Fic: Six Times Someone Learns About William, Part 3
Title: Six Times Someone Learns About William, Part 3
Author: bugs
Rating: T
Warning: Adult language
Word Count: 2,000
Spoilers: Through The Truth
xox
Part 3:
"John, I was so happy to hear from you." Monica Reyes took a tentative step toward Doggett, as though to move into a hug which didn't come. His outstretched hand kept their bodies apart and after a pause, she shook it.
"Thanks for comin', Agent Reyes," Doggett said. "I know it was short notice--"
She pasted on a smile and looked up for the Helena airport baggage claim sign. "It sounded important."
"I thought you may have some insight into a case I'm on," he told her as he fished his cell phone out of his pocket. "Let me check on the status while you get your bag. I'll see you out front."
The phone to his ear, he strode away, leaving her to head for the luggage carousel. After collecting her suitcase, she waited outside on the sidewalk. A rental car pulled up beside her.
Doggett leaned across the front seat to open the door for her. Raising her eyebrows at his gallantry, she tossed her bag in the backseat, then settled into the car beside him.
"So what's the case?" she asked, fumbling for her pack of cigarettes.
Pulling away from the curb, he tapped the No Smoking sticker on the dashboard. "The FBI'll pissed if I lose the cleaning deposit."
Sighing, she shoved the box back in her pocket.
"The case," she prompted him.
"I've been assigned a missing person investigation. A FBI agent named Fox Mulder. You know of him?"
"Hell, yes," she said with excitement, twisting in her seat. "Who hasn't heard of the infamous Fox Mulder?"
Harry Schmidt, the lead agent on John's first case, had tipped his head. "See that guy?"
John had squinted across the crowded conference room. A tall, dark-haired man stood apart from the other agents gathered for a briefing. "Yeah."
"Stay away from him."
"Who is it?"
"Fox Mulder."
"The profiling golden boy? I read a number of his monograms while at the Academy--"
"Not a golden boy anymore. He's tossed his career away to chase aliens."
"Illegals?"
"No, little green men."
"What the hell?"
Harry shook his head. "Just never get on a case that he's connect to. Two different options happen, both bad for you. He'll solve it with some cock and bull theory and make you look like an idiot. Or it won't be solved and it'll get stuck in his X file cabinet, pushing down your solve rate." Clasping John's shoulder, Harry drove home his point. "You're going somewhere in this agency and it's up. He's in the basement already and his career's sinking fast. Don't ever get tied to him, even for just one case."
Just then, a short, red-haired woman had joined Fox Mulder, approaching from behind. She didn't speak or look at him, but he glanced down at her. He murmured something out of the corner of his mouth and John could see her fight a smile. Mulder was still looking at her, but when she gazed up at him, he turned away. It was a strange sort of interplay; an intense awareness of each other, but with a reluctant aloofness.
"What about her?" John nodded toward the couple.
Harry glanced over. "Oh her. His partner. Another person who could have had a career, but she chooses to stay in that basement. She's a warning to anyone who does get tangled up with him."
Doggett pulled into a parking lot. "Yeah, that Fox Mulder."
"We're meeting the other agents here?" Monica got out of the car.
"No, they're still following up on a lead. I thought we'd grab some coffee..."
He studied the cafe's whimsical sign with dissatisfaction. Perk Mi Up it read.
"Can't just get a damn cuppa joe and a donut anymore," he lamented. "Even in Montana."
Monica smiled behind his back. "Have a breve and a cranberry scone. It won't kill you."
After picking up their order, they chose a table away from the few patrons. The strong espresso nearly wiped out her craving for a cigarette. Once again, she probed at the reticent man beside her as he stared broodingly down into his Americano.
"Missing person's case. Fellow agent. Details."
Efficiently, John explained that Fox Mulder, after an alternately brilliant and checkered FBI career, had disappeared several months ago on one dark night while searching for an alien spaceship.
Monica shook her head. "A what?"
"You heard me." John bit off the end of his croissant and swallowed with no pleasure.
"And I'm going to assume that you didn't follow that lead."
"Nope."
"What is your theory?"
"The evidence I've gathered early on says that driven by the utter failure of his years of work, and faced with a terminal illness, he staged the greatest disappearing act the agency has ever seen."
She peered at him over her cup's rim. "Pretty fanciful for you, John. But--"
"But what?" he grumbled.
"You're the one who's left the but hanging in the air."
"My butt's right on this chair," he told her.
"But--" she prompted again, not to be dissuaded.
"His partner is stonewallin' me at every turn. Keeping me in the dark, haring off to follow up on leads..." He wound down with a shape of his head.
"So he believes that Agent Mulder was abducted by aliens?"
"She." Doggett looked around as if expecting a waitress would materialize to top off his coffee.
Monica leaned back in her chair. There was a lot of weight put in one short word.
"She's bought into Fox Mulder's bete noire?"
John's brow furrowed. "Huh?"
"Does she believe in aliens?"
"She says that she's seen things she can't explain...And there's another problem."
Monica broke off the corner of her scone. She was suddenly ravenous.
"Agent Scully--that's the partner--she was rendered sterile four years ago...She says at the hands of these various nefarious forces that are in cahoots with the aliens--" John dismissed everything he said with a wave of his hand.
"She told you this?"
"It's in this section's files. These X-flies they worked on."
"Okay..." Monica said slowly.
"But now she's pregnant."
"I see." Yes, things were becoming more clear with each moment. "How far along?"
"Far enough," John said, the tip of his head answering her next question before she could pose it.
"Would Scully cover up for Mulder?" John had asked Dan McKeowen who'd served on several task forces with the X-files agents.
"Well, he's got a big dick," McKeowen replied with a smirk.
Jackson, his partner, topped off his coffee mug from the break room carafe. "No, no, I heard she's got a really tight twat."
Both men roared with laughter and John forced a smile on. Keep 'em talking...Dana Katherine Scully, doctor of medicine and battle-seasoned special agent for the FBI, could be reduced to just another horny broad by a couple of tossed-off phrases. The way it worked never failed to amaze John. Sometimes his job disgusted him.
Monica shoved her balled up napkin into her now empty drink cup. "The victim. You searched his home. What did you find?"
"Typical middle-aged guy bachelor pad," John said with a shrug.
"You'd know," she muttered.
He continued on as though he didn't hear her. "Signs of recent female companionship."
"What told you that?"
"Outdated porn stashed in the back of the closet; scented candle in the bathroom."
She gave a definite nod. "So just one woman. Wouldn't bother for casual pickups."
John shoots her that quick sideways smile of his that always made her want to drink an ice cold beer really fast. He continued: "No condoms suggested the woman in question was Agent Scully."
"And look where that got them." This time, he didn't return her grin, so she returned to her business-like tone. "How outdated?"
"What?"
"The porn, John. You checked, I assume."
"For investigative purposes only," he protested.
She grinned again, but hid it behind her hand.
"Two years out of date," he admitted.
"How long have they been partners?"
"Seven years."
She raised her eyebrows. "Interesting."
"How so?"
"I mean, you either do or you don't, pretty quick, wouldn't you say?"
He shifted in his chair. "Maybe she played hard to get."
"Maybe he did," she suggested.
John snorted incredulously. "Do men do that?"
She turned in her chair so that John couldn't see her expression. "He could have been shy," she suggested.
"He was a man, Monica."
She squinted at John. "And Agent Scully is a woman, I take it."
"Of course she is," he said, wrinkling his brow in confusion.
"I don't mean the type of woman that a man would finally notice has a pair of tits after five years. I mean a woman," she said with emphasis.
He stared into his own empty coffee cup.
"Oh, yes she is," Monica murmured.
"I just figured...Work relationships can get messy. They must have known that."
"Yes, they can get fucked," Monica said harshly, causing him to finally look at her.
John added: "And when I went back to his apartment for a follow up, I found her sleeping on his bed. She said she was there to feed the fish..."
"You prefer your evidence concrete like that," she observed wryly.
"Yeah, but this damn case is anything but a smooth ride," he bemoaned.
Monica cleared her throat, hoping it would clear her thoughts as well. "So where do I fit in, John? You asked me out here for a reason."
He looked relieved to be back on solid ground. "I need your skills. I need you to talk Dana out of this craziness and to accept that Mulder may be dead. Or worse."
We've found two others who were taken that night with Mulder, I assume by the same people. Both were brutally tortured. One's dead and one was abducted right out of the hospital where she was being treated. I want to stop Dana from clinging to this idea that Mulder's just gonna show up fine and dandy. When we find the truth, it's gonna kill her." His rough voice finally caught. “And we have to think of her baby."
"How can I help?" Monica said quietly.
"I'll show you the reports of injuries on the other two abductees. I think it's some sort of ritual practices--"
"What about your theory that Fox Mulder faked his own disappearance?" she interjected.
"I want an answer, Monica. One that will cause as little pain as possible for Dana and close the door on this." He rose from the table. Apparently the background briefing was over.
"The other abductees were found here in Helena?"
"Yep, out in a remote field."
"I want to go there. I may feel something."
Doggett rolled his eyes at at the word 'feel'. "If you think it'll help," he said grumpily.
For some reason, Monica was suddenly very angry. "You were going to tell me about Fox Mulder. But you've spent an hour telling me about Dana Scully. I'll need to find out what I can about Mulder on my own," she said, then stormed out to the car, leaving John to clean off the table before joining her.
X
The undulating hills carry away Monica's discontent, clearing her mind. She needs to center her thoughts on the case, the facts as they've been given to her, and on finding Fox Mulder. She puffs on her cigarette, finding another kind of peace.
This prairie is the sort of place that every breeze turns into a babbling discourse in the rattling strands of grass. If only she could hear what it's trying to tell her...
She's focusing on the twisted branches of a hangman's tree when the others approach. She quickly grubs out her cigarette and turns.
She'd expected Dana Scully to resemble John's willowy blonde ex-wife for some reason. Instead, she has to look down, down, down from her own awkward, gawky height to see this delicate doll face, incongruously on the soberly-robed figure of a slender Medieval saint. Rounded features capped with sun-flamed hair and then Monica gets to the eyes...a welding torch blue; the most intense gaze that she's ever seen, set over a contempt-curled set of soft lips.
Monica's smile of embarrassed greeting turns to a grin. Yes, Dana Scully is a woman. And Fox Mulder is still alive; no man was leaving that force behind; he wouldn't dare.
~ end part 3
E/N: Yes, I did like Doggett and Reyes. Shoot me.
Author: bugs
Rating: T
Warning: Adult language
Word Count: 2,000
Spoilers: Through The Truth
xox
Part 3:
"John, I was so happy to hear from you." Monica Reyes took a tentative step toward Doggett, as though to move into a hug which didn't come. His outstretched hand kept their bodies apart and after a pause, she shook it.
"Thanks for comin', Agent Reyes," Doggett said. "I know it was short notice--"
She pasted on a smile and looked up for the Helena airport baggage claim sign. "It sounded important."
"I thought you may have some insight into a case I'm on," he told her as he fished his cell phone out of his pocket. "Let me check on the status while you get your bag. I'll see you out front."
The phone to his ear, he strode away, leaving her to head for the luggage carousel. After collecting her suitcase, she waited outside on the sidewalk. A rental car pulled up beside her.
Doggett leaned across the front seat to open the door for her. Raising her eyebrows at his gallantry, she tossed her bag in the backseat, then settled into the car beside him.
"So what's the case?" she asked, fumbling for her pack of cigarettes.
Pulling away from the curb, he tapped the No Smoking sticker on the dashboard. "The FBI'll pissed if I lose the cleaning deposit."
Sighing, she shoved the box back in her pocket.
"The case," she prompted him.
"I've been assigned a missing person investigation. A FBI agent named Fox Mulder. You know of him?"
"Hell, yes," she said with excitement, twisting in her seat. "Who hasn't heard of the infamous Fox Mulder?"
Harry Schmidt, the lead agent on John's first case, had tipped his head. "See that guy?"
John had squinted across the crowded conference room. A tall, dark-haired man stood apart from the other agents gathered for a briefing. "Yeah."
"Stay away from him."
"Who is it?"
"Fox Mulder."
"The profiling golden boy? I read a number of his monograms while at the Academy--"
"Not a golden boy anymore. He's tossed his career away to chase aliens."
"Illegals?"
"No, little green men."
"What the hell?"
Harry shook his head. "Just never get on a case that he's connect to. Two different options happen, both bad for you. He'll solve it with some cock and bull theory and make you look like an idiot. Or it won't be solved and it'll get stuck in his X file cabinet, pushing down your solve rate." Clasping John's shoulder, Harry drove home his point. "You're going somewhere in this agency and it's up. He's in the basement already and his career's sinking fast. Don't ever get tied to him, even for just one case."
Just then, a short, red-haired woman had joined Fox Mulder, approaching from behind. She didn't speak or look at him, but he glanced down at her. He murmured something out of the corner of his mouth and John could see her fight a smile. Mulder was still looking at her, but when she gazed up at him, he turned away. It was a strange sort of interplay; an intense awareness of each other, but with a reluctant aloofness.
"What about her?" John nodded toward the couple.
Harry glanced over. "Oh her. His partner. Another person who could have had a career, but she chooses to stay in that basement. She's a warning to anyone who does get tangled up with him."
Doggett pulled into a parking lot. "Yeah, that Fox Mulder."
"We're meeting the other agents here?" Monica got out of the car.
"No, they're still following up on a lead. I thought we'd grab some coffee..."
He studied the cafe's whimsical sign with dissatisfaction. Perk Mi Up it read.
"Can't just get a damn cuppa joe and a donut anymore," he lamented. "Even in Montana."
Monica smiled behind his back. "Have a breve and a cranberry scone. It won't kill you."
After picking up their order, they chose a table away from the few patrons. The strong espresso nearly wiped out her craving for a cigarette. Once again, she probed at the reticent man beside her as he stared broodingly down into his Americano.
"Missing person's case. Fellow agent. Details."
Efficiently, John explained that Fox Mulder, after an alternately brilliant and checkered FBI career, had disappeared several months ago on one dark night while searching for an alien spaceship.
Monica shook her head. "A what?"
"You heard me." John bit off the end of his croissant and swallowed with no pleasure.
"And I'm going to assume that you didn't follow that lead."
"Nope."
"What is your theory?"
"The evidence I've gathered early on says that driven by the utter failure of his years of work, and faced with a terminal illness, he staged the greatest disappearing act the agency has ever seen."
She peered at him over her cup's rim. "Pretty fanciful for you, John. But--"
"But what?" he grumbled.
"You're the one who's left the but hanging in the air."
"My butt's right on this chair," he told her.
"But--" she prompted again, not to be dissuaded.
"His partner is stonewallin' me at every turn. Keeping me in the dark, haring off to follow up on leads..." He wound down with a shape of his head.
"So he believes that Agent Mulder was abducted by aliens?"
"She." Doggett looked around as if expecting a waitress would materialize to top off his coffee.
Monica leaned back in her chair. There was a lot of weight put in one short word.
"She's bought into Fox Mulder's bete noire?"
John's brow furrowed. "Huh?"
"Does she believe in aliens?"
"She says that she's seen things she can't explain...And there's another problem."
Monica broke off the corner of her scone. She was suddenly ravenous.
"Agent Scully--that's the partner--she was rendered sterile four years ago...She says at the hands of these various nefarious forces that are in cahoots with the aliens--" John dismissed everything he said with a wave of his hand.
"She told you this?"
"It's in this section's files. These X-flies they worked on."
"Okay..." Monica said slowly.
"But now she's pregnant."
"I see." Yes, things were becoming more clear with each moment. "How far along?"
"Far enough," John said, the tip of his head answering her next question before she could pose it.
"Would Scully cover up for Mulder?" John had asked Dan McKeowen who'd served on several task forces with the X-files agents.
"Well, he's got a big dick," McKeowen replied with a smirk.
Jackson, his partner, topped off his coffee mug from the break room carafe. "No, no, I heard she's got a really tight twat."
Both men roared with laughter and John forced a smile on. Keep 'em talking...Dana Katherine Scully, doctor of medicine and battle-seasoned special agent for the FBI, could be reduced to just another horny broad by a couple of tossed-off phrases. The way it worked never failed to amaze John. Sometimes his job disgusted him.
Monica shoved her balled up napkin into her now empty drink cup. "The victim. You searched his home. What did you find?"
"Typical middle-aged guy bachelor pad," John said with a shrug.
"You'd know," she muttered.
He continued on as though he didn't hear her. "Signs of recent female companionship."
"What told you that?"
"Outdated porn stashed in the back of the closet; scented candle in the bathroom."
She gave a definite nod. "So just one woman. Wouldn't bother for casual pickups."
John shoots her that quick sideways smile of his that always made her want to drink an ice cold beer really fast. He continued: "No condoms suggested the woman in question was Agent Scully."
"And look where that got them." This time, he didn't return her grin, so she returned to her business-like tone. "How outdated?"
"What?"
"The porn, John. You checked, I assume."
"For investigative purposes only," he protested.
She grinned again, but hid it behind her hand.
"Two years out of date," he admitted.
"How long have they been partners?"
"Seven years."
She raised her eyebrows. "Interesting."
"How so?"
"I mean, you either do or you don't, pretty quick, wouldn't you say?"
He shifted in his chair. "Maybe she played hard to get."
"Maybe he did," she suggested.
John snorted incredulously. "Do men do that?"
She turned in her chair so that John couldn't see her expression. "He could have been shy," she suggested.
"He was a man, Monica."
She squinted at John. "And Agent Scully is a woman, I take it."
"Of course she is," he said, wrinkling his brow in confusion.
"I don't mean the type of woman that a man would finally notice has a pair of tits after five years. I mean a woman," she said with emphasis.
He stared into his own empty coffee cup.
"Oh, yes she is," Monica murmured.
"I just figured...Work relationships can get messy. They must have known that."
"Yes, they can get fucked," Monica said harshly, causing him to finally look at her.
John added: "And when I went back to his apartment for a follow up, I found her sleeping on his bed. She said she was there to feed the fish..."
"You prefer your evidence concrete like that," she observed wryly.
"Yeah, but this damn case is anything but a smooth ride," he bemoaned.
Monica cleared her throat, hoping it would clear her thoughts as well. "So where do I fit in, John? You asked me out here for a reason."
He looked relieved to be back on solid ground. "I need your skills. I need you to talk Dana out of this craziness and to accept that Mulder may be dead. Or worse."
We've found two others who were taken that night with Mulder, I assume by the same people. Both were brutally tortured. One's dead and one was abducted right out of the hospital where she was being treated. I want to stop Dana from clinging to this idea that Mulder's just gonna show up fine and dandy. When we find the truth, it's gonna kill her." His rough voice finally caught. “And we have to think of her baby."
"How can I help?" Monica said quietly.
"I'll show you the reports of injuries on the other two abductees. I think it's some sort of ritual practices--"
"What about your theory that Fox Mulder faked his own disappearance?" she interjected.
"I want an answer, Monica. One that will cause as little pain as possible for Dana and close the door on this." He rose from the table. Apparently the background briefing was over.
"The other abductees were found here in Helena?"
"Yep, out in a remote field."
"I want to go there. I may feel something."
Doggett rolled his eyes at at the word 'feel'. "If you think it'll help," he said grumpily.
For some reason, Monica was suddenly very angry. "You were going to tell me about Fox Mulder. But you've spent an hour telling me about Dana Scully. I'll need to find out what I can about Mulder on my own," she said, then stormed out to the car, leaving John to clean off the table before joining her.
X
The undulating hills carry away Monica's discontent, clearing her mind. She needs to center her thoughts on the case, the facts as they've been given to her, and on finding Fox Mulder. She puffs on her cigarette, finding another kind of peace.
This prairie is the sort of place that every breeze turns into a babbling discourse in the rattling strands of grass. If only she could hear what it's trying to tell her...
She's focusing on the twisted branches of a hangman's tree when the others approach. She quickly grubs out her cigarette and turns.
She'd expected Dana Scully to resemble John's willowy blonde ex-wife for some reason. Instead, she has to look down, down, down from her own awkward, gawky height to see this delicate doll face, incongruously on the soberly-robed figure of a slender Medieval saint. Rounded features capped with sun-flamed hair and then Monica gets to the eyes...a welding torch blue; the most intense gaze that she's ever seen, set over a contempt-curled set of soft lips.
Monica's smile of embarrassed greeting turns to a grin. Yes, Dana Scully is a woman. And Fox Mulder is still alive; no man was leaving that force behind; he wouldn't dare.
~ end part 3
E/N: Yes, I did like Doggett and Reyes. Shoot me.