Title:  How well do you know your partner?

Author:  addicted2fanfic

Date: November 8, 2000

Summary:  Daggett has some questions

Spoiler:  Sea. 8 premiere Within

Category:  Vignette

Rating:  PG

Disclaimer:  Not mine, never were

Comments:  Don't know if I can bear to watch Season 8. Had to 

do something with this indigestible bit from CC.







"How well do you know your partner Agent Scully? How could 

your partner be dying and not tell you?"



And how could I, as a scientist, as a medical doctor miss any 

and all symptoms? She worried that thought like a dog with a 

bone. Or a Doggett with a suspect. Scully moved her hand from 

her mouth, resting her elbow on the arm of the chair outside 

Skinner's office. 



Turning her face her inquisitor, she quietly stated, "It's 

been done."



"Really? By who?" His slight out puffing of breath indicated 

more than doubt. It was almost smirking challenge.



"By me." Scully enunciated slowly, clearly.



Agent Doggett, looked up from Scully's personnel file and 

stared, challenging her to continue.



"When," she paused to clear her throat, it was raspy with 

disuse.  "When I developed cancer, I didn't tell Mulder until 

I began treatment. He never knew. For months, we worked side 

by side and I know he never suspected."



"Why would you do that?" his voice indicated genuine 

curiosity, a desire to understand her, this leftover of what 

had been a well-matched pair.



"Looking back I would say that I just wanted to pretend for as 

long as I could. I understood the prognosis. I could accept my 

own death. I just wanted my life to be the same as long as it 

could."



"Would Mulder have thought the same?"



"Maybe."



"Could you expand on that Agent Scully?"



"No. Mulder and I seldom came to the same conclusions about 

anything. And even when we did, we got there by very different 

routes. I don't think you can ascribe his behavior to my 

motivation." 



"So, as his partner, what was his motivation?"



There are a lot of things about me that Mulder doesn't know. 

Aloud she said, "It's not possible to know anyone completely, 

to be inside his mind, to know their psyche to have all their 

experiences, their history." 



"But after working together for so many years, you, his 

partner, a trained investigator, would know?"



I am not trained to investigate my partner, Scully screamed, 

her mouth set in a thin line.



"Give it a rest Doggett." Skinner muttered as he locked door 

to his office, trench coat in hand. 



"Thanks for waiting, Agent Scully."



Scully and Skinner quickly left heading for the parking 

garage. Doggett stared after them wondering.