49 : Something To Save (Part 2)
Title: Something To Save
Spoilers: "Nothing Important Happened Today" (Part 2)
Rating: PG
Words: 4713
Summary: Who do you serve, and who can you trust? Stark is forced to make a drastic decision when her partner's integrity is put to the test.
Falls Church, Virginia
Several hours later
Stark was still wide awake as the sunlight streamed through the curtains. She almost missed her partner cracking jokes about her recently thrown off sleeping patterns. That would at least have meant life was reasonably normal. She bit her lip, casting a worried glance at his prone form on the other side of the bed. He was still sleeping. She sighed, shifting beside him. She hadn't moved all night, just sat there next to him, trying to make sense of the files she had recovered from the reclamation plant, but they were useless. She just wanted John to wake up. She'd apologize for having now inadvertantly seen him naked, they would crack a joke or two about it, and everything would be fine. Wouldn't it?
He answered that question by coming to with a very violent cough.
"John," she started, moving immediately to his side and putting a hand on his arm. "Oh, thank God. Relax. I'm right here." The words came out of her in such a rush that she wasn't sure if she was trying to convince him, or herself. Nor did she tell him everything was going to be okay, because she wasn't sure if it would be. Not with their psuedo-uninvited houseguest.
"Stark." Her name came out strained as he propped himself up and settled a hand over hers. "The hell..."
She didn't get a chance to explain as said uninvited houseguest had heard their voices and decided to make her presence known. Stark didn't trust Shannon McMahon as far as she could throw her (which wasn't much), but she had to admit the woman had saved her partner and that counted for something. At least for the time being. Stark still eyed her warily and didn't move from where she was beside her partner.
"Lie back, John, it's okay," Shannon encouraged.
He wasn't convinced. "What the hell's this?"
"It's Shannon. Shannon McMahon. We were together in Bravo Company, USMC. You tried to contact me."
"What the hell are you doing here now?"
Stark pinched the bridge of her nose. "She turned up an hour or two after I got back here. With you."
"Your lungs are full of water," Shannon added by way of explanation.
"You pulled me under," Doggett retorted, and now Stark was staring at her like she was crazy. She moved slightly, wondering where her gun was. But that didn't make any sense. If she'd wanted him dead, why was he still alive? Obviously, something had happened at the plant after she'd fled the scene. She shut up and waited to hear it all come out.
"I did what I had to," Shannon told him.
"You held me down. I remember."
They would have caught you," she insisted. "They would have figured it out - what you've started to figure out."
"What are you?" he retorted. Not 'who,' but 'what'. The implication made Stark's blood run cold. So did what she was about to hear, and the fact that Shannon was moving closer to them both.
"You know what I am. I'm the product of fifty years of military science, the program your old friend Knowle Rohrer told you about. I'm a bio-engineered combat unit. I have no weaknesses - I don't sleep, I can breathe underwater. That's how I saved your life, John."
Stark let out a sharp breath. She wanted badly to levy a threat, to make Shannon understand that every single alien super soldier that came near them had tried to kill them and she would not stand for it again. But it would seem worthless. If Shannon had wanted them dead, she wouldn't have saved Doggett's life. Instead, she just said, "Excuse me if I'm skeptical considering Knowle Rohrer tried to kill me."
"Something with which I haven't bothered," the other woman replied coolly. A little too cool for Stark's taste. "I'm not here to kill you."
"How do you know what I know?" John interrupted. "What Knowle Rohrer told me?"
"Knowle Rohrer and I were drafted right out of Bravo Company together. We were...Adam and Eve, the program's first. There are many more now."
"Knowle Rohrer is dead," he replied emphatically.
"They can't kill us," she corrected. "We can't be killed. Knowle Rohrer and I are alike in almost every way. The difference is I hate what I am."
Stark was momentarily silenced. She'd only run into two alien super soldiers in her tenure with the X-Files and they had both been people she had despised, back when she still thought they were human. Then they'd both made attempts on her life. To think that they were both still out there worried her. Under the blankets she felt John take her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. He understood her fear.
"Why are you here telling me this?" he asked Shannon.
"The program's expanding in ways no one ever dreamed of. I need your help to stop it, John."
"You need my help?" he echoed skeptically. "What can I do?"
"Expose the deaths of those two men I killed. What they were doing."
"What were they doing?"
"Preparing the water supply."
He was getting tired of having to ask a thousand little questions to get one answer. He narrowed his eyes. "Preparing it for what?" he asked and knew he wouldn't like the reply.
****
Now that she was sure her partner was conscious and in one piece, Stark was able to start pulling herself back together. She hadn't left his bedside, but now she was intent on getting cleaned up and back to work. She was busy picking up all the files from where she'd left them when he walked back into the room, towel wrapped around his waist.
"Shower's yours," he told her as she stacked the rest of the files. "I'll find something you can wear."
"Thanks, John." She glanced up at him with a small smile and then moved for the bedroom door. Neither of them were uncomfortable; she'd seen that before. Actually, she'd just seen a whole lot more than that. What was uncomfortable had nothing to do with her partner.
Her partner, however, was astute enough and knew her well enough to pick up on it. "You don't trust her, do you," he said, and it was a statement not a question.
Stark hesitated, and shook her head. "I know you guys go back awhile..."
He snorted. "So did me and Knowle Rohrer. Didn't stop him from trying to kill us. Don't worry about offending me."
"That's why I don't trust her, John. Both the super soldiers we ran into were people we knew before. Both of them tried to kill us. And the third time's just supposed to be different because she says it is? I don't know." She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Be careful."
"I'm gonna be careful, Stark. But I know this is also the best lead - the only lead - we've got right now. You said it yourself, those files are just numbers." He looked over at her. "You're gonna be with me on this, right? I need you here."
"Of course I'm with you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just worried." She was quiet for a moment, staring at the floor, before she closed the short distance between them and hugged him, towel be damned. "I'm just so glad you're okay."
He wrapped his arms around her as she settled her head against his chest. "Yeah, me too," he told her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. "Thank you for bein' here."
She smiled then, and after another moment, she pulled back and looked at him. Everything around them scared the hell out of her, but her respect and affection for him kept her going in the face of that fear. "I'll see you in a coupla minutes," she said quietly, and moved past him to finally get a shower. They just had to take things one day at a time.
****
A strange thing happened after that: she found herself actually agreeing with Monica Reyes.
Stark wasn't the only one with skepticism about Shannon's story. After John had broken the news to Monica, she hadn't really believed it either. They'd in turn called Scully, and they all stood around while Shannon explained how chloramine was going to be introduced into the water supply to prime the population for genetic development. It wasn't the weirdest thing Stark had ever heard, but that didn't mean she was going to believe it. While Scully examined Shannon in some attempt to validate at least her backstory, Stark, Monica and Doggett were standing in the living room arguing over whether or not to believe her.
"It doesn't make any sense," Reyes protested.
He just eyed her. "Yeah, only it doesn't look like there's any harm in it either does it?"
"I'm still not okay with you almost drowning either," Stark pointed out.
That was the point Reyes was trying to make. "She drowned that man from the EPA. She's drowned two men."
"She says they were part of the program - two guys working to spike the water of the state of Maryland's water supply."
"So she killed them as a way of contacting you, you believe that?"
"You saw that thing on her back," he insisted. "You said you saw it before. I think we're on to something here, Monica. It's freaky, it's mindblowing. You gotta admit that, come on."
"I'm not doubting what she is, only what she says she's doing."
Stark nodded slightly. "And there's no proof of anything she's saying, no proof to contradict her. The timing is suspect in my eyes." She gave her partner a gentle look. She rarely disagreed with him, but she had to admit that she could see things both ways. "John...I know we've been looking for a break, and if this is that break, good. I just...I don't want you reaching for something that isn't there."
He glanced at her. "How are we gonna know what is or isn't there if we don't find out?"
She opened her mouth to say something else, but Scully entered the living room then, and they all looked at her expectantly. "What did you find?" Doggett asked.
"Nothing." Scully exhaled. "Nothing more than a small deformity of the spine. Physically, she seems absolutely normal, as normal as you or I."
That wasn't the answer he wanted. He shook his head. "I don't believe this."
"What don't you believe, Agent Doggett?" Scully replied, a little surprised to see him fighting so hard instead of being the outright skeptic. "I just examined her."
He looked from her to Reyes to his partner and back again. "That I'm standing here with all of you telling me that you don't see what's right in front of us. She's the key to everything in this case, right to the FBI."
"Well, for your sake, I hope so," Scully told him coolly. "But I hope not for mine."
She left the room, but he was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. The two other agents in the room with him could only watch as the expression on his face turned to immediate confusion. "What are you talking about?" he said slowly.
The next look on his face was pure, unadulterated anger.
"We're being suspended," he said, his voice low and tight as he looked across the at his partner. "You and me, Stark. They want to pull us off this case."
A heartbeat, a growl in the back of his throat. "Damned if I'm going to let 'em."
****
By the time they arrived at the Hoover Building, he could sense that his partner didn't share the same animosity. Stark's entire role in the discussion on the way over had been trying to keep him from blowing red lights in his fit of honest anger. He finally had his lead, his Holy Grail, and they were trying to take it from him. If there was one thing she knew about John Doggett, it was that he never gave up without a fight.
"Why aren't you more pissed off about this?" he asked her as they stepped out of the truck. "They're trying to take your badge. How are you so calm about this?"
"I'm not calm about it!" she protested. "I'm just not -- I have different priorities."
"Different priorities?" he echoed incredulously. "What the hell could be more important than your job? Your whole life?"
"It's not my whole life, John." The sentence came out a little more snapped than she'd intended and she exhaled a tight breath. "It might be for you, but it's not for me. Not anymore."
His eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"Come on, John. My career is a formality. I have no career after what I did to get myself demoted. I'll be lucky if I ever see another assignment." Her voice was calm, laced with determination. "They can take my badge. They can have my gun. I don't need those things to do what I'm planning on doing with the rest of my life." She met his eyes. "I don't need them to be your partner."
He was stunned into silence for a moment, just looking at her. She had made sacrifices to stick with him, and he knew that, but he had never heard her state them so bluntly. Maybe working on the X-Files had changed both of them.
"Maybe not," he said, almost more determined. "But that doesn't mean I'm gonna let them take 'em from us."
He stormed into Deputy Director Kersh's office, his partner steps behind him, and made his displeasure evident. "You want to turf me now?" he challenged. "You want to take my badge and gun?"
Kersh stood from his desk, folding his arms over his chest. "Agent Doggett, you can't just burst in here."
"How's it going to look, Deputy Director? You suspending me and my partner right before I nail you up against a wall as a co-conspirator." Doggett was as angry as his partner had ever seen him, despite the fact that she was already removing the gun holster from her belt behind his back.
"Glad you could drop in, Mr. Doggett." The voice was new and they both swiveled their heads around to look at the fair-haired man with the cocky smirk on his face. By way of introduction, he said, "Assistant Director Follmer."
Matching the name to what Monica had already told them, Doggett nodded to himself. "You're Brad Follmer."
Follmer's smile only grew. "I was just explaining to the Deputy Director the reasons why you two are being suspended, but I think your actions here speak for themselves."
The agent's eyes narrowed. "Oh, I see what this is," he replied. "This is just a little bureaucratic paint job."
"I'd watch your mouth, John," Kersh warned.
"What this is, is a testament to your gross subordination and reckless disregard for the FBI," Follmer continued. "And what a shame. Taking your partner down with you."
"I'll have you know I went voluntarily," Stark interrupted.
Follmer looked past Doggett and casually at her, giving her the once-over. "Miss Patrick. Yes, I've heard you enjoy this sort of thing."
"It's a little thing called loyalty."
Her partner jumped in to her defense. "You oughta start hearing what's coming out of your wishy-washy mouth," he retorted.
But Follmer didn't budge. "Paranoia must come with the job," he decided with a smile. "You're starting to sound just like Fox Mulder, Mr. Doggett."
"Now don't you 'Mr. Doggett' me," Doggett retorted. "I don't answer to you. I answer to A.D. Skinner."
"The job suspension stands, Mr. Doggett."
His expression was ice cold. "Try and stop me," he retorted, before he turned and blew out of the Deputy Director's office, Stark following after him. "Put the gun back in the holster," he said brusquely, without even looking at her. She didn't argue, just replaced it, wondering if she might need it sooner rather than later.
****
The more the case went on, the better an appreciation Stark had for Monica Reyes. Reyes had phoned from the office insisting that they all meet without their new ally, and John had piled them all into Scully's car to get her. Reyes met them on the street, looking stricken. "Where's Shannon McMahon?" she asked urgently.
"She's in my house," he replied. "Why? What's this about?"
"She's lying to you," Reyes informed him. "She's not who you think."
"Where you getting this?" he asked.
"Everywhere I look," she retorted. "She works for the Department of Justice, did you know that? I got a peek at her case files. Those two men she killed, they'd contacted her at the DOJ. As whistleblowers."
At the mention of the phrase Department of Justice, Stark's entire body tensed. Her personal connection to that agency always made it a sore subject for her, and the implication that it might also be affected or involved didn't sit well with her. "She's DOJ, are you sure?" she asked, unable to help herself.
"I wouldn't say it if I wasn't," Reyes insisted.
"She said they conspired with the government," Doggett continued, running Shannon's story through in his own mind. "They were part of the program..."
"They were killed because they wanted to expose the program," Monica corrected.
"Then why's she lying?" he asked. "Why come to us?"
"Because there's one man she still can't pinpoint, and she wants you to lead her to him."
"How? I wouldn't even know who the hell you're talking about."
Stark was still watching Reyes with some interest. "She does."
Reyes did. "He's the captain of a Navy ship that spends twelve months of the year at sea. He had been in guarded contact with both dead men about a secret lab on that ship," she explained.
"Right now Shannon McMahon is the only sure thing we have in this investigation," Doggett replied warily. "If we cut out on her and go to this ship of yours, we risk coming out with both hands empty." After everything he had been through over the past week, he was desperate and frustrated. He wasn't going to make the wrong move and lose what little was left. It was a difficult crossroads for a man who normally knew exactly what to do.
It was Scully who broke the tension. "If this is true about this ship and this lab, there may be answers there I can't risk not knowing," she said honestly.
He glanced at her. That was what this was really about. Finding out what had happened to Scully's baby, if anything. Bringing down the people responsible for what had almost happened to all of them. He couldn't lose sight of what the goal was. Of protecting the people most important to him. All of whom were right there, that moment, counting on him to make the right decision.
Monica jumped into the backseat next to Stark, and he gunned the engine. "Where are we going?"
"The Port of Baltimore," Monica supplied. "The ship is the USS Valor Victor."
Doggett glanced over his shoulder at Stark. "You still got those guys at the department you were talking to the other day?"
"Absolutely," she replied, digging for her cell phone in the pocket of her jacket.
"You get 'em on the phone. You call 'em and tell 'em where we're headed," he advised her. "I'm guessing we might need some backup."
****
He pulled practically up to the side of the ship, and they all stepped out and began advancing carefully down the dock. Stark, who was more than a little unnerved that her beloved hometown might have alien bastards in it too, didn't hear her partner call her name the first time. Not until he said it a little louder. "What?"
"Where are your guys?"
"They're on their way. They'll be here." Truth be told she had no way of knowing. After waking up Victor in the middle of the night she'd told him not to call her when he arrived. She didn't want them stumbling into something and becoming the next people to get tangled up in the whole mess that they were unraveling.
Doggett nodded his assent before he asked, "Where's this captain supposed to be?"
"We're supposed to meet him at a phone booth at one AM," Reyes explained. "It's ten to..."
"Somebody's already there," Scully interrupted, drawing their attention to a figure at the pay phone in the distance.
"Is he tall or medium?" Doggett asked Reyes.
"I don't know. It wasn't clear."
"He sees us," Scully advised.
Indeed, the figure at the pay phone was coming toward them. Despite multiple warnings from her partner, Stark watched in horror as the figure failed to yield. When she saw her partner go for his gun, she drew hers in one fluid motion, clicking the safety off.
"Who is it?" Scully asked, alarmed as she looked at the both of them.
"Knowle Rohrer," Doggett explained. "Run. Now."
Scully and Reyes ran for cover, but Stark stood her ground. She had told her partner that she had no intention of leaving him behind in a life or death situation ever again, and he knew it. Neither was she going to keep running from this man who had gotten the better of her once before. Both of them opened fire, but the entire clip in her gun didn't have any effect whatsoever.
Her partner prepared to attack Rohrer outright, but he didn't get that far. The super soldier was faster, hitting him in the face with a sickening sound and knocking him to the ground. Before John could react, Rohrer grabbed him and threw him into a large wooden crate behind them, and her partner crumpled to the ground again. Stark didn't think, just raced to her partner's side. That cost her, as Rohrer brushed off her attempt at defending Doggett like it was nothing. Instead, he took hold of her, wrenching her arm behind her and then sending her skidding across the dock into a metal guard pylon that her head contacted with a loud sound. After that, everything went black.
Doggett felt something in his stomach twist as he saw his partner go down. She had only been trying to save his life. Unfortunately, he couldn't get to her as he was still fighting for it. Rohrer seemed intent on crushing his skull with his bare hands, and he felt bone wanting to crack and give. What happened after that appeared to make no sense at all. Suddenly, Rohrer's head simply disappeared, decapitated in a single strike. Behind him was none other than Shannon McMahon.
"You didn't trust me," she said, helping him to his feet. He didn't have a chance to get a single word out, however, before a bloodied hand punched its way through her chest. The headless body of Knowle Rohrer was behind her, and both of them tumbled off the edge of the docks and into the water below.
He barely had time to process what had just happened. Running to the docks' edge, he could see nothing there. Instead, he turned on his heel and, spotting the body of his partner, ran toward her, fearing the worst. She was already being tended to by two other men, neither of whom he recognized. "Is she alive?" he asked urgently.
"I've got a pulse," the older man said. "What the hell is happening here?"
"You don't want to know," he said honestly, breathing a heavy sigh of relief that Stark was still alive. She looked worse for wear, but at least he hadn't gotten her killed. "You must be the backup."
"Detective Victor Mansfield, BCPD. This," and the man nodded at a taller man with slightly unruly hair and a slightly cocky smile, "is Lieutenant Jason Kendall. You must be her partner."
"John Doggett." He nodded swiftly. "Get her to a hospital. Let me know where. I've got something else to take care of," he said, and as much as it pained him, he left his wounded partner with her former colleagues and turned back for the boat.
****
Baltimore County Medical Center
Baltimore, Maryland
48 Hours Later
"I have that patient file you asked for," the administrative assistant asked, stepping into the office of the Chief of Medical Research. "She's being released today. Would you like me to tell her doctor you're going to see her?"
The doctor took the file from the young woman, and flipped it open, skimming the contents. A concussion, a torn muscle in the right shoulder, and various cuts and bruises from impact.
After a moment, Dr. Christine Patrick closed the file and handed it back to the assistant. "No, that's fine," she said. "I don't need to see her."
****
Downstairs, the recovery room was already busy when Doggett walked in. He was glad to see Stark back in her street clothes, sitting on the end of the bed and talking with the other people in the room. It was easy to recognize Victor Mansfield from their brief run-in at the Port of Baltimore, but he didn't know the woman and teenage girl sitting by Stark's bedside. It didn't matter, because they all turned and looked at him when he walked in.
"Did I miss something?" he asked, glancing between them.
"Hey, John." His partner flashed him a small smile, the best she could do with the painkillers she was on still making her slightly out of it. "No. Um, I know you met Vic...this is his wife, Tonya, and their daughter Michelle."
"Pleased to meet you," Doggett said, nodding at the two women. "If I'm interrupting, I can wait until you're done catching up."
"It's all right. We should probably get going anyway. Michelle has soccer practice to get to," Victor replied. His eyes met Doggett's and there was a chill to them. "I don't want to be doing this again," he said just quietly enough that the other man could hear him, before he walked out of the room. After a moment or two of catching up with Stark, his wife and daughter followed him.
Doggett watched them go before he moved to his partner's bedside. The detective's warning only made him feel worse about what happened to her, and he frowned. "I didn't mean for this to happen to you."
"I know, John. There's nothing you could have done, and I would have done it anyway. Victor's just protective, is all. Same as you would be." She sighed. "So tell me what happened."
He exhaled a tight breath. "The ship contained the lab Monica said it did. There was a bomb on it. We barely got a look at it before it blew. Rohrer's dead. So's Shannon. I turned in my report to Kersh. Nothing I can pin on him now." Shifting his jaw, he said, "I'm gonna get him eventually. I know what he did. He even tried to convince me he warned Mulder of an attempt on his life."
She eyed him. "You believe him?"
"I don't know what I believe." He sighed. "I do know you and Monica were right. I was lookin' so hard for something to nail Kersh to the wall, I didn't see anything else."
"We all make mistakes, John. Even you, sometimes. Just not often." She gave him a thin smile, before she carefully stood from the bed. "C'mon. I wanna go home. I'm sure there's baseball game highlights I've missed."
He wrapped an arm around her waist, letting her lean on him as they made their way down the hospital hallway. "Nah. You're coming home with me tonight."
She snorted, arching an eyebrow. But she didn't say anything, just appreciated the humor of the situation.
This time, there was no protesting as he helped her up the stairs and into bed. Whether it was the painkillers or simply the fatigue of the last few days, she was done fighting and he couldn't blame her. He simply settled down next to her, wrapping an arm around her stomach as she slipped into unconsciousness.
It was his turn to be protective. He knew she'd understand.
Spoilers: "Nothing Important Happened Today" (Part 2)
Rating: PG
Words: 4713
Summary: Who do you serve, and who can you trust? Stark is forced to make a drastic decision when her partner's integrity is put to the test.
Falls Church, Virginia
Several hours later
Stark was still wide awake as the sunlight streamed through the curtains. She almost missed her partner cracking jokes about her recently thrown off sleeping patterns. That would at least have meant life was reasonably normal. She bit her lip, casting a worried glance at his prone form on the other side of the bed. He was still sleeping. She sighed, shifting beside him. She hadn't moved all night, just sat there next to him, trying to make sense of the files she had recovered from the reclamation plant, but they were useless. She just wanted John to wake up. She'd apologize for having now inadvertantly seen him naked, they would crack a joke or two about it, and everything would be fine. Wouldn't it?
He answered that question by coming to with a very violent cough.
"John," she started, moving immediately to his side and putting a hand on his arm. "Oh, thank God. Relax. I'm right here." The words came out of her in such a rush that she wasn't sure if she was trying to convince him, or herself. Nor did she tell him everything was going to be okay, because she wasn't sure if it would be. Not with their psuedo-uninvited houseguest.
"Stark." Her name came out strained as he propped himself up and settled a hand over hers. "The hell..."
She didn't get a chance to explain as said uninvited houseguest had heard their voices and decided to make her presence known. Stark didn't trust Shannon McMahon as far as she could throw her (which wasn't much), but she had to admit the woman had saved her partner and that counted for something. At least for the time being. Stark still eyed her warily and didn't move from where she was beside her partner.
"Lie back, John, it's okay," Shannon encouraged.
He wasn't convinced. "What the hell's this?"
"It's Shannon. Shannon McMahon. We were together in Bravo Company, USMC. You tried to contact me."
"What the hell are you doing here now?"
Stark pinched the bridge of her nose. "She turned up an hour or two after I got back here. With you."
"Your lungs are full of water," Shannon added by way of explanation.
"You pulled me under," Doggett retorted, and now Stark was staring at her like she was crazy. She moved slightly, wondering where her gun was. But that didn't make any sense. If she'd wanted him dead, why was he still alive? Obviously, something had happened at the plant after she'd fled the scene. She shut up and waited to hear it all come out.
"I did what I had to," Shannon told him.
"You held me down. I remember."
They would have caught you," she insisted. "They would have figured it out - what you've started to figure out."
"What are you?" he retorted. Not 'who,' but 'what'. The implication made Stark's blood run cold. So did what she was about to hear, and the fact that Shannon was moving closer to them both.
"You know what I am. I'm the product of fifty years of military science, the program your old friend Knowle Rohrer told you about. I'm a bio-engineered combat unit. I have no weaknesses - I don't sleep, I can breathe underwater. That's how I saved your life, John."
Stark let out a sharp breath. She wanted badly to levy a threat, to make Shannon understand that every single alien super soldier that came near them had tried to kill them and she would not stand for it again. But it would seem worthless. If Shannon had wanted them dead, she wouldn't have saved Doggett's life. Instead, she just said, "Excuse me if I'm skeptical considering Knowle Rohrer tried to kill me."
"Something with which I haven't bothered," the other woman replied coolly. A little too cool for Stark's taste. "I'm not here to kill you."
"How do you know what I know?" John interrupted. "What Knowle Rohrer told me?"
"Knowle Rohrer and I were drafted right out of Bravo Company together. We were...Adam and Eve, the program's first. There are many more now."
"Knowle Rohrer is dead," he replied emphatically.
"They can't kill us," she corrected. "We can't be killed. Knowle Rohrer and I are alike in almost every way. The difference is I hate what I am."
Stark was momentarily silenced. She'd only run into two alien super soldiers in her tenure with the X-Files and they had both been people she had despised, back when she still thought they were human. Then they'd both made attempts on her life. To think that they were both still out there worried her. Under the blankets she felt John take her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. He understood her fear.
"Why are you here telling me this?" he asked Shannon.
"The program's expanding in ways no one ever dreamed of. I need your help to stop it, John."
"You need my help?" he echoed skeptically. "What can I do?"
"Expose the deaths of those two men I killed. What they were doing."
"What were they doing?"
"Preparing the water supply."
He was getting tired of having to ask a thousand little questions to get one answer. He narrowed his eyes. "Preparing it for what?" he asked and knew he wouldn't like the reply.
****
Now that she was sure her partner was conscious and in one piece, Stark was able to start pulling herself back together. She hadn't left his bedside, but now she was intent on getting cleaned up and back to work. She was busy picking up all the files from where she'd left them when he walked back into the room, towel wrapped around his waist.
"Shower's yours," he told her as she stacked the rest of the files. "I'll find something you can wear."
"Thanks, John." She glanced up at him with a small smile and then moved for the bedroom door. Neither of them were uncomfortable; she'd seen that before. Actually, she'd just seen a whole lot more than that. What was uncomfortable had nothing to do with her partner.
Her partner, however, was astute enough and knew her well enough to pick up on it. "You don't trust her, do you," he said, and it was a statement not a question.
Stark hesitated, and shook her head. "I know you guys go back awhile..."
He snorted. "So did me and Knowle Rohrer. Didn't stop him from trying to kill us. Don't worry about offending me."
"That's why I don't trust her, John. Both the super soldiers we ran into were people we knew before. Both of them tried to kill us. And the third time's just supposed to be different because she says it is? I don't know." She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Be careful."
"I'm gonna be careful, Stark. But I know this is also the best lead - the only lead - we've got right now. You said it yourself, those files are just numbers." He looked over at her. "You're gonna be with me on this, right? I need you here."
"Of course I'm with you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just worried." She was quiet for a moment, staring at the floor, before she closed the short distance between them and hugged him, towel be damned. "I'm just so glad you're okay."
He wrapped his arms around her as she settled her head against his chest. "Yeah, me too," he told her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. "Thank you for bein' here."
She smiled then, and after another moment, she pulled back and looked at him. Everything around them scared the hell out of her, but her respect and affection for him kept her going in the face of that fear. "I'll see you in a coupla minutes," she said quietly, and moved past him to finally get a shower. They just had to take things one day at a time.
****
A strange thing happened after that: she found herself actually agreeing with Monica Reyes.
Stark wasn't the only one with skepticism about Shannon's story. After John had broken the news to Monica, she hadn't really believed it either. They'd in turn called Scully, and they all stood around while Shannon explained how chloramine was going to be introduced into the water supply to prime the population for genetic development. It wasn't the weirdest thing Stark had ever heard, but that didn't mean she was going to believe it. While Scully examined Shannon in some attempt to validate at least her backstory, Stark, Monica and Doggett were standing in the living room arguing over whether or not to believe her.
"It doesn't make any sense," Reyes protested.
He just eyed her. "Yeah, only it doesn't look like there's any harm in it either does it?"
"I'm still not okay with you almost drowning either," Stark pointed out.
That was the point Reyes was trying to make. "She drowned that man from the EPA. She's drowned two men."
"She says they were part of the program - two guys working to spike the water of the state of Maryland's water supply."
"So she killed them as a way of contacting you, you believe that?"
"You saw that thing on her back," he insisted. "You said you saw it before. I think we're on to something here, Monica. It's freaky, it's mindblowing. You gotta admit that, come on."
"I'm not doubting what she is, only what she says she's doing."
Stark nodded slightly. "And there's no proof of anything she's saying, no proof to contradict her. The timing is suspect in my eyes." She gave her partner a gentle look. She rarely disagreed with him, but she had to admit that she could see things both ways. "John...I know we've been looking for a break, and if this is that break, good. I just...I don't want you reaching for something that isn't there."
He glanced at her. "How are we gonna know what is or isn't there if we don't find out?"
She opened her mouth to say something else, but Scully entered the living room then, and they all looked at her expectantly. "What did you find?" Doggett asked.
"Nothing." Scully exhaled. "Nothing more than a small deformity of the spine. Physically, she seems absolutely normal, as normal as you or I."
That wasn't the answer he wanted. He shook his head. "I don't believe this."
"What don't you believe, Agent Doggett?" Scully replied, a little surprised to see him fighting so hard instead of being the outright skeptic. "I just examined her."
He looked from her to Reyes to his partner and back again. "That I'm standing here with all of you telling me that you don't see what's right in front of us. She's the key to everything in this case, right to the FBI."
"Well, for your sake, I hope so," Scully told him coolly. "But I hope not for mine."
She left the room, but he was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. The two other agents in the room with him could only watch as the expression on his face turned to immediate confusion. "What are you talking about?" he said slowly.
The next look on his face was pure, unadulterated anger.
"We're being suspended," he said, his voice low and tight as he looked across the at his partner. "You and me, Stark. They want to pull us off this case."
A heartbeat, a growl in the back of his throat. "Damned if I'm going to let 'em."
****
By the time they arrived at the Hoover Building, he could sense that his partner didn't share the same animosity. Stark's entire role in the discussion on the way over had been trying to keep him from blowing red lights in his fit of honest anger. He finally had his lead, his Holy Grail, and they were trying to take it from him. If there was one thing she knew about John Doggett, it was that he never gave up without a fight.
"Why aren't you more pissed off about this?" he asked her as they stepped out of the truck. "They're trying to take your badge. How are you so calm about this?"
"I'm not calm about it!" she protested. "I'm just not -- I have different priorities."
"Different priorities?" he echoed incredulously. "What the hell could be more important than your job? Your whole life?"
"It's not my whole life, John." The sentence came out a little more snapped than she'd intended and she exhaled a tight breath. "It might be for you, but it's not for me. Not anymore."
His eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"Come on, John. My career is a formality. I have no career after what I did to get myself demoted. I'll be lucky if I ever see another assignment." Her voice was calm, laced with determination. "They can take my badge. They can have my gun. I don't need those things to do what I'm planning on doing with the rest of my life." She met his eyes. "I don't need them to be your partner."
He was stunned into silence for a moment, just looking at her. She had made sacrifices to stick with him, and he knew that, but he had never heard her state them so bluntly. Maybe working on the X-Files had changed both of them.
"Maybe not," he said, almost more determined. "But that doesn't mean I'm gonna let them take 'em from us."
He stormed into Deputy Director Kersh's office, his partner steps behind him, and made his displeasure evident. "You want to turf me now?" he challenged. "You want to take my badge and gun?"
Kersh stood from his desk, folding his arms over his chest. "Agent Doggett, you can't just burst in here."
"How's it going to look, Deputy Director? You suspending me and my partner right before I nail you up against a wall as a co-conspirator." Doggett was as angry as his partner had ever seen him, despite the fact that she was already removing the gun holster from her belt behind his back.
"Glad you could drop in, Mr. Doggett." The voice was new and they both swiveled their heads around to look at the fair-haired man with the cocky smirk on his face. By way of introduction, he said, "Assistant Director Follmer."
Matching the name to what Monica had already told them, Doggett nodded to himself. "You're Brad Follmer."
Follmer's smile only grew. "I was just explaining to the Deputy Director the reasons why you two are being suspended, but I think your actions here speak for themselves."
The agent's eyes narrowed. "Oh, I see what this is," he replied. "This is just a little bureaucratic paint job."
"I'd watch your mouth, John," Kersh warned.
"What this is, is a testament to your gross subordination and reckless disregard for the FBI," Follmer continued. "And what a shame. Taking your partner down with you."
"I'll have you know I went voluntarily," Stark interrupted.
Follmer looked past Doggett and casually at her, giving her the once-over. "Miss Patrick. Yes, I've heard you enjoy this sort of thing."
"It's a little thing called loyalty."
Her partner jumped in to her defense. "You oughta start hearing what's coming out of your wishy-washy mouth," he retorted.
But Follmer didn't budge. "Paranoia must come with the job," he decided with a smile. "You're starting to sound just like Fox Mulder, Mr. Doggett."
"Now don't you 'Mr. Doggett' me," Doggett retorted. "I don't answer to you. I answer to A.D. Skinner."
"The job suspension stands, Mr. Doggett."
His expression was ice cold. "Try and stop me," he retorted, before he turned and blew out of the Deputy Director's office, Stark following after him. "Put the gun back in the holster," he said brusquely, without even looking at her. She didn't argue, just replaced it, wondering if she might need it sooner rather than later.
****
The more the case went on, the better an appreciation Stark had for Monica Reyes. Reyes had phoned from the office insisting that they all meet without their new ally, and John had piled them all into Scully's car to get her. Reyes met them on the street, looking stricken. "Where's Shannon McMahon?" she asked urgently.
"She's in my house," he replied. "Why? What's this about?"
"She's lying to you," Reyes informed him. "She's not who you think."
"Where you getting this?" he asked.
"Everywhere I look," she retorted. "She works for the Department of Justice, did you know that? I got a peek at her case files. Those two men she killed, they'd contacted her at the DOJ. As whistleblowers."
At the mention of the phrase Department of Justice, Stark's entire body tensed. Her personal connection to that agency always made it a sore subject for her, and the implication that it might also be affected or involved didn't sit well with her. "She's DOJ, are you sure?" she asked, unable to help herself.
"I wouldn't say it if I wasn't," Reyes insisted.
"She said they conspired with the government," Doggett continued, running Shannon's story through in his own mind. "They were part of the program..."
"They were killed because they wanted to expose the program," Monica corrected.
"Then why's she lying?" he asked. "Why come to us?"
"Because there's one man she still can't pinpoint, and she wants you to lead her to him."
"How? I wouldn't even know who the hell you're talking about."
Stark was still watching Reyes with some interest. "She does."
Reyes did. "He's the captain of a Navy ship that spends twelve months of the year at sea. He had been in guarded contact with both dead men about a secret lab on that ship," she explained.
"Right now Shannon McMahon is the only sure thing we have in this investigation," Doggett replied warily. "If we cut out on her and go to this ship of yours, we risk coming out with both hands empty." After everything he had been through over the past week, he was desperate and frustrated. He wasn't going to make the wrong move and lose what little was left. It was a difficult crossroads for a man who normally knew exactly what to do.
It was Scully who broke the tension. "If this is true about this ship and this lab, there may be answers there I can't risk not knowing," she said honestly.
He glanced at her. That was what this was really about. Finding out what had happened to Scully's baby, if anything. Bringing down the people responsible for what had almost happened to all of them. He couldn't lose sight of what the goal was. Of protecting the people most important to him. All of whom were right there, that moment, counting on him to make the right decision.
Monica jumped into the backseat next to Stark, and he gunned the engine. "Where are we going?"
"The Port of Baltimore," Monica supplied. "The ship is the USS Valor Victor."
Doggett glanced over his shoulder at Stark. "You still got those guys at the department you were talking to the other day?"
"Absolutely," she replied, digging for her cell phone in the pocket of her jacket.
"You get 'em on the phone. You call 'em and tell 'em where we're headed," he advised her. "I'm guessing we might need some backup."
****
He pulled practically up to the side of the ship, and they all stepped out and began advancing carefully down the dock. Stark, who was more than a little unnerved that her beloved hometown might have alien bastards in it too, didn't hear her partner call her name the first time. Not until he said it a little louder. "What?"
"Where are your guys?"
"They're on their way. They'll be here." Truth be told she had no way of knowing. After waking up Victor in the middle of the night she'd told him not to call her when he arrived. She didn't want them stumbling into something and becoming the next people to get tangled up in the whole mess that they were unraveling.
Doggett nodded his assent before he asked, "Where's this captain supposed to be?"
"We're supposed to meet him at a phone booth at one AM," Reyes explained. "It's ten to..."
"Somebody's already there," Scully interrupted, drawing their attention to a figure at the pay phone in the distance.
"Is he tall or medium?" Doggett asked Reyes.
"I don't know. It wasn't clear."
"He sees us," Scully advised.
Indeed, the figure at the pay phone was coming toward them. Despite multiple warnings from her partner, Stark watched in horror as the figure failed to yield. When she saw her partner go for his gun, she drew hers in one fluid motion, clicking the safety off.
"Who is it?" Scully asked, alarmed as she looked at the both of them.
"Knowle Rohrer," Doggett explained. "Run. Now."
Scully and Reyes ran for cover, but Stark stood her ground. She had told her partner that she had no intention of leaving him behind in a life or death situation ever again, and he knew it. Neither was she going to keep running from this man who had gotten the better of her once before. Both of them opened fire, but the entire clip in her gun didn't have any effect whatsoever.
Her partner prepared to attack Rohrer outright, but he didn't get that far. The super soldier was faster, hitting him in the face with a sickening sound and knocking him to the ground. Before John could react, Rohrer grabbed him and threw him into a large wooden crate behind them, and her partner crumpled to the ground again. Stark didn't think, just raced to her partner's side. That cost her, as Rohrer brushed off her attempt at defending Doggett like it was nothing. Instead, he took hold of her, wrenching her arm behind her and then sending her skidding across the dock into a metal guard pylon that her head contacted with a loud sound. After that, everything went black.
Doggett felt something in his stomach twist as he saw his partner go down. She had only been trying to save his life. Unfortunately, he couldn't get to her as he was still fighting for it. Rohrer seemed intent on crushing his skull with his bare hands, and he felt bone wanting to crack and give. What happened after that appeared to make no sense at all. Suddenly, Rohrer's head simply disappeared, decapitated in a single strike. Behind him was none other than Shannon McMahon.
"You didn't trust me," she said, helping him to his feet. He didn't have a chance to get a single word out, however, before a bloodied hand punched its way through her chest. The headless body of Knowle Rohrer was behind her, and both of them tumbled off the edge of the docks and into the water below.
He barely had time to process what had just happened. Running to the docks' edge, he could see nothing there. Instead, he turned on his heel and, spotting the body of his partner, ran toward her, fearing the worst. She was already being tended to by two other men, neither of whom he recognized. "Is she alive?" he asked urgently.
"I've got a pulse," the older man said. "What the hell is happening here?"
"You don't want to know," he said honestly, breathing a heavy sigh of relief that Stark was still alive. She looked worse for wear, but at least he hadn't gotten her killed. "You must be the backup."
"Detective Victor Mansfield, BCPD. This," and the man nodded at a taller man with slightly unruly hair and a slightly cocky smile, "is Lieutenant Jason Kendall. You must be her partner."
"John Doggett." He nodded swiftly. "Get her to a hospital. Let me know where. I've got something else to take care of," he said, and as much as it pained him, he left his wounded partner with her former colleagues and turned back for the boat.
****
Baltimore County Medical Center
Baltimore, Maryland
48 Hours Later
"I have that patient file you asked for," the administrative assistant asked, stepping into the office of the Chief of Medical Research. "She's being released today. Would you like me to tell her doctor you're going to see her?"
The doctor took the file from the young woman, and flipped it open, skimming the contents. A concussion, a torn muscle in the right shoulder, and various cuts and bruises from impact.
After a moment, Dr. Christine Patrick closed the file and handed it back to the assistant. "No, that's fine," she said. "I don't need to see her."
****
Downstairs, the recovery room was already busy when Doggett walked in. He was glad to see Stark back in her street clothes, sitting on the end of the bed and talking with the other people in the room. It was easy to recognize Victor Mansfield from their brief run-in at the Port of Baltimore, but he didn't know the woman and teenage girl sitting by Stark's bedside. It didn't matter, because they all turned and looked at him when he walked in.
"Did I miss something?" he asked, glancing between them.
"Hey, John." His partner flashed him a small smile, the best she could do with the painkillers she was on still making her slightly out of it. "No. Um, I know you met Vic...this is his wife, Tonya, and their daughter Michelle."
"Pleased to meet you," Doggett said, nodding at the two women. "If I'm interrupting, I can wait until you're done catching up."
"It's all right. We should probably get going anyway. Michelle has soccer practice to get to," Victor replied. His eyes met Doggett's and there was a chill to them. "I don't want to be doing this again," he said just quietly enough that the other man could hear him, before he walked out of the room. After a moment or two of catching up with Stark, his wife and daughter followed him.
Doggett watched them go before he moved to his partner's bedside. The detective's warning only made him feel worse about what happened to her, and he frowned. "I didn't mean for this to happen to you."
"I know, John. There's nothing you could have done, and I would have done it anyway. Victor's just protective, is all. Same as you would be." She sighed. "So tell me what happened."
He exhaled a tight breath. "The ship contained the lab Monica said it did. There was a bomb on it. We barely got a look at it before it blew. Rohrer's dead. So's Shannon. I turned in my report to Kersh. Nothing I can pin on him now." Shifting his jaw, he said, "I'm gonna get him eventually. I know what he did. He even tried to convince me he warned Mulder of an attempt on his life."
She eyed him. "You believe him?"
"I don't know what I believe." He sighed. "I do know you and Monica were right. I was lookin' so hard for something to nail Kersh to the wall, I didn't see anything else."
"We all make mistakes, John. Even you, sometimes. Just not often." She gave him a thin smile, before she carefully stood from the bed. "C'mon. I wanna go home. I'm sure there's baseball game highlights I've missed."
He wrapped an arm around her waist, letting her lean on him as they made their way down the hospital hallway. "Nah. You're coming home with me tonight."
She snorted, arching an eyebrow. But she didn't say anything, just appreciated the humor of the situation.
This time, there was no protesting as he helped her up the stairs and into bed. Whether it was the painkillers or simply the fatigue of the last few days, she was done fighting and he couldn't blame her. He simply settled down next to her, wrapping an arm around her stomach as she slipped into unconsciousness.
It was his turn to be protective. He knew she'd understand.