Title: GIFTED Author: Jean Robinson (jeanrobinson@yahoo.com) Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property of Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Television Network. All others are the property of the author. No infringement is intended. Rating: R, for language Classification: S, A Archive: Please ask permission. Spoilers: Though "Without," also including "Per Manum" and "Empendocles" Summary: Good things come in small packages. So do strange things. Feedback: Adored at jeanrobinson@yahoo.com Author's notes at the end ***************************** GIFTED By Jean Robinson The file was labeled, "Christmas," but John Doggett wasn't certain why it had earned that particular classification. He hadn't been looking for it. He hadn't been looking for anything, really, just randomly pulling folders from the X-Files office cabinets and reading page after page of the remarkable, the unbelievable, the peculiar, the bizarre. What Agent Scully would undoubtedly refer to as "the unexplained." Doggett's only previous experience with the paranormal involved the uncanny knack of the doorman at his old apartment in New York City to know when he'd cashed his paycheck and weasel a bigger tip out of him. For a few weeks he'd seriously wondered if twenties fresh from the bank gave off some sort of secret smell detectable only to people with burgundy coats and elaborate gold braiding on their epaulets. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he'd be sitting in a dim room reading about shape-shifters, things that were half man, half fluke, beast women in New Jersey, human clones and evil little twin girls. Oh, he'd heard about the two of them, Spooky and the missus, roaming around the country looking for E.T. and his friends. It sounded silly on the surface, but it all took on an entirely new meaning when it was about to become your life, too. And there was certainly nothing funny about what had happened to Dana Scully during her tenure with the X-Files. Nothing amusing about being abducted for three months and returned on the brink of death. Nothing entertaining in almost dying of a brain tumor. Absolutely nothing light-hearted about losing a child, or being kidnapped to Antarctica, of all places, and subjected to God only knew what before surviving to tell the tale and be rebuffed for the attempt. Nothing funny about losing a trusted partner, either. He read all that and more in the files, which, if the stories were true, Fox Mulder had resurrected, ash by carbonized ash, from a fire that had consumed the contents of the office three years ago. The "Christmas" folder had been jammed in between a case about a kid who could generate lightning and something about a giant fungus. The regulation X-Files folders were white with red hatchet marks around the edges; they reminded him of some kind of hazardous material warning. The "Christmas" folder, by contrast, was a plain manila one, the kind available in any garden variety stationery store. The kind normal offices would use as a matter of course. In his day-long perusal of the files, Doggett had learned to recognize both Mulder's and Scully's handwriting styles. The incongruous holiday word identifying this file was definitely printed in Mulder's sharp cursive. The tab itself was worn and soft, buffed to that velvet-suede texture that came from much handling. He had to yank it out of the crowded drawer to get a better look at what was inside, and when he did, it flew from his hand and fell open, contents fluttering wildly in every direction. For a brief, shocked instant Doggett thought it was snowing inside the X-Files office. Then he recognized the illusion for what it was, not a weather phenomenon akin to that case with the lovesick meteorologist but a blizzard of small scraps of white paper. He set the folder down on the desk and bent to gather up the mismatched bits. Once he had them in a manageable pile rather than an untidy handful, he sat down in Mulder's chair to puzzle out how they fit into the other mysteries he'd uncovered in this room. It took less than five seconds to learn two things: 1. The papers had nothing to do with any kind of Christmas tradition Doggett had ever heard of, and 2. They didn't appear to have anything to do with anything else, either. Why Mulder had seen fit to cram a few dozen old receipts into a folder and then mark it as "Christmas" was escaped Doggett. Had the man been thinking of making a scrapbook for himself or Scully at some point? Were they purchases he'd needed to record but wanted to hide from her for some unfathomable reason? Was the folder just convenient, left over from home, nothing more than a mismarked storage item grabbed on the fly to house these records? Doggett decided it was one of those things he'd probably never know. Most likely it wasn't important; perhaps it was even one of Mulder's private records that had somehow gotten mixed up in the office files. From what he'd read so far about the work of Scully and Mulder, the separation of church and state was more easily achieved than the separation of their personal lives from their jobs. Their regular expense reports were filed along with their case notes, most often, although not always, filled out in Dana Scully's neat script. Hard to believe she was a doctor with handwriting so legible. The receipts were included and told the usual Bureau story of stodgy rental cars, cheap hotels, overpriced room service, endless airline ticket stubs and modest meals from diners and small restaurants from sea to shining sea. Whatever the origins of the alleged "Christmas" receipts, they were not expenses this pair had claimed for official reimbursement. Curious, Doggett began to go through them one by one, squinting to read the fading purples and blues and blacks of ink that in some cases was more than seven years old. Delivery: "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation," D. K. Scully thesis. Doggett raised his eyebrows. Mulder had apparently asked for his partner's college thesis, right about the time she'd been assigned to him, if the date on the courier ticket was correct. Interesting. Tricky Dick's Novelties: one Apollo keychain. He'd seen that clasp holding Scully's keys. He'd never really wondered where she'd gotten it, although he did remember thinking once that the round metal tab commemorating the space program, scientific through it might be, didn't seem to be her style. Next came the first of several sets of receipts that had been stapled together, and Doggett realized that with the first group, at least, Mulder had attempted some organization by putting like purchases together. Flowers. Three different flower shops in two different states. Why on earth would Mulder need a nosegay of white carnations in California? What could he have done that would require flowers to pacify his partner? Or. . . take it the other way. What kind of activity could the two of them been engaging in where flowers would be expected? Then he looked at the date. Oh. For a moment he'd let his imagination run away with him, forgetting that funerals also necessitated floral arrangements. Scully, who was currently laboring under the weight of the unexplained disappearance of Mulder and the acceptance of a skeptical ex-cop as not only her new partner, but the head of the investigation to locate the old one, routinely rebuffed all attempts of comfort in a polite but curt manner. He'd watched her brush off Skinner's secretary just last week, when the woman tried to offer some support. Doggett could imagine that she would have rejected any overt expressions of sympathy when her biological daughter died, too. A small bouquet from Mulder, though. . . yeah, that would be about right. Whatever else Mulder may have been, by that time he certainly knew how Scully's mind worked. The other two flower receipts looked to be for more traditional bouquets from shops in Virginia. Doggett couldn't pin a significance on one of them, but the date on the other coincided with what he'd read about Scully's initial diagnosis of cancer. He put the pile aside and continued. Jean-Jacques Fine Jewelry: Repair of a gold chain. Unless Mulder had been emulating an Italian mafioso in his spare time, the chain must have been Scully's, the one for her cross. It stood to reason; with all the times they'd gone running after things that went bump in the night, all the times Scully had been snatched by persons known and unknown, that necklace must have taken some heavy abuse. Gold links were fragile. It had probably been broken more than once. Doggett wondered why this time Mulder had been responsible for mending it, and the date on the credit card slip gave him the answer yet again. Scully's abduction. Apparently Mulder had ended up as the caretaker of his partner's favorite piece of jewelry after Duane Barry grabbed her. The necklace had probably been ripped off during Scully's struggle with him, and Mulder rescued it to keep it from languishing in an evidence locker. Hoping that maybe if he had it repaired, if he could make the chain go back to normal, everything else would turn out that way, too. That Scully would come back, fixed and ready to go, just like her fashion accessory. Well, Mulder had sure lucked out on that one. It had worked. Delta Shuttle ticket and hotel bill: New York City. Hmm. Mulder'd stayed over a week, but seemed to have only used the hotel to sleep. Absolutely no charges other than room and tax. Nine days in the Big Apple, no matter what discount fleabag motel you used, that added up to a serious chunk of change. And the fact that these receipts were here, rather than in an expense report, meant Mulder had been there for reasons other than an official assignment. Chasing down an unauthorized lead? Thumbing his nose at the proper channels? He'd run off more than once to various foreign countries, leaving Scully in the lurch to explain his actions to their superiors. But he wouldn't desert Scully for over a week just to take in a few Broadway shows, would he? So maybe she'd been with him, even though there was no evidence of her presence. Doggett was back to the lovers' tryst theory, but knowing how things were =never= what they seemed on the X-Files, a secret sex romp sounded too convenient an explanation. As far as he could tell, Mulder rarely took a vacation, and at the time of this jaunt, Doggett thought the two of them were working for Kersh, not Skinner. No way in hell Kersh would give his new problem children more than a whole week off. Together. No, Kersh's style would be. . . . Split them up. Of course. He'd heard about this through the office grapevine after the fact. Kersh had sent =Scully= to New York to work with an agent there, and the jackass promptly killed an unarmed suspect =and= shot her in the gut at the same time. Yeah, Spooky and his partner had been together in New York, all right. Taking in the sights from Scully's hospital room. No wonder there were no charges on the hotel bill; Mulder probably hadn't left Scully's side except to shower and shave. And to keep the peace with Kersh, Mulder had financed the entire trip himself. Blockbuster Video. Another stapled clump; six different purchases over the course of seven years: "Superstars of the Superbowl." "Dead Alien! Truth or Humbug." "The Exorcist." "Plan 9 From Outer Space." "Caddyshack." "The Lazarus Bowl." Doggett grimaced. Bizarre selection, but then, he expected no less from Mulder. The man's mind worked in mysterious ways. Obviously the topics held some significance for him, and, by inference, Scully, but whatever it was, the meaning eluded Doggett. He wasn't sure he ever wanted to know what kind of connections there might be between football, aliens and golf. Or why someone as serious-minded as Dana Scully might have fond associations with them. Rental car receipt, paperclipped to a. . . holy shit. A =jet=? Mulder had rented a Justice Department jet? And the cost of the rental car. . . my God, had the man taken it on a cross-country tour? The fee at the bottom of the Lariat statement was astronomical. Must have been one clusterfuck of a case. Especially since =Scully's= name was on both items. Mulder was listed as the renting party, at least for the car, but both it and plane had been billed to Scully. One =major= clusterfuck of a case. Mulder must have ended up in the doghouse; even though Scully had been deemed financially liable, apparently her partner had forked over the cash to cover the debacle. Tricky Dick's Novelties again: one bottle of Mr. Bubble bubble bath. Doggett blinked in surprise; did they even make that stuff any more? A December date on the cash register slip pigeonholed it as a possible stocking stuffer. Mulder didn't seem like a bath or bubble kind of guy, but Doggett could see Scully nurturing a secret indulgence or two under those starched shirts. Mulder probably got a kick out of teasing her about it. Dry cleaning. Another stapled pile of sales slips, thicker than all the others. Doggett flipped through them, scanning them briefly and smiling at what he saw. Suits. Skirts. Shirts. Ties. Blouses. Slacks. Trenchcoats. Different cleaners, different cities, different states, different years. Scully must have socked him an ultimatum at some point: "If we're going ghostbusting, Mulder, YOU'RE paying for the clean-up." She'd probably gotten tired of trying to wipe stains from unidentified goo off her sleeves every time she and Mulder went out into the field. Batter Up: four hour rental of a pitching machine at a local ball park. Doggett knew Mulder was a baseball fan; maybe he'd been hoping to hit a home run with Scully. He was somewhat relieved to see such a normal expenditure; after shuffling through so many weird and inexplicable purchases, it was nice to know Mulder chose to relax with a traditional, all-American hobby. Another hotel bill, paperclipped to a wad of receipts from a variety of stores, all local. The name on the hotel statement gave him pause; swanky place. Lots of marble in the lobby, lavishly appointed rooms, anything-you-want-any-time-day-or-night kind of service. The highest-ranking of all of DC's visiting dignitaries bunked there. Mulder had stayed for two nights, and if Doggett was reading the room service selections properly, Spooky had had company. The attached receipts were more than a little baffling. Crate and Barrel. Bed, Bath and Beyond. Victoria's Secret. Pottery Barn. Williams-Sonoma. Picture frames, Egyptian cotton sheets and flannel sheets, kitchen utensils, vases, satin pajamas, flannel pajamas and terrycloth bathrobes, pillows, blankets, slippers, deluxe plush towels, soap and foaming body wash and bath powder and moisturizing creams and lotions plus a whole medley of items he couldn't immediately identify from their abbreviations. Knick-knacks, maybe. Possibly even furniture. The absent X-Files agent had purchased enough stuff to last until the next millennium. Except Doggett had been in Mulder's apartment, and knew that none of these products had found a home there. That, plus the inherently female nature of the purchases, meant it had all been intended for Scully. While the two of them were sharing a little down time in supremely posh surroundings, apparently. Weird. Maybe Mulder had been planning to throw her a housewarming bash? Were they celebrating something? Admittedly, Doggett wasn't up on the latest trend in what presents were appropriate for various numerical anniversaries, but he was pretty certain he would have remembered one that decreed "total redecoration" as opposed to "paper" or "wood." According to the pattern established by all the other sales slips, Mulder had never gone on a buying binge of such magnitude in the past. The most logical conclusion, therefore, was that for some reason Scully had =needed= a ton of new housewares and bedtime apparel in very short order. Doggett was willing to bet it wasn't a good reason, either. He knew her apartment had been trashed by Barry, and her sister had been killed there. The date on the hotel statement was much more recent than either of those events, indicating yet another uninvited guest had overstayed his or her welcome at Casa Scully. The subsequent havoc caused by said guest seemed to have been severe enough to necessitate both evacuation of the hostess to the lap of luxury and Mulder's brief stint as Martha Stewart. There was only one page left in the folder. Doggett frowned. For a moment, he couldn't understand what he was reading. It looked like a medical bill, but it took a few minutes to decipher the coding for the diagnosis and treatment given. Oh, hell. He still wasn't sure exactly what procedures had been performed, but it seemed to have something to do with fertility testing. Both Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were listed on the form, each with their own codes, which could only mean one thing. They'd been trying to have a baby. And failed. Poor Scully. After all she'd been through, she must have found some ray of hope that she could conceive, and to have that possibility taken away from her, too. . . . "Agent Doggett?" He jumped like a scalded cat at the unexpected voice, his twitching hands scattering the contents of the file folder across the desktop. "What are you doing?" Of all the people he didn't want to show up at his office door at this very moment with that very question, the one standing there asking it topped the list by a landslide. Doggett scrambled to gather all the scraps together into a messy heap and slammed the folder shut as Dana Scully walked in, eyebrows raised in mild curiosity. "Nothin'. Just some reading, that's all." He leaned one forearm on the file in what he hoped was a casual gesture to obscure it from her sight. Sweeping it away into a drawer would have looked too guilty, although it was his first instinct. "Find anything interesting?" Scully asked dryly. Thank God, she didn't seem at all interested in his unorthodox choice of reading material. "It's all interesting to me, Agent Scully. Kinda strange, but interesting." "Yes." She sounded distant. "Strange but interesting. That's a fairly apt description of the X-Files, Agent Doggett." "If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing here on a weekend?" He meant the question as a diversion, to send her thoughts in a direction that wouldn't lead back to the manila folder wedged under his elbow. Instead, it snapped her out of her reverie and focused her attention on his face. She looked at him strangely. "It's Monday, Agent Doggett. It's 8:30 on a Monday morning, and have you been here all night?" Apparently he had, although he hadn't noticed the passing time, the sudden ache in his spine, and the vicious eyestrain-induced headache until now. "Um. . . I guess so." "Why?" Why? Because I'm trying to find out all the things you refuse to tell me, the secrets I know you're hiding from me, because you think I won't believe them or that I'm not worthy of them or that I'll report them to the enemy or some damn thing. Because what I found in this single file, something I never would have thought to look in if I hadn't been here just aimlessly poking around and learning about missing time and green slime, told me more about Mulder than I could ever piece together from a year of plain old police work. Because I can't stand to see that hollow look in your eyes any longer than I have to. Living with my own pain is bad enough; seeing the same kind of loss radiating from you on a daily basis is going to drive me crazy. Because I told you I'd find Mulder and bring him back. And the last time I made that promise to someone, I failed. I can't fail again. I can't. But of course he couldn't say anything like that to her. Not now, when she still regarded him with mistrust, giving him evasive or cryptic answers to questions he raised about Mulder's possible whereabouts. Not ever, in fact. Not with what he'd just learned about what Scully meant to Mulder. And, with that final piece of damning evidence, how those feelings were obviously reciprocated. Because you need him back to give you flowers and silly keychains and odd movies, to defy his superiors to hold your hand when you're sick or hurt, and to mend your necklace when it breaks and play baseball with you. Because it's the only present you'll ever want from me, Christmas or not. End Author's notes: I stumbled across this unfinished piece on my hard drive and was struck with the sudden urge to finish it. Thankfully I have Jill, who gives great beta at a moment's notice. :-) Feedback makes my heart go all a-flutter at jeanrobinson@yahoo.com.