From: mylittleredgirl <russiandeptwench@hotmail.com>
Date: 1 Oct 2002 19:40:28 -0700
Subject: [all-xf] FIC: "Tight Enough" (DRR)
Source: atxc

TITLE: Tight Enough
AUTHOR: Little Red
E-MAIL: russiandeptwench@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: DRR, ex-FRR-ness, angst, love.
RATING: PG-13?  I think?  I am so softcore, guys.  I am 
creeping my way towards smut.  Baby steps!
DISCLAIMER: CC.  Fox.  1013.  Dudes in suits.
SPOILERS: Nothing really plot-ish, except for any 
Follmer/Reyes backstory that I didn't screw up.  This 
fic is set in Season 9, between "Audrey Pauley" and 
"Release."
SUMMARY: "We all figured you left when Brad Follmer 
started holdin' on too tight."  "Maybe he never held 
on tight enough."  Reyes tells Doggett about her 
history with Follmer, and Doggett learns more about her 
than he ever expected to.

-----------
"Everybody's story is more interesting than mine
It took me twenty-some-odd years to see I'd been born 
blind.
So I just feel my way to you, I try to keep you close
I'm never very good at getting what I need the most." 

-- Over the Rhine, "fairpoint diary" froom "films for 
radio"
-------------

"What'd Follmer want?"  Agent Doggett asked without 
looking up from his files.  He'd crossed paths with the 
Assistant Director across the threshold of the elevator, 
but Follmer hadn't offered an explanation for his rare 
presence in the basement.  A cool, "Agent," was the only 
greeting Doggett had gotten at all before the doors had 
shut.

"Monica?"  When he got no answer, he looked up at his 
partner.

She didn't even seem to see him for a moment.  She was 
leaning against her desk as though unable to stand and 
her fingers dug into the wood so strongly that it had 
to have been painful.  He stopped in his tracks for a 
moment and watched wrestle for control of her breath.

He took another step closer to her.  "You okay?"

She glanced up at him, and the anger and discomfort in 
her eyes took him by surprise, even though he knew it 
wasn't meant for him.  He felt something burn in the 
back of his throat.

"Follmer -- he say somethin' to you?"

She smiled a plastic grin in an attempt to dislodge her 
expression, and her fingers dug into the desk harder.  
"He left that file you wanted," she jerked her head at 
Doggett's desk, took a breath, and walked around her 
own desk to her chair.

Doggett reached over and picked up the file, leafing 
through it without even looking at it, his eyes never 
leaving Monica's face.  "Mon, if he did somethin' to 
you-" he couldn't disguise the raw threat in his tone.

"It's nothing," she assured him with a smile.  "No need
to get all chivalric on me."

He would have laughed and made some joke about being a 
Southern gentleman, if she didn't still look so 
horribly upset.  He waited a moment to see whether she 
would cave and tell him what had happened.  When that 
didn't happen, he returned to his desk with a sigh to 
look through the file Follmer had brought down, 
stealing glances at her every so often.

She had buried herself in a file, making angry pencil 
marks in the margin, but didn't appear to be truly 
reading it.  Her teeth dug into her lower lip and when
her pencil tip snapped she threw the offending 
implement against her desk with a force that made it 
skitter off and land on the floor.  She started 
slamming drawers open and closed in search of another 
pencil or just because she needed to hear the frantic 
banging, he wasn't sure.

"Monica?"

She fixed a glare on him.  "I just can't concentrate."  
She looked just this side of angry tears, and he found 
himself reaching into his memory for the methods she 
used to comfort him when he was upset and didn't want 
to open up to her.

He glanced at his watch.  "It's almost six," he offered.  
"It's probably enough to call it a week."

She nodded with an enormous sigh.

"C'mon, I'll buy you a drink."  He put the folder down 
on his desk, hardly caring about the content or why 
he'd found it so important when he'd requested it.  At 
her surprised expression, he continued his pitch, "To 
cool off?"

Reyes laughed then and gave him a real, if embarrassed, 
smile.  "Yeah, okay.  Do you want to drive?  I'm not 
sure I won't run off the road," she shot a look at the 
broken pencil on the floor.

"Sure."  He handed her her coat and relished her 
friendly, self-humouring smile before it was replaced 
by an expression of hurt and anger he hoped she would 
drink off by the end of the evening.  He knew what 
being a good friend looked like -- heaven knew, she 
had modeled it for him.



It was rare she needed him to fish her out of despair.  
Their relationship, traditionally, only went one way: 
he would have emotions of a depth he couldn't put 
into words, and she would sit patiently beside him 
until he had worked through enough of the excess pain 
and hurt to resume life -- or, at least, what he 
called life in the wake of his son's death and his 
divorce.  And, even after nine years of knowing her, 
seven years of friendship and a year of being 
partnered beside her every day, he honestly wasn't 
sure what to say to bring her out of her strange mood.  
She spent more time tearing the labels of her beer 
bottles into shreds than drinking the beer inside.  
He realized how quiet they were if she wasn't making 
an effort to start the conversation.  That was her 
job, to start talking.  He wasn't sure how to fill 
her role.

It didn't help that some large part of him didn't 
really want to hear any more about Assistant Director
Follmer's liaisons with his partner than he had to. 
Sure, she hadn't been his partner then, but they had 
been friends and it had inexplicably eaten him up to 
see her with him.  She transformed somehow, subtly, 
and he liked her better the way she was when they were 
alone than the way she was when Brad Follmer was there.  
He knew he had no right to pass judgments on her when 
he certainly hadn't made her any other offers, but he 
had always wondered what the hell it was she saw in 
that man.  Sure, Follmer was confident, on his way to 
the top, and attractive (or so the female agents said), 
but he had never seemed to be Monica's type.  He always 
saw her as being drawn to the last, battered puppy in 
a long line of preened purebreds, a kind of diviner of 
goodness among the downtrodden.

Or, maybe, he only came to that assessment because of 
the way she treated *him*.

And maybe he had only hated Follmer so much because, 
as ridiculous as it was, he somehow couldn't stand it 
that he wasn't the most important man in Monica Reyes' 
life.

"Should I be asking *you* what's wrong?" she asked 
finally, studying her partner's pained expression with 
sad, forgiving eyes -- forgiving because she knew he 
meant well, no matter how inept he was at comforting 
her.

"Nah, I'm sorry Monica, I was just... thinking."

"About?"

He paused for a moment, considering what and how much 
to tell her, and finally answered, "New York."

"Oh."  She poked at the mouth of her beer bottle.  "Me, 
too."

More silence.  "You don't have to tell me if you don't 
want to," he offered.

She smirked.  "You haven't asked me anything yet."

He swallowed and decided that was as good an invitation
as any.  She was making it easy for him, this being a 
good friend thing, always giving him a hand even when 
he, by all accounts, shouldn't need one.  "What'd he 
say to you in there?"

She sighed.  "Nothing new.  Just... needling at old 
wounds, I guess."

"Oh."

She met his eyes, blinked a few times, and added, "He 
wants to try again."

For some reason, the floor gave way at that image.  He 
put the beer to his lips and drank half of it down at 
once to keep from saying anything he would regret.  He 
wasn't sure he could stand it if that bastard was given 
free reign to touch her again, if he could show up in 
their office and kiss her right in front of him...  
"And?" he finally managed.

"And, nothing.  We're over."  She didn't sound as 
assured of that as he would have hoped.

He didn't want to answer 'good,' and couldn't up with 
any other appropriate response, so he watched her get 
slightly more distant and hold her bottle up to her 
lips without drinking.  "I couldn't do that to myself 
again," she almost whispered.

Suddenly he forgot that he didn't want to know.  He 
wanted to know everything, to reach inside of her and 
soothe whatever had been done to her the way she always 
comforted him.  "What did he do to you?"

A flash of amusement shone in her eyes at Doggett's 
venomous tone of voice.  She patted the hand closest to 
her and assured him, "I don't need you to break 
anybody's teeth in, but thanks for offering."

He laughed, because he hadn't offered out loud, but had 
offered all the same and they both knew it.  "Well, the 
offer stands," he replied with a nod.

"He never intended to hurt me at all.  He didn't, really.  
He's a good man, we just want different things, I guess.  
Or, he knew what he wanted, at the time, and I had no 
idea."

He nodded at her to continue, wondering whether she 
wished she were sharing this with Dana or some other 
woman, rather than him.

"I mean, Brad has a checklist of success."  She put her 
bottle down and raised both hands, ticking things off on 
her fingers as she said them.  "Good job, check.  
Position of power and respect, check.  Money, check.  
Girl, check."

Doggett felt unexpected anger flood him at the thought 
that anyone had ever placed Monica into a little 
check-box, used someone like her as a place holder to 
make him feel like he had achieved everything he was 
supposed to.

Monica was reading his mind again.  "No -- it wasn't 
like that.  I mean, it was, at first.  But I didn't 
mind."

"Didn't mind..."

"Didn't mind it being a relationship of convenience, 
I guess."  She frowned.  "I don't want you to think 
worse of me--"

"Monica, you know I couldn't do that."

Her eyes snapped up in response to his unintended 
honesty, searched his face for a moment, and continued 
before awkward silence could settle over them.  "I mean, 
it wasn't just a sexual thing.  I wanted to be with 
someone, but... I guess I wasn't ready to be emotionally 
committed.  His job was always the most important thing, 
so he didn't curb my freedom at all."

Freedom.  Her tendency to be drawn to moving trains, to
be always in motion, always one step ahead of him, 
fluttering around the periphery of his life and 
occasionally darting into the centre of it.  He doubted 
he could keep up with her.  He clung to her with his 
fingertips, afraid that if he tried to grab hold of her 
for real the restriction would send her running the 
first chance she got.  She had flitted about him for 
years, a constant, reassuring presence, tempting him to 
bridge the gap but probably also planning her escape 
route.  He lost himself without her around -- he'd come 
face to face with that barely a month earlier when a 
car accident and a coma had nearly taken her away for 
real -- and it was better to have her assured presence 
at arm's length than to take a chance that brought the 
risk of losing her for good.

"I guess that's a good thing," he said, unable to meet 
her eyes.

"I thought so," she answered quietly.  She poked at the 
bottlecap in front of her, pinching it between her 
fingers pensively.

They both started talking at once.

"He must've-"

"I always-"  She blushed slightly, and waved at him.  
"You go."

"Uh... well, he must've cared more'n just that if he's 
still... trying to get you."

The corner of her mouth quirked up reassuringly, 
although her eyes were sad and frustrated.  She knew he 
didn't want to be asking her those questions, as much as 
he did want to.  "After awhile, he rewrote his checklist.  
Instead of just being any old girl he needed... now it 
was me.  I guess he just got used to us together."  Her 
eyes told Doggett that wasn't all there was.  "He did 
want me.  He needed me, in some way.  Not emotionally, 
not desperately, not with a... I was an important 
accessory in his life.  Now it was: Job, check.  Money, 
check.  Monica, check.  In that order, probably."

"I don't really think that's how it's supposed to 
work."

She sniffed.  "No, I don't suppose it is.  But it's 
what I thought I wanted at the time, I guess.  I 
couldn't figure out why it wasn't working.  I wasn't 
getting chained down at the heart -- he didn't really 
love me and I didn't really want him to.  But he 
needed me, and he wanted me around, and he said so.  
And that was supposed to be enough."

Although her tone of voice didn't indicate that, he 
felt like that had been a direct slam at him.  He 
searched his memory frantically for an instance when 
he'd actually sat her down and told her outright how 
desperately he relied on her continued presence to get 
through the week.  It wasn't like him to pour emotion 
into words.  He liked to think he showed his gratitude 
instead, but as he thought about it, more often than 
not he brushed her aside, dismissed her overtures of 
kindness, or was even downright cruel to her when he 
felt his precarious stability challenged.  Could she 
really want him to say how badly he needed her around?  
Wouldn't that chain her down?

When he said nothing, she sighed again and took another 
drink.  "Now it's been two years and he's still missing 
that little check.  And the worst part is... I actually 
considered it."

"You-"

"I don't know.  It's not like I'm doing anything else."  
She made a face and shook her nearly empty bottle.  
"You want another?"

He didn't answer, just stared at her, trying to will 
her with his eyes to keep away from Brad Follmer, 
trying to wrestle down the urge within him to reach 
over and grab her, to tell her whatever it took to keep 
her from slipping out of his reach.  He restrained 
himself because he knew that if he so much as touched 
her his uncontrolled possessiveness would scare her 
away.

"I wanted... I don't know what I wanted.  I guess I 
forgot for a minute there how miserable I was those 
last few months with him.  I don't think I ever want 
to get back on that checklist."

Doggett cleared his throat.  "Yeah... we all figured you 
left when Brad Follmer started holdin' on too tight."

She swigged the last of her beer and stood up.  "Maybe 
he never held on tight enough."



It had to be the longest red in the city, Doggett mused.  
Reyes appeared to be meditating on it.  She breathed in 
time with the click of Doggett's left turn signal, a 
slight catch breaking her rhythm occasionally.  He 
wondered what emotion caused that, and what he should 
say.  The red of the stoplight above them shone through 
the windshield onto her face just enough to make her 
look sadder than she was.  Their conversation spun 
through his head, key phrases flashing like beacons in 
his mind, directing him down a path he wasn't sure he 
could stand to go.

He used the long red and her distracted attention to 
stare at her.  Something crashed against his ribs and 
parts of him wanted to forget about turning left to her 
apartment and to just drive straight on to wherever 
state they ended up, escaping their lives until they 
ran out of gas.  A left turn led to her place, to the 
empty weekend without her, to the following week where, 
for all he knew, Follmer might actually convince her 
that they had a good thing and that, while he might not 
love her, at least he was willing to give her 
*something*.

*He needed me, and he wanted me around, and he said 
so.*

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop 
them.  "I need you around, Monica."

A car horn behind him jarred him back to attention.  He 
looked around in confusion for a second before she 
whispered, "Green light."

He turned the corner and drove a few blocks in absolute 
silence.  He strained to hear her thoughts, wondering if
she knew how much emotion waited behind those feeble 
words he said to her, and, if she did, whether she was 
planning to run from the car as soon as he pulled to a 
stop in front of her apartment or planning to try and 
ride out the storm.  "Just thought you should know," 
he said after a moment, wishing with some part of his 
mind that he could take the statement back, but wishing 
equally hard that their relationship was such that he 
could say things like that without shocking her.

He pulled to a stop in front of her place and put the 
truck into park, unable to look at her.  The silence 
was oppressive and he counted minutes by with his racing 
heartbeat.  He could feel her eyes on him, studying him, 
felt her fluttering around him and wanted, desperately, 
to reach out and grab her.

*Don't make things worse, John...*

"Come in for a minute," she said.  He turned to her, 
expecting to see a forgiving smile assuring him that his 
outburst would be forgotten, but instead seeing something 
that could only have been described as want.  She took a 
breath as she caught his expression and fumbled for the 
door handle.

"Wait," he said, wanting to open the door for her, but 
she beat him to it and was waiting for him on the 
sidewalk by the time he got out of the car.  As they 
neared the top of the stairs his hand found its way to 
the small of her back, a gesture of intimacy and 
possession that he rarely ever allowed himself.  Her 
skin burned his hand through her jacket and he found 
himself closing his hand around the fabric.  She tossed 
him a curious expression as she unlocked her door but 
didn't object.

"John, are you okay?" she asked as she slipped her coat 
off and tossed it over the chair in her entryway.  His 
fingers missed the fabric, and he was an inch away from 
pushing reason out of the way and just reaching for her.

"Yeah..." he couldn't place why his voice was so shaky.

"I didn't mean to tell you all that stuff, if it upset 
you."

"It didn't.  I like you bein' able to talk to me like 
that, I guess.  I want... I don't want you to think..."

They stared at each other in the entryway for what 
seemed like hours, exchanging apologies and 
reassurances silently.  She reached for his arm after 
a moment, probably intending just to touch him 
comfortingly, the way she sometimes did as she 
fluttered around the periphery of his life.

The instant they met the evening turned into a clutter 
of moments and images, and he couldn't stop himself.  
He wasn't sure who started the first kiss, but there 
they were, tangled up in her entryway, trying to suck 
breath from each other as they poured years of waiting 
into a single, frantic embrace.  His arms found their 
way around her back and crushed her to him.  He tried 
vainly to order them to let go, that he was probably 
hurting or frightening her, that letting his 
desperation show through was the first and easiest way 
to send her disappearing into thin air and leaving him 
unable to exist without her.  She didn't seem to mind 
his iron grip, only forced his jacket a little off his 
shoulders and buried her fingers in his hair, emitting 
a choked, pleading whine for him to continue.

She pulled him backwards out of the doorway and again 
tried to pull his jacket off.  He refused to release her 
even to fumble at clothing, but just wanted to feel her 
around him, really there, as desperate for this as he 
was.  She broke for air right as they tumbled onto her 
couch, gasping in shuddering breaths, her body shaking 
in his arms.  She moved up onto her knees and straddled 
his lap without making him loosen his grip.  "John," 
she whispered, burying her face in his shoulder and 
going nearly limp, letting him cling to her like a 
drowning man as she absorbed the magnitude of what had 
just happened.  After a moment of just breathing, she 
asked with a smile he felt against his neck, "How did 
that happen?"

He untangled his brain from her arms wrapped around him 
and tried to answer.  "Monica, I..."  He wanted to tell 
her how much he needed her, in every sense of the word, 
but couldn't force the words past the lead weight on 
his chest which warned that he couldn't allow himself 
to get too close to her.

She pushed at his chest and his arms let go, allowing 
her to back away just enough to see him.  Her face was 
flushed and she searched his features with a familiar 
look of concern.  He almost laughed at how reassuring 
that expression was -- that not so much had changed from 
her doorway to her couch for it to be disastrous.

Monica kissed him again, gently, and traced her lips 
along his cheek and started down his neck before she 
pulled away again to check his reaction.  She almost 
gasped in surprise.

"John..." she touched a finger to his cheek, stopping a 
lone tear from going any farther.  He saw her eyes well 
up at the sight of it and worried that she was going to 
move away, but instead she stayed where she was, 
stroking his hair comfortingly, unwilling or unable to 
retreat from his personal space now that she had finally 
found her way inside of it.  She pulled his head to her 
chest after a moment and he sighed, wrapping his arms 
around her again and holding tight.

"I don't want to lose you..." The words were muffled in 
her chest so that there was no way she should have 
understood them.

She did anyway.  "You're never going to lose me," she 
murmured, running her hands up and down his back.  Her 
hands stopped.  "Is that why you... we... never did 
this before?"

He lifted his head and stared at her.

"Is this about Brad?" she asked, squinting as she tried 
to understand.

He shook his head.  "No..."  It was about him, and about 
her, and all the things he had never realized until she 
made some flippant comment that suggested maybe she was 
tired of her freedom, sick of fluttering around the 
edges of his life, that she was ready for someone to 
chain her down and hold on to her as tightly as he could.

She started to smile serenely and then thought better of 
it, instead closing the small gap between them and 
kissing him again.  This time he let go of her long 
enough for her to pull his jacket off.  After it had 
been tossed aside, she started undoing her own shirt 
buttons as though she worried he, in his years of 
frightened celibacy, had forgotten how.  He ran his 
hands over newly exposed skin as she fought with his 
shirt, almost dizzy with the way she felt and 
pathetically grateful that she had let him get this 
close.  She was exciting and soothing all at the same 
time, her lips making sparks go off behind his eyes and 
her hands warming and calming him with a kind of body 
heat he hadn't experienced in years.  How long had it 
been since he had been really, intentionally touched -- 
beyond a handshake, a doctor's exam, or a casual brush 
in a crowd?  It had been years.  There were a few 
moments of accidental comfort and intimacy -- with 
Monica, more often than not -- but he had always been 
too panicked by the surprise to really take them in 
before they ended too soon.  His partner's hands on him 
now, rubbing the mostly invisible scars on his bare 
chest, answered a need he hadn't even really 
acknowledged, and he silently pleaded with her not to 
stop.

Another tear escaped and she caught it with her tongue, 
gently kissing his closed eyes before returning to his 
mouth.  He could feel her smiling as she kissed him, a 
strange sensation which suited her perfectly, and he 
wondered what other intimate quirks she had.  His mind 
swam in disbelief as he kissed down her chest and her 
fingers dug encouragingly into his back.  Emotion rolled 
over him in waves.  He stopped when he could no longer 
breathe, and just rested there for a moment until he 
looked up at her, knowing all his fears were exposed in 
his eyes.

And, amazingly, he saw the same fears in hers.

"If we do this..." he breathed hoarsely, unable to 
finish his sentence.  If they did this, he would be 
unable to control his possessive streak.  He would cling 
to her for dear life, forcing her to stay in the centre 
of his world instead of darting in and out when she felt 
the whim.  He would need her more completely than he ever 
had before, and wouldn't be able to control what scars he 
did and didn't show her.  If she couldn't handle it, if 
she found something in him or his scars she didn't like, 
and ran away, he wouldn't be able to regain what little 
equilibrium he had.  He wouldn't be able to be satisfied 
with what he had been calling life for the past nine 
years since the death of his son and his wife's subsequent 
departure.  If they did this, he would never be able to 
let go of her.

She nodded slowly.  "Okay," she said, not smiling, not 
making light of it, but accepting the terms he'd been 
unable to articulate.  She sank her head down against his 
neck and wrapped her arms around him.  She let out a breath,
something between a moan and a sigh, as his arms pinned 
her.  "Tighter," she whispered.

He held her, skin to skin, until he knew it hurt, but she 
didn't resist, only lightly kissed the skin of his neck in 
between breaths.

When he could trust his voice, he asked her, "Are you 
okay?"

He felt her nod slightly and she kissed him again, 
sounding almost like she was falling asleep.  "Don't let 
go," she murmured in his ear.

He felt himself relax for the first time in nearly a 
decade.  "I won't."


- end! -