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Part 4 of Houseboat Variations
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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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2020-11-05
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A Moment of Peace

Summary:

Summary: It's over, Mulder's won, but he's waiting for something... and Alex Krycek offers him the opportunity to end it all....

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A Moment of Peace
by JiM

 

After the battle and we're still around,
everything once up in the air has settled down,
Sweep the ashes, let the silence find us.
A moment of peace is worth every war behind us.

-- Indigo Girls

 

The end began quietly with a simple chime from his computer telling him that he had mail. When he opened it, the message was deceptively short and simple. It read:

'Mulder --

Truce?

-- AK'

Mulder sat staring at it for long minutes, uncertain of how to react. AK -- Alex Krycek. It had to be. Krycek wanted a truce? Hell, Krycek was alive? Just about everyone else ever connected with the Consortium and the failed colonization was dead. How had his former partner managed to survive the debacle, balanced precariously between three sides as he had been?

The idea that Alex Krycek was emailing him was so outre that Mulder knew it couldn't be a fake. The return address was internal and Mulder had to grin; Krycek had balls, sheer unadulterated chutzpah. Who else would hack into the FBI's internal email server?

He hit reply and typed:

'Krycek --

Why?'

There was something strange in the knowledge that Alex Krycek was out there somewhere, waiting for his response. He had time to throw two pencils at the ceiling before Krycek's reply chimed.

'Tired.'

Before he knew what he was doing, Mulder had typed:

'Me, too.'

And sent it.

'Tired' wasn't a strong enough word for it. He and Scully and Skinner had given their lives over to the fight and they had won, but the cost had been too high for any of them to return to any semblance of normal life. Skinner was a career FBI man and would remain one, but there was now no question that he would advance any higher than AD. His star had set and he was content to find his peace in routine and administration. Of the three of them, Scully had bounced back the fastest, her faith stronger and more enduring than either man's. She had left the FBI entirely and had accepted a position as an ME in Baltimore. She confessed over their weekly beer that she found the job just a little too routine and that she sometimes hoped for something bizarre and familiar.

And Mulder just drifted through his days at the Bureau; all of his most bizarre theories proven horrifyingly correct, the war fought and won, and Spooky Mulder was at once the hero and the albatross of the FBI. The job of the X-Files now taken over by whole departments, Mulder was assigned to review the findings. He amused himself for a few months paying back former slights and insults with irritating and insightful comments scribbled into the margins of case reports that went to the Director's desk. After a time, his childish need for revenge appeased, a suitable number of minds messed with, he had asked for something more rewarding than case file review. He had found himself back in Violent Crimes so fast his head had spun.

For a time, he had found the return to standard FBI routine relaxing, almost comforting. The challenge of profiling was re-energizing -- the minds of the criminally insane and sociopathic had become no more than complex puzzles to be worked and solved, no emotional input required any more. Yet, as spring came on, he had felt a growing restlessness that seemed to blossom with the cherry trees, a sense of unfinished business. Now, here in mid-June, he was sitting in front of his computer, anticipating Alex Krycek's reply and he knew this was what he had been instinctively waiting for all along.

Krycek's reply chimed.

'Let's finish it then. Meet me.'

Mulder spoke to the screen, a healthy sense of self-preservation reawakening, no matter how late in the day. "You've got to be kidding me, Krycek. No way!"

But his fingers turned traitor and typed,

'Where?'

The answer was succinct and recognizably Krycek.

'I'll send you what you'll need. I'm surprised that you're agreeing to this.'

'It's the only way I'll get any answers, isn't it?'

The reply to that startled him.

'Would have thought you'd have had enough of answers for one lifetime, Mulder. OK -- ask.'

Mulder blinked, feeling like a kid who has just been handed the keys to the candy store and realizes that he no longer has any appetite. Slowly, he typed,

'Did you kill my father?'

'Not your father.'

The words blinked stark and green at him for a time. He had suspected, had thought he had made peace with the knowledge.

'Why?'

The chime of Krycek's answer startled him from a thoughtless reverie.

'Was going to kill you. Couldn't let that happen.'

'Why?'

'Hard to explain -- and my hand is getting tired. Meet me.'

Mulder sighed, then typed,

'Where and when? And you'd better have some answers, Krycek.'

'I have answers, Mulder. You won't like some of them, but they're yours -- I promise.

'Take a long weekend. A package will be delivered to you within the hour. Come. Please.'

'Yes.'

There was nothing after that and Mulder knew intuitively that Krycek had signed off.

A document envelope was slid under his office door 45 minutes later. In it were a plane ticket to Boston and a matchbook from the Marblehead Yacht Club. On the inside cover of the empty matchbook, Krycek had written, "6/19 13:30". It was so ridiculously paranoid and familiar that Mulder found himself smiling. No one in his right mind would take the word of Alex Krycek, liar, coward, thief and murderer. But Mulder knew where he was going to be on June 19th at 1:30 in the afternoon. He picked up the phone and began making arrangements for a few days off at the end of the week.

It took less than an hour to drive from the airport up the coast to the small colonial town. The Marblehead Yacht Club turned out to be a rather plain shingled building, perched on a thrust of gray New England granite, at the end of a pretty residential street. He left his rental car parked by the curb, hefted his gym bag and walked towards the club building. Mulder had been to Marblehead several times as a kid, and had raced from some of the more imposing and monied yacht clubs in town. But this club was obviously aggressively unconcerned with image, its members caring only about sailing.

He paused on the sea wall for a moment, watching the weird cacophony of vessels in the harbor -- yachts, skiffs, lobster boats all rocking gently in the breeze, a small coast guard cutter laboring past, two kids zipping by in a bright orange zodiac -- it was a familiar and surprisingly peaceful chaos, sunlit and carefree. He was startled from his reverie by the squawk of a gull diving overhead. Krycek had to be here somewhere, although Mulder was having trouble fitting the shadowy figure of Alex Krycek into these sunny, wholesome surroundings.

The door was locked, so he pressed the intercom buzzer and waited.

"Yeah?"

"My name is Fox Mulder and I'm looking for...."

"Oh, Mr. Mulder. Alex asked me to keep an eye out for you. Come on in."

The buzzer sounded and Mulder walked into the main room of the club building. A middle-aged man in white shorts, shirt and tie, and navy anorak with the club insignia on its breast stepped out of an office to greet him.

"I'm Jack. Are you ready to go, Mr. Mulder?"

"Go where?"

Jack waved one ruddy hand out towards the harbor and smiled. "I'm supposed to take you out to the Shadow. Alex is out there redoing the teak today."

Jack guided Mulder out of the club building and onto the pier with a courteous gesture as he pulled on a ball cap and a pair of mirrored sunglasses. "He's been pretty anxious about your arrival. I think he's looking for someone to help with all that trim."

Mulder remembered the mind-numbing boredom of re-oiling the teak on his own family's sailboat and smiled back; it was impossible not to smile at the man's open grin, teeth even and white in his ruddy face, but Mulder felt that same disquiet at the knowledge that Alex Krycek was waiting for him still. Somewhere out there on the sunlit water lay all the answers to his darkest questions and the keys to his murky life. Did he really want them now?

Mulder followed his guide down the gangway and out onto the float. A uniformly blond and tanned family with two little girls and a spaniel was already seated in one of the stolid, straight bowed white launches tied up there; blue bumpers squeaking discreetly as the wake from a passing boat rocked it gently against the dock.

Mulder hopped down into the launch and took a seat at the stern. He was glad of the half-understood impulse that had made him wear old jeans, sneakers and a sweater this morning, rather than his usual FBI-issue dark suit. He realized now that he had dressed as he had because he was no longer Special Agent Fox Mulder, not for this trip. He felt himself slipping into someone else, the man he might have been without... everything. Someone who worked a nine to five job and sailed every free moment he could, living out a quiet life in a small New England town where everyone knew everyone else. Mulder shook his head, knowing he could never be that man, yet longing for it with everything in his being, just for a moment.

The other passengers had greeted Mulder with cheerful grins and were now chatting with Jack as he slipped the mooring lines off the cleats at the bow and the stern and leapt into the boat. From their conversation Mulder gathered that the launch driver was also a high school English teacher just out for the summer. The motor thrummed alive as Jack thumbed the throttle with one hand and kept two fingers of his other hand on the wheel, easily guiding the launch away from the float and out into the harbor.

Mulder took a deep breath and felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him as the combined smells of diesel fuel, sunblock, and salt water took him back to his childhood on the Vineyard. Sailing had been one of the few unsullied pleasures he and his remote father had shared. Even when they couldn't talk, there was still the easy give and take of sheets and sails, tacking and reaching, jibing and running before the wind in the noisy silence of a summer day on the water.

They came to the other family's boat first. Mulder was on his feet and automatically reaching out to steady the launch against the side of the sloop as the children and their parents tramped off with noisy cheer. Jack shoved them off with a wave, then neatly pirouetted the large launch around and headed off towards the mouth of the harbor, picking his way through the thickets of moored vessels with a careless two-fingered ease that Mulder had to admire. The breeze whipped his hair back from his face and made him wish he had thought to bring a windbreaker. But it was exhilarating to be chilled by the salt air and he wondered why he had never sailed after he had left home.

He also wondered how long Krycek had been hiding out here. The sailing community, while large, was also closely knit. How had Krycek managed to lose himself so completely?

"Has Alex sailed with you long?" he asked, then winced internally at how clumsy he sounded, the rustiness of his interrogation style. If Jack thought the question odd, nothing showed in his suncreased face.

"Off and on, I'd say about fifteen years. He started coming here with his uncle when he was a teen, crewed for him in the summers. He's a good kid."

Mulder blinked at the dissonant description of Alex Krycek, hired muscle and assassin, as a 'good kid.' Not a cover, then, but a piece of Krycek's own identity, some surivor of the wreckage. He wondered who the uncle was -- perhaps one of the well-manicured, impeccably dressed cabal that still haunted his nightmares? The random surmise chilled him. "Is his uncle out there today?"

"Nah. The old man died about ten years ago and left Alex the Shadow and the mooring. Lucky for him -- the mooring list is ten years long now." Jack dropped the throttle with a flick of his brown hand. "Here she is now."

A twist of the wheel and the launch was sidling up to a graceful sloop and Mulder's grip was whitening on the railing beside him. The launch's bumpers chirped and scraped as the two boats rocked together and Alex Krycek looked up from oiling the teakwood detailing around the forward hatch and met Mulder's eyes for the first time in three years.

"Mulder." He dropped his rag and stood up slowly.

Mulder suddenly realized that he didn't know what last name Krycek was using among these people.

"Alex," he said evenly. There was a flicker of amusement in Krycek's eyes and Mulder knew that he understood the sudden intimacy of his first name.

They stared at one another for another long moment then Krycek suddenly moved forward with his hand out. Mulder automatically handed him his bag, then swung himself aboard the Shadow.

"Thanks, Jack," Alex said and pressed a folded bill into the launch driver's hand.

"Any time, Alex. When do you want a pick up?"

Krycek looked back over his shoulder at Mulder, who returned his stare gravely but offered no hints. "Not sure yet, Jack. I'll radio when I have a better idea."

An air horn sounded close by, two short blasts followed by a long. Jack grinned and said, "Duty calls. Have a good afternoon, Mr. Mulder. Alex," he tapped one finger to the brim of his ball cap in farewell and pulled away, leaving the two men to stare at one another.

After a moment, Krycek turned away and hopped down into the cockpit, all gleaming white fiberglass lined with tasteful burgundy cushions. He dropped Mulder's bag onto one of the benches then suddenly turned back and met Mulder's gaze again, brows knit as if he were confused by something.

"You know, I didn't think you'd come."

"I told you I would."

"And you always keep your word," Krycek said, not teasing. He seemed to shake himself back to alertness, then he waved his hand around. "Welcome aboard. What do you think?"

Mulder came to join him there, the lashed-down wheel and the boom in the center of the cockpit between them. "She's beautiful, Alex. Jack said your uncle left her to you?"

Krycek heard the unasked question and nodded. "My real uncle. No, he wasn't one of them. Just a man who recommended his favorite nephew for a job to a friend." Something in Krycek's eyes made Mulder guess,

"The 'friend' was my father, wasn't it?"

"Bill Mulder was a friend of my uncle's, yes." Mulder heard the carefully arranged answer. He felt the deck rock under his feet then steadied himself with a hand on wheel and said bitterly,

"All right -- we both know Bill Mulder wasn't my biological father, so we can stop dancing around that issue. But he's the only man I'll ever think of as 'Dad,' so you'll forgive me the occasional slip."

There was a radio playing somewhere and the music slipped and danced across the water. The sharp smell of the teak oil Krycek had been applying was carried past him on the freshening breeze. The water whispered and chuckled against the hull, like a friend inviting him out to play. Krycek continued to meet his fierce gaze, sea-green eyes unblinking. Then he said,

"It's a beautiful afternoon; let's take her out for a sail."

Mulder was grateful to him, suddenly. He nodded.

"There's a pretty good breeze once you get out of the harbor; I've got a spare windbreaker down in the cabin. Why don't you drop your bag and get it while I get us ready to go out?" He turned away and began to pick up the can and rags scattered on the deck.

Mulder swung down the wooden ladder into the cabin of the Shadow and was impressed anew. From the water, she was trim and neat-looking with graceful lines drawing the eye. But inside the main cabin, Mulder had to admire the beauty and elegance of her design. The main cabin was warm with teak detailing, upholstered benches running the length of both sides. A folding table was bolted to the richly-carpeted floor, its leaves folded down to allow passage to the forward cabin. A compact wood stove was bolted against the wall of the forward section.

To his left was the galley area, complete with stove, sink and refrigerator tucked beneath the counter. Dishes and glassware were neatly secured in racks lining the hull above. Coffee mugs rocked gently from their hooks above the sink.

To his right was a small chart table, tucked into the corner. Brass and wood gleamed and Mulder's attention was immediately caught by the controlled clutter. A bone-colored copy of Eldridge's Tide and Pilot Book, the Farmer's Almanac of the sailing world; a chart book and a salt-stained copy of the Guide to Celestial Navigation; a battered logbook; grease pencils, a protractor, compass and parallel ruler. So Krycek was a purist, preferring to plot his courses by hand. Navigation was a venerable skill and not easy to acquire. Then Mulder caught sight of the expensive handheld model of the Global Positioning Satellite link tucked into a pigeonhole above the desk and had to grin. Krycek always had a backup in place. Mulder wondered what calibre his backup plan for this weekend was.

There was a technological bouquet of sailing equipment carefully mounted to the sidewall of the cabin above the desk. Small as it was, no more than thirty-six feet in length, this vessel seemed to have been outfitted for serious ocean cruising some time ago. Mulder wondered what Krycek's uncle had needed to get away from.

Stowing his bag in a locker under one of the benches, Mulder also caught sight of a wall-mounted TV and VCR combination, bolted above a small but expensive-looking stereo. Paperback books lined the walls above the benches, held in place with elasticized tie-downs. Sunlight dappled the cabin, flowing through the small portholes all along each side. There was a rich smell of salt and teak oil, diesel fuel and that touch of mildew that no ocean-going vessel, however elegant, can ever avoid.

"What do you think?" Krycek's voice startled him and he whirled to see him sitting on the top step of the ladder.

"She's beautiful," he replied sincerely.

Krycek's teeth flashed white as he smiled proudly. He was dressed in the ragged fashion peculiar to sailors on the New England coast, no matter how much money they had; old gray chinos, a pastel polo covered by a torn blue cotton sweater. He wore battered and paint-stained docksider shoes and Mulder had to admit that it all suited him well enough, despite the fact that his Bureau-mind couldn't help imagining Krycek as he had last seen him, in filthy jeans, engineer boots and an old leather jacket.

Of course, the last time he had seen him, Krycek had been bloody, frenzied and under fire. It was hardly surprising that he would look so much better now. But there was something indefinable about the former assassin; he had lost the vicious light that had glimmered in his eyes years ago. In its place was a weary kind of acceptance. His face was sunburned and lined, no longer smoothly, deceptively juvenile. There was pain in his face but he seemed to have made a peace with it. Scars gleamed whitely against his tanned skin -- across his throat, down one cheek and twisting around his forearm below pushed up sleeves. The mute fact of his amputated arm was a reproach to Mulder still.

He suddenly realized that he had been staring at Krycek for some time; he looked into the other man's face and saw a smartass remark rise, then die before it could be spoken.

"Let's head out," was all Krycek said.

Mulder followed him out on deck and they wordlessly unlashed the canvas sail cover on the boom, folding it and stowing it beneath one of the benches in the cockpit. Sailing, like life, demanded order and careful precautions, lest loose gear escape or necessary tools be lost at sea.

Alex wordlessly pointed to the bow and tossed him the boat hook. He went forward, knelt and drew up the mooring line, green and dripping. Behind him, he heard the cough and purr of the engine starting, like a singer clearing her throat before an aria. He unhooked the line and let it drop back into the sea where it disappeared into the deep green water, leaving no trace but a few tiny bubbles.

Returning aft, he jumped down into the cockpit to stand next to Alex, wondering how Alex ever managed to take the Shadow out alone -- an able-bodied seaman would have hesitated at taking out so large a craft by himself. As he stowed the boat hook, Mulder remembered that every yacht club always had a sufficiency of youngsters and hangers-on who were willing to crew for the Devil himself as long as they got to sail. Alex probably had a herd of potential crew just panting for the chance to hoist his sails, content with the payment of a flash of those white, even teeth.

And what's my price? Mulder wondered. Oh yes, answers.

But he had lost his voice for questions. He stood beside Krycek and watched the cliffs of the harbor slide by as Alex guided them out towards the mouth of the harbor, the wheel moving smoothly beneath his tanned hand. Huge mansions on one side, built to rival the Newport 'cottages' of the Vanderbilts and the Belmonts, cramped colonial and Georgian homes on the other, above the working docks of the town. Cormorants and gulls sunned themselves on rocky outcroppings and bobbed in the water around them. Mulder jumped as a cannon went off to their right, signaling the start of a race.

Alex laughed and said, "That's the Eastern Yacht Club. They always have to make a bigger noise than anyone else."

A flock of racing Lasers, tiny fleet sailboats with brightly-striped sails, took off like a flight of startled birds, racing for nothing more than the simple joy of it. Mulder remembered the leap in the blood, when he first heard the cannon or the starting pistol or the air horn blast, that moment when he was finally allowed to tighten his sheets and let the wind take him, running faster, jibing better than anyone else, yet still feeling a kinship with them all, win or lose. The companionship of water, wind, sun, rain... of joy.

They came to the mouth of the harbor and Mulder saw the ugly lines of the lighthouse, still painted that same chocolate brown, its green light flashing with idiot, life-saving regularity. Across the mouth of the harbor from the lighthouse perched Ft. Sewall, a Revolutionary fort of earthworks and old cannons. The guns had been painted against rust and remained shiny and ready-looking, but they would never fire again. No one expected them to -- the times and people they had protected had passed on.

Outside the harbor now; he looked to Alex -- setting sail with one crew member and a one-armed captain was going to be difficult. Alex only smiled then flipped the wooden lid on the binnacle, right beside the wheel. Where Mulder expected only to see the ship's compass, he also saw a row of switches, carefully labeled.

"How much work did you really want to do, Mulder?" Krycek asked, then began flipping switches in a measured pattern. Automated winches silently raised the mainsail; the jib unfurled like a lady's silk handkerchief and Mulder found himself grinning at the loveliness of the sails blossoming before him. "So much for sweating and grunting," he commented.

"It has its place," Krycek said blandly, watching the tell-tales, the yarn pieces tied onto the side-stays and the sails, waiting for them to show him the wind. The boom slammed over to their left as the breeze caught the mainsail; Mulder ducked it without thinking.

"We still have to trim and tack by hand. Are you up to it?" Alex said. He didn't even wait for Mulder's reply, just handed him a pair of black leather half-gloves and cut the engine.

Mulder grinned at the challenge, pulled on the gloves and went to trim the port sheet. He noted that all the lines, sheets and halyards were color-coded and the chocks they passed through were clearly labeled; it was well-thought-out so that a small crew could easily sail the Shadow. The boat gave a leap forward and he felt that rush in his blood again as the sails filled and Alex Krycek took them out into deep water.

For the next two hours, they spoke little. Mulder silently followed all of Alex's commands, hardly questioning that he did so. He relished the flex and strain of his muscles as he hauled on the sheets, bringing the sail about by main force. They passed beyond the small islands, heading northeast. Land dropped away, reduced to a bluish haze of the horizon to their left and behind. He stood beside Krycek, bemused by the sun flickering on the water and the sibilant rush of the sea against the boat's hull.

Somehow Krycek knew the wordless language of his childhood. He knew the silent conversations that take place as the wind changes direction, as the sea slips beneath you, as you work together to travel in one direction no matter what the wind and currents demand. Questions flickered behind Mulder's eyes and were gone before he could voice them. He felt old emotions, like echoes from the past, and wondered if he had come here to kill Alex Krycek.

Krycek abruptly stepped back and nodded at him to take the wheel. Suddenly the Shadow was alive beneath Mulder's hands. It danced and jigged as he remembered the minute wheel adjustments to make use of every breath of wind and not collapse the sails. After a time of silent coaching, Krycek left him and went below. Mulder was left alone with the sea and the wind and the boat he piloted. There was no room for thought any more, just anticipation and reaction to wind and water.

Krycek came back on deck, balancing a plate with cheese sandwiches and a couple of beers tucked beneath his prosthetic arm. Mulder ate with one hand, automatically drinking whenever Alex passed him the bottle, his eyes on the tell-tales, the sails and the sea before them.

"Mulder, when was the last time you were outdoors?"

Startled out of his reverie, Mulder didn't understand the question at first.

Patiently, Alex said, "You're getting sunburnt. Here," he drew a tube from his pocket. Before Mulder was truly aware, Krycek was smoothing sunblock onto his face. His fingers were gentle and firm, moving briskly from nose to forehead to cheeks and back to Mulder's nose again. The cream was cool and soothing and Krycek's expression was abstract and just as cool, until he met Mulder's startled glance. Then he flushed a little and wiped his hand on his pants before stuffing the tube back into his pocket.

"Coming about," Mulder suggested a little maliciously to cover his own confusion. He turned the boat into the wind and watched as Alex leapt to release the starboard sheet, then begin hauling on the port sheet to bring the mainsail all the way around. Tacking was a difficult dance for two crewmen, let alone for a one-armed man; Krycek has been jibing most of the afternoon, a more elegant process that didn't require the sort of athleticism that Mulder had just put him through. His green glare back in Mulder's direction was eloquent and promised fitting retribution in some not too distant time.

Suddenly apologetic for his mischief, Mulder indicated that Krycek should come back and take the wheel again. He relinquished it cheerfully and sat beside Krycek, his feet up on the binnacle to keep him from sliding as the deck tilted. They were were traveling at a good clip, leaving a white wake behind them, a path that faded quickly into the secret green of the sea. Headed into the wind, the paradox was that they should be powered and driven on by the same force they were resisting. Hadn't that always been the heart of the mystery between them?

"I had to kill him before he told you everything, Mulder. If he had done that, you would have been dead before morning."

Krycek spoke abruptly, his eyes flickering between the tell-tales and the compass.

"I needed the truth then, Krycek!"

"Truth out of season can kill just as surely as a bullet, Mulder. Believe me, it would have then. If I hadn't been able to report that Bill Mulder had told you nothing before he died, you would have been disposed of, with or without the Smoker's patronage."

"He was my father!"

"He wanted to confess and be absolved. You were a handy receptacle for that guilt and it would have killed you," Krycek said fiercely.

Mulder took a deep breath, trying to absorb what he had been told. "He was my father," he repeated quietly.

"I know. I'm sorry."

And the odd thing was, Mulder believed him. He believed that Alex Krycek was sorry. How strange.

"Jibe-ho," Krycek said softly, and turned the wheel. Mulder, lost in thought, watched the boom slam over to the other side, and absently admired the sails in their new configuration, catching the late afternoon gold of the sun. Was his mind being changed as easily and abruptly, the old hatreds and angers turning to something easier, more peaceful? He trimmed a sheet automatically, then asked, "How did you get out of the silo? I never thought to ask."

Krycek shivered once, a long rippling motion that coursed through his body. "The alien. When it left, I guess it felt... obliged. It dropped me on the ground outside."

"And the militia?"

"A way to hide out. I was using them to make strikes against Consortium projects and interests. FEMA offices and the like."

The coastline became visible on the horizon, they were heading back toward land. At Mulder's raised eyebrow, Alex said, "We're expecting a front later this afternoon. I'd rather be in the harbor when it hits."

"Your arm?" Mulder asked suddenly.

"You know how that happened, Mulder," Krycek said shortly.

Mulder swallowed, remembering a butcher's knife in the firelight. "They knew you there, in Tunguska."

Krycek sighed. "That was one of the Resistance testing centers for the vaccine. I was assigned there. That night we spent in the cell, they were trying to figure out how much to tell you. I wanted you brought in on the plan, to help us but my superiors weren't convinced. Then, when you made a break for it... you know the rest."

Suddenly, Mulder was tired of truths and answers. A cosmic joke -- here he sat with the one man who could fill in the last puzzle pieces for him and he no longer wanted to know. He just wanted to run before the wind, a simple forward motion, in harmony with the world and its forces.

"I'm sorry," he said, unconsciously mimicking earlier Krycek's words.

He watched with fascination as Krycek's remaining hand tightened on the wheel, knuckles going bloodless and pale. After a time, Krycek said only, "I know," and Mulder felt the cool touch of forgiveness, like mist in the morning.

The rest of the journey back to the Shadow's mooring in the inner harbor was silent, save for Alex's courteously worded commands regarding sheets and winches. They had plenty of company coming back in and Alex furled the sails and switched to the motor not long after entering the harbor. The sun had been steadily paling, despite the lengthening afternoon. As he was drawing up the mooring line with the boat hook, Mulder realized that everything ought to have been touched with gold and yet all the colors seemed to be draining away. The hum of the motor died and every other noise suddenly seemed muffled and unlikely.

"Mulder," Alex said, calling his attention, then pointing to the east side of the harbor.

At first, it looked like smoke, pouring steadily out of some disaster. Then he realized that it wasn't rising like smoke, but slowly rolling and curvetting along the the cliff and then spilling over and down until it met the water. Looking to the southeast, Mulder could see the wall of fog moving in off the Atlantic, only briefly foiled by the peninsula that made up the eastern edge of the harbor and the town. He realized that he could now hear the distant lonely moans of fog horns from vessels already mantled in sightless, dangerous peace.

The two men stood and watched the fog as it slowly surged through the gap in the mansions and filled up the harbor. They could no longer see either shore and most of the neighboring boats were paling and bleeding away from their sight as the fog thickened. Squawks and screeches from nearby air horns proclaimed that many sailors had decided to give it up and were calling for pick up.

There was the growl of an engine and the MYC launch slipped out of the mist. Jack pulled alongside, his launch half-full.

"Alex -- I thought I saw you coming back in. You want a pick up?"

Krycek considered for a moment. "You hungry?" he asked Mulder.

"Yes," Mulder answered and was surprised to discover that he was.

"Can you swing back here in ten minutes, Jack?" Alex smiled and waved his hand at the uncovered sails and all the other minute details that need to be seen to before a boat can be left.

"No problem -- but I have a pickup right off Fort Sewall in twenty minutes. That means you'll be taking a ride with me."

"You're the only one I'd trust, Jack," Alex promised with a wink, then pushed the bow of the launch away from the Shadow.

"See you in ten." With a whiteflash grin and a purr of diesel engine, the launch driver was gone.

Yanking the sail cover out of its locker, Mulder found himself annoyed at Krycek, but more at Jack. Why? He pondered as he and Alex silently and efficiently laced the canvas cover back onto the boom to protect the mainsail. Krycek closed the main hatch and slipped a padlock through the hasp. He had been easy and familiar with the man, in a way that he and Mulder never had, not even when they were ersatz partners. Mulder found himself envying that as he wandered forward, kicking bumpers over the side to protect against scraping.

He stopped and stood amidships, one hand on the thick cable sidestay that helped hold the mast, looking back at Krycek in the cockpit. Who became aware of his silence and stillness and turned to look back at him. He shivered as the chill dampness of the fog seeped into his awareness along with the hum of the returning launch.

"Come on, Mulder, you'll feel better once we get something to eat."

"Will you?" The words spilled out before he knew they existed.

Alex Krycek smiled faintly. "Anything is possible."

The launch was empty save for the three of them. Mulder sat in the stern again and watched Alex as he stood chatting with the launch driver. They moved slowly, carefully past fog-shrouded boats, their shapes nebulous and uncertain in the premature dusk. Colors and sounds had lost their powers, now there was only a sense of immanence to define the world around him. His head felt very clear suddenly. His thoughts were sharp and bright as they hadn't been in years. A channel marker bell rang out somewhere to the starboard, a single clear tone marking their passage.

It was growing cooler as the clammy fog wrapped itself about them. He watched as Alex slipped into the leather jacket he had bundled under his arm as they left the Shadow. With a start, Mulder realized that he recognized it, the relic of another era. It made Krycek dangerous and remote again, until he turned and looked back at Mulder, a small self-conscious smile on his lips. Mulder shook his head in amused disbelief -- Alex Krycek was sentimental. Then it struck Mulder as painfully funny that the two of them should be feeling maudlin over Krycek's uniform of those last horribly shadowed years. Perhaps he himself should have worn one of the suits he had always managed to destroy in fieldwork? Something in his quirked lips communicated itself to Krycek and a slow grin twisted onto his face and Mulder knew that Krycek understood his thoughts very well. The channel bell rang out again, from behind them this time.

Dinner was quiet and pleasant, nearly surreal in its very normalcy. The restaurant was a glass room hanging out over the water, just off the public landing. It was filled with happy couples and families all smiling at one another over candle-lit tables which were too small for strangers. The sun had set, unnoticed, merely deepening the gloom until the fog took on the orangeish hue of the sodium streetlights.

Mulder watched Krycek, absently noting his dexterity with his utensils. Krycek had always been skilled at adaptation; it was his one true ability. Like Mulder, he had been caught in a web far too tightly woven for escape. And, like Mulder, he had refused his assigned part as sacrificial pawn, thrashing and fighting until he had won a way out of the net. But the cost....

Looking up from his plate, Krycek had caught Mulder's fixed stare. "What?" he asked, laying down his fork.

"Why did you come to my place the day after you shot my father?"

"Would you believe it was to tell you that you weren't safe there?" Krycek's lips twisted in a rueful grin. "I'd heard about the scene with Skinner and figured they were setting you up to take the blame for your father... I just wasn't sure what the setup was."

"And I beat the shit out of you," Mulder's expression was a mirror of Krycek's, two men remembering mortal sins that had faded to peccadilloes with the passage of time, washed away by so much more terror and pain.

"Jesus -- another few years and we'll be feeling sentimental over Tunguska," Krycek murmured.

"I don't think so," Mulder said flatly. Krycek shrugged and signaled for the check.

They walked through the narrow empty streets of the fog-muffled town. The houses were set right against the sidewalk; in many places, there was no sidewalk, no margin of safety for the traveler. Some of the street-level windows were lit and the curtains not drawn. Mulder glanced at the scenes of domestic peace, seeing but not quite believing in the firelight and leather furniture, children playing with pets, a single woman reading a book in the glow of a lamp. It was a world he had once thought he belonged to and one he knew he would never fit into now. He was no more than a visitor, an observer, forever set apart by his memories and his deeds and the knowledge that pulsed in his veins. A great sadness rose up in him and he turned to say something, anything to Krycek -- he wanted to shout, to attack, to be battered -- anything to let him deny himself this last truth.

He saw that knowledge rooted firmly in Krycek's eyes. Krycek, who had always been the mirror he tried to smash, waited for him to act. The fog echoed with his suddenly harsh breathing as they stood in the middle of an empty street, houses crowding them, hemming them in with unachievable domesticity. The clock in the town hall struck the hour and Krycek waited. When the long, slow tolling was done, Mulder said, "You thought I would kill you."

Krycek nodded, eyes dark in the orange mist.

Mulder, trying to understand, said, "You invited me up here thinking I would kill you."

Krycek nodded again, patiently waiting for Mulder to arrive at the point.

"Do you want to die?" Mulder asked curiously.

Krycek shrugged. "I want it to be over. I told you that -- I'm tired. Tired of my memories, tired of waiting for you to shove a gun in my ribs, tired of.... I'm just tired, Mulder."

"Me, too."

After a long moment, they started walking again. Shortly Mulder recognized the street he had parked his car on. The yacht club building was dark before them. They stopped again, standing in the empty parking lot, listening to the waves lapping at the pilings below.

Once again, Krycek waited for him to arrive at some point of decision; Krycek waited for him to choose the next moment for them both. The wheel was in his hands again. The power exhilarated and frightened him in equal measure and Mulder realized it was the first strong emotion he'd felt in nearly a year.

"It's over."

He'd shocked Krycek, he could tell. A demon child's grin of mischief cut his face as he watched Krycek's mouth hang open.

"Just like that?!"

"Anything that happens from now on is something new," he clarified and felt a flicker of delight as he watched the universe shift and reshape itself in Krycek's eyes. He wasn't above feeling triumph at finally disconcerting Alex Krycek by doing something unexpected. By his own personal count, it would take at least five years of steadily unanticipated behavior on his own part before the scales of confusion were balanced between them.

"It can't be that easy, Mulder."

The darkness flickered. "You call the last ten years easy, Krycek? It wasn't; it isn't. But it is over. Maybe the hardest part comes now. Learning to just live again."

"I...," Krycek started, then stopped. He looked carefully at Mulder, then stepped closer. "Everything that happens now is new?" he asked. At Mulder's nod, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he looked directly into Mulder's eyes, leaned forward and kissed him. His lips moved chastely across Mulder's, soft and warm, undemanding. In keeping with what he recognized was to become his new hobby, Mulder surprised Alex Krycek, his tongue slipping out to lick at the other man's lips, teasing its way inside. There was a small, muffled noise and Krycek's hand found its way to Mulder's shoulder, pulling him closer.

When they broke, foreheads resting against one another as they panted, Krycek whispered, "What do you want, Mulder?"

Mulder only smiled, kissed his cheek and stepped away. His hand tugged at Alex's sleeve, drawing him toward the yacht club's door. When Krycek's hand fumbled the keys, Mulder smiled and took the ring and opened the door. He followed Krycek through the dimly-lit building out along the pier and down to the float. Jack was sitting in the launch, reading a paperback with a small penlight.

"Ready to go back?" he asked them genially.

Alex looked at Mulder, bewildered and hopeful, still not believing in the newness of time. "Not back," he murmured.

Mulder nodded and climbed into the launch, settling back into his now-familiar seat in the stern as Jack took them out into the harbor. As before, Krycek stood beside the launch driver but his eyes were fixed on Mulder. There was a hint of the green youth Alex Krycek had once been, when hope and the future had not yet become strangers and Mulder felt some germ of his younger self awaken from his long sleep and reach out toward Alex.

They reached the Shadow and Krycek bid Jack farewell absently, gaze still locked on Mulder. The fog still swirled around them; a foghorn called softly in the darkness and the water whispered against the hull as they stood on deck.

"Fox."

"Alex."

They smiled at one another, the newness intoxicating. "Where do we go from here?"

"Bermuda? Bar Harbor? Newfoundland?"

"What about the FBI?"

"I think I just resigned." Mulder had to laugh at Krycek's expression.

"No half-measures, huh? OK. We can be out of here in the morning. Is there anyone else you need to finish up with? Scully?"

Mulder frowned, already thinking ahead to that conversation. "Yeah, eventually. She and Walter are going to be a bit... disconcerted."

"Homicidal," Alex suggested.

Mulder shrugged. "They'll understand. Eventually. We all have to find our own peace somewhere."

Alex blinked. Then his eyes met Mulder's and there was a flash of lunatic laughter in them.

"I know. It's crazy. Tell me something I don't know," Mulder mock-grumbled.

"I'm an insomniac, I cook well, I have bank accounts scattered on three continents and I'm just as crazy as you," Alex offered, reaching for him.

It as as much of a declaration as either man was ever likely to get. But in the long beats and reaches between ports, there was no need for words. The nights spoke in gentle touches and desperate embraces. The long silences between them were alive with truths and knowing and answers unspoken.

Peace, as such.

end

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