Overweighted
Chapter One
By RocketMan

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Rating: PG

Categories: S, X, A, R

Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST/Romance

Summary: A little girl is found to have extraordinary abilities.

SPOILER::::::US5 up to THE END:::::::

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is
intended. Helen Nobel is mine.

=====
Often, when I dream, thoughts pass through my mind like cowled shadows,
silent and remote, and disappear . . . There are also rare and beautiful
moments when I see and hear in Dreamland. What if in my waking hours a
sound should ring through the silent halls of hearing? What if a ray of
light should flash through the darkened chambers of my soul? . . .
Would the heart, overweighted with sudden joy, stop beating for very
excess of happiness?
-- Helen Keller: diary excerpt
=====

I am myself.

I have these things around me: a furry animal with a stitched on mouth,
a soft blanket that tightens across my shoulders when I sleep, a wide
room that inhabits the darkness perpetually.

Here, in this room, people come and visit me, to touch my hands and
talk.

They call me H-E-L-E-N.

That's a very long name.

H-E-L-E-N.

That's five letters that are hard to make in a row like that. And it's
hard to tell an H from a G sometimes, and other times, I want to think
my name is G-A-L-A-M, because of the way the letters feel.

I have darkness all around me and it's like looking straight into time
with wide eyes that know everything there is to know. But really, I
don't know if that's true because I've never seen before.

I've never seen. I've never heard.

I sometimes wish I could, but not really too often. I've never done
either, so I guess it's just cause I don't know what I'm missing.

But I don't have to pay attention to anyone, if I don't want to, and I
can stay here, in my dark room, for as long as I want. For forever.

Jane, the woman who teaches me, is very nice and she stays silent the
entire time we're together. I know this because I don't feel the sound
vibrations when she's with me.

I once had a teacher scream at me, and I could feel every unheard
syllable slamming into me like a wall of light hitting my eyes.

Jane doesn't talk and I wonder if she's deaf too.

In this darkness, it is only me, only me and a ghost named Helen Keller
that everyone keeps telling me about. Helen Keller, the one these people
named me for, because we're exactly alike.

I can feel her sometimes, right in the dark room with me.

She touches me and her touch says that it's okay to want to be scared,
it's okay to not feel like this is right.

This isn't right.

I'm not sure why, but what has happened to me, ever since I was born, is
not right. I was supposed to be normal and seeing and hearing, but
instead, I have this dark room and all its secrets.

At night, in dreams, I don't like the secrets it shows me.

~~~~~

"Mulder?"

"Yeah . . . I'm coming."

She held the elevator button longer, her finger aching by this time, the
chiming doors longing to close and start on its way back up.

He slid inside and she let go of the leash and the elevator seemed to
rocket skyward, thrilled at escaping the basement.

Or maybe that was just her impresseion because she herself was thrilled
to be away from the basement for awhile.

"Sorry, I was trying to get my tie right," he murmured.

It was hot in their office, since no one really remembered that they
even had an office downstairs, or even remembered that it was summer and
they needed air conditioning.

Every day, he came in, shed his suit jacket and tie and unbuttoned his
shirt all the way until his T-shirt showed, along with his sweat.

She changed completely when she got there. Her hose came off, her
pantsuits were discarded and she shrugged on a tank top and shorts.

He always scowled and pretended he wasn't still hot while she was
comfortable.

She just counted on the fact that no one wanted to come down there when
it was so hot.

And apparently, she was right. Skinner had called them up to his floor,
asking them to hurry.

Scully had changed right there, in front of Mulder, because, frankly,
she just didn't care. Mulder had gaped at her a second, turned around to
give her a bit of privacy, then hastened to get his shirt buttoned and
tie on and had still made them late.

She turned to him now, quickly redid the knot and straightened his tie,
all while he made choking noises and hung his tongue out.

She wrinkled her nose and turned back just as the doors popped open,
leaving Mulder with his tongue hanging out while co-workers looked on
with knowing smiles.

Scully zipped out of the elevator and Mulder gave everyone a self
satisfied grin and followed her.

~~~~
Skinner sat calmly in his chair while he talked in his gruff, monotone
voice about expenditures and vacation time and other schedule type
things that he was required to tell his employees about. Even if they
knew already and could probably recite his speech in their sleep.

Then he gave them a few new potential cases that had come across his
desk instead of theirs and they could tell he didn't like that he was
being associated with them all the time.

If stuff hit the fan, he wanted to keep his job.

They walked back down to the elevator afterwards, silent and respectful,
and went on down, Mulder shedding his tie and shirt as the car plunged
back into hell.

~~~~
Jane comes running into my room, I can feel her panic roil in waves off
her and the vibrations of her thundering jar me out of sleep.

She yanks on me, pulls me up, jams some clothes over my head, then my
arms are shoved through my jacket, her breath tickling my ear.

I may be only four, but I can put on my own clothes.

I frantically sign towards her, shoving my hands into hers for her to
tell me what's going on, but all she signs is this:

No time.

These signs frighten me and I grab my shoes and pull them on as she
picks me up, cradles me to her chest and starts running.

I feel panic claw around us, choking me, pulling at me as she had been,
and I know there is someone, someone here.

Someone here.

I sign this on her cheek, a place she will feel it if she's not watching
my hands in her run.

She freezes and I can feel every cell in her body screaming.

Screaming into my head with voices I've never heard before.

Helen, my ghost, whispers with her fingers that I will be all right.

A hand closes around me, the dark closes around me: I've never been out
of that room, out of this place before in my life.

The hand pulls, the hand has something that I can feel is death.

Death rushes past me, I can feel the heat and the speed of it, I can
feel the life drain from Jane, feel the vibrations and shock waves as a
person is snuffed out.

She's gone, falling to the floor.

I am held up by a man.

I shiver and jerk and pull hard and bite and make noises but I don't
know what I'm saying or screaming or maybe just whispering.

*I can't see**I can't hear*

I can't see.

All I feel is death.

Then nothing.

~~~~~

She looked kind of cute, there, standing in the doorway after a quick
trip to the bathroom down the hall.

"Mulder?" she said, glancing at him as he kind of stared.

"Oh, new case, Scully."

She nodded and he could swear that she was wearing shorter shorts every
day just to get on his nerves, although it really wasn't nerves that
were benefiting.

He watched her walk into the office and settle herself into the chair,
her toned body perched elegantly there like a dove or maybe, sometimes,
like a hawk.

She waited for him to start and gave him a warning look that told him
she knew he was staring and wasn't appreciating it.

"A little girl from a special institution in California was reported
missing last Thursday. In conjunction with this, her teacher, Jane
Phelps, was found murdered on Saturday in the basement; however, her body
had been dragged there. We got this case on Friday, but I didn't think
it warranted anything until I got the update this morning."

"Mulder, this is awful, but I don't see how this is a case for us. I
mean, yes, it is something to be solved, but why can't the local police,
or even local Bureau handle this? And why did a runaway merit our time
in the first place?"

He nodded and she realized he had this look that told her he hadn't
given her all the information. He liked to do that.

"This little girl is four years old, Scully, and shows signs of an
enmormous I.Q. in excess of Einstein or someone similiar. She's also
deaf and blind."

Scully sat there for a moment, her eyes never leaving his face, but her
mind obviously somewhere else, thinking.

"So she's been kidnapped."

"I wouldn't think a deaf and blind girl could manage to escape the
institution, and especially not kill her teacher. Also, her teacher was
deaf as well, and it looked like she was killed trying to save the
little girl."

"How do you mean?"

"Blood was found in the hall outside the girl's room; also, the girl's
jacket and shoes were missing, indicating that someone was trying to get
her to safety."

"Ah. So basically this is merely a challenge for you? No X-File or
anything?"

"Well . . . "

"Mulder, please don't tell me she's been abducted by aliens."

"No, just that I think there's a lot more to this than a simple
kidnapping. First of all, there is no clear motive yet. The girl
supposedly doesn't have any family; she's an orphan --"

"Wait. If she's an orphan, then who pays for her to remain in this
institution?"

Mulder looked at her knowingly, a smile of pure delight on his features.

"You're turning me on, Scully."

Her eyes rolled and he stood. "So, the question is, who's behind all
this?"

~~~~~
end chapter one
adios
RM