Alone

There is something wrong with being alone. We human beings are not, generally speaking, meant to be alone. And, it has to be said, very few of us are.
Loneliness is not a question of how many people there are in your life. It is a question of how many people you allow to be a part of who you are. So it is that some people can be lonely in a crowded room. Nobody, but nobody, is responsible for your feelings of loneliness but you yourself.
Doggett is faced with being ‘Alone’ in the nineteenth episode of Season Eight. Clearly, he is already missing Scully even as she walks out the door, “This pregnancy leave – it is just leave, right? I mean, you are coming back eventually?”
Imagine the X Files with no Mulder and no Scully; just Doggett, alone, down in that office!
Was never going to happen! This is a show predicated on the relationship between two agents - one male, the other female. So, only moments after Scully’s departure, Agent Harrison arrives. Just as Doggett, left to himself, might begin to think, ala Jeffrey Spender, cushy number, feet up on desk, X Files? What X Files? uber-fan appears to set him straight and remind us why we fell in love with the X Files in the first place.
In the ‘Pilot’, we saw how, though she had been assigned to debunk his work, Mulder and Scully were, by the end, a team. In ‘Patience’, the first proper Scully/Doggett episode, pretty much the same thing happens. They are not, of course, as close as Mulder and Scully, but there is mutual respect. This does not happen between Doggett and Harrison – a clear indication that she is not to be a permanent character.
With Scully gone, Doggett might feel alone, even though, in reality, he isn’t. Because he doesn’t allow Harrison in, however, he has no way to fend off the feelings of being left alone.
Harrison is a real person – within the context of the show – who wants nothing more than to fit in, to be a part of something her heroes have made possible. She even tells Doggett, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” Doggett is having none of it. Though he must work with her, he makes no attempt to accept her as a member of the team, let alone a partner. Because John Doggett is a decent human being, he looks out for her, and risks himself in his efforts to save her, even though she remains nothing but a hindrance to his feelings of loneliness.
Doggett is entitled to his feelings. If he allows them dominance, however, he will become the next Jeffrey Spender, a man with the task of following on from someone who achieved what they did because they believed in themselves rather than waiting for the world to tell them who they should be.
Loneliness isn’t something out there waiting to ensnare us. It is our reaction to what is out there, our refusal to accept what the world has to offer, our wallowing in self-pity.
I am lonely only because I choose to be.
Or, I am not lonely because there are so many people who make my life full and reveal who I am as I choose to find out who they are.