From: gwinne@yahoo.com
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 02:19:20 -0000
Subject: xfc: NEW: Homework
Source: xfc

Title:  HOMEWORK
Author: Gwinne
Archive: Gossamer, Xemplary, Spookys; otherwise, ask
Keywords: MSR; Doggettfic
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: through "Via Negativa"
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Chris; the pregnancy moments are 
all mine

Note:  This story is a sequel to "Positive"

HOMEWORK

Pulling Mulder's favorite black sweater over her head, she wondered 
exactly what prompted her decision to invite Doggett over for dinner. 
He'd saved her life and it was time to thank him properly?  He was a 
nice enough man and she was desperate for company beyond her 
increasingly over-protective mother, her over-anxious boss, and three 
over-interested paranoiacs?  She'd exhausted the last of her fat 
clothes that morning and knew it was time to confess?  In actuality, 
she recognized, it was all of the above.

Scully stood sideways in front of the full-length mirror, noting the 
changes in her silhouette.  Suddenly, in the seventeenth week of her 
pregnancy, it was hard not to notice.  Despite the morning sickness 
and the incessant need to pee, she'd relished the first trimester, 
carrying around a secret the size of a walnut.  But as the baby grew 
within her, so did the repercussions of not telling Doggett.  If her 
child's welfare depended on secrecy, it might also come to depend on 
Doggett's knowledge.  When he showed up in her hospital room after
the bounty hunter attacked her, she knew she should tell him.  When he
cut the slug from her spine and carried her, half-conscious, to the 
ambulance, she knew she should tell him.  And when she heard him in 
the doorway during her last hospitalization, she kept her eyes shut 
and pretended to sleep, knowing that the proverbial jig was up.  

He was nice and legitimately concerned and their partnership depended 
on honesty, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him about the baby 
before she'd had an opportunity to tell Mulder.  So she practiced the 
necessary betrayal in small increments, putting Mulder's nameplate in 
the desk drawer for a day or two, swapping small stories with Doggett 
on stakeouts, inviting him over for dinner under the pretext of a 
case.

Nobody, she said to Mulder, wherever he was, will ever take your 
place.  You're in my heart and in my mind and in my womb.  She 
smoothed the sweater over her belly and went into the kitchen.

She was slicing tomatoes for the salad when Doggett knocked on the 
door.

"Hi," she said, "come on in."

"Dessert," Doggett said, handing her a paper bag.

"Mmmm," Scully said. "How did you know?"  She smiled at the pint of 
Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk and the baby fluttered in 
agreement.  

He shrugged his shoulders.  "Just a hunch."

They stood in the doorway like junior high kids at their first dance. 
"Nice place."

"Thanks.  Let me take your coat."  She hung up his coat in the
closet, between her well-worn trench and Mulder's leather jacket.  
He'd left it the last night he spent at her apartment, the last night 
they made love.  She was certain she could still smell his aftershave 
on the collar.  "Have a seat, Agent Doggett.  Dinner should be ready 
soon.  Can I get you something to drink?  Water?  Juice?  Beer?"

"Beer would be great, thanks."

When she went into the kitchen Doggett conducted a quick
investigation into Scully's home.  He was surprised at the muted, 
feminine colors and the homey charm of the rooms.  Still, even the 
soft light of an early December evening couldn't hide the layer of 
dust that settled on the coffee table and the armoire that overlooked 
the room.  He glanced at the crooked stack of paper threatening to 
topple off the table--case files with their tell-tale white and red 
covers, lists of MUFON members and reports of UFO sightings since 
September, photocopied articles from the Journal of Obstetrics on the
pregnancies of cancer survivors.  

Doggett thought back to the first few months of his wife's 
pregnancy--days she was so nauseous she couldn't get out of bed, a 
late night trip to the emergency room when she started spotting--and 
wondered how Scully even managed to make it into the office, much
less travel cross-country and protect them both from becoming pray of 
the human bat.  He'd only seen her breakdown once, sobbing in his
arms after being flung into the wall by a man she insisted was an 
alien.  She'd lost the last lead on her partner that day, and she 
could have lost her child.  Doggett swallowed hard.

"Here," Scully said, handing him a glass and a can of Guinness. 
"I'll let you pour it yourself."

"Thanks.  This research for a case?"  He gestured with his head
toward the stack of articles.

"Something like that, yeah."  She lowered herself into the armchair, 
not ready to sit next to Doggett the way she had so many times with 
Mulder, when their hands would meet and then their mouths.  Sometimes 
they would make it to her bedroom and sometimes they made love on the 
couch, the fire warming her backside as she moved, Mulder's hands on 
her breasts.

"You wanna tell me what this is about?"

"Tell you what what is about?"

"This.  You inviting me over for dinner.  What Mulder's fish tank is 
doing in the corner over there.  Why you're reading about pregnancy 
complications."

"I invited you over for dinner so we could talk about work.  As for 
the rest, we had an agreement, Agent Doggett.  Please respect it. 
And me.  You're certainly not going to earn my trust, or find the 
answers you want, if you turn me into the subject of an 
investigation."  Scully stood up and rubbed a spot at her waist. 
"The lasagna is ready--let's eat."

* * *

"You're a good cook," Doggett said as worked on his third helping.

"You sound surprised."  Scully raised an eyebrow and speared a bite
of lettuce with her fork.

"Well, most women, most people, as busy as you are don't have a lot
of time or inclination to master the culinary arts."

"You can thank my mother.  She always said that no one could consider 
themselves truly independent unless they could cook, do their own 
laundry, and change the oil in their car."

"Sounds like a wise woman."

"Yes, she is."

* * *

"Tell me about Mulder."  They were back in Scully's living room, 
drinking decaf and watching the fire blaze.  "If I'm going to help
you find him, I need to know."

Scully ran her finger along the rim of her mug and let out a slow, 
deep breath.  "He is the most passionate man I have ever met.  He is 
brilliant and paranoid and charming and tender.  He is awkward and 
funny and compassionate.  But I don't suppose that's what you really 
wanted to know."

"Actually, Agent Scully, that tells me a lot.  But why don't you fill 
me in on what you and those three stooges have been up to.  Give me 
the information I need to help bring him home."

"OK."  Scully rifled through some papers on the coffee table.  "The 
guys have been coordinating UFO sightings, missing persons reports, 
and John Does who turn up in various hospitals.  Skinner and I went 
back to Bellefleur and turned up nothing.  We can't seem to locate
any of Mulder's informants who might know anything.  Basically," 
Scully let out another deep breath, "we've got no leads to go on.  We 
might never."  She set her mug down on the table.  "Excuse me."  

Doggett watched his partner pull herself up, tuck a strand of hair 
behind her ear, and walk back to what he assumed was her bedroom.  
After five minutes, he wondered what she was doing.  After ten 
minutes, he started to worry.  "Agent Scully?" He called at the edge 
of her dark bedroom.  "Everything ok?"

"I'll be right out."  Her voice cracked.

Through the open bathroom door, he saw her sitting with her back 
against the tub, face in her hands.  He sat down next to her, and she 
looked up at the sound of his knees popping.  There was tenderness
and concern in his eyes, the kind a husband would give his pregnant 
wife. It was the look that, since she'd learned of the baby in early 
autumn, she'd imagined Mulder giving to her.  Doggett pulled Scully 
into his arms and she started to cry in earnest.  He rocked her until 
her breath hitched and she pulled away.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes.  "I didn't mean to ruin your 
shirt."  She forced a small laugh.

"Everyone needs a good cry now and then.  When my wife was pregnant, 
she'd burst into tears from watching a commercial for kitten chow."  

As he spoke, Scully realized that he was graciously giving her an
out. He knew about the baby, and she knew about him knowing, and he 
knew that she was on to him, and that meant she didn't need to say
anything at all.  "Can I ask you a personal question, Agent Doggett?"

"Sure thing."

"Did your wife crave chocolate ice cream when she was pregnant?"


FIN


make me happy.  feed me at gwinne@yahoo.com