#finding william

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             Scully woke in the middle of the woods alone. The pain in her back and head had subsided but the vibration was back. She sat up gingerly and brushed some leaves from her hair. The sun was warm and she held her face up to it, trying to absorb what little energy she could. Mulder was gone. The bag was gone. There were no super soldiers chasing her. She felt a moment of relief but it was quickly replaced by deep anxiety.  Where is Mulder? She forced horrible thoughts from her head as she pushed herself up and looked around. How long had she been running? And from which direction? Everything looked the same. She instinctively knew that staying in place was the wrong thing to do, so she headed in the direction she was facing and prayed it would lead to something, anything.

           Scully didn’t know how long she has been walking but it was long enough that the sun was starting its decent and her mouth was parched. Nothing had changed around her and she feared she was trudging deeper into the forest, away from civilization or any sort of help. Away from Mulder. Damn him. She cursed him to herself. It really wasn’t his fault, who knew if she would be alive had she stayed home? Home. She doubted she had a home left. She pushed those thoughts from her mind too. She focused on walking, on heading towards some sort of destination. She rubbed at her neck and touched the tiny vibrations with the tips of her fingers. She knew she should have taken the chip out. She considered doing it in that moment but her lack of equipment was an obvious reason not to.  In her fog of thoughts she didn’t recognize the road ahead of her, but a few moments later she was running. It wasn’t a road; it was a highway, and it was completely deserted. Cars blocked and lined the four lanes and Scully tentatively approached a small SUV on the shoulder. The body of a man was face down in front of the vehicle in a pool of congealed blood. She moved around the body and peered into the car. The keys were in it.

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             Mulder sat against the metal wall and shivered. He pushed his knees to his chest and tried to retain whatever body heat he had left. What the fuck are they doing? During his last abduction he couldn’t remember being left alone for this long, let alone untouched. But he had been sitting for hours. He got up and paced, ran his hands over the metallic walls looking for any sort of seam or door. It was a solid dome. His glanced at the blinding light above him that gave off no heat. He refused to become hopeless, but the naggings of fear prickled at his scalp. He was cold, uncomfortable and alone, but his fear for Scully was gut wrenching. She’s strong he reminded himself. She would fight, she always did. The memories of her running through the woods flashed through his mind. She was so fast; she had to have gotten away. Out of nowhere a piercing alarm split through the air in one continuous painful blast. It reverberated through his head and body and within seconds he was on the ground with his hands clasped over his ears. In minutes he was unconscious.

           When Mulder woke up he was still naked, but no longer in the metallic dome. He was strapped to a table, something like a gurney; his body spread out and exposed. There were multiple lights above him, bight but not blinding, though his head throbbed and he had to close his eyes. His skin felt clammy and when he tried to move his hands he realized he couldn’t. He was paralyzed. His eyes opened and he tried to turn his head to look at his out stretched arms but a strap placed over his forehead held him in place. He strained his eyes down his body to look at his feet, but was only able to see down his chest. Somewhere behind him the unmistakable sound of a door sliding open jolted him out of his panic. “Who’s there?” He called out, not really expecting an answer but more afraid that he would actually get one. He got an answer; a shadow moved around him and Mulder tried to follow with his eyes but couldn’t track it. He listened to the tapping footsteps around him. He didn’t feel the needle slide into the flesh of his forearm, and once again, he was shrouded in the blackness of his unconsciousness.

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 Scully drove in a delirium induced calm; she swerved around cars on the highway, adverting her eyes from the bodies that lay around them and within them. She stopped twice to siphon gas and to grab something to eat but had trouble choking anything down. She forced herself to drink water. She had no idea where she was going, only that she had to go west, west towards Montana, west to William.

Scully didn’t remember seeing the man before he walked out in front of her on a narrow back road. Her exhausted mind reacted too late and by the time she realized what was happening the man smashed into her speeding SUV, destroying the windshield and flipping up over top and slamming to the ground behind her. She jerked the wheel to the side and slammed the break peddle with both feet. The speed and sudden turn of the wheel sent the small SUV into a fishtail then rolled once, twice, and then a final time before coming to screeching halt of jagged metal. Scully never lost consciousness. She felt every jolt, slam and shatter of her body. When the car finally stopped moving and the engine choked and died, Scully finally let out a breath she felt like she had been holding for hours. She hung upside down, attached by her seatbelt that cut into her belly and chest. She unclipped it and slammed into the ceiling of the car, letting out an involuntary yelp that manifested into a groan as her body protested. She twisted off of her back and onto her hands and knees, wincing as the shattered and pebbled glass dug into her body. She gingerly pushed herself through the destroyed windshield and half fell onto the cement road. She pushed herself up and sat on her knees for a few moments trying to regulate her breathing. Blood trickled down her face from a gash on her head. Her back burned but she didn’t have the courage to reach around and find out why. A deep moan pulled Scully out of her daze and she suddenly remembered the man she had hit. In a flash she was on her feet, but just as she was about to run towards him, three other men rushed out of the woods to his aid. Scully crouched behind the mangled car.

“Fuck, Jesus Christ, Joe, you okay?” One man called as he nudged the injured man with his boot.

“Aw man, look at his head, there is no coming back from that.” Another man added. The injured man groaned then coughed, it was wet and Scully knew it was blood.

“I’ll do it.” One of the voices said. And then there was an explosion of a gunshot that echoed around them. Scully gasped and covered her mouth as the dying man’s moans ceased.

“Go see if anyone made it in that car.”

Fuck. Scully looked around her and decided her best bet was to run into the woods. Heavy footsteps were moving closer to her and she jumped up, ignoring the burning in her hip and stabbing pain in her back. She ran as fast as she could. Which wasn’t fast enough.

“Hey! Stop!” A deep voice called from behind her and the pounding of heavy boots grew closer. Scully didn’t turn to look at the men chasing her she just pushed forward, but after a few strides she once again found herself face down on the forest floor. This time, it was human men, not super soldiers that held her down. Rough hands grabbed her waist and flipped her over on her back, she held back a cry as her spine protested and sent shocks up and down her body. “Well, well, well, look what we got here, boys.” Three men of un-extraordinary looks peered down at her. Scully writhed and kicked at them, unwilling to go down without a fight, unwilling to go down at all.

“Hey baby, calm down, we’re not going to hurt you.” A callused hand rubbed her bruised face and pushed the hair off of her sticky forehead as another man held down her arms and the third sat on her legs.

“Get the fuck off of me!” She yelled and bucked her body up trying to wrench her way free. It was futile. The men were not in the best of shape and seemed kind of scrawny to Scully, but three of them against her was no match.

“Ohh, feisty little thing.” One of the men laughed and pressed his weight into her stomach and peered into her face. His breath was hot and smelled of stale cigarettes and beer. “You killed our friend, did you know that?”

Scully’s eyes blazed and she stared at him. “You killed him, you shot him.”

“You hit him, lady. How fast were you fucking going? That’s dangerous.” The trio laughed and Scully felt her gut clench. This is not good.

“You can make it up to us….”

“The world is gone, ain’t no one here gunna help you.”

A snort and a throaty laughed echoed around them, “fuck, man, we can repopulate the world!”

“You wanna help us repopulate the word, little momma?”