Title – Pitching and Heaving
Author - TheresNoTime@aol.com
Rating - G
Disclaimers: None of these characters belong to me, I 
am not making money, I am just an enthralled fan.
Summary - Time is after "Vienen." This is a story 
about the connection between Doggett and Scully, and 
how they first begin to realize it exists.


“And they had barely said hello and it was time to 
say goodbye.” –Ani Difranco


-----------------------------------------------------

Scully stood in the shower. She had been standing 
there for ten minutes, not moving, her head tilted 
back. She gratefully allowed the water beat on her 
head. She hadn’t had a shower for two days. She ought 
to be used to getting dirty on cases, she thought. 
All the dirt and filth she’d been covered in from the 
past years came to mind. The exploding manure 
building. She winced. After all this time, you’d 
think she’d be able to smile about that. Her body 
swayed a little back and forth as she enjoyed the 
sensation of the water soaking into her hair. She 
closed her eyes and imagined a rough sea, with no 
visible end to the storm in sight. 

After she’d dried off and put on her white terrycloth 
robe, she went into the kitchen for some tea. As she 
passed the answering machine, she saw there was a 
message. She pounded the nearly-broken button to play 
it as she walked by.

“Hey Scully, you there?” A pause. It was Mulder. 
Scully stopped reaching for the tea as she heard his 
voice. “Uh…well I suppose it’s not the greatest way 
to tell you, on the machine I mean, but, I’m out of 
the FBI now.” Scully walked towards the phone. “I’ve 
been fired. Um, this morning.” A long pause. “Are you 
there? … I’ll talk to you later.” Click. Scully sat 
down on her couch and stared. Then she began to shake 
with rage. She felt like slugging Kersh and then 
kicking him while he was down. 

She tried calling Mulder at home. No answer. He was 
probably at a bar. What is he going through right 
now? she wondered. He didn’t have a lot of options on 
who he could confide in anymore. Perhaps the alcohol 
was enough of a confidant. She remembered the night 
he’d come to her door, stinking of booze, and how odd 
he had seemed. She couldn’t remember what she had 
said to him but the look of realization in his face 
was enough to comfort her then. He hadn’t meant to 
affront her.

She put her hand to the glint of gold around her 
neck. She kept the cross pendant on most of the time, 
even when she showered. 

These past years, what had they accomplished 
together? We got a lot of people killed, she thought. 
She’d always thought that. She knew Mulder felt 
responsible for a lot of it. So much death. She’d 
particularly felt for the sheriff and his wife in 
Pennsylvania who had been brutally killed by the 
Peacocks. And then later the deputy. It wasn’t right. 
It had been possible to save them, just as it must 
have been possible to save all the people she’d seen 
die. Melissa. Emily. Deep throat, maybe. A hellish 
list of names that seemed without end.

So much death.

And now it had led to this life. The unborn child. I 
am a mother, she thought. Somehow I am. 

A timid knock at the door. Surely not Mulder?

Scully pulled herself off the couch shakily and 
looked through the peephole. It was Agent Doggett on 
the other side of the door, hands in pockets, eyes 
down. Scully opened the door and they looked at each 
other. 

“Oh, Agent Scully, I – I shoulda called first,” he 
said, indicating her informal dress. 

“Hello, Agent Doggett. Is something going on I need 
to know about?”

“Uh, well, I was wondering if you’d heard yet. I was 
just at work and Mulder was there.”

Scully nodded. “I heard.” 

Doggett seemed to muster himself. “Ok.” He looked at 
her. “Mulder said he took the fall for what happened 
on the oil rig because he wanted to protect the x-
files, and that he did it for me too.”

Scully cringed. “I thought as much,” she said. 

“I’m sorry this had to happen.” Doggett nodded as he 
said it. “Anyways, I was just writing up what 
happened at the oil rig and I was wonderin’ if you 
could clear some things up for me on your end of the 
investigation.” He stood watching her, like he 
expected a reprimand from her any second. Scully had 
to smile. She’d never seen him so flustered. The 
phone rang. “Oh – let me get that. Please come in,” 
she said over her shoulder as she headed for the 
phone. 

It was Mulder. He wanted to see her right away. She 
hung up and glanced at Doggett. He just nodded, 
understanding. 

“Can we talk about the case later?” she asked. 

“Fine.” 

“I’ll call you then.” He nodded and saw himself out 
quickly.


*********

Scully collapsed into her chair. A long night of 
discussing the future with Mulder had left her numb. 
She’d had little idea how to comfort him. He had been 
angry at times, but mostly had responded to her 
questions simply and quietly, sitting hunched over in 
a hard-backed kitchen chair with his hands clasped in 
front of him. She had managed to reassure him enough 
to send him back home. They’d discussed past cases in 
the process. After eight years it was inevitable. 
Every comment they made around each other seemed like 
an inside joke or a shadow of a tragic memory. 
Scully’s eyes clouded over with the past.

“Oh damn,” she said aloud. She’d forgotten to call 
Doggett. It was four a.m. so she would have to try it 
tomorrow. She thought about getting on the computer 
and sending an email to him but felt too tired to 
move any farther but to the bedroom to sleep. She 
locked her front door and did just that, sliding 
under her sheet, happy to simply be home instead of 
doing another autopsy or trying to explain a strange 
search warrant to an impatient judge. A flick of the 
wrist and the light went out. Scully drifted into a 
welcome, dreamless sleep.

*********


In another bed, John Doggett was having difficulty 
keeping his eyes shut, much less sleeping. There was 
more bothering him than he would admit to himself. 
The impetus of his life seemed dissolved. He had no 
family to go home to. That was not something he would 
grow used to. He was stuck in the X Files assignment. 
Mulder was found, and even resurrected, so there was 
nothing left to do but wait for the next fax or phone 
call for another case he’d have no idea how to 
investigate. His techniques were useless in this 
assignment, besides being a hired gun who could run 
faster than a lot of the bad guys could.

And he couldn’t even finish the damn reports without 
asking Scully for help. He knew Skinner had been 
involved with Scully’s end of the investigation, but 
he wasn’t sure the AD would want to work with him 
officially on the case. 

Laying in bed, surrounded by silence, his mind 
wondering to places he didn’t want to visit. He 
rolled his eyes at himself when he remembered the 
first impression he’d given to Scully of him. When 
she had thrown the water in his face, it had taken 
him a second to figure out if he had imagined it. 
Doggett just couldn’t believe she had embarrassed him 
in front of the majority of the task force to find 
her partner he had been leading at the time. 

He flipped on the television and randomly pushed in a 
channel. Lifetime. No thanks. He threw the dice 
again. A home shopping channel. They were selling 
jewelry. He watched the channel blankly until the 
model on tv began showing him religious pendants for 
sale.

Angrily, Doggett turned off the tv and with a grunt 
of disgust towards himself, pulled the blanket over 
his body and turned off the light. He relaxed every 
muscle and forced himself not to think anymore that 
night about anything. It was late and he needed to 
try to sleep, even just rest. Who knew what part of 
the country he might be on a plane to the next day?

*********


Doggett awoke slowly and peacefully. There was a 
feeling all through his body of content, a sort of 
buzzing in his head like he was full of lotus. The 
bed was soft and the sheets were smooth. The room was 
flooded with pale yellow light, emanating from the 
porch windows. He looked and there was his wife, 
watching him wake up. They smiled at each other. 
“Caught you,” he said as he reached to tuck a strand 
of her auburn hair behind her ear.

Suddenly there was a terrific scream coming from the 
balcony. Doggett leapt up and slid the porch doors 
open, only to be blinded by the intense light –

He woke up in reality, the dream simply a strewn 
thread of the mangled blanket of sleep he’d managed. 
He looked at the clock. He was up before the alarm 
had even gone off. 

He sat up in the bed, twisting the green sheets 
around his bare legs. The cool room was barely 
illuminated by the slow rising sun. When was Scully 
going to call him about the report? Did she and 
Mulder finally run away together? Somehow, Doggett 
didn’t see Scully quitting the FBI for that reason. 

He got dressed quickly, snapping everything into 
place, dusting off the old USMC scramble. As he 
finished with his tie, he sat in the chair in front 
of his tv and waited for when he could go to work. 
Head down, he stared, and time slowed down. There 
were no sounds. In his mind he pictured Scully, the 
red hair that bounced when she ran, the creases in 
her face that were born when Mulder was thought dead. 
And he saw something he’d only noticed recently. She 
also wore a gold cross around her neck. He’d never 
seen her without it. Doggett wondered if he could ask 
her about it. Maybe he’d stay dry this time.

*********


Scully grimly walked out of the heavy doors of the 
church. She’d been overwhelmed while she had prayed 
alone in the pew. The smell of the church, with its 
candles and incense, followed her out into the 
sunlight. Her prayers were so full of fear now, for 
her child, for her future. The death she thought 
about so often weighed on her mind and today in the 
church she’d been unable to comprehend it all. There 
was so much that could go wrong, even after the child 
was born. 

Mulder had agreed to genetic fatherhood, not 
necessarily to the responsibility of caring for the 
child. She knew he would love her son or daughter, 
but could he take care of him or her? It seemed her 
life was in danger all the time. Who would take care 
of the child if something did happen to her?

She decided to snap out of it and think about work 
before her inflated emotions took over and she ended 
up crying in the street. She turned her attentions 
away from her life and death worries and back to work 
as if she were beginning a new paragraph on a page. 
Doggett was probably in the office by now, she 
thought, and she headed for the basement where he 
surely must be wondering about where she was.

*********

Doggett crossed his arms and looked around the 
office. He remembered the poster with the UFO on it. 
“I want to believe,” he muttered. The fax machine 
began beeping. Doggett winced. He hated that sound. 
It meant a quick plane ride out to places like 
Muncie, Indiana or Dexter, Oklahoma to investigate 
something he’d be unable to understand. 

Clump, clump, clump as someone walked down the 
hallway outside the office. In walked Agent Scully. 
With delicate precision she entered the office, 
avoiding a few boxes that had been strewn about while 
Mulder moved some of his things out. Doggett felt 
glad to see her. Maybe he could get this report done 
now. 

“Agent Doggett.” 

“Hello, Agent Scully. How’s Age—Fox doing?”

“I wouldn’t call him Fox when he’s around, Agent 
Doggett. But he’s alright.”

“Good. Just Mulder then.” He had no idea what to say 
now. He was intensely curious about the necklace she 
wore, even now when it was covered with the white 
button-up shirt she had on. 

Scully stood in the windowless office looking for a 
light to illuminate the clutter. Doggett hadn’t 
bothered to switch on anything except for a desk 
lamp. He was dressed in a crisp suit, a refreshing 
contrast to the bedlam of the office. He tie kept to 
his chest perfectly. His cuffs were tidy. Scully 
watched his eyes land on the fax machine as it quit 
beeping. A moment and he was pulling the papers out, 
reading with a fixed gaze and narrowed jaw. Scully 
thought he was a strange fit for this office. Mulder 
had been similar, but yet so different. She tried to 
imagine the office without Mulder in it. She imagined 
never again riding the elevator down here and 
stepping in to find him with his feet on the desk and 
a wry expression on his face, like he wanted to tell 
a joke but there was no one around to say it to. 

Doggett had just walked behind her and locked the 
office door.

“What are you doing?” she asked, watching him stride 
back to the desk. He picked up the fax. 

“You know anythin’ about this?” he growled. Doggett 
reminded Scully of how she’d been when she’d gotten 
word about Mulder being fired. He looked ready to 
kill someone with his bare hands. She took the fax. 

They were court papers used to declare a person 
legally dead. Scully raised an eyebrow, and said, “Of 
course I don’t know anything about these.” Doggett 
was leaning on the edge of the desk, hands clasped on 
the sides, head bowed. “What is this about?” The fax 
had come from the NYPD, Scully saw. 

“Maybe we should work on that report some other 
time,” he said, rising. Scully looked him in the eye 
and saw the list of names again. This fax was about 
his son. She knew it. “No – John – you said, when I 
was in the hospital you asked me what made me begin 
to believe. I asked you why you wanted to know.” 

“Mmm.” He looked at her blankly. 

“You said some other time. Now is that time.” 

“You shouldn’t have to worry about things like this, 
Scully. The x-files are just files. You have a baby 
that needs to be born and you need to take care of 
yourself.” 

“It’s not about the files. It’s about you. You need 
to talk to someone –” She stopped because he wasn’t 
listening. She saw it in him, the tragedy she’d come 
to expect and the near breaking point she’d stood 
near so many times. 

“Can I help?” She wanted to help him. She’d had 
enough of the pain of the last eight years. She saw 
for the first time how tired he looked. How tired he 
was. She’d never before put herself in his shoes and 
Scully couldn’t fathom the kind of adjustment he’d 
had to make to work in this assignment. At least, she 
couldn’t fathom doing it all over again. 

Doggett regained control and said calmly, “Can I ask 
you a question?”

*********


Doggett thought that it didn’t seem too bad. She had 
offered to help. And even now after someone had sent 
this dirty little reminder to him, he still wanted to 
know. It was important to him for some reason. 

“Why do you wear that cross all the time?” 

It had surprised her, he saw. She probably didn’t 
think he had noticed. 

“This?” she pulled it out from under her shirt. “Oh, 
no!” she gasped, as her neck didn’t stop her tugging. 
The necklace slid into her hand with a glint in the 
low light. The chain had broken. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair and 
felt sheepish about his outburst, about this whole 
conversation he was having with Scully. He wanted to 
get out of the office and go for a jog to let out his 
frustration. Then he thought of something and before 
he could think twice he’d said it. 

“I asked you about it because my wife had one like 
it.”

“She did?” Doggett couldn’t figure her reaction. 
“Where is it now?”

“It’s in a box in my attic.” He looked away from her 
and towards the gloom of far wall. He felt Scully 
fade away, felt the office disappear. He was standing 
in the living room of the house he’d lived in with 
his family, his wife and his son. But the son was 
gone. No one, not even Doggett, knew where he was. It 
had been too long and his wife wasn’t interested in 
their life together now. She was leaving to stay with 
her parents. Doggett could hear her packing upstairs, 
not bothering to hide her sobs. He had been trying to 
find his son and trying to comfort his wife, but he 
had failed at both. 

Then the phone rang. It was Monica Reyes. An hour 
later he was standing over the body and his wife had 
left. Her wedding ring, some old letters he’d written 
her, other gifts he’d given her – and a gold cross 
necklace – were waiting on the kitchen table when 
he’d returned home. 

Instead of breaking apart as he wanted to, he 
collected it all up and, after adding some things, 
placed it all in a box. 

The situation hadn’t changed much since that day, 
except the mementos had been hidden in the attic of a 
new house, a blank house that mirrored back no 
memories for him at every turn. 

That’s where Scully and Doggett stood now, on the 
porch. They’d met each other here. They’d both wanted 
to be here; Doggett for a reason he didn’t know and 
Scully because of one she knew too well.

As if on a bust, they moved into the house, unable to 
look at each other and face voicing feelings they had 
no words for. Together they moved to the trapdoor 
that led to the attic. Doggett worried that Scully 
would struggle with the stairs in her late pregnancy, 
but she managed them with some effort and help from 
Doggett. Then they were standing in the nearly empty 
space together. Doggett pulled a chain and a bulb 
forced light down on them. 

“It’s in here.” Bending halfway over, he removed the 
box from behind a large painting. He cracked it open 
and sorted through the items until he found the 
antique gold chain with a pretty gold cross attached 
to it. Doggett handed it to her and watched her 
reaction.

“It really is beautiful,” she remarked, handling it 
carefully. It was larger than her cross and had a 
single ruby set into its heart. Unable to stop 
himself, Doggett removed a small red book from the 
wooden box. In his hands he held it, like a sacred 
text, as if his holding it would cause it to burst 
into flame. “This was my son’s – Luke’s – diary.” He 
held it out to her. There was a lock on it. 

“The key is in here. I haven’t read it yet,” he told 
her. “You understand.” Scully nodded. 

“You know, you and I are a lot alike,” Scully said to 
him. “I couldn’t believe in what I saw, but once I 
began to, things were clearer.”

“Your necklace is your faith.” He said it like he was 
ordering coffee. Scully handed him back the ruby 
cross. Carefully, he took it, and removed the 
pendant. “I think you should use this chain to 
replace the broken one. Don’t you think?” His eyes 
were hopeful. 

“I think that would be wonderful.” Maybe this could 
be a new beginning, a time of life instead of death. 
A simple change like this could add up to so much. 
She handed him her cross, putting the old chain in 
her pocket. He slid the pendant on the chain and 
Scully turned around. Lifting the necklace above her 
head, he brought it towards her and brushed his hands 
through her hair. He pushed the strands away gently, 
dancing his fingers around the back of her neck, and 
clasped the necklace in place. 

“There,” he breathed. “Good thing for this old 
chain.”

“Yes,” she said. “A good thing.” She turned to him 
and was glad to see the satisfaction in Doggett’s 
eyes.

“Perfect,” he said. She’d never shared such a 
peaceful feeling with anyone before, or such a sense 
of safety. His blue eyes reflected a calm sea back at 
her.

*****************************************************

As she carefully negotiated the steps of Doggett’s 
porch, Scully’s cell phone rang. 

It was Skinner. “Scully, what’s going on? Where are 
you and where is Agent Doggett?”

“Everything’s fine, sir. I’m on my way back. Agent 
Doggett’s with me.”

“All right, just get back here. Director Kersh is 
getting annoyed that he still has no report from 
Agent Doggett on his last case.”

“Yes, sir.” Scully hung up. She made a mental note to 
ask Doggett her own question. She wanted to know if 
he had ever been a godfather before, and if not, if 
he was willing to give it a try.