Title: Thread of Evil

Author: spookycc

Rating: PG 13 +/-.

Classification: V A  Doggett-friendly.

Summary: Fill-in-the-blanks for "Empedocles", Doggett POV.

Spoilers: Specifically, for "Empedocles". To be safe, for S8 so far.

Disclaimer: No characters, human or canine, are mine. And no dogs were
harmed in the making of this fanfic. :)~

Feedback welcomed at spookycc@earthlink.net

Archive: I'll take care of ephemeral and Gossamer - anyone else feel free -
please drop me a line to let me know where it'll be living. <g>

Dedication: As ever, to Doggett's Bitch (f/k/a "Fox's Vixen" :). My
soulmate, always. 

And for girlassassin, most loyal fan, and great friend. Everythin' looks
smaller when you get back from Texas. :)

No beta-reader was used. All typos are my own.


****

I arrive at Washington Memorial Hospital as fast as I can - but I just miss
Agent Scully as they wheel her into a room. I find myself face to face with
Agent Mulder, who looks less than pleased to see me here.

I approach him anyway. "Agent Mulder, what happened?"

"How did you find out?" His voice is edged with raw emotion. I'm not sure
how to read it - resentment?

"I was droppin' somethin' off, and her landlord told me."

Before Mulder can answer, a nurse comes out of Agent Scully's room and walks
up to me. "Are you the husband?"

Now there's a slip-up if I ever heard one. "Me? No."

Mulder's cell phone chirps from his pocket, and he steps away to take the
call. I get as much information as I can from the nurse, and then from the
attending physician who joins us in the hallway.

Mulder returns. I let him know that the doctor said not to worry, and that
they're going to run some tests.

****

Hours later, we still have no definite news on Agent Scully's condition.
Mulder leaves, he says to meet someone at the FBI. I walk haltingly into
Agent Scully's room. I don't wanna disturb her, but I need to see for myself
that she's ok.

I've seen her hospitalized far too many times, in the months we've worked
together. The impact of seeing her this vulnerable doesn't lessen with time.
This woman, so strong even in the face of all we've seen, all we've been
through in the past months, seems so frail before me now.

I'm standing just inside the door, debating on whether to find a chair and
wait in her room like I usually do, when an odd feeling comes over me.
Almost like nausea - certainly disquieting. I raise my eyes and find myself
looking at a scene that's played over and over in my nightmares since 1997.

I'm in a field. Agent Reyes is there, and a lot of cops. They stand in a
tight circle, surrounding a body they've found. I don't even need to walk
forward in my waking nightmare to know who it is they stand over. Luke. My
son...

"Sir?"

I blink and the vision disappears, as I turn, disoriented, toward the voice
that pulls me from it. It's the head nurse, on a rampage.

"Immediate family only. You fellas just don't listen. You have to go now."

I nod, and look once more at Scully, still peacefully asleep, before leaving
the room.

****

That night, I lay awake, almost afraid to sleep for fear of the nightmares,
yet needing more clarity to understand why I saw the vision most recently in
Agent Scully's hospital room. Needing to know that Scully is ok, will *be*
ok. 

The phone interrupts the play of disturbing images haunting my unrest. I'm
tempted not to answer it, but it might be Skinner calling with news about
Agent Scully, as he said he would. So, I answer it.

"There's something you need to know, Agent Doggett." The voice is familiar,
but I can't place it.

"What? Who is this?"

"Mulder is looking into an FBI file that means a great deal to you, Agent
Doggett. A very *personal* file, if you know what I mean."

"Wait-"

The line goes dead.

For a few moments I'm not sure what file the voice was talking about. But,
there can be only one file, I realize.

The next morning, having gotten no sleep after the mysterious phone call, I
arrive at the Hoover building earlier than usual. I see Agent Mulder come
out of a room, so engrossed in Luke's file that he doesn't even see me
standing in the hall ahead.

I grab him by the collar of his jacket. I'm way outta line here, I know. But
it doesn't matter. I'm seething, at his blatant invasion of my privacy. With
resentment that this man assumes he can dig into my personal life at will.
He's already pulled away the one person that matters most to me, without
having to do anything but breathe.

"Stay outta my life!" I shout, pinning him to the wall. "Stay outta my
business!"

I almost ask him to stay out of Agent Scully's life, as well, but I pull
myself back at the last moment. My face is only inches from his. He tells me
to take it easy. Yeah, that's gonna happen.

"You wanna get somethin' on me, you ask for it! I don't wanna get calls
about you goin' behind my back! You got that straight?!"

"I don't want *anything* on you - I was *asked* to look into this file!" He
must be shouting as well, or I wouldn't have heard him.

"Who asked ya?!"

Mulder hasn't answered yet when Agent Reyes steps in to break it up. Well,
*there's* one question answered.

"Is this you?!" I pull the file from Mulder's hand. "Is this you lookin'
into this?"

She lowers her eyes and nods. "Yes. I asked Agent Mulder."

My rage chills into confusion. Why would Monica do this to me?

"You asked him *what*? There's nothin' in there for him to bother with!"

Mulder speaks up. "Why don't you just calm down, Agent Doggett, and let her
explain the connection to you."

I *am* calming down, but not much. Mulder isn't delving into my personal
business himself, but I don't like this "connection" I'm hearing about.

"The connection. To what?"

"I was going to tell you, John," Monica answers for him. She tells me about
a case in New Orleans, and a vision.

I don't need to hear this. I don't wanna hear this. "Not this again," I
argue. "You're not gonna make somethin' outta nothin'"

"Bob Harvey," Mulder interjects. "Does that name mean something or nothing
to you?"

I know the name all too well. He was a suspect in the death of my son. I
tell Mulder as much. We didn't have a case against him, so he was released.
Turns out, as Monica and Mulder explain, Bob Harvey died last night, and
they have this notion that - I dunno - his soul occupied someone else's body
when he died. That's the connection. Yeah, that's some connection.

"And then there was the vision," Monica explains.

This has gone too damned far. "No, there's no connection. I don't care what
you saw - you leave it alone." I turn to Mulder. "And you leave it the hell
alone." I don't need these two bringing up this nightmare again. I can't
believe Monica would dredge this back up after all this time - opening old
wounds better left closed - and I shake my head as I leave them standing in
the hallway.

****

I visit Scully the next morning. I tell myself I just need to check up on
her, and certainly that's a concern. It always is. But the truth is, I need
to see the vision again. Call it morbid curiosity, I dunno. But I stand
beside her bed, staring at the floor, waiting for the vision to arrive. It
doesn't, and her voice brings me back to the present.

"What are you doing here, Agent Doggett?"

"I was, uh..." I can't possibly explain to Agent Scully what I was trying to
do here. "I just came by to see how you're doin'."

"I feel all druggy," she replies. "Would you mind-" she motions to the water
on her tray table.

I hope she doesn't notice my hands shaking as I pour her a glass of water
and hand it to her.

I wait while she takes a sip. "They say you're stabilized. We've been
worried about you."

"Who's 'we'?"

"You know... me and Agent Mulder."

I guess she's never thought of the two of us working together before. She
looks at me more closely. "What's wrong, Agent Doggett? You don't seem too
good yourself." God, she doesn't miss a thing, not even while drugged up.

I don't let myself think too hard on how warm her concern feels to me. And
she's understating that. I'm sure I look like shit, considering my lack of
sleep and the vision I saw... I need to understand how she became a believer
- she who was once as skeptical as I am.

I finally just come out and ask her. After working with Mulder for so long
and *not* believing in the paranormal, what changed her mind?

She looks thoughtful, and her eyes close slowly. "I realized that it was me.
I was afraid. Afraid to believe."

It looks like she's drifting off to sleep again, and I turn to leave. I know
she needs her rest - I feel guilty about having interrupted it once. But
something pulls my attention back into the room... and I stand in that field
once more. Monica turns to meet my gaze, as she did before...

Now that the vision envelops me, I wonder why the hell I tried to conjure
it up again. Thankfully, it dissolves more quickly this time.

"Why do you ask?" I hear Agent Scully's question through the haze.

I'm too distracted now - I need to get out. The room feels tight, close,
confining. "Some other time," I reply, and leave her alone. To get her rest,
I tell myself.

****

I pull my fleet car into the sea of cops on an otherwise deserted South
Carolina roadway. Agent Reyes asked me to come here. I don't know why, but
I've got a bad feelin' about it...

I meet Agent Mulder in front of one of the squad cars.

"What am I doin' here?"

"I've been asking myself that same question," he replies. "But it seems that
the tenacious Agent Reyes doesn't want to let go of this one." He lifts the
police line tape, and I follow him through.

He explains that Agent Reyes has a murder victim here, a woman found shot.
Possibly by the same man who killed the people in New Orleans. But Monica
could have just phoned this information to me - why did I hafta drive down
here?

Agent Mulder answers that for me. "She wants to know if you see it, too.
What she's been seeing."

"I told you, there's no connection." Am I tying to convince Mulder of that,
or myself?

And does either of us believe that?

We walk up a slight rise, and I stop in my tracks.

It's there.

The vision.

The nightmare. Playing out right in front of me.

Different uniforms, sure. But the image is the same.

Monica turns to look at me. I *knew* she would. I've seen her do that a
thousand times. I try not to look as shaky as I feel.

"Agent Doggett?" She asks me to join her.

I look to the left and the right a little. I wish the ground would open up
and take me away from this. I swallow past a lump in my throat and walk
slowly toward her, as the police personnel disperse.

There's a body, yes.

But not Luke.

It's a woman.

And that's all I see. I can't - I *won't* - open myself to more.

"I'm sorry, Agent Reyes. I don't see it." I'll keep telling myself that. I
turn to head back to my car.

"I think you do," her voice pulls me back around to face her. "You're just
afraid to go there."

I hear a little sigh from Agent Mulder, who stands to one side. He addresses
Agent Reyes. "You just keep shooting 'til you hit something, don't you?"

Monica's attention is still on me. "You'd rather blind yourself to the
connections, but I can't."

I play dumb. "You keep talkin' about these connections - connections to
*what*? To who?"

She walks toward me. "What if - this is a thread of evil? Connecting through
time, through men, through opportunity... Connecting back to you?"

There, she said it. I take a deep breath and wait for her to continue.

"In India, in Africa, in Iran, in the Middle East, the Far East. In most of
the world, they take it as a given. They see evil in death the way other
people see God in a rose."

Mulder breaks in, deadpan. "I saw Elvis in a potato chip, once."

I almost smile, despite the grim circumstances. I'm learning that his
smart-ass remarks are often Mulder's way of communicating what he might
otherwise have trouble saying. This instance is no exception.

Monica is frustrated. "*You* know what I'm talking about."

I watch their exchange.

"Yes, I do," he replies. "*I* do. But if this man doesn't see it," he
glances at me. "He doesn't see it, right?"

He turns and leaves us standing there, uncomfortable. I don't wanna admit to
the original vision, let alone the one that's haunted me for almost four
years. 

****

I'm sitting at my tiny desk in the basement, hanging up on another
unproductive phone call, when Monica walks in.

"What're you doing, John?"

"I'm lookin' into this case."

"You're looking in the wrong way. There are a hundred agents in this
building who can phone canvass."

I interrupt her before she can continue. I know where she's headed with
this. "Ah, but there's only two who can solve crimes with mental telepathy,
you and me. So we'll just read the tea leaves on this one and there it is,
right? Case closed?"

I can't let her see how close I am to this case. How close this case has
come to me.

"John-"

"Dammit Monica, you wanna find this guy, I'm tryin' to find him! What do you
want from me?" I regret the harsh tone, but I can't let my defenses down.

"I want you to be honest. With yourself. About what you saw that day. Honest
about what your feelings tell you." She speaks softly, concerned.

"Feelings don't solve crimes. What the hell does it matter what my feelings
are? How the hell's that gonna get the job done?"

"I'm not talking about the job, John."

Part of me knew that already.

"What are you scared of?"

I meet her gaze for a brief moment, and then let my eyes fall to the files
on my desk.

"Why does it scare you?" She pushes.

OK. I guess she deserves the truth. Much as I *don't* want to admit why this
case is affecting me the way it is, she deserves to know.

I meet her eyes again. "I gotta believe that I did everything I could to
find - my son."

She nods. "You *did* do everything to find your son."

She doesn't understand, not really. Why I'm afraid of this.

I shake my head. "I gotta believe that I did everything I could to save him.
To get him back safe. To *not* let him down."

Her look is soft, compassionate, and it encourages me to go on.

"I gotta believe that I did everything *humanly* possible. 'Cuz if I can't
believe that - And these other possibilities that you talk about, that
Mulder talks about, that Agent Scully talks about - If they're real..."

How can I explain to Monica what I feel? How could she possibly understand
that I feel I let my son down when it mattered the most?

My eyes cast downward again, before I can look into hers once more. "If
they're real, then... that's something else I *could* have done, to save my
son."

She says nothing. Her eyes look teary, and I bite my lower lip and blink
back my own tears angrily, not wanting to expose any more than I already
have...

The uncomfortable silence is broken by the chirp of her cell phone. It's
Jeb's sister, and he's at her house. We round up a hostage negotiation team
and head there...

****

I'm at the base of the steps when Jeb comes down them, holding his niece
like a shield in front of him. We're at an impasse. I lay my weapon down so
he won't harm the little girl, but the situation is anything but diffused.

The little girl screams with fear, and I try to convince Jeb that i just
wanna talk, I don't wanna hurt him.

"I said stay back!" Jeb yells, at the same time I hear a gun blast. Agent
Reyes fired on him from the landing above. The little girl is safe.

We arrive with the EMT's at the hospital. I *need* to know what he knows -
why he's done what he's done - what connection it has to me - but the head
nurse halts us at the ER doors.

Monica stands in front of me. "There's nothing more you can do."

"You can't tell me that now."

"Maybe saving this girl was the reason." The reason that the evil thread
wove through Jeb Dukes, and touched me, is what she means. "Maybe that's
what this was all about. Maybe that's what I saw and why I saw it. For
*that* kid."

She may be right. 

"Go home, John," she advises gently. "There's nothing here for you to do."

Instead I go once more to Agent Scully's room. Once more with an ulterior
motive. The vision plays almost instantly. The field. Agent Reyes. The other
cops. 

I walk in what feels like slow motion, to the place they encircle, and they
part before me.

It's my son. Luke. Face down in the grass.

I blink, and see his body made of ash.

No!

"Agent Doggett-" a voice thankfully pulls me from within myself.

I turn - it's Mulder, motioning for me to leave the room. I follow him out,
and he explains that Agent Scully just got back to sleep.

He stands in front of her door like a sentinel, his arms crossed.

I tell him about Jeb Dukes, and that he might not make it.

Mulder knows I'm wondering if there really was a connection. He tells me
about his first years with the Bureau, in Violent Crimes. He thinks of evil
like a disease, most of us usually immune, but he says there may be
occurrences or tragedies that can lower our immunity to evil. And then
we're open to it.

I try to understand. "If that were true, then what you're sayin' is that
this man we brought in here tonight is infected with evil. The same evil
that killed my son."

Our eyes lock. He swallows, hard. His face is unreadable. I've found that to
be par for the course with Mulder. Just how much *does* he believe?

"You really believe that, Agent Mulder?"

He explains that he's not a good person to ask that question to, since he'll
believe just about anything. "The pisser is, you may never know. It may be
like Agent Reyes says, it could be random and meaningless - who it affects
and who it goes to."

I think about that.

"What if it isn't?"

Mulder pauses. "Well then, you'd be seeing something that I don't, Agent
Doggett."

Me seeing more than Mulder? I leave him standing as Scully's guard, and I go
back to check on Jeb's condition.

Instead, I open the door to find Jeb Duke's sister holding a gun on Agent
Reyes, who is lying face-down on the tiled floor.

"Drop the weapon!" I disarm the woman and she turns to sob on the bed of her
brother, who has just died.

I crouch beside Monica - her pulse feels strong - and call for a doctor. I
lift her gently from the floor, noticing a nasty gash above her left eye.
She's coherent, though.

"It's over," I try to assure her. "It's over now."

She is not convinced. "It's never over."

I wonder if she's right. I hope she's not.

****

I stay with Monica, while the doctors check her out and decide to hold her
overnight for observation. Possible concussion, I know the procedure.

While they go about the business of admitting her, I decide to head back
down to Scully's room. I'm only deterred a bit by the possibility that her
personal sentinel is still outside the door. He's not so bad, I realize. In
fact, we both have the same motivation - concern for Agent Scully - that's
at the heart of what we do.

Mulder has apparently left for the evening, and Scully is fast asleep. I
don't wanna wake her, so I pull the chair quietly nearer to her bed and sink
into the hard plastic, trying to find a comfortable position. Asleep or
drugged, whichever, Scully looks at peace. I know that's deceiving, even
knowing only what *I* know of what's going on here. Her life is not going to
become easier. It's gonna get a lot harder. I wish I could help. That
she'd *let* me help.

I slip into sleep myself, and the dreams come again, unbidden, unwanted.

I can almost smell the wetness of the leaves in the woods where I find
myself. The wind howls sadly through the trees. Almost like the wind knows
what has happened, knows what - *who* - I must find here.

Once again I walk across the wet forest floor, toward Agent Reyes and the
other officers. She turns as I approach, and they part like the Red Sea. I
*belong* in this scene, I know that, but I want to turn and run the other
way. 

I look into Monica's face once more and her look is one of compassion, of
concern, of sadness.

Then I reach the clearing...

I know what I must find, but still I'm not prepared. How *could* I be?

This child - my *son* - once full of life. Now with the promise of life
stripped from him. I can't see his face, not really. Can't see the light
gone that used to shine so brightly in his blue eyes.

The small part of me that was not broken that fateful day breaks now.

"Agent Doggett."

I need air. I need to get out of this place.

"Agent Doggett!"

I bolt upright, taking a minute to get my bearings back, to remember where I
am. As my wide eyes travel left to right, they meet Agent Scully's eyes,
full of concern. 

"Agent Doggett, are you all right?"

I must not have said anything in reply, 'cuz she asks the same question
again.

"Yeah." I stare back at the floor. I'm sure *that* sounded convincing.

"Agent Doggett." She states my name more bluntly, and it helps bring me back
to reality. This isn't the first time she's awakened me from a horrific
dream, and I hope she won't press me this time.

I look up again and meet her gaze. She does. "*Tell* me."

I shake my head slowly. I can't burden her with this, not when she's already
having problems of her own. I just can't.

"Mulder told me about the case. About your son."

I sigh heavily. 

"Please. Let me help."

I nod, just a bit, and try to collect my thoughts. "I've been having these -
nightmares. About that day. The day we found Luke."

"Go on..." she urges.

"Agent Reyes - Monica - was there. She found him. She was standing there,
with a bunch of police officers. Some of them worked on the force with me.
NYPD...

"They saw me coming, and they all drifted away. All except Monica. And then
I saw him, lying in that clearing." I blink a few times, pushing the tears
back.

"Oh, my God," she breathes softly. "When you tried to keep me from seeing
Mulder..."

I nod slowly.

"You were trying to keep me from experiencing the pain you felt when you
found your son."

I lower my head, unable to meet her eyes just now, unwilling to add to her
burdens with this pain.

"I'm so sorry."

Silence is our companion for a moment. She fixes me with a questioning look.

"That's not all of it, is it? All of what's bothering you?"

Damn. She reads me like a book. I don't even need to answer the question -
she knows there's more to it. I decide maybe she *can* help.

"Mulder and Agent Reyes keep talking about a - a *connection*. Between this
guy Jeb Dukes and the man who may have murdered my son."

"And?" she prods gently.

"I don't wanna believe it - I *can't* believe it - but now with these
nightmares..." I can't bring myself to confess that I have them when I'm
awake, as well. I tell her about what Mulder said about evil, and losing
one's immunity to it.

"John-"

I start a bit - I can count on one hand the times she's called me by my
first name.

"I don't think you should worry about that." Her tone is firm - she believes
what she is saying.

I shake my head. I just don't know anymore...

She reaches over with her free hand and lays it atop my own. Warmth floods
through me, quieting my feelings for a brief moment.

Then I wonder. I wonder if she can feel the fear hiding under my pain. The
fear that this evil will find a place within me. Will claim me as its own.

Of course, she does. "I may not know that much about you," she continues.
"But you're the farthest from "evil" that I can possibly imagine."

I force a smile onto my face, to try to reassure her, and her eyes start to
slip closed once more.

I hold her small hand gently between mine for a moment and I feel a genuine
smile slowly replace the false one. Warmth washes over me, like sunlight
after a storm. I place her hand gently back on the bed, and I feel the
creeping cold of self-doubt replace her warmth. I leave her to rest, and
once more I face the coldness alone.

****

The next morning, they release Monica, and I drive her to her hotel. But
something pulls me back to the hospital. I stand outside Katha's room,
watching through the window. She's in five-point restraints, but her eyes
glow with some inner fire.

I know what that fire is. I *feel* it all around me.

My thoughts go back to what Mulder said - about a tragedy opening a man to
evil who might otherwise be immune to its force.

I hope I'm strong enough to fight it off...


~fini~




Author's Notes: 

Special thanks again to Doggett's Bitch, my mentor in all things Doggshippy
and clarifier of vague thoughts.

This piece of work wittingly contradicts nearly everything I said about
Doggett's son in my work "A Father's Confession".

What's that, you say?

Continuity?

I *laugh* at continuity. :)