Character: Dana Scully

Fandom: The X-files

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 2943

Prompt: Dr. Egon Spengler: Sorry, Venkman, I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought. Wk 41

Setting: Second Season Episode: "Ascension"

AN: Just a bit borrowed dialogue. It did scare the living pants off me writing this….eeeppp….

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How long had it been, she wondered, as she woke fitfully from what could only loosely be termed as a nap. Her exhaustion and fear had gotten the better of her, and she had dozed, restless, the humming of the cars wheels along the miles of road lulling her into some sort of sleep. It hadn't been restorative, however. Her right wrist ached from where Barry had slammed it against her coffee table, her shoulders burned from being stuck in the position they had been in for so long, and she was sure she'd never get the taste of cotton out of cotton out of her mouth, ever. She was so thirsty the fabric stuck to her tongue, and she tried to swallow, but her raw throat didn't seem to want to cooperate.

Had they stopped once since he had pulled away from her apartment? Where were they? Barry had continuously mumbled something about mountains and stars. The mountains of Virginia and West Virginia weren't so far away from Washington DC, only a few hours drive, but which mountain was the one that took him to the stars he kept mumbling about? Would there be civilization there? He would have to stop sometime, for gas if nothing else. She had filled up on the way home last night, but even that wouldn't last forever.

She wondered how Mulder and the investigation was going. Scully had no doubt that the FBI was pulling out full forces to find her, she was one of their own, and they did not take a situation like that lightly in the least bit. Already she imagined there was a net out, branching across a three-to-four state area, looking for her car, for Duane Barry, and for her. And then there would be Mulder. Mulder who took such threats to those he was close to so painfully personal.

She remembered that moment during the Barnett case, when his old boss, Reggie Purdue had been killed. There had been a darkness lurking there, something deeper than anger, something more dangerous than frustration. It had terrified her then, had worried her because it was a side of Mulder she had never seen, a side she didn't think she or anyone else could control if it was set loose. It was as if all the pain and loss from his sister through every person he had ever felt responsible for in his entire life had manifested itself in this aspect of Mulder that would call hellfire down on anyone who stood in his way.

Please, she prayed, let Skinner, Krycek, someone keep his temper in check long enough to get her home, to get her safe. Because if anyone could piece together the puzzle about where she was, it was Mulder, with his adductive reasoning and his intuitive understanding of minds just like Duane Barry's. She trusted he would find her; he would find her and would come for her. She just had to be patient.

Though patience was in short supply at the moment. Her bladder screamed at her, she hadn't had a chance to use the restroom before she was taken. Her stomach rumbled with a lack of any real food in it. She ignored the blood matting her hair to her forehead, and the torn fingernails aching at her fingertips. She had already tried to undo the knots that tied her, and had realized that effort was useless at this point.

In the cabin she could hear nothing, save for the incessant drone of the radio, blaring through the back seat, so loud even she could hear it in the trunk. Scully had given up trying to rage over the noise, but the press of it against her ears, along with her thirst and fear, was creating a throbbing in her head. She squeezed her swollen eyes shut, silently murmuring the Hail Mary she had learned so long ago as a child, focusing her thoughts on the gold cross that hung around her neck.

The charm had been a gift from her mother, fifteen Christmases ago. She and Melissa had both received one that year. The two girls, old enough to know better but mischievous enough to not care, had snuck down to the tree on Christmas even, snooping at the presents each of them had received. When caught by Maggie, she had allowed each of them to open one present apiece, flat boxes that had contained the matching, golden crosses that were so similar to the one that Maggie herself wore regularly. It had been a gift of faith and love from their mother, who remained a devoted member of the Church despite all of the trials life threw at her. For Melissa, she hardly ever wore the charm anymore she had given up on Catholicism and Christianity in general years ago. Yet Scully knew for a fact she kept the tiny necklace safely tucked away, a treasured heirloom from a mother who had never criticized Melissa for her own spiritual journey.

Scully wore her own necklace more often than not, especially since her father's death. Much more because it was a physical reminder of the family that she felt was starting to slip away from her since Ahab's demise. Though she could say, perhaps nominally, she was faithful, she hadn't been to church in years, and couldn't remember the last time she had gone to confession or taken communion. Funny, she wondered to herself, how those things seem so important now in moments like this.

Over the blare of her own radio in the cabin, Scully heard a particular, familiar squawking sound. Her heart began pounding loudly in her ears, as the car began to slow suddenly, and she could feel the tires veer to the side of the road, gravel there crunching loudly beneath the tires. The car finally came to a stop, as the brakes kicked in, and behind them she could hear the sound of another car pulling up, stopping as well.

Scully held her breath, waiting, praying this was some sort of help, some sort of rescue for her. She strained her ears, listening for the sound of someone's voice, and heard heavy, booted footsteps on the pavement outside of the car. They stopped, just by the driver's side window, as a voice began speaking, not Barry's. She couldn't hear what was being said, the radio was far too loud, but the voice was loud and insistent. Eventually, the radio was turned down, the sound dampening, enough so that Scully could hear the voices as they spoke.

"Okay," Barry was whining in acquiescence. "But could you just give me the ticket now so I can go? I got to be someplace?"

The new comer didn't seem impressed. "Where?" He was suspicious, and rightly so. Scully knew he was a state patrolman. She turned to get a better angle by which to hit the top of the trunk, to catch the man's attention. Wiggling in the dark, she tried to position her legs so that she could better kick the trunk lid.

"I'm not sure," Barry replied vaguely. "But they'll tell me when I get there."

There was a quiet pause, and Scully prayed the patrol officer didn't buy that story as she squirmed to better hit the trunk, turning so her knees would bang against the fiberglass. Before she could even move, the patrolman spoke, in a voice that bespoke warning and danger.

"Sir, put your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them." Scully felt thrilled as the man's tone became deadly serious. She could imagine him standing there, gun trained on Barry. Perhaps he was on the look out for her car; perhaps that's why he had stopped them.

"You don't understand," Barry insisted, half in a sob. "They're waiting for me, I…I can't be late."

"Put your hands up and exit the vehicle," the patrolman insisted, his boots scraping on pavement as he backed away.

"No, Barry replied negatively. "I got to keep moving. Please," he begged, sounding at least truly grieved by this situation, perhaps for the first time since he had grabbed her from her apartment. "For your own sake, don't stop Duane Barry."

"Sir, put your hand's up," the patrolman was firm. Now was Scully's chance. She began kicking the trunk and screaming against the gag in her mouth, making as much noise as she could to draw the patrolman's attention. Hopefully he would be able to force Barry to open the drunk and allow her to get out. But even as she thought her prayers were about to be answered, the sounds of a scuffle broke, and a single shot rang through the stillness outside, causing Scully to freeze where she was. Her stomach lurching sickeningly inside her, she wondered just who had gotten shot, her rescuer or her abductor.

She lay deathly still, holding her breath, as footsteps came around the back of the car. The trunk popped open, the a flood of bright light from a gray, cloudy sky above back dropped Duane Barry as he stood over her, glaring. Behind his head, tall, majestic pine trees sprouted like some diabolical aurora.

"Lady, you shouldn't have made all that fuss. Now you want to see what Duane Barry's done," his voice was could as he loomed over her, eyes brewing like thunder clouds. "I killed an innocent man because of you. There was no reason he had to die; he was just doing his job. I told you to be quiet, and look what you went and did."

Scully stared up at him, lifting her head to try and see out, to see if she could find the dead body. But it wasn't there. It must be still lying there, in the middle of the road, crumpled helplessly on the wet pavement. Barry shook his head as he stared down at her, and roughly pushed her back down inside.

"You keep your mouth shut from now on, till I tell you otherwise. Else Duane Barry might have to teach you a lesson you won't like much." He slammed the trunk lid back down on her, even as she screamed and cried and tried to bang against it. It was little use. The moment he got back in the car, the radio turned up again, and he pulled her vehicle back onto the road.

She yelled over the sound of her radio till her throat was raw and her head rang with the muffled noise of her own shrieking. How long she screamed, an hour, long, she didn't know. When she stopped, it was out of pure exhaustion and lack of ability to even produce noise out of her stripped and swollen vocal chords. In the darkness and the silence she laid, waiting for the car to finally stop.

She drifted again, the heat inside the car lulling her to another exhausted sleep. She vaguely dreamed then, more images than anything substantive. Visions of her father returning to port in San Diego, swooping down to grab her up and swing her around, watching her brother Bill play football in high school, she and Melissa watching discreetly from another room as Charlie sat nervously with his first, real girlfriend in her parents front room in Baltimore. There was her own first kiss; she was twelve, and her first teenaged love-of-her-life, Marcus. The one and only time she had ever slept with him, two weeks after her high school graduation, a fervid affair in her own bedroom one afternoon while her mother was out, and Melissa was keeping a look out, a secret shared between sisters. Her years at the University of Maryland, with Ellen and Sarah and their gang of girls, and the hectic, sleepless days and nights at Stanford, where she had seen her first dead body, her first surgery, had saved her first life. It had broken her father's heart to hear she had enrolled at the Academy, he had wanted her to become a doctor, a nice, safe job, one where the bad guy wouldn't shoot her, grab her, kidnap her. But she had her brains, and her skills, and she had Mulder, who always looked out for her, no matter what. Besides, she was a pathologist, how much trouble could she possibly get involved in?

When the car finally did stop, she hardly noticed. She still lay half-awake, half dreaming as the tires crunched on granite gravel, and she only stirred when the trunk was finally popped open, he fading light of twilight, the sky pearly gray. Just as she roused herself to wakefulness, Duane Barry grabbed her roughly, pulling her foreword.

"Duane Barry is awful sorry about all of this, ma'am," he murmured regretfully, as his fingers fumbled for the back of her head and the knot tied there. "I know it's an awful thing to do, you didn't ask for this. But they made me do it. You see, I don't want to go back there, not again, not ever again. And they said I didn't have too…if I brought you instead."

Scully flinched as his fingers pulled and tugged at the strands of hair caught in the fabric, as suddenly the friction pulling at the corners of her aching jaws eased, and for the first time in hours she was able to move her mouth properly, to work her tongue around without the impediment of fabric. Saliva began working itself up as she rolled her lower jaw around, trying to loosen it from eternity of being in one position, groaning as her chapped, bleeding lips cracked and ached.

"Duane, why are you doing this," she moaned, as he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her from the trunk, her numb, swollen feet trailing uselessly behind the rest of her body, her shoes having come off in the trunk hours ago. She felt blood rush back into her appendages, as the numbness turned to a prickling sensation running all up and down her legs. He set her down on the gravel that the car sat on, as she tried to blink and look around to where they were.

"What is this place," she whispered, feeling the thinness of the air in her lungs, and the coolness to the air. All around the clearing they found themselves in were tall timber pines, rustling in the late summer breeze, as above her the first stars of evening were beginning to come out.

"It's the mountain to the stars," Barry said simply, pulling at the tie around her wrists, struggling with the knot that she had made tighter with her struggling. "This is where they come…the aliens."

"I don't believe in aliens," she rasped, turning to look up at him.

"Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter. They're coming for you anyway." He managed to yank the fabric off, freeing her arms finally as they ached painfully in their joints. She gasped and bit back tears of pain as she tried to pull them forward, to rotate them, as the click of her own gun in her ear brought her to a standstill.

"I need you to get up now and come with me." He murmured slowly, glancing at her feet. "You think you can walk?"

"I don't know," she replied flatly, squelching the tremor of fear in her voice.

"Try getting up," he nudged the gun upwards, indicating she should stand. It took some effort on her part, her right wrist was swollen and purple, and it didn't want to support her still body on the sharp, pointy gravel as her still rubbery legs tried to find purchase. The only thing between her still sensitive feet and the rock below were the stockings she had worn the day before, and those caught and tore on the gravel as she finally managed to stand up right.

"Come on," Barry grabbed her elbow, almost solicitously, and helped her across the gravel, never lowering her gun. Once on the grass he pushed her in front of him, jerking her gun into the open clearing in front of them. It looked to be the head of some sort of ski trail, leading to a flat, treeless expanse down the side of the mountain, to the side was a wooden shed that looked as if it served as the terminus point for a tram service up the mountain for snow loving, nature seekers. Nearby was the gondola point for the skiers who frequented the slopes in the winter.

"Why did we come here?" She stumbled forward on the soft grass; her aching feet and joints compounded the problems of stiff muscles, as she tried to move forward.

"You'll see," Barry insisted, prodding her foreword with the muzzle of her gun poking into the small of her back. "They'll be here…very soon."

Scully glanced around herself, back towards the road, towards the gravel path her car was parked on. She strained her ears to hear sounds of engines tearing up the mountainside, but that wasn't the sound that she heard in the stillness of the twilight. It wasn't a car engine, but a loud, mechanical straining from the shed to one side, the one where the tram ran.

Duane Barry heard it too. He turned, cocked his head, and then frowned over at the tram point. His face twitched in agitation, as he began to shake his head and whisper, "no, no, no, no, no, they can't do this, they can't…"

Scully wanted to break and run then for the shed, but her legs refused to cooperate with her, no matter how hard she willed them. Before she could even make a step, Barry roughly grabbed her elbow and drug her to the clearing, chanting "no, no, no" repeatedly under his breath.

"Let me go, Duane, you know that is them," Scully had a feeling she knew exactly who was coming up the tram. Mulder would try something that dangerous and stupid if he knew she was up there. She wanted to scream out to him, but Barry waved the gun by her ear, reminding her of its presence.

"Just shut up," he bellowed, pushing her roughly to her knees in the middle of the grass and clover. She grunted as the impact jarred her, and waited as he stood behind her, muttering softly to himself, wondering where "they" were, and "they" said that "they" would be there. Who were "they", she wondered desperately, and did she have any hope of letting Mulder know where she was?

She waited, breathlessly, wondering who it was that was supposed to be coming for her, and when they would arrive. No sooner than the thought had entered her consciousness, then the trees around her began to sway ominously. Wind whipped suddenly around her, stirring up the grass in which she knelt, and blowing dust and debris into her already swollen eyes. A bright light, white hot and scintillating cut into her vision, as she threw hands up to shield herself. And behind her Duane Barry moaned and screamed and scuttled backwards from her, away from her, gibbering and crying as he went.

She could run now. She could be free. She wanted to, to push herself off her aching knees and to run towards the shed where she knew Mulder was. She wanted to scream for him to find her. But she couldn't. The white light was all encompassing, surrounding her, pinning her in place as she knelt there, waiting for…what?

In the distance she thought she could hear her name, muffled against the sounds of the light. Strange, light making sound she mused, as she looked over her shoulder to see just what the commotion was. Barry crouched on the ground, staring at her, eyes wide with very old terror, mumbling something…an apology perhaps? She couldn't be sure. And in the distance, by the car, she could see a figure moving towards it. No doubt in her mind who that was. Too late, too late, she thought, as she tried to scream out his name, and found she couldn't.

Her last thought as darkness over took her was that she always knew Mulder would come for her. She was sorry he didn't come fast enough.