Title: Reality
Author: Warm Fuzzies
Rating: Pg... maybe even a G
Spoilers:  nothing really, but it can vaguely refer to 
the ending conversation between John and Monica in 
"Underneath".
Keywords: DRR
Summary:  An unnecessary apology turns into some 
confessions.

Feedback:  Could you?  Please?  I've got so many idea, 
but no fodder to feed my poor starving brain...  (in a 
pathetic little whining voice)  Please?  Help 
meeeeee!!!!

Disclaimer:  Good Lord, if these two were actually mine, 
think of all the fun I could have at their expense.  
But even Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish are saying 
that they wanted to expand this relationship.  Why 
don't CC just listen to his actors for once?  1013, 
Fox, yadda yadda yadda.  You all know that they aren't 
mine.

Author's Notes:  I am going to be gone for the next 
two months, with no steady access to a computer, so if,
by some unearthly miracle, someone sends me feedback 
(which I would love, hint hint) please don't be 
offended if I don't respond for a couple of weeks.  
I'll try really hard to get back to you, but, I don't 
know what Europe's like for easy access.  Danke.


THE STORY BEGINS>

What the hell was he doing there?  John Doggett looked 
down at his hands and the movie and beer that he was 
holding.  His lame ass excuse that he was here to 
apologize for the way that he acted in the sewer was 
absolutely ludicrous.  She wasn't going to buy that.

Maybe he didn't need an excuse.  He sighed 
non-committedly and headed up the stairs and into the 
building, punching the elevator button.

He had to stop thinking or he was going to lose his 
nerve.

Was he nervous?

Hell, yeah.

As he exited the elevator and walked towards his 
partner's apartment, he began to hear the soft strings 
of a guitar.  It was melodious, hovering muscially 
somewhere between mournful and happy.  There was no 
voice to accompany it, and John thought that maybe if 
there had been one, it might have detracted from the 
wonderful sound.  It was beautiful.

So he was surprised to find that it was coming from 
Monica Reyes' apartment.

He was reluctant to knock, but he did tap softly.

"It's open!" she called, not breaking from her rhythm 
in music.

He slowly opened the door which admitted him into a 
dimly lit room.  His eyes scanned the darkened 
furniture to find his partner sitting under the only 
lamp on in the room, feet up on an ottoman, nimble 
fingers plucking at the strings.

"Hey..." he called softly, meeting her eyes.

He smiled back when she broke into a smile at seeing 
him.  She cocked her head to the side, her fingers 
stopping their movement.  He was disappointed at the 
loss of music, but kept smiling, closing the door 
and putting the movie and beer on the table by her 
door.

"Hey to you too."  She didn't move the guitar from 
its place across her thighs, but shifted a little, 
sitting up straighter.  "To what do I owe the 
pleasure?"

he stood a little awkwardly for a moment, and then 
decided to stick with his original plan.  "I came to 
apologize."  Damn, that sounded so weak.  Why
couldn't he just have said that he felt like spending 
a night watching a movie and drinking beer with his 
friend.

"Apologize?"  she sounded confused, and John admitted 
that she had a right to be.  "For what?"

"For not believing you.  For not trusting you on your 
theories."

Now she did set the instrument down and sat forward, 
gesturing for him to take a seat.  She watched him with 
an interested look on her face, somewhere between 
amusement and acceptance.  He settled on the sofa 
across from her and put his hands in his lap, watching 
her think and try to come up with a response to his 
apology.

"First of all, I don't need an apology for you being 
you.  If you had just followed after me with a blind 
eye, I think that it might have turned out for the 
worse actually.  I don't expect for you to do that, 
and frankly, you give me more room to talk than a lot 
of guys that I've worked with."  She smiled lovingly 
at him and relaxed back into her seat again.  "I know 
that a lot of my theories are a little off the wall 
for you to grasp with science, but I think that 
you've got more of an open mind than you think you 
do."

John found himself liking what she was saying.  He 
never knew that she saw his actions in this light.  
True, he knew that she understood his standing in 
science and proof, but he had always thought that 
she had wanted him, just once, to believe in one of 
her theories.  He always thought that his rigid 
roots in evidence and logic had annoyed her.

And he had to admit that through his recent 
experiences, he was leaning more and more to putting 
some faith into her theories.

She smiled at him after a moment of silence.  "Who 
says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?"

He chuffed in humor.  "You callin' me old, yung'un?"

She looked slyly at him and then pointed at him, 
standing and heading into the kitchen.  "Nope, I'm 
calling you a dog."

She disappeared behind the wall and came back, holding 
a stein for her beer.  He loved that little fact about 
her.  She would never drink her beer out of the can.  
It was a glass or a bottle, but not a can.  He was 
coming to know more and more of these little things 
about her, and he found himself wanting to know as much 
as he could.

He sat in silence for a moment while she handed him a 
can and took one for herself, sitting herself at the 
other end of the couch that he was occupying.  She 
folded one of her legs under her and settled back, 
pouring the alcohol expertly, without allowing the head 
of the beer to overflow the rim.

"Me thinks, Monica, that you've done that too often."  
John stated humourously.

"I went to university to, John.  It wasn't all books 
and guys.  Beer was in there too."  She defended 
herself, taking a swallow.

"There was beer in university?"

Monica laughed and watched him take a slug of his can.  
"At least in my decade there was."

John laughed and looked at her pointedly.  "Enough with 
the old jokes.  I can still play with the best of 'em."

Monica continues to smile as she eyes him up and down,
nodding her head and then pursing her lips.  "I know 
you can keep up with me, but I'm not exactly young 
anymore, either."  She picked at her middle nail with 
her thumb, and then looked back up at him.

He watched her check him out again, and suppressed the 
shiver that wanted to run down his spine.  He couldn't 
stop his own eyes from wandering, but paused when he 
reached her eyes and realized that somewhat of a 
pressured silence had descended on them.  He only came 
here tonight so that he could be around her for 
another couple of hours.  Regardless, he could feel 
the little butterflies taking flight in his stomach.

Was he still nervous?

He cleared his throat.

"So, uh..."  he looked across the room at the abandoned 
instrument.  "I didn't know you played the guitar."

She smiled, unreasonably pleased with herself that she 
had kept that a secret from him for so long.  "I'm 
actually more a piano person, but I'll make an 
exception, given that I don't really have the room for 
the grand that I want."  She looked around the finally 
settled apartment and smiled at the way her home was 
beginning to look.

"What were you playing when I came in?"  he asked, 
fingering the edge of the can, while continuing to 
watch her.

"Just a little something that I've been thinking of 
for a while now."

He could feel that the conversation was petering out.  
"No words?"

She shook her head vehemently.  "No, too distracting.  
I usually only play when I need to think.  Words 
wouldn't allow me to do that.  I prefer the pure stuff.  
Straight up."

Sounded like she was talking about crack.  But he 
guessed, given the right context, music could be a 
kind of drug.  A little addicting coming from the 
right frame of mind.

He laughed a little, standing up and walking over to 
the guitar, picking it up and looking closely at it.  
"How long have you known how to play it?"  he walked 
back over to the couch and handed her the instrument, 
smiling, hoping that she would get the message he was 
trying to send that he wanted her to keep playing.

"Long time," she said, putting her beer to the side.  
She eyed him with a raised eye brow, but settled 
comfortably onto the couch and continued to play.  
"Dad plays, so there was always one around the house.  
I got to picking it up once in a while and I would
watch Dad when he played."

"You learned by example."

John sat back and let his head fall onto the backrest.  
A small smile began to play on his lips as he listened 
to the music she was making.  It invoked a lot of 
memories, he found; a lot of those memories including 
Luke and his ex-wife.  They were bittersweet and he 
found that that was what the music sounded like... if 
anything could sound bittersweet.

He turned his head to the side and caught Monica 
watching him.  She was a little embarrassed at being 
caught, but wouldn't look away.  John soon found 
himself watching her too; the slowly, timed movement 
of her fingers and the smooth sliding of her arm, the 
rhythmic flexing of her thigh as her foot lightly kept 
time.  She caught his eyes again and smiled a little.

"You were in my dream last night."  From the look on 
her face, she regretted telling him that and it left 
him wondering why she wouldn't want him knowing what 
was in that dream.

John pursed his lips, his mind begging for him to pull 
a joke and loosen the mood, but his heart really wanted 
to hear what she was going to tell him.

"What happened?"  he closed his eyes again, and let the
music wash over him.  He really liked it.  he wondered 
if he could get her to record some of it for him, cause 
he knew that it would definitely help him to sleep at 
night.  Something that he'd been having some trouble 
doing since hey had stood side by side in the sewer a 
couple of days before.

"It's nothing really..." she tried to dodge it, but at 
the look that he gave her, she sighed and looked down 
to watch her hands moving over the strings.  She 
refused to look up.  "it was just... simple, I guess.  
You were lying on a blanket in a grassy field, reading
a book.  You were content, maybe even happy."  She 
shifted in her spot, and glanced up, catching John 
watching her with interest now.  "then there's this 
little kid's laughter... a young boy..."  at that, she 
catches his eye, knowing without a doubt that he was 
thinking of his own little boy, whose laughter was now 
only an echo in his heart.  "Not Luke... it wasn't... 
him.  It was William... but what got me, was the little 
girl that ran along beside him..."  she put the guitar
down, her fingers shaking now and unable to play the 
right notes.  She smiled as she closed her eyes and 
relived the dream.  "she had your eyes and 
cheekbones... and she laughed like you do."

John could feel his heart in his ears, the heavy 
pounding of blood and the unerring certainty that she 
was feeling the reality of her dream.  It was shocking, 
now that he thought about it, the similarities between 
what she was talking about and one that he had had on 
occasion, over the last couple of years.  He could see 
in his minds eye the field, and the boy that he hadn't 
been able to recognize, who he thought was his, wasn't.  
It was Will.  He could see what Will would look like in 
5 or 6 years, and could even see the little girl that 
Monica was talking about.  Could even say what he had 
called her in the dream.

"She was mine?"  his voice was weak, but clear.  Please 
let it be the same dream, he prayed.

Monica didn't open her eyes as she nodded, keeping her 
minds eye on the field where she had watched it play out.

"Who else?"  he could barely force himself to ask the 
question, but he wanted so dearly for that dream to be 
true...

Because in his dream... she was the mother.

A family again.

She shook her head and opened her eyes, not answering 
him.  "I... I'm not, not sure."

John cleared his throat, knowing at this moment, that 
he could continue with this or he could change the 
subject, but he wanted so desperately to know what she 
was seeing in her heart.  What it was that her 
subconscious wanted with her life.

So he began to tell her his dream.

"She's 5 or 6, and William's grown a lot.  He's got 
Mulder's dark hair and shadowed eyes, and Scully's 
Roman nose.  The perfect blend between the two.  
She's got dark hair..."  he swallowed his heartbeat 
and reached across to finger a lock of her hair, 
keeping his eyes glues on her wide brown ones, 
"almost black.  My eyes and cheekbones, but not my 
ears... thankfully."  She huffed a little laugh, but 
kept her eyes on him.  "no... she may be mine... but 
she has the stature and mind of a Reyes."  He paused 
and watched her slowly blink, a soft tear running 
down her cheek.  "doesn't she?"

The hand that had fingered her hair had remained near 
her face and cupped her jaw, running a thumb along her 
lower lip... a lip that was trembling.

A smile wove it's way onto that trembling mouth and 
Monica smiled at him, nodding.

"And what's her name?"  she asked him, leaning into
his palm.

"Her name?  Ceili...  Ceili Hope."

Monica released a nervous laugh, a little skittish at 
the prospect of sharing such a personal dream.  But 
amazingly, John wasn't scared at all.  Knowing that 
the peaceful serenity of the dream could likely be a 
reality was more intoxicating to him than anything he 
could think of.

He smiled at her, even though he noticed that her eyes 
were closed.  "only you would think of a name like 
Ceili.  Hope probably would have been my idea."

Well, if this wasn't a night for solidifying dreams, at 
least the foundations were being set.  Good Lord, 
where'd he get the courage?

"Why did you come tonight?"  the guitar had been set 
aside, but she had stayed where she was.  The intensity 
of her gaze would have been unnerving in any other 
situation, but he was beginning to see other emotions
within those deep brown eyes.

He smiled, knowing that she had seen through his feeble 
excuse.  "I wanted to see you."

Her look changed to one of pleasure and she smiled, happy 
with his response.

"I'm glad you came."

John looked down at the can of beer in his hands and 
nodded, agreeing.  "So am I."  Then he looked back up at 
her and smiled at her.  Then he shook his head in wonder
and laughed.  "I found out that you play the guitar."

She laughed and linked her fingers with his along the back 
of the couch.  Silence reigned for a solid ten minutes as 
they sat and thought about what their confessions that 
night would cost them.  However, once they looked at each 
other and saw the future with each other, the consequences 
seemed so little and petty that there was only left the 
ultimate feeling that this was right.  She smiled at him 
and he smiled back.

Then she took in a deep breath and looked him straight in 
the eye.  "Stay tonight?"

A slow happy smile spread it way across John's face and 
made its way into his eyes.  He cocked his head to the 
side and looked back at her, reading the worry and the 
love that shone from her eyes.  "Just tonight?"

"No..."  she shook her head, squeezing his fingers that 
were still interlocked with hers.  "Forever.  Stay 
forever?"

"Of course."  Without hesitation.

Nothing marred the fact that they were giving themselves 
to each other.  Nothing outside of the apartment existed 
tonight.  Nothing but the two people on the couch and 
the guitar, laid carefully at their feet.