Women! Nag, nag, nag...that's all they do. "Don't drink out of the
milk bottle. Put the seat down after you've used the john. Don't use
all the plastic explosive on the first corridor...
"Yeah, yeah, let me work and I'll be right there," I said.
"Alex, they're coming now," Marita shrilled. Her voice has always
gone up too high when she's freaked out.
"Get moving," I growled. Without looking over my shoulder, I
yelled, "Marita, move it. You know I can take care of myself."
Riiightt...
I can take care of myself.
Jerking my boot back on, I scowled at my best and first friend and
repeated my words. Samantha threw away the shard of glass that had
worked its way through my sole and said, "Sure, you can."
Samantha managed a laugh as we resumed plodding along the dusty road.
I wasn't sure where the hell we were. New Mexico? Arizona? I just
knew that the fucking aliens kept us moving. I was carrying Emily. It
wasn't my idea. Blame Samantha.
Before I ever met Mulder, before I fell in love with him, I was
primed to fall long and hard. I knew his smile. I knew the way it
always ran crooked across his face and made his hazel eyes glint. I
knew his strength, his humor, and his intelligence.
I heard it all from Samantha. I heard about the wonderful Fox when I
crept into Sam's bed at night. I heard about him when we were all
hurting from hunger because someone had broken the rules once too
often. He was the hero of our fancies, the one who was going to come
and save Samantha. Of course, we would be saved as well.
Blame it on my age. I was the youngest in my group. The project
preferred to take the kids when they were older and tougher. They
made an exception for me after they made me an orphan.
My parents had been a thorn in the side of the Old Men since I was
conceived. I wasn't just a kid; I was a commodity and I belonged to
the project. Mom and Dad thought they could do it, but I guess things
changed when I became a reality. They ran and they kept me safe for
six years before Spender's hounds hunted them down. I saw them
killed. I saw my world crumple in bloody dust.
Rough hands dragged me into a car. Silent and frightened, I traveled
by plane to the school. They cut my hair, which my mother had let
grow long. I remember she loved my curls. In a uniform that did not
fit, I sat on the thin cot where they left me, too terrified to weep.
I don't know how long I sat there before Samantha led me to dinner
and coaxed me to eat. I do know that, after the cottage "parent"
left, one of the older boys took my blanket. I didn't know enough to
fight. The dorm was left cold to make us hardy. Hardy, hell. It
killed the weaker children. I might not have made it long enough to
become the rat I am if Samantha had not taken me into her bed and
kept me warm.
Sam fought all of my battles for me the first few months. It took two
of the bigger bullies cornering us for me to stand up for her and
myself. I had picked up a pretty piece of glass when we were out on
our daily hike. I had meant to look at it, to admire the glint of
light off it. When Manuel bloodied Sam's nose and tried to kick her
head, I scurried forward like a little rodent and stabbed blindly.
Manuel had to be taken to the infirmary. He didn't come back. I never
found out if he was moved to some other part of the project or
whether I made my first kill that day at the ripe age of seven.
A day later Marita was placed in the Manuel's vacant bed. She was
another gently raised child, although her parents, unlike mine,
yielded her as required, not willingly, but obediently. I guess the
old men were worried though. They took her when she was as young as I
was. I protected Marita as Sam had protected me. She learned quickly
though. Marita may have looked like a little blond angel, but she was
well equipped to survive even at five.
Marita was always my fierce and beautiful shadow, but I loved
Samantha first. I still love her. I often wondered why I was so
unlucky that neither woman was the one who could set me on fire as
Mulder did. Why wonder? I was born under an unlucky star. The only
good things in my life after my parents died were Marita and
Samantha. And Mulder. I can't forget Mulder no matter how damned hard
I try.
So here I stand or rather here I trudge, my tired, hungry body
burdened by a little girl with red hair, child of my rival, child of
a woman that scared the hell out of me from the day I met her.
Samantha won't let the girl die. She won't let the aliens kill her.
Samantha is one tough bitch when she wants to be, but she has been on
the shit list with the project a long time. Poor food, hard work, and
beatings have worn her down. She can't carry Emily by herself and she
won't leave her. So I stagger beneath the weight and we walk. And we
walk with the sun beating down on us.
Where the hell are they taking us?
That night when they let us rest and gave us some food and water, I
lay down with my head on Samantha's lap. She gripped my hand, smiling
down on me. She's not as beautiful a woman as Mulder is a man, but I
love her smile. There's not much I don't love about her. Sometime I
think I fell in love with Mulder because he was the closest thing I
could get to Samantha in a man.
Emily put her head on my chest, holding onto me. She's just a little
sprout, but she's growing on me. She's a smart kid, a tough kid. She
would have made it back in our old school.
Slumping down to get closer, Samantha said, "They're getting sicker,
Alex."
"Yeah," I agree.
"We need to be ready. We need to get away before they decide to end
it," Samantha said.
I had no doubt what she meant. We were living on borrowed time. Only
the fact that these aliens had been passing as human long enough to
pick up our bad habits and the ability to deny reality made them hold
onto us, the children and grandchildren of the project, the hoped for
bridge that would allow them to use the human population of Earth for
their own means.
Our captors were dying one by one. There was just a handful left. As
I watched, one of the Kurts staggered in his tracks. Greenish slag
oozed from his pores. His comrades looked at him with consternation.
There was a brief consultation and then the remaining aliens circled
the dying one.
Samantha tugged me up. Samantha was smart. She had a sixth sense
about her. "Don't lose Emily if we get separated. Take her to Scully
if we don't find each other right away."
My better half smiled at me and kissed my cheek. "You give my brother
my love, Alex, if you see him first."
Ah, shit...ah, Samantha...
I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight, but her hazel eyes gazed
steadily into mine. She smiled again and said, "Don't be afraid,
Alex."
"I'm never fucking afraid," I lied, but I never was good at lying to
Sam. God, I loved her so much.
"Heads up, Ratboy," Samantha said. She gripped my arm.
This Kurt must have been around awhile. He tried to draw on his
loving brothers as they aimed the flamethrowers at him.
It was an arsonist's wet dream. There were aliens careening around,
setting each other on fire. They went up exceptionally well. It must
have been the oil.
The chaos gave us cover to run. Samantha and I stayed together for a
long time, but at some point, we tumbled down a hill. I held onto
Emily. I didn't want to face Sam if I lost her. It was late by then
and very dark. I kept moving, calling Sam's name. I crashed into a
small group of my fellow survivors. They kept following me. I
couldn't stop them.
An hour later, I acquired one of the flamethrowers after using a
piece of glass as a stiletto to kill its former owner. I'm good at
killing, a fucking artist at killing. What am I supposed to be?
Ashamed of it? You're alive, aren't you? Scum like me and Marita kept
you that way. Live with that little tidbit in your minds.
I got my little group out of the desert and managed to get in touch
with Frohike to get some money so we could travel in style. Sam
hadn't checked in with my geek friends as yet. It was scaring the
hell out of me.
A day or so later, I brought the rest of my strays on to the care of
my three dwarves...you know them, Mulder's Lone Gunmen. I adopted
them for sentimental reasons. Hey, every rat should have a pet.
However, they proved unexpectedly useful, very much worth their keep.
My fellow victims (Yeah, that word sucks and I'll kill you if you
ever describe me like that.) might have been safe going back to their
old lives, those who ever had a life before becoming a lab rat, but I
wanted to be sure. Until the last alien was a puddle of green goo, I
thought we should lie low.
Frohike looked at me with that old gorilla look of curiosity in his
eyes. "You taking the kid? You can leave her. Hell, Byers and I have
been saying that our little Langly could use someone to play with."
"Afraid you're going to have your next kid naturally," I said
back. "I have to get this kid to Scully."
Geek drool...that's the down side of making pets of them.
Frohike said, "Say hello to Scully for me."
"You forgetting that you're still dead?" I snapped.
Man, I hate that kicked puppy look. Makes me want to shoot their eyes
out.
Marita found me a few days after I settled my refuges with the
gunmen. I had settled down at the summerhouse Sam and I owned to wait
for some results from the Gunmen. She looked great, entirely back to
her cool blond self. She was disappointed that Sam wasn't with me.
She had delivered the magic potion to the alien rebels. They had
delivered more of the vaccine that would protect our hybrid brethren,
an important point to me as one of the most prominent examples
was my beloved Mulder.
Looking at me as if I had screwed up again, Marita said, "I'll go
find Sam. Give it a few days and it should be safe to give Emily to
her mother. Stay away from Mulder. He's being watched."
Yeah, like I didn't know Mulder was being watched. He was always
being watched. There's enough videotape of us screwing to make some
gay porn purveyor rich. I would obey Marita though. She has good
survival skills like I do. We both do fine when we don't end up being
too smart for our own good.
Marita hugged me before she left and said, "Don't worry. We would
feel it if anything happened to Sam."
I guess that's true. It was tough shit losing my arm, but I would
feel the loss of Sam more than I ever felt that missing limb.
Emily climbed in my lap and pressed her red curls against my chest. I
wrapped my arms around her. She was all I had to hang onto.
Telling myself that the time wasn't right to turn Emily over to her
mother, I stayed at the summerhouse. I figured it would make watching
the kid easier. You can see the enemy coming a long way on a beach.
My mistake. It turned out that the squirt had inherited a nautical
gene from Mommy. You could not keep the kid away from the water.
As I tried to nap, Emily tugged at my arm. She wanted to play on the
beach again. I wanted to refuse, but she was a persistent creature,
looking at me with the good doctor's clear blue eyes. Emily is Scully
all over again, a tougher Scully, and free of the traditional beliefs
that blinded Mulder's partner. Still, Emily had the intelligence, the
honest nature, and the kindness that Mulder said his partner had. Of
course, I had no fond memories of Scully, but then I think she always
regarded me as her rival even before she knew I was her enemy. It
took me a while to get past how much Emily looked like her, but
the kid was growing on me. Damn, I knew I should have taken
antibiotics.
Grumbling, I made Emily wear her sun hat. Sam always reminded me that
red heads need extra protection from the sun. We went out on the
beach, Emily squatting at intervals to pick up shells. When she found
living sea creatures, she always put them back in the ocean after
examining them curiously. When Scully gets this kid, she has to get
her a dog or something. Emily is crazy about animals.
The kid doesn't ask about Sam. That's not the way she was raised. She
saw a lot of people she cared about go away and never come back. She
keeps her questions inside now. I wanted to go looking for Sam. I had
lost a lot of people I cared about too, but Sam wasn't going to be
one of them. If you knew Sam, you would know why Mulder wrapped his
adult life around getting his sister back. I always wished I could
have told him. I know Sam did too, but it wouldn't have been
safe for Mulder. Spender intended to get Sam to drag her brother into
the project, but she wouldn't buy it. He ended up using her clones as
bait. I think Mulder could always sense the difference. You can't
clone what makes Sam, Sam. She was one of a kind. Not even Spender
could bring her entirely to heel. She wouldn't betray her brother nor
anyone else she cared about. When I grow up, I want to be Sam.
I waited until anxiety started clawing holes in my guts. Then I
decided it was time. Emily needed to go to her Mom and I had to go to
find Sam.
I had promised Sam that I would deliver Emily personally to her
mother. Sam can be a bitch when she doesn't get her way.
I sashayed my sweet round ass up the walkway to Scully's house. Yeah,
she went for the house in the burbs now that she has her other kid
back.
Emily was hanging onto me for dear life. I held her hand back, held
it nearly as hard as she was holding mine.
When I knocked on the door, it didn't open instantly. Scully answered
it with her FBI issue gun in her pretty little hand.
"Krycek," Scully said. Her eyes went to Emily. Emily was older than
the clone Scully had briefly taken to her heart, but the resemblance
was plain.
"Is this Emily? The Emily I knew?" Scully asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Why is she alive?" Scully asked. "How is she alive?"
Mulder's partner sounded cold, but I saw the way she kept glancing at
Emily and the way she couldn't help moving closer to her.
"The rebels experimented on her. They wanted to know if they could
remove the Riticulan element from a subject. This was the subject
they picked," I explained.
"What price am I supposed to pay for her?" Scully said. "I can't give
you Mulder."
So the bitch had noticed. I kept a neutral face, not letting her know
that she had scored.
"I promised an old friend that I would find a good home for her," I
said, talking as if Emily was a stray kitten.
"If this is a trick, Krycek," Scully said. "You will think what those
Russian peasants did to you was a quaint rural custom. I swear, I
will carve your body into a lab specimen and keep you alive until you
are no more than a bloody stump and a screaming head."
"Nice talk, Scully," I said. "Don't scare the kids."
William was peering around the corner. I bet she told him to hide. I
had to grin at the boy. He was Mulder's kid. He was not going to
follow directions. Scully might as well hang that idea up on the spot.
I could feel Emily's hand clinging harder to mine. She looked up at
me, her forehead crinkling in a frown. I wanted to book it. Just
start running and not stop until I was as far from Scully as I could
be. The weird thing was I wanted to take Emily with me.
Instead, I shoved Emily at Scully and said, "Don't you be mean to
her."
Fucking Maryland smog. It always made my eyes burn.
I always lived by the principle that you may not be able to outrun
your fate, but that it's better to keep trying than to crouch like a
cornered rat. So I moved. I kept traveling, going every place that
Sam and I had ever been.
I was at our little house in Southern California when the truth
struck me. Either Sam was dead or she was damn tired of me. I hadn't
heard from Marita since she went to find Sam. The Lone Gunmen had
lots to say about dying aliens and men in high places going missing,
but nothing to say about Sam.
I never used to drink. I don't think I've ever been drunk more than
three times in my life. I got smashed when Spender fucked up my FBI
cover. I got blasted for about a month straight after I left the
hospital when I lost my arm. The third time was after I stepped over
Mulder when he was out of his head. I was cool enough until the job
was over and then I kept flashing on his face. Mulder got to me.
Mulders get under your skin and go straight to your heart.
You could ask why I was drinking. Hey, it's a dirty job but someone
has to do it.
Okay, I finally accepted that I couldn't find Sam. This wasn't the
way it was supposed to be. Me and Sam and Marita were supposed to
step out of the shadows after we won. I figured they would make a
comic book out of us or something. We would be heroes.
Mulder was supposed to love me after he found out that I was his
sister's best friend and that I'd saved the world. It's not that I
mind the way he can't keep his hands off me, but I guess I played
with girls too much when I was a kid. I wanted the L word. I wanted
him to love me.
It had all gone to hell again.
Waking up, I wondered why I had fallen asleep outside and how it got
so damn wet in Southern California.
"Alex, you idiot!" Sam's voice said.
Oh joy. I was probably dead from something stupid. Probably drowned
myself in the toilet when I crawled in there and started barfing last
night. Mulder is going to laugh his guts out.
Worse yet, if I was dead and Sam was talking to me, she was probably
dead and was in hell just like me. Fucking unfair! Sam was one of the
good guys. I always figured you either were one or weren't. You got a
card at birth and mine said, 'Alex Krycek, bad guy, do not redeem.'
Spluttering, I finally managed to get my left arm up to shield my
face. That was strange. My little oily friends grew me a new arm, but
I couldn't make it work. It just hung there as useless as a diaphragm
in a gay whorehouse. Now it had come up to protect my cute little
nose from the relentless downpour.
Mulder's dry voice said, "Not that I'm seriously complaining, but
you're drowning him, Sam."
Mulder was here too?
I opened one eye. It only took two fingers and a little persistence
to crank my eyelid up.
There she was. Mulder's little sis. My surrogate 'Mom' and big
sister. Sam shook a last few drops out of the enema bag she was
holding above my head and laughed. Marita stood a distance back, a
disgusted expression on her face.
"I found her," Marita said. "I thought I would save some time by
bringing Mulder with me after I was sure all of our little friends
were dead."
Shaking the enema bag again, Sam said, "Alex, I'm not going to ask
you what you were doing with this."
Good thing. I hadn't just drowned my woes with sex, drugs, and rock
and roll. I drank a lot over the last weeks too. Hanging out in gay
biker's bar, I ended up bringing home a burly bear, who liked to
clean me out thoroughly before he reamed me.
Reaching down, Mulder pulled me to my feet and dragged me into the
shower. I didn't know Mulders were so big on water play.
"God, you reek!" Mulder exclaimed. "Sam, see if you can find a
garbage bag in this dump."
I spluttered and shook; Mulder hadn't bothered to warm up the water
and I was freezing. I sure and hell hoped that the garbage sack was
for my clothing and not for me.
Mulder's hands were pretty damn good at undressing me. Of course, he
had experience even if he was out of practice.
"What got into you, Alex?" Mulder demanded. "It isn't like you to go
on a bender."
"I thought Sam was dead," I admitted.
"Oh," Mulder said, his voice softer.
"I couldn't find Sam," I said. "Not anywhere."
"You jerk," Mulder said. "She broke her leg heading out of the desert
and holed up with some Indians. Seems they like our type and didn't
mind taking care of her. Only they don't get to town very much and
she had no way to tell anyone where she was. When she was well enough
to get out of there, you had disappeared."
Pulling the curtain shut, Mulder reached a hand out for the garbage
sack Sam held out and said, "Thanks, I'll handle the rest."
"As if I hadn't seen Alex nude a thousand times," Sam scoffed.
"I didn't need to know that," Mulder said, his tone brooding no good
for me.
Sam's hand pulled the curtain open long enough to smack Mulder.
Ouch. I felt for him. Sam has one hell of a smack. I had felt it
often enough.
"Be nice," Sam said. "He was like my younger brother, doofus. I'm not
the one who jumped his bones."
Rubbing his head, Mulder bitched. "Your clones were nicer."
"Yes? Well, that's what should have clued you in that it wasn't
really me. I was always the tougher one," Sam said.
She was. Having known them both, I knew that either Mulder was good
to have at your back, but I know why they took Sam, beyond the issue
of the high level tampering with Mulder's genes. Sam had a mental
toughness that had survived everything they threw at her. The only
problem was that they underestimated her. When Spender took her home,
I think he meant to persuade her that he was 'daddy'. Sam might have
played the game for a while, but she had decided when she was still
at the school that the only ones she could really trust was herself
and maybe Marita and I. She ran and managed to stay gone for two
years. The only reason they captured her at all was that she tried to
spring the rest of us.
I heard the door slam as Sam went out. Mulder stepped out of the
shower long enough to shed his soaked clothing and lock the door. I
wondered if that meant I was going to get lucky or get the shit
beaten out of me. Maybe both, considering my history with Mulder.
Mulder dragged my sopping clothes into the bag and tied it off as if
it was a biohazard and considering the way they smelled, he might
have been right.
At first, Mulder concentrated on getting me clean. That took some
effort. I knew he was ready to play when he subjected my neck to the
taste test. I leaned back and gave him more of my throat on which to
chew. He nibbled and licked, working his way down to tongue my
nipples into tight hard peaks. I didn't dare push his head down to a
lower level, but I was hoping.
Yes, you can feel that lower lip dragging over you like a silken
cloak. Mulder has a big mouth, but it's a sweet one when you give it
the right kind of work to do. I wished my legs weren't so wobbly.
"Just a second," Mulder let go of my cock, the suction breaking with
a pop.
Unlocking the door, Mulder yelled, "Sam, Marita, go shopping or
something."
"Don't be so damn modest," Sam shouted back.
I added a plaintive, "Sam..."
"Oh, all right," Sam said. "We'll be back in two hours. There's no
food here anyway."
Marita's voice added, "And we're taking your credit card, Alex."
Well, I always said whatever isn't gold, is platinum. I don't give a
shit anyway. The NRA paid the credit card. They think that they are
spending their money on a lobbyist with deep connections and who am I
to disillusion them? Let the girls have some fun on the NRA. Mulder
and I were obviously going to have more.
I hadn't lost the inspiration yet. Mulder helped me out of the tub
and we moved to the bedroom. Marita or Sam had cleaned it up and
changed the sheets. Good thing. I hadn't been back near that bed
since the bear had said he had to go back to work.
Tumbling onto the bed, we wrestled around for a while before I
graciously decided that Mulder could fuck me.
He almost always liked me on my back or riding him when we did it
this way. I always knew that he hadn't really stopped caring because
of that. Mulder didn't want to love me. It just happened and the poor
jerk didn't know how to stop. I liked it better this time. There was
a world of caring in his eyes.
Mulder liked to talk. Even with his cock up my ass, he stopped to
smolder at me. "You couldn't tell me my sister was alive."
"She would kick my ass if I did," I said. "If you were one hundred
percent sure it was Sam, they would have dangled her a bait and
ending up owning your soul."
"Alex, you..." Mulder said.
"Mulder, shut up and fuck me," I ordered.
Mulder looked at me wryly but he got wise. He obeyed.
His cock felt hot even through the latex. He was arched, the tendons
of his neck as tight as the ones in his thighs as he thrust in and
out of me at just the right pace. My legs locked over his shoulders
as if to keep him in me. As if he would have tried to get away. We
were both caught by each other, but it wasn't going to be a problem
from now on.
His body was lean and hard, shining like a god's with the sweat of his
exertion. My body was singing as our hands joined over my cock. I was
wailing for it, my voice cracking as I felt the rush of sensation
setting me on fire. He moved faster in me, his hand frantic on my
cock. I pushed back as if I wanted him deeper and let me tell you he
was deep enough. Our eyes met when we came. Windows of the soul...
so what if mine was a little shop worn? Mulder looked at me as if I
was his angel. And I was. His.
The rest of it is an anticlimax. Sam dragged me back to Maryland to
make my amends to a little lady there by the name of Emily.
I almost thought there was something fatally wrong when Emily hugged
me hard. My insides turned to mush. I felt like I was melting inside.
Actually crossed my mind that I had been replaced without even me
knowing it and that I was turning into green slime.
I guess it was just my stone cold heart warming up. Emily planted a
kiss on my nose and said, "I knew you would come back."
Scully rolled her eyes and muttered, "My daughter suffers from
terrible taste in men just like my partner."
I shrugged. At least one thing was still the same. Scully didn't like
me one bit.
So there we were. It wasn't a perfect world and Mulder and I didn't
get to ride off into the sunset, but I guess I was done with
traveling my lonely roads alone. In fact, Samantha threatened to nail
my shoes to the floor if I ever so much as grabbed a wild weekend
without telling her. Knowing Sam, I better listen. My feet would have
been still in my shoes when she got the hammer and nails.
Wheel of Fortune
by Ursula
"Alex, Alex!" Marita's voice said.
