Overweighted
Chapter Ten
By RocketMan

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"In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed;
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted."
-- "A Dream" Edgar Allan Poe
=====

"Mulder! I wish you'd tell me when --"

"But look. She loves it!" he said, shushing her with a hand to her lips.

Helen was burying her face in Mulder's present: a large old dog of mixed
breed with a black coat and dark eyes. The dog was licking her face and
whining.

"Mulder . . ."

"What? She needs something, Scully." His voice was suddenly strained,
reaching out to her with its pitch and timbre.

"I know," she whispered, feeling the same sense of loss rising in her.

Mulder shook himself out of his intensity and reached out a hand to pet
the dog.

"What's his name?"

"Sam. He's seven years old and the lady said he was perfect for Helen."

"Why's that?" Scully asked absent-mindedly as she carefully eyed the
dog.

"His owners had three kids, youngest age was two, so he's gentle. They
had to get rid of him because they were moving to Alaska and he's so
old, it would hurt him."

Scully turned to him again, sitting on the couch next to where Helen was
eagerly petting her new dog.

"What's that in doggie years? Forty-nine or something?"

He smiled. "You like him?"

She reached out and cautiously put her hand to his head. Sam twisted and
licked her fingers, then her knee.

"Yeah, I do."

Mulder's grin grew wider and he leaned back against the couch, sprawled
carelessly in the floor to watch Helen play with her dog.

He took her hands and signed Sam into her palm. She thought for a moment
and then made him a special sign, beginning with an "s" and shaking her
hand back and forth.

Sam barked and Mulder could have sworn he knew exactly what Helen was
doing.

Helen stood and bumped into the couch, then twisted and ran for her
room, Sam tagging on her heels as if he were a puppy.

Mulder craned his neck and was pleased to see that Helen made it all the
way to her room without knocking into anything.

"That was good, Mulder."

He glanced back to Scully, turning his face so he could see her. She was
perched on the edge of the couch, her hair falling into her face and
chin resting in her hands.

"You think so?"

She nodded. "She's been so . . . gone. I'll sign to her and she won't
even know I'm there. I think she's sad about Jane."

"That must be a powerful grief, Scully. She's gone inside herself. Like
she's listening to something in her. I thought maybe the dog would give
her a connection to the outside."

Scully gave a lonely sigh and he imagined he could feel her breath
dancing along his skin.

"It must be so hard, Mulder. To have all that darkness and all that
silence. It would be so easy to cut off from the outside world."

"And that's what she's doing."

Scully blindly reached out with her hand for his, entwining their
fingers without even a glance.

He closed his eyes and let the rhythm of the apartment and his heart
lull him into a drowsy state.

The slick hardwood floor was dusty and itched his nose, and the leather
on his sofa made his head slip forward. His fingers in hers pounded and
thrummed and he almost could feel her own heartbeat through their touch.

She was lying back into the couch now, her body slumped and relaxed in
ways it had never been, her mind content with roving from subject to
subject with no apparent reason.

She flicked her wrist and he cracked open an eye.

"Why hasn't anything happened?"

He lifted an eyebrow at her and tasted the air's feathery summer dust.
His tongue ran across dry and cracked lips and he breathed in deeply,
thinking.

"Happened how?"

"Why haven't they come for her?"

He could smell rain in the breeze coming in from the open window and he
knew it would have lightning and thunder. The window rattled as the wind
picked up, then settled again.

"I'm not sure. I think they're waiting for something."

She felt protected in the cocoon of his couch, the way it melded to her
body and meshed with her mood. It was sticky in the summer heat, but
perfect if you didn't try to move.

Her head felt too heavy for her body and she let her head dip down a
bit.

"Scully, you awake?"

She nodded and her mouth moved to answer but no sounds would come. She
squeezed his hand and moved slightly.

He rolled to sit in front of her, still sacked out on the floor, and
propped his head on the cushion. The leather was chilly against his
cheek and his eyes rolled as he looked up at her.

Her hand was still tangled in his and he brought it to his lips, leaving
her skin there when he closed his eyes again.

She whimpered.

"S . . . s . . . SScully?" he murmured.

"Ants . . ." she whispered. "In my head . . ."

He felt them too now. Little colonies marching across his brain like
kids on a field trip.

"Not right . . ." she muttered.

His eyes slipped shut.

~~~~~

Sam is large and strong and his muscles are thick beneath his coat.
His face is smooth like seal skin and his nose is cold and wet. He
stays perched beside me on the bed, his head on my stomach because
he seems to like the up and down movement when I breathe.

I sign things to him, against his side where he can feel every finger
moving and I feel the vibrations when he whines.

He's been whining a lot.

I can feel something with my mind, something crawling like those bugs
were in the place I was taken to.

I shake my head and drop to the floor, feeling shaky and confused. I
can't remember which side I'm on, where the door is, or what direction
I'm facing.

My hand is clutched tightly to Sam and his side vibrates deeper, like a
growl.

He moves forward and I follow.

I'm blind, oh, please, help, I can't *see*.

It's never been this open, this completely dark and totally vast.

I'm shaking and scuffling along the floor forever until I hit something.

I panic and Sam smacks into me and knocks me down and suddenly, smell
and touch and taste come back.

I'm in the living room. I'm okay. I'm okay.

Sam's bulk is panting over me, and I move him away. I can taste my own
fear and something else.

Something funny in the air.

It's acidic almost and it's got a metallic after feel to it. I spit and
it's still there, magnified because now I know it's there. It's awful,
like having a piece of aluminum in your mouth.

I lick my lips and my throat is very dry, scratching and killing.

I can feel the floors underneath and they are too cool, too chilly for
summer.

A sudden draft from the window clears out the horrifying smell of gas
and the taste of metal.

Gas.

That's it. Something's very wrong.

Something's wrong I can feel things moving around, moving into place and
waiting for one thing to come: death.

Vultures are here.

I scramble to the couch and feel Daddy slumped against it, pitifully
moving as if he knows too that something's about to happen. He's half
here and I move past him to Mommy.

I shiver.

She's cold.

I yank on her arm and when she slumps into me, I feel death again.

Death rushing past my face and stinging into the couch.

The place where Mommy was.

I think I'm screaming, or maybe again, whispering.

Daddy moves, his arms are wrapping around me, the bullets are around us,
it's waking him up.

Sam is dragging something, I feel his growl, his teeth clenched over
cotton.

I'm holding tightly to Daddy and he's helping Sam and we're moving too
fast I can't keep up, I can't find out where we are or what's happening.

Something hits.

I scream again.

Maybe whisper.

It hurts.

~~~~~

When the bullets started, Mulder was jerked awake.

He saw dimly and realized that Helen was attempting to pull Scully from
the couch even while a firebomb was being crashed through the window.

Shards of glass spiked into Helen and Scully and he grabbed them both,
quickly, pushing Helen around his neck and surprised when Sam began
dragging Scully's limp body to the door.

Fire began eating his couch and he choked on fumes and inched forward on
the ground to avoid stray bullets.

Helen slipped from around him and he tucked her into him, shielding her
from anything else, unsure of what had happened, or how.

It looked like they hadn't forgotten them after all.

Sam was panting in the floor, growling and whining ocassionally and
guarding Scully's body with his ferocious looking teeth.

Mulder cradled both his women in his arms and shoved open the door as
flames began licking his feet.

He bit down on his tongue to keep from totally panicking, and slid out
the door, watching at every step for someone to come from the shadows
and shoot them dead.

Sam prowled on ahead and kept his body low, slithering along like a
snake at times.

The very air around him seemed to be igniting and he figured something
had been introduced into the vents to make them sluggish.

He bit the inside of his cheek and shuffled forward, making it to the
stairwell on a coughing fit and weak, trembling arms.

He half fell down the first flight and as he was making it down the
second, he slipped.

On blood.

Scully's blood.

It was bloomed across her shoulder and down her back and dripped, like a
leaky faucet, to the ground.

He glanced back and saw a whole trail of it leading and smearing
straight to him.

He felt his stomach heave and he whimpered; he couldn't figure out what
to do. Either staunch it, or get the hell out of the fire.

He chose fire.

He stumbled out of the building and dragged three bodies to her car. His
body, hers, and Helen's. Sam was right behind.

Actually, he was thinking his car had been fire bombed, but hers was
intact.

And he had the keys in his pocket.

It had to be God. It was the only answer for that wonderful stroke of
luck.

He shoved Helen into the front seat and Scully in the back and drove.

~~~~~

The motel room was very small and very disgusting, but Mulder had only
been carrying twenty dollars with him, Scully only ten.

Helen was strecthed out on the ratty couch, a blanket underneath her and
his steady hand removing the bits of glass from her arms and neck.

She was crying and clutching Sam's fur as he pulled the tiny shards out.

He couldn't look at her face or his hands began to shake and his own
eyes teared up.

So he concentrated.

When the last sliver was out, he smeared antibiotic cream across it and
kissed her cheek.

She laid there very still and Sam jumped up to the couch and laid his
head on her stomach. A tiny smile came to her lips and she asked how her
Mommy was.

Mulder signed <not good>.

Sam whined and Mulder stood up, taking in a deep breath and turning to
see Scully.

She was on the single bed, her face pale and drawn and her lips twisted
in a grimace of pain.

She looked like hell and smelled of blood and anitseptic. Mulder had
taken her to the Lone Gunmen right off and within seconds, a doctor had
arrived to treat her.

She hadn't woken up the entire time.

He looked away and bit hard into his lip to keep his tears back, then
strode to her side.

He grabbed the tweezers and washed them in the basin of water on the
night table. Slowly, he regained control and began digging out the
shards of glass from her face and neck and arm.

The slivers were wet with her blood and shining, as if waiting for some
explorer to find their worth.

He placed each piece on a washcloth and lined them up like the bloodied
bodies of fallen soldiers.

She groaned and her eyes fluttered as he was digging for a piece deep in
her neck.

A gasp of pain and her eyes were open, staring directly into his.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She seemed not to be able to hear.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

When he sought her eyes again, they were closed.

~~~~~

It took three hours to carefully extract the slivers of glass and one
hour to wash her clean of blood and sweat.

He then helped Helen take a sponge bath, carefully keeping the soap away
from her fresh cuts and open wounds. Sam insisted on keeping his wet
nose over the edge of the tub, watching and wagging his heavy tail.

When she was dressed in one of Byers' borrowed T-shirts and settled into
the couch with Sam resting beside her, he finally took a look at himself
in the foggy mirror.

He looked old.

His eyes were sunken and dimmed, his face bagging and sagging, his lips
bloodless. He was in one of his old, smelly sweatshirts -- something
Frohike had stored away for some odd reason.

He really didn't want to know.

He especially didn't want to know why Frohike also had one of Dana's old
sweatshirts.

Which she was now dressed in.

The sweatshirt only.

He had dressed her. Frohike had been nowhere in sight and Langly had
blacked out every camera so that Frohike couldn't possibly be recording
it. It would have been fuuny except it made him want to cry.

He shivered and crawled away from the mirror and over to the bed.

She was sleeping easily for the moment and he moved in beside her.

She shifted, as if she were about to turn over and rest against him, but
she stayed flat on her back.

He curled up next to her and slipped an arm around her waist, pressing
his face into her good shoulder.

She sighed, then whimpered.

He pulled away in hurt and watched her face ease again once his touch
was gone.

All he could figure was that she was bruised somewhere.

He slid to the floor and waited for sleep.

~~~~~

I can feel nothing.

This new dark room is strange and I don't know where things are.

Sam is here and he's protecting me. He knows where things are.

It's okay.

I can feel Daddy's subtle panic, riding on the edges of his love.

I can't feel Mommy. It's making me afraid.

Sam whines again and nudges my chin.

It's okay he says.

It's okay.

~~~~~

end ten
adios
RM