Overweighted Chapter Sixteen By RocketMan ===== "And you you regard my life Surrounding me with love that is kind And I stand amazed, I am in awe Cause nothing compares to you Nothing at all. . . There's no one There is no one like you." -- 'No One Like You' Kim Hill ===== It's too hot here, with their bodies pressing tight against me. They're afraid. I know this fear. Fear of darkness. But I can feel things they can't. And I know things they are blind to. We will not make it. What is fear? But having no knowledge of what is to come. I know what will come. It will be our deaths. And nothing will stop its coming. I am resigned to this. I wish it were different; I wish I could have a family with a mother and father and my Sam. But I was destined to death, even as I was destined to a seeing, hearing, silent darkness. I was never supposed to exist; a mistake in my creation. They'll find us. There's no fear in that. ===== As one, they jerked from an exhausted sleep to the sounds of yelling, terrified they'd been discovered -- caught. Her chest heaved in breaths that would not come as she attempted to see in the absoluteness of no light. The vision would not come and she was forced to panic in the rushing noise of feet. Mulder's hand on her shoulder caused her to suck in more air than she could breathe out, and she gagged. Terrified. Terrified. "Work, Scully. It's a fish canning plant. People are at work." She nodded, her head jerking sporadically, nostrils flaring like a horse that has run too far, too fast. Scully's hand reached out, clutched at his clothes; her fingertips felt the evidence of his own panic as his blood rushed under clammy skin. She was not the only one. It gave her an odd sense of comfort. Mulder buried his head into her neck and nodded, as if he were laughing at himself. "We're okay. We stay silent; they won't know." She nodded back, words something she could not find in the spaces between aborted fear and edging hysteria. Helen's small body curled up and into her stomach, her hands a strange warmth of relief on her thighs. Scully let a not quite steady hand drop to her head, caressed the blonde hair that was damp and tangled from grease and dirt and fear. Helen let out a tiny breath that seemed to echo the relief of her family; a breath that was short and glad to simply exist, let alone with such comfort. Scully felt even more exhausted from her momentary panic, destroying any good the hours of sleep might have done. She shivered and let Mulder's arms wrap tightly around her, more for his own security than any need of hers. Could she live always like this? Always with fear choking a noose around her neck? ===== Momma's pants are rough under my cheek, her hands too possessive, too clutching to make me feel any better. I wriggle around in her arms, move my head to her shoulder, close my eyes because they are aching again. My sightless eyes, which have no purpose, are the cause of aches and pains that make me wish I could scratch them out and never feel them again. It's not like I *need* them anyway. Her chest rises and falls in a more regular rhythm now, but I can still feel how her blood and heart race around, like chastised servants. Her lips whisper a kiss across my forehead and I hug her harder. I am awed by the ferocity of her love for me. No one has ever wanted to love me so much. No one has ever risked this . . . risked an entire way of life, an entire crusade for loving me. For loving me. I shiver. If there's any way to make it . . . any hope of love . . . she carries it. She holds it to her like a panther crouching over her cubs. With her and God both on my side . . . what is fear? ===== Mulder listened to his stomach growl ferociously under his hand, felt the dizzying waves sweep him again. He closed his eyes, refused to give in to the pain of hunger. He hoped Scully and Helen were not feeling this. He had missed out on any kind of dinner the night they stole away, but they had enjoyed a huge meal, compliments of Langly. He prayed they were still okay for now. As the work day tapered off, as the crunch of machines and smell of fresh fish grew to the silence of janitors and the stink of refuse, Mulder felt his body tense into waiting. He was waiting; it would come now, or not at all. There was silence. Darkness. Silence. Flashes of Scully's pale face. His whispered commands to move to the side. Helen's trembling chin. The crick of a door. A door. Mulder let out a scream intended to throw the man off guard and launched his coiled body into an attack. The man screamed himself and went down, fighting with his whole body to gain back his advantage. Scully dug frantically into the dirt of the floor, hands scrambling in a panicked search for her gun. Her gun, oh God help me, where *was* it? Mulder let out a grunt as their would-be assassin pummeled a fist into his face and scratched at his cheeks with long, ragged nails. Throwing the tired, starving Mulder to the floor, the man raged up, intending to kill. A shot exploded in the tiny dark of the room. A sickening sound of bone shattering, blood gushing, a man gurgling his last breaths. The killer collapsed, a heap of blood and death beside the man she had protected. She pushed Helen from her, gathered Mulder's head to her and dragged him away from the puddle of a killer's life. "Mulder!" His groggy grunt made her heart leap; she gently shook him awake. "Scully!" He jerked upright, coming to a crouch as the silence reigned heavy. His breath was the only intrusion. His breath and the quiet river of blood trickling in the dirt floor. She shivered. She had killed a man. She had killed. She was the killer. "We have to get *out* of here. Someone *knows*!" Mulder's hands fumbled with hers, drew her to her feet, reached for Helen and everything they owned in the tight garbage bags. She trembled, wiped her hands on her pants repeatedly, feeling the film of blood on her palms where she had cradled Mulder's head. He was splattered in blood . . . blood that could have been his own. Mulder rushed to her stock still form, grabbed her arm and shoved her violently to the door. "How'd you know?" she whispered. He did not hear, simply propelled them forward, Helen riding piggy back as he attempted to step over the fallen man. Reality slammed into her. Knocked her to her knees and raped the breath from her. *Death*. She had *killed* a man. In a blind hysteria, she grabbed at the man's chest, placed her hands to the tiny hole there, clamping down on her trembling lips with her teeth. Mulder paused, shaking, furious. "Come *on*! There could be more!" She could not hear him, could not see. Only this man. He could NOT be dead. She could not have simply killed him. She had to help him, had to stop the blood from pouring out like wine at the altar. She had to stop it, stop the blood, stop the death, there was always too much death always too much dying and hate and pain and blood, oh God make it stop, there was blood everywhere! "Scully!" he yelled, yanking her up by the arm and shoving her to the door. Her bloodied hands quivered and she stumbled forward, entering the sunlight beaming brightly from the high windows, blinking and shaking in the sudden onslaught of light. She couldn't see. Couldn't move. Dead inside. She was dead inside. She had thought she was prepared for this, ready for the sacrifices, but she was not. She could not afford to sacrifice her own humanity to this. Mulder grabbed her by the arm and half ran, half dragged her to the outside, fear gnawing him. Where had his brave Scully gone? What would happen to him without her strength? ===== end chapter adios RM ~~ if you don't like it, blame Robert Ludlum~~