Quantico: An X Files Origin

8

Scully awoke several hours later to a buzzing headache and the smell of cigarette smoke. She sat up off of the hard ground she laid on, a mop full of red hair covering her eyes, she couldn't see a thing. As she went to push away the mess of hair from her face, she realized that her hands were bound behind her and her feet were tied together as well. The room, she gathered, was dark and old. The walls were just as bare and unfinished as the floors. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling, giving off just enough light to make out shapes.

"Glad to see you finally awake, Miss Scully." A raspy, old voice droned.

A flood of anxiety rushed over the small woman as she heard the footsteps of the man approaching her.

"Wh- what do you want from me?" She said panicking, as she tried to scoot away from the devil.

"Now, do not be afraid, Dana. Actually, you'll find that we have something that you want." The man, bent down next to her, reeking of tobacco and cologne. Dana began to breathe slowly, her heart forgot how to beat. The man reached his brittle fingers in front of her face, she winced as he pushed her titian hair to the side. "What lovely eyes you have, my dear."

"Get away from me!" She pleaded.

"Dana, why, I am your friend. Don't you trust me?" He asked as he blew a puff of smoke in her face.

"No friend of mine would ever treat me like a prisoner." She said, spitting in his face as she spoke with rage.

"But, a friend of yours would give you this." He held out his hand, a shiny, small glass tube sat in his palm.

"What is that?" Dana asked with tears spilling down her cheeks.

"My dear, this is the key to your future. The answer to your prayers."

Dana sat there utterly confused. Her mind whirled a mile a minute and she couldn't help but wonder where Mulder was. The key to my future? The answer to my prayers? What in the hell was this man talking about?

"Still confused?" He said standing up. His old knees cracking as he did so. Dana cringed at the sound. "Think back to medical school; the research project that you did your junior year."

Dana's heart stopped. How could he possibly know about her project? She didn't even tell her parents about it. Her throat became dry and she sat there frozen. Who is this man?

"Atherosclerosis Cardiovascular Disease." He said, taking a puff of his cigarette. "Ring a bell, Miss Scully?"

"How do you know about that? No one knows." She barked.

"I know that your father as well as your younger brother, Charles suffers from the disease. Your grandfather died of it when you were twelve. You actively spent your whole junior year looking for a cure. I also know that you failed miserably." He walked in a circle as he talked, flicking ashes to the ground. Dana sat there in silence, dumbfounded. She had no words to say. Everything the man was spewing, was indeed correct.

"So what? What could you possibly have that I want?" She said snidely.

The man walked closer to her and looked down at the groveling redhead. He inhaled one more dose of his vile cigarette, held out the hand containing the small capsule and said, "I have what you worked ever so hard for. The cure."

"There is no such thing as a cure! I worked countless hours in the lab with scientists and doctors and there is no such thing. You are a liar and a repulsive man! Now, let me go!" She screamed in hostility.

"Oh, my dear child," he chuckled wickedly,"there is a cure. It was under your nose the whole entire time. And now, here it is, under your nose once more."

"Where did it come from?" She insisted, with gritted teeth.

"Its origins are not of importance. All that matters is that it is yours. Take it. Give it to your family. Spread it across the globe. Be the famous Doctor and savior of the human race that you always dreamed of being." The smoking man charmingly commented. His words were in her head. She felt them dancing atop her mind. She had always wanted to be an infamous medical doctor, bringing hope and wellness to the world. She always wanted to be a doctor. Now, her path to the FBI clouded that dream. She was at a crossroads. She could neither trust Mulder nor the Smoking Man, but had to choose between one or the other.

"How long have you been watching me?" Dana asked with tears in her blue eyes.

"My dear, we watch everyone from the moment they take their first breath to the second that they take their last."

Just then Dana remembered how Mulder knew that he was being watched by the smoking man too. She remembered that he didn't show up to any classes that day, that not even his roommates had seen him once.

"Where," Dana swallowed, "Where is Fox Mulder."

"Exactly where we want him: away from you."