Title: _The Night is for Stargazing_
Author: Karen (snarky_freak@hotmail.com)
Rating: PG
Keywords: Reyes.  Doggett.  Doggettfic.  Doggett!
Doggett!  Doggett!
Summary: "Maybe it's about giving him the stars to look at when
he sleeps at night."
Spoilers: Invocation, Via Negativa (very minor), The Gift, This Is
Not Happening, Empedocles
Disclaimer: Again, they are not mine.  So, again, quit
lookin' at me like that, `kay?
Archive: All are more than welcome, just please notify me...
Author's Notes: Weeee!!!  I'm taking extreme liberties
with the characters of JD and MR!  This is slightly different from
my other stories, in that it is more 'conventionally conversational'.
(Whatever that means...  No, seriously--I'm trying to break away from
the abstract, internal monologue bit for a while, so please bear with me.)

---

The Night is for Stargazing

---

O, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shriveled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dreams; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam  A.H.H., 54"

---

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the muffled hum of the engine.  The 
interior of his pickup truck was comfortable, a stark contrast to the 
hospital emergency room she left just minutes ago.  The windshield wipers 
swished rhythmically against the windshield in an attempt to stave off the 
heavy raindrops pounding against the glass.  Slowly, she opened her eyes, 
rested her left elbow on the armrest and cupped her chin in her hand before 
she cast a discreet, sidelong glance in his direction.

He was quiet.  Both his hands were clenched into fists as he gripped the 
steering wheel and stared straight ahead without so much as blinking.  She 
didn't have to wonder what he was thinking.  Aside from the fact that she 
could feel the numerous jagged emotions wrestling to take control and beat 
him down, right here, right now, in front of her...

It really was just a matter of common sense, wasn't it?  Even a person who 
was not endowed with 'mental telepathy'--as he so bluntly and sardonically 
put it--could tell.

That no one should have to suffer the same kind of pain twice.

That it hurts even more the second time around.

She took a deep breath and tried to clear her mind by shaking her head.  
That caught his attention, at least.

"Dizzy?" his gravelly voice was strained, clearly betraying the anger he was 
still feeling despite everything that had happened.  When she did not reply, 
he cast a quick glance to his right and stared back at the road once again.  
"You really know how to push my buttons, don't you, Monica?"

"Look, John--"

"No, you look.  This time...  This time you went too far, okay?  You shoulda 
left it alone.  What good did it do?  Tell me that," he paused, stepped on 
the brake gently and slowed the pickup to a halt at a red light.  Keeping 
his eyes on a female pedestrian running across the street while holding her 
book bag over her head as a shield from the rain, he cleared his throat 
slightly and continued, "A man's dead because of what?"

"He might have hurt that little girl," she blurted out defensively as she 
followed his intense gaze and watched as the pedestrian disappeared into a 
convenience store.  "Jeb Dukes might have hurt his niece tonight, John."

John Doggett shook his head vehemently and frowned at the lights as it 
turned green.  "Maybe.  But wasn't it because of--"

You.  It was because of you that all this went down.  She knew what he was 
going to say.  She knew what the last word would be.  You.  It was you, 
Monica.  Your fault.  She closed her eyes and concentrated on the words that 
he managed to vocalize.  "Why do you always say it like that?"

"Say what like what?"  His exasperation was evident from the frown that 
crossed his weary face.

"Wasn't.  You say it with a 'd', John.  Wadn't."

His stifled sigh did not come as a surprise to her.  She opened her eyes 
once again, crossed her arms over her chest and smiled self-deprecatingly.  
"I'm sorry.  You know me, I can't really--"

"Yeah, I know you."

She wasn't sure whether to be flattered or offended.  "I know things could 
have turned out differently.  _Should_ have turned out differently.  But 
they didn't.  And whatever happened tonight--"

"Would you stop that?  You're doin' it again.  Nothin' happened tonight.  
'xcept maybe we fucked things up.  Let things get outta hand."

"You're doing it again, too, John.  You're letting--"

"Monica, not this again, all right?"  He practically ordered her as he 
turned a corner into a quiet suburban street and slowed the pickup 
considerably.  "You're not doin' either of us any good bringin' that up 
again.  Just drop it.  Can you do that?  For a night, that's all I ask, 
that's all the doctor at the hospital asked--that you take it easy for a 
while.  So can we please not talk about that right now?"

"Do you even know what I wanted to say?"  She prodded him obstinately, 
knowing full well that she was pushing him a little too far.  She knew 
better than to do this, but part of her just did not want to let go, and 
another part just could not resist this chance to make him see; to make him 
more honest with himself.  "John?"

"Monica.  Stop.  Jesus Christ, will you back off?"

She nodded meekly and looked out the window.  "Where are we going?"

"Home."

"You should go the other way, John.  The hotel's--"

"I'm going home.  You're staying with me."

"I'm booked at a hotel--"

"Doctor said someone's gotta stay with you tonight.  That's a nasty cut you 
got on your forehead, there.  Hell, nasty's a pretty tame word for it.  Only 
reason he let you go was me."  He turned another corner and pulled up onto a 
driveway, beside which stood a large, well-lit house enclosed by white 
picket fences.  "Stay in the car; I'll help you out."

Reyes stared dumbly at him and watched as he ran around his truck and pulled 
her door open for her.  "Come on," he yelled over the tattoo of the rain 
pounding against the pavement, the trees and the windshield.  "I got no 
umbrella, let's go."

She allowed him to steady her footing on the driveway and guide her to the 
front door.  For several seconds she closed her eyes and allowed the 
raindrops to streak down her face and keep her from collapsing with 
dizziness and pain.  She was a much taller woman than Katha Dukes, and yet, 
Katha had been able to...

"Hey, you okay?"  Doggett's hand on her left shoulder roused her from her 
hazy thoughts.  She nodded silently and waited as he fumbled around in his 
pocket for his house keys.  His hands, shaking from the coolness of the 
rain, finally managed to get the door unlocked.  He smiled at her 
apologetically and led her by the arm into his house.  "Sorry about the 
mess," he mumbled sheepishly as he ushered her into the hall leading into 
the living room.  What classified as a mess to him was only a few books left 
open on the floor and papers strewn all over one side of the couch.  She 
suppressed a smile as she removed her coat and handed it to him.

"It's okay," she breathed quietly as she looked around the room with 
undisguised curiosity.  "I like your lamp."

Doggett laughed lightly as he hung up their overcoats in the closet by the 
front door and placed her discarded shoes on the rack nearby.  "She bought 
it...  Somewhere...  I don't really know."  He entered his living room and 
studied the lamp she had indicated as though he were seeing its frilly 
lampshade for the first time.  "Never really paid much attention.  It just 
kinda showed up one time and pretty much stayed there..."

Reyes looked over her shoulder and nodded at him.  "It's nice."

He raised his eyebrows and half-shrugged at her comment.  "Guess I don't see 
it."

"Hmm?"

"Nothin'," Doggett ran a large hand through his wet hair before he regarded 
Reyes with a small smile.  "Just lately...  Now that you mention it...  
Lately I've been thinkin' of throwin' it out.  I don't think I like it."

"Okay."  Reyes returned his half-shrug and nonchalantly lowered herself onto 
the couch.  "Listen, John.  I won't stay for long.  I'll call a cab in a 
bit, go back to the hotel and head home.  I have a lot of things going on in 
New Orleans that I should really--"

"Monica..." Doggett began reluctantly as he sat on the coffee table, facing 
her, and rested his elbows on his knees.  "I know I said those things to you 
on the way here.  I know I wasn't being fair to you.  I apologize for that, 
and--"

"There's no need to apologize for anything.  I know how you've felt; what 
your feelings still are when it comes to what you and I saw when we found 
your son.  I knew all this coming here.  I did this fully aware of that, 
John.  You didn't do anything I wasn't expecting you to do, so there's no 
need to apologize.  Agent Mulder was right; I can't make you believe in 
something you can't or don't want to see.  If anything," she sighed, leaned 
forward and rested a slender hand on his forearm.  "I should be the one 
apologizing.  For one, I practically harassed you into believing things...  
And for another...  I should have told you earlier; you shouldn't have found 
out like that, I'm sorry."

"You were just doin' your job.  I understand where you were coming from.  At 
least now I do.  You were just doin' the same thing you did for me four 
years ago, when we found Luke.  You just wanted to help me.  You wanted to 
help me find whoever it was that did what he did..." Doggett lowered his 
gaze and studied the floor between their feet.  "Look, I owe you and Agent 
Mulder an apology.  I overreacted."

"You were trying to protect Luke, John.  That's all.  No one can hold that 
against you.  You're his father."

There was an awkward silence between them, one that seemed to have lasted 
for hours.  Reyes leaned back against the couch and wedged a pillow between 
her neck and the wall behind her.  "It's never over, though, John.  Never 
is."

"The evil?  Yeah..." He nodded to himself as he looked at the two butterfly 
bandages on the left side of her forehead.  "Like a disease.  Infectious.  
Contagious.  Our immunity to it...  It's precarious.  I know.  It's never 
over."  It took him a few seconds to notice that she had opened her eyes and 
was now regarding him with a bemused expression on her face.  "What?"

"This is coming from you?  Am I hearing this from you?  From Agent John 
Doggett?"

He didn't take offense at her comment; he knew well enough how much he had 
frustrated her with his obstinacy, his bull-headedness throughout this whole 
case.  He figured he deserved to have her sarcasm directed at him.  God 
knows, she's got him figured out better than anybody he ever knew...  Even 
his ex-wife couldn't read him as well as Monica could whenever their eyes 
would meet.

And that was it.  That had been it, hadn't it?

Her ability to see right through him, to have him pegged with one look, had 
unsettled him.

She knew he had seen it--the vision.  He had seen it years ago with Luke and 
yesterday, with Jeb Dukes's third victim.  The ashes...  The scorched 
figures, the degree to which some sort of unquenchable fire had consumed the 
bodies.

Doggett shook his head and ran a hand down his face.  "Not from me; from 
Agent Mulder.  I had a talk with him earlier, before you..."

"Do you believe it?  What he's saying--what you're repeating to me now, 
John?"

He shook his head readily.  "No." Her steady gaze caused him to look away 
uncomfortably.  No sense hiding from her anymore, now that she knows what 
you're really afraid of; what you're horrified of admitting to yourself...  
He sighed silently and looked directly at her.  "I don't want to.  I don't 
know.  But if it's true..."

"If it's true...?"  She leaned forward and arched an eyebrow at him.  Her 
big hazel eyes danced in amusement and curiosity as she studied the 
consternated expression on his face.

"If it's true," he shook his head and loosened his tie uncomfortably.  "Then 
it means I'm just as capable of doing those things."

"Well, of course, you just said it yourself, John--we're all prone to it--"

"No.  Something...  Something Mulder said.  About trauma, vulnerability...  
Somethin' bad happenin'...  I lost Luke, Monica.  God knows what was goin' 
through my head when I first found out we might have somethin' more we could 
do for him, after all these years.  He'd be eleven by now...  If we'd found 
the guy who killed him...  Tonight, if things had been different, and we 
knew for sure...  What would I have done?"

"Katha Dukes?  And this?" Reyes indicated the cut on her forehead and cocked 
her head to the side.  "You think you'd do this--much worse than this--to 
whoever did those things to Luke?"

"I can't help thinkin' it.  I can't."

"You wouldn't do that."

"How do you know?"

Reyes leaned back, crossed her arms over her chest and smiled warmly at him. 
  "Because I know you, John.  You'd never do that to anybody.  Thinking 
about it is quite different from acting it out--making it actually happen.  
I also know you wouldn't do that because it would seem like you hurting Luke 
yourself.  Thinking those thoughts only help you cope, John.  Thinking those 
things are natural for all of us."

"What about dreaming them?" he half mumbled his question, as he momentarily 
forgot the evening's events and recalled the violent dreams he had had about 
Scully while working on the case involving Anthony Tipet.  "That count?"

"John, I'm not sure--"

"I don't think I need to tell you this, Monica, but since I've been assigned 
to the X-Files, there've been some things..."

"Tell me something I don't know," she quipped lightly.  Her face turned 
serious, though, when he furrowed his brows and pinched the bridge of his 
nose.  "John?"

"Little boy--around five.  Cute kid with blonde hair and blue eyes...  He 
came back after about twelve years or so.  He was abducted; they never found 
the guy...  We looked at him.  I touched him, Monica.  He was alive; he was 
real."

"And?"

"Long story short?  When we caught the guy who did it, that boy disappeared 
again."

"Disappeared, how?"

"I wish I could tell ya.  I saw him in the woods.  I saw him.  When I went 
over to where he was, he was gone.  It was just..." he looked away then, and 
squinted at the rain on the other side of the window.  "Dry bones.  That's 
all it was.  They were his."

Reyes regarded him with an unfathomable, unreadable expression.  She looked 
down at her lap after a few seconds and chewed on her lip thoughtfully.  
"You thought of your son.  Of Luke."

"No, I thought of how damned unfair it was, Monica.  That the boy's parents 
could start again.  That they put their lives together; that they had 
another son and moved on.  That they found their lost son again, just like 
he never left them.  Like they were given another chance.  It wasn't fair to 
me.  It wasn't fair to Luke.  It wasn't fair to my family.  He deserved 
better than that.  He still does.  Maybe he should have had those people for 
parents, I don't know...  Maybe...  Maybe things would've been different..."

I know how you feel.  I'm feeling what you're feeling right now.

She leaned forward and stroked his hair with her right hand.  Closing her 
eyes, she pulled him closer and allowed his head to rest against her 
shoulder.  "Don't think that way, John," she whispered against his ear as 
she saw and felt his shoulders sagging for the first time since she arrived. 
  "You know that what happened to your son has nothing to do with who his 
parents are."

"Yeah, it does.  Matters when his parents didn't do enough for him," Doggett 
mumbled against her shirt as he fought to keep the tears from springing to 
his tired eyes.  "Matters when you lose him because you missed somethin' 
along the way."

Reyes tightened her hold around his broad shoulders and rubbed his back 
slowly.  "John..."

"If Mulder's right...  Means we can't do anything to stop it.  Means we got 
nothing, Monica."

"We stopped Jeb Dukes from hurting that little girl.  Mia's fine because we 
stopped him."

"But her mother--"

"Her little girl's alive, John.  That counts."

She could feel him nodding against her.  His breathing eventually calmed 
down, and he gradually, awkwardly pulled away from her tight embrace.  
"Counts, huh?"

"Yeah."

"It isn't fair."

"No, it isn't."  She made it a point to stress the 's' in isn't.  He caught 
on, and the corners of his mouth tugged upwards ever so slightly to form a 
small smile.  She held his gaze for a moment, saying more than any words 
between them could.  That had always been the nature of their relationship.  
Things were always better left unsaid and unspoken.

Finally, he broke their gaze by looking down and replying, "I'm from New 
York, remember?  Eight years with the NYPD doesn't help you any."

"Doedn't.  It's with an 's', too, you know."

"I'll try to remember that next time."  Doggett got up, gently squeezed one 
of her knees as he did so, and headed towards the kitchen.  "You want 
coffee?"

"Actually, it's okay.  I should get going.  I think I'm good to--" She stood 
slowly and straightened her shirt as she said this, oblivious to the 
reproachful look he was giving her from across the room.

"You're not goin' anywhere.  Not after what happened to you.  For all you 
know, you coulda gotten a concuss--"

"Can I use your bathroom before I leave, John?  Where is it?  Upstairs?"  
She ignored his protest and headed up the stairs without so much as 
acknowledging his words.  "Found it," she called to Doggett before she 
closed the door behind her with a click of the lock.

"Like hell you're leavin'," Doggett muttered under his breath as he followed 
her up the stairs and stood a few feet from the bathroom.  "Monica?"

"Uh-huh?" The water from the faucet drowned out her voice, and so he decided 
to wait until she opened the door.  She was blowing her nose; from what he 
could hear, she had been sniffling.

Could she really feel what he was going through?  Could she really sense his 
grief, his frustration, his anger, his loss right now, this very moment, as 
he stood there in the hallway and waited for her?

Years ago, he had simply shrugged and treated her admission of these things 
with indifference.  Maybe she was just hypersensitive.  Too New Age.  God 
knows that had been his first impression of her.  A flake, an oddball who 
happened to slip through the cracks and pass the Academy.

How wrong he had been then, years ago...

The flake, the oddball who happened to slip through the cracks and pass the 
Academy proved to be so much more than that to him.

Until then, he never entertained the idea that flakes and oddballs could 
help you.  That they would want to help you.

Until then, he never entertained the idea that flakes and oddballs could get 
inside your mind and tell you to your face what you were thinking, what you 
were fearing.

Until then, he never entertained the idea that flakes and oddballs were 
worth trusting.  And liking.

He'd never fallen for a flake or an oddball before, until then.

The bathroom door swung open, causing Doggett to lose his train of thought.  
He looked up and squinted at Reyes.  "You okay?"

"I'm fine.  Why do you ask?"

He motioned to the sink with his hand and raised his eyebrows.  "I thought 
you were feelin' sick or something.  From the dizziness, maybe."  He didn't 
mean to lie, but he knew that bringing up the fact that she had been crying 
only minutes ago would only serve to make both of them uncomfortable with 
each other again.

"I'm alright,"  She dismissed the concern in his voice with a casual wave of 
her hand before she walked down the hallway and headed for the stairs.  
"I'll just call a cab, John, and I'll--"

"Doctor's orders, Monica, you heard him--what do you think you're doin'?" 
Doggett leaned over the balustrade and fixed her with a firm glare.  
"Besides," he lowered his voice and studied the carpet intently.  "I 
wouldn't mind the company.  It's...  It's been a while since there's been 
someone other than me in this big house."

She smiled in spite of herself.  He was always one of those people you could 
never brush off.  Gets under your skin, that boy, like a splinter...  One of 
her aunts used to say that.  She couldn't, for the life of her, figure out 
why that came to mind all of a sudden.  Oddly enough, her aunt was one of 
those frumpy, old-fashioned people who always seemed to fit in, no matter 
what the situation or the place.  She was something like the frilly lamp in 
John's living room.

"Come up here, we'll get you settled in."  Doggett waited until she reached 
the top of the stairs before he walked towards the master bedroom and opened 
the door.  Sensing her surprise as well as her discomfort, he looked over 
his shoulder and jerked a thumb in the direction of another, smaller room, 
closer to the stairs.  "Don't get any ideas; I'll be in Luke's room."

Whatever discomfort or uneasiness she felt over the prospect of sharing the 
same bed with him that night quickly vanished when he referred to the other 
room as belonging to his son's.  "I'm sorry--Luke's...?"

"You know we moved here some time after..." Doggett allowed himself to trail 
off, certain that she would understand him.  His moving with his wife to 
Falls Church after Luke's death had been one of the last things they had 
talked about.  He hadn't talked to her since.  Not during or after the 
divorce.  It was only in Montana, months ago, that he'd had the courage to 
pick up the phone and get in touch with her again.

"I guess we were both hopin' we could put our marriage back together, maybe 
try and have another..."  Again, he left the rest of his comment unspoken.  
After a brief pause, he looked down and ran a hand through his hair before 
continuing more softly.  "We should've left most of his things behind, in 
New York.  But we didn't.  He's had his own room here, all these years.  All 
the house needed was him."

She nodded in understanding as she reached out and touched his forearm.  Her 
smile was sincere.  The look in her eyes drew him in somehow.

"I'll show you," he practically whispered before he turned on his heels and 
crossed the hallway.

Reyes watched as Doggett turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.  
Flipping on the light, he looked over his broad shoulder and smiled at her.  
"Come on in."

The bed was well-made.  The pillows were neatly piled beneath a comforter 
adorned with different coloured dinosaurs.  There was a small, but cluttered 
bookshelf off to the side.  It looked like a miniature version of the one in 
the living room downstairs.

Reyes looked around the room as she attempted to ignore the feelings she 
could sense were welling up inside her companion.  He had never shared this 
room with anyone else before, and now he was wondering if he had made a 
mistake by showing it to her.

As she sat at the foot of the bed, Doggett hunkered down and picked up a 
small stuffed animal that had fallen off a rack on the wall.  "He always 
falls when I slam the front door shut on my way to work in the morning," he 
explained quietly before returning the plush bear to its rightful place on 
the rack.

"Do you stay here a lot?"

He shrugged and walked to the doorway.  "Once in a while, yeah," he cleared 
his throat and took a deep breath.  "When I miss him a lot more than usual." 
  Before Reyes could say anything in response, he reached up, turned the 
lights off and closed the door.

"Umm, John?"  It was so dark that she couldn't even see whether he stepped 
out of the room and left her there, all by herself.

"It's okay; I'm still here."

"Why did you do that?"

"Switch the light off, you mean?"

"That's exactly what I mean."

She sensed him in the act of sitting on the floor by her feet.  She looked 
down and tried to make out his profile in the dark.  "You still haven't 
answered me.  Why did you do that?"

"Don't tell me you're scared of the dark, Agent Reyes."

"I'm not.  Just, why--"

"Look up, Monica."

She did as she was told.

The ceiling was glowing in the dark.  Saturn was orbiting the corner near 
the closet doors.  The Moon was somewhere between the light and the doorway. 
  What seemed like hundreds of stars covered the expanse of the ceiling.

"What--"

"They're just stickers.  I found them once, when I was looking through his 
notebooks from school.  I guess he must've forgotten to put them up in his 
room, back in New York."  Doggett slowly pulled himself up off the floor and 
sat down beside Reyes.  "It's insane, I know.  I shouldn't have done it--"

"No, it's--they're beautiful, John." This time, it was her turn to squeeze 
his knee in reassurance.  "I'm sure he likes it."

He was quiet for a while.  Only the sound of the rain outside could be heard 
until he addressed her abruptly.  "Monica?  You at all familiar with 
'soul-eaters'?"

She shook her head without taking her eyes off the rings of Saturn.  
"Vaguely.  All I know is that they're said to be healers; that they take 
away the pain and suffering of--"

"You know enough.  More than I did, at least."

"What's this about?"  Reyes finally looked away from the ceiling and turned 
her face towards him.  "Another X-File?"

"Somethin' like that," he mumbled.  It would be pointless to recount the 
details, he knew, and so he opened his mouth and went on instinct.  "I felt 
so selfish, I felt just like those people in Squamash, when I saw what that 
man could do.  I tried to get him outta there, earlier, but after I saw what 
he did--for me--I started feeling the way they musta felt all this time, 
those people in that town."

"You started feeling what way?"

"I started wishin' I could've taken him back with me.  I thought Agent 
Scully was real sick, I wanted him to do for her what he did for me...  I 
wanted him to do something for Mulder; I wished he'd been there when we 
found Mulder in the woods, and--"

"And your son."

He hesitated for a few seconds before he let out a deep breath and nodded.  
"Yeah.  I guess it all comes back to him, doesn't it?"

"What happened?"

"I don't know how to explain this; I can't.  That man...  He took my place, 
Monica.  He took my death.  I got shot, right here," he raised his left 
hand, and brought her right one along with it as he touched his chest. He 
seemed as though he wanted to prove to himself as much as to her that he was 
still whole; that there was no exit wound on his body.  "I should've died.  
I did.  But now he's dead, and I'm not.  Don't even ask me to explain it, 
'cause I don't even know where or how to begin."

There was nothing but a pause.  He was beginning to think that this was 
where Monica drew the line with regards to her fence-sitting between beliefs 
and possibilities.  It seemed ironic, somehow; that that should happen...

"John, I--"

"I know what happened to me.  I know what I saw.  I remember everything.  I 
even saw him after he--"

"I believe you.  It's not that at all--"

"I don't know what to feel anymore."  Now, after all this time, he was 
finding it easier and easier to say this--to her.  Somehow, perhaps 
temporarily, all his fears seemed to have been allayed.  "For the longest 
time I wanted to find my son.  I wanted to be wherever he was now.  But ever 
since that time in Pennsylvania...  I don't know."  His thumb gently stroked 
the knuckle of her index finger before he continued.  "And what's happened 
tonight hasn't helped me any.  It's like having it all thrown at me again, 
and I don't know how to avoid it.  I think..."  Doggett swallowed and 
cleared his throat.  "I think lately, I've been more afraid.  Of dying.  I'm 
afraid that even then, when I die..."  He looked around the room, as though 
the appropriate words were hidden there somewhere.  "Even then I won't find 
him.  That I won't get to him on time."

"Because that man took your death?"

"Maybe."

"John, maybe it's not about that."

"No?  Then what is it about?"

"Maybe it's about this room."

"This room." He could sense her nod in the dark.  He released her hand and 
faced her squarely.

"It's not about finding him, John.  It's about keeping him alive."

He was silent; he knew there would be more to it than that, and so he 
remained silent and simply waited.

"Giving him a room.  In your house, your life.  Picking up after him, 
reading his notebooks," she nudged his side with her elbow and pointed to 
Saturn and its companion stars once again.  "Maybe it's about giving him the 
stars to look at when he sleeps at night."

He knew what she meant.  There was more to Luke than his abduction.  Than 
the evil that had taken him away from his family.  There was so much more to 
him than that.  So much more.

"You okay, John?"

He nodded.  He stretched out on the small bed as best he could and pulled 
her up beside him.  "I'm okay," Doggett whispered in response as he allowed 
Reyes to rest her head on his shoulder.  "You've had a tough night.  You 
should take it easy. Go to sleep, Monica."  He hadn't realized how worried 
he'd been about her all this time, until now.  He stroked her hair slowly, 
and waited until she was in the process of being lulled to sleep before he 
leaned down and whispered in her hair.  "New Orleans will wait for you 'til 
tomorrow.  Sleep."

"Can't..." She mumbled and closed her eyes as she gradually allowed the 
anxiety and stress to overcome her.

"Thanks for listenin'." She couldn't hear him; she had already dozed off.  
He stared at her sleeping form.  A lock of dark hair had fallen out of place 
and covered her right eye.  He brushed it back and leaned his head against 
the wall.  The rain outside had developed into a full-blown storm, 
threatening to drown out his thoughts with successive claps and growls of 
thunder.

He didn't care.

He had a good view of the stars.

'I'm glad you like them, Luke...'

For the first time in years, he wasn't afraid to fall asleep.

END

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