A/N: Well…as sad as I am to only have one reviewer (much love, GothicSpook), I feel like this fic needs closure. So I'm finishing it anyway, mostly for myself and for the characters, who definitely deserve it.

Chapter 7:

When will this end? It goes on and on, over and over and over again. Keep spinning around I know that it won't stop 'till I step down from this for good." – From "Sick Cycle Carousel" by Lifehouse

The first night after dropping the letter in a mailbox belonging to a large farmhouse, they slept in the woods about twenty minutes off the road. They decided that if they took off on their own help would never find them, so they had written that they would "wait for your call," the signal that they were still nearby. They had enough supplies for five days.

The address was somewhere in London, so they assumed that would be enough. They had also included an encoded message about Monica, hoping that X and Skinner would get to her before the kidnappers ran out of patience. This had always been the emergency back-up plan, but John was not satisfied.

"How long do you think they're going to wait before they kill her?" John paced back and forth in front of the small campfire. "She doesn't know where we are. How long before they figure that out and decide she's not worth keeping alive?"

"Monica's a smart girl, John. You of all people should know that," Scully reasoned from her seat on the ground. She held a half-eaten sandwich in one hand and was picking at it and consuming it slowly with the other hand. Mulder had finished his and was picking crumbs off his shirt; Doggett's sat untouched on a stump next to the fire.

The sun was going down, which meant that they had to put the fire out to avoid being seen. Doggett took the first watch; too restless to sleep, while Mulder and Scully rested uncomfortably in their sleeping bags.

--

Monica was alone again, this time locked in a bathroom adjacent to the room she'd been in before. It contained only a rarely-used toilet and sink—no paper, soap, or towel—but it suited her needs. She did her best to rinse the dirt out of her wounds and dry them with a clean corner of her shirt. The men seemed to have forgotten about her for the time being, which was just about the best-case-scenario. She weighted her options carefully. Her body was gearing up for fight or flight—heart racing, palms sweating, the whole bit. But her mind wasn't sure that fighting was the best option. The truth was that she could never take out four armed men with nothing but her bare hands. What she had told the men was true—she really had no idewa where the other three were. They would've waited a while in the safe room and then left, sending a letter to X. Her attackers had left a calling card, and soon someone would come for her. Until then, she just needed to buy herself some time…