There was a time some time ago
When every sunrise meant a sunny day,
oh a sunny day
But now when the morning light shines in
 It only disturbs the dreamland where I lay,
oh where I lay
 I used to thank the lord when I'd wake
For life and love and the golden sky above me
But now I pray the stars will go on shinin',
you see in my dreams you love me

Sitting at the kitchen table the two red-haired women sipped their coffee and enjoyed the silence of the room, the moonlight streaming in through the window.

A baby cried. Before either could move, they heard the soft husky drawl of a man singing softly and the baby settled again.

Quietly, the older woman spoke. "You’re going to have to wake up soon...it’s almost morning."

"I know," her younger companion agreed with a sad sigh.

"You don’t want to."

"No."

"Why? You always loved the morning."

Looking across at her sister, Dana Scully sighed once more and set down her coffee cup. "You know why, Missy...I don’t want to face it. Here....here everything’s perfect. I have you back...I have John, the aliens are gone. It’s perfect. I wake up and that vanishes. You’re gone, he’s not next to me and *they’re* out there..."

"They're out there whether you're awake or not," Melissa reminded her with a gentle smile. "And so am I...you just can’t see me."

Leaning across the table, she grasped her sister’s hand tightly. "The world of the dead and the world of the living aren’t so far apart, Dana. I’m always with you."

The elder Scully looked toward the bedroom, a smile on her face. "And he’s not that far from you. He’s just waiting for you..."

"Waiting for what?" Dana asked with confusion.

"You to let go." Missy smiled and shook her head. "You know full well what I mean, Dana. You try to shoulder all the pain in the world, all the responsibility and all the worry. You won’t let anyone else help. You’ve got to prove you can do it yourself." She gripped her sister’s hand gently, her thumb stroking the skin. "He wants to help and he can. You know that. But *you* have to let the walls down first. He can’t get in unless you let him. He’s not Mulder, no...but in truth, do you want him to be?"

Lowering her head, Dana looked at their joined hands and smiled tiredly. "I miss you..."

"I miss you too," Melissa countered with a loving smile. "But like I said, sister dear, I’m never that far from you...or that precious baby of yours."

Looking up, the younger Scully daughter smiled at her sister. "I’m glad you can see him...you would have made a wonderful aunt."

"And you’re going to be a wonderful mother," Melissa agreed with a proud expression as they both saw John Doggett’s silhouetted figure pass by the bedroom door, the baby in his arms. "And he’s going to be a wonderful father..."

"He’s not..."

"Dana...parenthood is more than biology." Her expression was gently chiding as she spoke. "He’s exactly what you need. That’s why he’s in your dreams...and why you love him as much as you do. It’s the reason he loves you too. You are exactly what he needs...and so’s that little boy of yours."

"I still don’t want to wake up," Dana countered with a rueful smile. "I used to thank the Lord when I’d wake up...especially after my cancer. It was another day I got to live. Another day I’d get to see...but now I pray the stars will go on shining..."

"The stars shine no matter what," Missy reminded her. "Even if the sun keeps us from seeing them."

Daybreak is a joyful time
Just listen to the songbird harmonize,
oh the harmonies
But I wish the dawn would never come
I wish there were silence in the trees,
oh the trees
 If only I could stay asleep,
at least I could pretend you're thinkin' of me
'Cause nighttime is the one time I am happy,
you see in my dreams...

Sitting in the park on the bench, the friends were silent as they watched the children playing a rambunctious game of soccer.

As one young boy passed by he waved wildly at the man and yelled a happy "Hi Dad!!!" before chasing after his friends.

"Why are we here?" The dark-haired woman asked softly, holding her soda loosely in her hands.

"We’re watching Luke play soccer," John Doggett responded with a questioning look. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," his friend said calmly. She turned to face him, one leg folded across the other. "Why are we in this dream? You didn’t know her," she nodded to the redheaded woman watching the soccer game, a baby in her arms and a smile on her face, "when you lived in New York."

"It’s my dream," Doggett countered stubbornly. "I can have whoever I want here."

Monica smirked and made a gesture toward herself. "Which is why I’m here?"

"Yeah, well, you’re a necessary evil, you always show up when you’re not welcome. You’ve never listened to me before so why start now?"

At that she nodded in agreement before pulling her legs up onto the bench and resting her forearms on her knees. "So, what are we really doing here? We both know you’ve got to get up soon...it’s morning."

"I don’t want to."

"Care to tell me why?" Monica prompted with a gentle look, the same look the real Monica would give, before she sipped her drink.

"You know why."

"Of course I do," she agreed with a serene gaze. "I’m a part of your subconscious, the part you occasionally chose to listen to. And, might I add, as a representative of the *real* Monica...you haven’t dropped by outside of work reasons in forever."

He chuckled wryly at that. Subconscious or not, Monica was Monica.

"Sorry."

"Don’t give me sorry...just tell me what’s up. Why are you here with a dream version of Dana Scully when you can get out of bed and go see the real one?"

"Because, *that* Dana Scully..." John pointed at the woman. "...I can love, and she loves me. I can walk up to that one and wrap my arms around her. The *real* Dana Scully is my partner and my friend but if I walk up to her and wrap my arms around her, she’ll smack me six ways from Sunday." Sighing, he ran a hand through his short hair in frustration. "It’s torture, Monica. Having her so close and yet...so far away."

"Yes it is," Monica agreed. "But isn’t the real world better than a dream one? A world of flesh and blood rather than fantasy and illusion? You were never a man who could content himself with dreams and pretense, John...so why are you willing to settle now?"

The question unnerved him and Doggett returned his gaze to the field. Even in dreams she had the ability to pierce through the lies he told himself and force him to look at the truth. Not the Truth that had consumed Fox Mulder’s life, and by extension Dana Scully’s....rather a simple and unspectacular truth about himself.

"I’m afraid," he admitted honestly.

"Of?"

"Of reaching for her and having her push me away. I can’t compete with the world she’s lived in for so long." John held his head in his hands. "I’m not like him...Mulder.. I can’t offer..."

"You’re not getting it, are you?" Monica asked with an amused smile. "You don’t have to offer anything but yourself. Dana doesn’t want a Mulder clone! If she wanted that she’d go after the real thing. She wants *you*..."

"You know something I don’t?" he countered with a wry grin.

"I’m a part of you, John...I’m not the real Monica, remember? If I know anything...I’m getting it from *you*." She leaned over to poke his chest none too gently then smirked. "You’re not as dumb as you make yourself out to be, John Doggett...so start admitting what you’ve known all along."

"Which is?"

Not letting him off that easy, Monica turned to watch the soccer game.

"So what part of me do you represent again?" The FBI agent grumbled, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

The smirk she gave him was answer enough.

We climb and climb and at the top we fly
Let the world go on below us, we are lost in time
And I don't know really what it means
All I know is that you love me, in my dreams

The spacious room was empty, save for the couple at the very heart of the dance floor...moving together in a dance to music only they could hear.

Slowly, they made their way around - the woman resting her head against the man’s shoulder, his hand against the small of her back and pressing her against him.

"This is a dream, isn’t it?" she asked softly.

"Yes." His voice was low-pitched, meant for her ears alone, all the more special for the fact that there was no one else present.

"Whose?"

"Does it matter?" he countered. The words drawled out hints of his accent making the question as soft and gentle as it was meant.

Looking up at him, Dana smiled. "No."

John smiled back and they resumed their silent dancing to their own personal music. The song their hearts created.

They moved around the room it was as if there was no floor beneath them. As if they were dancing on the clouds. It was a fluffy, light-hearted, somewhat sappy picture. But that didn’t matter. It was a dream and dreams were allowed to be fluffy, light-hearted and somewhat sappy. That was what made them dreams. What made them the very thing people would give their lives to protect. Protect the right to dream. To step outside time and the dark drudgery life could be and into a fantasy world where everything was as it was supposed to be, or as they wanted life to be.

I keep hopin' one day I'll awaken,
and somehow she'll be lying by my side
And as I wonder if the dawn is really breakin'
She touches me and suddenly I'm alive

Sunlight began encroaching beneath the covers, so much that John Doggett could no longer ignore it. No longer pretend it wasn’t there.

With a soft groan, the FBI agent rolled over and was rewarded by the soft scent of a very feminine shampoo wafting beneath his nostrils. In the foggy state that always comes between sleep and awake, John opened one eye and found himself looking at the top of a woman’s head. A redheaded woman to be precise.

The sight brought back his awareness in a hurry and the lanky man realized his dream had literally been a dream within a dream. With a rueful chuckle, he idly wondered what the shrinks would make of that.

Dana shifted in her sleep, rolling onto her back, her hair pillowing around her, and distracted him from his musings.

‘Damn, she’s beautiful...’

The thought slipped through his mind full of the incredible wonder at the fact she was in his bed, in his life...in his heart. Even more wondrous was the fact he was in hers as well. Perhaps that was where his dream had come from. Born of the fear that it was all a dream, that she really wasn’t his in the waking world, fear that he’d wake up one day to find her gone. His heart and his rational mind told him that was not so, Dana wasn’t going anywhere, but there was that still small voice that niggled at him. The doubt, the worry that he wasn’t good enough to deserve her, that he never would be, and that one day she’d realize it.

Seeming to sense his eyes on her face, Dana’s blue eyes flickered open and she smiled sleepily.

"Hey..."

Smiling back, he propped himself up on one hand while the other wandered over her mid-section, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath the Marine t-shirt she’d slept in, in slow-moving circles. "Hey yourself...sleep good?"

A thoughtful expression on her face, she nodded. "Yes, I did..."

"But?" John prompted gently as she covered his hand with hers, trapping it against her body.

"I had the strangest dream."

"You and me both," he chuckled, the sound a low rumble that sent a delicious shiver through the redhead’s body. She couldn’t understand how just a laugh could have that affect on her, but it did. It always did. "What’d you dream?" John asked after a moment’s pause.

"I was in my apartment, having coffee with my sister...she died a few years ago." The sadness in her eyes earned her a loving kiss of sympathy from her lover who then shifted position so she was lying in his arms.

Resting her head against his bare chest, Dana rubbed her palm along his arm as she talked. Taking comfort from the motion and the familiarity of it. She knew he knew about Melissa. Knew he’d read it in the files. She was grateful for the fact that he didn’t press for details. For the things that *hadn’t* gone into the report. But then, he always seemed to know when to push and when *not* to push.

"We were talking, I seemed to know I was dreaming but I think that I was dreaming about dreaming. Strange, hmm?"

"No, not really," John responded, his grip tightening comfortably. "I had a similar dream...what else happened in yours?"

"We were talking about my hesitance...to admit I loved you." Dana smiled, glad she’d gotten over that in the waking world. Glad she’d let herself have this relationship, this man. "And why I didn’t want to wake up to a world where we weren’t together."

"Sounds like my dream," her lover confessed.

"What did you dream?" The slender redhead questioned, looking up at him slightly.

"Was back in New York, talkin’ to an old friend." John’s chest tightened painfully as he thought of watching his son play soccer. "You were there...with the baby, watchin’ Luke...playing soccer."

Sympathetic pain lanced through Dana’s heart and her hand grasped his arm firmly, holding it to her chest. She understood the pain of losing a child. She might not have gotten the chance to raise Emily as he’d raised Luke...but she knew how it felt to have her child ripped away by forces she could neither fight nor stop. Understood the what-ifs that haunted him in the dark. The lost futures.

She also knew there was nothing that could be said. The pain couldn’t be lessened...only shared.

They lay in silence for a few moments while John dealt with the ever-present ache that Luke’s death forced him to live with. Holding Dana close helped, allowed him to feel the warmth of her in his arms, reminding himself that Luke was somewhere no one could touch him and that he had a new life. A new chance.

"Monica and I were talking about the same thing you and your sister were talking about. Me waking to a world where I didn’t have you." He didn’t voice his concerns in that dream. His worries about not measuring up to the man who’d been her partner for so many years. They’d already dealt with that issue once and he wasn’t going to dredge it up again. Any insecurities he still had lingering in his mind were his to deal with, he wouldn’t burden her with them.

Sensing there was more to it, Dana chose to let that fact go and turned in his arms so she could look into his face unhindered. "Strange isn’t it? How we both have similar dreams on the same night?"

"Strange as compared to what?" John chuckled. "Not the X-Files standard of strange, I hope?"

Laughing softly, she shook her sleep-tousled hair. "Not even close."

"Doesn’t even matter anyway..."

At the sudden gleam in his eye, Dana felt like letting out an uncharacteristic giggle. She hadn’t had anything worth giggling over for a very long time but, seeing the playful leer in his eyes, she found things suddenly tempting. "Why not?" she asked with a equally playful smile.

Holding her firmly, John rolled them over. "Because I think reality is a damn sight better than our dreams."

As his mouth descended on hers, she laughed softly and slipped her arms around his neck. "In this case, John, I’m inclined to agree."

"Glad to hear it, ma’am..."

As they sank beneath the covers, both thought of the final dream they’d had before waking. Of their dancing together. As wonderful as the dream had been, it didn’t even come close to the reality they lived with daily.

But then, that was what the dreams were for...to remind them how lucky they were to have what they did. A simple truth both treasured implicitly.

Thanks Kellie for the lyrics!!!

IN MY DREAMS
REO Speedwagon

There was a time some time ago
When every sunrise meant a sunny day,
oh a sunny day
But now when the morning light shines in
It only disturbs the dreamland where I lay,
oh where I lay
I used to thank the lord when I'd wake
For life and love and the golden sky above me
But now I pray the stars will go on shinin',
you see in my dreams you love me

Daybreak is a joyful time
Just listen to the songbird harmonize,
oh the harmonies
But I wish the dawn would never come
I wish there were silence in the trees,
oh the trees
If only I could stay asleep,
at least I could pretend you're thinkin' of me
'Cause nighttime is the one time I am happy,
you see in my dreams...

Chorus:
We climb and climb and at the top we fly
Let the world go on below us, we are lost in time
And I don't know really what it means
All I know is that you love me, in my dreams

(Solo)
I keep hopin' one day I'll awaken,
and somehow she'll be lying by my side
And as I wonder if the dawn is really breakin'
She touches me and suddenly I'm alive

Chorus repeats 2x

Oho, in...my...dreams