Notes : None, really, 'cept it's been a damn long time since I updated. P Sorry about that. Anyway, I sincerely hope you enjoy, and I'm working on the next chapter as we speak. :) Thanks again to everyone who takes the time to read and reviewmy silly little stories.

3:25 AM

Time passed in slow moments and Monica swayed gently to the calmness in her mind. She felt a light, warm breeze brush her skin. She heard the guitar's vibrating notes suspend and make soft waves in the clear, moist air. And she felt John's arms around her. The comfort, the gentle happiness she found in this was wrapping itself around her the way water can wrap itself around you in a hot bath. It was conforming, it felt wonderful and relaxing.

She wasn't entirely sure how long they had been swaying like this, but it had hardly felt like any time at all when the guitar music stopped suddenly, and Monica slowly opened her eyes, blinking as if she had been sleeping for an eternity.

She glanced at the man and he smiled, holding up a weak hand.

"I'm sorry. My hands...little tired," he laughed.

She smiled. "No, no, es totalmente multa. Ningunas preocupaciones."

The man smiled back, and Monica suddenly looked deeply at him.

"...Què es tu nombre?" she asked.

"Paz."

"Paz. Ah, tranquilidad, no?" She smiled. "Gracias, Paz. Usted toca hermosamente." She said softly, still smiling.

She turned back to John. "Wanna go?"

3:36 AM

They were walking back down the cobbled streets again into the silent night air. Monica had grabbed some sort of fruit that John didn't exactly recognize before they left, and given everyone there a warm smile and a thank you. John had gathered up his recollection of the language and puched out a few thanks as well. They had seemed pretty impressed, and so had Monica.

One of the guys back there had given her a beautiful rose as they departed, the kind whose petals are golden and fused with red at the tips. She now twirled it in her right hand as they walked, the other grasping the mysterious fruit as she bit into it periodically.

It was silent for awhile as they ambled in no direction in particular.

"Hold this a minute for me, John," she said suddenly, thrusting the fiery rose into his hands.

She clamped her teeth into the skin of the fruit and pulled her sweater over her head with both hands, consequently lifting the bottom of the shirt underneath upwards an inch or two.

John grinned and glanced away as he noticed where his eyes were resting.

When he looked back she had the sweater tied loosely around her waist and was busy working on the fruit again. A bit of it stuck to the side of her chin without her knowledge.

John chuckled softly. Monica caught this and looked over, smiling suspiciously, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "What?" she asked obliviously.

"Nothin'," John laughed. "It's nothin'. So where we goin' now? A renassaince fair maybe?"

She grinned. "Maybe. Where do you want to go?"

He surprised himself when he reflexively thought "home", and rejected the idea immidiately.

"'Dunno. Anywhere."

"Hmmm..." Monica mumbled through a mouthful of her snack.

"To the moon?" She said finally, smiling, her eyes sparkling again.

3:48 AM

In the distance another park came into view. This one had not only a set of swings but a whole jungle gym complete with plastic slides and monkey bars in various bright and clashing colors.

Monica began to walk towards it. "Just look at this, John. An empty playground. It seems so wrong. Shouldn't we pay it a visit? Better the community?"

Only with her, he thought, would he be in downtown Washington D.C. taking an active tour of children's playgrounds, attending early-morning fiestas, and rehashing his childhood.

Monica jogged over and swung herself up onto the platform beside the monkey bars. John thought for a moment she might attempt to cross them and began to laugh a little, but she didn't. She instead hoisted herself ontop of the bars and sat down, her feet dangling.

"How d'you manage all these dangerous feats of physical strength and bravado in those?" John called, nodding at her high-heeled leather boots, voicing for the first time something he had pondered about more often than he'd ever admit to anyone.

She laughed. "That, my darling partner, is an age-old secret passed down from generation to generation of F.B.I women. If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

He shook his head amused, and walked over beside the bars. He glanced up at her.

"Come on up." She said, patting the length of metal bar beside her as if it was warm and inviting and not at all unusual to be perched atop a play construction such like this.

John glanced around, tossing Monica's rose back up to her with a quick "hold this" and grabbed the bars above him with each hand. He pulled himself up and, arm muscles tight, swung his legs across once he had enough room.

"John Doggett. Always doing things the hard way." Monica said, though she never ceased to be impressed each time he did something like that. The thing that she loved most was the fact that he never did any of it to show off. He simply did it because he could. No big deal.

"Yeah." He breathed out slowly, now sitting beside her. "Still got somma' that army training left in me."

She smiled and looked out across the air. "Isn't it weird how small and inconsequential these places look now? I mean when I was a kid playgrounds were just...these huge, magical places."

"I guess when you grow up you gain perspective in a lot more ways than one."

"You also loose it."

She smiled gently, and there was a pause.

"So tell me, John."

"Tell you what?"

"Everything. You. I've been worried about you."

John glanced over to her, watching her twist that rose softy between her fingers. "I've been worried about you."

She looked away and then back. "I'm fine. Just...worried about, you know, what will happen next."

"Yeah," he sighed. "Me too."

"But I wasn't talking about the X-Files, John."

"I know."

"So?"

Silence.

"John?"

He looked at her.

"Have you talked to Barbara since that day?"

"Yeah. Once. Called to see how she was doin'."

"And?"

"She's all right. She's good. She let it go, on her way to healin'."

A gentle pause as her eyes searched his turned face. "And you?"

It was quiet again. She touched his arm now after a moment or two.

"I'm okay. Really, Mon."

She paused, hand flittering down to take his in hers.

"Okay." She said, closing the subject. She knew he meant what he said. He just needed time to heal, like Barbara. And when he did, it would be over, and those demons she saw in his eyes so many times since the day she met him would dissappear. She hoped this with all of her being.