The Dream
Mulder was walking along the hallway, from the basement office where he had
worked for so long. Agent Doggett hadn't been in and it seemed to Mulder as
though he was still in the employ of the FBI, and that the years hadn't slipped
away from him. It felt strange to find his old office empty. It had felt like
a time warp wherein Scully might suddenly appear at the door and give him that
inimitable quizzical expression and ask him what he was doing.
His random train of thought next led to musings on the potential that was
harbored in the infant body of little William Scully. The baby squalled with
healthy lungs and appeared completely normal. After five months had passed,
Mulder had grown very quickly bored with the tiny fellow, leaving Scully to coo
over the infant cries—he was content to wait until the baby grew old enough to
start displaying evidence of his amazing genetic heritage.
"Mulder!" Agent Reyes came up behind him, a little breathless and nearly
running to catch up with his longer stride.
He stopped. She glanced apologetically at him before continuing, "I'm glad I
caught you here. There's something I need to see you about."
He waited and then began to walk along the hall once more, although more slowly
than before. "If this is about asking me to go over a case or explain some
previous X-File to you, I'm not here. I only came by to pick up some things."
"No, I wouldn't," she hesitated. "Someone has given me something strange,
something powerful. I'm not sure why it's come into my hands but I was hoping
you could have a look at it and tell me what it is. I'm—I'm really not sure
what to do with it."
Mulder suppressed a sigh. "Look, I'm not with the Bureau anymore and I—"
She stopped him with a cautious hand on his elbow. "I know. This is personal
though. At least, I think it is. It didn't come to me through any official
channel and it isn't anything that Agent Doggett or I have been working on.
It's come to me out of the blue. Please, just have a look at it." She withdrew
something that looked rather heavy from inside her jacket pocket. It was
wrapped in tissue paper. Glancing around first, to be sure they weren't being
observed, she handed it to him.
He took it and hefted it slightly in his palm. "What is this; a rock?" He
began to unwrap the tissue paper, revealing what looked like a flat, hard rock
indeed, inscribed with lettering. Mulder stood paralyzed with shock as he
suddenly recognized it for what it was: the original artifact, one of the
metallic fragments from the alien ship that Scully had gone to study on the
Ivory Coast of Africa.
He stood, numbly waiting for the relic to put the whammy on him, for the
contents of Reyes' mind to begin to hit him with overwhelming chaos and images.
He waited for the sensation of crowded pain to assail him again as it had before
when he'd initially been introduced to this thing, an overload of mental
thoughts from nearby people.
Monica Reyes stared at it, and then lifted her eyes to meet his. "I've studied
it but I can't figure out what the inscription means or even what the symbols
are."
Nothing. Not a hint of a mental whisper. Of course, it might take time.
Mulder swallowed. And began to wrap it up in the tissue paper again. "I don't
know what it is," he lied, smoothly.
As he began to offer it back to her, she backed away slightly and shook her
head. "No way. No way am I keeping that thing. It's hot. It carries such an
intense energy that I really don't know what to do with it. I can't hold onto
it anymore. I certainly can't keep it. Really, I was hoping that you'd at
least have an idea of what it might be. Maybe, point me in the right
direction?" She seemed truly unaware of what it was that she had just handed to
him.
He frowned and thrust it back towards her. "I don't want anything to do with
it. You'll have to find out from whoever gave it to you. Who sent it?" he
added, curious as to the nature of the circuitous route it must have taken to
land back in his life. He sighed inwardly. A goddamned boomerang.
Reyes smiled and continued to back away. "You don't understand. I can't keep
it. I had the most intense vision. Someone appeared to me last night, while I
was at home. I can't explain it—it was someone who's been gone from my life
for a long time now. They said that I would know who to give it to. Mulder, I
have the strongest feeling that it's you. For some reason, it is meant to be
with you. It belongs with you. It—" she paused, and licked her lips, her eyes
widening slightly, "it wants to be with you."
"Thanks," he said dryly. "Thanks a lot." He thrust it into his pocket and
walked past her.
She paused and then called after him, "You know what it is, don't you?" It
wasn't a question.
He turned his head slightly, to call over his shoulder, "It's out of your hands
now, Reyes. You can sleep easy." This time he didn't bother to suppress his
sigh of frustration and annoyance.
Mulder walked out of the Hoover Building, handing in his visitor's pass on the
way. By the time he reached his car, he stood beside it with the driver's side
door open, and took out the wrapped relic. He considered throwing it into the
street. Then wondered if he should hand it in as evidence. Keep it with the
X-File that had been opened on the missing, well-documented Ivory Coast ship,
where it belonged.
During the surgical operation on his brain that Cancerman had instigated after
he had first encountered the relic, they had removed the part that was affected
by its strange power. Or so he had assumed.
Well, he was certainly going to find out now. Maybe Reyes was right. Maybe he
could find out why it had found its way back to him. After all, he was hardly
working anymore. Maybe it would help him to find out what he was meant to be
doing next. His attempts at assimilating the events that had led up to his
death and subsequent revival, and the loss of the X-Files as well as his career
in the FBI, had produced nothing but disjointed ramblings on his computer screen
and strange entries on a notepad he'd set aside. Maybe the relic could help him
to discover his reason for continuing on a quest that seemed pointless now.
Maybe it could give him some power that he hadn't found yet. At the very least
it might help him to see through Frohike's bluffs in poker. Maybe he'd make a
killing at the races. Maybe he could befriend one of the horses. He sighed.
Out of curiosity and a perverse desire to see if it would still get to him
somehow, he took the relic home with him and put it in the third drawer of his
bedroom cabinet, with his socks.
Several days later, it still hadn't affected him in the slightest. So much for
the whammy. After another week passed and it still showed no signs of
interfering with his usual brain processes or his 'dormant' telepathic
abilities, so he forgot about it.
A month and a half later
Mulder dreamed. Hazy, strange and somehow comforting elements of random
distortion and vague impressions swirled in the privacy of his mind's eye as the
dream shifted from one scene to the next. Without warning, the dream changed
and crystallized, leaving Mulder standing with some alarm on a beach. The
feeling of déjè vu was overpowering. It was all too bright, all too vivid and
familiar. His heart sank as he recognized the beach that the alien relic had
taken him to before, all those years ago. He looked around him but there was
nothing except for the surf and the seagulls. He knew it was a dream and the
certainty of it was somehow comforting despite the nervous anticipation he felt
while waiting for it to unfold.
Nothing. He idly walked barefoot along the sand, remembering the dream now
almost as an old friend. It felt as though he'd slipped contentedly into a pair
of shoes he had worn once and grown used to. The fact that the relic remembered
him made it seem almost supportive and friendly It had recreated the same beach,
whether out of his past memories, he wasn't sure, but still he didn't know what
he might encounter here.
The dream elements he half-expected never revealed themselves, however, and the
dream continued on, leaving him wondering why he was being shown this again. No
little boy, no sandcastle ship, nothing. Just this vacant beach.
Up ahead was a dark figure walking along the beach, coming towards him. He
looked familiar but Mulder couldn't place who it was.
Mulder had the sense of impending revelation. For whatever reason, the relic
had brought him here to meet this figure. There could be no other explanation—apart from the two of them, the beach was starkly empty. Almost as if the relic
was making a statement. Mulder frowned and continued walking to meet the man
coming towards him.
As they grew closer to each other, Mulder began to feel a horrible sense of
recognition creep over him. He knew this man. Several more steps nearer and he
knew without a doubt.
It was Alex Krycek.
Damn it, Mulder swore furiously to himself. What the hell was Krycek doing in
this dream? He had a distinct sense of foreboding that the relic would bring
this about at all. What was the thing telling him?
Dressed in black, as was his customary fashion, Krycek was nearing Mulder with
an expression that mirrored how Mulder himself felt. Chagrin, wariness—dismay, even.
Krycek slowed as he got close enough to call out to. He stopped, cautiously.
Mulder stopped as well, keeping the distance between them. He called out,
unsure. "Alex?"
Krycek didn't respond, merely stood there and stared back at him with an
unchanging expression, conveying a measure of apprehensive doubt and suspicion.
Mulder licked his lips. "You died... you're dead. Why are you here?"
Krycek closed his eyes for a long moment. Finally, he turned away to gaze out
across the coastline and the sea. He seemed reluctantly committed to whatever
strange enactment this dream recreation was moving towards.
Mulder took a few steps closer. "Why are you here? What do you want?"
With a brief, irritated shake of his head, Krycek replied, "Do you really
believe that of all the places I could be, I'd choose here? With you?"
Mulder bit back his sudden flash of anger. Why was Krycek always so damned
annoying? What was it about Krycek's manner, even in a dream figment, that got
under his skin? Time to dismiss this disturbing element from this darkly
reminiscent dream. Mulder stepped closer, raising his voice. "This is MY
dream. You can leave anytime. My conscience is clear." He found himself
suddenly wondering which of them he was trying to convince: the relic, Krycek...
or himself.
A look of disdain crossed Krycek's features. "That's just like you, Mulder.
Your dream, huh? So why don't you wave your hand and make me disappear?" But
there was something behind his taunt, something that reminded Mulder of a plea.
In fact, it had all the traces of someone trying to goad him into doing exactly
what they wanted.
Mulder's eyes narrowed. The relic was obviously showing him his past
subconscious reactions to Krycek. Perhaps it was some kind of test. Or maybe
it was trying to tell him that he had never really had any kind of closure with
this man., with the way he'd died.
Three shots fired, the last to the forehead. Mulder had felt almost nothing,
suspecting he was in a numb kind of shock to see his enemy finally lying dark,
still and lifeless on the concrete of the car park garage under the Hoover
Building. Now, it was almost a relief to see Krycek again, to renew the old
pattern of anger within him at the infuriating presence. Faith in the truth and
in his innocence made him braver and Mulder stepped closer, leaving only a
couple of feet between them. "It wasn't me. You deserved everything that
happened to you. You brought it on yourself. None of it would have happened if
you hadn't been in the wrong places at the right times. Every time. Right on up
to that fateful last time."
Mulder was rewarded with the flare of pain that rippled over Krycek's face at
these words, quickly smoothed away though it was. But the pain somehow remained
in Krycek's eyes, even as he sneered, "Jesus, you never change, do you? Still
harping on the same note after all these years." Krycek looked about them, at
the empty beach.
Mulder noted that this Krycek had two arms. He wondered why his subconscious
would provide the missing arm. Maybe it was his way of denying what had
happened. Wearily, Mulder said, "What do you want, Alex?"
Krycek looked back at him with fathomless dark eyes that still held that spark
of pain, a wounded stare that nearly made Mulder question the validity and
surety of his previous statement. But this was nothing new. Krycek had always
behaved this way. And Mulder was tired of rehashing the same scene over and
over. Even his dreams were too predictable.
Finally, Krycek muttered, "Even here, you're still the same obstinate, bitter
fool; a Don Quixote chasing after windmills. Truth, justice and the American
Way, eh, Mulder? What a bunch of shit." He turned and began to stalk away over
the sand, leaving Mulder standing there, watching his figure recede into the
distance.
Mulder woke up with a gasp, his breath choked and stifled, catching in his
lungs. He wasn't quite in a cold sweat but he didn't feel right, inside or out.
After a few moments sitting up in bed, feeling the slosh of the water-filled
mattress beneath him sway soothingly, he swung his feet purposefully over the
side and sat there, his face in his hands.
The cold from the floor began to seep up through his feet but he was only
half-aware of it as he tried to make sense of what the artifact was trying to
show him. For it was undeniably the alien relic that had arranged that whole
scenario.
The relic. Krycek. Fuck, oh FUCK.
He got up on stiff and shaky legs and turned on the light, then went to the
cabinet. Pulling the drawer open, he resolutely fished through the socks until
he found the artifact. Picking it up, he unwrapped it and held it in his hands.
Smooth, cold and unrevealing, the metallic artifact sat inert in his grasp, the
symbols almost mocking him with their Biblical reference in the impossible
pictographs.
After a while, he wrapped it back up and replaced it in the cabinet, going to
the kitchen for a drink of water and then returning to get into bed. It was a
long while before he could get back to sleep.
The dream plagued him in the back of his mind when he awoke the next day. For
most of the morning, he simply ignored it, mulling over it slightly from time to
time. By the time he'd switched off his computer in frustrated disgust at his
inability to concentrate, it was way past noon and he left the apartment to get
lunch at the Bistro.
I wake up with that well-remembered ache in my gut that only Mulder can inspire.
Damn! Even in my dreams, the bastard hasn't changed. Arrogant, self-obsessed
fool. I hate him.
I have spent one hell of a lot of effort in NOT remembering any dreams I might
have—nefarious types such as myself can't afford to be distracted by that kind
of nonsense. And, been largely successful at it. Oh, I wake with vague
impressions of my nocturnal wanderings—easily ignored impressions.
So, why is this dream so vivid? I can still smell the fucking surf, for god's
sake. Hear that dryly-accusing tone of his. Feel that bad old attraction to
him.
I have a bad feeling about this.
VERY bad.
By the fall of evening, Mulder had begun to sulk. It wasn't his fault that
Krycek had been a traitor, a murderer and a liar. It wasn't his fault that
Krycek had been working all ends against the middle, playing everyone off
against each other to the very end, showing up at the last in the car with
Knowle Rohre and finally driving Skinner to a very uncharacteristic display of
executioner-style justice. It wasn't his fault that Krycek had been working for
the Smoking Man. It wasn't his fault that Krycek had been a Russian KGB
operative, nor was it his fault that Krycek had lost his arm.
But why stop there? His previous guilt cycle had gone over far deeper scars.
It wasn't his fault that his father had been a Consortium member, neck-deep in
the shit that the Syndicate had floundered around in for twenty-five-plus years.
It wasn't his fault that Samantha had been taken instead of him. It wasn't his
fault that his mother had been involved with the Smoking Man. And it wasn't his
fault, damn it, that Krycek had lost his arm! Well, okay, maybe that last
wasn't quite true. The situation had been fraught with danger and tension and
despite the fact that he hadn't known just how involved Krycek was at the time,
he had admittedly snatched the man out of the prison camp where he was on such
friendly terms with the gulag doctor. But Mulder had gotten Krycek in there; he
was well within his rights to get him back out. It wasn't his fault Krycek had
decided instead to roll off the back of a moving truck. It wasn't his fault
that the truck's brakes hadn't worked.
Mulder closed his eyes, cutting short the entire train of thought as the guilt
finally reached him. It was his fault that Krycek had lost his arm. He
certainly hadn't wished that on the rat-bastard.
But still, one left arm for one father, shot at close range just as his father
had been about to reveal everything to him, seemed fairly fitting. Or so he'd
always told himself.
But in opening up the box and lifting the lid to peer into that whole mess, all
the previous dealings with Krycek he'd ever had, was to invite recriminations,
righteous anger and the past pain of betrayal. He'd hated the man, first
hurting inside at Krycek's deception and treachery, then hating Krycek angrily
and violently when their paths crossed, and finally towards the end, coldly and
dismissively, nearly indifferent. He didn't really know what to think now. Why
the hell had the relic given him that dream?
And even more disturbing: what if it hadn't been the relic at all, but some
unresolved issue in his own subconscious that he'd been suppressing all this
time, even after Krycek's death? Something that the relic had merely helped him
to surface?
Mulder got up blindly and went into the kitchen to retrieve a beer from the
fridge.
Shit. He'd not let any thought of Krycek enter his head since that fateful last
encounter under the Hoover Building. Maybe that was why the dream of last night
was so distressing. He'd laid that particular dark knight to rest so
thankfully.
Still, there was nothing for it but to carry on and lay the ghost of Krycek to
rest once more with the final thought that at least the man was at peace.
Krycek could do him no more harm. Could torment Mulder no further with
conundrums and empty tidbits, no more carrots dangled to get the Spooky Boy to
run along the usual course. And at least he was out of his life for good. With
that, Mulder swept it from his mind and refused to let it linger further. With
the judicious application of late pizza and porn, he spent a satisfying solitary
evening alone with his right hand, the familiarity of routine comforting to him
despite the emptiness of the usual relief.
The shadow of doubt niggled in his mind however, as he lay in bed that night,
trying to drift off to sleep. For the relic still sat in his sock drawer. It
was a while before he fell asleep.
Images entangling and eating themselves alive. Pizza and too MUCH late pizza
consumed. Images that focused and then ran away, diffuse and sickening. Too
much beer, too, to rest easily. Followed by regret. Naked flesh and writhing
figures, reminders of empty pursuits of previous fantasies. His mind gibbered
and tried not to think about it but fear remained, and doubt about the future
boiled anew in his brain. He wanted to rest but there was always the background
knowledge of what was sure to come, the ongoing invasion and helpless
assimilation of a sheep population happy to run over the cliff-edge, herded by
faceless aliens and monstrous Grays with swirling black eyes.
Abruptly, all fear and restless agitation vanished, replaced with a calm,
tranquil sense of peace. The images faded and cleared like smoke chased out by
a gentle breeze. And there, the scent of sea grasses and salt. The bright
clarity of the beach and the slight warm wind ruffling his hair. Mulder
blinked. And then turned around at a sound from behind him.
There stood Alex Krycek. Again. With a groan, Mulder let his head fall back
and he sighed. The damned relic. Why? And why Krycek, of all the monsters and
ghouls and peculiar shades in his past? Why this particular face?
Krycek looked angry. "What the fuck?"
Mulder stared at him and then laughed, briefly. "You're kidding. Don't tell me
I'm supposed to believe you're surprised to be here, Krycek. It won't float.
You're not real, you're dead. Get over it." He turned away, dismissing the man
from his mind and going to the water's edge to place a toe in it. It felt
remarkably cold and real.
Behind him, Krycek was angrily walking away along the sand, in a repetition of
the previous dream's ending.
Every so often, Mulder would look up at the figure receding in the distance,
until Krycek was nearly out of sight altogether.
Then with a flash of shifting color, almost imperceptibly, Krycek disappeared—and was standing beside Mulder at the shoreline once more.
Krycek looked taken aback. A new expression entered his eyes: fear.
Mulder frowned. Obviously the relic wasn't going to let him get away with
simply allowing Krycek to walk off. But Mulder didn't want to have the usual
confrontation. He folded his arms across his chest. "Okay. I give. What is
it? What do you want?"
"What do I want? I want to get out of this fucking nightmare, that's what I
want." Krycek's answer was cold and to the point.
Brilliant. Mulder shook his head. This was like some kind of psychological
puzzle he was supposed to solve. Find the answer and win internal peace of
mind, or something. Fine. He tilted his head and regarded Krycek thoughtfully.
"I'm not keeping you here. I don't want you here, anymore than you want to
stay. But maybe that's the problem. Maybe I'm trying too hard to ignore the
fact that maybe the reason you're here is because I don't want you here."
Growing more agitated by the minute, Krycek angrily answered, "Don't tell me I'm
stuck in your goddamned subconscious?" He looked disgusted...and still afraid.
Finally, he said, "You know, I'm not the one who's dead, Mulder. You are. You
have been for some time, I think. From the inside out."
Mulder shrugged. "At this point, I really couldn't care less what you think.
In fact, I find I don't care much what you do or say now, actually. You can
stay, or you can go. Until I get some kind of tangible explanation of just what
it is that's expected of me here."
He stepped back into the water that was still cold and all-too-real. A wave
splashed up, drenching him to the thighs. Wow. It was very real. He stepped
back out of the way of the waves.
Krycek looked hunted. Haltingly, he said, "Mulder, for whatever reason, I'm
stuck here in this dream. I think it IS yours. But believe me, I don't want to
be here."
Mulder looked up at him. "So? What do you expect me to do about it, Krycek? I
don't want you here either."
Exasperatedly, Krycek bit out, "Why don't you let me go? Why don't you, I don't
know, work out why the hell it is you've got me stuck here and just... let me
leave?"
Patiently, Mulder repeated, "I don't have any control over it. It isn't me. It
isn't up to me."
Krycek stopped. Slowly, he suggested, "Maybe it's both of us. Together."
Mulder woke up with a start as the alarm clock went off. The shock of the
reality of being in his bed in the morning was almost frightening as realizing
that this time, the dream had taken over again and not even let Krycek leave,
forcing them to talk, to interact.
Mulder began to grow afraid. After breakfast, he FedExed the artifact to his
father's house in Martha's Vineyard. He was planning to go up there in another
couple of weeks. That should give him enough time to determine whether or not
the proximity of the artifact had any effect on the dreams. He phoned the post
office there to alert them to the arrival of the package, then spent the rest of
the day trying to pretend nothing was amiss.
Needless to say, he had a great deal of difficulty getting to sleep that night.
But he slept relatively peacefully in his usual dream state of more vague and
distant mental images and ramblings, with no vivid return to the beach and not
even a hint of Krycek. He found, the following morning, that he'd slept the
whole night through and was nearly overwhelmed with relief. It seemed that his
idea of sending the artifact away had worked.
That afternoon he called Reyes at the Bureau. She was doing paperwork and
seemed happy to take his call.
"Mulder, thank god." She stifled a yawn; he could hear it over the phone.
With a grin, he said, "Thank YOU, Agent Reyes, for reminding me of all the
reasons why I am grateful—to no longer be working for the FBI."
She chuckled. "Oh, it's not so bad. It's just that I had a late night last
night, working on a case. Hey, I wanted you to know; I checked the ballistics
on that weapon like you suggested. You were right."
"Told you so. Listen, Reyes, I wanted to ask you something. It's the reason I
called. Uh, remember that...that metallic rock you gave me, the fragment of
tablet with the symbols on it?"
There was a brief pause. "Yeah, the one with the heavy energy. Actually, it
wasn't heavy, just very strong. Intense. What about it? Have you figured out
what it is?"
"I think so. Maybe. But listen, I need to know who sent it to you. "
"I don't actually know," admitted Reyes. "It came here to the Bureau with my
name on it, anonymously. I tried to have it analyzed but the first guy I took
it to told me it was a fake, a hoax. Some young archaeologist attempting to
pull a fast one for either a prank or for notoriety. I held onto it, hoping
that something would come up. But then I had that—that vision. And, well,
you seemed to be the only person I could think of who could find out. Given
your background, I mean." Reyes stopped, obviously wondering if she'd been
talking too much. "Mulder?"
"Yeah. Thanks. Okay, look, let me know if you get sent anything else, all
right?"
"Sure." Reyes sounded thoughtful. "The package was sent from New York City, if
that's any help."
Mulder frowned. "I'm not sure. But thanks for telling me. I'll let you know
if I come up with anything."
"All right. Let me know if I can help, Mulder. Ah. There's Doggett—I'll
have to let you go. Talk to you soon, okay?" She disconnected the call and
Mulder put the phone down, slowly.
The artifact and all the research—indeed, all the people—connected with the
Ivory Coast ship here in the US had disappeared while he was out of it, back
when the artifact had first exerted its influence on him. It had activated that
hypothalamic telepathy episode that had been so devastating he'd ended up in a
guarded ward. He didn't think that this was as bad, but he began to wonder if
having repeated nightly run-ins with his subconscious' idea of Krycek was
conducive to his overall mental health. Maybe it would help to take out a
dream-gun and just shoot the bastard. Somehow, he couldn't see the relic taking
too kindly to that.
The same old beach, the same sickening sense of realistic sand between his bare
toes. He groaned as he saw Krycek sitting on a rock nearby, a pensive look on
his face.
"Not again."
Krycek didn't reply, merely looked away, back out to sea.
Furiously, Mulder walked right up to him and grabbed him by the front of his
black jacket.
"Well, I must say, this is familiar ground." Krycek's smirk was back now.
Mulder let go of him abruptly. Beating up a dream-Krycek was nearly as bad as
taking out a gun and shooting him. Swallowing a violent urge to do both, Mulder
said, "I don't know why you're here, or what I'm supposed to do about it, but
I've had it. I'm through. Come on; just tell me what it is I'm meant to do
about this! I don't want you here, and it's getting really old, really fast!"
Krycek shoved at him, sending him stumbling back to regain his balance. "I
don't want to be here! I've told you that! You think I want to be trapped in
your head? Damn it, Mulder, just—just—" he paused, his breaths coming fast,
angry and yet somehow panicked. He closed his eyes. "Let me go. Please, let
me go."
"I'm not keeping you here!" Mulder insisted, indignantly.
"It's YOUR dream!" exclaimed Krycek.
Mulder threw his hands in the air. "No it isn't! It's not. So change it. I
can't. Go on. Help yourself. What would you like to see here, instead?"
Krycek was silent, although his face was still dark.
"I can't change it. I don't have any control over it. And it's too fucking
real. YOU'RE too fucking real. Oh, the hell with this," added Mulder, in a
lower voice, almost sulkily. He turned on his heel and began walking away along
the beach.
Mulder woke up when the alarm clock shrilly rescued him from the possibility of
being transported right back to the same location to face Krycek again.
This was getting downright scary. He'd entered the freak zone where he was now
officially spooked, himself. He gulped coffee and breakfast almost absently,
spending the morning pacing up and down the living room floor until he feared
that he might wear a path in it. Slumping down in the couch he forced himself
to concentrate. Nothing sprang wildly to mind.
Focus, focus! He leaned forward, his head in his hands. That dream had been
too disturbing on far too many levels. For one thing, the dream-Krycek seemed
fairly oblivious to the relic or the meaning of the beach scene. For another,
Krycek was also unaware as to why he would be there, with Mulder.
And it was the same damn dream repeated over and over, like a nightmare that he
was having to face until he got some twisted variation right in his head and
somehow managed to act from the right one to change the sequence.
What were his options? He couldn't see many, to be honest. He sighed and
leaned back, resting his head against the couch and staring blankly up at the
ceiling. No help there. And the damned rock sat waiting for him, waiting for
him to open the box at the post office in Martha's Vineyard. He'd called the
day before to make sure they'd hold it for him—maybe he should phone and
ensure that it had arrived...
The dream still kept coming, even through the absence of the pesky relic.
Okay. Concentrate. He couldn't afford to let himself get rattled by this. It
was merely trying to show him that there was something he hadn't faced,
something he was still refusing to look at regarding his old nemesis.
Actually, come to think of it, he knew next to nothing about Krycek.
In fact, the more Mulder thought about it, the more he realized he didn't know
anything about Krycek at all. Maybe that was the key. Maybe the way towards
getting some kind of authentic closure or resolution for the dream was through
facing the problem head on, not waiting for the relic to do something about it.
It was obvious that it was merely creating the scenario for Mulder to face, and
to have to deal with the elements of the dream, not actively participating
except to provide him with the beach as a stable environment in that
subconscious world. To enable him to deal with it without having to mess around
with all the other problems that lurked in his subconscious.
How thoughtful of it, he thought wryly.
Mulder picked up the phone.
This is getting worse.
Dammit, I put SO much fucking effort into making him believe in my death! I've
stayed out of his way... stayed out of everyone's way. Being dead has its
advantages. But to have worked so hard to remain out of sight...
And now... well, shit, the bastard will figure this out, given enough time—I'd
seen the warning signs clearly, as his curiosity engaged. Knew enough to quail
at the thought—hell, he's a regular bulldog once he's latched onto something.
And those incredible leaps of logic he makes...
Okay, Alex, breathe deeply. Don't let him get to you. Your trail is well
hidden—he'll never find you.
Yeah, right.
What do I want? I don't want a single thing from him—except peace,
forgetfulness.
Is that REALLY too much to expect?
Bastard.
Hell with it—it's NOT real—just my subconscious mind trying to work out the
remaining feelings I have for him. Yep—that's it.
I'll just go with the flow for now. The dreams will stop.
I hope.
The Lone Gunmen HQ
Mulder regarded the sandwich that lay on Langley's plate with grave doubt. "No,
thanks," he said, distractedly. "So, what have you guys come up with?"
"That's just it," Frohike said. "We've got nothing. Zero. Zip. It's like the
guy never existed."
"He must have erased all traces of himself, before he died," Langley added.
"It's kind of weird. Almost like he expected to be gone."
Mulder sighed and ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.
"You want us to keep looking?" Langley asked. "We can. I mean, we might come
up with something that he overlooked. Or there might be some reference or trace
embedded in something else."
Mulder held the bridge of his nose for a moment. "Yeah. Might as well. It's
worth a shot."
"Like, what do you need it for? Some kind of reconstruction or something?"
Langley probed.
Mulder snickered. "More like post-event therapy. No, I'm actually trying to
solve a puzzle. And I have absolutely nowhere to start from. So, I'm going
back to the beginning."
Frohike lifted his eyebrows and said, "Well, we can give it a go. But he was
high-level enough to place himself out of reach and pretty savvy with the tech
stuff himself. Not to mention his connections... I wouldn't place our chances
very highly."
With a frown, Mulder said, "Wait a minute. Maybe we're going about this all the
wrong way. He wouldn't have used his own name. Or maybe someone else has
something stored away somewhere under a different identity." He straightened
and continued thoughtfully, "After the DAT tape fiasco, he disappeared in North
Dakota. He resurfaced in New York City on a bust; he'd set it up and had been
leading me into it, sending me the receipts to get the Bureau involved. The
militia group he was with at the time said that he'd gone by the name of
Arntzen."
"Arntzen," Byers repeated. "I've come across that before, but not in connection
with anything the Syndicate was involved in." He looked over at Langley, who
was already furiously typing away at the keyboard the moment the name had left
Mulder's lips.
After a while, Langley shrugged. "Well, man, all I can say at this end is that
we'll run it through and see what we come up with. You might as well go home.
I'll send you what we find."
"Okay. Thanks, you guys." Mulder wearily dragged his coat on.
"You going to be okay, Mulder?" Byers asked.
"I'll have to be. The only alternative is a padded cell, at this point." But
he grinned, tiredly. "I'll be fine. I'm just not getting enough sleep, is
all."
That night, he fell asleep exhausted, hoping rather futilely not to have to
endure another confrontation with the rat-bastard.
Long hours passed. He slept. Many hours of intermittent tossing and turning
and sleep-soaked apathy later, Mulder found himself on the beach again. He
couldn't even bring himself to get upset.
This time, however, Krycek was beside himself. It seemed that the aggravation
of attempting to locate any information on the deceased Consortium player had
translated itself into his subconscious mind as an aggravated dream element who
now marched right up to him as he found himself on the beach.
Krycek grabbed him and said, right in his face, "Why won't you let me go?!
Mulder, please. Come on, you've got to do something. I can't stand it
anymore." Krycek was angry, but he was also pleading. His eyes looked wild and
he seemed on the verge of becoming unhinged.
Mulder stepped back, concerned. "I'm doing everything I can. I'm trying my
damnedest to exorcise you but I can't. Not yet. Give me some time. I'm caught
in the dream-logic of this scenario and I can't find a way out yet. But I'm
working on it."
Krycek glared at him accusingly.
"I'm trying," Mulder said, helplessly. "I am."
But Krycek sank to his knees in the sand before Mulder and said hoarsely, "I
can't take it anymore."
"Look, why don't you show me where else you would rather be?" Mulder suggested.
"Maybe if we work together, we can find a way to stop this."
Krycek turned away from him, staring down at the sand. The beach melted away
and they were in Mulder's apartment, in his living room.
Mulder frowned. "Why are we here now?"
Krycek opened his mouth as if to speak but gave up, getting up and turning away
once more to slowly walk over to the fish tank. He stared morosely down into
it, seemingly entranced by the fish swimming there.
Mulder went and sank down on the couch, feeling disoriented at having to spend
this dream in his own familiar surroundings. It was beginning to take on the
nightmarish dimensions of an out-of-body-experience. Which did not bode well
for the previous dreams—or Krycek's continued presence in them.
After a while, Krycek said in a low voice, "I died for you. It wasn't enough,
was it?"
He murmured a reply. "I guess not. I thought it was."
Mulder closed his eyes. When he finally opened them, everything was still as it
was. No getting out of it that way. Even pinching himself didn't work. But he
knew it was still a dream. Bizarre.
Krycek came to stand in front of him, looking down at him with a look that
combined both regret and contempt. "You're just going to sit there?"
"Look, you brought us here. I didn't."
"No, I didn't," countered Krycek.
"Well, it wasn't me, and if it wasn't you, it must be that damned rock." Mulder
sat up and looked around them. "You know, between the two of us, I keep
thinking that the pilots of that ship are going to arrive sometime. Maybe give
me an explanation. They can give it in Navajo, ancient Greek or Babylonian, far
all I care."
Krycek slowly shook his head. "You've flipped, haven't you? You've finally
lost it." His face hardened. "No wonder I'm stuck in here with you."
Mulder flopped back and chuckled at him. Looking up, he said, "Alex, why'd you
kiss me? You can tell me. Was it another one of your head-trips or was there
some sort of emotionally significant meaning in it for you? Wait," he
interrupted himself, and held up a hand, "don't answer that. I just realized
that I really don't want to go there, right here, right now."
Krycek snorted derisively. "Yeah, right. Imagine what that could mean."
Mulder stared up at him, quizzically. "What?"
Krycek sighed, expressively. "You're suppressed. Repressed. Whatever."
Mildly, Mulder asked, "Alex, what the hell are you talking about?"
"That you might actually work out that you've been subconsciously wondering why
it had so much emotional significance for you."
Mulder was torn between wanting to giggle at the inanity of letting this
conversation go down this particular route and the righteous indignation that
demanded he defend himself. He was arguing with an alien rock. Of course,
considering that the dream-Krycek was merely a figment of his own subconscious
projection of what the man was like...or rather, what he believed Krycek had
been like... It left him at an internal impasse that he couldn't really go into
with any measure of dignity. Getting kissed by Krycek was as unwanted as
getting up and kissing him. And both options were as unwanted as taking out a
gun and shooting him or just relieving his frustrations and anger on the
rat-bastard in his own time-honored tradition.
But therein lay the problem. Was he fighting his own subconscious repressed
longing to do all of these things? Could he find a way out of the dream cycle
by actually giving in to the desire to act them out? What did that say about
his psychological state? Damnation.
Oh, the hell with it. It was only a dream, after all. Regardless of how real
it seemed.
He grinned up at Krycek. "Sure. But I also know just how significant it was
for you. So why don't you give me another. Here, on the cheek. After that,
you can kiss me on the mouth, like you should have done the first time:
properly. And then, you can kiss my ass. Then you can kiss your own ass...
goodbye."
Krycek stared down at him, seemingly taken aback by the candid and offhandedly
careless way that Mulder had spoken to him. He didn't seem to know how to
react. Krycek looked like he was about to speak when, with a suppressed growl,
he turned on his heel and left the room, going out to the front door and
slamming it behind him.
Mulder laughed. He'd be back. He always was.
The bright glare of morning came in through the window as Mulder opened his
bleary eyes.
Shit. This was getting out of hand. Completely off-course. He wasn't getting
a full night's rest and he suspected that the dreams were interfering with his
REM sleep. Not to mention the disturbing revelation of his own suppressed
violence/attraction cycle where Krycek had been concerned. He realized now,
that he'd always known it was there. But of course, when one is dealing with a
criminal, particularly one as dangerous—and as the Lone Gunmen had pointed out
the day before, high-level and professional as Krycek had been—one didn't try
to indulge in exploring it with them.
The sheer amount of tension and doubt that assailed him at even thinking in that
dream that it would be a good idea to act out his darker urges... Fight Krycek,
or fuck him? Both seemed to be tied together. In projecting all the darkness
onto his enemy of past years, he'd also inadvertently projected his own
darkness onto him too, until both were so intertwined it was no wonder the relic
had picked up on it and was somehow making him face the fact that his
subconscious was utterly fucked. Screwed. He was screwed.
He moaned and pulled the pillow over his head.
The telephone rang, and he ignored it, letting the answering machine in the next
room switch on to pick it up.
After a while he roused himself to go see who it was that could be calling at
this ungodly hour. It was only after seven in the morning. Being unemployed
had its advantages. Too bad he really couldn't benefit from it at the moment.
But the caller was Langley. "Mulder, yo, dude, we hit the jackpot. Check your
email." Bleep.
Hm. This could be interesting. Had the Gunmen been working on that search all
night? Had they stayed awake all that time? Or had they slept... He envied
them if they had.
After a morning run, during which he deliberated on all the reasons why he
should be looking forward to seeing what the Gunmen had found, and trying to
ignore the misgiving he felt at touching anything more to do with Alex
dead-rat-bastard Krycek, he took a shower.
And found himself inexplicably crying.
It was taking its toll, he realized. Having to see Alex in vivid color and
near-living presence every night. He'd never asked to be betrayed, nor had he
ever asked to be kissed by a Judas fucking Syndicate blackmailer who had a mouth
that spouted lies and eyes that never hid the hurt and... And was dead. Alex
Krycek was dead.
His tears were hot and easily lost in the hot water than ran over him.
It was a long while before he turned off the water. He got out of the shower,
dried himself off, then dressed absently, pulling on jeans and a t-shirt.
Something had suddenly become very clear. Mulder went into the kitchen and made
himself a cup of coffee.
What if.
What if the dream-Krycek he kept seeing wasn't a figment of his subconscious at
all, but the real Krycek? The dead Krycek? His ghost? Spirit, shadow,
disembodied mind?
It made so much more sense, given the feel and the realism of the recurring
dream.
Which meant...
Oh no.
Oh shit.
Last night, he'd fucked up royally.
And it meant that he was being haunted. Haunted, for god's sake. He needed an
exorcist now, no joke. No thanks to the artifact.
And no thanks to Reyes, either. Thanks, he said silently to himself, thanks a
lot, Agent Reyes. Remind me to send you a whale recording.
He sighed and wondered why he always managed to turn everything into a perfectly
executed guilt-trip. And then wondered why he was feeling remorse at having
hurt the feelings of someone who'd been dead for months.
Another twinge of guilt. It had been Krycek who'd administered the vaccine to
him in the Naval Hospital, just in time to avert Mulder's insides being consumed
by the alien virus and replaced with some alien guest to wear his face.
Alex had saved his life.
It had all been in what Alex had said to Skinner. A vaccine developed by his
father, and that Mulder had known about it? What a crock. And of course Skinner
had fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
Alex had helped them save Scully's life... and her baby, regardless of whatever
threatening deals he'd offered Skinner prior to saving Mulder with the vaccine.
Mulder wondered too, if maybe Alex had thought at the end, before Skinner came
charging out to put several bullets into him, if Mulder himself had not actually
been changed after all, due to the vaccine being administered too late to
reverse the process. That might account for why Alex had been holding a gun on
him in the first place.
Mulder experienced a horrible lurch in his stomach as he realized he was
actually grieving. Over Krycek, for god's sake.
And found himself promising that he'd make it up to Alex if he dreamed again
that night. Fuck. Haunted by Krycek. It could only happen to him—what a
joke. Only it wasn't funny and hurt like hell and now...could it be?.. Was he
actually looking FORWARD to seeing Krycek again? Maybe a little desperately, to
try to explain? To get some answers at last? He wondered if whatever process
the relic had started was irreversible.
He turned on his computer and downloaded his mail with absolutely no desire to
do so whatsoever.
Fuck. Langley hadn't been kidding. Jackpot.
Magic Square I
by Jami Wilsen
The Hoover Building
FBI Headquarters
Washington, DC
#42, 2630 Hegel Place, Alexandria, Virginia
Later that afternoon
