Title: Night Terrors 
Author: Kimberly (starbuck20032000@yahoo.com) 
Spoilers: None really. 
Rating: PG-13 – Just to be on the safe side. One bad word and disturbing 
images. 
Category: Doggett Angst 
Keywords: D/S UST 
Summary: An anniversary causes painful memories. 
Archive: Addicted 2 Doggett. Gossamer. If anyone else would like it, please 
just email me. I’d love to let you have it. :-D 
Disclaimer: I’m putting one just to put it. Doggett and Scully aren’t mine. If 
they were, it’s obvious how the show would have turned out.
 Dedication: Trust, this one's for you. You listen to me rant and rave and, heck, 
you're just an all around good ol' pal. Thanks a million and one! 
Feedback: Please? *begs* 


 A single, brilliant light flashed in the sky. It was followed by another equally 
brilliant flash. And then another. Soon, the area was consumed in heat – the 
most intense heat he could remember. 

There was a single minute of dead silence and then panic. Cries for help from 
the wounded and the scared reverberated in his eardrums. He was surrounded by 
pain and suffering. ‘Oh God,’ he silently shouted, ‘what have they done to us? 
Who could do such a thing?’ 

And then there was the chaos that always followed excruciating cries. He 
watched medical personnel running from the Base hospital to the Barracks 
trying desperately to save who they could. 

“Sir, you’ll be next. We promise!” At least it was a consistent promise. But he 
laid there, shrapnel lodged in his lower back, and just watched. He watched his 
buddies, with sheets covering their faces, being marched away from their 
desecrated former home. They would return to the States with full honors and a 
flag. But their families would never again see them. 

Fear began to make his heart pound. His blood pressure began a steady rise and 
he thrashed on the board that was supposed to keep him stable. “Don’t let me 
die,” he screamed, “Let me go home!” His cries mimicked those he had heard 
earlier. A nurse rushed to his side and began to fill a needle with some fluid he 
knew would force him to sleep. “NO! I have to see everything! I have to see it! 
NO!”

****

His arm swung out violently, sending his alarm clock crashing to the ground, 
and thankfully waking him. 

Three in less than a week. The same dream each time. He was back at the 
Marine Barracks when all hell had broken loose and his level of fear had been at 
its highest. 

He pushed back the heavy blankets and got out of bed – first one leg, then the 
other. Small steps, he told himself, small steps. 

He made it to down the stairs and into the kitchen. There were sleeping pills in 
the cabinet, but he didn’t want those. Instead, he reached for the phone. 

After a few rings a sleepy voice came over the line. “He…hello?” 

He hesitated before responding. It had been her voice he had wanted to hear yet, 
now that she was talking, he did not want to let go. “Agent Scully, I’m sorry to 
wake you.” 

”No…that’s okay.” He could hear her moving. Probably trying to find a clock to 
check the time. “What’s wrong, Agent Doggett?” 

“I…I couldn’t sleep. This case we’re working on-“ 

”The crop circles in West Virginia?” By the sound of her voice, Doggett knew 
Scully didn’t believe his story. “They’re fake. You shouldn’t let yourself worry 
about them. We can wrap it up tomorrow.” 

”Oh. Okay.” He ran his hand through his short hair. 

“What else is bothering you? I know you didn’t call to talk about crop circles.” 

Doggett chuckled lightly. “Is it that obvious? Um…I’ve been having some bad 
dreams. Flashbacks, I guess. Just hard to be alone after remembering all of that.” 

He heard a creak and a shuffle. “Agent Doggett, I’m coming over. You just stay 
where you-“ 

”I’m not suicidal, Agent Scully.” 

”I didn’t say you were, but you don’t need to be alone. Give me twenty 
minutes.” 

He sat at his kitchen table and waited. Scully was coming over. He had never 
considered things might turn out this way and yet maybe it was all for the best. 
She was the only one he had ever felt he could come close to sharing anything 
with. Maybe she could help him understand why this was happening.

 **** 

Doggett was at the door before Scully knocked. The surprise was evident on her 
face as she assessed the situation before her. 

“I heard you pull up,” he explained. 

Scully half smiled. Her concern was elsewhere at the moment. “Agent Doggett, 
you’re sweating,” she placed her hand along his forehead, “and…I think you’re 
running a fever. How long has this been going on?” 

“About a week.” Doggett didn’t struggle when she led him to the couch. “I’m 
sure it’s just a cold.” 

“Uh huh.” Scully wasn’t so sure. He had called her for a specific reason. It was 
out of character which told her something had to be bothering him. “So, you said 
you couldn’t sleep. Do you want to talk about it?” She reached for Doggett’s 
wrist to take his pulse. 

”Not really,” came his immediate reply. 

Then, something happened. Doggett reached out and took her hand. Suddenly, 
his mind flashed to the nurse who had tried to calm him during the horror of the 
Marine Barracks Bombing so many years ago. 

Scully’s eyes moved from their interlocked hands to Doggett’s now-contorted 
face. She squeezed his hand lightly and prompted him forward. “Tell me, John. 
Tell me what you see.” He was back in Lebanon – back in Hell. “It’s so hot. 
Feels like a million bombs exploded right on top of me.” He paused for a 
second, then released a deep breath that seemed to shake his entire body. “Oh 
God, they just took Andy out. He’s dead. Those bastards blew off his foot. The 
kid was only nineteen.” 

Scully could see tears beginning to form at the corners of his closed eyes. She 
could only imagine the true horror that had caused these memories. Tears welled 
in her own eyes as she listened to Doggett continue. 

“He was my recruit. I promised his parents I would take care of him. But not 
now, oh God, not now.” He increased the pressure on Scully’s hand. “No drugs. 
I have to see all of this. I don’t care about the pain.” He winced a little and 
shifted to alleviate pressure building up in his back. Faux pain, but pain 
nonetheless. 

“Okay, John, no drugs.” Scully decided to go along with his request and become 
part of his remembered reality. “But what about the pain?” 

”It doesn’t matter. How can it matter when so many others have died? They 
were all my friends. Just last night…” 

She could tell he was agonizing over his final good memory. But she had to 
make him talk out his memory. If he could just say it in the present, maybe he 
could come to terms with it as only a memory – part of his past that he had lived 
through and would not have to experience again. “John, tell me where you are. 
Don’t focus on the pain, focus on your surroundings.” Scully saw him nod a 
little in response to her command. 

“I’m in a make-shift hospital. Everyone who isn’t injured is running around 
shouting orders. The guys around me are covered with debris and blood but 
we’re all thinkin’ the same thing – why did we survive when someone else 
didn’t?” Doggett clenched his free hand into a fist and continued to hold onto 
Scully as if she were his lifeline. 

“The stench is awful.” He made a choking noise deep within his throat. “I can 
taste it. Burned flesh, blood, anesthetic – even the smell of my singed arm is 
more than I can stand. There’s a guy a couple of stretchers down, Joe Morrison, 
the blast was so loud it took out his hearing. He keeps screaming. Why won’t 
they give him something to make him stop?” 

Doggett took a second deep breath that again shook his body. Beads of 
perspiration crawled across his forehead. Scully took the moment of silence as 
an opportunity to step into the kitchen and bring back a cool rag to run over him.

She gently pulled the rag over his hot skin. She was certain he had a fever, but 
from what, she couldn’t say. His chest was heaving as he tried to relax and it 
was then she realized he was in worse shape then when she had arrived. “Agent 
Doggett, I think you need to get to a doctor. Tonight. Which means going to a 
hospital.” 

”No…no…” Doggett shook his head slightly. He had come back from the past 
now. “I’ll be okay. Just a bad time.” 

”Why? You haven’t explained that.” Scully still wasn’t convinced that he was 
out of the woods. 

”The anniversary. It was four days ago. Happens every year.” 

Scully glanced down at the moment Doggett opened his piercing blue eyes. 
“Don’t try to diagnose me, doc. It’s PTSD, post – traumatic stress disorder. I’ve 
had it since that day, so have all the other guys in my unit. Got mine down to a 
single week of sweating and nightmares. Pretty good, huh?” He reached for her 
hand, which she voluntarily gave. “It’s hard to talk about. I’m glad you came.” 

A smile crossed her face and she could feel her cheeks getting hot. “Well, Agent 
Doggett, it’s the least I could do for a partner. You had me worried and you 
know I care about what you’re going through.” 

“Then…stay, Dana, please.” His heart beat heavily as he said the words he’d 
wanted to say for so long. “You’ve done more than you can possibly know.” 

Her mouth was hanging open ever so slightly and the heat that had been coming 
was now causing her to blush. “Do you promise to be a good patient?” 

“That takes the fun out of everything.” Doggett sat up to make room for her on 
the couch. 

Scully leaned against the armrest. Doggett rested his head in her lap and, again, 
closed his eyes as she held his hand. “How long did you serve” she asked in a 
very low whisper. 

“Six years. I was wounded in the bombing and allowed to retire with 
commendations.” 

In the same low whisper, Scully asked, “Where?” 

Doggett took her hand, the one he was holding, and drew it to the spot on his 
back. He traced her fingers over the snake-like scar. 

“Did it hurt?” 

”Not as much as the fear of never coming home.” Memories flashed through his 
mind, but not as intensely as they would have in the past. “I would have missed 
so much.” 

Both of their thoughts were at the same place at the same time – they never 
would have met. “Well, you did come home,” Scully said with some finality in 
her voice – as much as she could muster without including too much of the new 
emotion that was building. “Now relax and try to get some rest. I’m going to be 
right here when you do go to sleep and I’m going to be right here when you 
wake up.” 

With his eyes still closed, Doggett smiled and very softly replied, “I’m countin’ 
on it.”