"Resolutions"
by Marie Endres
joemimi@optonline.net

Keywords: DRR; Angst

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Reyes discovers an ancient Babylonian
tradition.

Disclaimer: Doggett and Reyes do not belong
to me. I promise to give them back to
1013 and CC when I am finished.


"Resolutions"


It was stupid. It was silly. It was goofy. Yet,
it was goofy in the way that made perfect sense
in her convoluted, round-about way of looking
at the world. It was healing, and it was about
doing what was right. It was all about him.

Monica Reyes sat at her computer terminal in
the office that once belonged to the most
unwanted in the Hoover building. She was
contemplating the end of this incredible year
when the homepage before her offered headlines
that would keep her awake that night, and slice
of life stories that made web surfers wonder
what they were worried about in the first
place. Then she saw the one link that was the
siren to her believing mind: "Ancient
Babylonian New Year Traditions."

The work day was almost finished, and all the
year-end paperwork had been signed in
triplicate, so Monica felt it wouldn't be so
bad to take a little foray into the wonders of
the ancient world. She clicked.

She became absorbed in the article about the
origins of New Year's day, and she saw an idea
that prompted her to take one small step that
seemed at first to be just that. We all know
that life begins with small steps.

She learned that New Year's resolutions,
heinous though they are, had their roots in a
Babylonian tradition of being sure to return
farm equipment before the start of the New
Year, returning to owners what was rightfully
theirs.

And she remembered it, then. Long she had kept
it, shuttling it from office drawer to at-home
office, until it made its way here, in a full
circle story that made her Karmic heart sing.

She slowly opened the desk drawer to her right,
the top one, to view its usual, undisturbed
place. Past the gun-metal silver dividers, past
the bottles of White-out and half-used packets
of gum, to the back where it rested in perfect
solitude and peace.

Her fingertips reached it before it came into
her line of vision and instantly her mind
remembered its softness, its tenderness. She
carefully lifted it up and out of its hiding
spot.

It was a simple, cotton, man's handkerchief.
Embroidered in the lower, right hand corner
were the letters, "J.J.D." The initials were
entwined together; their color, fruitlessly
trying to emulate the cornflower blue of his
eyes.

She held the handkerchief as tenderly as if it
were a fragile baby bird that just might not
survive the cold. And she knew what she must
do.

She could no longer keep this reminder of that
night, so many tears ago. She needed to return
it to its rightful owner, the partner who
professionally shared her days, the same man
who had loved her body with a ferocity that
frightened her and a need that was bottomless.

They had made love only once, with tears and
screams, and desperate clawing toward someone,
something to hold onto in this Hellstorm that
sometimes is life. Tears began it, after all.

 It seemed only fitting that tears should fall
as she contemplated giving back to him the one
piece of himself that he had allowed her to
keep.

"Hey Monica- You cryin'?" His voice came
gravelly rough as he stood in the doorway. He
seemed afraid to enter, afraid to walk in upon
this landmine of emotions.

"No. Yes. I guess," she sputtered.

"I think you're cryin'. Want to tell me why?"
he asked as he walked slowly, carefully to his
desk.

"It's just, well. . ." She couldn't find the
words for everything that the simple piece of
cloth in her hand summoned, unbidden and wild.

And so she rose, and walked to him with her
hand outstretched, the handkerchief, on its way
back to its rightful owner after so long.

He dropped his overcoat on the desktop, and he
didn't even bother to scoop it up when it slid
off and onto the floor. Not after he saw what
was being proffered in her simple hands.

"I read that resolutions for the New Year began
with the returning of farm equipment-" she
tried to tell him through choked back tears.

"That doesn't look like John Deere to me," he
said.

She looked at him, finally, then, wondering if
indeed, he did know what it was.

"I remember that, Monica," he said with quiet
certainty as he placed his hand over her palm
and stared down at their hands

"I gave that to you the night that we found
Luke," he began. "You were cryin'. In the
bathroom."

She nodded and he continued.

"I rapped on the door, telling you to be quiet.
That it was over now, to go home. But you
didn't." His words came out slowly and with the
distance that only memories carry.

"No, I didn't," she replied. "I opened up the
door."

"And when I saw you, with those tears streaming
down your face-"

"You dried them with this handkerchief, John. I
wanted to return it to you, start the New Year
right," she said while sniffling back her
tears.

"Hey, you're doing it again," he said as he
unclasped his hand from hers, raising the cloth
to once again accomplish a loving task. And
then he did as he had that night when Heaven
seemed so very deaf- he began to dry her tears
not with mere cloth, but with the slow, gentle
warmth of his lips. Salt and water mixing
together to remind them both of their
timelessness.

"God, Monica, why did you keep that all these
years?" he said against her skin, his hands
landing on her shoulders to steady them both as
he continued his sweet ministrations.

Her breath quickened as she remembered,
remembered everything. "It was all I could hold
onto from that night," she whispered.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he said as he raised
his head to press his forehead to hers.

"I'm not," she said as she tilted his chin
upwards, to have his eyes meet hers. "I'm not
sorry about one moment with you, John Doggett."

"But all I did was take from you," he replied.

"And all I ever wanted was to give," she said
in counterpoint. "Let me give this back to you,
now," she said as she pressed the now damp
cloth into his hand.

 She watched him swallow hard, and nod with the
determination of a man who wasn't going to make
the same mistakes again. She knew it was his
New Year's resolution.


END

Notes: This was originally written for the IWTB
Ima Believer Challenge. Many thanks to all there
who made me believe.

Resolve to send feedback: joemimi@optonline.net