From: Thespis Date: 16 Jul 2001 03:35:20 -0700 Subject: [all-xf] NEW: The Night He Fell Away From Me 1/4 Source: atxc Now to continue my evil streak of having at least one thing in every XFMU update *evil laughter* No, really. I was watching TINH and posed myself the question: if the tables had been turned and Doggett had been taken, how far would Mulder go for him? And uh, yeah, as usual it just sort of mutated. I don't have all of it figured out just yet but hope to have it up in four parts or less. Those of you who saw that awesome movie "Gossip" will recognize a name in here as well as my sudden predilection for violence toward objects ... okay, I'm going to go take my medication now! TITLE: The Night He Fell Away From Me AUTHOR: Brittany "Thespis" Frederick E-MAIL: baltimorelt@yahoo.com SPOILERS: This Is Not Happening RATING: PG for language CATEGORY: Case File, Doggett/Other partnership SUMMARY: "I'm the last person who would believe," she said, "but everything that I look at is telling me the same thing. My partner Agent Doggett I think he's been abducted by some sort of alien life form, and I'll do anything you ask of me to get him back." DISCLAIMER: All nonoriginal content belongs to Chris Carter, 1013, and FOX. Agent Stark Patrick and all new content/ideas et cetera belong to me and I'm proud of it. Archive's okay, with my permission. AUTHOR'S NOTES: I was particularly inspired by TINH, and the question rang in my head, if the tables had been reversed, how far would Mulder go to rescue Doggett? And of course it would change Doggett totally. I couldn't resist. This story takes place before Doggett joins the X-Files, in his fourth year of work in Criminal Investigations with Agent Patrick. I am therefore assuming that neither of them have heard of or interacted with the X-Files to any true extent ... but that's the fun in it right? This ain't about the things I've done, where I've been Lose what I've got, keep what I found It's about you This ain't about the things you said, or how you make me feel this way Lose what I've got, keep what I found It's about you When I get this feeling It's hard for me to come back down With everyone who sees me telling me to come back home It never could be easy - Train The picture could not have been more wrong. "You see anything, Travis?" Special Agent Stark Patrick called as she descended the hill into the field. What the hell was John Doggett doing in a fucking field at eleven a.m. on a work day with pending warrants out on three of their cases? Or the prime question: where the hell was John, period? She continued down the slope, walking faster now. The truth was she wanted to find him, but she was afraid to find him, too. She always feared the worst. The truth was that she had come to depend on him, and he had never done anything like this, and she knew he never would. John Doggett never left her without notice, never on a busy work day and not for some goddamned field in the middle of Virginia. He was in trouble and the partner's unspoken mandate was that she get him out of it. But first she would have to know what "it" was. And what "it" was was rapidly scaring the hell out of her. The other agent, a friend she'd borrowed from the office, shook his head. "Not a thing, Stark. You sure he's out here?" "Yeah, I'm sure," she said. "His truck's parked on the shoulder about a quarter mile back." "He can't just disappear," Agent Travis Jones groused, then continued to soldier forth. His answer did wonders for her discontent. She paused in the empty field, hands on her hips, slowing her breathing, looking out at absolutely nothing. "Shit," she muttered, looking down. Let's review the facts, she told herself. John's truck was indeed parked a quarter mile back on the shoulder of the road, which she knew was his usual work route. That's how she'd found him, backtracking until she'd spotted the Chevy here, maybe almost halfway to the Virginia border. The doors were locked and there was no evidence the Silverado had been tampered with, much less broken into. She could spot the case files they were supposed to be serving warrants for on the passenger seat, one of them still open. Using the spare key that John had given her for emergencies he'd had no real reason why she might need it, only that she might, and now she knew why her first impulse was to look in the glove box where he usually kept his gun until he got to work. It was empty. All evidence pointed to that her partner had seen something he didn't like, pulled over, grabbed his gun, gotten out of the car after locking it, then headed off into this field and simply vanished from the known world. But that was impossible and what exactly had set off his alarm? "We got something," Travis's voice rang clear in the distance, and Stark snapped back to the present and took off at a dead run, the desperate run of a partner whose partner is imperiled beyond their own belief. She met him off in a clearing obscured by a rare tree, where he was kneeling. Even from a distance the reflections of the sun said he'd found something. She joined him and all she could say, looking down, was to mutter "God damn it." "There's his pager and his cell phone," explained Travis. "His gun's over here." "No wonder why I couldn't reach him when I called," she muttered. "So whoever did this really doesn't want anyone to contact him." "That's not as bad as this," he said, then pointed out the gun. "Take a look at this, Stark. He can't be okay." His words were true and she knew it as soon as she looked at the gun. There was blood all over its front. "Freshly fired, one round, maybe two," he diagnosed and she nodded grimly. Somehow, if John had gotten shots off or not, that gun had gone off. And it had hit someone but had it hit him? Was he now bleeding of multiple gunshot wounds while someone had him in their clutches? Terrified, she finally looked up at Travis. "Get that thing to Agent Crane at the crime lab. Tell him I want that blood typed and matched against John's medical records. And for him to run a Type A battery on the gun, too. I'll call it in." Travis nodded, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, and she nodded silently as he bagged John's service weapon in a separate bag from the electronic devices, then headed back to the car they had driven to the site. Stark kneeled a moment longer. This wasn't like John. If he'd known he was in trouble, he would have left a sign. The question was, where was that sign? And where would it lead her? Head hung, the questions cycling through her mind, she walked the short distance back to the car, where she keyed the radio and said the words she had hoped she'd never have to say. "This is Agent Stark Patrick, off Preston Road, outside Falls Church, Virginia ... I have a missing agent with possible shots fired and related injuries. This is his last known location. I am requesting a full team and crime lab complement. Initial evidence is on its way." There was silence as she wiped mist from her eyes. "10-4, Agent Patrick. Do you know the identity of the agent?" She paused, his name caught in her throat. The name that always came so easily wouldn't come. "Agent Patrick, do you..." "Yes. I know him." She let out a choked cry, fighting it back with every ounce of stoicism she could spare. Not in front of the others. Later when she was alone, maybe. But to cry now was an act of weakness which she could not show. Which she could not have if she were to find him. Hell, she couldn't believe he was gone. She keyed the radio again. "He's my partner. John Doggett. Special Agent John Doggett." The radio handset collided with the steering column when she let it fall from her hands. She simply could not contain herself. There was no way she could face that he was missing without crying, without suffering for him, without wanting to trade places with him if that would bring him back. She turned into the car and let herself cry into the roof for a brief moment, then stepped back and looked at herself. Not now. She had to find him. She had to close the case, think like an agent, not clouded with all those emotions. There would be time for those and it was not now. She backed away, then slammed a fist hard into the space above where the door would have been. "Son of a bitch!" she exclaimed, her hand stinging with the impact of flesh and bone against reinforced metal. "They can't take him away from me, this ... this can't happen, not to him ... not to him." "Stark?" She rubbed her red knuckles and looked at Travis. "I'm fine." He leaned against the federal sedan's hood, "Like hell you are." "Don't start with me," she cautioned, "don't goddamn start with me." "You always swear when you're screwed up," he replied. "We'll find him. Don't put yourself through this. We will find him." She glared hotly at him. "You're the one who said he can't be okay." Then she turned away, out to the field, speaking deliberately. Speaking to him, wherever he was. "He is my partner, and I will be here and anywhere else, and I will find him." Wherever John was, she hoped no, she knew he knew she was coming for him. END PART 1 NEW: The Night He Fell Away From Me 2/4 PART 2 See Part 1 for summary/disclaimer, et al. DEDICATION: This one goes out to Chey, whose great little note on the last part got me motivated to finish the second one ASAP ... thanks for the motivation and support! You have truly convinced me that this time my Other character has not blown up in flames. It was like this: she may have put the picture in the frame, but it was as if somebody had come along and hit it with a hammer in that bizarre little way that causes the glass of the frame to crack in God knows how many pieces while still remaining in place, a grotesque portrait of chaos frozen in time. Twenty minutes after she made the call, the field off Preston Road was swarming with fellow agents, some of whom had been assigned to take the missing agent call that the dispatcher had immediately red-flagged, some of whom had come on their own once they had heard exactly who it was that had gone missing to some a friend, to others a co-worker, to all of them someone who they were more than willing to help locate. But Stark Patrick knew well the Latonya Wallace probe of 1988 she herself had opened the case again and failed and so she took appropriate cautions. A small contingent of agents, those who knew John best and those who she most trusted, worked the actual area where the evidence had been found, the last place they could tie her partner to. The others fanned out, searching the massive field for any other sign. The sign that Stark knew was out there. By the unspoken rule, she had complete command, unquestioned and unchallenged, of what was developing in that field off Preston Road. When one of their own went missing, his or her partner was always in charge. There could be no better person, after all, and every agent knew the feeling of revenge and desperation that came with being the partner of a missing person. However, Agent Stark Patrick, aside from occasional instructions and directing of traffic, chose for the most part not to assume the privilege. She sat in the passenger seat of the gold sedan that she had driven up to the scene, paperwork about her. Open files lay on the driver's seat, across her lap, on the dashboard; others were stacked neatly in the back seat. They were the ones that had been lifted from the Silverado, as well as anything Stark could think of back at their office at the Hoover Building that may have been relevant. Watching her go through those meticulously kept, extensive file cabinets was an exercise in sympathy, as she moved with a calculated but frustrated motion, yanking out file after file in the hope that one of them, somewhere in the detailed reports, photographs, notations, documents and so on and so forth that she and John had always kept, would yield some sort of answer. It was the only time she ever left that field off Preston Road, and to those who knew her, it was not surprising. Now she paged again the one that had been open on the passenger seat of her partner's truck, the Devane case, on which they were supposed to be serving a search warrant that very day in an attempt to close the grand larceny case. Grand larcenies were never hard to track with large numbers involved and Stark had been sure that the case would close with the warrant. John seemed to share that feeling. But there would be none of the slight adrenaline rush of breaking doors and hunting for the penultimate clue, not in that case. Not with him. Not with him. The words seemed impossible. "What are you looking at?" Travis Jones asked as he opened the driver's side door and leaned on it. As a friend of both partners, he was point on the contingent searching John's last pinpointed location, along with his partner, who he'd grabbed from the CID office, but hadn't really needed to. They were both more than willing to help out, and they were the closest friends in the office that Stark had. They sincerely cared, and that was why Travis had the look on his face that he did. She glanced up after a moment. "Devane case. We were serving the warrant today." He nodded, then looked over his shoulder and back. "Listen, I think there's something you're going to want to see." Stark was out of the car and circling it in a heartbeat, falling into step with him. "What? What is it?" she demanded impatiently, with the desperation that had become commonplace in her voice, even if it was carefully masked. Travis lead her down the hill and back into the valley, towards where his group was clustered, the spot that Stark knew well. The spot where there was still blood on the grass. Travis caught up with his partner, and said in a quiet voice, "Show her, Gary." Agent Gary Edson, who was Travis Jones' partner and one of the best known agents for profiling, didn't say anything that moment, simply stepped out of the way to let Stark take a look at what his team had run across. She stood there, hands on hips, as she had so often done today, and stared. "What? What am I looking at?" she asked Edson, who pointed down at the grass, which was slightly singed. "It's been exposed to fire," he explained, "but it didn't burn. As if something really hot had landed on it. For example, a flashlight." Travis handed Stark a pair of photos of another field and Edson came over to join them to explain exactly what it was she was looking at. "This is Bellefleur, Oregon," Edson explained. "A while back, two guys think they see something in this field, so they head down there. One of them's carrying a flashlight. So they head down there. Reports are that flashlight gets really hot, starts glowing red, the one guy drops it where it is. They start moving, but before they get too far, God knows what happens and the guy who had that flashlight disappears." Stark looked down at the grass, then the photos. "The gun." She glanced at the two agents. "You think it was the gun?" "We think so, yeah," Travis said. "They're both metal objects." She glanced back down at the photos, "Do they know how or why this man disappeared?" Edson didn't explain much but he didn't have to. "It's an X-File." Seeing the wide-eyed look on her face, he continued as if to soften her skepticism, "There's a living witness. A guy named Billy Miles." Stark paused. "So what you're saying is the best theory that we have is that my partner is randomly wandering out here because he saw something and he wandered into, what, an alien spaceship? That my partner was abducted by goddamn aliens?" Her voice rose with incredulity by the end of the sentence and she sighed. "No frickin' way." "We're not saying that," Travis replied. "We're saying it's a chance." Stark hung her head. It all seemed so cyclical to her. She'd heard from John the long, agonizing ordeal of trying to find his missing son, and how it all ended with a body in a field. John had chased Luke to the ends of the earth or at least to the end. And now here she was, in a field chasing John possibly beyond that. We'd better get one damn thing straight, she told herself, this time it's not going to end with any body in a field. Except for the people who did this to him. "Results from the crime lab are back," said another agent in the distance. Stark, Travis and Edson all looked in the direction of the vehicles parked on the side of the road, where the agent had the radio at the ready. Listening as well were all the agents, who had stopped their ministrations to hear the news that might make them or break them. The agent exhaled. "Crane ran a blood test. Part of that blood belongs to Agent Doggett." Her eyes widened. "God," she said, not wanting to think of the implication. Travis interjected into her thoughts. "Part? What about the rest?" The agent shook his head. "They can't identify it." The three agents looked from the photos to each other as the facts slowly began to paint a picture that was hard to believe. Aliens and flashlights and towns in Oregon. This was not supposed to happen. One of the best agents the Bureau had known in recent years could not be snatched by little green men. And yet, there it was. Edson looked up at the sky. "He must have hit it." Travis glanced at him. "The question is what it is." "And where it is." Stark glanced up at the agent by the vehicles, "Tell Agent Crane I want to talk to him." Edson and Travis, after putting the team with whom they shared an office in charge for the moment, pursued her back to the sedan. She set the photos on the roof and continued to stare at them as she took the radio from the agent and spoke exhaustedly to Agent Gene Crane, who had been Doggett's go-to guy in the crime lab. Is, she corrected herself. Present tense. Nothing says we're going to find a body in a field. Absolutely nothing. We've just got fucking aliens, but no signs of a body anywhere. She didn't add the known 'yet'. She keyed the radio. "Tell me that you're sure, Gene," she told him. "I need to know that you're sure." "I triple-checked it personally," Crane replied, his voice earmarked with the same emotions and the sympathy that she had been getting from everyone all day. "There's no doubt in my mind. He fired two rounds. Part of that blood is his, and the rest ... I don't know what it is." Stark sighed. "All right. Keep trying. The guys will send stuff when they find it. I want you to take care of it and contact me if you find anything." "You know I will," Crane said, then paused. "We'll find him, Stark." "Yeah, we will." She hung up the radio back on its holster in the sedan, then moved the files out of the driver's seat and slid into their place, reaching for her keys in her pants pocket. Travis and Edson, still standing by the car, looked at her with questioning glances. She moved the rest of the files off of the front of the car and tossed the photos they had given her onto the dashboard, then glanced up at them as if to ask what they were waiting for. "Get in the car," she commanded. Travis popped open the back door as Edson circled around. "Where are we going?" Stark gunned the engine. "The basement." Everything in the car flared to life. The engine, the lights, everything came alive, much like the woman at the wheel, who cleanly backed out with a rapid and forceful turning of the wheel (she drove like a stunt driver, John had remarked, like he was much better), and then ground the gas pedal into the floor and got away from Preston Road as fast as the federal vehicle would allow. The question was not where she was headed, but what she might be running from in that desire for that burst of speed. Of course, or at least until they winced and leaned back in the seats, Travis and Edson forgot about the CD player, and were greeted with a burst of Incubus at an unholy volume. A decade ago I never thought I would be On the verge of spontaneous combustion But I guess it comes with the territory Exploding seems like an evident possibility to me So pardon me while I burst into flames I've had enough of the world and its people's mindless games So pardon me while I burn and rise above the flame Pardon me ... I'll never be the same "What a freakin' coincidence," was Travis's comment from the back seat. Edson looked at him unconvinced. "I don't believe in coincidence." For a moment, at least, the basement was not just for the FBI's Most Unwanted. It was for them and a very angry, very emotionally scattered, truly driven young agent whose escorts had let her do the delving into the infamous world of aliens and the unexplained. And she bore that acquiesence well, moving with the same deliberate swiftness she had since this whole thing went down right before her eyes, the eyes now haunted with having to be the first person to see it all. His body may as well have been there; the effect was the same. She didn't want to think about it as she opened the door to the basement office. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully looked to the woman in the doorway simultaneously, but gave her their attention. Mulder swiveled in his chair to face her and put down the file he was reading. Scully, unobstructed, simply waited. It was not often that they had visitors, and everyone even underground as they were had heard the news that something big involving one of their own had broken this morning. "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully," Stark said by way of introduction as she stepped into their office and closed the door. "Can we help you with something?" Mulder asked, "Agent..." "Patrick, Stark," she said, her voice still worn and perhaps tense. "The evidence seems to think that you can. You investigated an X-File in Bellefleur, Oregon, right?" she continued, laying the photos she had been given on Mulder's desk. He glanced at them. "Yeah. Billy Miles." "So I've been told," she said. "Agent Patrick," Scully cut in, "is there some sort of connection between this and something that you're working on? Is that why you need to know?" Patrick nodded, turning to her. "Yes. My partner has gone missing, and ... one of the agents at the scene spotted similar burns on the grass in that field as in the one in this photo." She sighed. "I'm the last person who would believe," she said, "but everything that I look at is telling me the same thing. My partner Agent Doggett I think he's been abducted by some sort of alien life form, and I'll do anything you ask of me to get him back." There was silence in the room for a moment until Mulder spoke. "Your partner's John Doggett?" he asked. Stark glanced at him, "Yes. You know him?" Mulder stood from behind his desk. "I heard this morning that there had been a missing agent case. I didn't expect that it would be him. We've never met, but I heard he's high on the list of possible future Directors of the FBI." She shook her head. "I wouldn't know anything about that." Scully examined the photos, including the one Travis had taken from the Preston Road scene, "She's right, Mulder, I see a resemblance to Bellefleur in these photos." Mulder nodded. "Let's do what they pay us for, Scully." Then he said the comment that he'd apparently been waiting to say. "It's good to meet you, Agent Patrick. I only wish it could be under better circumstances." Stark nodded soberly. "I think we all do, Agent Mulder." "Walk us through it, Agent Patrick," Mulder directed as the five agents climbed out of the vehicle, which had this time parked a distance back down the road from what was quickly becoming a federal parking lot. Stark did as she was instructed, taking point in the procession and attempting to explain the dizzying events of only the last few hours but what seemed like days. "John Agent Doggett was due in by five. We were serving several warrants today, one of which was going to be in the early morning, maybe six-thirty. He always calls when he's late, so when he didn't call or show up, I tried both his cell phone and pager. I couldn't reach him. I know the route he takes to work," she continued, catching the weird look from Mulder, "because I do, so I backtracked it until I came across his truck. I looked around for maybe twenty minutes, then I called Agent Jones. We started the search." They descended the hill into the field. Many agents recognized Spooky Mulder and his partner on sight, but their reactions were well under control, distracted by the paramount task at hand. The detail team parted as Stark lead Mulder and Scully to the location where Travis had shown her previously, taking care to stay far away from the blood. "After a while of wandering around, Agent Jones found Agent Doggett's cell phone and pager over here," she pointed as she spoke, "and we found his gun over here. It was freshly fired and fairly coated in blood on its front end. Sending it down to the crime lab, we found two rounds had been fired. Part of the blood was typed against Agent Doggett's medical records and matched. The other part of it, the crime lab can't identify." Mulder and Scully looked at each other. "His truck hasn't been broken into or tampered with," Stark continued. "I have a key to the vehicle so I lifted the case files he'd been reading from the passenger seat and into my car. The gun was of course out of the glove box, but the vehicle was locked when I arrived and it doesn't appear he left in a hurry. Our theory is he saw something that demanded his attention, made a U-turn that would explain why it's parked on this side of the road got out of the truck with his gun, locked the vehicle and proceeded into the field where he..." She couldn't say the word, but looked away. "I'm going to go back to the car." Edson and Travis went back to managing the detail, herding it away so that the two new agents could do their jobs. Scully knelt by the spot of grass indicated by the photo and began to take a sample for comparison against what they had seen in Bellefleur. "What do you think, Mulder?" she asked of her partner. "Blood they can't identify, similar burns, another field in the middle of nowhere..." Mulder looked up at the sky. "It's a similar case, Scully. We've got to give them that. And agents as highly touted as John Doggett don't turn their vehicles around on their way to work, leap out with their service weapons and lock the doors on the way out on a lark. He saw something, and my guess is it got him, but not before he got it." Scully lifted several pieces of grass, some burnt but not bloodied, some both, placing them into separate small evidence bags. "It's an X-File, then." "Yeah, much to the dismay of Agent Patrick out there," Mulder replied, looking at the agent who was speaking briefly with another agent before she turned and headed back toward the gold sedan. "She does seem a little uncomfortable with it," Scully observed. "A little? I don't think she's ever heard the word paranormal, or if she did she wasn't really listening." Mulder sighed. "See what else you can find. I'm going to talk to her." "Mulder..." Mulder looked back. "What?" "Don't try and scare her the first time out." He simply shrugged and headed off back up the hill, leaving Scully to watch him go and shake her head. The Bureau would simply love that the disappearance of one of their agents tagged to make it all the way to the top was entangled with something as tawdry as an X-File. And she for one wasn't looking forward to the hunting season that would occur when Mulder, or Agent Patrick, or any of these other agents, turned in the final report on their preliminary evaluation of just what John Doggett was doing, where he might be and what might be happening to him. She turned back to the grass. There were times she wished she had listened to her father. But not many. Mulder approached Agent Patrick, who was standing with the driver's side door open either knowingly or unknowingly, clearly interested in something she was reading. He knew the feeling, he reflected with sadness. He had been the same way for all those years he'd been hunting for Samantha. She looked like she had so much more ahead of her. "You're hurting, aren't you?" he said. She glanced up. "Excuse me?" "For your partner. You'd do anything to take his pain away from him." Mulder stepped over to her and said with some stinging suffering of his own, "I know the feeling." She shook her head. "Not like this." "No, I think I do." Mulder sighed. "Let me guess. You've worked with him for a while." "This is our fourth year." "And he's always there when you need him, and before you know it the two of you are the best of friends, and you know everything that you need to know about him, and you always swore that you would catch him when he fell, because he always catches you, but this time it's your turn and you don't really know what to think because you never expected it would happen." Stark clapped the file shut and looked hard at him. "What are you trying to say, Agent Mulder?" Mulder pointed down into the field, where Scully was clearly visible, a small figure in the distance identifiable by her height and distinctive hair color. "Seven years now I've been working with Agent Scully. We didn't trust each other at first, but now ... now I don't know what I'd do without her. We've survived so much together. She is, without a doubt, my life. And I know that you have that same feeling. I can see it in your eyes." He paused. "I understand that about you. I understand the desperate chase of trying to find someone who means so much to you. It's happened to me. With Scully and with my sister. That's why you're so determined to find him. You can't think about what happens if you don't." Now she got defensive. "No, no, no. There is no don't. I'll find him." She shook her head. "Listen, Agent Mulder, I know that people can be a little cutthroat when it comes to talking about the X-Files, but I'll let you know that I don't care if this involves aliens or alien spaceships or aliens that transmogrify into God knows what. All I care about is getting my partner back." Mulder watched her as she took a few steps away from the car, away from him, with that irritated, frustrated, down-on-her-everything look on her face, looking out into the distance. Stark sucked in a breath, then winced briefly as she felt a sharp pain in her head. Her right hand went to her right temple and she didn't know why. Then all of a sudden, it all became clear. Somewhere ... out in the middle of nowhere, much like this moment ... was a place. A vision flashed across her eyes. Somehow familiar, somehow not. Of a man she'd never met in a place she'd never been to. But somehow, she knew him, and she knew that place, and she knew what she had to do. "Agent Patrick?" She turned, startled, to face Mulder. "What?" "Are you okay?" he inquired, voice concerned. She walked back towards him, shaking off the telepathic vision she'd just seen. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I need you ... I need you to get Agent Jones and Agent Edson and Agent Scully back in the car. Tell them to put Agent Webb in charge. We need to get out of here." "To where?" "Somewhere. I don't know. I saw it." She sighed. "Tell Edson to get me a direct link to the NCIC Morpho." Mulder paused. "Wait, you saw what?" She looked back at where she'd been standing. "I just saw something. It's like I went out of my mind, to, to somewhere else. I saw this man at this place in the middle of nowhere, and I just think I need to trust my instincts and that's where we need to go." Mulder nodded, in no mood to question. "I don't think Scully's the only one that's psychic anymore," he muttered to himself as he walked away and did as he was told. Agent Jones, Agent Edson and Scully all obediently came running at his call, leaving their backup man, Agent Derrick Webb, in charge of the field off Preston Road while what was quickly becoming known as 'the Spooky caravan' piled themselves back into the vehicle. Edson punched a few buttons on the computer terminal in the front of the sedan, then got out of the way so Mulder could sit in the passenger seat. Stark turned the vehicle on, and this time everyone got an earful of Psykosonic's "Panik Kontrol" much to Travis and Edson's renewed discomfort. She didn't notice, however, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she input everything she had seen into the search engine. Pictures flew across the screen as the computer narrowed them down, then finally, it came to a stop. The man was in his late thirties, early forties, haunted eyes and blond hair, with that crazy look like you didn't know if he was going to go postal or not. Stark let out a small gasp and Mulder glanced at her. "What?" he said. She was still speechless, wild-eyed, definitely shocked. And frightened. Which considering that she had kept up a wall of stoicism and a never-let-them-see-you-sweat approach all day, therefore scared Mulder. "Do you know this guy?" he asked her. Stark really didn't know what to say. "Not really. I've never met him but for some reason, I just ... I saw him in that vision. Who the hell is he and what the fuck does he have to do with this?" Mulder looked down at the printout. "Why don't we go ask Mister," he looked down at the information portion of the screen which was organized just enough as to confuse him from finding the information he wanted. Scully cut in impatiently, "What's his name, Mulder?" "Absalom." END PART 2 PART 3 See Part 1 for summary/disclaimer, et al. DEDICATION: Like before, this one goes to all those who have sent me positive feedback on this one - Aly, Agent X, Chey - you've reminded me that people are still reading and I'm not lost yet *grin* Enjoy! If the frame had already been shattered, it was a matter of time before the picture followed suit. Stark Patrick reflected on this as she stood in a whole other field, far away from Preston Road, near the Virginia border. Mulder, Scully, Edson and Travis all stood beside her. Only Mulder had the ability to say anything as they glanced around at where this desperate chase had lead them. "What are we looking for?" Their 'leader' shook her head. "I don't know." "Are we in the right place?" "Yes." "So what do we do?" "Damn it, Agent Mulder, I don't know!" Her voice reached a new volume there, a volume of frenzied self-anger and self-hatred and disbelief and paranoia, all emotions raging inside of her without her loyal partner to keep her in check. The sound of her voice, the force behind it, stunned them all into renewed silence in the moments before she regained control of herself, speaking then in a distraught tone. "While you were rounding up the troops, I called a friend of Agent Doggett's that may be able to help us find out something. She should be here any minute." Another voice then, as if on cue: "Agent Patrick?" Stark's head jerked up at the woman coming down the embankment to join them, and she mustered a weak smile. "Agent Reyes. Thank you for making it." Reyes held her comment until she was face to face with the younger agent. She flashed a smile, but her eyes were haunted with the same cognizance of the news that Stark had given her over the phone. "I was able to get an immediate flight. When you said that this was about Agent Doggett ... I didn't see it as an option." "I appreciate that." Stark turned to her companions. "Agent Reyes, I'd like you to meet Agents Mulder and Scully of the X-Files section, and Agents Jones and Edson of Criminal Investigations. This is Agent Monica Reyes. She worked a case with Agent Doggett," she explained, omitting exactly which case. They didn't need to know about that. It was far too personal and it was irrelevant this moment. Reyes took over before Stark had to struggle with finding more words. "Agent Patrick filled me in on what you have so far, what got you here, this connection to this man Absalom. I took the liberty of seeing what the NCIC knows about him." She paused for effect. "He was the former leader of a cult in Idaho based around his idea that the aliens would take over the world at Y2K," she ignored Mulder's smirk at that statement. "When the little green men failed to appear, he disappeared from there and he mostly does credit card fraud these days. His last known location was somewhere in Oregon." Scully spoke what everyone was thinking. "Bellefleur." "I wouldn't rule it out," Reyes allowed for the possibility. She glanced up as she formulated her next sentence. "I searched all federal, state and correctional databases in the state of Virginia within a ten-mile radius of Preston Road for the last week. Absalom was arrested for credit card fraud and grand larceny three days ago. He's currently being held at the state correctional facility pending his arraignment which is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. It's some eight miles from Preston Road." Edson paused. "So our theory is what, this mystery man escapes a state prison and is randomly wandering around this field and abducts Agent Doggett?" Scully shook her head. "No. It doesn't make sense. Absalom is human. The crime lab would have gotten a hit on his blood. He would have been in the system by today." Mulder thought this through, "What if he was after the same thing that Agent Doggett was after?" He glanced at Reyes, "Is he accounted for at the facility?" She nodded. "I had the warden check personally." "Then how did he escape?" Travis posed. "If we know how he made it, it might be a clue to finding out how to beat this thing." "He escaped because it wanted him to," Stark spoke up finally. She glanced firmly at Reyes. "What if what if Absalom was baiting John on purpose? To get him into the hands of this ... this thing. And that's why it didn't take him. And then he knows where John is." Reyes nodded. "That's one hell of a theory." "It's the best one I've got." She sighed. "What do they want with him?" Reyes put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't think about it." "I have to. It's the solution." Stark stepped back and started up the embankment. "I want to talk to this guy. I want to know what connection he has to this. I want the answer and I think he's got it." Mulder paused. "All lies lead to the truth?" Scully had the rejoinder for that one. "The spirit is the truth, Mulder." "Something you put on your tombstone." Mulder let out a dry chuckle. "Excuse me if that's not confidence inspiring." He looked up at Agent Patrick, headed for their vehicle. "We will find him, Agent Patrick. I promise you that." "Thank you, Agent Mulder," she said sadly. "I hope that that's true." The Virginia State Central Correctional Facility was nowhere that Stark had ever personally been. She had been to Crystal City and the Federal Statistics Center there once or twice when she'd been assigned administrative duties for the Assistant Director, but she had never been involved with the Department of Corrections. She wished that she had, however. It would have taken the edge off walking into an interrogation room and resisting the urge to fly across the table and strangle the man looking at her with vacant eyes. "Where the hell is my partner?" Absalom still looked dazed. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Preston Road. This morning. You had my partner abducted," she said tersely, throwing down a handful of photos in front of him, including copies of the snapshots that she had shown the others, and another of Doggett's current ID photo. Absalom made no move to examine them. "Did I?" He almost seemed amused. "They say that I've done lots of things. Not all of them are true." "Don't play this with me," she said, leaning across the table, getting into his face, restraining herself with everything that took. "You believe that the aliens are coming. You baited them with my partner. You baited my partner and they have him and you know how I can end this. Tell me what happened. Tell me how to stop it." "I don't know what happens beyond the fields." He sighed as if he was trying to be helpful. "They tell me who. They get them there. I make sure that the people are there when they arrive. Then they complete the transfer." Stark was quickly losing patience. "They told you to take my partner. You're telling me they somehow made it that he would have to see you out there. You distracted him long enough for them to take him and now you don't know?" She let out a bitter laugh but inside she was scared. If this were true, then these people ... these things ... whatever that had snatched John from her had to know more about him than they should. That he had to pass Preston Road in the morning. And they were waiting for him. But 'why' still bit at the back of her mind. She had the middleman. She wanted the enterprise. "Tell me how to find him." Absalom paused. "When they are through ... sometimes people return. Those who do not have their place in the grand plan. Or those that do." "Don't doublespeak when you're talking to me." She reached over and grabbed him by the collar. "Where do they go? When? How the hell will I know when it's his time? Tell me the answer!" "A week previously it was a woman. They returned her the day before I arrived here. To their compound." "Shit." She paused. "Four days ago. That means that John has three days left. Where the hell is this place?" "You were there." "The second field." Stark shook her head. "God damn it!" Red flashed before her eyes. Blood red. And she pulled back a fist and let go, colliding with Absalom's forehead, sending him tumbling back, to the concrete floor with a sickening sound. Almost instantly she was over him again, ready to end it all, not caring what might happen. But Mulder burst through the door and grabbed her, holding her back, pulling her away before she had a chance to strike the killing blow. She almost thought it was unnecessary. Only the eventual opening of Absalom's eyes told her that she hadn't already killed him. "What do you think you're doing?" Mulder demanded. She bit her lip to control her anger. "It's justice." "For who?" "For John. For me. For all of us." She couldn't look away from Absalom. "He set John up. He's set them all up. He's responsible. Him and his alien masters. This is about justice." Mulder shook his head. "If he's right ... in three days your partner's going to come back to that second field, to that building. Let's find it. Let's be ready for him. Don't waste your time on this." "It's not a waste of time." She broke out of Mulder's hold and stormed out of the interrogation room, where she collapsed against the wall and closed her eyes. This made no sense. If Absalom was correct, this wasn't just about her partner anymore. It was about God knew how many other people and whatever was wanted with them. Which posed the question: what did they want with John? And how far were they willing to go to get it? How far were she and her own willing to go to get him back? There was no decision. As far as it took. Three days and it might all be over. Or it could just be beginning. "Stark..." "Damn it, not now, Jones." She turned and started walking back down the corridor, even though she knew he would follow. It had almost been simpler, easier, when it was just a missing persons case. But if this was all about some huge abduction conspiracy, it was out of proportion. And perhaps more frightening, out of her hands. She finally turned and stopped when they were out of the earshot of all the others, catching Travis's concerned gaze one more time. "What did he tell you?" "That if John's abduction follows the pattern of the one before..." Her voice started to crack. "If it does ... then in three days they'll put him back at this compound back in that field I saw." "How'd you see it anyway?" "I don't know. Maybe it was panic. Maybe John's communicating to me. Maybe they want me next." She sighed. "I can't wait three days, Jones. I need him with me now." "The warrants can wait." "It's not about the warrants. It's about having my partner back. About doing all the things we usually do. Having those drinks after work to celebrate closing those cases. Filing those reports exactly in the right order. Driving over the speed limit. Having actual conversations that don't always have to be about work. Hell, just the sound of his voice..." She was starting to cry now, and she hated it. She was not supposed to show weakness in front of fellow agents. John was the only one she felt comfortable letting her wall down around. And remembering that only made this sudden fit of separation anxiety worse. "I need him back, Travis. Not as my partner. As my friend." She echoed Mulder, knowing he was right. "As my world." Travis nodded. "Maybe you should go home." "I'm not going home," she said, perhaps a bit harshly. "I'm not going home. I can't sleep anyway and it's not even the evening yet. I'm going to find this compound and I'm going to wait for him." "It's three days, Stark. There's time." "Time to screw things up, you mean." She shook her head. "Let's go. We're done." "Let's find this place," he echoed her. "Then promise me you'll go home and try to get some sleep." "What if it's not my apartment?" He looked at her, confused. "Where else would it be?" She fingered another key on her key ring. "Falls Church." "Damn it, don't do that to yourself," he said, knowing what she meant. "Don't do what? As much as I hate to admit it he's the one man that I need in my life. And he's not here. It's the only place I know left to me where I can turn." Except, she said silently to herself, another field near the Virginia border. Where somewhere out in its distance was a compound. A compound that belonged to forces beyond her understanding. Who in three days would come there again. And in doing so return her partner to this earth. And make everything clear. And give her a chance for revenge. END PART 3 PART 4 See Part 1 for summary/disclaimer, et al. DEDICATION: Once again to all those who have continued to send me positive feedback on the first three parts. And to the good people at Warner Bros., NPV Entertainment and Village Roadshow Pictures, who I've noticed, every time they come together, create masterpieces ("Gossip" and "Swordfish" being two). Those two movies helped me put some edge on this last part and hopefully it will deliver to everyone's expectations. RECOMMENDED LISTENING: "Panik Kontrol" by Psykosonik. Over and over and over again until the four words they actually say pound themselves into your brain. Followed immediately by "Home Again" by Vonda Shepard. You only have to listen to that one once, though. The first day had been a nightmare, which, after more questioning of their only living lead, became a rush from one place to another in an attempt to put it all together. Traveling back out to that second field at the Virginia border to scout a so-called compound, which when they looked at it appeared to be no more than an abandoned structure. Stark almost couldn't believe this was her key to finding John again. Then she returned to the Preston Road site to get a heads-up with Derrick Webb, and she had left Edson and Jones there to go back to securing that scene while Derrick took her back to meet with Gene Crane and go over the new findings and the exhaustive batteries of tests that they had run on everything that came back. After that she had sat in her their office and gone over more case files until Derrick had gotten a hold of her and personally insisted that she go home. And she had, for maybe an hour or two, enough to answer more phone messages with condolences from those just now hearing about her desperate manhunt and to pack some of her things, and then she drove out to Falls Church, being careful not to pass the site where work was still going on in the early evening before she arrived at the last place anyone thought she should be. She hadn't slept there, either. Day two didn't get much better. She had come in late, spending her morning on John's couch going over case file after case file and her rapidly expanding file from his disappearance, putting all the pieces into place in a whirlwind of papers, photographs, reports, statements and even maps. While the facts began to gel, the truth remained that she was playing her whole hand on an unexpected vision and an unreliable explanation, and that none of it really made sense. However, the compound in the Virginia border field was the best that she had, and she was going to take the leap, she decided as she headed back into the Hoover Building's maelstrom. There she got a full briefing from Derrick, Travis and Edson, who had done the same thing she had on a larger scale. They compared notes in the FBI's huge main conference room with a half-dozen white boards and the two dozen agents involved in the probe, reconstructing John's last hours, what they knew about the abduction cases, and what in one matched with something in the other. That took a few more hours. Then Derrick and the guys had insisted on taking Stark out to a local club, where she had her share of drinks but couldn't shake the feeling that her partner had two more days before he was coming home to her. If he was at all. No, she corrected, he was coming home. But it wasn't easy for her to think that. Even she had begun to doubt, even in her blind rage. It wasn't like he was coming home from a vacation he'd forgotten to tell her about. He had been purposefully abducted. Things were different now. And she had failed to consider what might happen when he came back. Would he be different? He had to be. Yet she didn't want to ask questions she couldn't answer. She had enough of those. Day three went in slow motion, an agonizing reminder that if all went well, the next day they would end this whole roller coaster of suffering. There was another six-hour morning planning session in the conference room, then they had walked through John's last hours as best as they were able to put them together, trying to reenact the events, trying to find therein the answer. That evening Mulder and Scully returned from a brief sojourn back to Bellefleur, where they had gone over details of the abductions there with details of Doggett's, and reported with more than a little regret how for the most part they had found nothing of any real use in finding her partner. Everyone returned to the conference room to develop their plan for the next day. Absalom and common sense dictated everything would come down at night, but they wanted to be ready for any moment, any happening. They had come too far and perhaps too fast to let this slip out of their hands now. None of them slept that night. But the day had finally arrived. Day four. The day when, with all luck, John Doggett would be coming back to them. And watching Stark in his Falls Church home, Monica Reyes was grateful for that on more than one account and especially on the account of the woman she'd been assigned to watch over, the woman who needed him most. "Why are you still here?" she'd prompted. "Hey, I'm cleaning." Monica glanced around. "I thought the place was pretty clean to begin with." "It is." "I didn't think you cleaned." "I don't." Monica crossed from the kitchen to the couch where Stark had finally taken a rest. "I'm feeling a lot of frustration from you." "With good reason." "Stark, we have everything planned out. Trust us." Stark nodded. "But see, here's the thing: plans go wrong. The unexpected happens. Weapons jam. Vehicles die. People screw up. And I need this case to go down. I need my partner back." She sighed. "He's been the only partner I have ever known. I don't have family. My sister's dead, my father's dead, and my mother and I aren't on speaking terms. John has watched my back for four years and that says a lot in this world. I can't take the chance to trust in anything until I see it with my own eyes. I won't lose him on a technicality." Monica could only return the gesture in understanding. "I know." "I know you do." She paused, her brain changing gears as her wall came up once again. "When's the preflight meeting?" "Six o'clock in the field." "Damn it. It's only two." And so the rest of the day went, counting down the hours, counting down the minutes, until finally it was time to leave and Stark and her chaperone headed from Falls Church toward the border. There was no music this time, no discussion, only contemplative silence. Desperate silence. Double-checking, triple-checking, it-has-to-be-right silence. It was an operation of risk to begin with and the circumstances didn't help. Mulder had argued against bringing the entire task force to bear on the border field compound, reminding them that extraterrestrials were not stupid, and if they noticed the extreme manpower, which they would, the team put their chances of getting Doggett back in jeopardy. With that idea shot down, the statistics were not pretty. Three days of planning lead to seven agents Stark, Mulder, Scully, Reyes, Edson, Jones and Webb in this field waiting for the appearance of extraterrestrial life with only their service weapons, Kevlar vests, handheld radios and whatever else they could requisition from the FBI's vaults which, considering the nature of the investigation, was anything they wanted, provided it didn't make a scene. "Are we good to go?" Stark demanded as she stopped the car by the side of the road and walked over to meet the rest of the assemblage. Travis handed her a vest and a radio. "As good as we're going to be." "I'll take those chances." Stark checked her Ehrlich 400 for darts, micromissiles, gas pellets and the working laser, then put it back in its holster. She clipped the radio to her belt and continued to suit up, including the Kevlar vest and two arm bracers that fit under her jacket which contained some suitably sharp knives. Around her, the others did the same. There seemed to be no thing as too much preparation. The radio test worked and Edson seemed to be comfortable toting around a suitably decent-sized assault pistol. They were all on edge. The more power they could possibly have at their disposal, the better they felt, and Stark had no problem with that. Over the days her perception had colored: she didn't just want her partner back, she also now hungered for revenge. "How long are we going to have to wait?" Derrick checked his watch. "According to your man, anywhere from an hour to four or five." "Yeah, well let's hope it's not that long," Mulder said as he began to lead the agents down the embankment into the field. It was a fifteen or twenty-minute trip from the roadside to the middle of nowhere in which the compound was situated. It remained largely as they had seen it before: devoid of activity, empty, silent, yet somehow ominous. As if it, too, were waiting. But the wait was longer. Not as long as Absalom had suggested it might be, but long enough to set everyone on edge, plant doubt in everyone's minds. It was pitch black and nine-something when the sky was suddenly illuminated by the brightest of lights that made everyone recoil, and simultaneously know this was the moment they were waiting for. They stood from their vantage point as the sky became one blinding whiteness and took their last chance. Stark began issuing orders over the volume of the quivering earth that had begun. No one knew what precisely they were after, as the light obscured the ship, but no one needed to see it to know it was here. They had precious little time before UFO hunters and other tabloid types would notice and seize upon the scene, and by then it would be too late. "Watch your weapons, you know what happens with metal objects! Travis, Gary, take the back! Derrick, Agent Reyes, take the left side, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully, the right side!" Mulder glanced at her. "What about you?" "I'm going in the polite way. The front door." And she bolted down the hill, simultaneously unsheathing the Ehrlich, which shined bright silver in the blinding light. It began to grow warm, but she ignored the feeling, breaking in the front door of the compound and seeing just what the hell Absalom was talking about. The building was illuminated, warmed by the arrival, and the people that were suddenly there she hadn't remembered seeing them before, at least were barely awake. There were people that just happened to be there. It didn't make sense. But one of them had to be her partner. She heard the back door break in, followed by movement on both the right and left sides of the building as timbers around gaping holes in the walls gave way and clattered uselessly to the floor. It was time to storm the place. The others would take care of these people. She had but one man on her mind. Stark began with the room where Absalom had said he had found the woman, Teresa Hoese. She took a deep breath and kicked in the door. There was no one there. "Damn it!" she swore, looking up at the ceiling, at that light, with hatred in her eyes. What were they playing? Or did they even No. They had to have him. But how could she tell? Then it hit her. The light seemed to be, rather than one light, several specific beams, overilluminated by the massive spotlight that always seemed to come with these things in every photo she'd been shown over the past few days. All she had to do was find which one of those beams had her partner's location broadcast. A gunshot rang out and somebody shouted something. She didn't care. She'd find out later. It was on the fifth of eight that she let out a breath she'd been holding far too long and started crying. "John!" she'd yelled when she saw him, then back out the door, to the others, "I've got him!" He looked like hell, she reflected as she went to her knees beside him. He looked dead. But he couldn't be dead. That was not possible. He wasn't even conscious, but he was there. He was pale and he felt somewhat cold to the touch as if he'd been out in harsh conditions way too long. Stark bit her lip. He could not die here. This could not end this way. She covered her partner with her jacket, the fabric catching the tears she was crying. Reaching over, she put her fingers against his neck. He could not die. This was not happening. "I've got a pulse!" ------------- Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever going to make it home again It seems so far and out of sight I really need someone to talk to and nobody else Knows how to comfort me tonight Snow is cold, rain is wet Chills my soul right to the marrow I won't be happy 'til I see you alone again Till I'm home again and feeling right I want to be home again and feeling right... - "Home Again," Vonda Shepard END TO BE CONTINUED...