Title: The Eye of the Beholder (1/1)
Author: Horatio
E-mail: [email protected] 
Rating: PG (mild language)
Category: S
Spoilers: Requiem, Within/Without, Via Negativa
Keywords: Doggett. Scully. Implied MSR.
Summary: Doggett studies his new partner.
Timeline: Follows season 8 up to mid-season, and takes off 
on its own tangent after that.
Archive: Just let me know.
Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property of 
Ten-Thirteen Productions and the Fox Television Network. No 
infringement is intended, and no money is being made from 
this endeavor.
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to all who gave me feedback 
on my first story. I probably wouldn't have had the courage 
to write more if not for you.
Author's Notes: This is a companion piece to another story 
of mine, "Thaw." You needn't read that to understand this 
one, but it might add resonance. Sequels and companion 
pieces are perilous exercises, and I never intended to 
write one. But John Doggett insisted his story be told. He 
wouldn't shut up. I had no choice.



THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER


He watched her.

No, scratch that. He *studied* her. 

That's what he got paid the big bucks for, after all. Tics, 
twitches, telltale tremors; pupils, posture, perspiration -
- he knew the language. With his eyes, his ears, his nose, 
his skin, the back of his head -- hell, maybe even with his 
Third Eye -- John Doggett could tell what was ticking 
inside another person.

So when he saw Dana Scully that first time, Doggett studied 
her as he did all his suspects. He observed the tenseness 
in her muscles, the impatience in her sighs, the anger in 
the tight line of her mouth, the tightly-held control.  
When he began his probing -- all right, his *baiting* -- he 
watched every tiny reaction. The blinks, the swallows, the 
pauses, the quavers in her voice. The barest hints of 
cracks in the armor. 

And then, with lightning swiftness, he watched steely 
certitude and fury weld the chinks shut. The water she had 
dashed in his eyes only seemed to clear his vision. He 
gazed on her retreating back with an awakening admiration. 

The male in him studied her also. His appreciative eyes 
took in the shapely curves, the well-formed legs, the 
understated makeup, the fiery hair (what did they call that 
color? Titian?), the Roman nose, the perfect lips...and the 
piercingly intelligent eyes. 

A damn attractive woman.

He watched her as she slept in Mulder's bed. Doggett could 
do the math, put two and two together. Dollars to donuts 
Agent Scully had more than a merely professional interest 
in her partner; that much was certain after the previous 
day's interrogation. But the vulnerable woman he saw in Fox 
Mulder's bedroom, splayed on her stomach, her hand 
clutching the man's shirt, was not exactly the sum he had 
calculated.

It had surprised him. This was a problem that involved more 
than simple math. It required a differential calculus of 
emotion, an advanced course he was not sure he was prepared 
for.

But prepared or not, he continued to rack up the 
observations. He studied the shock and grief on her face as 
she performed her own calculations on a gravestone and 
medical records. Watched her spit piss and vinegar at him 
in the middle of the night in the desert. And felt her 
brokenness as she wept in his arms. 

After Kersh chewed him up and expectorated him into the 
basement, Doggett watched Scully no longer as an 
investigator, but as a fellow agent. He watched her 
uneasily take the reins of the X-Files division. Observed 
her discomposure in trying to appropriate Mulder's persona, 
and her struggles in adjusting to him, John Doggett. 

At the same time he saw a professionalism and an integrity 
of impressive proportions. And her courage was as great as 
any soldier he'd fought with, unflinching in the face of 
creatures, conundrums, and that most diabolical of 
monsters: her own flaws. 

John Doggett learned also to study his new partner's eyes. 
He watched the pain in them, and the loss, a terrible wound 
left unhealed. He watched hope dwindle to a pinprick as 
time passed without news of her partner. Watched a face 
that never smiled, and eyes that fought to dam fugitive 
tears. 

And he wanted to hit something.

He studied Dana Scully not only for what she revealed, but 
for what she didn't. He watched as she slept in a hospital 
bed, machines nearby blinking in mysterious code, and 
pondered the dark and closeted spaces she kept hidden from 
him. As time passed, her swelling figure betrayed her 
biggest secret to his study even before she told him.  And 
he began to re-measure the chasm of her loss.

He was aware that she watched him too. He had seen the 
suspicion at first, then the resentment. After a while she 
stopped watching him altogether, and he felt like a piece 
of furniture. John Doggett knew he was a simple cipher to 
Special Agent Dana Scully, that he would never fulfill her 
need for higher math. He shrugged. At least he was here. 
Flesh and bone, a real presence, not an absent one. 

As weeks merged into months, as suspicion gave way to 
resentment and then to indifference, he thought he saw 
something new in Agent Scully's eyes. Awareness. Interest. 
Maybe even feeling. 

It was as though she suddenly woke up one morning and 
noticed him there. As though she finally saw him, John 
Doggett, the man that he was. Not something he wasn't.

He sensed her watching him like that this morning as he sat 
at his desk, felt her eyes on him. He stared unseeing at 
the case notes before him. He ran his hand through his 
hair, and swallowed. 

Hell. Give a little, maybe get a little. 

John Doggett looked up at the woman across the room, and 
smiled. And immediately a whole new field of study opened 
to him.

Dana Scully had smiled back.



End.