Title: Tell No One -- Chapter One
Author: CatherineBruce
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nuthin! Didn't break 'em, I only borrowed 'em! Any emotional stress these characters display after I return them was already there. I swear it!
Spoilers: Up to 'The Telling' with information found out in Season Three. AU.
Author's Notes: This story takes place during those Two Years. Definitely AU, definitely a WIP. Wasn't really sure which category to place it so I plopped it here. Hopefully I won't face a flogging squad and be flogged with Slimy Things!

Thanks to Twichie for making this all pretty!

It was the same dream, the one that had sent him bolting upright in his bed shaking in a cold sweat in those early weeks following the accident. At first the dream had been a nightly occurrence, one of the few tangible memories he had of that time spent trying to just survive until finally turning to insomnia and scotch. Slowly the space of nights between the dreams would grow longer until an entire month would go by. Inevitably the dream would return, and all the time spent trying to move on and let go would be for naught, and he found himself once more longing for the ashes that floated in the pacific.

Tonight the dream was back after nearly six weeks, melting into his subconciousness, like a lover its familiarity. The familiar smoke clogging his lungs, burning his throat.

He moved along through the fallen beams and debris, everything burned black, careful not to disturb the open grave that had once housed vibrant life. Figures moved around him, faceless in their anonymity, only living specters in this dream.

The arch leading to the living room was still partially erect, shattered and burned, and for a moment he leaned against it uncaring of the black soot that clung to his suit. He moved from it, looking now for only one thing. And then he saw her.

Or rather, what was left of her.

More faceless figures floated around her, incorporeal in their flitting about to her stillness. Intangible thoughts coursed through his mind as he slid down a wall, soot on his face streaked through with salt water. The other body lay some distance from hers, but he paid it no mind, because she was the only one there with him.

Gone, he thought. It was the only coherent one he had. Normally this was where the dream would send him crashing back to reality with a force that left him quaking in sheets or on cushions. Tonight though, he kept sitting there.

Then, so slowly he thought he might be imagining, would have sworn he had been were it not for the charred skin flaking off, her head turned towards him. The pungent odor of burned flesh assaulted his senses.

He couldn't move as the sunken remains of her eyelids opened, couldn't cry out when two eyes stared blankly out at him.

Her beautifully brown, impossibly intact eyes.

Through nonexistent lips a final breath escaped her, carrying to him the stronger smells of death and decay, and he thought he heard the raspy sound of his name passing over a destroyed larynx. Vaughn.

It's there that he finally wakes up, adrenaline pumping into his system, sweat seeping from his pores, into the sheets that now tangled at his feet. His stomach roiled as he sat up, forcing him to steady himself, breath ragged and heartbeat erratic. Vaughn swung his legs over the side of his bed, casting a glance at the alarm clock as he did so.

Two AM. Great.

Sleep would not claim him again tonight. Experience had taught him that. Getting up, he entered his living room and turned on the television. The familiar antics of late night sitcoms filled his apartment with enough background noise to drown out most of the ghosts in his head. The bottle he grabbed from the fridge would either help drown out the rest or amplify their song until there was nothing left. He wasn't sure which was worse, but knew which was preferable.

"I dreamed again tonight." He didn't clarify as he took a long swallow, didn't need to because the specters knew. "I thought you were done with them, that you're done making me relive that. Why aren't you?"

He waited, only half expecting an answer tonight. One did come, though only after his second long pull of liquor into his mouth.

Because, she whispered softly into his ear and if he closed his eyes tight enough he could almost feel her on the couch next to him, could almost smell her. You're not ready for me to.

---

Its time.

She had been amazed at how quick and easy it had been to convince them of the lie that Sydney was dead. A part of her had expected, almost even hoped for more of a challenge from the powerful force that still held her captive. But then, everyone else to go through the reconditioning had been broken. Why not me as well?

She almost laughed out loud at the complacency within the Covenant regarding their pet projects. They had become lax when it came to monitoring their activities, every faith in the world at their reconditioning. Julia bit back the mirth before it could escape to attract unwanted attention to herself. Their foolishness was exactly what she needed, and it would be their downfall.

They would pay.

Of course, she wasn't stupid enough to assume she held complete freedoms. The last time she had done that she had found her fiancé dead in a tub. She knew they still occasionally followed her, tapped into her phone calls. She even caught a couple operatives give half hearted attempts at following her movements.

Still, even with the sloppiness displayed, she carefully covered her tracks as she used the cyber cafe in a city close to that of her current assignment. She used an untraceable email account. A message that she prayed only he would understand.

For a long moment she stared at the familiar address in the 'to' box, and uncertainty clouded her thoughts. It had been eight months since she had last seen him, making plans for a beach and a giraffe, and since that time she had literally been beaten into a new person. A plethora of what if's paraded through her mind, each one battling another for dominance. What if he had moved on? What if he took one look at what she had become, what she had been forced to do, and ran?

Then from behind all the others came a new what if, fighting its way from the back of her thoughts to the front and finally gave her the courage to hit the send button.

What if he's still waiting for me?

The page loaded to show that the massage had been sent and for the first time in months her thoughts of bringing down the Covenant were momentarily dimmed by the image of the face that had kept her sane since the beginning of all of this.

---

The crow hopped along the aged wooden fence, eyeing him speculatively. It fluffed its feathers and ran a beak over a sleek wing, then flapped the short distance towards him. Perching on an unbent knee, it turned a beady eye in his direction. He stared at it for a moment, mesmerized as the shadows of the tree above him created a mottled pattern across the aviary body. So intent was he in his study that he jumped when the bird squawked.

And squawked.

And squawked.

And kept on squawking until Eric realized it was not a crow but his alarm clock and that he was not in a wooded paradise but instead in his own LA apartment.

Not that his apartment was all that bad. After all he was just a stone's throw away from the beach. Of course that perk came with the downside of having to get up half an hour earlier just to make it to work on time.

The sacrifices one makes for surf and sun.

Somehow managing to roll out of bed without abusing the snooze button - a vice of his dating back to his high school days - Weiss underwent the familiar and tedious monotony of getting ready; shower, shave, dress to impress. Looking in the bathroom mirror he straightened his tie, the shirt's high collar the scar from view. He thought about how his mother would be so proud that her baby boy could tie a tie all by himself.

Of course his mother was proud of him. Her baby boy was somewhat of a small time hero of the Weiss family. One of his cousins took to calling him Spooky and asking how many aliens he had chased down.

Dude, The X-Files is FBI, he had told her once. Still the name Spooky stuck and even his younger cousins took to calling him that.

Before he left the apartment he made sure to water his plant. He was still amazed that he had kept it alive ever since Sydney gave it to him after the shooting. He even had to change its pot more than once. Who knew? Mamma's baby boy also had a green thumb.

As he drove to work and into the garage he thought about the one thing he knew his mother was not too pleased with. He would see it in her eyes when he visited and hear it in her voice when he spoke to her on the phone. He knew she loved large families. She longed for the day when she could spoil the children of her only son. He also knew she had thought that the day should have come much sooner.

It wasn't that he didn't want a wife and kids. The thought of little Weisslings running around underfoot and a Weissette to kiss and snuggle at the end of the day had a very large appeal to it. He just never found anyone with that spark.

He had seen first-hand what a spark could do to two people. He saw the passion it ignited. Unfortunately for his eyes sometimes a bit too literally. One should not have to see his best friend performing acrobatic acts quite like that with his girlfriend. But did he want something like that? Heck yeah.

He had also seen what happens when you lose someone you were so entirely crazy for. Even eight months later, Mike was almost as much a wreck as he was in the beginning. He saw the ghost of Bristow in his friend's eyes every time he saw him. Did the thought of that happening to him scare the crap out of him? Heck yeah.

Weiss was somewhat surprised to find that he had managed to get to his desk. He remembered little of his journey from the garage to his cubby. Shrugging, he slid into his chair and pulled up his user account on the computer. He logged onto his email account. It was something he did every morning before anything else, even before he grabbed that first vital cup of coffee. There was nothing in his email and he quickly switched over to Mike's account. Vaughn had asked him to look into his email every so often to delete spam that somehow slipped through the security settings. He also passed along any important information while Mike was on his extended leave of absence.

Nothing from any contact or friend though there were a couple of offers for free Viagra and credit cards. Weiss began to clear out the inbox when one header caught his attention.

FREE HOCKEY FOR BOY SCOUT.

Seeing his friend's codename struck him as somewhat odd and curiosity made him open it. When the message finally came up his heart thumped at the three lined haiku.

HOCKEY FOR BOYSCOUT
GO TO BEFORE ZAMBONIE
HER FAVORITE PART

It was unsigned and he sat there for several moments just staring at the screen before angrily deleting the message. The fact that someone would send this to his grieving friend raised his hackles and that they had done so anonymously just added to anger. He was trying his best to help Mike through this. He had even suggested he take Lauren's date proposal and begin to move on.

What was the point to it? What was the sender's sick goal? To rub salt in an already raw wound? Did they get off on such things? What was the fucking point?

Her favorite part. The last line came back to him, pausing his tirade. It struck a memory of a phone conversation nearly a year and a half ago. It was mostly forgotten by what had happened after. Her favorite part hadn't been the Zambonie.

Coming home with you.

Before the Zambonie, that was her favorite part. How had the sender known that? As far as he knew the transmission had never been sent he was the only one besides those two that had heard her say it. And he never told anyone.

Now curious, he went to the trash folder hoping the server hadn't erased it right away. Luck was on his side, and he read through the message again.

Hockey for Boyscout.

This kind of coded message was eerily familiar.

An idea struck him and he pulled up another web page. Checking the local listings he sat back in his chair, perplexed.

The Kings were playing that week in LA.

Who was trying to set up a meeting? Weiss leaned back in his chair, eyes glazed and staring through the screen. Whoever it was was not going to meet Mike, at least not then. He had an idea of where the meeting would be and when the sender of this email showed up he would give him a piece of his mind. Maybe even a piece of his gun.

-end Chapter One

Okay, so there's a little Weiss Lurv here.