Disclaimer/Author's Notes: I don't own the X Files, but hey! This fic is almost finished! Just one more chapter, then the epilogue! If you're still here, thanks for reading!

Scully felt her anger building dangerously, but knew better than to scream and waste precious energy.

Her wrists and ankles were bound together and a gag was stuck in her mouth. The best she could do was to roll, entirely helpless, making dust tracks on the unused floor, and even that took unbelievable effort. Too incensed to weep, she instead lay silent and still, thinking.

Her captor was a large, young man in an unremarkable suit, and was clearly operating under a superior's orders. He wouldn't look at her, but did not seem particularly moralistic. She waited impatiently for him to leave the room, then, with a sickening sense of déjà vu, she began to move her wrists back and forth, already feeling the sting bite of the rope burn.

Then she looked at the sharp, splintered leg of the broken chair that she had inexplicably seen in her dream, and smiled a doomed smile.

He had done it.

He'd put the pieces together, and now he knew where she was. With the information she had unwittingly given him by relaying her dream, he had decided the location of his longtime partner.

The local cops didn't believe him, certainly wouldn't join him on his madman's crusade. Not even when he told them he was an Oxford educated man. He had experienced unease of their kind before; if anything, the mention of his psychology degree only served to unsettle them further.

But now he knew. He knew where to find Dana Scully, and find her he meant to.

He slipped into the rental car, turned the key. It made a satisfying roar that he had no time to enjoy. He pulled out of the cul-de-sac outside the hospital, and turned onto the main road. He drove with little regard for the other people, pedestrians and otherwise, on the highway. A single thought was branded into his brain. He needed to find Scully.

Before something irreversible happened.

She sat back, panting, covered in a light film of perspiration, and stared at her other bindings. Only her wrists were tethered, but they were tethered tight.

She worked herself up to it, then lunged, bringing the rope down over the chair's damaged limb. It splintered further, much more violently, spraying her with tiny bits of wood. An impossibly large splinter embedded itself in her palm, working at the soft skin, and when an unexpectedly strong gush of her own bright blood stained her jeans, she began to feel woozy. But she bit her lip hard enough to draw more blood, because she couldn't stop now, couldn't, and wouldn't let herself until the sharpened point split the rope, and she fell back, cradling her wounded hand.

After a short time, when she felt she could bear the pain, she turned to the door and began to throw herself against it; afraid for Mulder and certain that she could save him if no one else could.

Mulder stopped the car in front of the coniferous-framed old house, afraid for Scully and certain that he could save her if no one else could. He opened the door and stepped out with charming delicacy. Nervously, he reached for his gun and took off the safety, carrying the firearm in front of him. In that way he strode to the front of the house.

He glanced at the pines, with their conspiratorial whispers, and shuddered involuntarily. With that dark image in mind, he aimed a well judged kick at the flimsy door. It made a thin shriek of complaint, but otherwise opened without trouble. With revenge nestling against fear and anger in his brain, Mulder took one step into the darkest room he'd ever seen in his life, and succumbed to his destiny.

The abductor heard Mulder stop outside the house, and got to his feet. He didn't want to have to kill both of them, but it seemed like it was going to be necessary. His job was well paid, and he had no intentions of losing it out of stupid reluctance. He was good at it.

He stood beside the door. When it opened, and a man taller than himself entered, he had momentary doubts, then remembered the gun. He pulled it from its shoulder holster, kicked Mulder's Sig Sauer out of the surprised man's hands, and stood before him.

"Fox Mulder!? FREEZE!"

Fox Mulder did so, standing against the wall when ordered to, sensing there was nothing more he could do. He watched emotionlessly as the criminal slammed the door shut. Then, face pressed against the wall, something snapped, and he yelled, "Who the hell are you!? What have you done with Dana? She never hurt ANYONE, goddamnit!"

Mulder's captor moved closer, and pushed an assault rifle between his shoulders. It was painful enough to make him wince. "I work for some people who want to finish what they started in Maine. They feel the need for shock tactics, but I believe there is a choice to be made here."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mulder groaned, squirming at the metal jabbing his back. "Let me go, I'm a federal agent!"

"You were," the man coolly reminded him. "I, however, still am. On your knees, and make the choice. Who do you want to die: you, the baby, or Scully and the baby?"

"Oh, God, no!" Mulder murmured. "You can't kill the baby! It's not even born yet! It is completely innocent! What kind of sick, twisted..."

"Fine," the man interrupted. He was getting bored of the charade by now, and he wasn't doing too good a job of hiding it. "That means I'll have to kill you." He dropped the gun, and to Mulder's mixed horror and amazement, produced a switchblade.

"It's easier at closer quarters," he explained.

"No!" Mulder yelled, throwing himself backward, and the rogue agent lunged for him, for the soft, vulnerable organs of his victim.

As Scully sat on the floor, quietly nursing her open wounds and bruises and knowing she'd never get out in time, she heard a single gunshot.

With that shot, she knew Mulder was dead. Mulder was shot, and now he was dying, the only evidence of his existence a crumpled cadaver in the hallway. She wanted to cry, and found she couldn't, so she instead curled into the fetal position, one hand over her eyes as she lay vacantly on her side.

Vaguely, she heard her door open, and knew Mulder's murderer was coming to kill her, too, having no further use for her. Mournfully, she realised that the baby would have to die too, but perhaps that was for the best. With no mother and no father, what life would her child live?

She stood up, helplessly staring at the floor, willing to die and knowing no way of escaping her tragic fate.