Chapter Text
Mulder/Scully Residence
Alexandria, VA
April 15, 2002
2:15 PM
John Doggett gripped the case file. For the monumental weight it held in his life, it was physically light. Distressingly slender, really. It was all he had managed to scrape together for his son, the best he could do after almost ten years of searching and investigations. He’d followed leads into abrupt dead ends, looked into more red herrings than he was comfortable reflecting on.
But he had another possible lead now. Provided by a young cadet named Rudolph Hayes, who had a sharp, uncanny observation ability that seemed to come straight out of Sherlock Holmes. It was a chance he didn’t want to give up, but he didn’t feel properly oriented. He was in unfamiliar territory, with nothing to compare Hayes’s insights to and no one to ask for serious input. He could tell that Monica was worried about him; she would try to help, but she also clearly thought he had lost his grip on reality.
His mind had wandered in his unmoored state, and so, apparently had his feet. Until here he stood, outside the Alexandria apartment of Fox Mulder, for the first time in a year and a half. His initial knock had gone unanswered—Mulder was apparently out. John leaned against the wall. He could linger for a little while, at least.
He didn’t have to wait for long. About five minutes after he had arrived, the doors to the elevator slid open, and Mulder emerged, maneuvering a stroller carefully over the gap between elevator and floor. His eyebrows raised fractionally with surprise when he saw John, but he otherwise kept his composure. John studied him. He was looking better these days, although he still had a slightly uneasy air about him, a man who wasn’t fully confident of his place in the world, not entirely grounded. But he was clearly trying, and he looked more at home in his own skin than John had ever seen him. At this moment, in fact, he appeared steadier than John felt.
“Agent Doggett,” greeted Mulder, quietly, once he had reached the apartment door. John glanced down into the stroller; William was peacefully asleep, his head turned to the side and his mouth moving occasionally in the phantom nursing of sleeping infants. A quick, agonizing shock of memory—Luke fifteen years ago. (Fifteen years? Has it really been fifteen years?)
“Mulder. Runnin’ errands?” Inane small talk, but he was glad that his vocal cords still worked.
“Just walking. It lulls him to sleep sometimes, tires him out when he’s resisting a nap, and Scully says that walking’s good for the both of us, so... walking.” He rummaged around in his pocket, pulled out his keys. “I’ve gotta warn you, we weren’t expecting company.” There was an implied question there, but it wasn’t a demand; there was nothing closed or discouraging in the delivery. Mulder got the door open as quietly as he could (it stuck against the frame), then gestured vaguely inside the apartment while looking down at his sleeping son. “Uh, you can go ahead and grab a seat wherever you can find one.”
The last time John had seen the inside of this apartment had been at the beginning of his search for Mulder. Then, it had reminded him of the pictures he had seen of the excavations of Pompeii. A formerly-living space unexpectedly frozen in time, carefully tended and preserved in memory of its vanished occupant. He could vividly remember finding Dana Scully sleeping in a grief-stricken heap on the bed with an empty shirt. That wasn’t a sight that was easy to forget. At the time, this apartment seemed destined to become a mausoleum.
Now, there was a vitality about it that he registered as deeply satisfying, even as preoccupied as he was with his own grief. It was messy in the kind of way created by the demands of the living. There were dishes and bottles piled in the kitchen—mostly clean, but still cluttering the counters. There were baby toys scattered across the floor on an old blanket, shoes (men’s and women’s) cluttered in the entryway, and papers strewn across the coffee table. John moved aside a pile of folded laundry and sat on the edge of the leather couch.
Mulder had removed the sleeping William from the stroller and folded it back up, leaning it against the wall above the pile of shoes, before disappearing into the bedroom. He returned a few minutes later without the baby, pulled the door until it was only open a crack, and headed for the kitchen.
“Water?” asked Mulder, just loudly enough to be heard over the running faucet.
“No—no thanks.”
“He loves bugs, William. He’s enraptured. I end up stopping every so often to let him look at an ant hill or a spider or a centipede.” Mulder emerged from the kitchen carrying a glass of water. “He certainly didn’t get that one from me. I’m blaming Scully for my renewed personal acquaintance with the phylum Arthropoda.” He turned the desk chair so that it was canted toward the sofa and sat down. The desk itself was covered in books and papers, but the chair was clear. “So what brings you out here this lovely afternoon? I, uh, assume you were looking for me—kid’s a little too young yet to get his own visitors.”
“Wanted to know if you ever came across this particular case,” John tapped the folder against his palm. “From about ten years ago.”
Mulder narrowed his eyes and gave him a searching look. Maybe he could tell what was coming. John tried to keep his expression steady, continue the show of normalcy.
“What case is that?”
“Kidnapping and murder case from New York. August of ’93.”
“Unlikely—unless it had some supernatural or unexplainable component. I’d left Violent Crimes by then,” was the noncommittal response.
So we’re both gonna pretend we’ve got no idea where this is going.
John gave up the ruse first, handed Mulder the file wordlessly. Mulder stared at the closed folder for a moment, traced the victim’s name (Luke Doggett) on the tab. He had to have been able to guess what he’d find, but opening it still made him take a sharp breath. He looked through the pictures silently. Ran his finger over one of them. Then he flicked his eyes back up to John’s. “You can’t possibly ask me to...”
“Look, there’s this kid, cadet by the name of Rudolph Hayes—maybe Agent Scully told you about ’im.”
“In passing. He impressed her with a close eye for detail and unusually sharp forensic insight. Scully’s hard to impress—Hayes must be something.”
“Yeah. He’s somethin’ all right. That body he demonstrated his insight on? It was a tip I’d got from an anonymous source. No idea why—it’s not an X-File, least not as far as I can tell, but apparently she wasn’t the first victim of this particular killer. And Hayes...he seemed to be able to pull up a complete profile of the guy from a knife wound. It was accurate enough that I think we’ve actually ID’d the guy. Damnedest thing I ever saw, and I’ve been on the X-Files beat a year and a half.”
Mulder chuffed what may have been a laugh.
John continued. “Anyway, after all that, I asked him... to look at that file you’re holdin’ now. And he took me to his apartment—had all these crime scene pictures and news stories pinned to his wall. Crimes he’d followed, researched...Luke was up there.” Goddamnit, he had prepared for this, but his voice hitched anyway. He broke off, took a breath. “Hayes... gave me a new angle, maybe, somewhere else to look, someone else to look for, but I’m not sure if I can trust it.”
Mulder’s eyebrows were climbing. “So you came to consult me about getting jerked around by mysterious sources who may or may not be using you? I suppose you have come to the right man.”
John snorted. “Not exactly. I hope not, anyway. It’s just... He’s got some connection that I can’t explain, and he knows things that no one else does, and I’ve never even heard of anyone who could profile like that, except maybe, by reputation, you. And I’ve gotta know. I can’t decide if I’m crazy. Reyes thinks I’m crazy. Scully’s givin’ me that look that she has—you know, the one where she thinks you’re out of it, but she’s also worried for you, so she doesn’t wanna say anything?”
A definitive laugh from Mulder this time, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, I know that look.”
“I’ve... if it’s somethin’ real, I’ll need to ask Barbara to come down here—my ex-wife, Luke’s mother. See if she can ID the guy, maybe. But she’s really gonna be convinced I’m crazy, no matter what I tell her, and I can’t... I have to know.”
Mulder stared at the file in his hands. “You know I’m not magic, right? If I were as good as you seem to think I am, I’d have solved a lot more cases than I did; there’d be a lot more living people in the world; and I’d have convinced a hell of a lot more people of what I found.”
“You’re the only person I can think of that I could even possibly compare this to.”
“John, I’m not going to be able to solve a cold case this old just by looking at evidence that’s already been collected—I probably can’t even give you any leads you don’t have already.”
“I don’t need you to solve it. I need somethin’ solid to compare this kid’s insights to. Somethin’ known and real.”
“You’re coming to me for known and real, and, for that matter, sane?”
John simply looked at him.
Mulder closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He exhaled hard through his nose, but he also nodded, the tiniest fraction.
“Thanks.”
As John stood up and turned to go, Mulder’s quiet voice called after him. “Doggett?”
“Yeah?” He didn’t turn around.
“You know that look of Scully’s? Sometimes she’s right.”
~
Fox Mulder stared at the folder in his hands.
Well, after all, he had practically begged Scully to autopsy his mother.
Mulder/Scully Residence
Alexandria, VA
April 17, 2002
5:30 PM
Dana Scully opened the door of her home to discover it containing her mother and her son, but not her partner.
“Oh. Hi, Mom.”
Maggie looked up from where she was watching her grandson and smiled at her daughter. “Dana. How was your day at work?”
“It was good...normal, I guess.” A moment, then, “I’m sorry, Mom; where’s Mulder?” She wanted to solve that mystery before delving into pleasantries.
“He called me around one this afternoon and asked me to watch William. He said that he had something that he needed to finish. Did you not know about it?” Her mother was clearly trying to suppress her surprise and curiosity. Scully suppressed a sigh. Great, the last thing I need is for my mother to start worrying about our relationship and communication skills.
“I...think I know what he might have been talking about,” she hedged. She could guess that studying Luke Doggett’s murder might have affected him enough to make him feel the need to retreat, especially from the constant responsibilities of watching his own son. The question was, now that she was standing in his apartment and he no longer had an office, where would he retreat to?
She tried to distract her mother from her apparent inability to locate her partner. “So, Mom, do you want to stay for dinner?”
Scully/Mulder Residence
Georgetown, Washington, DC
April 17, 2002
8:00 PM
She had tried to pass enough time with her mother to distract from the continuing absence of Mulder, but, eventually, around 7:30, dinner had been consumed and regular conversation had tapered out and grown thin.
She had sighed and said, “I’m sorry, Mom. I think I’d better go check to see how Mulder’s doing. Do you mind watching William for another hour or so?”
Her mother hadn’t minded, and though she was obviously curious, her good manners prevented her from questioning further. Scully hoped fervently that her hunch about where to find him (which she had been mulling all throughout dinner) would prove to be correct.
She found him in her Georgetown apartment, sitting in the dark on the floor of William’s room, staring into space.
“Mulder?” her voice was quiet, but he startled anyway, and looked up abruptly.
“Scully! You’re...” He frowned, seemed to be trying to account for her presence. She could see realization dawning on him; his eyes flicked to the window and registered the low light. “What time is it?”
“Just past eight.”
He closed his eyes, exhaled sharply. “Shit, Scully, I’m sorry. I lost track of time, I guess—I thought I could push through this and finish before you got back—I never meant to leave your mom for so long like that.”
“Well, I do wish you would tell me, Mulder, instead of leaving me to guess.” It was a tempered rebuke; his current mindset wasn’t one that reacted well to harshness.
He had the good grace to bow his head in acknowledgement. “I am sorry, Scully. I didn’t mean to... I just... I finished it. Everything’s on the dining room table, in the folder. I don’t—you’re gonna have to deliver it, Scully; I can’t look him in the eye and give him that, knowing what I wrote.”
She approached him quietly; when she was standing just behind him, he sighed and leaned back into her legs.
“Mulder. Are you all right?” She was staring down at the top of his head; at her words, he tipped his chin up to look at her.
His eyes were haunted, but distinctly recognizable. He would sometimes take this aspect after particularly hard cases; she’d seen it often enough once they’d grown close enough for him to permit her. She couldn’t find anything darker or unfamiliar in his expression. He sighed in something that might have been defeat, closed his eyes, and looked down at the floor. She ran a gentle hand through his hair.
He cleared his throat and began to speak. “It was random, entirely. I tried to make some higher sense of it for a long time, but I can’t. Doggett’s career had nothing to do with it; this wasn’t anything so elaborate as revenge. Two people. The kidnapper is probably gonna be on a list of sex offenders somewhere. He’s got impulse problems—can’t imagine he never got caught. The murderer has mob connections, probably, but nothing high up. Low-level enforcer. Professional killer, but nothing really cunning. Both of them just living off the violence of base instinct and carelessly destroying anyone unfortunate enough to get in the way. There’s no higher purpose to this than ordinary depravity and monumentally bad luck.”
“Do you think it would be any better if there was some sense to it?” She wasn’t just asking about this case, and he probably knew it.
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” He was quiet for a moment. “It could’ve happened to anyone.”
And it finally all slid into focus, why he was sitting alone in his son’s room in the dark.
Monica Reyes’s Residence
Adams Morgan, Washington, DC
April 18, 2002
8:30 PM
Monica Reyes sat alone in her apartment, on her sofa with her knees pulled up to her chest, and her chin resting on them. Contemplating.
It felt odd to be so stationary and contemplative at a time when John was in such turmoil. She wrestled with a number of impulses to try to assist him or relieve some of his pain, but she couldn’t decide which actions would actually help him, and which would make everything worse.
She’d already made things worse.
Brad Follmer. She never would’ve guessed that her cowardice regarding him would have such shattering collateral damage. But, then, she supposed that no one ever really did stop to contemplate the collateral damage of their most destructive choices.
She’d gotten involved with Brad when they were both with the New York field office. He’d been ambitious then, and she had known it, but maybe she had chosen not to know just how ambitious he was. Chosen to overlook the type of things that she was afraid he might be willing to do. Until three years ago when one of those things stared her in the face and she witnessed him taking money from the mob.
She couldn’t process it, couldn’t deal with it, couldn’t accept it. So she had just...fled. All the way down to New Orleans. She had simply run and never looked back, until the past caught up and swallowed her.
Finding Brad here, upon her relocation to Washington, had been an unpleasant surprise, and she really hadn’t known how to react. It was a natural enough career move; he was certainly ambitious enough to have made AD. But she couldn’t get over the creeping feeling that he’d followed her.
Brad would probably tell her that she was twisting around completely innocuous facts. Maybe she was.
And yet... She thought about his cloying helpfulness, directed particularly at her and always delivered with an undercurrent of coercive menace. How he seemed to feel that it was automatically his place to involve himself in cases that concerned her personally. His presumption and invasiveness.
She wondered if he had changed since she had first gotten involved with him, or if she could simply see a little clearer now with age and some distance.
Their recent confrontation over Regali replayed in her head. God, the thought that Brad could have been protecting the man who murdered Luke Doggett—it was unthinkable. And his counter-accusations still rang in her mind. Why hadn’t she confronted him, given him a chance to explain? (Probably because a shrewd part of her feared he would do what he was trying to do now—talk her out of her own perceptions, manipulate her into taking his side.) Why hadn’t she reported him, if she had been so sure that he was corrupt?
God, she’d never reported him.
She couldn’t very well file a complaint about his behavior. She knew how that would go. He wasn’t her direct supervisor, and she, her department, and her actual direct supervisor were all in politically perilous positions. His position within the Bureau was much stronger. And she had once been involved with him, after all, of her own free will.
And now, that lapse in judgment was ricocheting on John. The one man who least deserved all the shit that had happened to him.
One more thing she didn’t know how to deal with.
She had worked Luke Doggett’s case, once. But she felt as though this particular lapse with Brad, which she had sat silently on for so long, had forfeited any right she had to offer John comfort or solidarity. She could no longer trust her own feelings or judgment. And she couldn’t bring herself to add to his burdens, either. Not anymore.
So here she sat, alone in her apartment, contemplating.
The coward’s way out.
Again.
Washington Hospital Center
Washington, DC
April 19, 2002
7:00 PM
John sat in the chapel of the hospital where Nicholas Regali—his son’s murderer—had been pronounced dead on arrival from a gunshot wound to the head, courtesy of Brad Follmer. Bob Harvey—the kidnapper—had died last year in a car crash. John had followed up on that tip of Hayes’s, too. It was accurate. A simple, mundane car crash. No retribution to be found there. Suddenly, abruptly, it was all over. The finality was more crushing than relieving.
John stared at the cross on the wall, lost in his thoughts, heedless of time, so he didn’t know how long it had been before the door opened and someone slipped in and sat nearby—same row, but leaving a respectable number of chairs distance. Far too tall to be Scully—too tall, even, to be Monica.
There was silence for a long moment. John broke it. “You were right. Not on all the details, maybe. But right enough.”
“I know. Reyes told me.”
“I suppose she told you about Rudolph Hayes, too?”
“Enough.”
More silence.
“If it wasn’t Follmer, it woulda been me. I swear to God, if he’d been just a few seconds later, it’d be me with the cops right now, gettin’ booked for murder. And part of me still wishes it had been me.”
Mulder let that sit for awhile. Then he said, simply, “I believe you.”
John chuckled without humor. “Which part of it?”
“All of it.”
They sat again in silence. Mulder was staring at the wall, at nothing in particular. John had never thought him the type to linger in chapels.
“Does it make it better, eventually? Knowin’?”
This time, Mulder was the one to chuckle without humor. He glanced over, met John’s eyes for a brief moment, then went back to the wall. “If you ever figure out the answer to that one, make sure you let me know.”
Montauk, Long Island, NY
May 4, 2002
4:00 PM
At the end of it all, when he and Barbara had let scatter the ashes of their son, as they watched Luke finally drift away, he felt empty. Hollow. He no longer had the omnipresent subconscious thought that he had failed in his most important case—failed to get justice for the one person he still loved most in the world. He didn’t yet know if the absence of that guilt was relief or simply emptiness. He didn’t know if anything had really changed, in the end.
He drifted back up the beach to his truck and to Monica, who had agreed to drive him like the steadfast partner-friend she was. He had thought it unwise to trust himself behind the wheel, and he was glad now to have had that foresight. Monica looked at him for a moment, then, as though sensing his thoughts, enveloped him in a sympathetic hug.
Monica Reyes, with her open mind and her more open heart.