Disclaimer: Doggett and Reyes belong to Chris Carter, 1013, Fox, whatever, and not me. How sad. Kayla Marie is mine though and so's the idea...as choppy as it may seem.
Spoilers: No, none.
ETC: As stated, this is a rather choppy story (at least I think so) because I wrote it to help me get out of writer's block. The idea is there though. Maybe it makes sense and I'm just being too hard on myself. Most of this story takes place in a dream, therefore places and descriptions are vague. We don't usually dream in full sentences anyway. Well, Doggett doesn't as of now. Oh yeah, and this is written in a million points of view. LOL. Doggett's thoughts are in italics. All right - no more rambling. This is it. Enjoy...if you dare. ^_^
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There’s a funny thing in life called irony. Irony – you know…when the unexpected happens, but then it all seems to make sense. After a long ride in the car, irony paid its visit to me. And Monica Reyes gave me my dose of the unexpected that day…
*****
One gunshot.
They had been driving to the crime scene, and had finally arrived. Upon emerging from the car:
“Damn it, the sun’s too bright…”
He sighed, a bit annoyed, and put on his sunglasses. She had glanced at him, a slight grin on her face, despite what they were about to get into.
“You shouldn’t turn away from the sun, John. You never know if you’ll awaken to see it tomorrow.”
It had sounded eerily cryptic to him at the time.
One gunshot – that was all it took to end everything…
*****
After Monica…died… I didn’t want to think again. No, I didn’t even want to live. Then I met her…
The smoky air of the small, dimly lit bar was alive with the sounds of people. They were talking – sometimes even yelling out their frustrations of that day…or days past. Things were always slow at this particular bar. It was a small place, out of the way, only known to the local people. The bartender – was a girl in her early twenties.
John Doggett stumbled into the bar that Friday night.
“Hello, sir. What can I get ya?”
He stared up at her momentarily, not able to form his words into a sentence. He hadn’t noticed it when he had sat down, but she looked a lot like… “No,” he told himself, “Don’t start this again.” Meanwhile, the girl was still looking at him. “Rough day at work?” she asked. “More than you could imagine,” he sighed. “Get me a scotch on the rocks.” She nodded and left. He buried his head in his hands.
Damn, it Monica. Damn it all. I should’ve seen it coming… I could’ve stopped it. But no. I’m here alone…
The events of that day still hadn’t caught up with him. Everything had happened so fast…
“Sir, are you all right?”
That voice brought him back to the dark, smoky bar. The girl was standing next to him with his drink. “Aren’t you supposed to be…behind the bar or somethin’?” “Look, you were the one who was crying. And I’ve been away for all of two minutes. Guess that day at work was more than bad…” “Shut-up.” He growled.
That’s all I need. Some snippy little bartending bitch to brighten my day…Was I really crying? How did she see that?
“Whatever. Here.” She set his drink down in front of him and walked away. “Don’t drink it too quickly.”
“Uh-huh.”
She rolled her eyes. “Men with mood swings. Gotta love it. Just keep going.”
Doggett stared into his drink, ignoring the girl’s comments.
“Did you best friend die? Mine did two days ago. Did your heart get smashed? Mine did two days ago. Did you ever just want to curl up and die? I do…every second.”
This time, the bartender looked over her shoulder. Worry crossed her mind for this man, and she took the drink back. “I don’t think you need this, sir.”
“Name’s John Doggett.”
They also call me a variety of other names. “Loser” comes to mind. A drink won’t recover my loss. Nothing can. I’m really alone in this…
“I’m Kayla.” She sat beside him. “It’s none of my business, but you don’t seem to be ‘all there’ if you get what I’m saying, Mr. Doggett.” Doggett studied her for a moment. Her brown eyes seemed warm and caring. Her brown hair was tied up in a ponytail, which made her eyes stand out even more.
They remind me of her…of Monica. No, John, don’t give in…
“You’re smart.”
“Do you want to talk about it? I mean…as I said, it’s none of my business, but I always listen to everyone’s thoughts and problems. It comes with the job, I suppose. A friend once told me that it’s better to talk rather than to let it all build up inside.”
“Your friend’s smart too.”
“So…?”
“My friend was killed on the job. She worked with the FBI, and was just… killed. One gunshot and it ended.”
It ended because of me. Because I wasn’t able to stop her…we should have called for backup before goin’ in there.
“I…well couldn’t stop it. It was an abandoned building – nothing out of the norm. I let her go in first and he just shot her. He was one of those crazy serial killers that ended so many lives…and she was just another one on his list. If I didn’t let her go first… I could’ve stopped him. We got him seconds after it happened, but it was just too late. They…” he paused. “Pronounced her dead on the scene.”
Though his sentences were disjointed, Kayla knew exactly what Doggett was trying to say. A person very close to him had been killed on the job. Now he was dealing with the aftermath – the guilt, stress, and who knew what else. She knew how he felt.
“So, what about you?” Doggett asked.
“Me, sir?”
“Sure. What’s a girl like you doin’ tendin’ bar in a crummy place like this.”
I gotta get my mind off of Monica…I gotta change this conversation…
“Well, this job is only temporary. I’m just earning extra money for school. I’m studying as a criminal psychologist, and… actually hoped to be part of the FBI.”
“You’ll probably be a hell of an agent with that attitude.”
“What?”
Damn you. You’ve done it again…Just like her…
“Straight forward and honest… she was like that.”
“Oh?”
“She was so beautiful. So dedicated to what she cared about. I loved her so much.”
“You mean that you love her?”
What is she trying to say here? Is this girl trying to kill me with words? I wish she would just stop and…go away!
Doggett stared at Kayla blankly. She shook her head and grinned. His eyes widened and he backed away.
Oh. My. God. That was Monica.
“Mr. Doggett, I’m not going to bite you. I was just going to say that you don’t stop loving someone after death. Just because you can’t be with someone doesn’t mean that you can’t love them. Sometimes it makes you appreciate them even more. I mean, my parents died, but I don’t stop loving them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no I’m over it. They’re with me all the time. I’m sure that your partner is with you right now as we speak.”
“You have a lot of faith in…faith.”
“We all need to have something to believe in. Especially when we feel lost.”
“I had someone who believed in me…”
She believed in me. Even when I was being difficult. Even when I was down, she believed in me.
“I understand,” Kayla simply said. “Excuse me.” Doggett watched her get up to take care of some other customers. He also noticed that she had left the drink with him. But he turned away from it.
Could I have stopped it? Maybe she’s really looking out for me. Maybe I need to believe in her like she did in me…
A few hours passed. Doggett still sat at the bar, staring blankly into space. Kayla finally snapped him out of it. “Mr. Doggett? We’re closing now.” “Oh…yeah…”
He got up and stretched. “What do I owe ya?”
“Nothing.”
“The scotch…”
“Nothing.”
“Well, all right. Thanks for listenin’… even if I didn’t really have much to say.”
“Happens all the time. I told you that it comes with the job. Good-night, Mr. Doggett.”
He bent over the bar and grasped her hand to shake it. “Good-night, Kayla.”
And thanks for settin’ me straight – in your own strange way.
Then he was gone.
*****
“Sunflowers for ya, Monica.” Doggett said with a smile as he lay the flowers on her grave. “Reminds me of your sunny personality, ya know?” After her death… and after his talk with Kayla that night, Doggett had felt the healing process begin. It had been the same with Luke. Everyone had shown sympathy. Everyone was kind. But did they truly care that he had lost someone who had meant the world to him? He loved her. “And I still love you,” he said. “I’ll miss you, Monica, but I’ll cope somehow. Everything that I do… every case I solve, every killer that gets brought to justice – it’ll all be for you. You deserve it.”
“Sunflowers…must be for a sunny personality,” a familiar voice said from behind him.
Doggett didn’t want to believe it, but he turned…
“Kayla? How did you… what are you doing here?”
Stalking me? Why is she here? How did she know?
“I just had a feeling, you know? I didn’t think that you’d be at this very spot though.”
“What’s that mean?”
Kayla looked up at the sky, the sunlight reflecting into her brown eyes.
“Someone who told me that you don’t stop loving someone even after they die also told me something else. Monica always told me never to turn away from the sun. You never know if you’ll awaken to see it again. Sometimes I don’t know if I will.”
Doggett stared at Kayla, openmouthed and dumbfounded.
“You knew all along… you knew Monica?”
She nodded, tears brimming in her eyes. Then she began to cry uncontrollably. Doggett gingerly placed a hand on her shoulder.
“When they died, Monica told me to be strong. Always think about them and love them… Then we were put into another home together. Monica always watched out for me…was always there for me. It hurts me that I might never see her again. Mom and dad called her the sun and me the star. But she was always the strong one. And she will always see the sun from above… because now she’s an angel in heaven…”
“Just as she was an angel on earth,” Doggett finished. “Are you tellin’ me that…”
Kayla pulled away from Doggett.
“She was my sister.”
That was the slap in the face. Irony. To think that this could effect someone more than it could affect me… that was something that I wasn’t expecting. I also wasn’t expecting to hear what Kayla had told me. She was Monica’s sister? What I do know is that I saw the same spark in her as I did in Monica. She was, in a sense, a younger version of her. Then again, she was quite different too. Maybe that’s why Monica never mentioned her…or her birth parents. So many unanswered questions. I wanted to know everything.
As if nothing had just happened, Kayla grinned at Doggett and then began to walk away. He didn’t stop her. Something told him to let her go. So he stared after her… and heard a voice – hers – faintly as she left.
“You are my sunshine… my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away…”
After that meeting in the cemetery… I never saw Kayla again.
*****
“John? Hello? We’re here, so I suggest that you get up.”
“Monica? No way…”
“John, why are you staring at me like that?”
“You’re alive?”
Am I dreaming?
“Barely. This drive nearly killed me, but I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You mean to tell me that I was sleeping?”
“Yeah.”
But it was so real. I saw Monica die. I saw her die… here! Perhaps it was a… no, it couldn’t be. But something nagged me.
“I think we should call for backup.” Doggett said.
“But we haven’t even checked out the place. Don't you think we should do that?”
He shook his head. “I have a bad feeling about it. It’s safer to go with backup.”
“Whatever you say.”
Reyes watched Doggett phone for backup. When he finished, she leaned back in her seat.
“So what’s with the urgency all of a sudden? You’re not like that, John.”
“I had a dream… a nightmare on the way here. And you died in it.”
“Are you telling me that you believe...”
“It bothered me, ok?”
I felt kinda moronic asking her the next question. It wasn’t like me at all to say what I was about to say. I’m not one who goes with “visions” like she does, but, as I said, something was nagging me.
“Monica, did you ever know a person named Kayla?”
At that, Monica’s face went white. The car was suddenly filled with an eerie silence. I was literally shocked. Nothing phases this woman – ever. But that one question seemed to knock the life out of her for a moment. She didn’t even need to answer the question. I already knew that the answer was “yes.”
“I…” her voice faltered and she touched her forehead, as if she had a headache.
“I’m sorry. Are you all right?”
“Yes and no. How did you find out…”
She sounded so lost at that moment. This had meaning to her. This hit her hard. I definitely wasn’t expecting that. I had to tell her what I saw.
“Well, this is gonna sound crazy, but hear me out. In the dream I just had, you died here – on this very case. I went to a bar somewhere and she was there. I talked to her and she reminded me so much of you. Then I saw her again at a cemetery…and she said that she was your…”
“Sister… my star.”
She wiped away a few tears that were threatening to spill over. She said ‘the star?’ But that’s what Kayla had said in my dream. I searched her face for an explanation, but then sat back to wait for one.
“Yes, John, I have a younger sister named Kayla. It’s just so weird that you’d meet her in a dream of all places…and that you’d know who she was.”
“And why is that?”
“She’s been missing for seven years.”
After that, I dropped the subject. It seemed to be too hard for Monica to handle at the time. To wrap up the case: we entered the building as soon as backup arrived. We thought we had the guy surrounded, but he tricked us. I should have seen that coming. He shot and killed one of the officers. We quickly subdued him, and that was that. I couldn’t help but think that perhaps Kayla had been sent to me with a message to protect her sister. Perhaps Kayla’s been dead for all of these years. Monica has always had a theory that the spirits of the dead watch over us. Who knows? Maybe it’s the truth. And maybe it’s a truth that Monica just doesn’t want to admit to anyone… especially herself.
I checked the records a few days after she and I had that conversation in the car. Sure enough, there it was. A younger sister - Kayla Marie Reyes – missing. Why Monica never mentioned her or the case? I guess I’ll never know… until the day comes when she decides that it’s time to talk about it.
Life’s ironic like that.
Abandoned Building
Wednesday – 4:00 p.m.
*****
After that morning…
Monica would never see the sun again.
A bar
Friday 8:00 p.m – two days later
*****
Kayla stared down at her hand.
A hundred dollar bill lay there.
A sign that maybe she should move on too…
Cemetery
Sunday – 1:30 p.m.
*****
Abandoned Building
Wednesday – 4:00 p.m.
*****
Doggett opened his eyes to see Agent Reyes looking over at him. She was there, without a scratch. No blood. No death. It was her in the flesh.
End.
