Title: Kodak Rarities
Author: MissAnnThropic
E-Mail: miss_annthropic@yahoo.com
Spoilers: set in season 8
Summary: A picture is worth a thousand words.
Disclaimer: I own nasing! Really, I don't. All you see here (that you recognize, anyway) is the creation of someone else. I take no credit.



Agent John Doggett rapped on Dana Scully's door, checking his watch immediately afterward. He grimaced internally. It was late... really late, like 'very early in the morning hours' late. He hated to have to wake Scully at this hour, but their SAC back at the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building insisted that Dana Scully be there. They were just going to call her, but Doggett had insisted he would pick her up, figuring the least he could do in this shitty situation was not make her drive if she just woke up.

The door finally opened, a disheveled Scully blinking at him from within the darkened apartment. She was clearly dressed in her bed clothes and had been rudely awakened by Doggett's knocking. She was without make-up, her hair was not meticulously in place, and her eyes were glassy. She was wearing a large, worn T shirt that sported the slightly faded word 'KNICKS' across the front. It looked two sizes too big for her and well used. Must have been a pajama top from her teenage years... Doggett had no idea Scully was into basketball. She was wearing gray sweat pants, her feet bare on the hardwood floor.

At first she seemed blank and confused, then her mind cleared and she asked flatly, "Agent Doggett?"

Doggett said, "Agent Scully... sorry to bother you so late, but Kersh has asked all of his agents to come down for a briefing."

Scully rubbed one of her eyes with her free hand (the other rested on her doorknob) and muttered, "What kind of briefing?"

Doggett shrugged, "I didn't quite catch all of what this was about, I left to come get you... um... may I come in?"

Scully stopped, looking up at him a moment with suddenly clear scrutiny, as if testing his words inside her head. Slowly, she stepped aside to let him in.

Doggett moved inside, turning back to Scully as she closed her door. He looked around her apartment, "Nice," he offered, then looked again at her.

Scully was studying him. Maybe he shouldn't have asked to come in... it had clearly put her on guard, and apparently she hadn't warmed up enough to him to feel safe with him in absolute seclusion... it had probably even crossed her mind that at the moment he was armed and she was not. It pissed him off, really. What had he EVER done to her to deserve such a cold reception every time?

Instead of steaming about it, he looked down at Scully's worn shirt and commented, "Knicks fan, huh?"

Scully froze, her body seeming to go stone cold at his words. Her face flashed an actual emotion for once (though so briefly Doggett couldn't read it), then she looked down slowly at her shirt. She brought up a hand and touched the bold lettering spelling out the team's name with her fingers. She muttered weakly, "Something like that," then moved past him saying, "I'll be ready in ten minutes... stay here."

Doggett watched her move stoically to the deeper recesses of the apartment. 'Stay here'... he knew what she really meant, 'I don't trust you alone in my apartment, but since you insisted on being here I don't want you to move from your spot in my absence.'

Doggett, being the gentleman he COULD be when he wanted to, dutifully stood still in the exact place Scully had left him. He supposed he could understand someone not wanting a relative stranger moving through their home without their knowledge. That didn't explain her otherwise cold response to him, however.

Doggett had always before tried to dismiss the whole 'Spooky Mulder' and 'Ice Queen' nicknames, not wanting to feed into a rumor that was in all likelihood nothing what the actual people were like. After working with Dana Scully for a while, though, he had to admit he was starting to see a certain accuracy in the whole Ice Queen name. Agent Scully was, indeed, a cold character.

The looks she gave him gave it away, mostly. Her eyes were piercing, cold, testing... distrustful. While most people's outlook on new strangers was usually the old 'innocent until proven guilty' mantra, Dana Scully's seemed to be 'guilty until, in the highly unlikely probability, proven neutral'. Doggett seriously doubted anyone was on the 'innocent' list in her mind. He even wondered where this guy Mulder stood in Dana Scully's mind.

Sure, she was fiercely devoted to finding him, but was that out of affection or a sense of duty... that she was responsible for looking out for her partner? Doggett wasn't dense... he knew Scully still thought of Mulder as her partner. When she had to introduce Doggett, it was always 'this is Agent Doggett', and if questioned further would simply say, 'we're coworkers.' Never did she call him her partner... not when she still felt tied to another one.

He supposed she was just a detached person by nature... that would explain her wariness of new people, but it didn't tell him if she was, in fact, even capable of strong emotional attachment to another person. He'd seen her crack once. After she had killed what she claimed was an 'alien bounty hunter' she had cried. Ice Queen had melted enough to create tears, but it wasn't as clear cut as it would have seemed. She'd been running herself into the ground for days looking for Mulder in the desert... any small thing may have set her off at that point... driven to the point she was, she was just a ticking time bomb waiting to crack. And he'd not seen another display of actual deeper emotions in her since.

Doggett shifted his weight from one foot to the other, getting tired of standing there but not about to move from his spot. She'd told him to stay there, and he would show her that he once again could be a man of his word and integrity.

Maybe he could give her some slack. If she was one of those people that did not warm up to people at all, then it wasn't her fault. It was just her character, and he couldn't fault her for who she was. If he just kept reminding himself that Dana Scully did not attach/warm up to people, maybe their arranged partnership would smooth out some.

Scully emerged from the bowels of her apartment, dressed and groomed in her usual professional fanfare. She looked up at him and he could see her obviously mild but pleasant surprise to see that he had, at her request, not moved an inch from his spot where she'd left him.

After restocking yet another admirable act on Agent Doggett's part in her mind, she asked coolly, "Are you ready to go, Agent Doggett?"



****



"We received a letter early this morning, delivered to the main lobby's front desk without a return address. The letter was typed, as was the address on the front of the letter. The contents of this letter were, in essence, a threat upon the agents within the bureau. Details were given that implicated the perpetrator was present during the April Bureau Party where many agents were in attendance. Forensics pulled no prints from the envelope, no saliva on the flap, and the ink upon which the address and letter were printed proved to be from a local library where the public is allowed access to computers and printers for the purpose of personal use..."

Scully sat rigidly in her chair, face impassive as she listened to the agent giving his report to the room of 13 FBI agents. Doggett sat next to her, listening intently to the agent reporting in front of them. By the agent's side was a television cart, the VCR turned on and a tape protruding half out of the machine. Everyone anxiously wondered what it was.

"Surveillance cameras caught a few images of the man delivering the letter this morning, however most of his face was obscured by a baseball cap. Those images are in the case files set on the desk in front of all of you. The accuracy of detail of the agents and events at the party insinuated that the man responsible for the threat MUST have been at the party unbeknown to anyone at the time. Most of you gathered here are agents who had attended, though there are some of you here who were not. If any of you who had been at the party and noticed anything out of the ordinary, we'd request you come forth with your observations."

The agent turned to the television, turning it on and continuing, "One of the agents at the party had brought a video camera, and he's been kind enough to lend us the tape from the party. We're going to watch this, and if any of you see someone in the tape you do not recognize, we'll stop the tape and try to identify him or her as either an agent or our perpetrator."

The agent pushed the tape in, pressing play. The blue screen on the television filled with a mass of people, sounds exploding from the speakers as the party was projected to the audience.

Doggett recognized many of the agents in the tape. Suits milling around with cups in hand... faces he'd seen in the halls or ones he'd spoken to before. It was in someone's house... if Doggett remembered correctly one of the senior agents' personal home (he'd not attended, but had recalled the invitation). The party was crammed with agents, the cameraman moving through the mass of people... stopping here and there at friends or good acquaintances to egg them on to say something witty or funny to the camera. Most obliged, causing unintended chuckles from the crowd of studying agents, most of whom recognized and personally knew the agent on the screen under scrutiny.

The cameraman weaved his way through the living room toward the kitchen. He met along the way many more agents he knew, asking them questions like 'How's the wife?' or 'Got a break on that case yet?'... Doggett was astutely watching for unfamiliar faces. As of yet, however, he only saw the cheerful faces of people he could place.

The cameraman moved through the hall back to the foyer, finding the den nearby. Doggett shook his head in amazement. A stranger having the guts to show up at one of these, all the guests federal agents packing heat? It was ballsy to the point of idiocy.

Doggett was watching carefully for strangers when he was shocked by something even more surprising than an infiltrator in the midst. He saw an agent he knew very well. He saw Dana Scully.

The cameraman stopped, focusing in on two agents standing near the back wall talking in hushed tones... not associating with their colleagues around them.

It was Dana Scully and Fox Mulder. Both held a drink in one hand, though they were all but forgotten as the agents spoke to one another. The conversation was obviously light, for their faces were not etched in concentration, but rather relaxed and almost content. They were standing insanely close to one another... close enough to have whispered and still be heard over the din of the party around them. Mulder's other hand (the one nearest Scully), was obscured behind her back... from the bend of his elbow probably resting against the small of her back. Scully was standing casually next to him, looking up as he told her something, a faint smile tugging at her lips and her eyes moving between studying Mulder's eyes and his mouth, sometimes spending a good minute watching his lips move as he formulated words.

Mulder suddenly stopped talking, smiling expectantly. Milliseconds later Scully exploded in an uncharacteristically open laugh. She laughed outright, which produced an even brighter grin from her partner, and Doggett could see Mulder's elusive second hand as he closed it further around Scully, becoming visible as it moved from behind her back to faintly looping around her waist.

Scully either didn't notice or was so comfortable with the touch that she didn't care, for she acted as if he weren't doing it. Her laughter subsided and she brought up her own free hand, touching Mulder's solarplexes and leaning closer to signal him that she meant to whisper. Mulder dipped his head closer, listening to her as she uttered something softly in his ear.

Mulder's face broke out again in laughter at whatever she said and he pulled back to make a pouty, teasing face at her. Scully eyed him playfully. It was at that point that Mulder tore his eyes from his partner and noticed the camera. He cast that shy, lopsided grin, then his eyes became mischievous, and his hand around Scully's waist disappeared. Slowly, two rabbit ears or maybe alien antennae appeared behind Scully's head as Mulder held up his fingers in a 'V' shape.

The cameraman laughed.

Scully, having obviously noticed Mulder move his hand away from her, looked over and saw the camera pointed directly at them. She frowned, then looked up at Mulder. One glance at him and she knew he was up to something. She eyed him accusingly and he responded with dropping his bunny ears fingers and putting it back around Scully's waist, pulling her tighter than he had the entire time. He bent his head down again next to hers. He whispered something to her, and her eyes popped open as she drew her head back to shoot him a look. Mulder just smiled in response.

Scully smiled her own shifty, playful smirk and reached to take Mulder's drink from him. She placed both his and hers on a table nearby, studied Mulder cunningly a moment, then moved into action.

Stepping in closely to him, she started prodding him in the ribs with her knuckles.

Doggett was taken aback... stunned. By god, Fox Mulder was ticklish! Not only that, but he was ticklish and Dana Scully knew it.

Mulder started to laugh and struggle against her onslaught, though the hands he had on her were not pushing her away, rather they were holding her near him.

Scully's laughter at Mulder's unsuccessful escape techniques only intensified as he finally could not breathe through his laughing and pried himself from Scully's embrace. Not going to give up so easily, she pursued.

Agents nearby saw a chase in the making and started taunting, 'Run, Spooky, run!'

Mulder and Scully seemed oblivious to the others' words, anyway. Mulder weaved his way at a quick pace through the agents, Scully close on his heels. The cameraman, finding the entire chase hilarious, followed its path.

Scully caught up to Mulder at the couch, where he had been blocked by agents on the other side and turned to Scully to face her down.

Scully reached him, nearly colliding into him (not having expected him to stop short). Actually, when she realized he was positioned in front of the couch, she smiled, reached forward with both hands, and pushed him gently.

Mulder teetered, tried to catch his balance, but began to fall back anyway. He reached out, grabbing Scully around the waist, more on one side than the other... as a result practically spinning her on her feet. Mulder went down on the couch cushions with a 'Humph!', Scully pulled back with him and landing on top of him.

Mulder let out another huff as Scully's landed, face up, on his chest. Both agents were grinning, a laugh nearly escaping both of them.

Suddenly, one of the agents shouted, "WAIT! Pause it, right there!"

The agent near the machine instantly pressed the pause button, suspending the action on the screen and freezing Mulder and Scully on the couch, lying with Scully on top of Mulder, his arms around her waist, and both grinning like idiots.

The agent who'd called the order stood, pointing to the screen, "There... the man standing behind the couch, behind Agent Fredericks... there, see him? Anyone recognize him?"

Everyone studied the figure in the background. A series of heads shook 'no'.

The agent turned to the technical support man behind him, "Can you print this out?"

The man nodded, turning to his portable machinery and unfurling wires that he intended to attach to the VCR.

Doggett looked over at Scully. He'd never imagined she could be like that..... open with another human being, so obviously emotionally attached to someone.

Doggett expected to see the same stoic features on Scully's face when he looked over at her... what he saw instead was Agent Dana Scully with head bowed low, tears brimming behind her eyes (though she fought them) as her clasped hands resting on her lap near her stomach.

Doggett looked at her, for the first time realizing something. Mulder wasn't just a partner to Scully. He was a friend, her only one... hell, maybe even a lover (against bureau policy, of course). And he realized something else... this entire time he'd never fully understood just how much she missed him. Not until he saw how much she had ached after watching the video of her and Mulder... so content and playful together. Dana Scully missed Fox Mulder... terribly.



****



The agents were dismissed soon afterward, some told to come back after a ten minute break to begin work on the case. It wasn't an X File, so Doggett and Scully were among the agents dismissed with a thanks for their cooperation.

Doggett told Scully to go down to the basement office without him, that he'd catch up. Scully had just nodded blankly, moving to the elevator without a word.



****



Scully looked up at the doorway as Doggett stepped through the door, a file in his hand. She was nestled warmly in Mulder's chair, sitting behind his desk. She loved this spot... nearly swallowed by Mulder's large chair that still retained, however small, his scent. Sometimes she would stay late, kicking off her shoes, curling up on the chair, and withdrawing Mulder's nameplate from the desk drawer and setting it down facing her. She never did anything like this when Agent Doggett was around, but when she was alone she did it a lot. She would look at his nameplate, breathe deeply to catch a wisp of Mulder's smell, reach out and touch his items on the desk... it was all she could think of to do to keep him close. At least his chewed up pencils and nameplate were something of him she could still touch... feel.

She had wanted to do that after coming back from the video briefing, but she knew Doggett would be down soon, so she'd resorted to just sitting in his chair, trying to curl into the dark recesses of it that still clung tenaciously to his smell. She had played a moment with a pencil laying on Mulder's desk, running her fingers over the teeth marks that spoke of Mulder's insanely cute oral fixation that used to annoy her (though it hadn't done so for long).

Scully kind of felt sorry for Doggett... she knew she was unjustly short with him. She didn't try to be, but a deeply devoted to Mulder part of her would not let her be kind to him... she'd in a flash see him trying to replace Mulder, and she'd lash out at him in retaliation for something he'd never actually done. She remembered once Doggett, obviously having noticed all the pencils on the desk had gnaw-marks on them, had tried to offer a gesture of friendliness. She'd come in one morning to find a box of brand new pencils on Mulder's desk. Doggett had come in a short time later to find the same box in the trash by his.

Scully often resolved, while alone, to be nicer to him, but the moment she saw him next a defensive and angry part of her put her in her worst mood. It rose up once again as Doggett stepped into the office with the folder.

Doggett looked at Scully. He saw her so often in the same position, sitting behind the desk doing nothing... just sitting there. This time, she was holding one of those gnarled up pencils. Doggett had learned his lesson about that... DON'T TOUCH THE PENCILS. Scully had all but thrown back at him the new ones he'd tried to offer her. He'd not made a single move to try to mess with in any way, shape, or form the former Agent Mulder's desk since.

Doggett nodded a greeting, "I was just up talking to the agents tasked with this latest case... they think they got enough of a visual on the perp to start questioning people and track him down."

Scully nodded.

Doggett looked down at the file in his hand. "Uh... the tech people managed to blow up the image of the stranger's face... um..." Doggett stepped up to the desk, laying the file down in front of Scully, "I went and salvaged this from the tech agent... thought you might... you know... um... I'm going to get some coffee, want some?"

Scully shook her head, looking down in confusion at the file on the desk as Doggett retreated from the room.

After a moment of consideration, Scully reached forward, setting down the chewed pencil and picking up the manila folder.

She pulled it into her lap, considering it a moment before opening the file.

She bit her lip faintly to keep it from trembling, or maybe to stop a small smile that begged to be let loose at the sight. In the folder was the original print-out of the video grab. The one in which the screen was filled mostly by herself and Mulder on the couch... her and Mulder happy and together.

Scully touched its edge, finally letting a faint smile come to her lips as a single tear ran down her cheek.



****



Doggett returned to the room, keeping his eyes locked on his desk as he went to it, setting the coffee cup down and turning to the slightly disorganized files on his desktop.

He was startled when a faint, meager voice said from close behind him, "Agent Doggett."

Doggett quickly turned, finding that the weak and faint voice had come from none other than Agent Scully. She was looking up at him, standing near him and not seeming to be so challenging. A small, almost undetectable smile on her lips taunted him with the allusion of a more happy, human Dana Scully.

When Scully saw she had Doggett's attention she let the faint smile play more strongly across her stoic features, and she whispered faintly in the most sincere, emotional voice he'd ever heard from her, "Thank you."



END