Notes : Yiikes, it's been awhile since I've updated! The truth is I haven't had much time to work on the story, though I desperately want to. I managed to get a little more finished, and this is part of that. I've still got some work to do on the other half...plus the rest! :)

Thank you thank you THANK YOU again to all who reviewed...seriously, you guys are the coolest people in the world. I LOVE you! :: hands you all giftbaskets with wonderful sparkly fluffy surprises inside. ::

Please let me know what you think about this little bit, any thoughts would be wonderful.

2:31 AM

Walking again down the wet streets of DC, Monica and John's footsteps make a gentle tapping noise against the cement, and every now and then Monica will walk, purposely, head-on into a large puddle, silently laughing as the water splatters up against the thin, dark material of her pants and seeps cold water on to the skin of her legs. She laughs with even more of that bright smile when the water droplets latch onto John's face or jeans. John just raises an eyebrow over at her, a laugh wanting so badly to be let out, but instead a sly grin taking its place.

She looked so exhilarated, so undeniably joyful. He wondered what made her this way, what made her stay this way over the years. Always so positive, he thought. Always seeing the best in anyone or anything she set her beautiful dark eyes on. It was one of the most incredible things he had come to witness in all his years, just the effortless energy and hope this woman radiated in a world full of everything just the opposite.

He had to take a chance to ask this burning question, this question whose answer could be the key to all that was wrong in his life, in case he never got another chance as perfect as this one.

"How do you do it?" He asked quietly, staring straight ahead.

"Do...what, John?"

"Be so goddamned happy." A smile cracked on his face, and she immediately returned it.

"I don't know." She said simply, almost as if she herself were still trying to figure it out. "But," she began again after a moment, "I do know that there's something..." she paused, opening her mouth slightly and biting on her lower lip, looking almost as if she were tasting the very air between them with all of her senses, "...special about tonight. I can feel it vibrating through the air."

Another buzz was pulsing through John's head now at these words, a question he wanted to ask so badly that the sentence was out of his mouth before he had a chance to even think about it.

"What does it feel like?"

Monica's head turned towards him quickly, that smile mixed with a slight confusion. John had never asked her anything so...openly before.

She opened her mouth to answer, not even sure of what she might say, when they had turned the corner and the gentle but distant sound of a lone guitar strumming filled the air.

Monica's eyes lit up once again and she looked out and down the street to where it seemed some sort of midnight marketplace was set all up and down the sidewalks. She looked back over at John, flashed a smile, said "I'll show you someday," and took off at a jog towards the soft yellow lights at the end of the street.