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Title: Rescue Mission 4: Allies Summary: Mulder's back. What now? Agent Doggett wonders. I'm not paying much attention to where I shove the files, I just want to get them out of the "Out" box. For some reason, it's important for the "Out" box to be empty. I stop in the middle of it all, as I'm about to put the file from our last case -- overzealous Druids, for chrissakes -- in with the stuff about genetic mutants instead of with the ritualistic religious phenomena where it belongs. What the hell am I doing? This office has always been a mess. Why did I think I needed to straighten up? Because he's coming back today. Mulder. His first day back at work. It was just a month ago that he was... retrieved. Yeah, I guess that's the best word. She retrieved him, Scully and that Krycek character -- him I wouldn't trust from here to New Jersey, and I'm real surprised she did. I still can't believe she got on a plane at seven months and flew all the way to Idaho. Skinner was royally pissed, so were those three weirdo friends of theirs. But she got him back. She's damn good at what she does. I had my doubts in the beginning. She was too close to Mulder's case, and on other cases she tried too hard to think like him. But she's good. We worked pretty good together. I hope it works out like that with Mulder. I know that's why Skinner wants to meet with us. To officially assign me to work with Mulder while Scully's on leave. She's maybe three weeks from delivering, and I know she's pissed that she can't work, but after that little jaunt to Idaho her doctor laid down the law -- complete bed rest from now till the baby's born. Then she'll take maternity leave, so I'm looking at four, maybe five more months working on the X-Files. Working with Mulder. I have no idea what to expect. Not that I did before, but now... He was gone for six months. Doctors have checked him out from head to toe, and there's nothing wrong with him. Nothing. He's got a couple of odd-looking scars, but other than that he's fine. If I believe any of that crap I was fed in the beginning about him dying, then whoever had him, whatever was wrong with him, he's been cured. Well, if I believe what I've read in the files about Scully's cancer... Heh. Now I'm thinking like Scully. "Could be worse." Shit, did I say that out loud? I spin, slamming the file drawer shut, to find him standing in the doorway. He meets my eyes and shoots me a little grin."Could be thinking like me." I return the grin, rooted to my spot near my desk. He stays where he is too, taking everything in. The office really hasn't changed much -- the extra desk, of course, and the door. Watching him look at the names there, I'm glad I called maintenance the other day and had his name put back -- above Scully's, above mine. He finally takes a step into the office, and I step toward him. He gives me an appraising look and extends his hand. "Fox Mulder." "John Doggett." His handshake is firm, his gaze steady. He comes further inside, looking around. I have to ask. "Are you early, or am I late?" Our meeting with Skinner's supposed to be at nine. He just shrugs. "I'm early. I wanted to come down here first... get reacquainted." *Re*-acquainted, he said. He doesn't mean me. I glance around, nod a little. "We tried to keep it just like you left it." Another grin, then he wanders over to Scully's desk. His desk. *Their* desk. He perches on the edge, so he can see the rest of the room, then he picks up his nameplate. That thing disappeared sometime after my first case with Scully, and I didn't see it again until she got back from Idaho -- then she couldn't keep from smiling every time she looked at it. After a minute he puts it down again, his eyes landing on my desk. "She got you a desk." There's no inflection in his voice, but I know the desk thing was a point of... well, not contention exactly, but something between them. I try to downplay it. "Yeah. Makes it a little crowded in here, but I appreciated the gesture." He just nods. Damn, he's worse than she was in the beginning, not talking to me. He gets up and goes around the desk, glancing at or touching stuff, little things she kept around -- clippings on the bulletin boards, a commendation (his) on a shelf, a basketball, a funny looking alien-head mug... That one he holds on to, turning it over in his hands. I'm not sure what that means, so I go for the obvious. "You want some coffee? All we got down here is decaf, but..," he shakes his head, still staring at that mug. Did she give it to him? Or him to her? Is it some kind of souvenir from a vacation or a case? Finally he sets it back down on the desk. "Scully says..." There's a pause. He doesn't look at me, keeps his eyes on all the stuff on his desk. He takes a breath and tries again."Scully says you're okay." He looks up now. "That you're a good investigator." Wow. She's never said as much to me. "Thanks." He just shrugs, picks up his nameplate again. He stares at it, lost somewhere in his own head. Great, just what I need -- another silent, moody partner. "Look, I'm gonna head on up to Skinner's office. See you up there, all right?" He doesn't say anything, just nods again. I'm almost out of the office when his voice stops me. "Agent Doggett?" I turn around, and I'm a bit shocked by what I see. The stoic mask he was wearing before is gone, replaced by a vulnerability I wouldn't have thought he had in him. His eyes look a little moist, and I'm wondering if he's as completely recovered from whatever happened to him as everybody thinks. But his eyes are locked on mine, and all I see there is... I don't know, something like gratitude. "Thanks for watching her back." Scully. The woman in both our lives. More in his life than mine, but she's important to me too. Given everything I've heard about him, I'd halfway expected him to feel threatened or at least territorial where Scully's concerned -- maybe he was, when he first heard she'd had another partner. But now... I shrug, give him another grin. "That's what partners do. Right?" He seems to think about that a minute, then he nods. "I'll be there in a minute." I head for the elevator, hoping I'm not wrong about the purpose of this meeting. I'm surprised to find that I want to stay on the X-Files. I want to work with Mulder. Huh. Who'da thought? End Author's note: Thanks to IWTB for inspiration and feedback. |