TITLE: Emerging Hope AUTHOR: Erin M. Blair E-MAIL: eblair@sonic.net CLASSIFICATION/CATEGORY: SRA--Story, Romance, Angst CONTENT: Mulder/Scully UST RATING: PG DISTRIBUTION/ARCHIVE STATEMENT: OK to Gossamer, Ephemeral, After the Fact. AWARD ELIGIBILITY: Spookys 2004 SPOILERS: Ascension. One Breath. SETTING: Season Two. DATE: Created on May 7, 2004. Second draft was on May 8, 2004. Final draft completed on: June 6, 2004. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Special thanks to Jen for beta reading this story for me. DISCLAIMER: Scully and Mulder belong to Chris Carter. SUMMARY: From the depths of despair over her abduction, Scully realizes that she has emerging hope of renewing her hope. ------------------------------------ Emerging Hope Written by: Erin M. Blair ------------------------------------ Naked. All I wanted was to escape, to find my way back home. I wanted to be anywhere else other than suffering this fate. My body laid on a white table -- still. The only thing covering me was a loose, crisp, white sheet. The sadness crept into my eyes. Tears started to form in my eyes and then the tears flowed down my cheeks like a river. Disoriented. The noise was deafening. I couldn't deal with it anymore; I wanted the pain to be over. Then the drill whirled. I was overcome by a black cloud of fear emanating from me. I felt the drill coming close to me. I braced for the intense pain as it cut through my skin. Silent screams pierced through me. Severe. Pain. Stomach. Terrible pain. The pain was overbearing. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. The severity of the pain wasn't like anything I'd ever felt before. I wanted to escape right then and there, but I was too helpless to overcome the men in white coats standing over me as though I was a caged animal. They had no humanity in them. If they did, they wouldn't have put me through these horrible experiments. I silently begged them to let me go home. I felt something growing inside me -- making my insides burst wide open. Life slowly drained from my body. I gathered enough courage to try to hold on, but I was already weakening. The smallest hope of someone -- anyone -- finding me was drifting away by the minute. It all seemed dismal for me. I had wanted to see and to feel the warmth in my soul. Despondent. Dehumanized. Fear. Blackness upon blackness. I felt like I was drifting away into the unknown. I found myself; I let myself in. And yet I knew I would be returned to Mulder. My guide had told me this would happen. For some strange reason, I could feel him near. Hope. Returned. I'd come home at last. I could feel the warmth of his strength and love coursing through myself. I felt a hand on top of my own hand. He told me that he's here for me. I knew I wanted to come back to him. Home. When I saw him standing over me with a smile on his face, I knew I was home. I knew I was safe at last when I looked at the love in his eyes. -- the end -- Feedback: Yes, please. Send to: eblair@sonic.net or erinmblair@yahoo.com Author's Notes: I recently watched "Ascension" and I wanted to explore more what happened to Scully. I wanted to see what would have been like for her, to sense what she's feeling. I wanted to convey that fear in her eyes, the sense of disjointedness in my story. At the same time, I wanted to convey the hope that she does have in being returned to Mulder. I wanted to try to experiment with my writing in this story. I wanted to see different kinds of style to see if I like it. I have heard that I have a somewhat boring style...so I'm trying to remedy that situation. This story has been through numerous revisions and rewrites with the help of my beta readers. At first, this story is really abstract in its nature. You don't have to "get it" on your first try. It might take a few readings before the meaning sets in.