TITLE: Thaw
 AUTHOR: Horatio
 SUMMARY: Scully copes with loss and a new 
 partner.
 RATING: G 
 SPOILERS: General season 8. This story disregards spoilers 
 for the second half of the season.
 CLASSIFICATION: Scully, Doggett
 ARCHIVE: Just let me know.
 DISCLAIMER: Characters from the X-Files are the property of 
 TenThirteen Productions and the Fox Television Network. No 
 infringement is intended, and no money is being made from 
 this endeavor.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Many thanks to Pamala, Peg, and Ally for 
 their help and support.
 NOTES: My first fanfic. You've been warned! And if 1013 can 
 ignore Scully's pregnancy, so can I.
 FEEDBACK: [email protected]
 
 
 
 THAW
 by Horatio
 
 
 She watched him.
 
 When he was bent over a report at his desk, or standing at 
 the file cabinet, or driving the car, or dozing in the 
 airline seat next to her - she watched him. Quick, 
 slidelong glances, so he wouldn't know.
 
 At first Dana Scully watched him for what he might be. A 
 traitor. A spy. Another Krycek. Years of lies and deceit 
 had made suspicion her bedfellow, so she kept a careful eye 
 on him at the beginning, waiting for him to make a misstep, 
 to give away his real agenda. She watched, and waited.
 
 But John Doggett revealed no hidden agenda, no ulterior 
 motives. Instead, he held her when she wept. He tracked her 
 to the middle of nowhere, and saved her life. He asked for 
 her help when he needed it, and gave it when she was too 
 proud to ask. He never invaded her privacy. He fought the 
 fight and did the work. All John Doggett revealed was a 
 basic honesty and integrity. It had surprised her.
 
 So she stopped watching him for what he might be, and 
 instead watched him for what he wasn't. Feeling a deep, 
 almost primal offense, Scully watched and cataloged all the 
 things he was not. His hair wasn't dark. His eyes weren't 
 hazel. He wasn't lithe and graceful. His lips weren't full. 
 He didn't have an eidetic memory. He had no mole on his 
 cheek. He wore his watch on the wrong hand.
 
 The way he stood, the way he sat, the way he walked, the 
 way he talked, the way he breathed for God's sake - all of 
 it, every inch of him, every molecule, wasn't *him*. Wasn't 
 Mulder. She watched his not-Mulderness with an intensity 
 that grew almost obsessive, with a pain that became 
 torment. 
 
 Sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, Scully would catch 
 the movement of his man's body and for a jarring 
 microsecond she would forget. She would think it was *him*. 
 
 And then she would focus on the sandy hair, the chiseled 
 features, the blue irises, and her eyes would burn with 
 salty pain. 
 
 She prayed frequently. *Please, God. Help me endure this. 
 Please.*
 
 After more time, the pain that had become torment faded to 
 a dull ache, and Scully stopped watching John Doggett at 
 all. She became accustomed to his differentness, until he 
 merged into the familiar. Like the file cabinet. Just 
 furniture. One didn't watch furniture.
 
 Eventually, time stretched into an eternity of despair, and 
 hope receded down the strand of her soul. The dull ache 
 shriveled to a hard, icy nugget deep in her heart, a place 
 that she knew would never feel warm again. 
 
 And every day Scully rose heavily from her bed, dressed 
 mechanically, and went to work. Walked down that basement 
 corridor. Sat at *his* desk. Wrote reports, performed 
 autopsies, boarded airplanes, rented cars, solved cases. 
 Life goes on, she thought; a truism that alternately 
 infuriated and comforted her. And through it all, through 
 the torment that became an ache that became a wintry core,  
 through the relentless trudge of the earth around the sun, 
 John Doggett was there. 
 
 And one day Scully found herself watching him again. Not 
 for what he might be. Not for what he wasn't. Now, she 
 watched him for what he was. 
 
 It was as though one morning she had awakened, walked 
 through the door, and discovered him there: a completely 
 new being, someone she had never noticed before. 
 
 She watched the flinty planes of his face. She watched the 
 lines deepen on his forehead as he puzzled out a problem, 
 or his jaw tighten when she advanced a paranormal 
 explanation. Watched him blink, slowly, when he processed 
 an unexpected fact. She watched his languid slouch as he 
 leaned against a doorway, and the power of his body as he 
 ran down a suspect. Watched the piercing intensity in the 
 clear, blue depths of his eyes. And watched the compassion 
 there, too, as he met the suffering in hers. 
  
 She was watching him this morning as he studied case notes 
 at his desk. His hand running through the light-brown hair. 
 His tie loosened, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. 
 The deep furrows on his brow. The golden hairs on his arms 
 where his sleeves were rolled up. 
  
 When John Doggett looked up and saw her watching him, he 
 smiled.
 
 And to her great surprise, Dana Scully smiled back. 
 
 
 End.