"Hey, mister, you okay? Holy shit, he hit that hard!"
"I'll call 911, jesusgod he's bleedin' all over the place-"
"I wonder if he's dead? I think he's dead!"
"Sure as hell ain't movin'!"
The two men in the long dark coats saw the small knot of street people
gathering around the inert form of their prey, and blended into the
blackness. They would find him again. Now was not the right time.
His sense of timing was fortuitous. He came muzzily awake as the paramedics
were tending to him.
"Sir? Can you tell us your name, sir?"
Right. No id. SOP for a man on the run. His thoughts were fuzzy, but some
flickering sense of self preservation reminded him that he couldn't use his
own name. Couldn't risk them finding him.
"Mulder." His vision was clearing, but he had an hellacious headache. Had to
get away, had to get away, mustn't get caught... with a sudden jerk, he
raised his hand to stop the paramedic from lifting him to the stretcher and
taking him to the waiting ambulance. He rolled swiftly away and to his feet,
and the paramedic grasped his upper arm to steady him. "No. No hospitals."
"Sir, you've taken a severe blow to the head, we have no way of telling how
badly you've been in-"
"No!" With a nearly inarticulate growl, he shoved the man violently away
from him and began to run, ignoring the pounding in his head and the
concerned shouts echoing in the alleyway behind him. Quicker than any of the
witnesses would have expected from an injured man, he twisted between the
buildings and dove down the stairwell of a nearby train station. He
disappeared before the stunned onlookers could react.
No one bothered him on the train. He must have looked as bad as he felt.
Blood matted the thick, soft hair at the side of his head, and his vision
was fading in and out. He had to find a bolthole, but he couldn't remember
where he should go. He knew a place, but it wasn't safe. Forcing himself to
concentrate, another address wavered into his grasping mind, and he held to
it. They'd never think to look for him there. He didn't know why, because
right at the moment he didn't know who was after him, couldn't remember why
he was running, but he knew this other place would be safe.
Swaying off the train, he slipped into the crowd at the station, using the
walls for balance, moving with singleminded determination toward his
destination. He could rest when he got there. Not before.
The pain just got worse as he made his way, using some sort of instinct he
hadn't known he possessed, through the darkening streets to his safe place.
He fumbled with the side door, rested along the way, tried to catch his
breath and his bearings, forced himself to ignore the increasing
unsteadiness of his sight and the pounding in his head. He stopped at the
door, stared with fierce concentration at the 42 hanging there on the
painted wood. Then he realized, along with no wallet, he had no keys.
Falling back on that instinct for survival, his right hand shakily extracted
a compact black leather case from his hip pocket. Selecting a slender pick
by touch, since his vision was almost completely obscured now, he slipped it
into the door and let muscle memory lead his fingers through the necessary
motions. With a nearly silent snick, the knob turned, and he pushed it
carefully open. He couldn't think why, but somehow he knew that caution was
needed here. Safe, yet not safe.
The apartment was dark, and quiet, only the gurgling fish tank breaking the
stillness. He tried to walk across the floor toward the couch, but found
that his legs had turned liquid, and he sank to his knees. The picks fell
from his hand to scatter on the scruffy carpet, and he reached out to break
the fall he could feel coming. The hand landed against the side of the worn
couch, and his head came to rest there a moment later. He was already
unconscious.
"Ah, c'mon, Scully, it's not that bad. I did clean the apartment last Labor
day, after-" He broke off abruptly as he noticed that his apartment door was
open a crack. With a quick hand motion, he signaled his partner. She drew
her weapon and took up a defensive stance at one side of the door, as he
stood poised for entry at the other side. Unspoken signals flowed between
the two, a silent countdown, then they came in with one movement, he high,
she low. Nothing.
"Owch!"
He was at her side immediately, holding her hand to the light, examining the
small puncture wound on the side of her palm where she had rested it against
the carpet. Looking down, they saw the scattered tools, slivers of silver in
the dim light. Following the trail, guns at the ready, they came further
into the room, checking at the sight of the dark mass slumped motionless
against the front of the couch.
Scully flicked the lights on as Mulder came fully into the room, bending to
push the supine body onto it's back. The head lolled freely, and Mulder drew
in a breath, shocked at both the identity of his uninvited caller and the
trail of blood moving sluggishly down the side of his face to soak into the
soft material where he had been laying.
"Who is it?" Concern colored Scully's voice as she moved to stand next to
her partner. "Oh!" The concern was tempered now with disgust and disdain.
Mulder knelt beside the unconscious man, taking his pulse, feeling the
clammy skin of his forehead. Scully set her emotions aside for the moment
and ran a professional eye over Krycek. He didn't look good at all. She
managed to quash the uncharitable thought that it wouldn't be much of a loss
if he just died, and tried not to think about the fact that the only reason
she could think of to wish him to live was that getting rid of the body
might prove inconvenient.
"Get me two wet cloths, please, Mulder. One warm and one cold."
He looked askance at her. "Shouldn't we get him to a hospital?"
"Maybe later," she replied, taking off her coat and bending to examine
Krycek more thoroughly. "I'd like to avoid that if possible. Knowing your
past history with him, we might have a hard time explaining this to the
police."
He rummaged in the bathroom for a moment before returning to her with the
washcloths. She took the cold one and gestured to Krycek. Mulder began to
gently wipe the blood from his face with the warm one. Scully carefully laid
the cold cloth over Krycek's forehead.
"But you could alibi me, Scully," he smiled winningly at her, and she
ignored him. "How about we dump him at an emergency room and leave before
they can get our number?"
Actually, she mused, that plan had possibilities. Before she could respond,
Krycek gave a soft moan, and Mulder stopped his ministrations to peer
closely at his pale face. Krycek's eyes opened slowly, painfully, and he
stared at Mulder wide-eyed. Scully took a small pen light from her pocket
and grasped Krycek's chin, pulling his face around to her view with
surprising gentleness. He didn't seem to want to look away from Mulder, but
the sharp light distracted him, and he winced.
"Well, concussion, certainly. He'd do well with x-rays to see if he has a
skull fracture."
"No!" His voice was rusty-sounding, but the panic was evident. "Please! No
hospitals." He tried to push himself away from them, but only fell weakly
against the couch. The partners exchanged glances.
"He sounds like you, Mulder," Scully commented dryly. Mulder curled his lip
in response, but was distracted by Krycek, who put his hand out to rest it
lightly against Mulder's chest.
"You're Mulder?" The name rang bells, but he couldn't remember why.
"Don't be a moron, of course I am," Mulder growled testily, snorting
slightly in disgust. Scully narrowed her eyes to glare distrustfully at
Krycek, but he didn't seem to notice. "Something wrong with your eyes?"
"I'm safe here." The nonsequitur prompted another exchange of glances
between Mulder and Scully.
"Look, we have a truce, but that doesn't mean my apartment suddenly becomes
your safe house, Krycek." Mulder's face was carefully expressionless, but
his voice was far from welcoming. Scully watched the two men closely and
wondered, for the umpteenth time, what had happened between the two of them
when Krycek had kidnapped Mulder and used him as a bargaining chip to strike
this shaky truce. The dynamics between them were changed, somehow, but she
couldn't quite figure out how. Before she could get very far into that train
of thought, Krycek startled both of them by reaching out and tracing the
side of Mulder's cheek with the back of his index finger. Mulder reared
back, staring at him with an indecipherable look crossing his features.
"Who's Krycek?" Alex Krycek asked in a perfectly reasonable tone.
Mulder laughed, a short, sharp bark that wasn't very amused. Scully didn't.
Alex looked from one to the other with an innocent, vaguely confused look on
his face. Mulder noticed that Scully wasn't laughing, and scowled at her.
"Please don't tell me you think he doesn't know who he is." Mulder's tone
was skeptical.
"I'm Krycek?" Alex sounded more confused, and slightly frightened.
"Maybe he doesn't." Scully ran her fingers gently over the lump on the side
of Krycek's head, and he yelped in pain and tried to draw back. The color
drained completely from his face and he swayed. Mulder instinctively reached
forward to steady him, and Krycek leaned trustingly up against him. "One
thing is certain. He's not acting like himself."
Mulder stared at the man snuggled into his shoulder and had to agree with
her. "Uhm, maybe the hospital after all?"
At that, Krycek sat as close to upright as he could, and tried to scoot
away. "No, uh-uh, no way." He lifted a shaky hand up to his face, and moaned
softly. "Must've been some kind'f tequila."
Mulder laid a hand on his shoulder to stop the swaying that was making him
slightly seasick, and turned to his partner. "Okay, Doctor Scully. Your
call."
"I think we need to visit my friend Marsha." Both men stared at her, one
much more focused than the other. "She has a private clinic. With an xray
machine and a CT scanner. He needs skull xrays and a brain scan."
Mulder nodded, and Krycek tried to shrug, but the movement send him
sideways. With another soft moan he buried his face in Mulder's shoulder,
burrowing like a child into the big warm body holding him upright. Mulder
stiffened, looking at Scully for help. She shook her head, then reached for
Krycek's right arm and motioned for Mulder to help her.
"Come on, let's get him moving." Krycek lifted his head woozily to frown at
her, and she found herself reassuring him. "I have a key to the back
entrance. I don't want to be associated with you any more than you want to
be seen with us."
They wrestled Krycek none too gently down the elevator and into Mulder's
car, thankful that the neighbors were elsewhere or otherwise occupied. When
he was finally settled, Scully took the keys and headed for the small
clinic. Mulder turned half sideways in his seat and watched their passenger,
not that he would be making any sudden moves. Krycek's head was resting
against the back of the seat, his eyes half open, a very puzzled look on his
face. As his eyes met Mulder's, the agent was shocked to see something that
looked like hurt feelings in them. Krycek murmured something, and Mulder
leaned over the seat to catch the words.
"Don't you like me?" A plaintive little cry. Mulder looked at him as if he'd
lost his mind, and turned to the front abruptly.
"A brain scan is probably a good idea, Scully." She threw him a questioning
look and he jerked his head toward the back seat. "I think his brain is
scrambled."
Scully had her back to him, conferring with the tall, slender blonde woman
who had then poked and prodded and clicked away at him for the nearly an
hour. He couldn't believe how still he'd had to lay for the cat scan, or
MRI, or whatever the hell it was they'd called it. He also didn't know where
Mulder was, and for some reason that was making him anxious.
"Mulder?" His voice sounded weak. He frowned. He wasn't weak. He didn't know
much about himself, but he knew he wasn't weak. His train of thought, such
as it was, was interrupted by the lanky agent's entrance. He grinned with
relief, and Mulder looked at him distrustfully. The grin faded slightly, but
the relief remained.
"Hi." Softly. Glad he was back. "Where've you been?"
"Checking your backtrail." Krycek raised one brow inquisitively, then winced
at the pain in his scalp. "I wanted to make sure you hadn't brought any
unwanted company. So," he continued, inclining his head toward the two women
studying the xrays on a lighted screen, "What's the verdict?"
"I dunno. They're not talking to me." <but maybe they'll talk to you> He
didn't know why Scully hated him so much, but she made it pretty obvious
that she did.
"Scully?" She broke off her conversation, and she and Marsha turned to the
waiting men. "How's he doing?"
"Looks like a simple skull fracture, Mulder," Scully informed him, ignoring
the whistling breath Krycek took in at the news. "No complications that we
can find. The MRI showed no significant soft tissue injury, and there were
no signs of epidural or subdural bleeding. Possible bruising."
"He should be in a hospital for observation," Marsha interjected.
"No!" exploded from Alex. "No hospitals!" Mulder reached down and laid a
restraining hand on his shoulder.
"How long does he need to be, uhm, observed?" Mulder didn't sound happy, but
at least he wasn't advocating hospitalization.
"Twelve to twenty four hours." Scully's voice was pensive. "You know, we may
be able to pull this off."
"Pull what off, Scully?" Now Mulder was edging toward distrustful with his
partner, too. He didn't like the speculative gleam in her big blue eyes.
"We just wrapped the Kolsack case, Mulder. All that's left is some
paperwork. Skinner won't mind if we take a little time off and recuperate.
We both have plenty of accrued vacation time."
"And do what?" Outright suspicion now.
"Watch over him."
"Why?" Mulder sounded almost angry. Krycek's looked from one to the other,
Marsha forgotten on the sidelines, feeling like a spectator at a tennis
match. "Why can't we just take him to the hospital and dump him there?"
"Hey." Alex felt the need to protest, but neither partner was paying any
attention to him, so he subsided and watched the rest of the argument with
interest.
"Because he wouldn't be safe." Krycek's ears perked up at this. Maybe she'd
say something that would tell him why he was running like a buck in hunting
season.
"Why the hell not?" Mulder sounded genuinely puzzled now. "You don't
honestly buy this amnesia story, do you?"
"Actually, yes." She glanced at Marsha, who nodded her agreement. "The
diagnosis is retrograde amnesia, extending for some period before the onset
of the injury. We won't know until we talk to him just how far back it goes
and how comprehensive it is. He has the other symptoms of severe concussion
as well, the dizziness, blurred vision," she paused and looked at the wide
green eyes staring at her guilelessly through a thicket of black lashes.
"Confusion," she finished dryly.
"And how long will this last?" Mulder asked reluctantly, sparing a glare for
the man lying between them. Krycek shivered. He'd like the answer to that
one himself.
"Well, the memory gap should shrink gradually over time. Depending on
related factors such as stress and his willingness to remember, he may never
remember everything. And if the symptoms persist, his recovery may be
delayed. Everyone's body reacts somewhat differently to an injury of this
nature." Marsha was sympathetic. He smiled at her in appreciation and she
colored slightly.
"So if we send him out like this," Mulder began and Scully finished "He'd be
a sitting duck."
Krycek gulped. Wrong game, but it was still hunting season. And he didn't
have a clue why, or who was behind the gun.
Using some sort of unspoken communication that Krycek couldn't decipher,
Scully and Mulder turned as one to the blonde doctor. "We'll be right back,
Marsha," Scully smiled. Marsha nodded in return, and turned back to her
xrays. Krycek watched her back for a moment, enjoying the hint of curves
barely visible under the long lab coat, then cleared his throat lightly.
"Thank you." A hint of shyness playing with the words.
She turned to him then, giving him a half smile and cocking her head in
question at him.
"For doing these tests and everything. I really didn't want to go to the
hospital." He gave her his very best smile. She almost visibly melted. The
effect should have surprised him but for some reason didn't.
"Why are you so afraid?" Her voice was gentle, and he started to reply
without thinking, then realized that something was holding him back. And it
wasn't just the lack of memory. He had been going to lie, as instinctively
and naturally as breathing, only he couldn't remember the truth that he was
trying to hide so he couldn't craft a logical lie. So he lay there, mouth
slightly agape, with an arrested expression in his eyes. She misread him
completely. "Well, I tried. Sometimes, if an amnesiac is asked normal
questions, he will reply without thinking, and memories might return that
way. I guess it's a little too soon for that. There's one thing you don't
want to do, though, and that's try to force it. Let it come back to you
naturally. Give yourself some time. A skull fracture is a serious injury."
He started to nod, and stopped at the shooting pain in his head. "No sharp
movements, either," she added with a sympathetic smile.
Mulder watched from the doorway as Krycek effortlessly charmed the doctor
and turned to Scully with a snort of disgust. "I suppose you want me to keep
him?" He made Krycek sound like an unwanted stray.
"Well, I have to finish up the autopsy paperwork from the Kolsack case, and
there are some details to straighten up with the lab... there's something
else, too."
He waited for a moment, and when she didn't finish, he prompted her gently,
"What's that?"
She took a deep breath. "He seems to respond better to you. This could be
our chance to learn what he knows. Maybe when he starts to remember you
could get some information from him on Cancerman."
"Pump him for information as he remembers it, hm?"
"You're the psychologist, Mulder. If anyone can help a man put his memories
back together it would be you. Just consider it a sort of profile. And if we
get something usable on Cancerman and his operation-"
"-so much the better. Okay, Scully, I'll do it." His face told her he
wouldn't like it.
"Mulder?" Her hand on his arm stopped him as he turned to rejoin Krycek and
Marsha in the exam room. "Is there... anything you want to talk about? From
when Krycek kidnapped you? I mean, I know he saved your life a few months
back, in the Markham case, but I don't know if-"
"No." The harsh word, coupled with the completely shuttered expression on
Mulder's face, stopped her words. But it was the mixture of pain and denial
in his eyes that made her drop her hand from his arm and allow the subject
to stay closed. He glanced at the man on the table and took a deep breath,
then re-entered the room. Krycek stopped mid-word in his flirtation with
Marsha and looked at Mulder with barely concealed anxiety.
"So, uhm, what now?"
"Now, we go home."
"Great. Where's home?" Alex's forced cheerful tone didn't quite hide the
fear.
"Mine." Mulder smiled sweetly at Marsha and she blushed even more deeply.
Unlike Krycek, he was completely unaware of the effect of his smile on the
lovely doctor. "Thank you for helping us out here, Marsha."
"Yes, thank you—I promise not to do this to you too often." Scully's wry
look sparked a chuckle from her friend.
"If you have any more patients who look like this one, feel free to call on
me any time." Krycek winked at her, and the chuckle escaped again. Then she
straightened her face and looked at him sternly. "Now follow Doctor Scully's
orders, and take it easy."
"Yes, ma'am," he deadpanned back at her, and she shook her head. Gathering
the xrays, she slid them into a folder and handed them to Scully.
"And I haven't seen any of you here tonight. Good luck," she added as she
shut the door quietly behind her.
Mulder and Scully looked at Krycek with calm determination. He felt like a
pinned bug under a microscope. "What?" he finally asked nervously.
"Might as well get this over with," Mulder sighed, and he moved forward to
help Krycek slide from the table. Alex swayed unsteadily, a soft moan
escaping from his lips as a wave of dizziness swept over him. Scully saw the
color drain from his face again and hurried to stand at his other side.
"We'll take it slow. Hang on, Krycek, this is not going to be pleasant."
No shit, he thought, but clenched his teeth against the comment. He
concentrated fiercely on putting one foot in front of the other, all the way
out to the car, then repeated the process up to Mulder's apartment. Their
luck held, and they made it back to the privacy of the dark rooms without
seeing any of his neighbors.
They settled Krycek into Mulder's bed, after digging it out from the pile of
folders, books, newspaper clippings and discarded clothing that had buried
it. He tried to relax enough to drift off to sleep, but he was incredibly
tense. He felt adrift, frightened more than he was willing to admit, and
incredibly alone. Concentrating the best he could through the pain in his
head, waiting for the medication to take effect and dull it at least a
little, he could just make out snippets of the conversation from the front
room.
"-should be finished about four... want me to bring anything by..."
"...call Dorothy in personnel... no problem with Skinner..."
"...should be able to do some of it on my laptop..."
"...helluva way to spend vacation..."
"...not that you'd do anything else..."
"...be careful..." Mulder to Scully. Had he somehow put them in danger by
coming here?
"...watch your back..." Scully to Mulder. From whom? Him? It seemed
right, yet somehow completely wrong.
He tried to empty his mind, the sound of the door closing registering but
not interrupting his efforts. He imagined himself floating, trying to relax,
trying to stop thinking, trying to get some rest. Eventually, some of the
stiffness eased from his back and shoulders, and he was able to slip into
sleep.
It had been an uneventful night, a rarity for Mulder and completely
unexpected given his unusual houseguest. But it wasn't his own nightmares
that awoke Mulder. It was Krycek's. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, pausing to
squint at the illuminated dial of his watch and wincing when he saw that it
was not quite four thirty in the morning, Mulder stumbled toward his bedroom
and leaned against the doorjamb, studying Alex's twisting form. Whatever he
was dreaming about, it was not pleasant. He shuffled into the room and
settled into the armchair, watching the muttering, sweating form on the bed
and patiently waiting for anything useful that he might let slip in his
sleep. His eyes were drawn along the solid lines of Krycek's body as he
tried to outrun whatever it was that was chasing him through his dreams. But
the slick skin, the bunching and relaxing muscles, and the half-opened mouth
and flushed cheeks brought back too many memories he was trying to suppress,
so he concentrated on listening, and forced himself to ignore the other
signals his body was sending to him. With a concerted effort, he leaned
forward, rested his forearms on his knees, and watched Krycek's face.
Deep behind a wall of pain, images were coming back. Unable to block them,
not understanding them or the undercurrents of terror and anger that
supported them, Krycek was tossed along the current of his memories. He
watched image after image flash in front of his mind's eye, and feared he
might drown.
A bathroom, cold, empty, a man's face in the mirror. Remnants of a smile
etched on the man's face as he reached for the gun at Krycek's waist. No
time to react, sound of a gunshot echoing through the house, grabbing his
gun back from the old man's hand, hearing a voice, Mulder? Was that Mulder?
He sounded wavery, uncertain. Not like his Mulder. Run. Run. Now. Get the
hell out of here, gonna be blamed for this one, he didn't see, did he? No
time. Run!
A small, barely furnished warehouse basement, just a chair, some wrought
iron railings, a chain. A camera. A syringe. Blood, and he didn't want to
hurt him. Just needed a breather, just needed them to stop chasing him, just
long enough to escape the Menace. A quick flick of a chain, and a burning
across his face, then anger, and sudden tenderness. Mulder's wrists under
his hands, stopping the blood, warming the cold skin. Fingers slowing,
breath quickening. A change from anger to a different kind of pain, and
closeness he had never expected. But his eyes. His eyes hated him, ice in
the hazel depths, yet another kind of pain to live through.
The top of a mountain. A small car, dangling from a cable. And a man,
slumping over a control panel. Quick, squeezing the trigger, then squeezing
his eyes shut against the sudden rush of nausea. Look out the window, over
at the car, anywhere but at the bits of brain matter and bone scattered
across the small working counter, oh god, Mulder again. Up on the car. Delay
him. Gotta stop him, didn't know why, shit, no one ever tells him anything
anyway. Gotta make sure he's too late. For something. Start the car, enough
time already, gotta run. Time's up, Fox, time's up, Alex, run! Run!
The thrashing finally woke him from his wash of memories, jolting his head
and wringing a cry of pain from his throat. He squinted into the darkness,
seeing a shape in the corner and reacting instinctively. The sheets were
thrown aside and he lunged at the shape, knocking it from the chair, turning
to run again. The shape moved, faster than he expected, and caught him in
the front room as he was heading for the door. In the shadowy light cast by
the muted television the shape defined itself as Mulder, holding his arms as
he swayed, glaring and smiling at him at the same time, an unusual
expression.
"Don't you think you should put on some clothes before you leave, Krycek?"
Alex looked down at the loose sweatpants barely held at his waist with a
drawstring, and remembered where he was. Safe. With Mulder. The adrenaline
surge receded, leaving him shaking. Mulder caught him as his legs gave out.
"Whoa. Are you okay?" Without waiting for an answer, he half led, half
carried him to the sofa and ungracefully dumped him in the corner. Settling
himself into the opposite corner, Mulder stared hard at Krycek. "What is it?
What did you remember?" Alex stared at him dumbly for a moment, and Mulder
continued more gently. There was something about that deer-in-the-headlights
look that made him want to be kind with the man, even though his mind wanted
him to shoot him. "If you talk about what you saw, maybe you can make some
sense of it, and remember a little more."
Krycek stared at him for a moment more, then hesitantly began to describe
his dreams. "They were just bits and pieces. I don't know what they meant."
"What did you see?" Calm, undemanding. Psychologist coming to the fore,
enemy retreating for the moment.
"A cabled car, leading up to a mountain. I think... you were on top of it?
But that doesn't make sense." Mulder grew still, but Krycek was wrapped in
his memories, and didn't notice. "And there was something I had to do, but I
didn't want to do it. I felt sick, sick to my stomach, and I had to run." He
paused, took a deep breath, and skipped the second disturbing dream
fragment, moving back to the first one, the one that he thought didn't
directly involve Mulder. "Then I was in a bathroom. Isn't that weird?"
Mulder could have been carved from stone at this point, but Krycek still
didn't notice. "There was an old man there. He was really shaky, looked like
he felt sick. I saw myself in the mirror when he opened the medicine
cabinet. I looked surprised. He wasn't supposed to see me! I was listening.
For something. I don't remember what. He saw me... and he smiled at me. Why
did he smile at me? I started to say something. He reached out, grabbed my
gun." Mulder jerked, and Krycek finally looked at him. The agent's eyes were
wide, staring at him with an eerie blankness, and he took a quick gasping
breath. "What? Mulder? You okay? What is it?"
Mulder shook his head, one sharp movement, and motioned for him to continue.
Keeping a wary eye on the other man, Krycek tried to remember what had
happened next. "Sounded really loud. I was panicking. That wasn't supposed
to happen. I was gonna get caught, then they'd kill me."
"Who?" The preternaturally calm voice directed Krycek but didn't distract
him from his thoughts.
"The Menace. I don't know. He frightens me." The fear in Krycek's voice was
real enough, but there was an undercurrent of anger as well, possibly
betrayal.
"What happened then, Alex?" the gentle, cool voice prodded.
"Grabbed my gun. I was going to be blamed, they were going to find me." His
voice had softened, the diction sharpening, every word clearly enunciated.
Something had gone badly wrong, and he didn't know what, but he remembered
the wrenching in his gut. "I heard a voice. It sounded like you, but not
like you, younger, somehow. The old man, he... he was smiling at me." He
shook himself slightly, the pain from his skull injury bringing him back to
himself, and he forced out the last bit he could remember. "Then I shimmied
through... a window? God, it was small, I was in a hurry and it seemed so
small." He stopped abruptly, and narrowed his eyes at Mulder. "Does any of
this make the slightest bit of sense to you?"
Mulder stared at him for a long, tense moment, then sighed. "Yeah," he
finally admitted, "but if I find out you've been bullshitting me I'll shoot
you myself, truce or no truce." He seemed more tired than angry to Alex,
though, tired and somehow sad.
Alex bit his lip lightly. He wasn't sure he wanted to bring up the last
memory he'd had, but he was afraid if he didn't it would drive him crazy.
After all, if they had been intimate, why would Mulder hate him so much?
"Uhm, Mulder?"
"What?" Not encouraging. He was distracted, by something. Alex took a deep
breath and plunged in.
"I had another memory." Shadowed hazel eyes swung over to meet his, and he
nearly lost his courage. But he had to know. "What are we? To each other, I
mean?"
"Enemies." Mulder's voice was implacable, but his eyes were too carefully
blank. He was hiding something, and Krycek knew it had to be about him.
"But were we ever anything else?"
"Partners, once, for a short period of time." Krycek perked up at this, but
Mulder's next words caused his eyes to go wide and his breath to catch in
his throat. "Until you betrayed me and nearly got Scully killed."
"How?" A strangled whisper.
Mulder paused and stared at him, then shook his head. "You have to remember
on your own, Krycek. What else was it in your dream? What prompted all these
questions?"
Alex didn't answer him in words. He reached over between them to where
Mulder's hand rested on the cushions of the couch. Lifting it, he softly ran
one fingertip across the thin white scars ringing Mulder's wrist. "This."
Taking advantage of Mulder's apparent shock and frozen stance, he reached
across with his free hand and ran the pad of his index finger along the
curve of Mulder's cheek, following the angle of the bone to come to rest
lightly on his full lower lip. "And this."
Mulder's hand clenched into a fist in his light grip, and he slowly,
determinedly pulled his head back from Krycek's touch. "You had to have a
truce, Krycek. You used me for bait. We made a deal. Anything else... was a
nightmare."
Alex knew that Mulder was lying, but there was enough truth in his words to
make him wonder. Whatever their relationship was, it was too complex for him
to understand without access to his own memories. Suddenly tired, he dropped
Mulder's wrist and pushed himself shakily up from the couch.
"Whatever your reasons, Mulder, thank you for letting me stay here." His
tone was completely sincere. Mulder pursed his lips and made a noncommittal
sound. As Krycek wandered back to bed, he thought he heard Mulder mutter,
"...sending a lamb to slaughter. A lamb with fangs." For some reason the
imagery made him smile, and he slept until morning, undisturbed by further
dreams.
Five days had passed, and the nightmares, or memories, or dreams, or
whatever one wanted to call them, had continued. The dizziness was almost
gone, popping up at odd moments when he least expected it. The headache had
dulled to a background roar, unless he got tired or stressed. He was
surprised that he hadn't gotten stir crazy yet, since he was forced to stay
inside all day, for fear the Menace would find out where he was hiding. But
Mulder was there, too, and he was fascinated by Mulder. And for once, the
other man seemed to actually be relaxing around him. Of course, the fact
that he was following Mulder around like a lost puppy probably had something
to do with it. He was surprised Mulder hadn't gone crazy from putting up
with him.
Then the memories started to hit him during the day.
He was sitting at the cluttered coffeetable, reading the sports page and
trying to remember if he liked any of the teams, and if it was normal to
remember the names of the positions on a football team but not know if he
even liked football. He looked up to ask Mulder a question, when the quiet
picture of Mulder, sitting with his feet propped on the end of the table and
his wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, was replaced with a desperate,
red-eyed, stubble-faced Mulder with a gun in his shaking hand, blood running
from split knuckles where he had just beaten the crap out of Krycek, and his
whole world contracted to a pinpoint of darkness. The barrel of Mulder's
gun. 'Did you kill my father? Did you? Did you kill my father?' The
anguished words screamed through his head, and he dropped the paper,
gripping the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white from the
strain. 'He killed my father, Scully!' 'Drop the weapon, Mulder! I have
him!' and the sound of a gunshot, pure terror, followed by sheer relief and
astonishment when he realized that he had not been shot, that she had shot
Mulder. She shot her own partner. He was completely unaware of the whimper
that escaped his lips, but it brought Mulder's head up. Mulder focused his
attention on the shocked white face and dark green eyes, wild with some
remembered mix of fright and adrenaline and sheer terror and the urge to
run, the need to hide. Krycek looked like a cornered animal.
Without thought, Mulder laid aside his paperwork and crossed the room to
drop to his knees beside Krycek. "Hey, what is it?" he asked softly, careful
not to touch or startle the other man. Krycek gasped sharply at the words,
coming back from the nightmare vision to stare wide-eyed at Mulder.
"Why'd she shoot you? I didn't shoot your father!" He sounded completely
confused.
Mulder swallowed heavily, and closed his eyes for a heartbeat before trying
to answer. "Maybe not, but somebody was lacing my drinking water with LSD,
somebody, I think—thought it was you, had shot my father, Scully didn't
want me to take on a murder rap for shooting you, and you were sneaking
around my apartment. I wasn't in the clearest frame of mind, and I didn't —
don't trust you." It sounded completely believable, if he could just ignore
the content of the statement and listen to the tone of Mulder's voice. LSD?
Murder? Was the old man... suddenly, he felt his stomach roll. He clenched
his jaw against the sick feeling and took a deep breath through his nose.
"That old man. He was your father." A statement, not a question this time.
"Yes," Mulder readily agreed. Krycek stared at the newspapers scattered in
front of him for a long moment, then forced himself to meet Mulder's intense
eyes.
"I didn't kill him." Complete conviction underlay his words. He remembered
that much. He'd killed the cable operator, there on that mountain. He
remembered giving a pill to a wild eyed man in an isolated room, then
watching him choke to death. He remembered punching a balding man viciously
while two others held him still. He knew he was some sort of hired thug,
that he was capable of killing. But he hadn't killed the old man. He
couldn't hurt Mulder. He didn't know why, he just knew he couldn't.
Mulder held the clear gaze as long as he could, then sighed and settled his
back into the front of the couch, stretching his long legs along the side of
the table. "I don't know what to believe anymore, Krycek. I just hope you
get your memory back pretty soon. The longer you're here, the more danger
you put us all in."
Krycek didn't have an answer to that, so he settled down beside Mulder and
pulled the paper over to him. Handing the politics section to Mulder, he
buried his head back in the sports page. Mulder looked at the newspaper,
looked at the man beside him, looked at the paperwork lying abandoned next
to his chair, and started to scan the headlines.
It had been quite a week. Mulder was glad for once that he was a paranoiac,
because it was good practice for the amount of looking over his shoulder
that he was doing since Krycek came to hide out with him. Scully came over
every night until she cleared up the last details at the lab, then she took
some long overdue vacation herself. Between the two of them, they gently
grilled Krycek on every aspect of his life. Bits and pieces began to emerge.
His father was dead, his mother estranged from him. He had an older brother,
but they didn't have any contact, either. He liked Scully, and she seemed to
be softening, when she would get a haunted look in her eyes and freeze up on
him again. Mulder was alternately exasperated and patient, the man warring
with the psychologist, and he continued to be fascinated by him.
The dizziness gradually abated, and he found himself getting restless for
some physical action. He stretched, and without conscious thought went
through a Tai Chi workout, a soft one to work himself gradually up to speed.
He only realized what had happened when he came out of the last position to
see Scully staring at him from one side of the living room and turned to see
Mulder staring at him from the other. The quality of the stares was
completely different. Scully seemed to be measuring him, her "doctor" look
coupled with a need to figure him out. Mulder, on the other hand, was
staring at him with the same kind of fascination he had been feeling toward
Mulder all week. In a sudden remembrance that brought a gasp to his lips, he
remembered that long, lean body writhing under his hands, sweat making his
skin glow, a strangely unfocussed glaze to those deep hazel eyes. His hands
dropped, and he took a step toward Mulder. The other man jolted from his
thoughts and leaned back in his chair.
"Krycek?" Scully's sharp voice spun him around, and the world shifted again.
Dark room. Light furniture, comfortable, but not tonight. Tonight it was
deadly. A trap. Two guns, two men, one unsuspecting victim. His heartrate
speeding up, he hated the waiting, hated this part of the job. Didn't want
to think about what this would do to Mulder. Heard the key in the lock, red
hair tumbling around her face as she came through the door. Started to
squeeze the trigger, but something held him back. Noise ripped from the
other corner, and her body slammed back with the impact, then fell forward
in a crumpled heap. No sound, other than the silencer coughing in the dark.
He came forward, gun at the ready, finger off the trigger. Felt her shoulder
with his toe, rolled her limp body toward the light, watched the curls fall
back from a pretty face, a sweet face, the wrong face. His stomach clenched,
and he bit back the curses with difficulty. 'Not her.' Oh shit. She was
dead. So was he. They didn't know, the Menace hadn't found that little
secret. Or had he? Was this his punishment for getting too close?
Dana's face, yet not Dana's face. He gasped for breath, his hand going to
his head, the dizziness back with a vengeance. Why the hell had she been
there?
"Steady, Krycek. I think you're trying to do too much too fast." Mulder's
strong arm behind him, bringing him to her. Oh, god, no wonder she hated
him.
Scully leaned over him to look into his eyes, feeling his skin, checking his
pulse. He stared at her with something like horror.
"Lissa." The word was more of a croak than a whisper, but the effect was
immediate. Scully dropped his wrist as if he had burnt her.
Mulder was instantly at her side. "Scully? You okay? What's wrong?"
Scully was staring at Krycek as if he was a particularly poisonous snake.
Without looking at her partner, she forced out, "Missy." A shudder ran
through her body, then she took Krycek's face in her hands, making him keep
his eyes locked to hers. "What happened, Krycek?" Her voice was cold, and
hard, and shaking just the slightest bit.
"We were at your apartment. An ambush." Mulder stiffened and moved closer,
but neither of the others noticed, too caught up in the tension between
them. "Weasel was in the far corner. I was in the kitchen. She came in and
he fired." He stopped, his throat constricting, and she prompted him by the
simple expedient of clenching her fist in his hair and shaking him. Tears
came to his eyes, but he swallowed and started talking. "I didn't. Wrong
target. I didn't realize who she was until... it was over. I... turned her
over to see her face and it was... Lissa."
"You knew her?" Mulder's voice was incredulous.
"Yeah." Pain, and regret, and something indefinable in his answer.
Scully unwound her fingers from his hair and sank into the cushions beside
Alex. Taking a deep, calming breath, she stared up at Mulder. "Missy had
been seeing someone. No one in the family had met him, but that was Missy.
Her own business. She called him Michael." She paused and looked at Krycek.
"My middle name," he responded dully.
Mulder crouched down in front of his dazed friend and equally dazed enemy.
"Did you know it was her?" This to Krycek, wondering at his willingness to
admit his attempt to murder Scully.
"God, no," Krycek growled, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his
hands. "But, I don't know. Maybe he did. Maybe this was my punishment for
fucking up with your father."
"No," Scully managed to whisper. Both men looked at her. "He'd have no way
of knowing. She was on her way to my house, but he wouldn't have known
that."
"Maybe he tapped your phone." Krycek sounded calm, but his eyes were
tormented.
"So you think it was you he was setting up? Not Scully?"
"You're trying to tell me that my sister was the target?" Scully shook her
head. "I don't believe it."
"No, you were the target. But he wasn't disappointed that it was Lissa who
got... killed. One more weapon to use against me, against you."
"Let me get this straight," Mulder interjected. "You were somehow involved
with Scully's sister?" He seemed to be having a hard time with that idea.
"Uh-huh. It was not the swiftest thing I've ever done, considering all the
back history and my relationship with you two-"
"And the fact that you were sent to kill her sister-"
"-but she was, I don't know. She was special."
"Yes. She was." Scully stared off into the distance, far removed from the
others.
"She caught me, one day, I was tailing Scully for some reason, I don't
remember what it was. They went to a crystal shop-"
"I bought dreamcatcher earrings for her."
"-and Mulder picked you up. Lissa saw me and came right up to me. It was the
weirdest thing. She just looked at me, and seemed to look right through me."
"Yeah, she did things like that," Mulder smiled in spite of himself.
"She gave me this little piece of onyx, told me I needed protection. I found
myself talking to her, she was... interesting, and bright. And pretty. And
we started seeing each other, not much, just every once in awhile." His eyes
focused on the bright red hair of the woman beside him. "Playing with fire."
"Only you weren't the one who got burned, Krycek, she was." Scully turned to
face him, and stopped, recognizing the pain in his leaf green eyes.
"Yeah. I was. She... I'm sorry, Scully."
The room fell silent, each wrapped in their own thoughts, the bubbling of
the fish tank the only sound they heard. Finally, Mulder leaned back into
the chair and sighed.
"I'm sorry, too, Krycek, but not sorry that you didn't hit your original
target."
Scully seemed to realize that she was sitting thigh to thigh with the man
her sister had been sleeping with and who had just admitted to setting her
up to be killed. For some reason, she didn't feel much of an urge to run.
Perhaps it was the undoubted pain he was in, or perhaps it was the odd fact
that, whatever the past might have held, they were on the same side now. He
hadn't killed Mulder's father, if he was to be believed, and not only had he
not killed Missy, he'd apparently been her lover. Her head hurt from trying
to sort it all out. But one fact was glaringly obvious. To get to the man
who was truly responsible for her sister's death and her abduction, she
would use anyone and anything she could. She glanced measuringly at the man
sitting beside her, head bowed slightly in pain.
"Then what happened, Krycek?" Softly spoken, the question slipped past his
built-in defenses, and he found himself answering Mulder, the memories
flowing back more surely this time.
"Got the tape from Skinner. It was in my pocket, the next day, I'd slipped
in to see Lissa, made sure no one saw me. She looked so peaceful. Like she
was sleeping." He didn't seem to hear the slight choking sound from Scully,
and continued his story. "A couple hours after I saw her, the team hit
Skinner in the stairwell, got the tape from him. We were in the car the next
morning, and they both went over to get something to drink from the 7-11.
But I noticed that the clock was blinking, and they looked really nervous. I
saw them, in the rear view mirror, looked like they were watching the car,
waiting for something. And the clock was blinking at me. And I knew. Took
off running as soon as it hit me, and the car blew up behind me." Both
agents sucked in their breath, but he continued, oblivious, caught up in his
remembered fear and anger. "I ran, and ran, and stopped just long enough to
call the double crossing son of a bitch and tell him to back off or he'd be
famous. But I knew he couldn't back off. He had to kill me." He stopped
abruptly and looked first at Scully, then at Mulder, letting his eyes linger
on the angular face for a long moment. "I've been running ever since."
"Do you still have the tape?" Scully sounded remarkably composed,
considering everything she'd learned that night. But he saw the tangle of
emotions in her eyes, and knew she would have a lot to think about. Right
now, though, she was willing to work with him. He would take it while he
could.
"Yeah. It's my insurance."
"Ours, too," Mulder mused. "Only we're using codetalkers and storytellers to
keep the information." Krycek nodded approval. "So, you remember now?"
"Most of it, I think. There are still... holes." He looked at Mulder a bit
uncertainly. There had been a man, holding a pipe over Mulder's face, about
to strike. He'd been torn in two—save Mulder? Go after the other man, the
one he could use against the Menace? The pipe began to descend and his body
made the decision for his mind, stepping forward, shooting the man,
protecting Mulder. He didn't know exactly why it had been so important, was
still so important to him to keep Mulder safe. But it was. Even now. "Enough
to know that I shouldn't be here. You were right. The longer I stay the more
risk I am to you, to both of you."
Scully stared calmly at him. "Where will you go?"
"And what can you tell us that we can use? And believe?" Mulder sounded
equally calm, but his narrowed eyes gave him away. He still didn't trust
Krycek, but part of him wanted to. Badly.
"Not as much as you'd like, or me either, for that matter." He rolled his
shoulders, trying to work out some of the tension.
"I think it's time we extended the definition of this truce, Alex."
"What are you asking?" It was Krycek's turn to sound suspicious, eyes roving
from one agent to the other, and Scully followed up on Mulder's comment.
"You don't trust us. We don't trust you. We have a common enemy." She took a
deep breath and flashed back on the tense meeting in the warehouse almost
eight months before. "I think it's time we worked together."
Krycek studied her determined face for a long time, finally satisfied that
the hatred and anger had dissipated enough that he would be able to trust
her... at least far enough not to kill him when his guard was down. He
turned to Mulder, eyes drinking in the pale, set face, wanting with a
ferocity that startled him to know the secrets somehow held between them. He
knew, in time, he would, but he wanted them now. He took a ragged breath and
forced a smile, shaky, but more sincere than any he'd been able to offer
them before.
"Works for me."
Mulder reached for his small recorder, but Krycek shook his head.
"No. Too dangerous, to both of us." He turned to Scully. "Can I borrow your
laptop?" Scully exchanged glances with Mulder, then nodded. She went into
the kitchen to retrieve her briefcase and Mulder leaned back in his chair,
regarding Krycek unblinkingly.
"What will you give us?" His voice was soft, creating a pool of intimacy
between the two of them. Krycek swallowed, his throat tight. Whatever it
was, it was strong, and heavy, and very complex. He half smiled. And it had
been good.
Shaking himself back to the present, he answered simply, "Everything I
remember."
Mulder's eyes widened. "Everything?"
"You don't have to trust me. This is partial payback for you taking me in
... and partly to cement my side of the partnership. I need your help,
Mulder. Yours and Scully's. And I can help you." His eyes pled with Mulder
to accept him on this one, to give a little, and something in the agent
responded. Against his better judgment, he nodded.
"You're on." Scully entered the room and set the small laptop computer up on
the coffeetable. "So, type."
Mulder's small grin surprised an answering smile from Krycek, and he slid
off the couch to settle comfortably on the floor in front of the table. As
he stared at the glowing screen and organized his thoughts, Scully curled
into the corner of the couch to watch him. He glanced up at her, and she
offered him a serious, but not hostile, glance.
"This won't be easy."
"No," he agreed, "it won't."
"But it just might be worth it."
"Especially if we can finally get rid of that black lunged son of a bitch,"
Mulder growled.
"My hope exactly," Krycek chimed in, then bent to the keyboard.
Over the soft clatter of keys, Scully reiterated, "Where will you go?"
"A hiding place I know. I don't think they know about it yet." He didn't
seem worried about it, concentrating on his typing. She nodded slowly. He
thought he would be safe. It would have to do. And the sooner the better.
Mulder brooded in his chair, watching the bright head of his partner, the
darker silk of Alex at her knee. He had deep misgivings about this odd
partnership they were entering, but on another level it seemed almost fated.
He just couldn't seem to get rid of Alex Krycek, no matter how hard he
tried. Krycek seemed to feel the weight of Mulder's stare on his face, and
glanced up. Whatever he saw there made him catch his breath in a tiny gasp,
unheard, but felt by the man across the room. Mulder dropped his eyes to the
papers he shuffled from the file beside him, and steadfastly tried to ignore
him.
Alex riveted his eyes back to the screen, his fingers flying over the keys.
As the incriminating sentences took shape, he analyzed his actions, and came
up with a fact he hadn't wanted to face. The underlying need he had to form
this partnership was only secondarily due to self protection, a first for
him, since that had been his primary concern for as far back as his
admittedly damaged memory stretched. But it wasn't now. His true reason for
starting this insane course was because he had to discover the reasons he
felt compelled to protect Mulder. And along the way, he might just be able
to answer his own question.
What was Fox Mulder to him?
Identity
by Brenda Antrim
His breath pounded through his body, fighting with his rapidly beating heart
to fill his head with the rhythm of terror. They were close now, closer than
they had ever been, and he rounded the corner and flew into the alley, so
intent on his pursuers that he didn't see the protruding board on the side
of the window, didn't see anything until the sudden sharp pain that filled
the world with sparkling blackness.
