Small note here: this is the third story in the series
that began with "The Night He Fell Away From Me." The
second part, "Change The Stars For Me," I haven't yet
finished, but I was struck with inspiration on this
third part and got it finished. It shouldn't spoil
much from the second story for you. If anything, it
may just make you want to know exactly what happens in
that second story *evil laughter*.

TITLE: When The Truth Lies
AUTHOR: Brittany "Thespis" Frederick
E-MAIL: baltimorelt@yahoo.com
SPOILERS: To be safe, all of Season 8 in general
RATING: PG for language
CATEGORY: Doggett/Other friendship/partnership
SUMMARY: "The truth hurts sometimes, but you know
what, wounds heal!" he insisted, his anger boiling
over. She was unmoved. "Maybe the ones I made, but
what about the ones I inflicted by making them?"
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: This fic is the third in the trilogy
which began with "The Night He Fell Away From Me" and
"Change The Stars For Me." If you've not read those
prior to reading this, you'll want to do so, as this
fic is heavily dependent on the events of those.
DEDICATION: To Chey, who suggested the idea for a
Doggett/Stark post-S8 reunion fic, and thus allowed me
to do a lot of things I've wanted to do with our
heroes at the same time while layering their
relationship once more. Thanks for the idea!
RECOMMENDED LISTENING: "It's Over" by Brad Fiedel.

He hurt you so the rumor goes
Time to run again
You're going home
See you walking in like a ghost
His advice was really something
"Stay dead, don't feel no pain, girl"
You're making progress
Headfirst through rolling thunder
In his life you're really something
Restlessness won't leave the blind...
- Eva Trout, "Drivetime Radio"

The last words she had said to him, even though he
couldn't hear her, were "I'm sorry." And she still
was, walking the old corridors of the Hoover Building
in the dead of night one more time. If he were here,
she would apologize for this whole year, but he
couldn't possibly be. Which was better, because she
knew she'd broken his heart, and he had broken hers,
silently but definitively. It was the best for both of
them that they did not meet this night, that the only
person she came in contact with was Dana Scully.

Dana Scully, partner to Fox Mulder, who the news had
it had been abducted not long after he'd helped to
find John, who now sought her partner as desperately
as Stark Patrick had sought hers. Scully, who now
worked with John in this basement. Scully, who'd found
her partner dead rather than alive as Stark had been
lucky to do, but who had been reunited with him
against all odds. Scully, who had asked for Stark's
help when she couldn't give it to her. Scully, who had
told her not to run, but she hadn't listened. Scully,
who had been responsible for providing the medical
ingenuity that quite possibly saved John's life.
Scully, who against all odds had survived it all, and
had tried to get Stark to see that she could do the
same. And Scully who now needed her attention, a year
down the line.

She knocked once, then stepped into the darkened
basement office of the X-Files section. Closed her
eyes for a moment, remembered when she'd been a year
younger, terrified but factually convinced that aliens
were behind her partner's abduction, standing in the
same doorway appealing to Mulder and Scully to help
her find that out. And now she was a year older,
though maybe not wiser, standing in this doorway after
she'd fled the scene of her crime of the heart and
said she was never coming back again.

Truth be told, the Baltimore field office wasn't that
bad. She knew the neighborhood, she knew the people,
and her friends in city homicide would back her up at
a second's notice. But walking into the office,
calling for Agent Scully, she knew that this place,
which she'd worked for all her life and cherished in a
part of her heart she no longer allowed herself to
think about, was more special to her than even Charm
City.

"You might want to close the door," he said simply.

She turned instantly. She knew that voice. She could
never forget that voice. The voice that had given
support and encouragement to her hopes, dreams and
desires, that had debated with her on important
issues, that had shown her things that she now relied
on day in and day out, that had been the voice of God
in her impressionable youth. The voice of her partner.

"John," she said softly, the name still coming
instantly after all this time.

He smiled at her, putting down the case file he was
skimming. "I was beginning to think you weren't
coming."

"Where's Agent Scully?"

"Home for the evening." He leaned forward, met her
eyes as he was always doing when they had been
partners. "There's no Hanson case, Stark. Just you and
me."

"But why..."

"Why? Because you're my partner. And because you
didn't even say goodbye."

She paused, her breath caught in her throat. So he
knew. Who had told him? Scully, the only witness to
her flight from his hospital room to the airport?
Jones and Edson, her former partners in crime? Or
someone else? Had it even been Kersh, the entire
reason for this whole mind game?

"You would have convinced me to stay."

"Is that some horrible crime? Come on, Stark..."

"I had no choice."

The words were hard to force out. She didn't want to
defend herself to John, explain herself to John,
vindicate herself to John. He trusted her. But she had
violated that, hadn't she, by running? And now,
looking at him, she felt as if she didn't know him
anymore. But maybe he felt the same way.

He stood from the desk chair and went to shut the
door. "I get out of a freakin' coma and you're the
first person I want to see, but no one seems to know
where the hell you are. Then I find out I'm assigned
to find Mulder and you took a freakin' transfer to the
Baltimore field office while I was out." His eyes
betrayed his sadness as he took her hand in both of
his and they bored into hers, for the first time since
they had first met four years ago making her
uncomfortable. "That's not goodbye, Stark," he said
quietly, wounded, almost. "We deserve more than that
from each other."

We? Was there even a 'we' anymore? She doubted it. He
had Scully. What did he need her for? She'd deserted
him. She had zero credibility. And just like that, as
if he'd remembered, his voice turned hard again.

"Kersh wanted you with me on the task force," he told
her. "He wanted you to help me lead it. Said we were
the team he'd had his eyes on for a while to do big
things like that. And then he said you'd come to him
when you found out and requested to be taken off the
detail. You wanted to go to Baltimore. You said you'd
be more useful there.

"What the hell was that about? I could have used you,
Stark. I needed you. Screw Baltimore. They didn't give
a damn about you when we were there..."

"They'd just had a shooting. Complicated by members of
the Bureau."

"That's not the point. You weren't homicide anymore
and you were out of the loop. I saw the way they
treated you. They may back you up for old time's sake,
but that's not your world anymore. That's not your
world..."

"You're right."

"What?" He seemed genuinely surprised.

"You're right," she repeated softly, meeting his eyes.
"You were."

His expression softened again, but his voice remained
serious. "Don't say that unless you mean it."

"I've always meant it, John." She wiped mist from her
eyes. "That's one thing that will never change."

"Why'd you run? Why did you ask for it? Without even
saying goodbye?"

"Because you would have convinced me to stay. Because
Kersh wanted to use me against you. I'm one of the few
agents on his good side. I knew when he put us on
Mulder's case it was a setup. He knows you were part
of that, John, he thought that he could get you to
sink yourself into this basement and stay out of his
way. Because he knew you weren't going to play his
games. And he thought that I would. And eventually I
would have been forced to. And I wouldn't do that to
Scully, to Mulder, to you. Not to you."

"It didn't stop me, Stark. I'm still here. And I don't
think I'm leaving."

"I had to give you the chance." She was really losing
it now, and it frustrated her, because even he had
seemed to frost over against her. "You deserve that
much from me. I didn't want to stab you in the back
even if I didn't mean to."

"There's always another way."

She finally met his eyes, and this time when she did
she couldn't help from crying. "I couldn't take that
chance. Not with your future. I figured you could
better stand to lose me than your entire career. You
want to be here, John."

"And so do you. What happened to idealism, two years
ago, in the car? You worked your way up here. This is
what you always wanted."

"I'd rather live knowing I cost myself my dream than
that I cost you yours." She was trying desperately not
to be weak. She had never wanted to appear weak in
front of him, not even after he had proved to her it
was all right to be, not even after she had let down
her guard with him. Because she believed that weakness
proved she was not ready. That she wasn't worthy of
being his partner. And maybe that was true this time.

He took her by the shoulders and locked eyes with her,
speaking each word as a statement of fact. "Listen to
me. Don't ever think that." He paused. "We found
Mulder anyway. It's over. It's done. Come back to me."

"I don't deserve that." She shook her head. "What I
did may not have been right, but I have to live with
it. It's all I knew how to do."

"Run away?"

She nodded. "From my mother, from my sister, from one
career to another, from one place to another ... from
you ... it's all I've ever had in life."

"You can change that." He sighed. "I can't do this
alone, these X-Files, all of this. Scully is ... she is
a phenomenal woman. But I need someone who maybe
doesn't believe so easily. I need the person that's
always been there for me, who knows me. I need you
back with me."

"Kersh would..."

"I don't give a damn what Kersh thinks anymore. Right
now, we're talking about you and me."

She wiped another round of tears away. "Why do you
care so much?"

"Because you never gave me a reason not to." He
paused, making sure she understood he meant every
word. "Because from the moment I met you, you showed
me you were here as a serious agent. Because you have
always displayed the best characteristics in a human
being. You showed me things I wish that I could be ...
and you proved to me that I could be better. Because
you have never, ever, run from anything. Because you
were always there and I never had to ask. Because I
respect you and cherish you as my partner, as my best
friend, and as a person. What will it take you to
realize that?"

"I've always realized it. I just ... I don't think I'm
the person you knew."

"I know that you're not. You don't have to be. All you
have to be is who you are. To say I haven't changed
since this happened is a complete and total lie. I
can't expect that you haven't changed, too. I know you
have. I can see it in your eyes."

She tore herself away from his gaze. "I can't."

He looked at her like she was crazy and she saw the
thunder in his eyes. She prepared herself for being on
the reception end of his rage, which had never
happened before, and his words stung her more than
anything else she had ever experienced. "The truth
hurts sometimes, but you know what, wounds heal!" he
insisted, his anger boiling over.

She was unmoved. "Maybe the ones I made, but what
about the ones I inflicted by making them?"

John simply stared at her with an expression on his
face that broke her heart. She could read it in his
eyes, and she always had been able to. The expression
that he didn't understand. That he didn't believe. And
that he didn't know who she was anymore.

Stark looked at the floor, unsuccessfully fighting
back tears.

"We never... We never did this when we were here. You
never even raised your voice to me. What's happened to
us, John?"

He shrugged. "Things change."

She nodded, then started past him, for the door. "This
has to end. For both of us."

He grabbed her by the arm as she passed, turning to
face her as he held her back, taking her hand. "Don't
do this, Stark. Don't do it again." Even in the dim
light, she could see his eyes shimmering, and the
hurt, pleading expression on his face that hurt her so
badly. "I'm asking you. Please. Don't walk out of my
life."

Stark looked at him for a moment, surprised that he
had gone this far to convince her after the year of
pain she had put him through. "Are you sure?" she
asked him quietly. "That this is what you want?"

"I couldn't stay angry with you forever." Pause. "I
found out along the way that the more I fought with
you, the more I fought with myself."

"I ... I can't believe this." She started to cry again,
and this time he took her into his arms, holding her
while she cried, her head rested on his shoulder, her
voice breaking. "After all I've done to hurt you..."

"And everything you've done for me," he said quietly.
"Tell Kersh you want to come back. Tell me you're
coming home."

Home. God, the word sounded so right.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't ... don't apologize." He pulled back to look at
her, perhaps knowing that those were the last words
she'd said before she walked away, perhaps not. "Don't
ever apologize to me."

She nodded her understanding, still struggling with
the emotions inside of her. He understood exactly how
she felt; he felt the exact same way. In their hearts,
they could not ever have been more alike. And that
moment, they were as one. There was no better feeling.

"I can't live my life like this," he said quietly. "I
need you with me."

"Until the next time..."

"There won't be a next time," John insisted. "I can't
live without you."

She wiped away tears. "We can't live without each
other."

He smiled at that, like he'd never smiled in the past
year. His abduction, Mulder's abduction, Scully's
pregnancy, Krycek's death, suddenly none of the events
of that past year really mattered anymore. He could
close that chapter of his life and return to the way
he knew it was meant to be. And he looked in her eyes
and saw her thinking those same thoughts. The true
union of partners. The one thing they could never
break, no matter how far she flew, no matter how much
he raged, the unspoken connection.

And he looked at her, realizing how much he missed her
in that past year, allowing himself to cry, to be
overtaken by his emotions. Realizing how much of a
fixture she was in his life, along the hard road and
the edenic passageways, how much he had come to need
her. Knowing that that particular sword was certainly
double-edged. But more used as a shield. To protect
all they had worked for.

Like the chance to be together again.

He leaned down and kissed her for one brief moment,
tender and charged with all the emotion they had
divided between them, feeling what it was like to live
again. Stepping out of the darkness into the light.
And their lives - conjoined as they were - began
again.

"It's over, John."

"I know."

END


=====
"Oh, for God's sake, please be somebody else."
- Lewis Black
Natalie: Two guys have ascended 5 miles into the sky. They walked up a wall of ice and are preparing to knock on the door of heaven itself. There's really no end to what we can do. You know what the trick is?
Dan: What?
Natalie: Get in the game!
- "The Quality of Mercy at 29K", "Sports Night"