TITLE: Even Rocks Can Crumble
AUTHOR: Agent X
EMAIL ADDRESS: aussie_xphile25@yahoo.com.au
DISTRIBUTION: anywhere, just let me know
CLASSIFICATION: S, A
KEYWORDS: S, D, Luke Doggett
SPOILER WARNING: Season 8 in general
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Scully and Doggett talk. Sequel to The Stone,
also on this archive
DISCLAIMER: The wonderful characters in this story are
the property of the genius Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox
FEEDBACK: Yes please, good or bad, to the above
address
DEDICATION: As always, this story is entirely
dedicated to the wonderful Robert Patrick, who has
inspired me to write this by bringing the character of
John Doggett to life! Also to all my SHODDSsisters -
you guys rock!!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: As mentioned above, this fic is the
sequel to another fic of mine, The Stone. This story
won't make any sense unless you read that first! :-)

* No beta reader used. Please excuse the typos *

***
Even Rocks Can Crumble

***

I shouldn't be here. I have no right to be here,
asking questions, pushing myself in where I'm not
wanted. If he'd wanted me to know, he'd have already
told me.
That is what I'm thinking as I sit in my car outside
John Doggett's house.
I still feel guilty about following him to the
cemetery, but at the same time, I'm glad I finally
know the truth... or part of it, anyway. Only he can
tell me the full story... and maybe I'll never know.
I don't know what I'm doing here. What am I going to
say to him? I know your son is dead and I'm sorry?
Like that's going to help. He's going to be mad enough
as it is to find out that I followed him.
Despite my uncertainty about being here, Doggett is
still my partner. He was always there for me during
the search for Mulder, so making sure he's okay now is
the least I can do for him.
Pushing aside my misgivings, I knock on the door.
He opens it a moment later, dressed in jeans and a
white t-shirt. He clutches a half-empty bottle of Jack
Daniel's in his hand, but I have had enough personal
experience to see that's not the reason for his
red-rimmed eyes.
There is an awkward moment and I start to regret my
decision to come here at all.
"Agent Scully," he says. "What are you doing here?"
He's trying to act as thought nothing is wrong, but
I'm not fooled. A blind man could see his pain.
"Can I come in? There's something we need to talk
about?"
Doggett runs a hand through his spiky hair.
"Look, Agent Scully, I'm really not in the mood to-"
"This is important," I say, cutting him off. "Please?"
He sighs and steps back, allowing me to enter. Closing
the door behind me, he gestures for me to take a seat
in an armchair. He sits across from me on the couch
and puts the bottle of Jack's on the coffee table.
We sit there in silence for a moment. I'm not quite
sure where to begin.
"What is it you want to talk about, Agent Scully?" he
asks me, breaking the silence. He rubs the bridge of
his nose with one hand and, for the first time, I
notice how tired he looks. There are dark circles
beneath his eyes; normally clear, bright eyes that are
now but a dull glimmer of their usual intense blue.
"I have to tell you something," I begin. Telling lies
isn't going to get me anywhere, so I stick with the
truth. "After I was discharged from the hospital
earlier today, I went looking for you. I wanted to
talk to you. Mulder said you'd just left so I went out
to the car park to find you. I must have just missed
you, because I saw you driving off."
I pause.
"Yeah, well," he says, looking at the floor. "There
was somewhere I had to be."
I continue.
"This was really important, in fact, it couldn't wait...
so I followed you."
His head snapped up.
"You what?"
I start speaking more quickly, not giving him a chance
to interject before I can explain myself.
"I had no idea where you were going. I thought you'd
just be going back to the office, or back here. I
didn't mean to pry into your business, but once I saw
where you went... I had to see why," I finish off,
almost whispering.
His eyes are closed; face turned to the ceiling. The
expression on it is unreadable. Maybe I shouldn't have
told him. Maybe I should leave.
"So you know," he says, looking at me for the first
time since we sat down.
"I know what I saw... but apart from that, I only know
what you tell me," I say, echoing his words to me a
few months ago.
He smiles faintly, sadly.
"So, you want me to tell you," he sighs. It's more of
a statement than a question.
I shake my head.
"Only what you want to tell me," I say. 'And if that
is nothing, then I'm not going to go behind your back
to find out more. This is your life and your business...
but..."
He looks up at me questioningly.
"But what?"
"You said it yourself, sometimes when you talk about
it, the hurt starts to go away."
These were his words to Billy Underwood on one of our
first cases together. I seem to be using a lot of his
words tonight... wise words from a wise man.
He picks up the bottle of Jack's again and takes a
long swig, grimacing as the liquid burns his throat.
"Yeah, well, sometimes you just say things to make
people feel better. That was one of those things. It's
*bullshit*, he finishes, spitting out the last word
vehemently.
I am a little taken aback by his change in demeanour.
For a moment there I thought he was going to open up
to me, let go what I knew was bottled up inside. I
guess I expected too much. He's an ex-Marine. He's a
cop. Cops don't cry on their partner's shoulder, no
matter how bad things get. They handle their own
demons. They are rocks.
I stand up. I think it's time for me to go.
"I'll see you later, Agent Doggett. Take care of
yourself."
I walk past him towards the door, but he grabs my
wrist and pulls me back. I turn around to face him,
expecting another angry outburst. Instead, I see
something I would never have expected in a million
years. Tears.
"Shit," he mutters. He closes his eyes and turns away
from me, wiping his face with his arms, trying
unsuccessfully to reclaim his tough-cop mask.
I sit down next to him and put my hands on his
shoulders. Turning him to face me, I pull his head
down until is rests on my shoulder, wrap my arms
around his back.
"It's okay," I whisper in his ear. "Even cops cry
sometimes."
I hear a tiny snort of laughter before he pulls away
from me. Regaining his composure somewhat, he looks at
me, and then away again.
"I, uh... thanks, Agent Scully," he stammers,
embarrassed. "I didn't mean to snap at you before and...
I'm sorry about all this."
"You don't have to be sorry about anything," I
reassure him. "God knows you've got a good reason to
be upset. I don't know how you handle all this on your
own... I know I couldn't."
He smiles a little.
"I think you underestimate yourself, Agent Scully. You
were the same when we were searching for Mulder; you
never showed emotion, you bottled it all up inside.
Besides," he said, referring to himself again. "It's
hard *not* to keep it to yourself when you have no one
to confide in..."
I didn't say anything for a moment. He looked so sad
and alone sitting there. Until now, I'd never given
much thought to his life outside work. In fact, I'd
never given much thought to him, period. I didn't know
if he had a family, if he had a wife. I didn't know
whether he liked football or baseball, or what he did
on weekends. I thought I knew my partner, but I had it
all backward. I thought he was out to destroy the
X-Files, but he wasn't. I thought he was
indestructible, but he wasn't. I thought he didn't
care about me, but he did.
These last few hours, in particular, have made me
realise I don't know my partner at all. But do I
*want* to? God, yes.
I turn to him and take one of his hands in mine.
"Look, John," I say. The formal 'Agent Doggett' just
doesn't seem right in this situation. "I know that
talking doesn't always help, and I know that I'm the
last person you'd confide in after the way I've
treated you since we met, but I didn't know you. I was
wrong about you. I thought you were an open book, but
I think I read it backwards."
I stop for a moment. I better get off my soapbox and
get to the point.
"What I'm trying to say is that if you helped me
through the toughest time of my life and I can never
repay you enough. If you ever want to talk, whether it
be now, or in ten years time, I'm always here for
you."
He turns away for a moment and I feel slightly
embarrassed at pouring out my soul. My embarrassment
disappears, though, when he turns back to me, tears on
his face again.
Miracles will never cease. I've never seen him show
emotion and now I see him cry, not once, but *twice*
in twenty minutes. This time, though, they are happy
tears.
He hugs me tightly.
"Thankyou," he whispers. "You have no idea how much it
means to hear you say that."
He hesitates for a moment, and then continues.
"And... I'd like to tell you about... about Luke," he has
trouble saying his son's name. "If you want to know,
that is. It's not a happy story."
I hug him back.
"I want to know whatever you want to tell me," I say.
He nods and we pull back from each other. Leaning back
on the couch, he begins the story.
I listen without commenting as he tells me of his son
growing up. He shows me a photo and I can just imagine
Luke bounding into the room, begging his dad to come
outside and play. He tells me of his job with the
NYPD, and of the kidnapping case that started it all.
He tells me of the long hours spent following dead-end
leads. He tells me how work followed him home.
I listen, wide-eyed, as he recounts his wife's frantic
phone call when Luke didn't show up at school one day.
I hear the pain in his voice as he tells me of the
sleepless nights, and days of searching.
Tears roll down his cheeks as he describes the field
where he found his son's lifeless body. Tears roll
down my cheeks, too, as he tells me how he fell to his
knees next to his boy and sobbed.
He recounts telling his wife that their son was dead,
and I am shocked to hear she blamed him for it and
wouldn't speak to him again.
His voice is dull as he tells how it poured with rain
on the day of his son's burial, and for many of the
dark days thereafter.
He tells me how he went back to work, throwing himself
completely and utterly into finding the killer, but to
no avail. His wife never went back to her job, but
stayed home in a house full of bittersweet memories.
His voice breaks as he tells me of the night he got
home late and couldn't find his wife. He searched the
house and the yard, before finally thinking to look in
Luke's room. He found his wife lying on their son's
bed. She was clutching Luke's baseball glove, blood
still dripping from her slashed wrists. She was dead.
I have to stifle a gasp as he says those last words.
He turns away from me, unable to hold face any longer.
He covers his face with his hands as sobs shake his
body. His breath is coming in uncontrollable gasps.
I sit there for a moment, stunned. I had no idea my
partner had been through so much in his life. Here I
was, thinking it was the end of the world because my
best friend was missing, and this man not only lost
his son in tragic circumstances, but his wife as well!
My fears and troubles pale in comparison to his.
I move closer to him on the couch and rest one hand on
his shoulder. Instead of accepting my comfort, though,
he leaps up.
"Wha-" I start to say, but stop when he grabs the
bottle of Jack's and hurls it across the room. It
smashes into a thousand tiny pieces, leaving the amber
liquid running down the wall.
"WHY?" he yelled. He wasn't yelling at me; he wasn't
yelling at anyone, except maybe God.
"WHY DID IT HAVE TO HAPPEN?"
I have no answer for him. I sit here, not knowing
whether to stay or go, whether to speak or not.
I jump when he slams his fist into the wall, hard
enough to make the plaster crack.
"Why? Why? Why?" he sobs, slamming his fist into the
wall in time with each word.
He's going to hurt himself if I don't stop him. I jump
up from the couch and grab his wrist as he draws his
arm back for another blow. Almost expecting him to
turn on me, I am surprised when he crumples to the
floor, holding his bloodied knuckles and sobbing
quietly.
I kneel next to him and take him in my arms again. He
collapses into my lap.
"It's so unfair," he chokes out between sobs.
"I know it is. I know," I say.
"You're not supposed to bury your kid. Why did he have
to die so young?"
I know nothing I say will make it better for him, make
the pain go away, but I have to try, for my own peace
of mind as much as his.
"There's just some things that are beyond our
control," I say quietly, stroking his hair with one
hand. "You have to believe it was one of those things.
You did everything you could to keep him safe."
"What if I didn't? What if there was something else I
could have done, some clue I might have missed? What
if I could have saved him?"
I pull back and place my hands on his shoulders.
"John, look at me," I say. When he does, I continue.
"I didn't know you back then, but I know you now. If
you were half the man back then that you are today, I
*know* you did everything in your power to find your
son. And I also know, that wherever Luke is, *he*
knows that too."
I watch him as a tear runs slowly down his face. I
reach out and wipe it away before it reaches his chin.
"Thankyou," he whispers. "Thankyou for everything."
I smile and pull him in to another hug.
As we sit there on the floor together I realise that I
*do* know my partner now. In less than an hour I've
learnt more about him than I have in working with him
for six months. It amazes me how wrong my first
impressions about him were. I'm usually pretty good
with characterisation. Maybe I just didn't want to see
him for who he really was. Maybe I was afraid to see
him, afraid that I'd like what I saw. And I do like
it. I do like him.
He's not only my partner, but also my friend. Someone
I can turn to in my time of need, just as he can turn
to me. In getting to know John Doggett, I've found him
to be as selfless as I thought him selfish; as loyal
as I thought deceitful; as caring as I thought cruel.
Whether knowingly or not, throughout the search for
Mulder, he was the one constant in my life. He was the
one thing that remained standing when my world fell
apart around me. He was always there for me, as I will
always be for him. He was my rock, but I guess even
rocks can crumble.

~The End~

***

More Author's Notes: Damn, I didn't realise how hard
it is to write a sequel! The fic before this, The
Stone, was so well received by everyone that I'm not
sure if this lives up to it! I hope so! In any case, I
hope you all enjoyed reading at as much as I enjoyed
writing it! Feedback of any kind is much appreciated.
:-)