Werewolf's Humanity

Turn, Turn, Turn, Part 7

There were no shadows in the BioPharm lab. It was all gray, a hallway with no end in sight. But Sammy could smell blood. Smells were always as vivid in his dreams as sights and sounds. Or maybe his mind just told itself he could smell things. He sometimes wondered about that when he was awake. And though he was dimly aware that he was dreaming right now, he didn't question things.

Distant sobbing filled the halls. There was someone else in here, someone who needed help. Sammy pushed forward, slogging through the thickness of suffering and despair, heavier than any blizzard he had ever trudged through. Every time he thought of giving up, the crying grew louder. So he pressed on.

The grays grew grayer. The sobs got stronger.

Finally, he turned a corner, and walked into a room he knew all too well. And there, pressed in a corder, wearing only surgical scrubs, was a scrawny teenage boy, with a scar above his left eyebrow, on a face weathered early from a hard life. His long brown hair just served to frame how skeletal his figure had become without proper nutrition. And somehow despite that he was in the middle of a growth spurt, stretching his body to even lankier proportions. He looked disturbingly fragile.

Sammy crossed the room and sat down beside the crying boy. "Hey, kid," he said, his voice hoarse with the strain of effort.

The boy jolted, and looked up. Haunted green eyes scanned him up and down. "Who're you?" he asked.

Sammy opened his mouth... but he couldn't answer. He couldn't think of a thing to say.

"SON OF A BITCH!" screamed an alien voice, jolting him awake.

***

It was Reilly who screamed, causing Jonathan to start crying. All things considered, Sammy thought he crossed the bridge from nightmare to chaos rather well, peeling the blanket off and pulling his son onto his lap. Jonathan's diaper was full, again, but that was to be expected first thing in the morning.

"Sammy?" Reilly called out. "What're you two doing in the bunker?"

"Ugh," was the first sound Sammy managed to force out of his gummy, dry mouth. He used his palm to rub sleep out of his eyes and stared upwards in vain to seek out the source of her voice. He recalled last night, almost sleepwalking through the quarter-mile tunnel that connected the House to the fallout bunker via a hidden door behind a bookcase in the living room, because B-movies had been all the rage in the 50s too. "Jonathan sleeps better at night down here. Don't ask me why."

"Well how'd you even figure that out in the first place?"

Sammy laid Jonathan back down on the mattress and started going humanside. As soon as his claws receded into his fingertips, he zipped up his hoodie, even though the space heater he was running kept the small, utilitarian room toasty-warm. He switched on a light and then opened the door so he could hear her better before reaching for the diaper bag.

As soon as he could speak again, he explained, "He cries a lot through the night. I got worried about him keeping others up, so I brought him out here a couple nights ago and he hardly cried at all." While the rooms in the House were soundproofed as effectively as possible, it wasn't perfect for werewolf ears. For the most part, the system worked, and everyone just pretended not to notice whenever anyone had sex. But a baby's high-pitched cries could still leak out through the doors.

"That's probably just because you're sleeping with him," Reilly suggested. Her voice ground with aggravation. And she sounded winded. "Werewolf babies are more prone to separation anxiety but they draw comfort from their parents' scents. We put one of my mom's shirts in Maddy's crib when she was a baby and that usually settled her down. Have you thought of that?"

Had Sammy not been handling a dirty diaper, he would have facepalmed. "No," he admitted. "It's gettin' hard to think. I am exhausted, Reilly. But thank you, I'll try that tonight."

"No problem," she said, then moaned.

"What're you doin' down here?" he asked.

It took her a moment before she answered. "Rehab. Trying to get my stupid fucking knee working again."

"Without help?"

"I don't like people watching me."

"Not even Hatchet?"

"God," she said. "Especially not Hatchet. Or Uncle Nicholas."

"But what if you hurt yourself?"

"I'm already hurt, Samson," she snapped. "God. The same stupid mistake again. You'd think I would've learned better than to leap for an armed gunman, but nooo."

"No, I mean..." he struggled, then gave up. "I'm sorry."

Her sigh resonated through the hallway. "No, I'm sorry. It means a lot that you're concerned about me. I'm just... worried about my career right now."

"I understand," he said.

"No, I don't think you do," she insisted. "All my life, I wanted to serve in the Order. But as a kid, I always imagined myself as a pretty average agent. I always knew I'd be good, but I always held the Order in such high esteem, I thought everyone in there was like Uncle Nicholas or Hatchet. I never imagined I would become one of the best. But then I became one of the best. And I love it. But if my career ends this way... cut short because of rookie impulsiveness... I can't bear the thought."

"You wanted to go out in a blaze of glory," Sammy said.

"Well, no, I wanted to retire on my own terms. Blaze of glory was Plan B."

"Yeah, that sounds more like you," Sammy said, nodding to himself. He bundled Jonathan back up and then bagged the dirty diaper to discard back in the House. "Is... there anything I can do?"

"Actually, yeah," Reilly said. Speaking through a whimpering, pained laugh, she requested, "Could you come over here an' help me up?"

"Oh! Sure!" He hesitated to leave Jonathan alone, but it would only be for a moment. She was only a couple doors down the hall. Reilly lay flat on the floor, dressed in workout clothing and drenched in sweat. He tried not to grimace as he clamped his hand around her slick arm and acted as a lever to help her to her feet.

"Thanks," she panted as he handed her the crutch. "Now, promise me you'll never speak of this again."

He nodded once. "Sure."

"Great. Thank you. So... would you mind... helping me this time tomorrow?"

It took him a moment to process her request; both the fact that she asked that of him, and the question of if he wanted to subject himself to that. "Uhm. Sure."

"Great!" she said, smacking his forearm. "I'll walk you back to the House for breakfast."

"Y-yeah," he said, glancing down at his arm. "First, I gotta feed Jonathan. And then clean his spit-up. And then try not to think about all the various bodily fluids I saw while I eat my own breakfast."

Reilly chuckled as she started hobbling past him. "Well, get used to it, Daddy. I'm sure this won't be your first kid."

"I hope not," Sammy said. "I always imagined myself with a big family. Once I found a woman to have some kids with, of course."

She stopped and rotated on her crutch. "Y-you do?"

"Well, yeah. When I was homeless, I promised myself that if things ever got better, I'd have as many kids as I could manage so I'd never be alone again. I uh... I sometimes used to lull myself to sleep at night thinking of baby names." Sammy's face grew warm and his heart pounded in his chest. He had never told anyone about that before, but it had just slipped out. He really did feel comfortable around Reilly now. "Of course, I wanna adopt some kids too, so I can give 'em the family I missed out on."

Reilly's face flickered with a smile. "Well, keep talking like that, I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding a babymama. Women love a man with dad skills."

"Yeah?" Sammy asked.

She turned around and started walking again. "Trust me."

He certainly wanted to.