Coming Home.
Author: Carly
E-mail:
Rating: PG to be safe
Category: MSR/DRR, angsty!
Summary: John receives strange messages through his computer and is unsure of whether to trust his instincts or not. Tensions are high between he and Monica, and Scully is struggling to come to terms with the loss of William, cutting out both John and Monica from her life. They never needed each other more but pride is standing in the way.
Archive: Ask me first
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise is not mine, I'm only borrowing and there's nothing wrong with that
John looked at his watch and then at the clock behind him. How the hell had it got so late already? He'd been in the office since eight am and now it was ten o'clock at night? 'They do not pay me enough to work this long,' he thought to himself. He picked up some files and tried to tidy up a little, Monica was back tomorrow and he couldn't wait to not be alone in this office again. For now he had to make do with the happy knowledge that she was ok and she was ready for work.
Monica had been ill for over a month, she had had the flu and although not fatal it knocked her down severely and she was hospitalised for a week and kept under close observation. Scully had tried so hard to make sure that John didn't panic and over react, he cared a great deal for Monica it was obvious, but Scully had her own demons to deal with before having to make sure that John was ok.
It had been two months now since she had given William up for adoption. Her mother still wasn't returning her calls and her brother Bill was also trying his hardest to ignore her, Charles was the most support she could find in her family right now and even he was finding it difficult because their mom was trying to make him feel guilty for talking to his own sister. Scully understood how they all felt, but it was and remained her decision, none of them would ever realise the pain it caused her but she had always put William first.
John looked at his computer and was puzzled as to why there was a light flashing on the monitor; he'd just turned it off. As he reached down to push the power button the screen flashed onto his homepage and he stared blankly at it for a few seconds before shutting it down again. He grunted something to himself about the office being haunted as he put his jacket on and then shook his head at how ridiculous he was being. He turned off the lights and was about to close the office door when a light appeared and a beep was heard. The computer was on again.
He walked back into the office and stared back at the screen. Still just his homepage but now he was freaking himself out with regard to ghosts and the fact that if any office in the whole building was going to be haunted it'd be this one. He turned the light back on, because it helped him to see what he was doing, not because he was scared, and he sat down at his desk to turn it off again.
As he reached for the mouse and clicked on start to shut it down a window popped up with a message in it:
'Is that John Doggett?' John looked around the room and again shook his head at how stupid he was being.
"For crying out loud John, there's no one here, you have an AOL IM, stop freaking out," talking out loud to himself had become the norm since working alone, he just hoped he'd stop once Monica was back and that he wouldn't sound like he was crazy. He replied to the message with 'Yes, who is this?' and then he waited.
They say curiosity killed the cat and all, but he sat for half an hour waiting for a reply and was getting rather fed up of whoever this was. He'd written back again with 'I said who is this' and 'Can I help you?' but nothing was sent back to him. As he was about to give up and really leave to go home a reply appeared and he read it carefully: 'I need to talk to you, I need you to get TLG to scramble your message receiver so it's a secure line.' John sat back in his chair and thought about this for a second. Someone was playing games with him.
He wrote back with 'who is this?' and an instant reply came with 'I can't say until its safe' John was sceptical at the best of times but this guy was starting to really put a downer on his day. 'I don't know who you think you are but I'm not talking to anyone until I know you are', there was another long pause, fifteen minutes later a name came onto the screen for three seconds and then the screen went black. John stood up again feeling confused and pissed off that it was almost eleven o'clock and he was still in his office. He put his jacket back on and went to the door; he turned out the light and locked the door closed behind him.
"M. F. Luder? Who the hell's that?"