Title: First Stakeout Author: Suzanne Bredlau Turgeon Archive: As you wish. Spoilers: Anywhere in unscreened 8 and spinning out. Rating: PG whatever. (I hate ratings.) Category: Surreal noir romantic angst Summary: Scully and Doggett face their inner armegeddon. Feedback: to: TURGEON2@prodigy.net Disclaimer: These are, of course, all Chris Carter's wonderful characters, profiting only the exercise of my own overactive imagination. Author's note: Done for the pure enjoyment of writing and reading. Title: "First Stakeout" by Suzanne Bredlau Turgeon There was just that one indefineable moment, written in half light and dark shadow, in a seamy little room overviewing the wharf. They stood on opposite sides of the window looking down on the street scene on a rainwashed night. They waited. She, fragile iron Face in right profile light and darkness a glimpse of blue eye and red hair subtly veiled, lips arced like a huntress's bow red perfect a madonna in a Dutch master's painting He thought. He, weathered stone Face in left profile darkness and light steel eagle's vision and sharp edges revealed erosion of secret times in velvet granite, replete with nicks and gouges, polished in softening night She thought. Between them, revealing light from distant neon signs of past in Chinatown or scorched desert misted over with rain forest secrets in manila folders scars and death and dying and new life beginning A chasm to breach. They waited. Watching. Every available agent was pulled in to work during the high alert. It was all domestic port duty: shipping, airports, land borders. Coast Guard, Treasury, NSA, ATF, DEA, the rest of the alphabet soup brigades, and presumably CIA, too, though nobody was talking about those cowboys. The Bureau had its job to do and did it. And here they were, in a New England coastal city, twelve hours into surveilling dock activity and wondering -- trying not to think of it -- whether rumors held truth and truth might see their location vaporized in a selective act of nuclear terrorism before morning. Special Agent John Doggett adjusted his headset and monitored a brief blip of radio traffic. Status check. "Checkmate King Two reporting. All quiet," he said softly into the microphone and flipped the curve of wire and plastic away from his mouth. The night beyond the aged window pane was quiet. The sound of his respiration as he took in a long, slow, steadying breath seemed loud, amplified inside his head between the earphones. Her eyes moved again to him. To Special Agent Dana Scully, he said, "Think your three buddies are following all the fun and games?" "Wouldn't be surprised." Doggett's head edged slightly sideways along with one corner of his lips. They watched the street below and Scully trained her binoculars on the wharf stretching out beyond. Doggett said, "Skinner wouldn't have assigned you to a spot he thought was endangered." She stifled a snort. "Preferential treatment?" "RHIP." "I haven't uttered one word about feeling *endangered*." "You haven't had to." She stared hard at Doggett. In the semi-darkness, her partner's face remained stoic in return regard. "People get real queasy about nuclear annihiliation. Something in the psyche about getting blown into atomic bits. In the scare department it beats out being abducted by little grey aliens every time. Or just basically getting shot. There's a survivability factor built in to those things. Not with nuclear stuff. And you aren't worried about yourself." She looked away, eyes blinking in slow motion. She had that way about her. Sometimes he wanted to shake her. Sometimes.... "Well?" He realized he'd been lost in that last thought for a long time. Her eyes were back on him, impaling him with.... "And what if there has been no preferential assignment?" "Then we're here, doing our job, and all's fair in love and war," Doggett said. He felt still inside, very, very still. The entire room seemed locked in singularity, isolated from reality and illusion. There were just the two of them in a very still place in nowhere with, maybe, an atomic device at their feet set to go off at an unknowable moment in space/time. "Can we get past always calling each other Agent Doggett and Agent Scully?" he said, not sure how the words would come out. In the chiarascuro of the night and distant artificial lighting, he saw her head carefully bob, just once. He saw the slight parting of her lips, the tiny spark of star white off a revealed tooth. Jesus, she was a beautiful woman. Something about her reached so far down inside him. He heard his pulse against the earphones and realized he had been holding his breath. For how long? Breathing out, he carefully removed the headset, settling it around his neck like a torque. "Dana." Her face receded from the light, those stunning eyes too brilliant in parting. He had to pursue, to follow, all at once. In the darkness, against the wall, against its decaying plaster finish, he found her. "Dana," he whispered. His fingers touched her shadowed face, found the satin of her hair, the trace of tears working down her cheeks, and he could not help himself. He bent to kiss her, afraid time and life would be ripped away from them even in that next instant. And found her lips rising to meet his, yielding under them in a yearning passion he didn't want to understand but would accept for that little meaning that they might have for him in the obscuring darkness. They both had seen each other in one fleeting moment. Feelings buried, burdens shared, desires and needs to be fulfilled, souls caring, all melted into that one singular observation of each other across an anonymous window space. They pulled themselves against each other, lost in physical contact and a desperation compared to none that either could recall. A gentle reminder, the nascent swelling of her abdomen firmed against him. It no longer mattered. It was the holding of her, the holding of each other, that counted for this here and now. She was warm and real and wonderful in his arms with hers tightly wrapped around his body. He swept a hand over her hair, taking hold of the headset, finding her hand over his, holding it fast. The stiffening of her body warned him of a sea change. "John," she gasped. "Radio." He pulled one earphone into contact to hear the update: "Repeating: All agents, stand down. Situation secure. Suspects are now in custody." Eternity paused, but this event, like others, would never reach the headlines. Her forehead rested against his shoulder even as he pressed his cheek to her hair. "Thank God." Her whisper rode on a subtle shudder that he felt to his core. They stood together for a little while longer, enfolded in a sanctuary, feeling one heartbeat. Then he released her slowly as her own body eased from him, leaving time for him to brush fingers down her hair, briefly against her arm, and his hand at her back to guide her forward as he turned them in a poignant dance step back to the business at hand. Turning on the battery lamp, Doggett set the light on the crate. They began to gather up the equipment, checking in with the SAIC via their headsets, as the adrenaline power-down began to set in. Once he saw her wiping fingertips at her eyes but knew better than to comment. She wouldn't mention it either if she had seen his hand shaking a little as he buttoned down the flaps on the aluminum carrier. She wanted to go straight back to Washington. Hours later, he was letting her off at her apartment and she was disappearing through the door and they were both entirely alone again. Doggett rested his head back against the car seat to muster the energy to get back to driving. By dawn Only one thought dominated his mind: He would protect her. Always. And who would protect them from each other? Just one ever-present memory. -- Fin --