Second Chances (X-Files essay)

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Title: Second Chances
Creator: Linzee
Date(s): November 2004
Medium: online
Fandom: The X-Files
Topic:
External Links: Second Chances
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Second Chances is a 2004 essay by Linzee posted to Semper Fi, "a John Doggett & Scully/Doggett Fansite."

This essay was first posted to Yahoo!Group SHODDS, a Yahoo Group."

"Doggett/Scully (or, how I jumped ship in 3000 words or less)"

This essay was first posted to Yahoo!Group SHODDS, a Yahoo Group."

Other Related Essays

Other essays posted to Semper Fi:

Excerpts

I went back and forth and back and forth on whether or not to sign up for this ship. Don’t get me wrong, I love the ship – I have very few pet-ships I care for as dearly as this one. But the sheer venom with which this ship is contested in parts of the X Files fandom is rather daunting, at times. Which is, oddly enough, the reason I decided to actually sign up and write this. Because there is a shocking amount of animosity towards Doggett/Scully in the X Files fandom and damn it, I feel the need to defend my little ship.

In perfect seriousness, I am probably not going to change anyone’s mind with this little essay. If you’re staring at me in slack-jawed disbelief wondering “why in the hell would you ship Scully with anyone other than Mulder,” then you’re probably not going to be swayed by my explanation. But if you’re willing to give it a go – then read on. Doggett/Scully might not be the fandom’s OTP, but it’s a lovely little ship with some rather intriguing on-screen moments, and this is my explanation as to how one formerly die-hard Shipper became so enamored with the relationship that is Doggett and Scully.

I got into Doggett/Scully on accident. I started watching The X Files in late season six, and shipped Mulder and Scully like a mad thing. Like most of the fandom (and indeed, Scully herself), when Doggett showed up on the scene I didn’t want to like him – he was an intruder, he was a replacement; he wasn’t Mulder. But as the episodes went on I found myself drawn to him – Doggett was trying his best. He had been sucked into a world that took everything he knew and turned it upside down. He had every reason to give up, declare both Scully and the X Files insane…and he didn’t. He kept going, kept working to help her, despite the setbacks and damage it was doing to him, and the constant push/pull of Scully against him as she struggled to not admit she needed him there. It was fascinating, and I got sucked in.

Throughout the course of the two years Doggett and Scully have on-screen together, it is easy to see many points where the relationship could have progressed into something more – and, perhaps, should have. Doggett is everything Scully needs to regain sight of herself: a man who loves her for exactly who she is. He is someone who won’t drop everything – including her – the first time the lights in the sky beckon, but who also accepts that sometimes she will. Doggett met her at what might have been the worst low of her life (certainly, her worst low in the course of the series), and began to love her despite that, even though she pushed him away and shunned him time and again. Doggett provided a confidant, a friend, a partner to watch her back – it would hardly have been a stretch to imagine their relationship progressing further, especially with the grim reality of Mulder’s death. It would not have been overnight, of course – but neither could Scully have lived with Mulder’s ghost forever. Later on, when fate and science fiction intervened to bring Mulder back, only to have him forced to live as a fugitive, it would have been easy to imagine that Doggett and Scully could have grown closer. Scully had the opportunity for the life she had always wanted. Her son, a miracle that shouldn’t have been able to happen, needed a stable life. Her career was slowly edging its way towards being something other than a dead end in a basement. It’s hard not to wish for something better for Scully – that she could have, in another timeline, found happiness with Doggett rather than been forced to give it all up for a life on the lam, hiding from aliens and government conspiracies and military men with a price on Mulder’s head.

So I suppose this all brings us back to our final question, right? Why Doggett and Scully? For me, Doggett/Scully is about second chances – about finding hope in a situation that seems to so thoroughly lack it. While The X Files has always been a show about anything-but-happy endings, the possibility of, if not bliss, at least functionality was there for Doggett and Scully. Their relationship had potential – potential to be the thing that saved them both, that dragged them out of the shadowy pit of conspiracies and aliens that the X files brought with them. It’s an opportunity for a touch of normalcy in a sea of science fiction and horror – not an epic romance, written in the stars, or a drive-off-into-the-sunset ending….but two very real people. Scarred and battered, marked by their personal struggles and losses, who could have found a little bit of peace in each other.

One of the downsides of the X Files fandom is that it is, so to speak, a one-horse town. By the time Doggett showed up on the scene Mulder/Scully was fairly established as the One Ship to Rule Them All – resulting in no small amount of animosity and downright wankery. On top of that, I've been rather inactive in the X Files fandom as a whole for a couple years now...so admittedly, I am not the world's foremost expert on what's New and Happening among the Philes. *g* Be that as it may I tried to scrounge up what I could - and if anyone has anything to add, I would be incredibly grateful.

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