"Three Times"
by Mischa mischablue@crosswinds.net

Category: V
Rating: G
Keywords: Doggett-friendly
Disclaimer:  Not mine, not mine. Property of CC, FOX, RP,
GA, etc. Not makin' any money off this.
Spoilers: 'Medusa'. Touches lightly upon 'The Gift'.
References to previous seasons, passing mentions of
'Grotesque' and 'Squeeze'

Summary: After the events of 'Medusa', Scully considers the
small steps that her working relationship with Doggett has
taken.

Author's Note: Response to Summer/Mischa fanfic challenge:
'Medusa' post-ep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 "Three Times"

And to think Scully had once thought that Mulder got himself
in trouble on a lot on their cases.

It wasn't just him getting hurt, or injured, or having to
reach for that ankle holster more often than any other agent
probably would. She remembered Mulder being drawn
psychologically into the darkness of their cases, almost
losing himself staring into whatever abyss presented itself.
She remembered Mulder poking his hand into a tattered wall
and realising his hand was covered in bile.

Three times today, John Doggett had scared the hell out of
her. *Three* times. He must have been having a run of
exceptionally bad luck or something, and what made it worse
for her was that she could see it all happening. From his
eyes. The first time she had just been plain startled, like
a creature had popped out of nowhere in a horror movie. The
second time she had felt fear, knowing what she was seeing
on the screen, unsure of where her partner was or what had
happened to him. The third time... a cold sense of dread, an
irrational sense of certainty, watching the train come
towards them both, wondering what the hell he was thinking,
hearing the horrible sounds of metal against metal and
fearing the worst as Doggett's world seemingly diminished
into static.

No. No static, not now. They were coming home now. The
streetlights? The road ahead? They were heading home. All
they had to do was just drive and they would reach the end
and be home. Scully took a deep breath, kept her focus on
the driving. Beside her, Doggett was asleep. She had checked
him over carefully, badgered him until he complained, making
sure that he wasn't suffering from concussion, and then she
had allowed him to sleep. He had shot her a frustrated look
and the minute his head settled against the glass of the
side window he was out like a light.

Did he even realise how much she could see and hear from
where she stood in that control room?

Scully shot another quick glance at her partner. Still fast
asleep. She supposed she should be thankful.

That ceiling. That damned ceiling. She didn't know what had
happened, and wasn't willing to admit was she feared: that
Doggett had been knocked unconscious, that he had been
killed, that someone had ripped off his headset to keep her
from investigating, or... she didn't really want to admit
it... that he had gotten fed up with her absence and had
taken off without wanting her along for the ride. Scully had
feared he was dead, but had felt an angry, irrational moment
where she had been convinced he had ditched her.

He wasn't Mulder. It still amazed her that sometimes she had
to remind herself of that. Doggett was crazy and stubborn in
his own way, but he had never run off on a tangent and left
her behind. Granted, he didn't seem like the kind of man who
would come up with tangents bizarre enough to warrant him
running off. His stolidity, his dependability, was a comfort
to her. In sleep, Doggett didn't look tortured or worried or
painfully vulnerable. Haunted by the whims of dream, maybe,
but all sleep really did for him was erase some of the lines
in his rugged face.

Lieutenant Bianco, facing Scully -- Agent Doggett -- down.
Hearing her partner's voice in her ears, defending her
decision to send him down alone. She was still amazed by
that, that he could trust her judgement so readily. The
right call. He thought that she had made the right call, and
he didn't even know why.

Three times today, however, he had given her cause to
seriously doubt that.

Scully refused to even think about seeing that train come
closer on that screen. She was tempted to reach out and
touch
him, just to make sure he was actually there. Held herself
back, afraid of waking him, unsure of her place.

Those three times, she felt responsible. Wanted to throw her
headset as hard as possible at Karras and run into that
tunnel after her partner. Conflict had played in her mind as
logic and emotion and responsibility warred within. Her
baby, and risking her own health with the contagion. Karras,
doing his damned best to run the show and to pull the rug
out from under them. Doggett, stuck in that tunnel with
God-knew-what and on the trail of a cowardly lieutenant who
didn't have the insight to know the consequences of any
possible escape. Dealing the with CDC, co-ordinating
evacuative efforts. The greater good had won out, as it
always had, but she still couldn't help feeling as though
she should be held accountable for not joining them in that
subway.

[I could be dyin' in here for all she knows.]

Thank God you're not, Agent Doggett, was what she wanted to
say. Reason won out and she kept that thought to herself.
Besides, he seemed so back to normal already. There was no
point in her not being exactly the same. She had just taken
a quiet, imperceptible breath and spoken quietly to him.
Fine again.

[Well, you're not... Agent Doggett.]

She hadn't slipped. She was about to, but she hadn't...

"Agent Scully?"

Reality came flooding back to her. Doggett sat quietly next
to her, suddenly painfully alert. One eye fixed on the road,
the other on her.

[I was just your eyes and ears.]

How long had he been awake?

"Agent Scully?" he repeated for the fourth or fifth time,
his voice tinged with something between concern and alarm.

She returned to herself. "Uh, yes, Agent Doggett?"

"Where were you just then?"

Scully shook her head slightly, focusing back on the road.
Couldn't quite shake off the sense that he was still
watching her. "Nowhere, Agent Doggett. I was just thinking."

He nodded, glancing at the endless miles of asphalt ahead,
looking back at his partner. "Want me to take over there?"

Jesus, he was nothing if not hardheaded. "You're not meant
to be driving," she said firmly. Doggett set his jaw like he
was going make something of that, but obviously thought
better.

"Whatever you say goes, Dr. Scully," he rumbled. She shot
him a sharp look, but there was no rancour in his voice. A
quiet light of appreciation in his eyes. Maybe she should
pull the Dr. Scully routine on him more often. "You okay
there?" Doggett asked, a little gentler.

"Yeah." Scully swallowed. "I was just... my mind was
somewhere else."

Doggett adjusted himself in his seat so that he leaned
against the door and could face her. "Hell of a stupid idea
for Karras to put the trains back on the line," he
commented. He was trying to draw her out into conversation
and they both knew it.

She shrugged. "Like I said, Agent Doggett, he was just doing
his job."

"So were we. So was Lyle. Hell, so was Melnick, and look
where he ended up."

"Agent Doggett --"

"Lieutenant Bianco, though, him I had a problem with. What
if he'd found a way outta there? Spread the contagion to the
whole goddamned city?"

"He didn't, Agent Doggett. Thanks to your actions, he
didn't."

"Don't lump the credit for that on me, Agent Scully. That
was those sea critters taking him down, not me." Cowardly
son of a bitch. He thought he'd seen enough of those back in
New York, but they seemed to be par for the course in the
X-Files. Those who put self-preservation above all else. He
remembered a certain town sheriff who had thought nothing of
shooting a man in the back and scowled to himself.

"All the same." Scully took her gaze off the road, that
limited, bounded road, for a second to shoot him a look. He
stared steadily back.

Irritated, Doggett stared out of the window, gazing into the
open night. He knew that something was bothering his partner
about this case, something fairly serious, but he wasn't
sure if it was his place to ask. He opened his mouth to say
something, then shut it again, catching Scully's attention.

"Agent Doggett?"

"That man," he said finally. "Cop killer. One who ran into
me. How do you explain that?"

Scully's brow creased. Maybe he'd been hit harder in the
head than she thought. Her fingers itched to check his blood
pressure. "How do you mean?"

"The man was dead. Unequivocally." A smile crept onto
Scully's lips and she bit it back. "Came rushin' out of
nowhere for the sole purpose of ploughing into me. How...?
Uh, electrical currents, maybe?"

She glanced at him curiously. Doggett was clearly trying out
a few theories of his own. Maybe he was becoming a little
less resistant to extreme possibilities in his own way.
Wandering cautiously onto the road less taken. "Possibly,"
she said cautiously. She'd had no real idea whether or not
that man was being burned to death as he violently knocked
over her partner. Melnick had been fairly functional --
though in pain -- while the organism had sparked away at his
flesh. But the least she owed him was an answer.
"Considering that the nervous system *is* triggered by
electrical currents, then yes," she continued. "It's quite
possible that the electricity generated by the organism was
fueling that man's movements."

"Hmm. Maybe," he replied, but he didn't press the point.
Doggett focused on some invisible point far off at the end
of the road, obviously mulling that one over.

"Then again, Melnick was still capable of some movement
while being affected by the organism," she added. "Perhaps
that man's... last actions were his way of calling for
help."

"While being eaten to death." His voice was flat.

"Yes."

"Helluva way to seek assistance," he muttered, and fell
silent again.

She watched him peripherally. Wondered. She knew he blamed
himself to some extent for killing the organism before they
could investigate it, but there was always the flipside: his
actions had prevented it from being spread any further than
it already had. They had done their job, but she knew his
mind was still seeking closure on the case.

So was her own.

It wasn't too often that a case came along that excited her
scientific mind the way this case had. It was one of the
reasons she had turned to forensic pathology, to the FBI, to
investigating in the field... medicine alone couldn't
provide the secret, cryptic thrill of piecing together
pieces of a puzzle and solving a crime. Scully couldn't deny
that she felt the excitement of a new discovery creeping up
her spine when she realised they were dealing with a
previously unknown organism. And when she'd finally put the
pieces together, worked out that sweat was the electrical
conductor, Scully had felt as though she had made the same
kind of logical leap that she had been in awe of long before
its previous possessor faded into the night.

She got the feeling that Mulder would have been proud.

Beside her, Doggett was lightly dozing, still staring at the
empty road ahead of them, his awareness clearly drifting
away. She took a hand off the wheel and reached for him.
"Agent Doggett?"

He mumbled something to let her know he was listening. She
touched his arm lightly. The muscles under her fingertips
rippled as he roused himself. "Yeah?"

In this early stage of their partnership, Mulder and herself
had been at the same kind of place she and Doggett was at
now. Loggerheads over different styles. The open mind
against the sceptic. A little residual mistrust.

A sense of growing respect.

Scully gently squeezed her partner's arm. Kept her gaze on
the road. Gave him what Mulder never had given her, so early
on in the game. "You did well out there, Agent Doggett."
Three times, you scared me, she thinks. Three times, you
bounced back.

He was wide awake now.

"But you..."

She shot him a look. Gratitude, and bewilderment, glinted in
his eyes. He carefully placed his hand over hers. "We did
this together, Agent Scully," he offered. He wanted to say
more, but didn't know how to articulate it. She gave him a
shy, small smile.

"Yeah," she murmured. She gently pulled her hand away.
Looked back at the road ahead. Saw much more than what was
actually there. It looked as though it stretched on forever.
Why keep on going straight? Why not take a detour?
Thepossibilities, the amount of directions in which they
could turn, were practically infinite. "Yeah."

~END~

Feedback is much appreciated.
mischablue@hotmail.com