Notes : EEEeeeeEEEeee!! :D Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! You guys are seriously too damn awesome. It really encourages/inspires/thrills me, and makes me ever so happy! I'm so glad people out there are liking it so far!

So, what else...oh yes, I wrote a little drabble awhile ago dealing with the effects (affects?) that Luke's death had on Monica and John, but I think it's an amazing aspect of their relationship and I sort of wanted to write it out further. So, it may be slightly similar to my drabble, if any of you have read it. So yep, thanks again, and I hope you enjoy this one! :)

2:21 AM

John shivered slightly underneath the shelter of the Willow's swaying leaves. The wind had kicked up slightly with the rain, and now he was wet and cold.

He picked up his jacket and shrugged it on, though it too was icy and damp and it didn't help his situation much.

Still shivering, he sighed and leaned back against the tree trunk once again. He had been thinking about himself and Monica, the future of the X-Files now that Mulder and Scully had gone away.

Were they still in danger? Was it all over? They hadn't had word from them in months.

John looked across the park at Monica. Her hair was soaking wet and the little droplets of water at the tips fell and spashed onto the ground as the locks fell about her face. He half-smiled, nodding to no one in particular.

If it was all over, the X-Files would be shut down for good. Did he want that? No. But why?

He had seen too much. But anything he truly believed in? No.

So why, then?

He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them he found himself looking over at his partner again.

Was it Monica that made him want to stay on the X-Files?

For a few slow moments all of his thoughts halted; the only distraction was the rainfall in his ears and the steady beat of his heart in his head.

...Maybe. Yes. A big part of it. They shared a past. A torn, painful past, but a past that connected them together in a way he couldn't explain.

She had been there for him. Had helped him. Had tried her best. She couldn't have done anything to prevent it. He couldn't have done anything to prevent it.

Though he had accepted Luke's death, had come to terms with the fact that his killer was dead, and that it was a closed chapter in the book of his life, he couldn't help that his heart and soul had never fully recovered. This, he guessed, was why he had never let Monica in, never let her cross those boundaries. It was too painful.

He let his mind drift back to when they first met... Those long days full of false hope, false comfort, but a mutual understanding, a connection, that lead up to the day his world fell apart.

He had walked slowly up to her that morning, mind flashing in static of pleas, hopes, longings, anything to make those next words to come out of her mouth the ones he had been praying to hear...

But her eyes were bright with tears, and her face was shaded with regret and loss. Those deep brown eyes did not evade his, but were scarred heavily with the thought that she had failed him. She had failed herself. This was not supposed to happen. And no words were uttered from her lips.

For a fleeting moment he felt hot anger rise inside his chest at the way she was looking at him-- how could she pretend she was hurt by this as badly as he was? For another fleeting moment he felt sure he would lunge at her, scream at her...and then he realized this, what he was feeling. Anger, yes-- but heartbreak, shock, hate, rage-- but at himself. In a flash he was hit with all of these tormenting emotions at once, and he sobbed out loud, burrying his head into her offered shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." was all she muttered, tears streaming down her face, hands moving over his which were desperately pulling at her jacket, begging to wake up from this, from the shock of this sudden burden that would haunt him forever.

Another day passed, and they said goodbye. It was over, nothing more do to or to say.

Monica was transferred to New Orleans, and they only spoke every so often. Occasional phonecalls when news of a step up the ladder or brilliant-solving-of-case rumors swept the bureau.

A visit right around the time he and Barbara seperated-- she had pulled a few strings, and the official reason she had flown into town last minute was to help the local PD with identifying patterns in a few cult murders along the coast.

She had then dropped everything for him again a year ago when he had called and asked a favor for his current partner of the new unit he had been assigned to. She was happy to comply; they had a trust built up over the years, a respect. They were there for each other though they rarely saw one another.

Now assigned to the X-Files as partners, working cases together again, cases that were so darastically different from their first, things had changed considerably between them. They became closer, their past and the prospect of their present and future clashed in a way that was exciting, that was intimate, comfortable.

"John?"

John's head snapped around, these memories and thoughts tumbling out and away from his mind like a house of playing cards.

Monica had a weak, sheepish smile on her face as if to say that for once, this one time, it had been his mind caught wandering.

He smiled back slightly, eyes still unfocused and looking down at the grass. Monica lowered herself onto one knee beside him, and sighed, looking out at the rain that had now turned into a light drizzle.

"What...are you thinking about?" She asked softly.

John let out a gentle self-deprecating chuckle and shook his head. "Nothing that I can change now."

Monica flicked her eyes over to rest on his face thoughtfully. Her fingers sifted through the wet grass distractedly, tearing up a blade or two every now and then, letting it flutter back down to the ground only to repeat the process all over again.

"I was thinking too."

Their eyes met, and for a brief moment John felt a pang of adoration staring into his partner's sympathetic brown eyes, those same eyes that he had stared into for comfort and validation when Luke had been killed, when he and Barbara had split, when so many things in his life had been trainwrecked and she had been the only one there for him. A small smile spread over his face and his hand came up to bat a lock of wet hair away from her face.

A warm, sad smile melted over Monica's lips in return, and a thin, hardly noticeable sheen of tears coated her dark eyes.

She blinked, resisting the urge to press John's hand closer to her cheek.

"So where's this place you were takin' me to?"

Monica laughed quietly and stood up, brushing water droplets and grass from her black pants. Offering John a hand up, she replied, "You'll see."