CLOSING THE FILE Author: jrfpatton Feedback: jrfpatton@hotmail.com Archive: At your pleasure, just let me know Rating: PG Classification: VRA/MS Spoilers: Through Season Eight Disclaimer - These characters are owned by Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions, and Twentieth Century Fox. Summary: Scully, unable to reach Mulder after his abduction, decides to close the case and gains perspective from an unlikely source-Doggett. Closing the File Streetlights flicked off when Special Agent Dana Scully of the FBI closed the front door of her partner's apartment building and began looking for a cab. She realized at once it had not been smart of her to leave without calling first -- taxis just didn't cruise Fox Mulder's neighborhood on a regular basis. She hadn't thought of it because her only concern had been getting out of the apartment before Mulder woke up. She shifted her overnight bag to her other hand and found a coffee shop down the street. When she stepped out the lights in the shop had been dim; now they burned bright. She would be their first customer until she could summon a cab to take her home. Her back ached from Mulder's bed, but that wasn't the reason she awoke so early and slipped away. His mattress was lousy support for a pregnant woman, especially one who had trouble sleeping anyway. There was a hole on one side where Mulder slept night after night before his abduction. When the cleaning service came in she insisted they flip the mattress and now the hole was on her side of the bed. She was always doing things like that. And getting lousy support. The man in the coffee shop -- it was actually the bagel store where she and Mulder bought breakfast and late night dinners-- looked up, startled, then grinned. "You're early," he said. He tied a white apron around his waist. "Tea with lemon and a plain bagel, right?" "No bagel, thanks. Just tea. Decaf." "How you feelin'?" Scully nodded. "Fine." She pulled out her phone and found the speed dial number for the cab company. "Bet you're ready," the man said, busying himself with a mug and tea bag. Scully put the phone to her ear and smiled at him. "With all three of our kids that last month my wife usedta stand at the top of the stairs and tell me she was gonna roll down and see if she couldn't give things a jump start. There." Scully put her hands around the mug. The story and the tea warmed her. "Hard to sleep?" Scully nodded and sipped. The man made a clicking sound. "Heartburn, no sleep, sore feet, achin' back...and my wife says that's the good part! She says it's a wonder the human race reproduces at all. Wanna see the paper?" Without waiting for an answer he put "The Washington Post" on the table. Scully glanced at it and pretended to read. She didn't know why she was sitting there except she didn't want to wait for the cab outside. She didn't want to go home. She had been staying off and on with Mulder for so long her apartment didn't feel like home anymore. She didn't have anything that truly felt like hers. Not even the child she carried. The front door opened and a bleary-eyed young teenager came in. "Tony, you're late." "So fire me, dad." "What! And you miss all this excitement? Here, take these cartons to the back." "Now?" The man put one hand on his large hip and nodded with his head. "You want breakfast first? Or did your mother feed you at home?" "Mom's in bed -- where we all oughtta be!" "Hey!" said the man. "We got a customer here." The boy glanced at Scully, who pretended she didn't hear. "You here to work or eat my profits?" The boy spoke in undertones. "I hope you're makin' money. You see the Yankees score? You owe me, old man." "I'll add it to your pay envelope." The boy grinned. He fingered some imaginary money. "Pay up, loser!" His father snorted. The boy put one of the cartons on his shoulder and headed for the back of the shop with a chuckle. The shop owner followed his son for a moment and when he looked back he discovered his customer had been watching with shining eyes. The man shuffled his feet, cleared his throat and said in an off-handed fashion, "Good kid." "Thought you said an aching back was the good part," Scully said. The man shrugged. "There's others. Like everythin' else, you gotta dig for 'em sometimes." A yellow cab pulled up in front of the shop and Scully found money to pay for the tea. She left two bills on the table and waved goodbye. When the driver asked where she wanted to go she hesitated for only a moment, then lapsed into thought. Mulder was the same man he had always been, she realized. Perhaps his abduction and resurrection made him more focused, more intense, less patient, more determined. He was driven. She was not the same. He didn't see it -- couldn't see it for his tunnel vision. He was entitled to be a little self-absorbed. That was part of the recovery process. It struck her as a revolutionary idea that she was entitled to be self-absorbed now too. She couldn't wait for him any longer. He would save the world. She found she was no longer interested in anything but a core piece of the universe. She vaguely remembered a saying from the Talmud," He who saves one life saves the world." Perhaps it was a Chinese proverb. She was no longer sure. She found she was no longer certain of much. Sometimes she thinks pregnancy has made her stupid. Or absent minded. Or just more concerned about other things. Scully found the cab had stopped outside the J. Edgar Hoover Building. She smiled to herself, paid the fare and walked inside. On this Saturday morning she had to close out a file. She paused outside the basement office and stared at the light under the door. Frowning, she stood clutching her overnight bag in front of her and wondering whether she'd left the light on when she left yesterday. No, the clatter of computer keys came clearly under the door along with the light. "Agent Scully? What are you doing here?" "I might ask the same, Agent Doggett." He looked as though he'd been there all night. Her eyebrows drew together. "I wanted to catch up on some things, close out some cases. . ." John Doggett appeared to be uncertain what to say next. "I came to close out a case too." "I'd sooner be fishin'" he said. "That's what my daddy would say." "You and your dad went fishing a lot," Scully said. She swung the bag onto a chair. It was easier to heft it onto a chair now than to pick it up from the floor later. Doggett stood up, pushed a desk chair towards her and sat back down in his. "Oh yeah. He was a big fisherman. He left me all his tackle, lures. . . 'bout all he had to leave me. Used those same lures when my . . .You want some coffee?" She shook her head and sat down. She didn't want to, but she noticed he pushed another chair close to her feet so she could prop them up. "My father was a fisherman. Once in a while he took me too. Just me." "You like it?" "I liked the quiet. And sitting with my father." Doggett stirred his coffee, glanced around the office and sighed. "It's quiet here now." The building settled. It seemed musty. Scully sniffed. It seemed like dust and mold had been disturbed in an old, secret cave. Somewhere an elevator button dinged. Doggett had his laptop plugged in. He liked the portable models. Mulder hated the way his fingers never fit on the keys. She smiled. "You ever fly-fish?" "Just off a dock." "I went fly-fishing once in the Rockies. Special trip. It's all in the wrist, ya know." "What?" "Casting. All in the wrist. Take a firm stance and flick." Doggett stood up and demonstrated. "Very little arm involved here." Scully was mesmerized. His movements seemed fluid, like the water he saw in his head. He turned to her as though projecting his vision onto her. "Pretty soon a fish comes up to investigate and bam! You got action." Scully could tell he wasn't seeing her, but a stream somewhere in the Rockies. A very satisfying picture. "Then you reel him in real careful like. . .easy, easy, ease down the net and -- scoop. I'm telling you, Agent Scully, you never tasted trout until you taste it over a campfire." "I'll pass," she said with a laugh. "Not a camper, huh?" "Nothing more rugged than a Holiday Inn Express," she said. Doggett flicked her one more fly-fishing demonstration. "Biggest trout anybody in my family ever caught!" "You?" Doggett stopped, home from his visit to the Rockies. He sat back down heavily and studied the computer screen. "My boy." He began to type something. "Your father took you and your son fishing?" She said, hoping to sound as though she knew all along he had a son. Which she did. It wasn't a surprise. The surprise was in his talking about it. And her listening. "A little male bonding?" He didn't look up again. He kept on typing. She suddenly felt horribly embarrassed, ashamed. For months she had worked to keep him at arm's length. And she had. She had no right to go where she was going. "You hopin' for a boy or a girl?" "I don't care. Honestly." She settled in; it was too much trouble to move. Doggett clucked once. "Better hope for a boy. What kindda life would a girl would have once it got around how many gun- toting men were interested in her welfare?" Scully grinned and that seemed to encourage Doggett. "'Course a girl would be nice to take to the movies. Boys don't care too much for cartoons and Disney stuff after six." "What was your favorite?" "Aladdin," he said at once. "Yours?" "Cinderella." He nodded and returned to his computer screen. "You figure on Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts . . . things like that?" Scully cocked her head. "I-I don't know. I haven't thought that far." "You want my advice -- which I know you don't -- but you oughtta think about scouts." "I was a Brownie." "I could help out with the campin', wilderness part." They smiled at each other. A first. Scully had to bite her lip to keep back a gasp of realization. This is what she missed, what she'd wanted. What Mulder had not given her since his return. She just wanted to talk about the baby, to plan, to dream about it. Even if they never went to the movies or fishing or read stories or joined a scout troop, she wanted to talk about the child's future. She never asked him for anything but his interest. And after all the months of sorrow, disbelief then euphoria, all she had was disappointment. She wanted to look forward instead of backward. "Well. . ." Doggett returned to the screen, then couldn't seem to resist. "Scoutin' is a good thing for kids." "I'm sure, Agent Doggett. But I've got a few years to consider it." "Yeah, 'course." She knew there was more so she summoned her patience. He finally typed a few keys and said as he punctuated a sentence," A boy needs a-a sponsor like that in scouts and since I was an Eagle. . ." -- Scully could almost feel Mulder's disdain ripple through the air -- "I'd be happy to do that. 'Course you got time." Scully's eyes widened. "I'll bear that in mind. What case are you working on?" Doggett frowned. "Closing out some notes on, oh, some old files. What did you come in to sign off on?" She studied her feet now propped up on the straight-backed chair Doggett had provided. "I came to finish the report on,hm- m-m, Mulder's abduction." Doggett's fingers froze on the keys. He watched out of the top of his eyes as she put her feet on the floor and went to the filing cabinet. For a moment the only sound was paper rustling. "It isn't here," she said after a while. "I have it," he said, licking his lips. "That what you're working on?" He nodded. His shoulders collapsed with his loud exhale. "Tell the truth, I can't seem to write an end to it." "Neither can I." The words were out of her mouth before she knew what she'd said. She felt ill, heartburn bounding into her throat before she could stop it, her eyes filling with tears before she could call them back. She sucked in a breath and looked to see if he noticed. Doggett stared at the wall in front of him. If he saw her struggling he didn't acknowledge it. Instead, it seemed to Scully that he wrestled with something himself, something not connected with her or with the X-Files. Something distant and painful and disturbing. Twice he started to speak and twice he couldn't make any words come out. "I don't know what happened," he said finally. "I know what Billy Miles thinks happened. What you think happened. What Mulder says happened. I don't know. And that bothers me, Agent Scully." "Don't," she said. Her voice sounded sharp, bitter. "It will consume you." He fingered his lips and ventured a look at her. Her face, all angular and sharp in the basement light, showed the truth in her words. In a moment he sniffed and at the same time they both said: "Coffee's burning." Doggett got to the pot first, no surprise there. They stared like idiots at the blackened coffee pot with the grounds sizzling inside. "No mystery why it tasted so bad now," Doggett said at last. Scully snickered and they both began to chuckle. She unplugged the cord and stood holding it in her hand, staring at it. Doggett reached over and took it from her. "Let's just dump it." She thought he put particular emphasis on the word dump. "Yeah." She would have left then, gone and not looked back. She didn't. Scully ached in places that, like her child, had no name Mulder would give her. She wondered now if Doggett could. Perhaps he saw it in her face or knew it from visiting the pit she was now trying to climb out of. But Doggett said, "I read in the file, in the one you kept here, what Skinner said when he got back from Oregon. He said --" "'I lost him'." The words haunted Scully yet. "I thought about that. That way of saying things. Like Mulder was an old shoe. More I thought about it, the more I realized it was a good way to put it." Doggett turned to her. ". . . to lose somebody - misplace 'em. Turn your back. . . thinking they'll be there when you turn around again and you can pick them up like you pick up car keys off a table..." His voice trailed off. Scully held her breath and for the first time Doggett's pain became palpable -- something she could almost touch within her own heart. Doggett pulled himself up straight and clenched his jaw in a way she recognized as determination. His hard stare was for her. "I don't like how Mulder assumes things -- and acts like we're all ignoramuses. I don't like his arrogance, his temper -- and I don't like that he gets raised from the dead -- a new life -- and he's not grateful." "Grateful to whom?" Her scorn came from a new place. A guilty space inside her that she didn't know existed until Doggett called it out. "To me for being too slow in finding him? To Skinner who let him go in the first place? To you for refusing to see what was there all along? To Kersh who wants to steal his life's work? Which of us has earned his gratitude?" She always did that to him, Doggett remembered. She had the power to sweep him back on his heels and make him feel small and ashamed. "Alls I know is, if I got a another chance I'd be damn sure I never lost anybody else I cared about." His disposal of the ruined pot into the nearby trash can seemed more like a letting go than a throwing away. Her cell phone startled them both. "Are you out for breakfast or just out?" Mulder said. He sounded sleepy. "Out." It was decidedly cold. "Oh...Okay." He hung up. In the short space of that conversation Doggett returned to his computer. She flipped the phone shut and slipped it into her pocket, not knowing what to say or do next. She should be elated Mulder was back, not disappointed. She should remember his giving nature would come back. She should understand what he'd been through was extraordinary. "You should be lookin' out for yourself, Agent Scully," Doggett said. "You had breakfast?" "I'm not hungry." He reached into the desk and pulled out a brown bag. "I'll split a Danish with ya." "No, really. . . " "Raspberry. .." Which was just about her favorite type of pastry. Which Doggett knew. She almost smiled. "Half." He handed her a whole one wrapped in waxy butcher paper. "I got two." Scully's eyebrow arched slightly. "Well, I figured if I didn't use 'em both today I'd just warm the leftover up in the microwave." Someone had taken pains with John Doggett once, Scully realized. Someone had warmed his Danish, warmed his heart, warmed his bed. Someone he misplaced when he lost his son. She didn't want to care about that, about his loss, or his life. Dana Scully knew too much about those things already. Deep within her womb the baby kicked and turned, startling her. Doggett tried to suppress a smile, but couldn't. "Gettin' a little rambunctious?" She smiled and ducked her head. "'Cause I can see it from here," he said. "Time's getting' short." Scully sighed."Yeah." "It's a good time -- all those little clothes -- blocks and those things that go around and make music over the crib. . . getting all those things babies gotta have." To Scully it felt strange hearing him talk about babies and fishing and fathers and sons -- strange but not awkward. He spoke from experience. He already knew, he'd been places Mulder had not gone. And she realized it wasn't Mulder's abduction, or the lost time, or the changes that had taken place in his absence, or even his obsessive search for the truth that kept Mulder locked in himself. It was ignorance. And that, Scully realized, was her fault. Just as it was her fault she didn't know about John Doggett's fishing trips and scouting exploits. Once Doggett said that he knew nothing but what she told him. She had been too scared, too preoccupied, to understand all that implied. She did now. "I think I'll go home," she said. Doggett nodded. "Good idea. Can I drive you?" "I'll get a cab," she said. "But thanks." "Agent Scully -- some time, if it's okay -- I'll take the kid fishing." He said it in the enthusiasm of the moment, she knew. And once said, he was embarrassed. His neck reddened. He floundered like one of those trout on his line. "We'll see." Doggett couldn't look at her. "Agent Doggett, I may not have conveyed to you how important your work and your opinions have been. It's accurate to say I couldn't have gotten through these last few months without your -- without you." He stood, pleased and flustered. "I appreciate it." She held out her hand, he took it and covered it with his other hand. "I think we can leave the case open," Scully said finally. She withdrew her hand to pick up her bag. "Lots of X-Files never close." "Good idea," he said, nodding as though they were still talking about investigations. He powered down his machine and closed the lid. "Think I'll head for the country, go hikin'. Sure I can't give you a lift?" But she was already gone. Her phone rang again just as she got in the taxi. "Are you coming back?" Mulder sounded petulant. "I have some errands, Mulder. Things I've put off." She could just tell he was imagining what she had to do. She prayed he wouldn't say laundry -- she was afraid she'd hang up on him. "I haven't eaten yet," he said. "I'll alert the Post. The man in the bagel shop is working with his son today. Service isn't great, but the ambiance is terrific." "Scully. . .?" "Mulder. . .?" He struggled. She could practically hear his mouth moving, his brain tossing words aside in search of just the right one. Finally he gave up and said," Where are you going?" "I'm sure it wouldn't interest you, Mulder. Don't you have cases to review?" "Do you want to narrate?" "No." "What do you have to do?" The cab was passing the White House. She would always remember that -- the moment the words rang true for her. "I'm getting ready to have a baby." "Now!" "Mulder, there are necessary preparations before labor begins." "Oh --I assumed you and your mother did them." "I've neglected them. I've been a little busy elsewhere." She heard him take a quick breath, like he'd just thought of something. It was a good read. He spoke like he'd just thought of something and wanted to share with her. His tone, not his words, made her pulse quicken with hope. "Scully...can you come over?" She sighed. "Okay. . ." Scully watched the city roll by -- a quick Saturday ride instead of a stop and go busy workday trip. She leaned her head back against the seat and thought about her life with some contentment. She began making a list in her head of what she needed for the baby. She had almost reached the point where she was ready to commit it to paper when the cab stopped. At his door Scully thought about using her key, then knocked. He opened with a puzzled expression. "Why didn't you just come in?" "This isn't my home, it's yours," she said coolly. He looked startled, almost alarmed. "Here, sit down," he said. He swept some newspapers off the couch onto the floor. He sat next to her, shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip, knee-to-knee. Mulder clasped his hands in front of him and leaned forward. "I missed a lot." "Yeah." She grabbed a deep breath. "Your chance to make a fortune in the stock market's gone -- economy's slipped." He chuckled, then grew serious. "I'm angry that so much of my life went on without me." She clucked and tossed her head. "Not a lot of options, Mulder." He felt panic rise in his chest and spoke without thinking. "I don't want to miss any more. I want to-to be part of what happens, what alters the world." That was familiar territory to her. "I don't want to miss anymore either," she said. Her firm tone made him wince. "I know it must frustrate you," she added by way of softening her last words. "I didn't used to hate change," he said. "Change isn't always bad," she said. "I was left out of the loop. The changes, things that are different, were out of my control. I didn't have a part in determining my own future," he said. She smiled at him. A sweet, innocent salve for his anxious spirit. "Oh, I wouldn't say you didn't have a hand in making the future," she said. After a brief hesitation he picked up something beside the couch, turned, and laid a worn baseball glove and ball into her lap. "I didn't wrap it," he said. When she continued to stare at his gift, he added," I figured you wouldn't think of getting this for the baby," he said. She caressed the leather glove, turned it over in her hands and stammered," No-no, actually, I didn't." Her eyes fell on some black letters -- small ones-- handwritten inside the glove. 'MULDER' "My father gave it to me," he said in a small voice. "I was nine or ten --- maybe it's a little, ah, soon to pass it on." "No -- timing's perfect," she said. "I-I was going to get things the baby will need today. I can cross this off my list." Without looking Mulder reached for her hand, rubbed his lips over her knuckles and finally kissed her palm. After a while she sighed and heaved herself to her feet. "I have to go. I have things --" "Things that wouldn't interest me?" Surprised to hear her pique come back on her now, Scully lifted her chin. "You might find it interesting," she said in a noncommittal tone. "Get your keys." ### 1