TITLE: Quarrying
AUTHOR: Tabula Rasa
FEEDBACK: tabulaxrasa @ yahoo.com
DISTRIBUTION: far and wide
RATING: harmless
CATEGORY: V, post-ep, slight AU
KEYWORDS: MSR, plus lots of UST floating all over
SPOILERS: Trust No 1
DISCLAIMER: ha ha ha. No seriously, not mine. I would have gotten on with a movie already.

SUMMARY: Slightly different ending, just a wee bit happier

Word count: 391

https://tabulaxrasa.tripod.com/


When Scully rejoins them Doggett is at first concerned by her gasping breaths, but when they drag her into better light Monica relaxes next to him, smiles. Scully is flushed and rumpled, scarf gone and jacket off one shoulder, and smiling. It's a dazed smile but Doggett still feels his throat tighten up; it makes him want to do anything but relax. Monica's eyes are sparkling at Scully.

"Well?" she asks. John draws a blank but Scully nods, her smile growing.

"What happened to your scarf?" Doggett asks, because he doesn't know what else to do. Scully looks at him blankly and Monica smirks at him, mocking. She turns to Scully and does something Doggett can't see, and then they both giggle.

Giggle! Girls and their secrets. He scowls and surveys the quarry. It is now so silent and still it seems ridiculous. He hasn't come down from the adrenaline yet.

His attention is drawn back when Scully collapses in tears. "I'm sorry," she says around her sobs, "I don't know why I do this. I never used to. I never used to cry at all."

Which can't have been healthy, Doggett can't help thinking, all those x-files tumbling around his mind.

Monica moved immediately to comfort Scully and now wraps one arm around the smaller woman's shoulders, squeezing the shoulder under her hand. Doggett feels an inappropriate, useless, idiotic spark of jealousy. He's not even sure who he's most jealous of.

Monica is murmuring comfort-noise to Scully, but Doggett can hear her say: "A person's heart can only stand so much."

He turns away again, hands on his hips.

Scully has stopped sobbing and is sniffling. "It's almost worse," he hears her say, even though she is whispering, thanks to the quarry's acoustics. "But at least I got to give him the pictures."

The tumblers click into place for Doggett then. She saw Mulder, of course. Gave him pictures-- presumably of William. And it would explain the flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes and the smile, the rumpled clothes, the lost scarf, the very tousled hair, where Mulder had had his hands in it as he'd shoved his tongue down Dana's throat--

"Let's get you home," Monica says. Doggett freezes. The girls-- women-- agents-- walk by him, Scully leaning on Reyes. Doggett waits until they pass him and follows at their backs.