It had been five days since she had identified Mulder's body. She hadn't
been back to work since the awful hearing where she had revealed his death.
Truth be told, everyone was shocked, from that self-assured cigarette
smoking bastard and down to the janitors that cleaned their basement office,
that Mulder had committed suicide. Whispers had begun floating around as
soon as the news broke. "I always thought he was crazy, but offing himself?"
And "Will she take up where he left off, the spooky heir to the spooky
throne?" Skinner forced her to take an indefinite leave, for her mental, as
well as physical, health. He also promised her that if she wished to resume
investigating the X Files when she returned, the department would still be
there. Scully almost loved Skinner for that. She would resume, but, unlike
Mulder's obsession to expose the existence of extraterrestrial life on
earth, she would use what little time she had left to expose the conspiracy
that had killed Mulder and was killing her piece by piece.
The moment she stood in front of the door to Mulder's apartment, she knew
something was wrong. The door was shut, and to all appearances, looked
perfectly normal. But there was a sense of the apartment being inhabited. It
was not a psychic sense, but subconscious hints that lead her instincts to
warn her that she would not be alone inside. Scully drew her gun and tried
the door knob. It was unlocked. She edge the door open, and slipped inside,
and her heart skipped a beat. There was a man in the apartment, standing
over the very spot where Mulder died, his back to her. She watched as the
stranger's shoulders shook with silent sobs, bringing the black leather
jacket tossed over him perilously close to sliding off.
She leveled the gun at the stranger's back, almost silently easing back the
hammer. The man's crew cut head snapped up, sensing her presence. He did not
turn to look at her. "You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man in the back, would
you, Agent Scully?" asked a gravely voice as he slid something into his
right jacket pocket.
Scully's eyes narrowed and she saw red. "Krycek," she hissed. Here was the
man who had a hand in her abduction, her sister's death, and so much of
Mulder's pain. A wild longing filled her to pull the trigger. But she was
not one to give in to her emotional impulses. "What the hell are you doing
here?"
He didn't look at her, but stared out the window that was next to Mulder's
beat up couch. "Paying my last respects." Krycek's voice, usually filled
with unfeeling disdain, was curiously choked with tightly leashed emotion.
"Respect?" Scully spat, incredulous. "You have no respect for anything.
You're here to make sure that the perpetrators of this crime remain
undiscovered."
"You're wrong, Agent Scully." Krycek turned to face her. Unsettled by his
movement, the jacket slid to the floor. "I'm here to expose them."
Scully managed to stifle her gasp at the sight of Krycek's empty left
sleeve. She remembered Mulder at the Congressional hearing, saying, "It's
good to be able to put my arms around you. Both of them." She had been
puzzled by the remark, and Mulder had never gotten around to fully
explaining it. And now it made perfect sense.
She managed to tear her gaze from his missing arm to stare into his face.
Krycek looked as if he hadn't slept in days and done laundry in a week, let
alone bathed. [Are those really tears?] she thought, observing the wet
streaks trailing down his face. But his face itself was the stone mask she
was used to seeing on this man. "You wouldn't believe what an advantage this
actually is," Krycek was saying matter of factly, shrugging his left
shoulder. "Most assassins, despite their claims of emotional coldness,
hesitate at the thought of executing a cripple. It gives me the split second
needed to run, or kill."
Scully didn't take the conversational gambit. She was idly curious how
Krycek lost his arm, but not enough to waver from her original question.
"You said that you were here to expose the people who did this." Krycek
nodded. "Why?" she bit out.
"There were other ways to neutralize him," Krycek said in a low, shaky
voice. "They didn't have to murder him."
Scully stated what she assumed to be fact. "He committed suicide."
And Krycek stated what he assumed to be fact. "He was murdered. Even if he
pulled the trigger himself, you know that it was murder."
"And why do you care?" Scully spat. "You betrayed him and tried to kill
him."
Krycek's eyes flamed at that accusation. "I never attempted to kill him,"
he hissed. "Yes, I lied to him. Yes, I betrayed him. Yes, I misdirected him.
But I never tried to kill him."
Scully kept on the attack. "But you did kill his father and my sister."
Green eyes shifted back and forth before he answered her. "Mulder's father,
yes. But your sister no. I was there, but the evidence proved I wasn't the
gunman. And from what I heard, Luis got better than he deserved."
"But you were there. Just as you are here now." The gun never wavered from
between Krycek's eyes. [Just do it. Pull the trigger,] a voice screamed. She
repeated her question with more emphasis. "Why are you here?"
"Because." Krycek's mask slipped a bit before he regained control. But
Scully could see the pain in his eyes before he spirited it away to some
dark corner of his soul.
It was enough for Scully to realize why Krycek was here. It was enough for
Scully to realize why Krycek had not killed Mulder when he had the chance.
It was enough for her to realize why Mulder always spoke of Krycek with such
vehemence. It was enough for her to realize why Mulder would as soon beat
Krycek as look at him. "You had feelings for him, and he once returned
them."
"Yes," Krycek hissed, as if the admission hurt him. "You knew that he was
bisexual, right?"
Scully nodded. She had guessed that early in their working relationship,
when she had found 'the videos that weren't his.' Half of them were
straight, the other half gay. Mulder, through paranoia or fear of being hurt
in a relationship, had been very cautious and discrete about his attractions
to other men, and unless she hadn't found those videos, she wouldn't have
had a clue.
Krycek continued. "The old smoking son of a bitch knew it too. He also knew
that I am. My original assignment was to get into Mulder's pants, and use it
to discredit him. But then Duane Barry came along and the plan... was
altered."
"Were the two of you lovers?" Scully asked, perversely intrigued. She also
wanted no reminders of her missing time, and did not want anyone, especially
this man to know about the nightmares she still had because of her
experience. And guiding the conversation away from that subject was
something she had grown adept at practicing.
"Yes," Krycek whispered. "After you were taken, Mulder turned to me for
comfort I was all too happy to give. But I never gave Cancerman the proof of
indiscretion he asked for."
"And why should I believe you, you lying son of a bitch?"
Krycek's forest green eyes stared into her sky blue ones. "Because I loved
him as much as you did. Oh yes," he continued. "The Cigarette Smoking Man
knows your little secret also."
Scully was surprised, but not overly so. She thought she had hidden the fact
that she loved Mulder quite well. That tar-lunged bastard seemed to be able
to get a hold of any information, no matter how closely guarded. She had
admitted it to herself soon after she began working with Mulder, but never
found the courage to tell him. [Actions must really speak louder than
words.] "Did Mulder have any idea?"
Krycek shook his head. "He didn't have a clue. He was a very astute man, but
very dense when it came to people he was close to," he said without irony or
sarcasm.
They stood in silence for several minutes until Krycek's stomach rumbled
loudly. "How long has it been since you had a meal?" Scully asked.
Krycek thought for a second and then shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know, a
day at least," he mumbled.
"Then why don't you come with me and something to eat?" [Why am I offering?]
Scully thought.
Krycek's eyes brightened a bit at the thought of food, but he still remained
wary. "And be met at your door by a dozen law enforcement officers? I don't
think so," he asked, wincing internally at how jaded he sound.
"I see what you mean, Krycek." Scully thought for a moment. "There's a
Chinese takeout a few blocks away. I can have them deliver." She had no
desire to turn Krycek over to the police right now. He had too many answers
that she needed, and if he went to jail, she would never get them.
Krycek shook his head, disbelieving. "You are offering me dinner?"
"I'm offering you a temporary truce," Scully said. "And a meal. Are you
going to take me up on it or not?"
Krycek pondered it for several minutes. "Okay. But it's not easy to think in
terms of a truce when a gun's being aimed between my eyes."
Scully lowered it, unaware that she had been still point the gun at Krycek.
She took a step towards him and then wrinkled her nose. "Why don't you take
a shower."
Krycek shrugged a little sheepishly and picked up his jacket. "I guess I do
have a bit of an... aroma. When you live with the rats, you get used to the
stench of the sewer."
Scully watched him move off to the bathroom. [What the hell am I doing?] she
thought. [He's an enemy and completely untrustworthy. Who knows what his
game is, coming here.] But still she found herself moving to the phone and
ordering 'the usual' she and Mulder had when ever they had a working dinner.
She heard the water start and a loud groan. Scully moved to Mulder's
bedroom, chastising herself for not frisking Krycek for weapons. She looked
at the discarded clothes, wondering how the man could bear to wear them. The
tee shirt and cotton briefs had turned to a dingy gray and had a several
more holes than when they were first sewn together. The jeans and canvas
basketball shoes with velcro tabs were scuffed and ragged, and the socks in
desperate need of darning. She found a set of Mulder's boxers, sweatpants,
and an old but clean white tee shirt and left them for Krycek.
But it wasn't kindness that motivated her, nor the smell. This gave Scully a
chance to paw through Krycek's things and see if he was without a weapon as
he claimed. The only thing she found in his jeans was a beat up leather
wallet with less than twenty dollars in it, and two driver's licenses from
two different states in two different names, and a social security card with
a third name on it , none of them his. [If 'Alex Krycek' is his real name,]
she thought.
She turned her attention to his jacket. If she was going to find a gun, it
would be here. But strangely enough, there was no weapon of any sort.
Krycek, for some crazy reason, had been walking around unarmed. It was a
fatalistic indication of how far he had sunk in his survival expectations.
The only thing in his jacket was a dog-eared picture of Mulder. When she
heard the knock at the front door, Scully hastily replaced the picture. As
she opened the door, she could hear the water shut off.
Krycek leaned back against the slick tile, wondering what the hell he was
doing. His plan had been simple enough when he heard about Mulder's death—get in, lay some ghosts to rest, and get out. But here he was caught by
Scully and going to sit down to a meal with her like they were friends. The
next time he had expected to see her, he expected to either be cold on a
slab, or in handcuffs.
[Now there's a thought.] Krycek remembered the last time he had been in
Mulder's apartment, and in handcuffs. [Great,] he thought. [Now I'm tired,
paranoid, hungry, and horny.] He sighed and stepped out of the shower,
grabbing the gun he kept with him at all times, and stopped short when he
saw the clothes on the bed. Mulder's clothes. He lifted the tee shirt to his
face reverently. Closing his eyes, he inhaled, breathing in the scent of
Mulder. He shivered. Scully had no way of knowing, but she had chosen almost
the exact outfit Mulder had been wearing when he had come over, the same
night they had made love for the first time.
[No crying, not here, not now,] Krycek told himself sternly as rebellious
tears seeped from the corner of his green eyes. For all he knew, Mulder's
apartment was still bugged and Cancerman's henchmen were on their way to
finish what a carbomb, an olien, and a Russian gulag didn't. [It's stupid
for me to stay here any longer,] he thought. [It just increases the chances
of Cancerman finding me.] But if he left, he wouldn't be certain where or
when his next meal would be. So he would eat and get away as quickly as he
could.
He dressed, still a little off-balance, missing the use of his left hand.
But it felt wonderful to have showered and be in clean clothes. He slipped
the gun he had carried into the bathroom back into his jacket pocket, his
fingers brushing against the photograph. [I thought I left this in the other
pocket. Scully must have rifled through my clothes.] His estimation of the
FBI agent rose another notch. She was willing to call a truce with him, but
not fully trust him, a wise decision when dealing with anyone as far as
Krycek was concerned.
He waited until he heard the delivery boy leave and then went into the
living area. Scully had put the take out containers down on the coffee table
and was finding some plates. The small table in the kitchen area was covered
with Mulder's paperwork, and it seemed a sacrilege to move it. The only open
area to sit and eat at was the couch.
Both Scully and Krycek looked at the couch, and then to each other. Both
were thinking that if a piece of furniture could be haunted, this couch
would definitely be a candidate. This was where Mulder lived, and eventually
died. Here was where he slept, ate, watched his videos, and thought up some
of his strange theories. It didn't feel right to sit there and eat. Krycek
looked back at Scully. He picked up one of the bags of Chinese food and
moved to back to the bedroom. Scully followed, picking up the other bag and
carrying it along with the plates.
Somehow, Mulder's presence was less prevalent in his bedroom. It was just as
messy at the rest of the apartment, but didn't quite seem as personalized as
the couch. Krycek sat down on the edge of the bed next to the wall, cross
legged. Scully sat down at the far end, plates and food forming a barrier
between them.
But as they ate, some of those barriers tumbled. They found themselves
sharing stories about the things Mulder did that was a source of endless
amusement or exasperation to them. They talked for hours, each trying to
find some sense in Mulder's seemingly senseless death. Krycek meanwhile, was
disturbed to find himself growing attracted to Scully. It seemed
disrespectful somehow, Mulder being dead for less than a week and he was
having feelings towards another person. [I'm just feeling this way because
this is where we spent a few nights.] That and the fact that he had been
involved with the plot that was supposed to lead to her death and instead
lead to the death of her sister. [I'm supposed to be a heartless son of a
bitch.]
Eventually, Scully noticed the late afternoon light streaming in the window.
"It's late," she said. Krycek nodded, the stone face mask having dropped
back into place. If he had the lost-puppy-look, or the woe-is-me look,
Scully would have gone with her instincts that he was lying about the whole
situation. But the young man was struggling not to let his emotions show.
And suddenly, Krycek wasn't the horrible monster any longer, but an all too
human, and handsome, man. [I shouldn't be attracted to him,] she thought.
[He's part of the reason I'm dying of cancer.] But she needed to touch and
be touched, to reassure herself that she was still alive, if only for the
moment. While in an internal war with her emotions and her logic, she
reached out and touched his left shoulder.
Krycek jumped from the unexpected intimacy. No one had touched him gently
since Tunguska. He looked up into Scully's eyes and saw the pain that was
there, wincing a bit when he realized he had caused some of the it. He tried
to pull away, but Scully kept her hand on his shoulder. "I should go." But
he made no move to leave. Almost against his will, he raised his hand to her
face.
Scully didn't flinch when Krycek reached up and stroked her cheek with the
back of his fingers. Warning signals flared through her mind. But she almost
managed to sublimate it. [Your grief has you doing things you normally
wouldn't consider.] She reached up and also stroked his stubbly cheek, going
against the grain of his beard.
Krycek rubbed against her hand. "This is wrong," he purred. "I shouldn't
even be here." He grabbed her wrist. "What the fuck are we doing, Dana?" he
asked, looking down at her. But of its own volition, his hand slid up and
down her arm.
['Fuck' is right,] Scully thought, staring back at him."We should be mortal
enemies," she said, trying to inject some reality into the situation. She
failed miserably as far as she was concerned. "But tonight, I think we are
just two people trying to comfort each other over the loss of a loved one,
Alex."
Krycek stood there, shocked as the words came out of her mouth. He leaned
forward slowly, giving her time to back out, and brushed his closed lips
against hers. He pulled back almost immediately. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't
have...." He fell silent.
Scully studied the man before her. "You're right. We shouldn't," she said
with not a little sadness.
Krycek sighed and tenderly brushed Scully's fiery hair away from her eyes.
"Regrets?"
"Yes," Scully said. "But I don't think Mulder would have forgiven me if I
did."
"I know he wouldn't have me and I wish that he were around so we could find
out. You were the only thing he considered... uncorrupted." Krycek looked up
at the ceiling and exhaled loudly. "I guess it's back to the basement for
you and the sewers for me."
Scully rolled onto her right side. "I could always use a source, Alex. And a
partner."
Krycek raised his eyebrows. "In bed?"
"On the streets. I need all the help I can get if I'm going to finish this
before I..." Scully couldn't complete her sentence.
Krycek's eyes widened. "Cancer?" he asked, shrewdly tapping a finger just
above the bridge of her nose.
Scully nodded. "Inoperable. It also has metastasized." While she could not
speak of Mulder's death without struggling to suppress her emotions, she had
no difficulties speaking of her own.
"They did this to you." Scully confirmed Krycek's statement with a nod.
"Why?"
Scully stared straight ahead. "To make Mulder believe the lie."
"But which lie?" Krycek murmured in an undertone.
Scully did not want to start debating alien existence with Krycek. They had
more urgent things to discuss. "Now what?" she asked.
Krycek had clicked back over to the street survival mode. "I think it would
be best if I got up and left, without you knowing where I went."
Scully arched an eyebrow. "And how do I contact you?"
"You don't," Krycek said. "If I'm needed, I'll be there."
They sat there for several more minutes without saying anything. Krycek
uncrossed his legs and swung them over the edge of the bed. He looked back
at Scully for a moment.
She looked back. "Take care, Krycek."
"You too, Agent Scully." Krycek stood and walked out of the room. Scully
didn't move until five minutes after she heard the front door shut.
Uncertain Allies
Part I
Last Respects
Scully walked the familiar path to apartment forty seven with leaden steps.
[Why do I keep doing this to myself?] she thought. And the same voice in her
mind answered. [You know why.] It was a pilgrimage to the man she cared for
deeply and an attempt to come to terms with his suicide.
