Scully didn't like spending nights alone in her apartment anymore. But Mulder had gone off for the night with Skinner on a lead that might help them find Gibson. She kept reminding them that they still had no evidence that would hold up with the law to bring him in for the crimes he had committed, but that didn't matter to Mulder. Gibson had operated so far outside of the law that Mulder was prepared to break as many as it took to avenge his crimes, and there wasn't a soul that would dare stand in his way. So as she lay in bed staring at the clock, wishing it to run faster through time, she wasn't prepared for the knock she received on her front door.
William was sleeping beside her having wanted to be near his mom and she had been delighted to have her son so close to her. But who knocked on the door at 3am and expected to be let in? Gibson. That was all she could think, that he'd seen Mulder leave her for the evening, he was here to take William, or even to... no, she mustn't think like that. She got out of bed and left William sleeping, she softly closed the bedroom door behind her and took a strong grip around her gun.
She had been in these dangerous situations a thousand times; it just felt so much harder with her son sleeping in the next room. She made her way to the door and rather than asking who it was, or looking through the peephole, she decided to go for the element of surprise. She counted to three in her head and with one forceful pull the door was ripped open and she stood holding her gun to the head of her visitor.
"Agent Doggett?" She slowly lowered her weapon and didn't know what to say or to do.
"I know it's late, I'm sorry, I should go..." He'd quite obviously been drinking and he looked a mess.
"No, it's ok, come on, come in." He stumbled into the apartment and Scully had to guide him to the sofa as he leaned on her for some support.
"I didn't know where else to go, I'm sorry..."
"You came to the right place."
"I was just, I was just drivin' around, you know, and I couldn't, I couldn't go home, and I couldn't go back and watch her lying there, so, so helpless..."
"You shouldn't have been driving at all..."
"Why won't she wake up Dana? Why is she doin' this to us?" As he burst into tears and leaned forward to Scully, she put her arms around him and wished that there were something more she could do. As a doctor she could block out personal feelings when it was absolutely necessary, but as Monica's friend, and someone who had a deep feeling of gratitude and respect for John, it was difficult to not want to just cry with him.
"John, let me make you some coffee..."
"I have, I have a drink..." He lifted a brown paper bag from the inside of his jacket and unscrewed the lid from the top of the bottle as it crept out of the bag. He took a sip but then had in taken from him, he barely even noticed.
"You don't want to drink anymore of that, believe me." She went into the kitchen and took two cups from the cupboard; so long as she was up she may as well join him for coffee. Besides, it wasn't as if she was about to leave him alone for the night.
"Dana, you've lost so many people in your life, how are you still here?" Scully turned to look at Doggett; he had followed her into the kitchen and proceeded to collapse into a chair at her dining table.
"I don't know that I understand your question." She was concerned about him, but she was in no mood for this to turn to her own feelings, she did just fine by bottling them up.
"You lost your dad, your sister, your daughter, you lost Mulder twice, how is it you still seem so together and in control?" Scully leaned against the worktop and folded her arms. The way she always did to show she was going to precede with personal caution, she didn't like making anything about herself when she could avoid it, and she had no intention of making exceptions tonight.
"I guess I just always had faith."
"In what?"
"In the assurance that things would get better, that for all the suffering I was enduring, I
would get to the other side and I would have paid my dues."
"You mean like God?" Again she paused before answering. For so many years now she had found the struggle to separate her science from her faith increasingly difficult, and then to include the unexplained that she had been thrust into, where did the line between each become less of a blur?
"Over the years I have taken comfort from my faith in God, and in my family, and in Mulder. I guess somehow you just find a way to move through it, you know that it can't get worse, it has to get better."
"But how many times have you told yourself it has to get better and it hasn't?" Another pause. Why did drunken Doggett make so much sense when posing these questions? Instead of dismissing him in his drunken state she was pondering his questions carefully.
"I was taught to be strong. I went through Med. School and was taught to block out the human instinct to cry at death and feel pity. I went through the FBI academy and was taught to leave my emotions at home, and to face life through my job. I have conducted autopsy after autopsy, I have spoken to hundreds of people who have been victims or relatives of victims in the cases we investigate, and I have suffered personal losses that cannot be forgotten. But somehow I fought it all. There was always something to pull me back."
"You mean someone." Scully managed to somehow smile, but it was an involuntary reaction when refreshing the memory that Mulder loved her.
"Yes. If I didn't have Mulder, I would not be standing here right now."
"That must feel nice."
Scully turned to make the coffee and when she turned back Doggett had moved back into the living room. She put the coffee down in front of him and noticed that he had picked up a photograph from her windowsill.
"This is your family right?"
"Yeah. That was taken at the last Christmas my brothers and sister and I spent with our parents. It was a long time ago."
"I have a photo at home just like it, but I know what's really happening whenever I look at it, my sister clearing the plates from the table alone so that she can sneak the leftovers into a bag to take home to her half assed husband who wouldn't come for Christmas dinner with our family, my brother and my mom arguing over the TV remote and my dad sitting in his chair drinking so that he can block out the noise of the house, while I sit and watch them all, and they have no idea, how lucky we are." He was crying again and Scully sat beside him so she could hold him. She knew well enough to understand that sometimes a hug was all you needed.
Doggett was somewhat sobering up and he didn't like it. The more he spoke the more he felt less drunk. So he sipped his coffee slowly as he tried to stop crying. He was a mess, and he just didn't care.
"Dana, do you believe in prayer?"
"I believe that prayer can be a powerful thing, and that it can help people through troubled times."
"But do you think it works? Do you think there's someone up there counting how many times we pray for something, and if we pray enough times we get given it?"
"I don't know that it works like that, but I believe that we are rewarded for our recognition of the parts of our lives that are out of our control."
"Do you pray when you want something?"
"Sometimes. Not so much now. It feels wrong since I slipped away from my church."
"Can I ask you to do something? Can I ask you to pray with me? For Monica?" Scully sat up and Doggett watched her carefully. If she said yes then he would actually freely believe that prayer would accomplish something, if she said no, then it didn't matter what any of them did. Monica was gone.
Scully looked at photograph in Doggett's hand, and then up into his tear stained eyes. She took his hand into her own and smiled softly as she began to cry. And they stayed this way until they fell asleep some time later, after both praying that Monica would be ok. Scully hoped that Doggett was right, if they prayed enough times someone somewhere must be keeping count.