TITLE: Then I Blinked AUTHOR: Samiam (Sampiper@aol.com) RATING: G ARCHIVE: Just tell me where to send the child support payments FEEDBACK: be brutal, this is what my insomnia lives for. SPOILERS: Seriously now, is this even necessary? Okay, very mild ones for TINH, Essence/Existence, LOTF, Sunshine Days, ... oh screw it, basically anything that Reyes has ever been in. CATAGORY: Post-ep "The Truth" Reyes POV. DISCLAIMERS: Um yeah, you know what this is and you know the drill. THANKS: As ever Dallas ... you want to put away the bat and hand over the brownies now. AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not quiet sure how this happened. I just don't DO Reyes fic. It's not in me. let's call this penance for that POS that I posted last week. ********************* Most people hate change. It disturbs the peaceful balance in their lives and makes them uncomfortable by forcing them to realize that they are never really in total control of their destiny. I love change, thrive on it really. I've always lived my life just left of center and enjoy the disruption of routines. The last thing I ever wanted was to lead a boring life. A little over a year ago I was a single woman living in New Orleans with a great apartment overlooking Lake Pontchartrain. I had a semi-steady boyfriend, a fairly healthy social life and a good job chasing your average, run-of-the-mill bureau sanctioned bad guys whose biggest crime most days was attempted bank robbery. Occasionally, I'd get lucky and catch a case with some kind of ritualistic overtones but surprisingly, especially for New Orleans, not many. One call from John Doggett changed all that. In what felt like the blink of an eye, I was in Montana listening to stories of mass abductions, shape-shifting healers and alien bounty hunters. I blinked again and suddenly I was driving down the eastern seaboard with a pregnant woman I had only met once in the passenger seat, on our way to a deserted town in the middle of nowhere Georgia after beginning chased through the Hoover building's parking garage by supposedly unstoppable alien replicants only to have them find us and stand by to watch a miracle child enter the world. Well, like I said, who wants to live a boring life? A little over a month ago, I was living in a cute flat in Georgetown. I had a new car - necessitated by a rather ugly accident followed by a very weird hospital stay - a great partner/friend and an interesting - for lack of a better word - job dealing with mutant bug boys, interdimentional serial killers, reincarnated tortured souls and a guy with a major jones for the Brady Bunch. Mardi Gras had nothing on D.C. after dark. Then I blinked and suddenly I was neck deep and sinking fast in a sea of secret government sanctioned conspiracies, military cover-ups and medical mysteries that even Quincy on amphetamines couldn't solve. I helped break a man out of a military brig minutes before he was to be assassinated, reunited him with his wife - I don't care if they weren't legally married, I don't think it mattered to them. I found my office stripped bare, saw my boss calmly walk to what could have been his death, watched one of those supersoldiers do his best impression of a Flying Wallenda into the side of a mountain and got chased through the desert by a black helicopter. If this werent my life, I'd think it was a hell of a good movie. Now I'm here. No home, no job; just John, this truck, the money I managed to grab before our frantic dash to the southwest and me, driving on some deserted highway in the middle of nowhere - "John, where are we?" "Wyoming." "Why Wyoming?" I straighten up in my seat and stretch as best I can in the confines of the truck. John rests his elbow on the window edge and suppresses a yawn before answering me with a shrug. "Why not?" He looks over at me briefly and shows just the barest of smiles before continuing. "I dunno. I just felt like it was the right direction." I nod and turn back to the window next to me to watch what's left of the sunrise. "How long have you been awake?" he asks. "Not long." I lay my hand against the glass and feel it warming with the increased sunlight. "I've just been thinking about how quickly life can change." "I'm sorry, Monica. I wish I'd never pulled you into this mess." "Don't be. I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be." I look back at him and smile because I truly mean it. "Are you tired? Would you like me to drive for a while?" "Nah, I'm fine." he says, rolling his head slowly to the left until I hear his neck pop. "I was planning on stopping in the next town for breakfast anyway. Maybe we can find a no-tell motel and catch a few Zs." "Sounds like a plan." I say as I reach under my seat and pull out the road atlas. "Any idea where the next town is?" "We're on the 189, just after Evanston." "Well, then I guess we are stopping in Kemmerer." I tap the map once for emphasis. "Did you know there is a big Indian reservation here on the other side of the Rockies?" He doesn't respond. We sit in the uncomfortable silence I unwittingly created for a while before I risked speaking again. "Do you think they made it?" I ask in a near whisper. He doesn't hesitate this time. "Yes." "Do you think we will see them again?" "Monica, if there is one thing I am absolutely sure of, it's that we will see them again." he says, certain there will be no other outcome. I nod again, taking his word for it, and turn to stare back out the window. Just as I feel myself start to slip back into unconsciousness, I feel the truck begin to slow and hear a stunned "What the -" next to me. He pulls the truck to the side of the road and we both get out for a better look. Lying upside down in a deep gully on the side of the road is the mangled remains of what used to be an SUV. The carcass of a moose, the apparent cause of the accident lies on the road between the SUV and us. "Jesus, John, do you think anyone -" I'm stopped mid-sentence by the faint cries of a baby. We run to the SUV and scramble to the side to try and find the source of the cries. I glance briefly at the couple in the front and can only pray that they died quickly. John kicks in the window closest to him and crawls inside, pulling out his pocketknife as he goes. He's back in the window minutes later with the screaming child in his arms. He hands the baby to me through the window before he crawls back out. The baby turns the most crystal blue eyes on me, stops crying immediately and I realize I know this child just as John begins to speak. "The parents are dead but I couldn't find any blood on him, not a scratch. We should at least call the police and -" "John." I cut him off and look up at him in amazement. "What is it?" "It's William." "It can't be." he wipes his hands on his pants as he walks towards us. "It is, John. Look." I turn William slightly so John can get a better look at him. William takes one look at John and lunges for him, as if he has just been reunited with his long lost friend. In a way, I guess he has. Taking William back from my arms, John rests him on his hip and stares, wide-eyed at him. William just grins and throws his head against John's chest. "What do we do now?" he asks. "We take him with us." I say, my voice now full of conviction. "We take him and whatever he needs from that truck and we go. We'll call the police from the road." "Monica, those people are bound to have family. They are going to know his is missing." "So what. Look, as strongly as you believe we will see Mulder and Scully again, I believe we were meant to find William." I lay one hand on the baby's head and the other on John's arm. "We have to, John." He hands William back to me and nods once before turning back to the over turned SUV. "You're right," he says. "We do." I look back at the boy in my arms and smile as he blinks at me. A minute ago, I became a mother.