Title: Bittersweet Author: Mare (MareZX@aol.com) Category: VA Rating: PG - safe for all except maybe die-hard Doggett haters Spoilers: Invocation, Emily Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue me. Summary: "You lost someone... someone just like Billy..." BITTERSWEET By Mare MareZX@aol.com 12/5 - 12/21/00 He stood for a long time, watching the parents; sharing their anguish, feeling every ounce of their pain and more. They were the lucky ones, he thought. They knew. They had closure. He didn't remember taking it out, but suddenly there was the photo in his hand; a snapshot of a moment in the life of a young boy who had his father's eyes and his mother's sunny smile. As he stared at the photo, his surroundings quickly faded away, leaving him in the quiet place, the place of bittersweet memories. It was a place he couldn't visit often, knowing it would kill him if he did. In this place the happy memories were even worse than the bad ones. The happy memories kept their lethally-sharp daggers hidden, lying in wait to pierce his heart when he least expected. And even worse than those were the regrets of things undone, words unsaid, and a future that would never be. Everyone thought him so tough, so in-control; the workaholic on the fast track to the top. Nobody saw what made him that way. The guys back in New York had a better idea than the Washington crowd did, but even they didn't know just how deep the wounds were. He'd never told anybody, and doubted that he ever would. This was his own private hell; a prison partly of his own making. "Agent Doggett?" He turned sharply, the hand clutching the photo immediately slipping into his jacket pocket. Agent Scully was at his side, and he now felt her hand on his arm. "Come on," she said quietly. "It's time to go." He followed her to the car, but didn't take his now-customary seat behind the wheel. Instead he settled into the passenger seat, holding out the keys to a puzzled Scully. She gave him a long look, but took the keys, and when next he looked up, they were pulling up outside their motel. He had just shed jacket and tie and settled onto the edge of the bed with the photo he couldn't seem to let go of when he heard a knock at the door. "What?" he snapped, immediately regretting the sharpness of his tone. Scully stepped into the room, remaining close to the door. "Can we talk?" Doggett shrugged. She'd known enough to leave him alone in the car; why wouldn't she now? "Free country," he muttered. Crossing her arms over her chest, she ventured further into the room. She took a deep breath and said, "I'd like to know what was going on with you during this case." "Whaddya mean, what was going on with me?" Scully took another step, and was now standing directly in front of him. "Let's look at the evidence," she said. "You're known as a strictly-by-the-book agent, yet you illegally access sealed juvenile records. You identified much more with the Underwoods than would a totally objective law enforcement professional. You've hardly said ten words since Billy's skeleton was discovered. A psychic claims that you lost someone just like Billy, and you have nothing to say. And - -" "You believe that crap?" he broke in. "In light of everything else, yes, actually, I do." She took a measured breath. "I'm not here to judge, Agent Doggett," she said, her voice more gentle, "but I would like to help if I can." "You can't." The words were out before he could stop them. "Sometimes when you talk about it the hurt starts to go away. Your own words, Agent Doggett." "This isn't your business, Agent Scully." "When something affects how my partner handles a case, it becomes my business. If you don't trust me with whatever you're thinking, how can I back you up?" Head down, eyes closed, he declined to answer. She was a fine one to be talking about trust. She didn't trust him, didn't even like him, and had made it abundantly clear that he was only grudgingly welcome in her presence. Now she expected him to believe she cared? He could handle the fallout from this case on his own. He'd done it before. But something was different now. He had a decision to make. Doggett barely felt Scully slip the photo from his hand. He looked up to see her studying it. "Beautiful child," she said. Her gaze shifted from the picture to him, and he had to look away. She took her time, but finally added, "Your son." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He hadn't said the words in a very long time and knew they would hurt, but he had to start somewhere. Maybe it really was time. "My son," he whispered. Scully sat down beside him on the bed. "How old is he?" Doggett's mind immediately went back to the day the boy was born. Once it had been the happiest day of his life, but now the memory only further twisted the knife in his heart. "He'd be thirteen now." "What happened to him?" Scully asked gently. After all the years, he couldn't make himself say it again. "I watched you during this case," she went on. "You took it very personally." She paused a moment, then, "He was abducted, wasn't he?" Somehow, hearing her say it made it a little easier to talk about. She had already guessed; all he was doing now was filling in the details. "Went missing on his way to school one morning, six years ago," he said softly. "Fifty people in the street, and nobody saw a thing." "I take it he wasn't found?" The bad memories were coming into sharper focus now, but he found that his head was starting to clear. And, to his surprise, he wanted to talk about it. Now that he'd started, he didn't want to stop. Besides, maybe talking about it would help him make his decision. "Not a trace," he said. "They brought somebody in, but it turned out he had an airtight alibi and no other suspect ever turned up." "Losing a child is the hardest thing for a person to deal with," Scully said. "It must be so much harder when you don't know what happened." Something in her voice... He turned toward her. "You lost a child too?" A sad smile touched her face. "Emily. She was in my life for only a very short time, but I loved her, and it took a long time for me to deal with losing her." "What happened?" Scully sighed deeply. "She died, three years ago. It was a..." She paused, seemingly looking for words. "... a congenital illness. There was nothing anyone could do." "At least you know," Doggett said, his head dropping again. "Last I ever saw of Luke was on a milk carton." "It must've been terribly difficult for your family." "Christine, my wife, didn't..." He paused, thinking back. Difficult wasn't the word for the whole ordeal. Catastrophic came closer. "... didn't handle it well," he finally said. Wasn't that just the understatement of all time? "She wasn't strong enough. I don't know, maybe if we'd had other kids..." "Luke is an only child?" Her use of the present tense didn't escape his notice, and he found it comforting, but also strangely irritating, like she was saying what she thought he wanted to hear. How could she know what he wanted to hear, when he didn't know himself? Still, this was the closest she'd come to an overture of friendship since they'd met. Stifling his irritation, he went on. "We wanted more. We tried, but..." He shrugged and shook his head. He would regret to his dying day refusing to listen when Christine had mentioned fertility testing. What made it worse was that he could no longer recall why he'd refused. How different things could have been... "If we'd had more, maybe Christine could've kept it together. She would've had to. But with no one..." "It tore your family apart," Scully finished for him. "Unfortunately, that happens a lot." "Tore quickly, too," Doggett said. "I started working double shifts - my regular plus another one on Luke's case --" "They let you?" "They couldn't stop me... but they should've." "Would you really have let them?" He sighed deeply. "Probably not, but I should've. I was a cop. I know how these cases usually end." "Do you think...?" "I don't know," Doggett said softly. "I didn't know then, and I don't know now. As a cop, I tried to be realistic, but as a father..." He shook his head. "I just don't know." "What about your wife?" Scully asked. "What did she believe?" "I never knew what was goin' on in her head," he admitted. "She took a leave from work, so she had nothing to do all day but sit and think. Then..." He paused to collect his thoughts and make sure he had a tight rein on his emotions. As hard as it had been to talk about Luke, the hardest part was still to come. "... then she started taking Valium. Lots of Valium... and who knows what else." He felt her hand on his shoulder; a comforting gesture that made it only slightly easier to continue. "We barely talked, and when we did we just fought. About my work, her drugs, Luke... everything. Both of us needed somebody to be the bad guy, but there wasn't one, so..." He swallowed hard and rubbed at his eyes. "... so we started blaming each other. If I'd walked Luke to school, if she'd watched from the window..." "It wasn't your fault," Scully said gently. "Neither of you." Head in hand now, Doggett felt the familiar wave of guilt wash over him. "Should've known better," he whispered. "I knew her mental state... I..." He took a few deep breaths, but could feel that iron control slipping. He hadn't spoken of it in years; the pain was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. "One night... I came home..." He took another long breath and let it out slowly, but it didn't help calm him. "... the coroner was never sure if the overdose was accidental or... or deliberate..." "Oh God," Scully breathed. "Agent Doggett... John... I'm sorry, so very sorry..." At that moment he missed Christine more than he had at any time since her death. He'd give his life to go back and make things right with her, with Luke; to be able to hold both of them in his arms one more time. So many ifs, so many ways things could've been different... Doggett remained still, his head cradled in his hand, not trusting himself to speak or even move. He gradually became aware of Scully's hand lightly rubbing his back; something Christine used to do when she knew he'd had a bad day. And when she spoke, he heard not his partner's voice, but his wife's. "John, are you all right?" He raised his head slowly and turned. Scully was looking at him, genuine concern in her eyes. "Are you okay?" she repeated. Jolted back to the present now, he hung his head again. "I wasn't there for her," he said. "For Luke, either. Seven months, and they were both gone." "You can't blame yourself for that." "Can't blame her," he said quietly. For a while he'd done just that, but before too long common sense returned and he recognized Christine's actions for what they were - the desperate actions of a desperate woman with nowhere to turn. "Or Luke. Who else is there to blame?" "What happened to your family was tragic," Scully said, "but it was not your fault. You know that." "Yeah," he sighed, "I guess I do." Sometimes he even managed to convince himself that the statement was true. "Seven months after your son disappeared," she mused. "That was when you left the police department, wasn't it?" It didn't even occur to him to wonder how she knew when he'd left the NYPD. "Right around that time, yeah," he said. "I just needed... a change, I guess. Took some time to think about things, and ended up in Quantico." "And on the child abduction task force." Definite disapproval in Scully's voice. "I can't believe they let you do that." "I did the work just fine, Agent Scully," Doggett returned, a little defensively. He'd done the work damn well, for the time he was on the task force. While Luke was never far from his thoughts, he was almost always able to separate his personal situation from his work. He just hadn't been able to do that with this case. "The cases didn't usually... hit like this," he finished quietly. "Why this time?" He remained silent, suddenly having second thoughts about unburdening himself any further. Not only was Scully not his first choice for a confidant, she also had her own stuff to deal with. No need to lay his troubles on her any more than he already had. "John?" she prodded gently. "Why this case?" He looked up, ready to fire back with a few questions of his own - why the first-name basis all of a sudden, why this unusual interest in his life - but he didn't say a word. He saw in her face a sincere desire to help; so convincing that when he finally spoke, the words were far different from what he'd meant to say. "Got a call a few days ago from my old partner back in New York," he said. "Apparently one of the cold case guys picked up Luke's file and looked into it again." He sighed. "No new leads, no new suspects, nothing. In light of that, he suggested it might be time to start thinking about having Luke declared..." Doggett swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. "... declared legally dead." "How do you feel about that?" Scully asked. "How am I supposed to feel about that? Like I'd be puttin' my boy in the ground with my own two hands? Because that's what it feels like." He stopped and took a deep breath. "I don't know if I'm ready." "It's not going to happen tomorrow," she reminded him. "You have some time before you can even start the process." "Still... doing it the minute I legally can..." He sighed again, his mind going back to New York's best-known missing child. "Took Etan Patz's father more than twenty years to do it." "But it might bear thinking about," Scully said gently. "It might give you a sense of closure." "I can't give up on him like that!" "You're his father. You'll never give up on him unless you have concrete proof. But you have to ask yourself..." Her hand returned to his shoulder. "... if, deep down, you honestly think you'll ever get proof of anything." "In other words, do I really believe he's still alive." "That's the real question you have to face, I think. Do you?" "Don't know..." No, not that cop-out again. He did know, even if he hadn't been able to admit it to himself for all this time. He took a few deep breaths, then whispered, "No. No, I don't think he is." The words hurt like hell, but the moment they were spoken, a tiny bit of the weight he'd been carrying on his shoulders for the last six years seemed to lift. "Then maybe the declaration would help you. It might help you mourn. You haven't really mourned him, have you?" "I --" He stopped as he suddenly realized that she was right. He'd mourned Christine, eventually coming to some sort of terms with her death even though he wasn't and would never be completely at peace with it. But he'd never gone through the same process with Luke. He couldn't; not if even the slightest glimmer of hope existed that his son might still be alive, might still be found someday. But he had to admit that even that glimmer of hope grew dimmer and dimmer with each passing day. "No, guess I haven't," he admitted. "Maybe someday you'll get to the point where you can look at this photo with a smile instead of sadness," Scully said. "Maybe you can recall and take comfort in the happy memories instead of dwelling on the bad ones." "Those memories will always be bittersweet, Agen... Dana," Doggett said softly. If a first-name basis was what she wanted, he could do that. "Can't change that." She smiled warmly. "Well, maybe someday the memories can be more sweet than bitter." He found himself returning her smile with a faint one of his own. "Maybe." "You know, I'd never presume to press my beliefs on anyone, but... if Luke is gone... I'd like to think he's with his mother." Doggett's mind went back to what used to be one of his favorite memories: an image of Christine holding Luke, who couldn't have been older than three, on her lap, singing to him. He'd felt especially close to his wife and son in that moment as he watched them, and wondered now if maybe Christine had had Scully's same thought on that night so long ago. "Yeah, I'd like to believe that too." Scully slipped Luke's photo into the breast pocket of his shirt. "And of course he'll always be right here." "Always." "Sounds like you've made a decision." He shrugged. "Don't know; maybe I have." His eyes met hers. "I'm not giving up, am I?" "I think you'll do what's right for you and for Luke. But no, I don't think you're giving up. You're doing what you have to do." She rose from the bed. "And if you ever need a shoulder to lean on, I'm here." "Thanks, Dana. 'Preciate it." He thought he might even take her up on that offer... sometime. Scully moved toward the door. "We should leave for the airport in an hour or so. Will you be ready?" "Yeah, I'll be ready." "Okay, see you in an hour." She slipped out the door, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Doggett settled back against the pillow, Luke's photo in his hand, memories flooding back. With his thumb he traced the curve of his son's cheek in the picture and said very softly, "Love you, son. Always." Then he lost himself in the bittersweet memories. ~ Fin ~ Send Mare feedback Return to the Completed Works page Return to the Main page