TITLE: Ascent, Descent, Affirmation

(Complete Story)

NAME: frogdoggie

E-MAIL: frogdoggie@hotmail.com

CATEGORY: VRA

RATING: NC-17. WARNING! This story contains some cursing, graphic sexual situations and some violence. Forewarned is forearmed. If you don't like graphic stuff, STOP HERE!

SUMMARY: This is my take on what happened to Scully between "Ascension' and 'One Breath'. I consider it a vignette and part of it is written in the 'stream of consciousness' style. This one drips with angst. PLEASE SEND FEEDBACK! Comments, suggestions and healthy debate are always welcome. Flames? Hey, I can always use a good "weenie" roast.

TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: Spoilers would be, 'Duane Barry', 'Ascension', and 'One Breath'.

KEYWORDS: vignette romance angst Scully Mulder NC-17

DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully (and her family), Alex Krychek and the 'Cigarette Smoking Man' belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and 20th Century FOX Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from their use.

Ascent, Descent, Affirmation

by frogdoggie

"They only have one policy:
Deny everything."
-X in "Ascension"

***************************

After hours in the car trunk, the fresh air should have been a relief. But for Dana Scully it only brought more terror as Duane Barry wrenched her out and then proceeded to drag her up the side of the Virginia Mountain. She was still gagged and she struggled to work the cloth free and then she fought to escape, but Duane had a madman's strength, and all her struggles were useless.

Duane Barry dragged, pushed and pulled her up the mountainside, yelling and screaming during the ascent, "They won't take Duane Barry this time!" "Duane Barry won't have to go, no sir," and other similar phrases over and over.

Reaching the top at last, he dumped her unceremoniously on the ground, and then began to scan the sky, a look of frightened anticipation on his face. Scully tried to crawl away, but he grabbed her and hauled her back, and then the sounds and the lights came, and Duane Barry jumped around like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Helicopters were coming. Search lights, bright and piercing illuminated their figures, and Scully was temporarily blinded by their intensity. The helicopters touched down, and the lights went out, and then there were armed men, lots of men, dressed in camouflage, with black hoods over their heads and night vision goggles cloaking their eyes.

One soldier knocked Duane Barry aside with the butt of his rifle, and the madman fell to the ground in a crying heap, "Hey, we had a deal,' he wept, "Duane Barry's not going, she is, her instead of me," he shrieked as the soldiers grabbed Scully roughly by the arms. She still struggled, screaming through her gag now, anger and terror combining to make her fight like ten men.

"Give me the fucking syringe! Someone yelled and then, "hold her still you idiot, I don't want to break the needle off in her arm," and then a brief prick and she knew she wouldn't be struggling for very much longer. The sedative must have been very powerful, or perhaps her fear and exhaustion made it work quickly, because soon her head was lolling onto her chest, and she felt sleep dragging her into it's forgetful embrace.

She was still aware enough, however, to realize that the men were lifting her into one of the helicopters, and then that the copter was climbing into the air, the bright lights once again sweeping the forest. Her face was pointed towards the door and below she could see Duane Barry doing a crazy victory dance on top of the Virginia mountain. And then, just before the blackness over took her, she saw another figure and she could tell who the man was by the way he was dressed, and the way he moved, and she whispered, "Mulder," as she lost consciousness.

Drifting, she was drifting. It was dark, and quiet, and warm, and peaceful. She didn't want to wake up, she wanted to forget, to be unworried and unafraid. But she couldn't help herself. She was floating back up through a drug induced haze and then she started to remember who she was, and what had happened....and she was terrified. She tried to control her emotions, but it was very hard. And then, someone was pulling on her ankles and wrists...on her bonds? "Mulder?" she whispered weakly, "Mulder?" she sighed.

A cold voice broke through the groggy drug-veil, "Guess again, Agent Scully."

That voice, so familiar, yet she couldn't quite place it, not Mulder, no the other one - it was Krycek. Her eyes shot open and his face was inches from her nose.

"Krycek?" she asked plaintively. "What's happening, where am I..." she asked her lips trembling from the drug and shock.

"You don't need to know that Agent Scully," Krycek replied confidently moving back from her face to stand at the foot of the table.

"Where's Mulder?" she asked, craning her neck to look around. She was bound, or rather strapped down to some type of table, and nude except for a sheet. The table sat in the middle of a room. The room was white - a bright white room...like an operating theater. Her heart froze in her chest. "Where am I?" she cried out, twisting against the bonds in desperation.

"Hey, don't struggle, you're going to hurt yourself," Krycek advised, no hint of compassion in his voice, "We don't want to damage the merchandise. And as for Mulder, he's probably hauling Duane Barry off the mountain by now. Or maybe he's running around looking for you. I don't really care," he finished.

Scully fought hard to concentrate. She raised her head and tried to focus on Krycek's face. Krychek was in on 'it', whatever 'it' was - her abduction? Her abduction to where, for what reason, and by whom? There were no answers. The drug was muddling her thoughts, making it extraordinarily hard to put anything together. The implants, Duane Barry, the soldiers, Krycek, the pieces of the puzzle just wouldn't fit. She finally resorted to one final important question, and she asked it of the only available source.

"Why?" she whispered to Krycek.

"Why not?" he answered flatly and Scully lowered her head in despair.

A door opened at her back and someone walked into the white room.

"Shit, I told you those army assholes didn't give her a big enough dose. She shouldn't have come around so quickly," the second captor complained, "And what in the hell do you think you're doing talking to her? Now she's seen you," he added staying well out of sight.

"Who gives a flying fuck whether she sees me now or not?" Krycek shot back, "You know she's never going to remember any of this anyway."

Scully listened to their conversation as if it was a dream. Maybe it was a dream. She wished it was anyway. She continued to stare at Krycek as he talked to the other man.

"Look, if you're so worried about her being awake, then go get another syringe full of that joy juice and I'll send her to 'la la land' again, all right?" he sneered.

"All right, but it'll take me a couple minutes. I have to take this junk to the lab," the other man replied and then the door opened, and closed, and he was gone.

"Prick," Krycek mumbled and then he turned his attention back to Scully.

"You know, Agent Scully, I could almost feel sorry for Mulder. He's really broken up about your disappearance. Distraught even, you might say."

Scully closed her eyes and swallowed. 'Oh God, Mulder,' she thought, 'I can just imagine what he's going through.' 'Oh, please, don't let him blame himself,' she thought, 'Please.' Weak tears began to fall down her cheeks.

"Yes ma'am, he's a mess. And you know I kept getting the feeling that his concern went way beyond just concern for his partner, you know. Like, well, like, maybe the two of you are a little more close than just partners, and in a very unprofessional way, shall we say?" Krycek hissed.

Scully listened to Krycek's words and too many thoughts and feelings flew through her mind. Thoughts she had only half-formed before leapt into the spotlight of her consideration. 'Mulder? Close? The two of them more than just partners?' she thought. 'Krycek is wrong,' she insisted. But a small voice broke through the drug and told her, 'No, Krycek is right.'

"Yeah, I bet he's screwing you. Hell, I'd bet money on it," he added. "Christ, with the way you look, he'd have to be dead from the waist down if he wasn't fucking you," he finished chuckling.

Mulder had never touched her that way. Maybe never would. But her heart told her she wanted it, and maybe he wanted it and...she'd let him if he did and...her mind tried to focus on Krycek again because he was asking her a question.

"Come on Scully, you can tell me, is he fucking you? Is he good?" "Enguiring minds want to know," Krycek whispered.

Scully struggled to say something, "bastard," wouldn't escape her lips and all she could manage to croak out was "bbbbb". Krycek walked over to her side and then bent down close to her face in order to hear her words. Scully gathered her wits, and strength, and spat, quite accurately, right into his eyes.

"You bitch!" Krycek yelled, backing up, and wiping his face with his sleeve. "God, you cunt," he added.

Scully found her voice then, "You bastard," and the effort caused her head to reel, 'and he's more of a man than you'll ever be,' she thought as her head sank back onto the table.

"All right, fine, if that's the way you want to play it, I guess I'll have to teach you a lesson," he whispered, hate in his voice.

"If Mulder isn't man enough to bang you, maybe I should show you what it feels like when a real man does," he spat out between clenched teeth.

Scully's eyes grew wide. 'Oh no, she thought, please not this," and she began to fight against the restraints, and Krycek slapped her across the face, and hissed, "Be still, or you're going to get hurt," as he unzipped his pants.

He climbed onto the table top and pushed her legs as far apart as the straps would allow, and then he began to stroke himself until he was completely erect.

Scully made gurgling sounds in her throat, "No, no, no," she repeated over and over, but Krycek wasn't listening.

Krycek reached back to undo the restraining straps on her ankles, "don't try anything funny, you whore, or you'll really regret it," he whispered, releasing her legs. He roughly pushed her knees up and his hands groped under the sheet that covered her.

Scully shrank from his touch and suddenly, the room came alive with soldiers. Krycek was pulled off the table top and away from her. He was yanked upright directly next to her head, and then one of the soldiers brought a leg up and kneed him right in the balls. Krycek shrieked and collapsed to his knees, covering his genitals with both hands. Scully was aware of something burning, a smell, an odor of....cigarette smoke, just as a cold, soft voice interrupted the action.

"Bring him over here," the voice commanded and the soldiers lifted the gasping Krycek and carried him off behind her head.

"Put that away," the voice hissed and Scully heard Krycek struggling to zip up his pants. Then there was a resounding 'slap' and the sound of Krycek falling to his knees again.

"Get up," the voice coughed, "and get out, you have your orders, I expect you to complete them."

And Krycek mumbled something and then he began to limp away. The door behind her opened, and closed, and he was gone.

"Move her," the voice commanded again and then the soldiers were re- buckling the restraints, unlocking the wheels on the table, which was now revealed to be a gurney, and Scully was being wheeled back, and out the white room's door.

Darkness was engulfing her again. She fought against it so that she would remember as much as possible about the experience. But it did little good because her thoughts were so disjointed she couldn't focus on anything long enough for it to stick in her memory.

She slept again, and when next she woke she was in another white room. This one was incredibly bright, brighter even than the other room, and it was full of men in doctor's scrubs and surgical masks. A man bent over her, a Japanese man, without a surgical mask on, "Just lie still," he said, not unkindly, "We're not going to hurt you. Everything will be all right. You're going to go to sleep and you'll have some very pleasant dreams, and then it will be over," and she thought, 'My God, you've all ready hurt me more than you could ever know,' and once again there was a tiny prick, and the drugs hit her blood stream and she fell into blackness.

And Scully did dream. Her father, dead for many months, smiled at her, "Hi, Starbuck, don't worry, I'm here, I'll help you," and his smile was warm and comforting, and she wasn't afraid. And her sister, Missy was there and her brothers and they were all so comforting. Her mother appeared and told her, "Dana, honey, just hang on, we love you, we all love you," and she took courage from them all.

And then she thought of Mulder and out of the darkness he was there too. Time shifted and she was walking into a basement office in the Hoover building, and he was there for the first time. He didn't trust her, stood aloof, but gradually there was respect from him, and she grew to respect him as well, and then that night in the hotel room he had told her of his quest, the good fight of his life, and she understood him and began to support him and...Time jumped and they knew each other better and they teased and joked and he won her mind and then her heart. He was so sincere, obsessed with finding his truth, and she was so skeptical, obsessed with finding her truth, and then somehow over time it became their truth.

He was always there, and then he was saving her from some thing human, and unhuman, and inhuman, werewolves, and man eating bugs, and parasites and all manner of horrors. She felt his strong arms holding her more often over time, and she wanted to feel that comfort again, and again, and then, and then...he was still there, supporting her, trying to buoy her spirits, backing her up, trusting her, loving her? Yes, loving, and she loved him, she admitted it, but they were so afraid of the implications and they continued to keep a professional distance, a formality, a friendship, a partnership a...a...until finally they could deny it no longer and suddenly time jumped, and Mulder was asking her, 'Will you marry me?' and she was kissing him and saying,
'Yes,' and then it was their wedding night, and God she felt like a virgin, even if she wasn't, and he was nervous too, but they were glad they had waited for that special moment. And then she was in his arms and it was wonderful, he was so considerate and kind, and he stroked her and she explored his body with wonder, and she was aroused beyond belief and she came under his mouth and hands, and in time, at last, he was inside her, so warm and hard and loving. She enveloped him, and he told her he felt so protected for once in his life there was no fear, and he thrust into her and she cried out his name in pleasure. They moved together flesh against flesh, her soul combined with his soul like their bodies, entwined at last and it was perfect, and she held him tight between her legs as she met his pumping hips, and he called out her name as he came, filling her with his essence, and she cried tears of joy as she came again, and he cried too, sagging gently into her embrace.

And Scully dreamed. And later she knew Mulder had given her a baby, and she was large with the new life, and he was touching her stomach and the baby kicked, and he was grinning, and she was smiling, and then he was there during the pain of their daughter's birth, almost passing out in the delivery room, and she had teased him about it, and then a little girl's voice was giggling, Daddy, Daddy, and he was carrying the little girl on his shoulders, and they were all so happy, and the little girl was growing up, and she had her golden-red hair and his dark, hazel eyes, and then they were growing old together and then, and then, the dreams stopped and she knew no more.

Much later, she labored to breath and she thought, 'I want to go.' 'I'm not sure why, but I don't want to come back. Let me leave, LET ME GO!' her mind shouted. But, someone was holding her hand. It was him, she sensed it somehow from some far off land, and over a great distance. And she heard his voice.

"I feel Scully that...you believe you're not ready to go...and you've always had the strength of your beliefs. I don't know if my being here will help bring you back...but I'm here," Mulder whispered.

And suddenly Scully knew she didn't want to leave, he had given her new hope and power, the strength of both their beliefs, and she woke.

***********************************

"Before, I could only trust myself.
Now I can only trust you."
-Fox Mulder in "Little Green Men"

THE END OF THE WHOLE STORY