Title: neXt Dimensions Author: phileandforget Date: December 14, 2001 Rating: R (language, violent imagery) Category: S, A, V Keywords: DRR, post-episode Spoilers: 4D / TNG generally Archive: Yes, please! Summary: The various dimensions of Doggett and Reyes are revealed through their unique experiences in the episode “4D.” Disclaimer: No offense, but I don’t even *want* Doggett and Reyes if I can’t have Mulder and Scully. I’m just borrowing them to clean out my head – I’ll give them back soon, CC & 1013. Author's Notes: My attempt to fill in as many of the holes in 4D as possible. You may already know the answers, but ponder these questions while you read, if you want to hear my spin on them… ;) 1. Why does Reyes remember, if, unlike the Doggetts, she never changed dimensions? (And presumably, none of the *other* characters remember...) 2. How did Reyes know that pulling the plug on Alt!Doggett would reverse everything? (And why was he willing to risk it – his injuries, or was it something else?) 3. What happens to Doggett in the other dimension? 4. How do we know this doesn’t just create a tragic time loop? 5. What happens to Lukesh and his mother if they don’t actually die (that is, they die, but everything is reversed – time goes backwards – so, like Alt!Reyes, they don’t *actually* die) 6. How do we know that Alt!Reyes and Alt!Doggett weren’t actually *our* Reyes and Doggett? 7. Can I please have an USTy DSR post-episode story? Pretty please? My answer to that last one is, “Read it and find out.” (But be prepared for that eventuality, although I didn’t mean to write anything particularly gratuitous.) While you’re reading though, please keep in mind that I’ve never written a Doggett-centric fic before, let alone one from his perspective. I’ve tried to reflect his distinctive accent without sacrificing readability – feel free to tell me whether I succeeded in completely ruining his character at the same time. In fact, feel free to tell me any of your thoughts about this story, I’d really like to hear them. Thanks for reading! - Rachael (webmaster@withinrach.com) neXt Dimensions by phileandforget “Everything happens for a reason.” Dana Scully -x- [ John Doggett, 1 ] It was the damndest thing. One minute she’s touching my face like she wants to kiss it and the next, I’m standing in a dirty old alley with a half dozen cop cars at my back. And about two more minutes after that I’m finding out that she’s lying dead with her throat split open and her gun missing. I also lost her killer, who I’d been apparently chasing when I found myself standing in that alleyway. The medics put it down to shock – they didn’t know the half of it. -x- The lady cop who broke the news was real good about it, but I think I scared her when I started yelling. Not *yelling*, maybe raising my voice a little. She didn’t realise that Monica’s death wasn’t the only thing that was news to me – I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know we were on a stakeout, I sure didn’t know my partner was down… I didn’t know a damned thing. In retrospect, that was probably a good thing for Follmer, whom I later found out had given her the go-ahead, right after I warned her off. If I’d’ve known that, he’d be looking a darn sight less pretty right now. But I digress. When they established that I’d lost the perp, they got me checked out down the hospital. Like I said, they thought it was shock. It probably was. I started yelling about my partner, demanding to know where they took her and nobody would tell me. Not Follmer, not Skinner, not even Dana. Granted, I don’t think I was making a whole lotta sense, but when I didn’t shut up, the pretty nurse stuck a needle in my ass and I was down for the count. I woke up about a half hour later and started shouting again, whereupon I was kindly escorted out, still half-expecting to see her in the ICU. They took me down to the morgue. I can’t say nothing but that it was the worst feeling of my life, short of Luke and only then not by much. Losing a child is the worst kind of hell, but losing your partner ain't much better, ‘specially when it’s your own damn fault for letting her go. Follmer, he was taking it bad, but not half as bad as when he broke down and told me how it went. He was crying like a child when he told me it was all his fault. Under the circumstances, though, it sounds like more my fault than his – I told her not to follow, and she did it anyway. What sorta partnership was that? A past tense one. Goddamnit. By the time I got down there, to the morgue, it was like everything was moving in slow-motion – Scully looked up at me in her scrubs and when our eyes met, I could see what she was thinking. I swear to God, I knew her thoughts. Or she knew mine. She walked up to me, then, all silent and sombre, and she took my hand in hers. I couldn’t move, I felt paralysed. Then slowly, she moved past me, pushing the other two guys out with her. Giving us some privacy. What can I say? It was surreal. It was worse than surreal, it was almost perverse. Monica lay there on the silver metal table, a sheet up over her face. There was no blood anywhere – Dana had cleaned her up real nice. Like it was all a bad dream, I reached out for the sheet and pulled it back, down to her shoulders. At first I couldn’t look at her, but I had to, just to know it was really her. So I started with the sheet – green and flimsy as it draped over her stomach and rose over her breasts, giving out to the white skin of her shoulders, peeking out beneath the fabric. She was so pale – pale like death, and no fucking coincidence, that. Around her shoulders, her hair, longer than I remembered, fell out like some black river. It looked like a piece of the sky, shining under the fluorescent lights. It looked healthy, out of place, falling across her pallid chest and neck. Her neck. I couldn’t look at it, I looked up and away, pretending it wasn’t there so I could just look at her face and remember how damn beautiful she was. And in death, she was still beautiful – but almost unrecognizable. She could have been sleeping, except for I’ve seen her sleeping before and she looked nothing like that. Lying there, all empty and serene, she mighta been Snow fucking White for all I cared. She wasn’t my partner. She was *not* my partner! But then I looked at the gash across her neck, accidentally. I didn’t mean to, I certainly didn’t want to. But I did, and the shock nearly floored me. My hand, resting on her arm, fell away, and I jumped back like I was looking at my first corpse. I wanted to puke. Instead, I made myself look at it, the wound all raw and dark like something… Something I seen done in stage makeup. Strange, but up close it looked even less real. More gruesome, but less real. And it was almost comforting, y’know? Looking at it so closely, I didn’t think that I’d seen it a hundred times before, on a hundred different necks that got their autopsies and went into the ground. I didn’t think of that at all. I just thought of make up. Stage makeup. I couldn’t believe it was real, it was just a damn good fake – and thinking that, I could almost think I saw her breathing. Waiting there for her gullible partner, gonna open her eyes and scare the hell outta me. But she never did. Suddenly, I cared a whole damn lot. I won’t go into what happened next. -x- She told me once, I could trust her. Right after Luke died, she told me I could talk to her and I took her up on it. But that night, needing her so bad and knowing she wasn’t really dead, knowing that somewhere, she was just fine – she was alive and even happy – made me feel all the more alone. And I *knew* she wasn’t dead, sure as I knew my own name. None of this was really happening – it was, if not a bad dream, something else entirely. I swear to God, I’d been *right there* in her apartment, walking into her kitchen and coming out in an alleyway across town. So how the hell did it come to this? Alice it ain’t – but it was something, all right. No Mad Hatters, no magic mushrooms, but there was a helluvalot I couldn’t explain. I pride myself on being a facts man. “You can’t fuck with the facts,” we got that at the Academy, but I knew it long before then. So what do you do when the only facts you know for sure suddenly fall away like they were never there, and you find yourself lost in your own damn apartment? I’m not really where I think I am. Am I? And Monica, she ain’t dead – I saw her body, yeah, I knew it was her on the slab. But at the same time, I knew it wasn’t. Not my partner, who’s right this minute moving into her new apartment and eating my Polish sausage. Wondering where I’d gone when she went to get plates and not knowing how I went to hell without her. -x- [ Monica Reyes ] I wasn’t even wondering where he’d gone when I got the call. He was in my apartment, I’d been gone for all of three seconds. And to tell the truth, my head was spinning a little, and I was embarrassed. I was in the middle of telling myself, “Monica, you’re a fool to fall for him again,” when the phone rang. It was Skinner and when he told me what had happened, my first thought was that it was obviously somebody else, and then, that if it *was* John, I would have heard a shot – but then, it didn’t happen in my apartment. It didn’t happen, period. Right? I consider myself quite an emotionally intuitive person (some might say just emotional), but I’ve never swung from extremes like I did at that moment. Elation to mortification was one thing, but from that to disbelief, shock, denial and terror in the space of about a minute – I nearly passed out. As it was, the room started to sway and I focussed on my breathing, in and out, in and out, thinking about whales in the ocean, about everything calm and natural. This was *not* natural. The second I hung up the phone, I called out to him. And I think I might have started to panic, just a bit, when he didn’t answer. Okay, whale singing be damned – I was hysterical. I was at the very least, confused as hell. I also chose than inopportune time to recall an X- File I’d read lately, about people who can change shapes. Who are also very strong, and very dangerous. I grabbed my gun and checked every corner, every closet, every single space I could think of, and I didn’t find a damn thing. He’d disappeared. Without a frickin trace. Which could only mean one thing: it had to be him. -x- Turns out I was right, and I wasn’t. When I saw that man lying there, propped up with his neck in a cast and about a million needles sticking out of his arms, I just knew it wasn’t him. Was it shock or disbelief? Or just a feeling? I think it was a feeling – I couldn’t reconcile myself to his being in my apartment one second and shot in the chest the next. But it *looked* like him. It looked so much like him that I couldn’t help myself, I just wanted to cry for seeing him there like that. And what if it *was* him? What if, somehow, that really was him lying there and I was wrong? I’ve been wrong before. In fact, I’m kind of used to screwing up – it usually happens when I go against my instincts, and when you deal in hard facts, sometimes that’s unavoidable. But I can still be wrong when I trust my instincts, too. I was sincerely hoping this wasn’t one of those times. I wanted *so badly* to be right. But instead of feeling right, I just felt this sick guilt washing over me, this realisation that if that really was my partner lying there, I’d let him down – bad. I starting doubting myself, thinking, “How could I?” As though he really *had* been across town rather than in my apartment. As though I was the one to blame for it. Now, I can usually figure out where I screwed up, but this time, I had no idea. Everything felt so wrong. Then I didn’t know what to feel, when he started to move. Fortunately, Dana was right there with her flashlight at the ready, and she started checking him out while I hoped against hope he was going to wake up. And not just wake up but *get* up – stand up and show us that he was just fine, the doctors were wrong, he wasn’t shot at all. It just didn’t figure that he’d never be able to walk again. My partner? My John Doggett? A paraplegic? Despite myself, I thought, “He’d rather be dead.” -x- ALIVE. That’s the first thing he said to me. Well, technically, “Lukesh” was the first thing he said, in Morse code. But to me directly, it was “ALIVE.” I could have cried right then – in fact, I probably did – just realising how lucky I was. How lucky we all were, even (especially) John. He was alive. Here I was, crying about how he’d never walk again, and all the time not thinking about how he could have been lying on a slab, not a hospital bed. But then I realised he wasn’t talking about himself, he was talking about me. I almost stopped breathing. It all began to make sense – he wasn’t seeing *me*, he was seeing someone else. His partner. And something had happened to her, something very serious, and he expected her – me – to be dead. Except that nothing had happened to me, I was fine. I *am* fine. Though she may not be. And he certainly isn’t. I realised that I was right – I had to be right – he’s not my partner at all. Whoever he is, he isn’t my Doggett – he’s hers. My… other. And maybe I’ve been reading too many X-Files, but I immediately knew what had happened, knew it with a certainty I couldn’t explain. Naturally, John thought I’d gone mad. But I’m used to him giving me that “Too much Star Trek” line (okay, I’m a Trekkie, I admit it), and I’ve never let it deter me. He’s one of the few people who has always taken me seriously, whether or not he agreed with me, and I know he trusts me. Besides that, he’s lying paralysed in a hospital bed, he has no choice but to hear me out, if only to be entertained. As it turned out, he thought there was something to it. -x- [ John Doggett, 2 ] I’ve had hours to think about it, and I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that she just might be right. Of all the damndest, weirdest, most incredible theories I’ve ever heard, how else do I explain it? How else do I explain that she’s alive when she should be dead, when I saw her dying with my own eyes? How else do I explain that, that a few hours ago, she was collapsing in a stairwell with a gash in her throat, deep, so obviously *fatal*, just overflowing with blood. And now she’s standing here. Right in front of me. And not a mark on her. If I wasn’t already lying down, the shock would’ve floored me. Bad joke, since they’re saying the prognosis ain’t good. But damn! I couldn’t believe it. I woke up with this sick, heavy kinda dread, knowing what I saw back there, and where she, by all rights, should be now. She shouldn’t have been there, standing in front of me with tears in her eyes. She should have been dead, or at least in surgery. She shouldn’t be whole like this, as though nothing happened to her. I *saw* her bleeding out. I only had to see all the blood to know she wasn’t gonna make it. And I was damned well gonna find that sonofabitch Lukesh and make him pay for it. But instead, he got me, and tough shit, sayonara, them’s the breaks, Agent Doggett. But I’m not that accepting of it. In fact, I’m not doing too good with the accepting part at all. I’m actually trying not to think too had about it, since they just gave me the bad news... Even seeing my partner standing there, smiling down at me like some kinda angel ain’t taking away the pain. The pain that only goes halfway. -x- It just don’t make sense otherwise. How else could she be alive? She has to be right. I think she’s crazy, but I’ve always thought that about her, in varying degrees. It doesn’t change the fact that she’s right. She’s *gotta* be right, there’s no other way to explain it… I just can’t get over her being alive. Then again, I didn’t have much time to get used to her being any other way before she sprung up here like this, spouting some insane Star Trek crap that just might be the way it happened. Thing is, it’s not just for her that I wanna believe what she’s saying. If there’s a way outta here, I’m taking it. I don’t want to live like this. It ain’t right for me, and there ain’t one thing in this world that *would* make it right. My partner, Monica Reyes, is dead. I saw her with my own eyes, falling, fighting and failing wretchedly. And now I'm lying here a vegetable, a medical no hoper. Tell me who wouldn’t want to change the situation if they got the chance? And I got the chance. Or so I want to believe. But another thing’s come to me – where the hell did them cop cars go? When I followed Lukesh, I heard them, right behind me; I knew they were there. It was when I called out to them – looked away, I think – that he disappeared and turned up there behind me. With the sirens gone and the backup with ‘em. She was in here just now, and we talked about it. I told her, insomuch as I could, about the case. Told her what happened to her. What I think happened to me – that I walked through some kinda portal and came out on this side. And Lukesh, he followed me, shot me straight through the chest, then got the hell out. Seems to us that I – the other me, who actually belongs here – musta switched places with me somehow, when I went through that portal. Two Doggetts can’t coexist, I guess. So he’s doing the same thing in my world that I’m doing in his – trying to figure out just what the hell happened. -x- [ John Doggett, 1 ] Looks like I’m off the case. I hit him, Follmer, right in that smug ugly mug of his, and it damn well served him right. He said – I won’t – but she didn’t deserve that, not from him, and anyway, he shoulda known better than to speak ill of the dead. Especially in front of their partners. I don’t know that he meant it like that, now I think about it, but at the time, I saw red. And I coulda done a lot more damage to that nose of his, too, if Skinner hadn’t pulled me off him. He threw me up against the wall then, threatening me with some grave bodily harm, but it wasn’t that that made me retreat. It was Scully. The look on her face, all grave and reproving, and behind that, the infinite compassion in her eyes, made me want to fall to my knees and beg forgiveness. She has that effect on me, on most men, I’d imagine. And I coulda sworn she knew what I was thinking, what I wanted to do to that arrogant SOB, and she didn’t hold it against me. She just didn’t want me to act on it, to make the situation any worse than it had to be. So I backed off. Well, actually, I walked straight out and kicked a nice big hole in the wall, then walked past it and out the door. I didn’t know where I was going. Given that, it’s probably a good thing she caught up with me. I felt her hand on my arm, and shook it off. Wishing she’d leave me alone to burn off steam. But instead, she fell into step beside me – not an easy task since she’s shorter than me and I was walking pretty damn fast. After about ten or so blocks, she asked, like it only just occurred to her and might be somewhere nice, “Where are we going?” I didn’t answer. I didn’t know where *I* was, let alone where *we* were, let alone where we were going or how I was going to get back. “This isn’t going to solve anything, you know.” I glared at her. She stopped walking and caught me enough off-guard that I stopped too. Then she reached for my arm again. “You’re not helping her like this, John.” Her voice was calm and level, perfectly rational. I thought I could face her. But when I did, I just saw all the pain in her bright blue eyes, and the streaks of dried tears on her cheeks, and it undid me. She’d been crying too, Agent “Unflappable” Scully. It felt like the whole world had fallen apart just then, the enormity of it hit me all at once. Monica was dead, and Dana had been crying. I choked down the anger and fear, the frustration and confusion, blinking real fast and looking away so she wouldn’t see it there, but she more than saw it. Damn her. “John…” I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t let myself cry over *her*, this woman, my partner, who wasn’t really dead since I wasn’t really here and none of this was really happening. Bright, endearing Monica, who wasn’t really gone but waiting for me to emerge from her kitchen with a polish sausage in my mouth and hard-on in my pants. It was just a mistake, a galactic screwup. But it all felt so real. And Dana didn’t see any of that, she only saw me. So she hugged me. And something snapped. After that, I told her everything. -x- [ Monica Reyes ] When I thought he was asleep, I took the opportunity to shave him. He was starting to look scruffy and my John was never scruffy. He’s clean shaven, always, pressed suit, tough as nails – he’s got armour, and I was betting this man before me did, too. Shaving him was a rather surreal experience, though, I have to admit. After all, he did look like my partner, sound and think just like him. And it felt curiously intimate to be doing it – when I made the first stroke, my hand was shaking like an addict’s. (Which reminds me, 22 days and no relapse! Well, maybe one... or two.) Anyway, I was worried as hell that I was going to cut him, or that he’d wake up halfway through, or that something else would go embarrassingly wrong, but luckily, nothing did. I just tried not to think about the intimacy of it, being that it was a matter of simply dignity, and did my best not to cut him, or miss a spot. Just as I was stepping back to admire my good work, he murmured, “You missed a spot.” “Did not,” I countered, a little self-conscious, wondering how long he’d been awake. The moment of awkwardness vanished, just like that, and we resumed our earlier discussion. Really, I’m not sure why I’m even thinking to mention the incident. Maybe just because it made me smile. God, I miss him. -x- That was hours ago now. I’ve been sitting beside him since then, trying to figure out what to do, how we can reverse this. I *know* he isn’t my John, and he knows it too. We can’t tell anyone our theory – I mean, it’s patently insane. Even Fox Mulder wouldn’t believe it, and I’m not brave enough to try Dana, who has her own particular theory that’s a different brand of unbelievable. But I’m getting worried. The more I think about it, the more I think that I should just pull the plug and see what happens. I’m terrified of that, though, and I refuse to tell him I’ve been thinking about it. Selfishly, I’d rather a world with him in it than one without, even if he is like this. Even if he never recovers. Even if – and this is the pathetic truth – he’s not the man he appears to be, but an imposter. It’s better than the alternative, of losing him altogether. But then, I keep thinking, what if pulling the plug on this John Doggett brings back mine? Is that conceivable? Insomuch as any of this is? I just don’t know. I feel like it’s all up to me, too – I have two choices, and one of them is wrong. -x- [ John Doggett, 2 ] In the end, I made it easy on her. Well, I didn’t make it *that* easy, but I did open the avenue for discussion – I told her, if she was so sure of her theory, prove it. I thought to myself, if I know Monica Reyes, and I *do* know Monica Reyes, she don’t like to be wrong. More than that, though, she don’t like to let things happen, she’s gotta be there, *making* them happen. That’s why she was the one undercover in the first place – I wanted to go, but she thought she’d be more subtle. I said to her, “Monica, you’re a damn fool, you go out there like a woman mechanic, that’ll draw attention in itself.” But she gave me that look of hers – you know the one, all patient brown eyes and cool common sense – and I hesitated. No, that woman don’t like to be wrong. I knew she was itching to test out her theory – only thing holding her back was me. But hell, I figure, can’t get much worse than this now, can it? Still, when I said it, she looked like she was gonna cry. She went real quiet, then said, all choked up, “Bad joke.” My heart went out to her, it really did. But I thought under the circumstances, I had a little more sympathy owing than she did, and we both knew I was right. Besides, it’s a chance to prove her theory – better it be for the sake of her theory than my own foolish self-pity. Besides which, I trust her. I know she don’t trust me all that much, but I’m really needing her to come through for me on this. She still might. I wish to hell this was just a bad joke. -x- [ John Doggett, 1 ] Agent Scully must’ve thought I was crazy. Coming from me, of all people, I think she thought I’d finally lost it. Too much time down in the X-Files – once you’re there, you never leave, or so it goes. And I’ve spent my fair share of time down in those files, spent so much time digging through them I was starting to feel like somebody’s secretary. The pay ain’t much better, but the hours sure are long. Anyway. She heard me out, as we sat on that park bench down eleven blocks from the Bureau. She sat there and heard me spill my guts about – everything. I started by telling her my afternoon, about Monica’s new apartment and how she was moving in just when I stopped by with lunch. Looking confused, Scully told me that Monica was supposed to be moving in later this week; she’d put it off for the sting. So I felt obliged to continue my little narrative. When I’d finished, she just regarded me carefully for a minute – at least a minute, felt like a damn long time – and said, “Wow.” I nodded, feeling like an idiot. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Agent Scully, but I really would like to get back,” I says. She’s nodding a little, like she understands or even agrees... Agrees? Hell, she looks like she can’t wait to get rid of me, send me back to where I came from. Least we agree on something in *this* universe. “In your... where you’re from-” I can see this is hard for her, but she’s surprisingly calm about it, accepting, even, “-Agent Reyes is...?” “Just fine,” I repeat. “She’s moving into her new place, wondering what happened to me by now, I guess. But she ain’t – that’s not the case – she’s just fine.” Agent Scully narrowed her eyes, then, like she was aiming little blue arrows with them. Straight at me. “And my Doggett,” she says. Her Doggett. It’s more than a question. It just answered my question of why she wants to help me out so much. Her being possessive – is Dana a possessive person? – makes me wonder what else is different about this place. It can’t just be Monica, can it? I don’t think so. There has to be more than just her being dead to justify an entire new dimension... Right? Or maybe not. Maybe I just haven’t been seeing the differences, if there are any others. Maybe I haven’t been looking hard enough. These were the thoughts in my head when I shrugged and replied, “I can’t tell you that, Dana. We’re just cosmic pawns down here – seems someone traded me for him.” We were quiet for a long time after that. I got the impression she didn’t think it was a fair trade. ...Finally, she breaks the silence and says, “Your partner had a crazy theory about Lukesh.” “What kinda crazy theory?” I says. “She thought Lukesh could cross dimensions – maybe time and space, maybe just what’s parallel to this. I – the circumstances were so – I told her to stop wasting our time.” She broke off just then, like she was about to choke, but quickly added, “You told her she watched too much Star Trek.” Trying to lighten to mood, I had to point out, “Well she does.” “Did.” Torn between annoyance and wanting to reassure her, I tried not to shout at her and it ended up something like a growl. “Agent Scully, *my* partner isn’t dead. *My* partner’s just fine.” Then she just bit her lip and I watched it turn white, then deep red as she let it go and replied furiously, “And I’ve got two partners missing and one dead.” So I’m sitting there all quiet while she’s trying not to cry. Suddenly I realise we’re both being stoic about it, each being tough for the other. That makes me think of my own Dana – well, not mine, but the Dana who would never call me “hers” – and about our past year together. Being tough. Dealing with all kindsa shit we can’t talk about. Trying to make the best of a bad situation. When the woman beside me starts to cry, I wrap an arm around her and pull her close, and we sit like that for a long time. Still not talking. -x- When it started to get dark, she got up and asked if I was open to extreme possibilities. I just kinda looked at her like, “What do you think *this* is?” So she took me back to where we figure it must’ve happened, to the alleyway where Lukesh “disappeared.” I gotta admit, I worry about what happened to the other John Doggett, seeing as Lukesh obviously had the one up on him with the whole dimensions issue. Still, I figure he can’t be too bad, though. Right? I mean, if Lukesh had killed him, I wouldn’t still be here. Would I? Maybe I would. I dunno. All them implications have got me thinking – got me worried. More than all them, though, it worries me that I’m even *believing* this crap. Four dimensions. Crap. But how else do you explain it? One second I’m there, right there, in her apartment – and the next, I’m in some kinda hell, ID’ing my dead partner’s body. It ain’t real, I know that. But what *is* real? We didn’t have any kinda big good-bye. In truth, neither of us really thought it was gonna work – we were just trying too hard to get our heads around it in the first place. See, Dana’s a lot like me in that way – she needs the evidence. She needs more proof than me just saying, “I’m not crazy.” *I* know that’s the truth (more or less), but *she* doesn’t. For all I know, she might still think I’m in shock, and she’s humouring me. At the same time, though, I sense she thinks there’s something to all this, otherwise she woulda said something by now. Dana doesn’t play along – she talks facts. That’s partly why I like her so much. She certainly wouldn’t have brought me all the way out here if she didn’t believe it, at least a little – she’d have had me locked up. So instead of good-bye, we just walked around, feeling stupid, looking for some magic portal. -x- After about a half hour of aimless wandering round that dirty old alley, I threw up my hands in disgust. “It ain’t working Dana,” I told her. Like she hadn’t noticed. “We’re missing... something.” “Yeah.” Then, like she’s been waiting a while to say it, even though she doesn’t want to, “John, I know what it is.” I think I know what she’ll say, but I ask anyway. “What?” “This isn’t about you.” Nope, that wasn’t what I was guessing. “Whaddaya mean?” “I mean, if – if Agent Reyes was right, you... You really have nothing to do with this. Lukesh chased you, I mean, my partner, my John Doggett-” and I’ve gotta add, I like the way that sounds, “into this alley. He didn’t chase you. Presumably, he was trapped. So he made something happen.” “Yeah, he made another “miraculous escape” happen.” I can see her thinking that Mulder wouldn’t be so slow to catch on. She continues though, “He opened a door into another dimension – yours – and... Perhaps that’s where he actually belongs.” Here, I start thinking she’s onto something. If we’re both not just *on* something. “If he can move between dimensions, where does he go when he’s scared, when he’s cornered?” Okay, yeah, I got it. “He don’t think about it, he goes home. Human nature.” “No *wonder* we couldn’t nail him!” She makes it sound like the most obvious thing in the world. “We never interviewed *him*, we only got his double, the one who belongs in this world. Who didn’t know the details. They must have been... working together, somehow – or, he did the murders and his double... What?” I catch the ball. “Would have to have crossed into my world whenever Lukesh was in this one.” “But *he* wasn’t a murderer, or *you’d* have been working this case too.” “So he was just covering up – for himself.” This is all making my head spin. Monica would’ve loved it. “So we had the wrong man.” “Or your partner had the right one – till he cornered Lukesh in this alley,” I add, waving my hand to indicate our surroundings. “Then Lukesh *made* it happen, he didn’t have a choice.” “He panicked.” “He took my partner with him.” “Which forced me to switch places, balance it all out.” Dana stops then, as though realising something else. “Which means there’s nothing we can do unless Lukesh makes it happen all over again.” “What are the chances we’re missing something?” Suddenly, the phone rings. I reach for my pocket, but instead of my phone, it’s Dana’s. That’s the first “other” thing I noticed that was different, she had my ring. The second thing I noticed came right after, when she answered it. “Scully... Oh, hi! How are you?...” I’m guessing this ain’t shop talk. “...You *sure* you don’t want to speak to him?... No, that’s fine... I’ll tell him... You too... Okay, bye.” Dana hangs up the phone and addresses me with a wry smile: “That was your ex – she wants to know when you’re coming over to get Luke.” -x- [ Monica Reyes ] It’s late now, and I know we decided together on this, but I would really would like nothing better than to chicken out and go home. He’d wake up tomorrow, angry and disappointed in me, but... At least he’d wake up. I just don’t know what to do. I’m right about this, I know I am. But is a feeling enough to go on? Can I trust my own eyes – that he was there one minute, and gone the next? Yes. I know that much. This man is not my partner. He knows it, and I know it. But neither of us knows what this will bring about, if I pull the plug on him and let him go... Will my John Doggett come back? And what will I do if he doesn’t? I close my eyes, focus on my breathing. I reach out and touch his face, so lightly. Then I turn off the alarms, and steeling myself, reach for the switch... -x- [ John Doggett, 2 ] “Monica, *don’t*.” The words are out of my mouth before I realise I’m saying them. I look up sharply, seeing my surrounding as familiar as they were before – hell. Before what? I’m not in the hospital anymore, that’s clear as day, and instead of Monica standing beside me, I’m watching her on a television set. She started to move, then stopped. I know she heard me. But that won’t be enough – I seen this all before... There he goes now... And she’s following him, with her hair up and her gun down – and we’ve lost him... Just like before. This is more than weird, it’s familiar. If anything, it’s proof that I didn’t dream nothing – I got shot, all right, straight through the spine. God. I can’t believe I’m back. She’s *good*. I never realised how much I took for granted before. Now, I can sit, stand, move, speak – aside from being dirty and tired, and smelling like I’ve been on a stakeout for twenty-four hours, I’ve never felt better. I don’t know what happened, or how it happened, but I feel like I’ve been given a second chance. Damn straight it’s a second chance! I jump to my feet, realising how little time my partner might have left. Dammit! On the little TV, Monica’s standing by, waiting for instructions. The dark, dingy little room we’re in is crowded with agents – and Follmer’s to my left, about to speak. Asshole. I know what he’s gonna do. As he goes to override me, I repeat sharply, sharper than I needed to, “Monica! Do *not* follow. I repeat, do not follow, stay the hell away from him. He’s got a knife.” On the camera, I can see her hesitate, her shoulders going rigid with annoyance at my tone. I don’t s’pose I blame her for that. I’d be ticked off at me too – I mean, she saw him go through that door, she thinks he’s there on the other side too. And he is – I think – just waiting for his chance. And he’ll get it. No two ways about it. I done this before, I seen her bleeding out because I didn’t open my mouth when I should’ve gone with my gut. I won’t do it again, I won’t let it happen. I know where he’s going now – we’ll get backup and we’ll nail the bastard. We just won’t do it with my partner as the bait. Let her hate me. Let her take it out on me later. But please God, let her trust me on this one. -x- [ John Doggett, 1 ] “Monica, forget about the plates, will you?” The words are out of my mouth before I realise I’m saying them. I stop short when I see the look on her face. The look on her face is one of freefalling terror, slowly relaxing as she starts to realise where she is and what went down. I stand in the entrance to the living room, the kitchen behind me and Monica in front. And I’m just looking at her and just... Looking. Really *seeing* at her. She’s so beautiful, just for being alive. I think what I woulda missed out on back there. Back - where? The way she turned around when she heard my voice, like she wasn’t quite sure what she was gonna find, made me understand she’d been through it too. On *this* side. She’s been through something all right, because her eyes are full of tears, and I don’t think she’s even noticed yet. She’s looking at me like she’s seen a ghost, all wide- eyed and teary – what, she think I was dead or something? – she’s looking at me just how I’ve been looking at her. She’s starting to scare me. How bad was it? “Monica, what’s wrong? Monica...” I think she’s crying. “What’s wrong?” She doesn’t say a word, but I step towards her and as she throws herself into my arms, I suddenly realise yeah, that’s *exactly* what she thought – that I was dead. I don’t understand it, but she’s holding me so tight she’s gonna bruise a rib. Her sinewy strength is enough to do some real damage, but just feeling her in my arms, warm and alive, is something else. I’m having a real hard time reconciling this woman to that one – the one in the morgue, sliced deep across the throat, cold and pale. This one’s tucked her chin over my shoulder, and she’s whispering something I can’t quite catch. “I’m good?” I think that’s what she’s saying. I pull back from her and look her in the eye. “What did you just say?” She shrinks back a little from my look, but repeats what I thought she’d said the first time. “I’m... I’m good.” Curiously, I ask her, “Why do you say that?” See, up till now I thought I musta stumbled into the gateway, or whatever the hell it was Dana and I were out there looking for. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Monica might’ve been looking too – not to mention the “other me.” (I think it’ll be a while before I get my head around that particular concept.) She looks like she’s deliberating on whether or not to tell me. My hands slide up to her shoulders, and I look at her carefully, from arm’s length. “Monica...” I say slowly, starting to wonder which part is supposed to be real, in the end. “Don’t tell me you – I – This wasn’t just me, was it?” Words have left me like a jilted ex. A strange look comes over her face, then, and after a moment of fighting it, she bursts into tears again. I give up, pulling her back into a hug and rubbing her back, waiting for it to pass. I don’t get women, I really don’t. Then again, given the last two days, that seems like the least of my problems. -x- [ Monica Reyes ] I couldn’t help it. I just – seeing him standing there, *standing*, was enough to make me burst into tears. Let alone the fact of his being there at all, of us being here together, as though nothing had happened. After standing beside his hospital bed mere seconds ago, after making the decision and summoning the courage to turn off his life support and let him go… After everything that has happened… Seeing him alive and well, *whole*, just like he’s supposed to be – nothing has ever felt like such a blessing. I think I’m starting to believe in miracles. And then it hit me – he was standing there because of me. Because I got it right. If I hadn’t had the guts to flick that switch, if I hadn’t let him talk me into doing it – if we’d been wrong… There were so many variables, but we got it right. *I* got it right. I was a bit of a mess after that. Finally, he asked me what had happened to me. He thought that it was all in his head. That’s about as far as possible from the truth, but as to exactly what happened, I didn’t – still don’t – know how to answer that. Where do I begin? “I just killed you,” seems to require a bit more explanation than I’ve really got at my disposal right now. I don’t know how it happened – I don’t even know what it *was* that happened. It’s just so… impossible. Unbelievable. So how do I explain it to *him*? Oh to hell with it, I’m starting to cry again. -x- “Break it down.” He’s giving me that look of his, the intense and “Don’t mess with me, Monica” look that I’m sure he saves up just for when he thinks I’m going off the rails. But I’m not – I’ve pulled myself together now, and we’re sitting on my couch like nothing ever happened. (Dammit, I can’t get over that.) A cup of steaming hot coffee is between my hands, and we’re both watching it like it’s going to start speaking. When it doesn’t, I take the initiative. “I don’t know where to begin.” It’s the honest truth. He nods. “Okay, let me start: I came over here around lunch time, and we were talking. You turned around to get plates, and…” He trails off deliberately. “…then the phone rang. It was Skinner. Telling me that you’d just been shot – on the other side of town.” “What?” His voice is low and incredulous. “With my weapon. Which was with me the whole time.” He whistles softly. “You’re…” “I’m *not* crazy.” Even though I sound it, even to myself. “I wasn’t gonna say that.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “Your side of the story sounds just as weird as mine.” So *finally*, I get the chance to ask him the question that’s been eating at me all along. “Where *did* you go?” Frustratingly, he answers my question with a question. “When they found me – on the other side of town… Was I in an alley?” I half-expected this. “Yes.” “I was – not me, but in that alley, the man who –” “Yeah, I know…” I say impatiently. “I was chasing a suspect.” “Lukesh.” “How did you-?” I wave my hand, we’ll get to that later. “I must’ve had him cornered, but then – Dana and I were talking about it – must’ve triggered the switch.” “Into our dimension…” I’m talking slowly, wanting to get it straight in my head. “We figured that out too,” I add, “the other – you – and me, we figured out that it had to be about other dimensions.” “Four dimensions.” “Why just four?” -x- [ John Doggett, 1 ] We’re quiet for a long time after that, just considering the implications. I glance over at my partner, who’s looking down at her hands. Or more specifically, that damn cup of coffee – she hasn’t looked away from it since we started talking, even though she hasn’t taken so much as a sip. I take it off her and down half in one gulp. Hell, I made it. She half-smiles then, and nudges me with her side. Yeah, we’re sitting that close. Then she asks, conversationally, “So, what was it like, on your side of the mirror?” Suddenly, I’m not thirsty anymore. I set the cup down on the arm of her couch, and shrug. “Dunno.” I can feel her looking at me, but I really don’t feel inclined to tell her about it. I close my eyes and see her dead body, just lying there, imagine the painful death she must have suffered. On the one hand, I know it’s not real. But on the other, it was, in some way, the same way as I was standing there looking at her. That was somebody he killed. In another universe, that was my partner. Slowly, her hand reaches over to touch my arm. “John?” She sounds worried now. “What was it like? C’mon, it can’t have been that bad…” She said that deliberately. She knows it was bad, and that I know she knows it. I feel as though I owe it to her to say it out loud, though. I owe her at least the truth about that – I mean, it practically happened to *her*. Practically. “Luke is still alive.” I hear her intake of breath and realise that I’ve hardly had a chance to process that information. “I um… I’m divorced but… I was supposed to be picking him up for something.” “Did *you* speak to him?” she asks quietly. I just shake my head. I almost expect her to say, “And how does that make you feel?” but in truth, I don’t quite know *how* to feel about it, so luckily, she doesn’t. Luke being alive, in another time, another place… It’s just… a fact. I found myself here before I could even open my mouth to ask how. Strange how in one universe, I keep my best friend and lose my son, and in the other, I lose my kid and get to keep my partner. Is that some universal “can’t have your cake” principle? Or just God’s sense of irony? When I don’t answer, she says softly, “That’s not so bad, though, right? I mean… he’s alive.” I just nod. What is there to say? Then she gets a weird look on her face and asks haltingly, “Did you still – were we – did we know each other at all, then?” “Yeah,” I say finally. “Yeah, you were my partner.” “So we must have found him in time.” Her voice is almost inaudible, full of regret for what we didn’t manage in *this* lifetime. “We must’ve.” “Strange how we were still partners,” she comments. “What was I like, over there?” And here I am, still undecided as to whether or not I’ll even tell her. But in the end, I say, “I wouldn’t know.” Her confusion is obvious. “You didn’t meet-” “You were killed on a stakeout.” Her hand contracts tightly around my forearm. Wanting to protect her from it just a little less than I want to tell her the truth, I continue, “We were trailing Lukesh. You were out there with him, I was watching from the camera... When he started to move, you wanted to follow – I told you to stay, Follmer told you to go.” Is she gonna cut off the circulation, or what? My arm is starting to throb. “Anyway, you went, and he jumped you.” “How?” She’s almost afraid to ask the question, “How did I die?” Reluctantly, I turn to her. “Close your eyes.” I can’t show her if she’s gonna be looking at me. She shuts her eyes, and I lean over, brushing the hair away from her neck and gathering it in a ponytail with one hand. With the other, I slowly trace the invisible gash across her throat. “Like that.” My voice is all hoarse and soft, choked again, with all that gratefulness. She shivers. Her eyelids are trembling, and a tear starts to form in the corner of her left eye, trickling down her cheek. She doesn’t open her eyes – I don’t think she wants me to see her cry, and I gotta be honest, I don’t particularly want to, either. Too damn awkward. So instead, she says, “Was it painful? Was there a lot of blood?” Releasing her hair, I answer both questions with one word. “Yeah.” “God.” She opens her eyes, bright with unshed tears. She releases my arm, and I nearly breathe a sigh of relief. Her hand goes to her throat, to the line I drew. “You didn’t see it though, did you?” she adds, then before I can answer that, “The other John Doggett did. The first thing he said, when he woke up, was ‘Alive.’ And I thought he was talking about himself, but he was talking about me.” I frown. “What do you mean, ‘when he woke up’?” -x- [ Monica Reyes ] I forgot about that. I suppose it’s not quite as bad as watching your partner die, but seeing John – even if he wasn’t “my” John – crippled for life is also pretty painful. And I can’t explain it, but when he was talking about how I died, I felt the strangest sense of connection; I knew just how it would feel. To *me*. Because it didn’t happen to someone else, it happened to someone *just like me*. Hearing it from Lukesh was one thing – I was a little freaked out by it, but hearing it from John just made it seem *real*… He’s looking at me like he expects an answer, so I tell him outright, the way he told me, “You were shot in that alley.” He knew that. “The bullet went straight through your chest, through your neck – you were paralysed from the waist down. They didn’t think you’d recover.” He didn’t know that. He doesn’t answer, so I sum up the rest of my story. “Basically, we – well really me, I’m not so sure *you* believed it – realised what had happened, with the dimensions, and in the end, came up with the idea that if I turned off your life support and let you die, everything would return to… this…” It seems a bit crazy when I put it like that, so I don’t blame him for his next question. “How did you know that?” “Too much Star Trek?” I reply, and he smirks at that. “Seriously – I didn’t. It was a guess. We talked about it at length, and you – he – basically told me that he didn’t want to live like that… He said things couldn’t get any worse for him. He wanted me to test my theory – it was just a lucky guess.” “Damn. You *are* good.” Despite what I said about it being a guess, I can’t help but blush at the tone of his voice. Still, it was a guess. I didn’t know for sure – I couldn’t pretend I did. Neither of us knew that time would go backwards, undo everything of the past few days. “I guess that means if I’d’ve died, things would’ve gone back to normal too,” he muses. I’m surprised. “Um, yeah, I guess so.” “But it don’t matter now… They still get another chance,” he says cryptically. I frown. “Who, us – there?” It would make sense. He turns to me again, his face animated. “Think about it – time went back for us, and we didn’t forget what happened. They’re gonna remember too, and maybe…” He trails off and I think I detect a strain of hopefulness in his voice. John Doggett, optimist? Something doesn’t sit right about it for me, though. And I’m not just talking about my partner being an optimist. I shake my head. “John, *I* won’t remember.” “Why not?” “I – died. So none of *this* happened to me – the other Monica Reyes.” I hope he’s following, it’s hard to put into words. “Her partner followed Lukesh into this dimension, which sent you into his. She was already dead. And I… How come *I* remember any of this?” We puzzle on that for a while, silently suggesting and discarding our own theories. Finally, John states the obvious. “You triggered the switch.” I shake my head. “There has to be more to it than that. That’s too simple. I mean, what about the others – the victims, Lukesh, they all died, didn’t they? So why should your death have been any diff…” I suddenly realise. “Huh.” He nods. “They all died in their own dimensions. He – I – didn’t.” “Thank God.” “To think it all came down to that, their second chance – if Lukesh hadn’t tricked him into this dimension and shot him here… They’d both be dead. And Dana…” His voice has dropped to a whisper – he sounds like he’s thinking about something, but I don’t want to intrude by asking. “Hey…” I want to tell him its all right now, that everything worked out okay in the end. I have a feeling it did for them, too, even though there’s no way we can ever really know for sure. “Mon – I didn’t tell you what it was like, seeing you lying there.” My blood runs cold. His tone is faraway. “So cold, so… lifeless. You don’t ever wanna see your own partner looking like that, not your friend…” Thinking of him lying in the hospital, after the surgery, I know how he feels. I slip my hand into his, lacking the words to make everything all right. Some things can’t be undone. John shakes his head. “Promise me you’ll listen, if I ever tell you to pull back – I don’t know that that would’ve changed anything, but if you didn’t trust me enough to listen to me, and something happened to you because of it… I couldn’t live with the guilt.” I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face. “Is that why you think he…?” “If it was me…” John shrugs, looking miserably wretched. I know he’s been having doubts about our partnership, everything being so new and all – I know *I* have… Everything’s happened so quickly – there’s quite a chasm between a simple consultation and an entire career move. I’ve had more than enough doubts for the both of us. Still, I enjoy working with John, and the X-Files are mind-blowing – it’s not that I have any regrets, just jitters. But if I’ve thought about it (and sometimes I wonder whether it’s all I think about), he must have spared it a couple of thoughts himself. And I imagine he would have thought about trust, once or twice. I have. So is that what it comes down to, then? Trust? And do we even have it? At least I know half the answer to that. “Hey.” At the sound of my voice, John looks up and meets my eye. “I trust you.” He’s speechless for a moment. Then, “Monica, you don’t-” “No – you *don’t* just say that. But… I do, you know? If – anything – it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you enough.” Neither of us are smiling; he knows that I’m completely serious. He nods, and says, almost inaudibly, “That means a lot.” He looks away again then, staring back off into the distance, thinking about God knows what. I’m getting uncomfortable – he’s obviously got a lot on his mind, but personally, I don’t want to dwell on it tonight. It’s gotten late without us even realising it, and I still haven’t finished moving in. “Don’t think about it now,” I tell him. He seems to snap back at that, and looks up at me as I stand. “I’m gonna order a pizza and you’re gonna help me finish unpacking, okay?” He seems to accept that, if only for my sake. “Sure. What can I do?” I smile. “No heavy moving, so don’t sweat it.” My teasing seems to bring him out of his dark mood. “Hey, I told you-” “And it was disappointing for you, I’m sure.” He swats at my hair as I turn to head into the kitchen. I’m suddenly grinning, even though he can’t see it. These are the good times. “Well, look, what can I do – really? Is there anything?” He seems genuinely eager to help. Ha. Guilt trip: successful! In the kitchen, it takes some messy rummaging around before I can locate my phone under a pile of rubbish. “Hold this and dial. When they answer, half vegetarian, half-” “-meatlovers.” I’m dialling the numbers while he holds the phone. (Is this teamwork or what?) As it starts to ring on the other end, John suddenly says, “Hey, weren’t *you* ordering the pizza?… Yeah, hello…” I smile sweetly. “Not unless you want to pay for it.” “I already got lunch… No, *meatlovers*. With anchovies-” I seize the phone off him. “*No* anchovies!” Did I say I was serious before? *This* is serious! Yuck. I refuse to have my pizza contaminated by smelly little fish. “No anchovies?” he repeats, feigning confusion and snatching the phone back off me. I screw up my nose. “Trust me, you can do without anchovies tonight.” He smiles at that, and I wonder what dirty thoughts he’s thinking. My face suddenly feels all hot and I turn away – I did *not* mean it that way! Well, unless the situation should arise, and in light of recent events, I wouldn’t *entirely* discount the possibility... Still, I didn’t mean to be quite so forward about it – I always do dumb things like that! My mind returns to a certain Polish sausage incident earlier in the day. Before I can completely die of humiliation, though, he answers my unspoken question when he nods and confirms into the phone, “No anchovies… Yeah, I trust her…” His eyes don’t leave mine as he says it, and I smile. Good call. -x- [ Monica Reyes, 2 ] It was late by the time I got to John’s apartment, but a group of us had been down at the bar having a few drinks to celebrate, and I was feeling bad that he hadn’t wanted to join us. After all, I mean, it was because of John that we had anything to celebrate at all. He got Lukesh straight between the eyes. And I expected him to be thrilled about that – what a coup! But instead, he just mumbled something about, “I’m good,” and walked off. I don’t get it. None of us do - we were talking about it earlier, and not one of us can figure out how he knew Lukesh would run to the alley – when the SWAT team burst in on the stairwell, he’d been hiding behind the door or something, just appeared out of nowhere. And took off for that alley. I don’t mean to imply that I think my new partner’s a dumbass – he’s not. In fact, he’s pretty damn bright when you get down to it. But that was just such a leap, and John Doggett’s no leaper. Usually. So what was he thinking, when we all rushed to the stairwell and he set off for the alley, surpassing us all? When Lukesh began to move, it was just like he snapped, all of a sudden, over the line. He practically bit my head off, telling me not to move. I was torn, really – I mean, I knew *exactly* where Lukesh would be. But John said hold it, so I held it. And he got him in the end. I don’t begrudge him that – if that’s what he’s thinking. I’m excited, I mean, we’ve been on this case for less than two weeks, and to get him so cleanly was definitely unexpected. Especially after all those “miraculous” escapes… Guess it just goes to show you can’t dodge a bullet. (Although I had my own little theory about how he was pulling it off… I think I’ll keep that to myself now, though.) So anyway, I was halfway home when I got the urge for pizza. Two beers is not a meal, though six would probably have tided me over. I also figured John hadn’t eaten, and he’s always appreciative of some extra greasy junk food – between pizza and hot dogs, he’s got an entire food pyramid. Unless beer counts as food, too. When I got to the door, pizza burning my palm, it was wide open – anyone could have walked in! Which is exactly what I did, calling out to let him know I was there. I found him asleep on the bed. Now I’m sitting on his couch, watching late-night movies and wondering when the hell he’s gonna wake up. I saved half the pizza for him – not that I’d eat meatlovers, anyway – but I’ll probably head home soon. I feel bad for intruding, I just thought he might like some company. We hang out quite a lot outside of work, often, even, of late. I suppose we’ll get sick of each other soon enough, but for the time being, it’s good. It really is. Still, it bothers me that he’s upset about something. He is my partner, after all, and I can’t think of anything *I* did to piss him off latel- Huh. I guess he’s woken up. I did lock the door when I got in, right? I’m sure I did. But somebody’s coming up behind him, trying to be quiet and doing a pretty poor job of it… And somebody’s putting his arms around my neck, hugging me from behind. I think he just kissed the top of my head. His skin feels so warm against my neck, even though I’m still curious as to why it’s there... Not to mention why he’s now kissing my cheek, and whispering something in my ear – what is it?… “Thanks, partner.” END All feedback gratefully accepted at: [ webmaster@withinrach.com ] THANKS FOR READING!