From: Medie Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 20:05:15 -0330 Subject: Fic Sentinel of the Potomac: Imago Dei Title: Sentinel of the Potomac: Imago Dei Rating: G-PG Disclaimers: Annie and Jo belong to me, their history with John Doggett belongs jointly to me and a friend, but Doggett and all other characters, concepts, etc. are the property of their respective TV production companies (1013 and Pet Fly), studios (FOX and Paramount) and creators (Chris Carter, Bilson & DeMeo). Category: ...angst, some romance...a bit of comedy. Its also an AU. Keywords: Doggett/other romance. Partial-Crossover with "The Sentinel." Spoilers: for Via Negativa & a little of Invocation Archive: Gossamer, Ephemeral, Spookys...anywhere else, please ask first! Feedback: Oh yes please! (be nice though! *G*) To medison@thezone.net Author's Notes: This story prominently features an original character of mine that originated in my Sentinel fanfiction series Counterparts http://www.angelfire.com/tn/taycon/Counter.html This however, is an AU version. One in which Annie & Jo were not sent to Washington State but Washington D.C. The AU's titled Sentinel of the Potomac and this is the first story in it. It was spawned thanks to the Washingon Letters series. Julie Jekel and I both figured that if John and Annie had so much chemistry when they were *former* lovers, we should see what they'd be like if they'd actually gotten married and here we are. *G* Hopefully, (especially if this goes over well. ;-] ) there'll be more around the other eps. One little thing, when Julie and I talked about it, we decided it would make more sense for John to be dreaming about Annie instead of Scully in this particular episode. So, when he mentions that in the story don't be surprised. (In case you do check out the page, yes Annie's resemblance to Marita C will be dealt with in the AU) Oh and another widdle note about the title. *G* Here's what Julie said when we were trying to title this thing. Imago Dei -- Doggett saw God not in the Via Negativa...but in the reflection of his love for his wife. Summary: Still haunted by his experiences in the investigation of Tipet, John has to face telling his wife about what happened...and how he dreamed of her death...and her near murder -- at his hands. ************* "Imago Dei" An X-Files/Sentinel AU by Marianne Edison *************** The day after Anthony Tipet died was the day John's wife, Annie, was due back from Toronto. It was also a day Doggett thought would never come. It had been the month from hell. But then, nothing had been easy since his assignment to the X-Files. One case after another had been a puzzle that was either confusing or intensely painful, often both. He'd gone through a lot since taking the assignment and Annie'd put up with a lot since he'd taken it. She'd stood by him through each case. Even when her own work was piling up around her ears she'd made sure she was just a phone call or an email away. Especially with the Underwood case. Watching those parents get their son back only to have him ripped away again...He'd brooded over that case for weeks, along with the memories it had brought up. He'd never been so grateful for Annie's calm understanding when it came to work and before than he'd been in the last few months. She'd been supportive and soothing when a nightmare would cause him to lash out in his sleep, nearly striking her, she'd leave him alone as long as he needed, when he just couldn't face anyone, then she'd listen when he needed to vent. She'd just been there for him. When he commented on it, she'd always chalk it up to the Sentinel thing, but he knew better. His girl was a special lady and now with the aftermath of Tipet still haunting him he needed her more than ever. Shifting his posture, John scanned the crowd with a cop's practised efficiency, looking for her familiar face. Her flight had landed on time so, knowing his wife, Annie had already collected her few pieces of luggage and was on the hunt for him. As usual, John Doggett's knowledge of his wife was spot on. Moments later he spotted the lovely blonde moving through the crowd, her eyes searching for him. Knowing it would take her a minute or so to spot him leaning against a support pillar , John took a rare opportunity to indulge in a little Annie-admiring, his gaze focussing on her like a blind man watching his first sunrise. 'God, she's beautiful.' Though his opinion was admittedly biased, John knew few men would argue. Letting his gaze slide lazily over her slender body, Doggett realized with aching clarity that it had been far too long since he'd held his wife. Annie seemed to sense his gaze on her and turned to look in his direction. Their eyes locked and she smiled widely, hurrying through the crowd toward him. "Hey, Blue Eyes." John said, voice huskier than usual. "Hey yourself, DoggButt." Annie countered with an impish look. "Bout time you came home." He remarked with a wry grin that attempted to cover the maelstrom of conflicting emotions generated by her presence. "I was starting to wonder if Short Stuff had convinced you to leave me and run off with some Mountie." He reached out then to tuck a stray strand of golden hair away from her face. The female Sentinel reacted as he'd expected her too. Annie's eyelids half-lowered and her breathing quickened ever so slightly. "Not a chance," She responded, her voice taking on that familiar throaty quality. "I like FBI agents much better, especially ones who used to be a New York cop and grew up in Georgia." "Pretty specific." John noted as a smile played at the edges of his mouth. A few moments of having her with him already beginning to edge out the darkness of the previous few days. "Oh it is." Annie took a step closer. "He'd have to have been in the Fugitive Warrants Division . . . Ex-military too. A marine . . . " "With a thing for tall, blonde, Canadian cops?" Doggett took hold of one of her bags. "Mmhmm . . . A gentleman too." "Y'know, I think I know that guy. Kinda good-lookin' with blue eyes?" Watching his wife's face, John restrained a chuckle. Going by the expression on her face, you'd think Annie was completely serious. "That's him," She agreed with a nod. "He's my husband." "Oh yeah? Happy marriage?" "We have our rough patches like everybody else but yeah, very happy. I'm head over heels in love with him." The look in Annie's eyes confirmed that, and was answered by an identical look in her husband's eyes. "I've been away for a few weeks on business and missed him like crazy." "He miss you?" "I don't know." The blonde quirked a smile at him. "I'll find that one out soon enough I guess." They fell into silence then until they reached the car, where John put Annie's luggage in the trunk. When he'd finished that, Doggett turned to his wife. "You were wondering if that husband of yours missed you?" "It'd crossed my mind." Reaching out, John pulled his wife into his arms and claimed her lips in a kiss that had passersby staring at them. A kiss borne of the relief at seeing her again, and the determined desperation to prove to himself that he wasn't dreaming. That she was all right. A desperation to erase the image of himself holding her severed head in his hands. When he finally pulled away slightly, both were finding it very difficult to breathe normally. "That answer your question, Blue Eyes?" John gave her a shaky version of his infamous smirk and brushed her hair away from her face with the palm of his hand. "Almost." Annie's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Didn't quite get the last part, better try it again." He laughed relishing the simple action and leaned over to open the car door for her. "Nice try, gorgeous, but we do *that* again and we'll get arrested for the result. As much as it would be worth it, I don't feel inclined to share you with every yahoo in the greater D.C. area with a tv set." "Point taken." Getting in and relaxing back against her seat Annie sighed happily. "It is very good to be home." "Annie, you have *no* idea how good it is to have you home." The look in her husband's eyes and the tone of his voice brought a concerned expression to Anne Marie Doggett's face. "Rough case?" she queried softly. "Honey . . . " John trailed off and shook his head. "Damn weird is what it was." "Tell me when you're ready," Annie said softly. She knew that her lack of knowledge on this one was a testament to how much John was wrestling with it. One thing they worked very hard at was keeping things open between them. They were emphatic on it. There was nothing they couldn't talk about with each other. John knew almost as much about Annie's Sentinel abilities as Annie did. Anything he didn't know was something that just hadn't come up yet. They discussed work the same way. Even when one or both was away from home on a case, they kept up their discussions and flirting via email and the phone. With their jobs it tended to be one of their main methods of communication. ********************* Stepping into the house, Annie closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the familiar and very welcome scents of home wash over her. It was hard to explain to John or Jo but to Annie there was nothing like coming home and feeling all those familiar sensations. Except maybe the effect John's presence had on her but that was in a class all its own. Doggett closed the door and stopped behind her to help her with her coat. "Why don't you go upstairs and get in the tub? I'll order us some dinner." She leaned back against him for a moment. "You keep this up and you'll spoil me." "Maybe so, but it'll be fun in the meantime." He kissed her temple and simultaneously swatted her on the behind. "Now get up there." Annie yelped appropriately and directed a playfully indignant look at him before taking her luggage and going up the stairs. "What're you in the mood for?" John called out, hanging up their coats. "Umm . . . Chinese, pizza . . . something like that." Annie returned, sticking her head out the bedroom door so he could hear her better. One of the fun parts of being married to a Sentinel John had discovered was the conversations where she was in one part of the house and he was in the other. She'd hear almost whatever he said and then call back loud enough that he could hear her response. "Chinese or pizza . . . ok, you got it Blue Eyes." **************************** "Great." Annie pulled her sleeveless shirt over her head and tossed it into the clothes basket before reaching around to unfasten her bra. Downstairs she could hear John muttering to himself as he surveyed the Chinese menu, trying to decide what to order. But, before she could finish undressing, Annie's nose presented her with a little anomaly. An unfamiliar scent in the bedroom. Taking a slow and even breath, Annie concentrated on the smell, trying to decipher what it was. It didn't take a minute for her to identify it as a woman's perfume, but it wasn't one she wore, or one Jo wore. "Ookayyy." The blonde woman frowned thoughtfully as she removed the rest of her clothes and pulled John's old Marine t-shirt out of the dresser. "Something is out of place here." She wasn't worried about an affair. Far from it. John Doggett wasn't perfect but Annie knew he'd never be unfaithful. Never. Nope, this was just a unique puzzle to figure out then tease her husband mercilessly over. Grabbing her hairbrush, Annie ran it through her hair as she wandered out to turn on the water in the tub before heading down to bug her husband. After all, it'd been almost a month. Far too long since she'd teased him. John was on the phone when she wandered into the kitchen standing at the counter and, by the sound of things, he wasn't ordering dinner. His posture and tone screamed work. Slipping her arms around her husband's waist, she snuggled against his back and rested her chin on his shoulder. Automatically John's free hand came up to cover one of hers, his thumb rubbing against the back of her hand softly. Refraining from eavesdropping on the other person, Annie gave into another sort of temptation entirely as she turned her head slightly. Just enough that her lips could easily reach his earlobe and nip gently at it. She grinned mischievously when his voice caught ever so slightly and his hand tightened on hers. Deciding to mess with his head a little, Annie kept up the attentions to John's ear as she listened to his voice. Not the words he was saying but how he was saying them. To Doggett's credit, his control over his reactions was solid. His voice didn't so much as waver as he completed his call and set the cordless down with a chuckle. "Minx. You tryin' to get me in trouble with AD Skinner?" Laughing, Annie released him so he could turn to face her. "Sorry, couldn't help myself; specially not when I've got competition." "Competition?" John's brow wrinkled as he tried to figure out what his wife was talking about. "What competition?" Winking at him, Annie patted his cheek as she turned to leave the kitchen time to add the bubbles to the bath water. "The woman who was in our bedroom?" The female Sentinel smiled impishly at him over her shoulder. "She's got great taste in perfume. It was only a trace but it smells lovely." With that, she rounded the corner and headed for the stairs. It was then John made the connection. The perfume was Scully's. **** After adding the aromatic bubbles to the bathwater, Annie'd ditched the t-shirt and slipped into the tub, sighing happily. Closing her eyes, she started to count back from ten. One thing she'd learned about John was that she didn't need to be a Sentinel to predict his next move. By the time she'd reached one, a slight chill wafted across her face as the door to the bathroom opened. "Hey, honey, pass me the sponge will you please?" She asked of her husband who now stood in the doorway. Instead of passing it to her, John knelt next to the tub and wet the sponge, gliding it along the leg Annie'd propped up on the faucet. "Keep that up, Mister, and I'll drag you in here with me." Annie opened her eyes to grin at him. John quirked a smile. "And that's a bad thing?" "Well, it's a messy thing." "True," Her husband agreed with a chuckle. John was silent for a long moment, content in running the sponge over his wife. Trying to lose himself in the relaxing sensation of her skin under his hand. Finally he decided to broach the topic, even though he knew what it would lead to. "Agent Scully woke me up yesterday morning. She tried to call but I didn't answer the phone, so she came in. It's her perfume you picked up on I guess." Nodding, Annie flicked some bubbles off her nose. "How'd she get in?" There was no anger in her voice, just curiosity, and John couldn't have been more grateful for that. Annie'd learned early in their relationship their friendship before romance had ever entered into the picture that when John needed to tell her something, it was no use to push. Best to just wait for him to come out with it. A strategy that always worked. "Apparently the door was unlocked." John abandoned the sponge and reached for Annie's favourite shampoo, squirting a small amount into his palm then working it into her wet hair. "You didn't hear the phone?" his wife queried, relaxing back into his hands. "No . . . " He fell silent again, concentrating on Annie's hair, trying to avoid telling her the rest of it for as long as possible. When he did tell her, it was in a deadly serious voice and with many pauses. It was not something he was comfortable talking about. Not something he even wanted to think about. John Doggett loved his wife intensely, the very idea of dreaming that he would kill her horrified him to the core. Thinking about it sent a chill through him the likes of which he'd never experienced before, never mind actually vocalizing his dreams to the very woman that'd been in them . . . Annie, thankfully, didn't speak during the entire commentary, giving him a chance to get it out before he lost his nerve, but one of her hands crept up to rub the back of his neck gently, encouraging him, reminding him that the dreams had not come true. That she was still there. The tender support provided him with a solid base to keep going and he found the fortitude within him to tell her everything, including that first horrifying dream holding her severed head and the second...the one Scully'd woken him from. When he was finished, she turned to face him her hand resting on his shoulder with a empathic expression on her face. "I'm sorry I wasn't here." He shook his head. "I'm glad you weren't. Tipet, he..uh...he messed with my head pretty damned good. I don't ever want you seeing me like that." "For better or for worse, you know that," Annie chided with a loving smile. "You've seen me when the Sentinel thing's had me pretty messed up. Couldn't have been worse than that." "You'd be surprised," John murmured quietly. He looked away for a long moment then turned pain-filled eyes back on her. "Blue Eyes, I...I know what its like to loose the most important thing in the world...I couldn't handle going through that again. Especially not if it was you I lost..." His voice failed him then and Doggett took her hand in his, pressing a kiss to her palm. Seeing him in so much pain brought tears to Annie's eyes and she leaned forward over the tub to embrace him, heedless of the fact the water on her upper body was now soaking his clothing though. John didn't seem to notice either. Instead he stood, pulling her to her feet with him and buried his face against her neck. Shutting out the world and the events he'd gone through in the previous case. Neither one could tell you how long they stood there like that, locked in each other's embrace. It may have been only a few minutes but to them it felt like hours. They would have stayed there longer but Annie shivered and John immediately pulled away to grab her terry cloth bathrobe. "You've got goose bumps," He informed her, wrapping the robe around her and rubbing her upper arms briskly in an attempt to cover the unshed tears in his eyes. Annie winked, understanding. "That's got nothing to do with the cold." Relieved to put the Tipet behind him, at least for a little while, Doggett grinned at her lasciviously. "Oh yeah, Blue Eyes? Then what've they got to do with?" Slipping her arms into the robe, Annie Doggett returned her husband's grin. "Oh...how about the fact I'm a woman who's been away from her husband for several *very long* weeks?" Pulling his wife close, John brushed his lips across hers. "I'll buy that," He said, his voice again taking on that tone that never failed to make Annie weak in the knees. "Care to move this to the bedroom, Mrs. Doggett?" Though she never said a word, Annie's actions spoke volumes. Grabbing his shirt collar she drew him with her as she backed out the door. Chuckling, John waited until they were in the hallway before he swept her up into his arms, ever the gentleman, and carried her to the bedroom. Laughing, Annie rested her head against his shoulder and a smile dawned across John Doggett's face. A smile filled with a great deal more peace then he'd felt since that night Agent Scully'd called about the Tipet case. Carrying Annie into their bedroom, he kicked the door shut behind them, locking the world and the haunting memories of Anthony Tipet out of their sanctuary. John had found a way closer to God, but it had nothing to do with the Via Negativa. It was the bond between him and his wife, something Tipet could never understand. Never.