_Exeunt_ Rating: PG-13 Keywords: Doggettfic. Doggett! Doggett! Doggett! And a little bit of Mulder and Scully, too. Author: Karen (snarky_freak@hotmail.com ) Spoilers: All of Season 8, with particular emphasis on "This Is Not Happening" Archive: Ephemeral, Gossamer--all others are welcome, so long as I'm notified ;0) Disclaimers: Not mine. I never assumed they were mine, so don't look at me like that, okay?? Author's Notes: This story takes place immediately and shortly after "TINH". In light of season 8 spoilers, let's just say this takes place in alternate/hypothetical universe. The title, "Exeunt", is a stage direction used in Shakespeare's plays to indicate when a character leaves the stage. This can be a quasi-sequel to "Manent"; both stories can also be stand-alones. -------------- Strange shapes and void afflict the soul And shadow to the eye A world on fire while smoke seas roll And lightnings rend the sky The moon shall be as blood the sun Black as a thunder cloud The stars shall turn to blue and dun And heaven by darkness bowed Shall make sun dark and give no day When stars like skys shall be When heaven and earth shall pass away Wilt thou Remember me -John Clare ---------------- How long had it been? It seemed like forever already. He had called after her. He knew she wouldn't listen. He knew that she was beyond listening. To anybody. Especially to him. Seconds passed. Words were spoken. Arrangements were made. Heads shook and bowed in pity. Minutes passed. Arms and legs moved. Bodies moved. Bodies were moved by other bodies. The wind caressed faces. Some felt the caress and turned away from the breeze. Some didn't even know they were being caressed. He had paced for a few more minutes. He had watched *him*. He had looked down at *him*. He had finally met *him*. They weren't pleased to make the acquaintance... How long had it been? It was becoming forever already. He hadn't realized that he had stopped pacing minutes ago, and was now walking briskly, purposefully towards the wooded area. Towards the makeshift compound. Towards her. He could feel eyes on him. He could feel unspoken questions boring holes through his back. He was here to pick up the pieces, they decided. He was a vulture to them. He refused to stop circling her. They had no clue how right they were. The compound looked like a large, awkward dot on the field, from where he was right now. A screaming dot. A wailing dot. It would take him several more minutes to get there, but he could already hear her. He heard her before she even started screaming. Hell, he heard her the second he laid eyes on her that fateful night, months ago--sprawled on that cold linoleum floor, her hands vainly covering the tears streaming down her face. He heard her then--not because he wanted to, but because he himself had been screaming for years. And now they were true partners, in a sense. Loss was the bond that strangled them together. Loss was the only thing they found in each other. He could practically feel each tear, as he saw it, in his mind's eye, streaming down her face. He synchronized his gait with the quivering of her shoulders. He couldn't see her crying. He didn't have to. He'd been there. He still was. 'I did my job. I found him. But I never said I'd find him dead. That wasn't supposed to happen. I promised I'd help you find him. But not like this.' He ran a hand through his ruffled brown hair and shook his head as he weaved his way past the tree stumps that marked the clearing around the compound. The campfire had long been put out. It, too, was dead. Even the ashes were gone; he guessed, that the wind had caressed the ashes too much. Just like suffering had caressed *him* too much. Beyond repair. Beyond help. Beyond her reach. 'Is this where we part company...??' No. No. No. No. Please. No. No. No... It took him a few seconds to adjust to the scornful voice that pierced the otherwise soundless night air. Her pleas were starting again. Like a broken record. Ruined. Fixated on only one song. Mindless of the others. The song begins. It ends. The broken record skips a beat, jumps ever so slightly--and begins again. Just like before. Like it had never sung that song before. But it had. It just doesn't remember. The tune, the pitch, the individual notes--constantly, repetitively the same. Such a circular pattern. Harmonious. There was something awfully cruel about it; that a broken, defective record could tirelessly transmit such a dedicated, loyal, heartfelt love song. What the broken record didn't realize was that in immortalizing the love song, it was contributing--causing--its own slow death. His moderate gait gradually became an urgent, desperate run. Her screams grew louder. They spewed forth months of unshed tears. He pushed his way past the throng of confused, but like-minded strangers and followed the sound of her voice. That voice. 'I think it's... I'm not sure; I don't know...' That voice. Can he hear it? Could he hear it? 'Like a songbird...' A nightingale. It was damn dark in here. Too dark for the human eye, but just right for bats that might just be 'hangin' there'... Do you believe it, Agent Doggett? I never saw it as an option... He pulled the small flashlight out of his suit jacket and proceeded to look for her. First he looked for *him*... Now he was looking for *her*... Constantly looking, and always finding and reaching the goal a second too late. The beam from the flashlight sliced the darkness in half, and he found her moments later, on her hands and knees and begging for the fulfillment of her version of The Second Coming. He approached her cautiously and knelt down on the floor behind her. She didn't notice him at all. He stared at her. She closed her eyes and shook her head convulsively. 'This is not happening...' 'It is... I'm sorry.' He swallowed hard and looked down at the dirty hardwood floor. 'She'll get sick if she stays here like this.' He took a deep, ragged breath and gently touched her arm. He's surprised to feel the well-toned muscles under her delicate-looking blouse. A strong woman. A tough woman. A healthy woman. A woman who has lost her life. She is no longer strong. Or tough. Or healthy. She's dying. She will die. No. No. No. Please. No. No. His eyes closed of their own accord, and he gently grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. She didn't notice him at all. Slowly, carefully, he released her shoulders and wrapped his arms around her slender waist. Slowly, carefully, he hauled her up on her feet and steadied her. "Let's go," he whispered behind her ear when he at last found his voice, gravelly and uneven as it was. She shook her head. That was the first and only indication she had given him that she was still aware of what was happening around her. "Come on, Agent Scully. Let's go." He tried to lead her out the dusty little room by gently placing a hand on the small of her back, but she stood her ground and stepped away from him. "Go? There's nowhere else to go, Agent Doggett," she breathed hollowly as she ran a trembling hand through her bedraggled, bright auburn hair and looked him in the eye for the first time that night. "Nowhere." She fixed him with an incomprehensible stare before she turned her back on him and buried her head in her hands. 'Hey--don't turn your back on me...' "I..." she began shakily as her voice resumed its quivering. "I don't... I don't want you here right now..." He could feel his shoulders slumping. He could feel his eyes lowering to the floor, where his heart had already crumbled and dissolved with her tears minutes ago. He nodded. "I'm..." Sorry? Sick of all this? Not going to let you do this to yourself? Okay with that, because I've been there, and I know how much it hurts? No, of course not. "I'm gonna be right outside. If..." he gave her a one-shouldered shrug and jerked a thumb in the direction of the door. "If... You know, if you need anything." He didn't bother to wait for her reply; he simply turned on his heels, left the room, and made sure he closed the door behind him. She didn't notice him at all. --------- 2:37 a.m. One motel room. One light turned on. Only one of many versions of darkness and gloom. John Doggett ran a hand down his face and blinked several times as he watched her small, tormented figure tossing and turning in bed. She was dreaming, he knew. But deep inside her, he knew too, that she was wide awake. Wide awake and living out a dream-filled illusion, where her fear would never be realized. She was protecting herself from that Something. That Something no one ever thought would reach her. Or *him*. They thought they were enough. They were wrong. He looked at his watch and ran a hand through his sandy brown hair, now standing on end from the number of times he had grasped it between his tightly clenched fist. A.D. Skinner would be coming over in an hour. Then Reyes. Then-- The bedsheets rustled suddenly, and Doggett found himself looking right at the woman on the bed. She was awake. She was sitting up now, and staring at him. He couldn't tell... No, he couldn't _bear to decide_, whether her stare was blank, dumbfounded, relieved or accusing. "Agent Sc--" "Mulder," she whispered under her breath as she slowly, painfully remembered. Her eyes traced the pattern on the carpet absently. After a few seconds of deafening silence, she looked up in confusion and practically squinted an unspoken question at him. 'Was I just dreaming?' Doggett straightened up and stood gingerly. He knew he should have taken Monica's shift earlier, when Scully was too delirious to notice who in hell was caring for her. He knew he shouldn't have insisted on helping. He knew he wasn't entitled to watch over her as she slept. He knew he didn't deserve to be one of the few to see her like this. "Agent Doggett?" she whispered again, her voice this time a little more audible than before. She kept her gaze locked on the carpeted floor. If she had meant to address him intentionally, he sure wasn't convinced. She was miles away, still running after *him*. "What is it, Agent S--" She looked up at him then, as he stood at the side of her bed and towered over her. His presence in her motel room alone confirmed the answer to her question. She wasn't dreaming. It really was all over. "Nothing. I..." she averted her eyes from the intensity, the concern and the sympathy in his gaze. "You didn't have to... It wasn't necessary for you to... I didn't realize... You've been watching over me. You didn't have to." You shouldn't have. You should never have. He couldn't help but smile a little. How could she have known? She was watching over Mulder. No, that's not quite right; she wasn't watching over Mulder, she was still looking for Mulder. Or looking out for him, at least. He cleared his throat uneasily. "Do you want something to drink? Are you hungry?" She shook her head. It was a stupid question, one he should not have bothered asking. From his experience... Dead people don't get thirsty. Or hungry. That was why they never tip. Doggett nodded slightly and raised his eyebrows at her. "I'll go. But if you--" he started to walk towards the door when she called after him in a low voice. "No. No, don't. Don't go. It's alright." He nodded again before he dragged the chair closer to her bed. They stared at each other. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it wasn't comfortable, either. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at his lap. He remembered the night he had come home from work, smelling like the Fugitive squad room. He had looked in on his son as he slept soundly, safely. He had kissed Luke goodnight. Luke had reached up and grabbed a hold of his tie. 'Kiss Mom goodnight, too, Daddy. I know she missed you all day today.' He had grinned down at him and shook his head in amusement. 'Sure thing, kiddo. Thanks for tellin' me; I missed you both all day today, too.' She grasped the ends of the bedcovers in her hands and toyed with her fingers. She remembered the night she had walked into the hospital room, smelling like Melissa's favourite shampoo, and looking in on him as he sat up and rubbed his swollen cheek and jaw with one of his hands. She had looked at him fondly. He had reached out and touched her arm. 'Scully...? I love you.' She had rolled her eyes. 'Oh, brother.' He shouldn't have been so quick to take advantage of what little time they had together. She shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss his words. She shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss the opportunity they had to spend that small amount of time together. She tilted her head to the side and looked at Doggett. He had leaned forward and covered his face with both his hands. He didn't seem to notice her at all. "He's really gone." He didn't know what to say. Luke was gone. Mulder was gone. No one left to look for. He couldn't bear to hurt her anymore than he already had, by answering her question. So he simply rocked his body back and forth in the chair. This was not happening... "Agent Doggett?" She leaned forward herself and whispered softly against the back of his hands. "Do you believe it?" Her voice held a hint of something... Not of hope, but of expectation... A demand? Was she truly convinced that she still has a chance? That she deserved another chance? To find her life? To have it returned to her? To redeem herself, as well as *him*? And what if she did? What if she could? All these years, _he_ had held on, believing that someday, he would win this one. That one. Mulder. Luke. Agent Scully. His wife. Maybe, just maybe... It was time to give up. "Agent...?" Her whisper was as distant as those they had lost, her voice as empty as the void in their own tormented souls. He sighed laboriously and waited for her to quiet down and turn her head away from him. He couldn't bear to look at her like this--with tears in his eyes, and his lips quivering with sorrow for the two people he had been stone-certain he would find again. Eventually. Just in time. She didn't expect this from him. Never once had he been silent. Never once had he ignored her, or refused to acknowledge her presence. But then again, there were so many things she didn't know, so many things she had been wrong about. Things she never expected. For one, she didn't even expect him to be hanging around her, after the way she had heartlessly brushed him off earlier, like the countless times she had done so before. And why was he acting this way? He did what he had to, and now he was free to go. He was free. Unlike her, he could walk away right now, this very second. He could walk away from the X-Files, from what he'd seen and experienced. He could walk out of her life right now, this very second, and leave Mulder behind. She stared at him again. He didn't notice her at all. But he wasn't going anywhere. That one thought, that one realization caused something inside her to give way, to break, to disintegrate. She sighed and threw her head back, as far as it could go. The ceiling prevented her from seeing the stars in the sky. Just like the basement prevented her from seeing the rest of the world. But she didn't care. The small, incongruous portion of the world she did have for the past seven years had been enough. And now it was gone. It moved on without her; it passed her by. You should have stopped, Mulder. You should have stopped moving. "I can't believe he left." She looked at the figure slumped in the chair beside her and swallowed hard. "I can't believe he left me," she completed her thought slowly and tentatively, as though waiting for something--someone--*that someone*--to jump out of nowhere and prove her wrong. In that unthinkingly arrogant and narcissistic, self-righteous way of *his*... He simply stared back at her. Of all things... She couldn't wrap her mind around that one. Aliens, bounty hunters, government conspiracies, shape-shifting killers, but not that one... "He didn't leave you," he mumbled under his breath. Luke didn't leave me, Mulder didn't leave you... That's all we have left, Agent Scully... It wasn't their fault. She nodded. "Doggett...?" He looked up at her from under his deeply furrowed eyebrows. It took this much for her to drop the 'Agent' from his name, huh? "Why are you still here?" I never saw it as an option not to be here, *Scully*. He closed his eyes. "What does it matter why? I'm here." "You didn't know Mulder." "That's for sure--I don't know him." "Why--" He opened his steel blue eyes then and regarded her sharply. "Because I had to. For you. For myself." "Why are you still here?" "D'you want me to leave?" "No, I--" He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose slowly. "No. I'll go. I should go. You need time alone. I shouldn't have stayed here. You're right, I shouldn't be here." His loss was not her loss. Her loss was not his. How dare he assume it could have been--could be--otherwise. They never understood each other... Why should now be any different? It was time to give up. He knew they would never win this one. She watched silently as he pushed the chair against the far wall and grabbed his discarded suit jacket. He looked around once, checking to see if he had left anything behind. After a few seconds, his eyes settled on her. He wasn't leaving her behind. He didn't want to. His gaze faltered and he swallowed a seemingly visible lump in his throat. So. Is this where we part company? That's your decision, Agent Scully. What he would give to sit next to her again and pretend to be reading something in the file folder between his hands. What he would give to feel the ice cold splash on his face again. What he would give to see the fierce determination on her face again. To feel her angry glare directed at him as he climbed out the helicopter... What he would give to have never heard of Mulder and Scully. Mulder would be alive, Scully would be whole, if he had never heard their names whispered contemptuously in his ears. "J--... Doggett?" His hand was on the doorknob. He turned slightly and looked over his shoulder at her. "Thank you. For everything you've done for me. I... appreciate it." He faced her squarely. He could feel the weight pressing down on him, weakening his legs, his knees, his heart. "You shouldn't thank me, Agent Scully. I did nothing for you." Just like I did nothing for Luke. Nothing for my family. Nothing for Mulder. "I'll be out here if you need anything." He didn't bother to wait for her reply; he simply turned on his heels, left the room, and made sure he closed the door behind him. He had to stop picking up the pieces. He had to stop circling her. Don't you ever give up? He exhaled silently and looked up at the sky. The stars were out tonight. Unusually bright. Luke had loved the stars. Luke had always wanted to be among the stars. As an astronaut. As a space cowboy. As an alien. As a superhero. Marvin the Martian. E.T. Luke. The Skywalker. He wondered whether Mulder had found what he was looking for. In the sky. His beliefs. His sister. Regardless of what he found, he left *her* behind... He wondered whether Luke got his wish. To be among the stars. Playing. Smiling. Laughing. Regardless of what he was doing now, he left *him* behind... It's over, Agent Scully. We'll never win this one. He closed his eyes. He could still see the stars. Don't go talking to people you don't know, Luke. Promise me? Make sure, when I'm not around, that you keep an eye out for them... The big bad wolves. Wherever you are, promise me that, son. Until I find you... Luke never liked wolves; he'd always been afraid of them. He loved bears, though... And foxes. He opened his eyes and blinked back the tears he could feel were threatening to stream down his face. If you see him at all, Agent Mulder, tell him... When you see her again, Agent Doggett, tell her... I'll never forget. END Send comments to: snarky_freak@hotmail.com 1