6th Sense In Sight (Solo)

(For those of you that do follow my thread, this one is just before the threads where Sara’s sight has returned to her. Thank you.)

Sara was currently sitting naked in a shower of an apartment she was barrowing. It was true that Sara had been staying at the x-men’s mansion for the past two weeks, but that was only because she had no idea where else she could really go that she could get the.. .. .. dare she even think the work.. .. .. help. Help that she needed because she still had no idea how to really cope with being blind, and yet there she was. Blind and as vulnerable as if she were a child again.

To be honest, without her sight, Sara felt as naked walking around in public, as she did now, sitting in the shower with her tail tucked around her knees that were pulled up for her arms to hug. With her sight, she knew she had a chance at hiding herself. Her emotions, and the way she looked from people because her sight told her when people were looking at her, and when to turn away from them. Without it, not only was she missing her favorite ability she had, but she couldn’t hide the subtle changes in her face, in conversation. She couldn’t hide her little tells in emotion that she had tried to hide in the past.

Things had changed for her. Even in the way she picked the place to shower at. Two weeks ago, before she had been shot in the head by a man who shouldn’t of even had a chance at killing her, Sara would have chosen any old apartment. Probably one that was occupied and one that she would have had a chance at getting caught in, because two weeks ago her confidence in her own healing abilities were just that high. Today, she had selected a shower that there would be no chance of someone walking in on her. No strangers were going to point guns at her, and this was going to be safe.

The fact was, this apartment complex had been empty for a long time. Dust particles hung heavy in the air, and they tickled Sara’s nose every time she breathed in. The apartment had been a part of a warehouse style factory that had been shut down a few years ago. With old copper pipes corroding, broken lights high above the floor, and a strong smell of urine in the lower levels, from past squatters, a real estate agent would go with the term, fixer upper.

Sara’s unseeing eyes stared dead a head of her. The tub was bone dry, and she had put off the cold water as long as possible but feeling the cold of the water was something she was looking forward to. Even if it was so cold it would hurt, because it would be something to feel, and no matter how much it hurt, she would be able to feel every drop smacking down on her through her fur. She still had the sense of touch.

It was true, that because Sara had been staying at the mansion, she could have taken a shower there, and have been very comfortable enjoying water that was so hot her muscles would feel like they were melting into relaxation, but that would defeat the purpose of being irrational and wanting the cold shower. In fact for the first time, since Sara had become blind, making a irrational decision felt wonderful. Why should she choose to be comfortable in hot water when she wanted the shock of the cold. Because the cold would be something.

Sara didn’t necessarily feel numb since the accident that involved a gun going off while being pointed at her head. Actually it was the opposite. Without her sight, her other senses were running wild to compensate and help her get by. She needed a sensation that would feel like it was numbing the rest of her senses. Something that, when compared to the sensation of freezing, would feel tiny. Not so over whelming.

There was a creak, as Sara turned the nozzle for the water on full blast, and the pipes hummed making the shower head whistle as it released the air from the pipes but the water was slow. Sputtering a little wet mist that spit water than was reddish and smelled like rust before the full blast came pounding down on Sara’s head and shoulders. Soon the water ran clear and Sara started slowly rubbing her arms so as to free herself of the rust, from inside the pipes, as her fur began to soak up the cold water. Ten minutes went by and Sara staid in that same position. Still seated in the tub and feeling naked as ever while she shivered. A smile crossed her face as her body fought hypothermia that would never fully set in thanks to her healing factor, with a few seconds of a more violent shaking fit.

Sara squeezed her arms harder around her knees, willing the shaking to stop, and the smile stayed on her face, even though she was fighting herself. Her eyes squeezed shut, and her teeth chattered, till she made the stupid decision to suck in her lip, and it herself. Instantly filling her over active sense of taste and smell with the sensation of copper again. Instantly she pressed her lips tight together, and the sharp pain, where her teeth had pinched the more delicate skin, numbed away into nothingness just like she knew it would. Because that’s what every injury did to Sara except for her injured eyes.

Sara yanked her thoughts away from her lost vision, and focused her attention on the water that was pounding down on her, from above. She focused on how she felt the different streams of water running through her fur. She focused on how the water collected at the base of her tail, and the way if felt as the slant of the tub pushed the water towards the drain though not fast enough to prevent the water from pooling around her feet and allowing a puddle to form. Drops of water that didn’t hit Sara, managed to splash her with the puddle in the basin, and as the minutes ticked on, she twitched her tail in every direction she felt the little tiny sprays of water coming from. Making it a quick jerky movement, that could have easily been mistaken for the violent shivers the rest of her body was going through.

Thirty minutes went by, under the cold water, and every river that ran through Sara’s fur, could have been cutting into her skin. The splashes in the water below, grew to the awareness of the little splashes of the water droplets on the tiled wall to Sara’s left. Then choppy an as un even as the water had started, several lines, in Sara’s minds eye, traced themselves to where Sara knew the shower head existed. Looking like a 3D road map that shot straight up in Sara’s head and all the little lines representing water shot together becoming a thickline, before cascading down on the other side of the wall. The pipes zigzagged just below Sara’s feat, then darted down a good forty feet, past the cement Warehouse floor, below.

Sara sat there with the water falling over her feeling all of it. Not just the drops that fell on her, and the rivers that flowed past her fur but the extensions of the water. The rivers that speed trough space to her, falling from the shower head above, and the rivers that left her swirling together at the drain and following the pipes back out. It was like Sara was part of a ribbon dance, only the ribbons just kept coming towards her and going. Repeatedly tracing that map that formed in her minds eye, but never retracing the pattern, nor allowing the same ribbon to repeat it. Always new ribbons.

It was beautifully disorienting and Sara found herself spacing out as she focused on a show that she couldn’t quite explain and only she could enjoy. So she sat there quietly. One arm had moved slowly to a locket Ayesac had given her. It was meant to replace the first locket he had given her, that had been taken from her during the camps. Inside was no picture, but a single crimson scale. Sara never removed it, and it normally was just barely hidden under tufts of her fur.

Ayesac would say I was silly, if I ever tried to explain this to him. Sara thought to herself and a smile that was much more relaxed crept over her face. She didn’t understand how she knew that the movement was the water around her. Only that something told her it was and that something could be questioned later. Maybe Ayesac would be able to give her some insight as to why she was able to understand the movement of the water. For now, she was suddenly finding herself content just thinking of his reactions.

It was because she was lost in her thoughts that she didn’t feel the locket slip away, right away. At least not when the chain snake through her fur, but she heard the curplop into the water, and instandly her hands were scrambling in the tub to catch it and a new ribbon like line, that was the locket, flew down the drain with the rest of the water.

Sara exploded from the tub. Clad in nothing but the fur on her skin, as her hands frantically felt along the walls as she ran. Nearly nailing her shoulder on the door frame to the bathroom of the dusty old apartment, down the hall, her feet hit the stairs with an extra loud thump. She almost fell on the first step. Then took the rest of the steps three and four at a time, racing the locket to the ground floor, where she sprinted again. Leaving the safety net that her hand sliding across the wall provided, as she headed straight for a wall, with the old piping behind it. Her locket was about 10 feet above her head when she punched through the wall. Wood and splinters clattered in a mess at her feet. More just was let into the air when Sara ripped apart the insulation an jerked the pipe from the wall. The locket’s path changed as did the rest of the water. Falling on Sara and pooling onto the floor but that didn’t matter to her.

She had the locket. Dirty again, thanks to having destroyed the wall. And still wet and nude, Sara pulled the locket close. The motion of the chain swinging back and forth in Sara’s mind’s eye faded into the thin gold line, with a broken clasp that had caused the mischief in the beginning and Sara breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the single red scale was still safe inside.

She leaned against the wall and let her legs collapse under her. So relieved to have the locket back, it took her a moment to realize that Ayesac’s gift hadn’t been the only thing returned to her.