Truth

An old enemy takes on an eerie sort of familiarity after awhile. Like family that you see every holiday although you never really liked each other. There are certain references you feel comfortable making with them that other people wouldn't understand, a kind of shared reality. It's not something you want to feel, or believe is necessarily safe for you to feel. But you just trust them in a weird way. As if you know them and what their range of motion is. I hate to admit that when I see Krycek again it's a little like running into an old school friend. One who stole my girlfriend or pissed on my couch drunk but still somebody who was there during some of the formative phases of my life.I hate to admit it, but it's the truth.

That's right. The Truth. My creed, my mission in life. If Scully heard me say that, I know she'd quirk one of those limber eyebrows at me and refuse to smile. The Truth: finding it, exposing it, understanding it, railing at it. Krycek is one means of doing these things. He lies and lies, but he is closer to knowing the Truth as it pertains to Samantha, the alien invasion, Scully's abduction- I could go on and on- than I may ever be. There's no justice in it, but there it is. Cold, hard fact. I really hate the bastard. I wish I could just beat the facts out of him, but it doesn't work.

This meeting is puzzling; well, even more so than usual. He asked me to meet him in a bar, of all places. We sit here, sipping lagers as if we have nothing to hide, no felons to avoid. He seems unusually relaxed. Smug, even. Not that smugness is a new look for him. When I question him about it, he smirks at me in that annoying way of his and mumbles something about having moved up in the world. He says he is no longer wanted by the authorities due to some (and here the smirk almost becomes a grin) Federal Protection. I wonder what the Hell he's talking about, and it makes me uneasy. I don't ask, though. He's too happy with himself as it is.

Now, I believe that the Truth about Alex Krycek is that he is a slimy rodent who would break any ethical rule in any book to protect himself or further his own ends. I also rarely have the opportunity to talk to someone who knows the things I know. Except Scully, of course, and she refuses to believe in anything that breaks Scully's Rules of Scientific Order. I therefore can't resist taking advantage of the company in order to discuss the fate of the world now that colonization plans have gone awry. And I have to admit it is a pleasure to talk about it. We talk for some time in this vein, without either of us admitting everything we know. Even while I'm enjoying the conversation, though, I realize Krycek is dangerous and untrustworthy and I must limit my time in his company.

So, in spite of the weird sense of camaraderie I'm experiencing, I try to force him to the point. He grows strangely serious and meets my eyes fully, something he usually only does when he's about to tell me the Martians are coming or when I'm beating the shit out of him. And then he blows me completely out of the water by saying that he's worried about Scully. Scully! Like he of all people on the planet would care or have a right to comment if he did. The guy who helped mastermind her abduction! OK, so he's been working with us since just after the defeat of the original Consortium. OK, so he and Scully seem more able to interact professionally with each other than I would have expected. But worried! Smug bastard.

He looks at me and tells me, right to my face, that Scully isn't sleeping well. I stare at him. How the Hell does he know that? He shrugs and admits that he's seen surveillance tapes. At this point I refrain from strangling him by sheer force of will. If I wait, he'll start to tell me more of his own accord. I can always strangle him later. He goes on, describing how Scully isn't eating well, Scully stays up half the night on paperwork, Scully... at this point I ask him what is his fucking deal. Straight faced, he tells me I need to get laid. By Scully.

I admit it. It's the Truth. I know it, I see it, but I'm still going to pound his face into the sidewalk for saying it. Over the head of the bouncer who pulls me off of him and holds me back as I try to go for him again, I hear him telling me other things I know are True. Scully is a beautiful, sensuous woman. Scully needs a man in her life. Scully needs a home and family of her own. I'm not good enough for Scully, but I'm obviously the one she wants.

I break free of the bouncer. I break Krycek's nose. And then something terrible and confusing happens. He breaks /my/ nose. The shock of it, that after all this time he is actually fighting back, is more stunning than the pain. I sit on my floor in the bar with people staring and a woman holding a cloth to my bleeding face while Krycek calms the bouncer and the bartender and pulls a huge wad of money out of his wallet to soothe their frazzled nerves. His face is covered with gore but his smile is calm and ironic. He opens his big eyes wide and bats his lashes at the bouncer, who is clearly gay by the way he is almost lapping up Krycek's "explanation". Fucking pretty boy Krycek.

The woman who is trying to help me squeals unpleasantly when I shove her out of the way and bolt outside. I think I am in shock. I am not surprised to see my nemesis coming through the door after me, face tense and wary, one arm (his ONLY arm, hah!) extended in a warning way. When I ask what he wants from me, he hesitates, but only for a moment. Then he blows my mind again by apologizing for my nose. "You should see your own" I tell him, surprised into speech. That ironic grin again. I still hate him, but I think I am done hitting him.

He asks me if we can talk a little bit more before he splits. I am wary, but suddenly very tired and my nose hurts. I agree and we walk slowly to another bar half a block away. That weird feeling of camaraderie comes over me again. It's like being in one of those movies where two boys in school become friends after beating the shit out of each other. Not that Alex Krycek and I will EVER be friends. But still.

We don't say much until we are seated in a booth at Red's Rock Cavern (red vinyl and pink neon; Scully would die before being seen here) with shot glasses in front of us. Finally I look at him and ask what he wants to talk about. He waggles his eyebrows in this geeky way and tells me to geuss. I tell him my sex life is off-limits and he tells me in this serious tone that he was talking about Scully's love life. My jaw clenches in warning and he stares at me intensely, leaning across the table in a confrontive manner. I sigh and sit back, leaving the floor open for him, mumbling something like "fine, whatever, blather away".

Then for the third time that night Alex Krycek blows my fucking brain out of the water. The cold hard son-of-a-bitch assassin who I believe blew my father's brains out tells me that he is in love with Dana Scully. That he is in love with her but he's prepared to do the honorable thing and help her find love with the man she has chosen for herself. I gape a bit. I probably look a lot like one of my fish does when I go out of town and forget to feed it. I take a drink of my whiskey, probably too quickly because I am soon coughing it all over the table. He sits back watching me, looking a bit amused and a bit disgusted but mostly deadly serious.

Finally I get myself under control. I am staring at him again and my throat burns, my nose hurts, and I cannot believe this is happening. Krycek is trying to play matchmaker to me and Scully. I should just laugh but I can't. Like I said, I have spent my entire adult life staking everything on my instinct for the Truth. I know it is staring me in my abused face right now. Extreme possibilities indeed.

He goes on, taking my stunned silence for invitation. He tells me he knows that I love her. He says he realizes that I don't believe I am good enough for her and that this has held me back. But, he urges me, (is this really happening?), I am making her far more unhappy by rejecting her than I could by reciprocating her devotion. She is an adult, he argues, and if I truly respect her I will know she can make her own decision about a mate and be trusted to know what she needs.

Our conversation(?) doesn't progress far after this. I am too shell- shocked and he looks too irritated with me. He attempts to cut through my silence and get me to talk about whether I am aware of my own feelings for Dana (he calls her /Dana/; gag) or have sublimated them. I laugh weakly and tell him I can't process all he has said already, to just shut up for once. He tells me I need to take action, that she is lonely and needs someone to be there for her in a deeper way emotionally and physically. He tells me she is crazy about me and is just waiting for me to take the lead to move our relationship to the next level. I am silent through all of this, but when he tells me I should ask her to marry me I stand up quickly, knocking over my chair. "This is too much for me" I tell him and bolt before he can add any more.

He does not follow me and I walk home alone through the dark streets. It is going to take some time for me to process the events of this evening. As I consider all that occurred, one glaring unfairness dominates my mind. If I believed in God, I would rail at It and demand an answer. I follow leads wherever they take me. I stare facts in the face that the rest of the human race would quail at knowing. I never flinch from cold hard reality. I am willing to believe.

Why do my enemies always have to be the ones who have access to the Truth?