Title: Stormlight

By: Tori

Rating: NC-17

Category: DRR, case file, Doggett/Reyes POV

Summary: While Reyes and Doggett suffer with large 
empty holes in their lives, they are assigned to a 
case in Nevada involving a killer who kills with 
powerful witchcraft.

Archive: Sure. Just ask me, I'll say yes definitely.

Feedback: rapidash@hotmail.com

Disclaimer: Reyes and Doggett aren't mine. If they 
were, they'd be "doing it" already ;)

----

Doggett:

Her big brown eyes focused on the computer screen, 
which is what mine should have been doing. And 
yet…they weren't. They were focusing on her.

I found myself wondering if her mind was focused on 
her work at all. I wondered if she was really 
concentrating that hard…or was she thinking about 
something else? And what was it?

When she looked up and caught me staring at her, I 
turned my eyes back to my desk, pretending to be 
intensely interested in a piece of paper.

----

Reyes:

I wasn't focusing on my work. I was staring blankly 
at the computer screen, wondering what was wrong with 
me.

Was there something not attractive about me? Was 
there something that repelled men? Was it me?

Telling myself it was only men didn't work anymore. I 
knew that wasn't the reason…but then, I didn't know 
the reason.

I caught John staring at me and he immediately looked 
back down. I smiled to myself.

The thought had crossed my mind, more than once, to 
turn to my partner for a romance. But it was *John.* 
And then again…it was John. John who was easy to love, 
charming with the perfect sense of humor and he was so 
protective. I always felt loved and safe when near him.

And lately, I'd felt my palms get sweaty. I'd felt 
light flutters from my stomach and up. And sometimes…
they would go lower.

I looked back down, when the phone rang.

"Doggett." He said, picking it up before I had a chance. 
"…Yes, sir. We'll be up there right now."

----

Doggett:

When we were sitting in Follmer's office, he began to 
explain the rough details of the case we were being 
assigned.
"It's a murder case, there have been two more like it, 
but there are no clues whatsoever. Nothing, and by 
nothing, I mean *nothing*. There wasn't even evidence of
a struggle. All three happened in the same place...a 
house in some little town in Nevada," (Megs, I'm 
borrowing your town!!!) "They all knew each other and 
all lived in the house at the time...as roommates. Now, 
currently, there are three other people living there, 
looking for residents. Two women and one man."
"Could they be suspects?" Monica asked.
"That's what you two are going to figure out. I've been 
told about a time when Mulder and Scully went on a 
case...undercover, as a married couple."
I glanced at Monica, hoping to share a quirky smile with
her, but she was staring long and hard at the AD.
"I've heard it was quite successful...I want you two to 
go in and become residents. Not as a married couple," he 
added hastily. "Just as two people...two non FBI agents."
"Sir...why not just go investigate?" I asked. "Why 
waste a lot of time and money on undercover 
investigations?"
"The three have made their opinion on the FBI clear. 
They do not want agents snooping around their pad, to 
quote one. This will be much more abundant."
"But...sir, Agent Doggett and I don't exactly *look* 
young enough to move in with a bunch of young people..."
He flipped through the case file. "One of the women is 
35, the other 29, and the man is 39," he said. "You 
two might want to look this over, as well."
"Yes sir."
"When do we leave?" Monica asked. She seemed excited 
to do this.
"As soon as possible. Chances are, another murder will 
occur and you two must be there to stop it."

----

Megan Stewart sat on the floor of her darkened bedroom, 
Linkin Park blasting from her stereo, knife poised above 
her wrist.

She liked the way it felt when the knife sank in, a soft 
feeling, and she was amazed as the blood began to trickle 
out.

She had cut on the wrong place on purpose, though. She 
didn't want to die, just relieve stress.

The candle light glowed over her, and a lazy smile passed 
over her face as she took the bottle of Raspberry Smirnoff 
and took a big swig.

She watched the blood run down her wrists, onto her bare 
legs and then the floor.

Her eyes turned a misty, glassy color as more blood came 
out of her body, and finally she passed out.

----

Reyes:

The house was bigger and not as much run down as I 
thought. It was a pale yellow color with a nice yard 
and a dark brown roof.

We'd called the people and set up a meeting. They 
seemed desperate to have people move in, as if they 
didn't care who we were. Just as long as we could pay 
the rent.

Knocking on the door, I made note that they liked cats. 
Three small kittens rolled in the grass, one white, 
one black and one black and white.

A woman with short brown hair answered in a knee 
length skirt and a white sweater. She smiled 
pleasantly.

"Hey…you must be those people that called…I'm sorry I 
can't remember your names…"

"I'm Tori Henderson and this is Matthew Jacobs," I 
said.
"Oh, right! You're the artist," she said pointing to 
me. "And you're the writer. Nice. Come in, have a quick 
look around."

The house was clean.

The rooms were all neat, but the ones John and I would 
have had still had the stuff in it.

"So how do you like it?" she asked.
"It's wonderful!" I said.

"Look, before you move in, I want to make sure you know 
about what happened here…the people that lived here 
were all murdered…that seems to repel tenants." She 
sighed.

"Cool!" John said, trying to stick with the personality 
I think he'd created for himself.

I smiled, though didn't laugh at this.

"Yeah, I'd love to live here," I said.

"Okay, we have a few house rules. One…no dating in the 
house…you two aren't…"

"Oh hell no," I said. "We're just good friends."

"Great. Two, all the wild parties you want to have…go 
for it!" she smiled. "It's all good, for real…and I 
think that's about it…well, you two can move in 
whenever…sorry about the stuff…we just never really…"

"Oh, it's no problem," I said.

"Okay." She handed John a key, then me a key and said 
she hoped to see us soon.

----

Doggett:

Monica had detailed the whole thing out. Our names, 
professions…she took great delight in this, choosing 
each aspect perfectly.

The next day we "moved in", with boxes marked as 
"clothes" or "books", but the contents went beyond 
them.

It was our first time to get a first impression of the 
other two roommates.

The man, Chris Redding was a guy with long dark hair. 
He played guitar and for a living, waited at a small 
café.

The girl Megan was a small pleasant person. She was 
the youngest, and her hair was red and she reminded 
me a tad bit of Scully, though she was tall and thin, 
with tan legs that went on forever. Her dilated eyes 
and perfectly placid attitude suggested she wasn't 
clean-of alcohol or drugs.

But she was very nice to me and Monica. I liked her.

After I had shoved all the boxes of mine against the 
wall of "my bedroom", I heard a "Hey." From the door.

I turned to see Monica standing there, grin spread 
across her face.

"You all ready?"

"Yeah…but what the hell are we supposed to do, 
Monica?"
"Protect these people."
"And in the meanwhile?"

"Make friends with them. See if possibly they could be 
behind the murders somehow."

"I think Megan might be involved."
"Why?"
"Just a hunch."

She sat next to me on the floor.

"I don't think any of them are involved," she said, 
and I braced myself for a long, far out theory.  But 
she said nothing.

"What, no crazy theory?"
"Not this time." She said, standing back up.

She left the room, those words hanging in the air.

----

Reyes:

I looked around the room I would be sleeping in until 
this case was solved. It was a fairly big room, but 
was cluttered with one of the previous owners' junk.

The bed was tall but not long, with a very corny 
leopard print comforter and pillow cases.

I sighed, turning to one of my boxes and removing a 
pair of rubber gloves.

I started to look around, opening drawers and jewelry 
boxes.

The person who last had the room was the first victim, 
Alyssa Mariquet. I found lots of things to describe her 
personality…in almost every photo of her I saw, she 
was laughing. She had blond hair and was pretty, she 
looked very much like a model.

In most pictures, she was with two men and Megan-the 
woman who lived her now.

One of the men always had his arm around Megan, or was 
holding hands with her. The other was like this with 
Alyssa, but he never looked happy like the other three.

I took a picture of these four people sitting on a 
couch and put it in an evidence bag.

In one of her many jewelry boxes, one of the bigger 
ones I found four packs of incense, lots of 
unidentifiable pills, a book filled with spells and 
about ten dollars worth of marijuana. I placed the 
pills and the leaf in another bag and put it safely 
in an empty shoe box.

I found nothing else interesting so I sat with the 
picture on the bed.

I took off the gloves and removed the picture from 
the bag, looking at it intently. There was something 
about it that made me feel like Alyssa wasn't as 
happy as her face looked in photographs.

"I like that one too." A voice said.

I looked up to see Megan Stewart standing there in 
the door frame. Stupid me…I left the door open. How 
much did she see?

"I'm sorry, it's just that…"
"No, it's no problem."

She stepped in and looked around the room, heaving a 
great sigh.

Then she sat next to me on the bed.

"Alyssa was my best friend," she said. "Ever since we 
were in fourth grade, we said we'd live together and 
marry brothers and become sisters and everything. 
See that guy with her? That was her boyfriend, 
Heath. That guy with me is Joel, my boyfriend."

"I'm so sorry…"
"It's not like it's your fault," she said with a big 
sigh. "I just wish I could have apologized before she 
was gone."

"What do you mean?"
"What are you, Nancy Drew?" she asked, but went on. 
"A day before we found her, she broke up with Heath. 
Heath was a bastard. He abused her, treated her like 
dog shit. That same day, he stopped by the house to 
pick up something he left in her room, and he slipped 
something in my coke can…then he raped me while I was 
knocked out.

Well, Megan found out and freaked. She got mad at me 
for letting him in the house, for having sex with him. 
She didn't think he'd drugged me."

"You don't have to apologize to her," I said, putting 
my hand on her shoulder. "She knows what really 
happened, now."

"Yeah," she said, standing up. "I guess."

She moved over to the jewelry box where I'd found 
Alyssa's stash.

"We got these jewelry boxes in sixth grade," she smiled, 
obviously remembering good times. "We hid everything in 
them. I remember this one time, that year in sixth 
grade, I stole my big brother's bottle of happy pills, 
and she got a six pack. Those jewelry boxes were so 
big…we could fit everything in them."

She sighed and turned back to me.

She stood there in a red tank top and low cut denim 
flares.

She ran a hand through her hair and I noticed deep 
slashes on her arm, a couple of scars, too. And when 
the tank top rose a little, on her thigh I saw a J 
carved-like with a knife-in her skin.

I suddenly got a very ill feeling in my stomach. I 
will never understand why people do that to themselves.

Megan noticed me staring and smiled a little smile.

"It relieves tension. You should try it."
"No…I don't like inflicting pain on myself."

"There is no pain involved if you do it right."
"What?"
"Come on," she smiled. "I'm peer pressuring you. Come 
with me, I'll show you."

"You shouldn't do that," I said. "You could kill 
yourself."
"So?"

"Why…"
"Just follow me."

I followed her into her bedroom, which was also fairly 
large and I saw lots of the same things I'd seen in 
Alyssa's room.

She walked over to the jewelry box that she'd been 
telling me about and pulled out a long scrap of blue 
satin, a pocket knife and a handful of pills.

"Don't do that," I pleaded. "Don't, you could hurt 
yourself."

"No…it just relieves stress. Watch."

She swallowed all of the pills and tied the scrap of 
fabric around her arm. I took the pocket knife away 
from her.

"Don't." I said firmly.
"Why? Why do you care?"
"You're killing yourself."
"No…I'm relieving tension."

"You say relieving tension, I say killing yourself. 
Now what were those pills you took?"
She reached for the knife but I'd always had a mean 
grip.

"I don't know." She said.
"What?"
"I don't know."

"You just…you just take them by the handfuls and you 
don't know what they are?"
"Yes! They've never harmed me before…they just sort 
of get you relaxed."

I was probably looking like an FBI Agent right about 
now. To cover up a little, I said, "Let me take some."

She handed me four then the glass of wine she'd been 
drinking from.

I looked down at them. I wasn't about to take these. 
But I've always been a terrible pretender. Acting 
wasn't my strong point at all.

I cupped my hand and put it up to my mouth, the pills 
not moving from their spot in my hand. Then I took a 
sip of wine.

"I thought you were going to take them." Megan said. 
She had street smarts.
"What are you talking about? I did."

"No…look, I want to show you that they're harmless. 
Just take them, I swear to you that they're fine."

I held them up to my mouth again, pretending once 
more, but she hit my hand and they flew into the 
back of my throat.

I was forced to swallow. There was nothing else to 
do. I was going to choke if I didn't just swallow 
them.

I suddenly held my throat, realizing what I'd just 
done, and dashed into John's room.

----