and I will." The hand clutching mine suddenly
slackens as another contraction hits. I massage her belly again waiting for
the pain to subside. A round of bittersweet de ja vu hits me as I reach for
the phone and dial Kathy's number.

The phone rings four or five times and dread fills me. She has to be home.
She's been working days for the past week. I know this because I was
supposed to have dinner at her place tonight, but seeing my nephews would
have hurt way to much.

"Hello?" A young voice on the other end of the line causes a rush of relief
to course through me.

"Hey Jimmy Joe..." My pet name for my nephew tells him exactly who is
calling. Dana's eyes are closed now. It looks almost like she is sleeping.
My free hand brushes the hair from her forehead. "Is mama there?"

"Hold on Uncle John... Ma ma????" His voice trails off for a moment before I
hear my sister in-laws voice come on the line.

"Hey there, did you change your mind? There's still plenty left."

"No Kath.. Thanks, but listen is Tim home?" My brother owns his own garage
and sometimes works late. I'm hoping that tonight isn't one of those nights.

"Yeah want me to get him for you?"

"No.. I need you to come here right now, it's an emergency. I need you to
hurry."

"Ah.. sure..." Her voice is more than a little hesitant. "I'll be there in a
couple a minutes."

Dana suddenly lets out another soft moan and I feel the pressure mounting in
her belly again.. "Thanks, and Kath?"

"Yeah?"

"Make it quick." The last thing I need is the first hand experience of
delivering a baby. If I had wanted to be a Doctor I would have gone to med
school. My ministrations seem to soothe my partner somewhat so I am more
than willing to accommodate. Once again I marvel at the miracle of life
within her as I feel movement against my hand. I don't know if it was an
fist or a foot, but to know that the child is okay is more than comforting.


* * * * *
Continue to Part 2