Oh, it's kind of different when you're there
Brian looked up from his laptop computer as a particularly joyous
round of barking and splashing broke his concentration right in the
middle of a confrontation between the killer and his protagonist.
He didn't have the heart to yell at Jake and Stella, not when Jake
looked so happy and carefree for once. The manuscript could wait.
It did Jake good to get out of that apartment, no matter how
luxurious. As host, it made Brian feel good to see his guests
enjoying the amenities.
His train of thought shattered, Brian took advantage of the break to
stretch and enjoy the view. His house was a small dump, but being
right on the beach made up for it. He let the sun's warmth and
light filter through his skin. Prior to these past two months, he
hadn't seen much of the sun for a long while. He'd had a different
muse.
It amazed him that he could be fine one minute and then have her
absence hit him like a falling anvil the next. They knew that what
they had couldn't last, wouldn't work out, but that didn't stop them
from feeling the pain. Brian expected her back from England in a
few days. He could almost see all the minutes stacked before him.
"Brian, come on over and play! You just finished a book, and your
publisher loved it. Give yourself a break," Jake said as he tossed
the Frisbee. Stella ran through the surf and leapt for it. She almost
knocked him down returning it.
Brian put on a happy face for Jake. He was glad that Jake accepted
his invitation to come by. Jake was a brother, of sorts. "I'm a
writer, I write. I enjoy it," Brian said.
Brian suddenly felt someone at his back. He didn't know how
someone could be right behind him without him feeling an
approach but Brian leapt up and turned, gun in hand, anyway. He
saw a man in a suit came crashing down toward him in a faint.
Brian grabbed him before he hit the sand face-first and pushed him
into the chair. When the man's head lolled back, the face was an
almost exact copy of Brian and Jake's. "Mulder?"
Dark Angel looked out the window as the plane made its final
descent into L.A.X. England to California had been a long,
punishing flight that had stripped her nerves bare. Having been
involved in two gun battles and an attempted hostage situation over
the past fifteen years on planes, she knew she couldn't let her
guard down too far. That vigilance stopped her from really reading
a book or listening to a CD to pass the time. The book she held as
camouflage was still turned to page five. It stopped her from
actually getting anything done. It was dead time. If Brian had
been with her she could have talked to him, and with both of them
keeping half a mind to what was going on around them that almost
made up one attentive person.
She missed Brian in ways she hadn't expected, but she loved him
too much to bring him with her into too much danger. He had
neither her training nor her advantages.
Her old partner, Joe Frank, had always kidded her about her
tendency to fidget in such situations, even though he knew she
could be perfectly motionless when she pleased. That made an
important distinction. She hated being forced into to stay in one
place. Sometimes she had flashbacks from her erased childhood
that involved her abduction. The blinding lights seared her eyes,
and she couldn't move. At all. Her mind raced as she desperately
tried to even twitch but couldn't. Couldn't move, couldn't even
scream as her body became a dead thing she couldn't control. She
couldn't see him, but she could hear her brother scream her name
with such pain, and the hell of it was that whatever blocked her
memory let her know that he screamed her name but wouldn't let
her hear those syllables for herself, wouldn't let her know her own
name. She could only hope that they hadn't taken him as well.
Another flashback had her taped to a chair with a bright light in her
face and shadow men in suits asking questions, but she couldn't
see their faces or make out their voices. Motionless and helpless
again.
Immobility meant helplessness, and Dark Angel had thrown off
helplessness as an option ever since she took matters into her own
hands with her fifth foster father.
But now she was on a plane and had no actual control over where
she was going. She called such moments dead time. Time when
you do about as much good as a corpse, when you have about a
corpse's say in what goes on around you, when you're at the mercy
of another's whims. When you're not allowed to move. In many
ways her years in government work had been dead time. Right
now she could only sit and seethe.
Sit and seethe wearing a fuzzy pink sweater, white pants and
shoes, and a girly coat. Instead of curling her black hair, she left it
in its natural waves, which made it look longer, and pushed it back
with an Alice band. She could never helping smirking at the name
of that hair accessory. She had little else to smirk about. Even her
eye shadow and lipstick was pink. For now she was Elizabeth
Walker, but she couldn't wait to get back to Serafine Fitzwalter,
American, and her Gothic, dangerous look.
Serafine Fitzwalter wasn't her real name either. Dark Angel had
enough names to fit a crowd of people and never kept any one for
more than a few years. She changed names so often only partly to
hide her trail. In truth, she didn't feel like she had a real name, not
with her birth name taken from her by the people or beings who
controlled the bright lights.
At times like this, surrounded by normal people and their mundane
lives, she wondered what it would be like to settle down and have a
family, to stop running and looking over her shoulder. With her
connections, she could sink under the vast sea of humanity and
never be found if she could only stop sticking her neck out. She
tried to think about having a husband, children, pets, a house, and a
job. She could do far more than just kill and suspected that she
could make a great deal of money using some of her other talents
for a computer company. She tried to imagine going to the same
job and returning to the same house every day.
Dead time. She couldn't do it. The price of freedom is eternal
vigilance.
That whole thing with the institution had disturbed her, which was
why her thoughts were flying and tumbling into odd configurations
like snow in a shaken snow globe. Too many memories from her
spook days. Civilized countries don't keep dungeons; they just
throw you into some psychiatric ward, restrain you, and drug you
until you don't know what you're saying anymore. Even if Mister
Douglas, after the steady diet of drugs they had him on, couldn't
tell her anything, breaking him out of there had been worth it.
When she had snuck into the security wing of the hospital and seen
him motionless and drug-dazed in those heavy restraints with all
the IV lines in his arms, she knew what had to be done. Especially
considering his history. In her berserker fury she had left such a
scene of bloody and chaotic carnage behind her that she didn't see
the authorities figuring out the real story for some time to come.
She looked down at Douglas' head resting on her shoulder, as it
had for most of the trip. It would take time for the drugs to wear
off.
"You remind me of someone sometimes," Mr. Douglas muttered
against her neck.
"Good or bad?" she whispered back in an accent identical to his, a
sort of clotted-sounding version of an English accent that lacked
the posh sound of the single English accent Americans expected.
"Good. I miss her dearly. She was the only good in a horrible
situation." He moved a little, trying to find a cozy position. "I used
to be comfortable in a suit. Now it feels foreign to me." Since she
couldn't bring him onto the plane in a hospital gown, she had tried
to dress him respectably. Tall and thin as he was, he made that a
hard thing to do in a hurry. She got him the best suit she could
find that wouldn't look too suspiciously big or small for him and
bought him sunglasses to hide his dilated, dazed eyes. It was
unfortunate that the total effect, to her American eyes, made him
look like a killer from a Tarantino film.
"I like ties. They make good handholds. As for you, you're doing
fine. I was amazed that you could walk after all the junk they
pumped into you."
His mouth twitched. "You steered. I'm going to have some
interesting bruises. You're very strong. As an intern, you were
pretending to be from Liverpool. Are you related to me now?"
"You were more aware of your surroundings than they realized."
His hand tightened on her arm. "That made it far worse. To be
almost aware but able to do nothing..." He looked up at her. "But
you're familiar with such things. I can tell from the look that you
get in your eyes when you think about being back there and the
way you tore into security. You've worked for a government but
not now. American?"
"You're far sharper than you should be, Mister Douglas."
"I am forever grateful for my rescue, but I don't know how much I
can help you. I can't discern nightmare from nightmarish
memory."
"That doesn't matter really. The island is a wash; more than
enough time has passed for a team to 'purify' the place.
Depending on what they want with Moreau's work, they'll either
sift through the mess Montgomery left or carpet-bomb the whole
area to destroy any evidence. There's nothing more I can do, so it
doesn't matter. You can tell me what you like and take advantage
of the beach house I'm taking you to to put your head back
together. From there, it's your decision what you do with the rest
of your life. I'll help you any way I can."
He looked perilously close to tears. She didn't know him well
enough to know if it was the drugs' effect or not. "Why?"
"I've been where you've been. That's enough."
"I have to repay you somehow."
"Well, I have one question I would like answered if you can. Is
Moreau truly dead? It said so in the transcripts of your
interrogation, but that's just the sort of thing they would lie about."
He sounded choked. "Yes, he was torn apart and devoured by his
own creations."
"I'd always thought of him as a man most likely to end that way. I
met him once. He would work for any government willing to
support his research and ignore his methods. He felt that the ends
justified the means without ever realizing that the means shape the
ends. He looked at me like I was a walking specimen collection.
He didn't think I was human. When he left for his island I still had
to deal with his apprentices. There were others like me who
weren't as," her face twisted into something that couldn't be called
a smile, "stable as I was or as useful. They dissected them."
"How could he think you were not human?"
"Many years ago something stole me and brought me back
changed. I'm stronger and faster than I should be. I heal faster
and don't age much. My senses are more acute. I've been
changed at the genetic level and have some sort of implants in my
brain. Moreau thought that made me not quite human. Does that
disturb you, Mr. Douglas?"
"My work for the U.N. involved flying to war-torn countries to
help mediate peace settlements. It was always the same. Some
group of people decided that their neighbors weren't human
anymore and that it was right, maybe that it was even God's plan,
to kill them. They wouldn't stop until someone forced them to or
they lost too many people or too much trade. In a few years
hostilities usually begin again." His eyes met hers with a pain she
understood. " I don't mind your differences. 'Human' isn't
necessarily a compliment."
Krycek nursed his coffee and read his newspaper in the cafe, trying
to hide his impatience. That breakout at the English institution
three days ago sounded like her work, but she hadn't returned to
Kessler's place yet. He knew because he had bugged the edge of
the driveway, Kessler being too paranoid to miss bugs placed
anywhere else. Pryor would have found them.
Not that he didn't respect Brian Kessler. He even liked him, a
decision he came to after Kessler put a gun at Krycek's neck and
tried to teach Mulder to be more professional. Every time Krycek
tried to teach Mulder something, the beautiful son of a bitch beat
him up. Maybe Kessler had more luck. Despite his tragedies and
without training, Kessler was still almost good enough to be an
operative. The man might actually survive.
Krycek hoped that he had gauged Pryor's relationship with Kessler
correctly, that she would return to the beach house. He needed the
woman of many names as much as he needed Mulder. Kessler was
a bonus. Fleiss' presence had been a surprise, and he hoped Fleiss
left before the trouble came down. The architect was strictly a
noncombatant and might get in the way. Too bad.
He wondered if Mulder's drugs had worn off yet. He had been in
the same room with a naked and vulnerable Mulder but he
couldn't enjoy it when Mulder was too drugged to be Mulder. Did
that mean he loved Mulder for his mind? Krycek smirked at the
thought.
The waitress came by to fill his coffee cup and flirted shamelessly.
It amazed him how little people noticed. Covered by his leather
jacket and glove, his prosthetic drew no attention, even though he
was currently using it as a paperweight. No one noticed the plug
in his left ear that let him keep constant track of arrivals at the
house. He wasn't complaining; he had always made good use of
such obliviousness.
Krycek hoped Pryor would be back soon. Too much depended on
everyone being in the proper place. If he had been wrong about
that English institution thing, he was screwed. The ease of entry
into a secure area, the efficient murder of the guards, and the
release of all the "patients" in that area suggested her. She had
done spook work, had once been held in such an institution, and
nursed a long-standing hatred of the mental health profession.
Her trainers, many of whom had also been his, still spoke of her
skill, tenacity, ruthlessness, endurance, efficiency, and utter lack
of guilt.
He liked Alice Pryor too. He wondered about the cheeky civil
servant who had given her the name "Alice Pryor" considering her
history, or rather lack of one. "Pryor" for her unknown prior life?
The name gave him such a smile that he always used it when
thinking of her, although he would never say it aloud to her. She
accepted only the names she gave herself and the birth name in
her blotted out, hidden childhood as real.
She was never any nastier to him than she had to be and had a
wicked sense of humor. Sometimes they socialized over a meal
and talked shop almost like friends. He didn't understand how she
could balance her ruthlessness and compassion, her caution and
impudence. She remained unpredictable, and he even liked that.
None of which stopped him from doing what he had to do or ever
had. She understood that and him better than anyone else did. He
never actually switched sides; he simply remained ever loyal to
one side, his own.
Krycek continued to wait for the last puzzle piece to fall into place.
Mulder awoke alone in an unfamiliar bed in a dim, unfamiliar
room. He thought he smelled tomato sauce cooking. He felt
warm, fuzzy, happy, and distant from his body, like it belonged to
someone else. It should bother him but didn't. Everything felt
nice. He heard his own voice speaking in the next room.
"—just appeared out of nowhere. Yes, I meant it exactly as I said.
One moment he wasn't there and the next he was. No, I don't
know how. There were no bright lights, noises, or orchestra music.
Jake was there too, and he could corroborate my story. Jake, Dana
wants to talk to you."
Mulder sat up and felt his head swirl. He spent a moment enjoying
that sensation and the ability to move his limbs before he stood up.
Someone had taken off his suit jacket, shoes, and tie. Both of his
guns in their holsters sat on the table next to the bed. He opened
the door and peeked out.
He saw himself handing the phone to... another himself. Both
were dressed casually. One had a scar on his face and scars
circling his wrists. Mulder knew he had an explanation for all this
but it escaped him at the moment. He didn't worry. It would
come.
"Hi, Agent Scully, I've heard so much about you." This one also
had Mulder's voice. "Yes, Brian told it exactly as it was. One
moment Bri was sitting alone and the next your partner was
falling on top of him. It's a very flat beach; if he walked up to us
we would have seen him. He couldn't have slithered up to us on
his belly without us seeing him." Exasperation started to color his
voice. "You don't even know me, and you're calling me a liar.
You're calling Brian a liar too. Yes, you are. That's the way your
partner showed up and walking me and Brian through it from a
different direction isn't going to change it. No, I don't know how
long it takes to travel from Missouri to California. I've never been
to Missouri." He held the phone away from him like it was
poisonous and thrust it in Brian's direction.
Brian sighed and accepted. "It's me again, Dana. Yes, that really
was Jake and not me." He pretended to strike his head against the
wall to Jake's amusement. "No, I don't know the distance from
Missouri to California either." Brian turned from the phone.
"Hey, Jake, say hi to Mulder."
Jake turned to look at Mulder and stared at him. "Oh, shit.
Somehow it's even worse when you're awake. At least Brian has
that scar." Then a big dog came flying at Mulder and knocked him
down in a happy storm of fur. "Stella! Bad girl!"
Dark soulful eyes looked Mulder over as Stella's plumy tail
wagged at a great speed. Mulder's head spun and his back hurt
where he'd hit the wall and then the floor, but even the pain was
pleasant. He started to wonder what he was on. "No, it's okay. I
like dogs."
Then the explanation came to him. Brian and Jake were two of his
clones. He'd met Brian before but not Jake. That realization
seemed to help bring his mind back to business because he then
felt grateful that Brian had thought to call Scully. They'd been in
Shelbyville, Missouri checking out some abductions. He last
remembered entering a house with Scully somewhere behind him.
Then nothing until he woke up in bed seemingly moments later.
Something still stopped him from worrying, but he did start to
wonder how long he'd been gone.
Jake tried to get Stella off him, sometimes muttering, "Stella, you
slut," but failed. Mulder wondered if the dog liked him for being
similar to Jake or for other doggy reasons. He just wished she'd
stop mauling him in her affection.
Brian's voice floated back to him. "—can't just put him on a bus,
not with the way he is now. I've seen beached fish with better
coordination. I suspect drugs too. Don't worry, I'll take care of
him. Yes, I'll ask him all the questions. He just came to. Look, I
have a sauce cooking for dinner; it's about 6 o'clock here, so I
have to go. Bye."
"Is she always like that?" Jake asked Mulder.
Mulder didn't like his tone and felt a little defensive. "She's very
thorough."
"She's your counterpart. You both tend to take things by the neck
and shake them until they say what you want to hear. And, Jake,
Dana is not like that socially," Brian said. "Mulder, what day is
it?"
Mulder felt a chill despite the drugs, but all he could do was
answer and learn the damage. "Wednesday." When Brian and Jake
shared a significant look, Mulder asked, "Okay, then, what day is
it?"
"Saturday. You disappeared Wednesday." Brian looked at him,
probably gauging the expression of shock on Mulder's face. "You
don't remember any of that time, do you?"
Mulder felt the fear start to catch up with him through the haze.
"No."
"Do you want to go to the hospital for an examination?"
"Were there any signs of assault?"
Brian grinned. "I didn't strip you all the way down, Mulder, but
no, none that I can see."
"Then, no. I can't go to perfect strangers and tell them I might
have been assaulted but can't be sure. Maybe later to someone
who knows about my investigations..."
Brain snorted. "Yeah, asking strangers to look for signs of anal
probing can be awkward, especially if after that they don't find
any."
A sudden spate of honking from outside startled them all. Brain
started to smile. "She's back."
"How do you know it's her?" Mulder asked.
"If anyone else would honk out the melody to Portishead's 'Glory
Box' as a signal, I can only surrender myself into their hands.
They know too much about me for me to escape them. Besides,
she called me from the airport a half hour ago."
"'She,' who?" Jake asked then looked at Brian. "Oh, her."
Mulder wondered if his two clones were really communicating on
a non-verbal, almost telepathic level, or if he was just too drugged
up to notice obvious cues. The first thought started him down
another road of spook-o-rama as he thought about the psychic
bonds twins sometimes claimed to have and wondered if his clones
shared something similar and, if so, why he didn't share in it.
Stella warded off his coming paranoia by licking his face until he
was too occupied with stopping her to think about it.
When Brian opened the door, Dark Angel and her guest walked in.
Brian's face fell, and he said, "Sera, you told me you were wearing
a pink, fuzzy sweater!"
She was dressed Gothic style in black jeans, knee-high black boots,
a silver cross necklace, a form-fitting vinyl top, and her faded
black, battered, duct-tape-over-the-holes-and-scars leather jacket.
And who knows how many weapons hidden under her clothes. Her
black-lined eyes narrowed. "Yeah, and I got out of it as soon as I
could. I felt like Ed Wood. Did it mean that much to you?"
"Most people have kinky fantasies about leather and vinyl. Since I
constantly see you in those, I have fantasies about you in frilly
pink girly clothing."
"That was way more than I wanted to know," Jake said.
"Brian, you didn't mention your guest," she said sweetly as she
tossed black curls back from her face.
"Uhhm, guests. Mulder's here too. I didn't tell you over the
phone because I knew you would get upset and it wasn't my fault
that they're both here now when you're also here. I didn't expect
you back for a while."
Her eyes briefly darkened with pain then turned outward again as
she realized that her guest was quietly freaking out behind her.
She turned to comfort him and said, "Right. I'm sorry, Douglas. I
didn't expect this either. Everyone, this is Edward Douglas.
Douglas, this is Brian, Jake, and Mulder. No, it's not the drugs
affecting your vision; the three of them are twins. Brian has the
scar, Mulder is on the floor and has the suit pants, and Jake has
the dog, Stella. Don't feel bad if you can't keep them straight at
first. If I look nervous, it's because every single person in this
room except Stella has been the target of people out to kill them.
I'm waiting for God's thunderbolt or at least a gang of gunmen to
strike us for our impudence."
While everybody else stood around not knowing what to do next,
Serafine led Douglas over to one of the living room couches and
settled him in. "I am sorry about this," she said to him as she
took off his sunglasses and loosened his tie.
"I've stopped expecting life to make sense," he said wearily,
closing eyes that were all pupil with thins rims of brilliant
cerulean, before he perked up a little. "Is that food I smell?"
"Sauce a la Brian, I suspect. He's a killer cook."
Brian came over and took on the role of Proper Host. "It should be
ready in twenty minutes, Mister Douglas."
"Thank you... Brian. Will I ever stop being so tired?" Douglas
asked with a muzzy despair.
"I don't know exactly what they've been shooting you up with, but
you've been clean for three days and you're still groggy. I'm
hoping that settling you in and giving you some food might help,"
Serafine said.
"I don't remember the last three days."
"Be thankful. Withdrawal hit you like a brick. Do you need
anything?"
"No. I could just use a rest."
As Serafine walked away, Brian whispered, "Three days?"
She whispered back, "They had him down for months, sticking
every kind of junk they could find into his veins. I just helped him
through three days of screaming, vomiting and seizures.
Fortunately for him, he spent most of that time blacked out. It
was also fortunate that the drugs are still mellowing him down a
bit because he was doing the white-knuckle bit during the flight as
is. He was the sole survivor of a plane crash not that long ago."
"Have you slept at all?"
"What do you think, Bri?" she replied as she bent over Mulder,
who was still sprawled on the floor. Mulder now understood why
her eyes resembled burnt holes in her face, but he noticed that
every time she looked at Brian she attained a kind of glow in those
eyes, a glow that Brian reciprocated. He couldn't remember the
last time anyone had looked at like that. "So, Mulder, why do you
smell like cotton candy?" she asked.
"That's what the smell is?" Brian asked.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Mulder asked.
"It's coming from your breath and exuding from your pores. I
assume it's the drugs."
When she put her hand to his forehead, Mulder couldn't help
leaning into it like a cat. It felt so good, and he felt his IQ drop by
at least fifty points as his thoughts scattered. Her right eyebrow
lifted almost into her hairline, and she quickly pulled her hand
away. He could feel his disappointment registering on his face
against his will as well as a blush. Again he wondered what he had
been dosed with.
"Okay, Mulder. Now I have a question for you: how do you feel
about your father since you started finding out that he was
involved with the people you hate the most?"
To his horror, Mulder promptly answered, "I love him but I hate
him almost as much, but I started to hate him after Samantha
disappeared and it just keeps getting worse." He hadn't meant to
say anything, and he certainly wouldn't have said that if he had.
"Nice truth serum. I didn't even ask for most of that. Sorry,
Mulder, it was just a test." She looked to Brian. "Is this what he
was wearing when he got here?"
"His suit jacket is in the guest room."
"Great." Serafine pulled Mulder off the floor and only held his
hand as long as it took. "Hey, Brian, could you put on some happy
music to keep the mood up?"
"I guess I'll be putting my own music on then," Brian said and
laughed as Serafine flipped him off before she left the room. Brian
put a CD on just loud enough to be heard but not enough to disturb
Douglas on the couch. Mulder identified it as an Aerosmith
album.
"Was that-That was Dark Angel, wasn't it?" Jake asked. "I mean
that sounds a lot like her voice."
"Yep," Brian said.
"You didn't tell me that your homecoming love Serafine was Dark
Angel. I mean, she looks and even sounds different now. Mulder,
you've been neck-deep in weird shit for years. Does this ever get
any easier to deal with?" Jake asked.
Mulder shook his head to try to clear it. "No, not really."
"Bri, maybe I should leave. You have more than enough people to
fill the house."
"Jake, I promised you dinner. It's all right. If you can stand the
craziness, you're more than welcome to stay," Brian said as he
stirred the sauce.
"Okay, but at least let me set the table."
Brian grinned. "I can live with that. You're going to have to drag
some chairs from other rooms of the house though."
Mulder wandered into the living room area with a very happy
Stella stuck to his shadow. Despite the mysteries and weirdness,
he seemed to be enjoying himself. Brian's house was small but
cozy and looked like an artist's residence with its funky furniture,
cheerful clutter, and beautiful, framed photographic prints on the
walls. Mulder remembered that one of Brian's ex-girlfriends had
been a photographer. Abundant lamps cast warm light
everywhere. The clinking of silverware against plates, the smell of
a home-cooked meal, and the way Brian and Jake half-shouted
their conversation to one another from dining area to kitchen
stirred up old memories. Mulder, who spent so much time alone
and often tried to convince himself that he liked it that way,
welcomed the obvious presence of other, friendly people. This
was almost like being with family, and not the dysfunctional one
he had known.
Mulder took a seat near Serafine's guest, unable to resist his
curiosity. He hadn't seen or heard much from his position on the
floor. The man had a face that could only come from the British
Isles. Had it always looked so thin, so pared down right to the
bone, or was that a result of being in whatever situation Serafine
had pulled him from? He looked so utterly beaten down,
amazingly even worse than Serafine did. Someone else who had
been abducted and drugged into submission, Mulder assumed, and
for what? It made him wonder if the English government had a
similar policy regarding the extraterrestrial and paranormal as his
own did.
Deep Throat had once mentioned an international consensus
regarding aliens, but who knew if that had been the truth,
especially considering the diet of lies and misinformation Deep
Throat had fed him prior to that. Mulder had never given it much
thought. Maybe he should start.
Mulder wanted to know what Doulgas was in for, but Serafine had
seemed very protective of him and might not say. Mulder could
often talk people into giving him what he wanted, but he realized
that he wasn't functioning at his best right now.
Douglas' blue eyes opened to look at Mulder with pain and a little
suspicion. "Please, don't do that. You have no idea how much it
bothers me to have people standing over me watching as I sleep. It
makes me very nervous."
Mulder stored that reaction away for further scrutiny. "Actually, I
do, and I'm sorry." When Serafine walked back into the room,
Mulder asked, "So?"
Looking a bit pissed off, she handed him his guns. "First, put these
back on. God doesn't look after children and madmen as well as
that saying says He should." As he meekly followed her command,
she said, "Your jacket has that intense cotton candy smell to it as
well, but I also detected a sterile, doctor's office scent. Also,
there's no way you were wearing it for the whole period of your
absence unless your abductors were kind enough to keep dry-
cleaning your things for you."
"You got all that from your sense of smell?" After that came the
thought: they must have stripped me. He knew that one would
bother him later.
Brian came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.
"She's multi-talented."
She smiled, then said, "Is my music really so depressing? You
could have put on the Squirrel Nut Zippers."
"We want our guests mellow and happy, not insane."
She pouted. "Most of it is your music too. Is that Jake setting the
table? Must be a pod person."
"Sera, he's not as self-centered as you think. He just needs to be
reminded sometimes that other people still exist."
"And that's not self-centered?"
"I give up. So what's your theory on what happened to Mulder?"
"Definitely interrogation."
"So what was that business with the way he reacted to your touch?
Venus needs men?"
Serafine laughed. "I hadn't considered the alien sex fiend
connection."
"They've been reduced to kidnapping groupies now?"
"I've corrupted you. Only a few months ago you wouldn't have
been familiar with that band. Too obscure even for you."
"And look at how my life has improved." Then Brian looked at
Mulder. "I'm sorry. We're being a little too flippant about this."
"No, it's okay. I should consider it as payback for all the times I'm
the flippant, insensitive one."
"You're still not quite back. I hope those drugs cycle through your
system soon because it's no fun having a battle of the wits with a
disarmed man."
"At least you didn't say 'unarmed.'" Mulder felt Douglas
watching everyone with a keen sense of interest and wondered
what he made of all this.
Then Brian pronounced dinner as being ready, and they all took a
seat at the table. Jake had scrounged for chairs wherever he could
so they all sat at comically different heights. Douglas, the tallest of
the group, gracefully accepted the shortest chair. Brian had
prepared an excellent Italian-style feast of bread, pasta, meatballs,
and sausage. Since Mulder's own culinary expertise only extended
to picking up the phone to call for delivery, he couldn't help
feeling impressed and thinking that maybe he should visit more
often. Mulder, feeling mentally impaired by the garbage in his
veins, mostly sat back, ate, and let the others' conversations wash
over him.
Brian's last manuscript, the one partially inspired by his time with
Dark Angel, had gone over so well with his publisher that it was
going to be marketed as both commercial and literary. The ban on
providing author photos for Brian seemed to be over now that
Mulder knew of his clones' existence, and Brian sounded very
unhappy about it. He now had interviewers commenting in print
on his "quirky good looks," and they seemed to be divided
between thinking that his facial scar gave him an air of tragedy or a
rakish, faintly sinister look. Brian thought it was all the stupidest
thing he'd ever heard. Serafine had a good laugh and teased him mercilessly.
Listening to the two of them talk to one another was like watching
two pros play high-stakes racquetball. Occasionally, with great
sarcasm, they referred to one another as "Bunny" and "Peanut."
Jake made a comment about writing to those people and thanking
them for their praise on his looks. Serafine threatened to throw a
meatball at him.
Mulder realized that Jake and Brian didn't sound exactly like him
or like each other. They all used the same voice template but did
different things with it, Jake especially.
Serafine started to tell them a bowdlerized version of her time in
London, which drew Douglas into the conversation. Occasionally
she would describe a place and look to him for a name or related
memories. She seemed happiest describing its Gothic clubs,
especially since the number of such clubs in her recent trip to New
York City had disappointed her. Jake interrupted her to scold her
for slipping Stella some meatballs under the table. She responded
that she couldn't resist that puppy dog look of wanting; she always
caved in when Brain gave her the same thing. Brian made
threatening motions with his fork, while Jake once again said that
that was far more than he wanted to know.
Mulder watched Douglas with some fascination throughout the
meal. Douglas seemed so happy to be there among the food and
company. He even seemed to be enjoying the process of eating,
doing it as leisurely as possible. Mulder remembered Serafine's
comment about months of being on IV lines and decided that he
really didn't have it so bad.
Then Serafine straightened up and said, "Someone's outside."
Crackling with that dark fire that seemed to infuse her in such
situations, she stood up and went for the door, checking her guns.
"What if it's just one of the neighbors?" Jake asked.
"That's why she's just not opening a window and starting to fire,"
Brian said as he checked his own gun.
Serafine quickly walked out onto the porch and looked at the
driveway. The moonlight provided enough light to let her make
out the figure of a lone man coming toward her. He walked like a
professional on the job, full of intense purpose and grace, except
for a slight imbalance on one side. "Alexei, what are you doing
here?"
"Dead Time II: ...The Hand That Holds You Down"
"Wake from your dreams
"We don't have time for that. They'll be coming back for Mulder
soon," Krycek said.
Serafine shouted back into the house, "Bri, we have trouble," and
picked up a pack and a rifle hidden behind the door. To Krycek
she said, "And how would we know that?"
"I'm the one who convinced them not to send Mulder on to their
breaker. What I've done saved his life and sanity. This doesn't
sound very good, I know, but I convinced them that if they sent
Mulder here you would be here and they would have a chance at
nabbing you. Of course, I know you well enough to know that you
would fight anyone to the death before letting that happen and
probably win if I gave you advanced warning."
"So you led them to the beach house, you little shit," she snarled.
He stepped back. "I got the Mangler off your tail permanently in
Seattle. How many people will I have to kill this time?"
"I don't know yet." He looked back toward the road as a multitude
of lights started coming closer.
"Apparently they trusted you about as far as they should have."
Brian poked his head out the door. "What's up?"
"Ratboy had a great plan but ended up leading the bad guys to your
house." Serafine cut off Krycek's protests with a venomous look.
"Brian, get your pack and Mulder. You, Mulder, and Ratboy will
go to Point B. Give Douglas a gun and tell him to take himself,
Jake, and Stella to the bathroom with the phone to call your
guardians for help. Give Jake their phone number. They'll get
here faster than Jake's guardians would. If Krycek's playmates see
the people they want running out maybe they won't check the
house. They don't know about Douglas and Jake, do they?" she
asked Krycek.
"Not from me, and they're not my playmates. I don't always have
much choice in my allies. Who the hell is Douglas anyway? Wait,
is he one of the people you liberated from England? Maybe he can
help."
"Douglas isn't a combatant."
"You had a ward filled with hardcase assassins and fixers, and you
chose a non-combatant to take home with you?"
"I'm the last person you want to pick a fight with. Brian, move!
Besides, Alexei, you sent people after Mulder when he's too doped
up to fight his way out of a paper bag, so don't talk to me about
bad decisions. Not that he's much better fully sober but at least
then he has a good aim with a gun if he manages not to lose the
thing somewhere." She went utterly still, took aim with her rifle,
and started to blow out the tires on the oncoming cars then started
to pick off the people inside the cars. Krycek just stared.
"Couldn't you at least have waited until we finished dinner?"
Brian, wearing his own backpack and carrying a gun, pulled
Mulder out the door. "Where will you be, Sera?"
"I'll draw their fire as best I can. If I'm not out here, I'll be at
Point D. Oh good, some of the car people have seen you. That
may save Jake and Douglas. Now start running away from the
house and I'll do the same. You too, Alex. Follow Brian. Go! "
Brian took the lead with Krycek and then Mulder following. In
the moonlight, Mulder noticed that Krycek moved with a fluid
grace only slightly marred by the less graceful artificial arm. Even
as Mulder felt a stab of guilt, he thought that Krycek could survive
and finally triumph over anything. Rats had a talent for survival.
Not that Brian had no grace; Brian moved with an athletic power
coupled with a total sureness of step and intensity of purpose. He
seemed to know exactly where to place each foot on the damp,
shifting sand even in the near-darkness. In these dangerous
situations, he even crackled with an energy similar to Krycek's.
He just lacked Krycek's total animal suppleness.
Point B, Point D? Mulder had a sudden vision of Serafine and
Brian investigating every inch of the beach looking for hideouts
and making plans in case of attack. It would make him laugh if he
hadn't known that to be the truth. And who was he to say, as they
ran leaving killers and the explosive sound of gunfire behind them,
that they were insane and paranoid when those investigations and
plans may now save all their lives?
Brian stopped at the edge of a crumbling sea wall and motioned
them into a large, dark hole in the wall. Mulder didn't like the
look of it but decided that this was hardly the time to decide he
didn't trust Brian's judgment and crawled in. When Krycek
hesitated, Mulder pulled him in. Krycek landed on him, and
Mulder pulled him deeper into the darkness.
A sudden thunderous noise overhead made Brian look up. "Shit,
they're sending helicopters after us? Who the hell were you
involved with?" Brian then plunged into the hole after them.
Serafine reloaded and started to shoot again, trying to keep them
away from the house, but they kept coming. Then she heard the
helicopters and saw the searchlights behind her moments before
they started to shoot at her too. She had to abandon her defense of
the house, Brian's home, had to abandon Jake and Douglas and
hope that no one thought to check the house or if they did that Jake
and Douglas could defend themselves or that the guardians arrived
in time to save the day.
As she ran, still shooting, she fantasized about what she would do
to Alex when she caught up with him again. "The last thing you
hear will be the snapping of your vertebrae one... by... one," she
muttered to herself, quoting an old G.I. Joe cartoon. It worried her
that such ephemera kept bouncing to the top of her skull now when
she should be focused on the task at hand. Something was wrong.
The sand kicked up by bullets striking the beach stung her legs
even through the denim and leather. She dodged as best she could
without being able to look up. She could hurt herself badly if she
landed a foot wrong on the loose sand. She aimed up and shot
once in a while. One time she heard a body hit the sand.
Then she felt the first lightning strike at the base of her head. Then
again behind her left eye. Then the other three started to pound as
well. All thought fled under the agony as they whipped her. If
they would only pound all at the same time, the same beat, it
wouldn't be so bad. Seizures started to ripple through her body.
She screamed at the pain and the knowledge of what was going on.
Four days without sleep, pushing her body as far as it would go,
had finally left its mark. The cerebral implants were still firing but
the more fragile flesh couldn't obey them any further. She could
almost smell the brain matter frying.
She plunged into the space under the rocks in a barely controlled
fall at Point D. She had once found the Project's files on the
disection of the others of her kind. The scientists had pulled five
impenetrable metal implants out of their brains. The scarring on
the brain matter around those implants suggested that things had
extended out into the surrounding flesh but those extensions had
retracted into the implants and sealed over, perhaps at the deaths of
the hosts. Smart aliens. The Project couldn't crack the metal open
or learn anything from them. A CAT scan had revealed five
similar non-organic dead zones in Serafine's own skull.
This kind of fit had happened to her once before, seven years ago.
She had prayed this would never happen again.
She writhed in her small hole and tried to marshal the thought
necessary to figure out what to do next.
Jake clutched the phone so hard his hand shook. "They'll be right
over. They got so excited when they heard about the helicopters.
Maybe they're militia."
"What?" Douglas asked.
"Oh, I'm sorry. It would take too long to explain the American
militia movement."
"How long for them to arrive?"
"Fifteen minutes."
Douglas decided that given a choice between being back in
England facing a slow mind death or sitting in a tub with another
man and a dog while holding a gun and praying that the men
outside wouldn't come in to kill him, he would still rather be here.
It was a good thing Brian had such a big tub.
Jake looked as if he would explode from anxiety soon, and
Douglas realized, to his great surprise, that of the two of them he
was the better suited to defending their lives. He held a gun in his
hand again and couldn't help remembering the last time. He had
only used it as threat, not as a killing weapon. He might be forced
now to kill someone to save Jake and himself the way he had failed
to save Aissa.
She had been so sweet and so innocent, yet she had such strength
and courage, risking her life for him over and over. He
remembered being held back, helpless, as her body hit the end of
the rope's line and the noose snapped her neck. Before that he had
been helpless to stop her regression. If she hadn't died, she would
have slowly transformed back to an animal, but at least she would
still live.
Or maybe not. Douglas' written report had left out the location of
the island but his interrogation under truth serum had revealed it.
It turned out that the contract he had signed when the UN hired
him had signed more than a few of his rights away. He wondered
if the regressed denizens of the island had escaped the purifying
hand of the UN. He'd been helpless to stop that too, bound and
drugged into oblivion in that English institution as the team swept
Moreau's island.
During his interrogation his interviewers' voices had sounded like
the voice of God, irrefutable and not to be disobeyed, to his
drugged mind. One of them had said, "Quite the survivor, aren't
you?"
He'd survived a plane crash, countless days drifting on the Java
Sea under intense sun without food or water, Montgomery's care,
and the violent, murderous behavior of Moreau's poor, confused
creations, but he had survived alone. Sole survivor. Not this time.
"Stella, get out of that! Douglas, I can't believe you brought a
plate of food in here with you!"
"You never know when you'll get the chance to eat again. If you
don't want it, give Stella some." Douglas looked at Stella with
some fondness. He had been suspicious of her at first, having had
a very bad experience with a dog-man not that far in the past, but
Stella quickly won him over. She would probably do a better job
of defending them than Jake would.
"You too? She's going to start begging at the table full time now.
What was that?"
"Someone's in the house."
Serafine felt her bones trying to break from the force of her
seizures. It provided another pain beside the one ripping her head
into five pieces. She could hear people running toward her rock.
She knew they would stop soon and fire at her while she couldn't
get out.
It took her back to the last time this happened. She had been lying
in a burnt-out tenement building in the former Yugoslavia not even
sure who she was or what she was doing anymore. She heard the
killers coming and knew even in her fragmented state that it
wouldn't matter whether they were Serbian or Croatian because
either would kill her. So she had stopped thinking, stopped
feeling, reached inside, and let the machine take over.
She did this now and felt something switch on. On some dim level
she had an awareness of pain and fatigue but it meant nothing. She
would move for as long as she could. She came rolling out with
her gun ready and shot anything that moved.
The doorknob started to rattle. "Is the door locked?" Jake
whispered.
"Yes, but I don't know if that will stop them for too long,"
Douglas whispered back as he pushed Jake further down into the
tub and did the same for himself, keeping only his gunhand and
part of his head, enough to see, above the rim. Stella stayed
admirably silent.
The door started to buckle with the first kick. The second kick
cracked the doorframe. The third took the door down. An armed
man in a suit came in, gun raised. He saw Douglas and started to
fire.
It was so cliche, but time did seem to slow down. Douglas saw the
bullet crawl through the air toward him and saw the cold look on
the man's face. If this bullet didn't do the job, he would just keep
shooting. Douglas thought of Jake and Stella huddling with him in
the tub and realized that he had no choice.
A few months back his own death had stared him in the face.
Moreau had been murdered; Montgomery had been murdered;
Aissa had been murdered. Now the murderers brought him before
King Death. It had huge, sharp teeth and smelled of blood,
gasoline, gunpowder, and fire but especially of aging blood. It
shoved its face so close up to his that he could feel its hot, gamy
breath and its words rumbled through him. "Tell them I am God,"
Hyena, his death, had said to him.
He actually had a few choices. He could silently cower and die.
He could nobly refuse and die. He could acquiesce, tell the crowd
of beast-men to follow Hyena as their leader, and live a while
longer until one of the beast people lost control of his homicidal
impulses toward him. But as he felt the horrible laughter bubble
up in him, a fourth option came to mind.
He told Hyena that yes, he was a god, but so were all the others
who helped kill Moreau. So whom should the people obey? There
could be only one God Number One...
Even half-insane, Douglas knew what would happen. Hyena
turned on his comrades, and they all mowed one another down,
ending the reign of terror. Hyena chose suicide.
Douglas had not held the gun, but he had been responsible for
those deaths, used the beast people as weapons against one another
in the hopes of stopping the madness. The choice had been his.
Now it was again.
Douglas moved out of the bullet's way and fired. His first shot
grazed the man's neck in an explosion of blood. The next went
into his chest and took him down. Douglas had just enough time to
feel sick and see the look of shock on his face before the next killer
came through the door. Then Douglas fired at him.
Mulder sat at the far end of the hole with his back to cold stone.
He didn't know how long they'd all been silent, listening to the
helicopters overhead and the distant gunfire, but he couldn't do it
anymore. "Are they coming, Brian?"
Brian, at the entrance, said, "Not yet." His voice sounded raw.
"Sera has led most of them to the other end of the beach."
In the dimness Mulder saw that Krycek looked nervous in a way
that seemed to have nothing to do with their pursuers. "What do
you think she'll do?" Krycek asked, his voice steady.
"She'll do her best to survive, even if it's only so she'll have a
chance to kick your ass. She loves the beach house. She says it
reminds her of something she can't remember."
"It reminds me of my family's beach house at Quonochontaug,"
Mulder said. Krycek stared at him in a really strange way. "Why
are you looking at me like that?"
"Nothing."
Maybe it was the drugs, but Mulder found himself intensely
conscious of Krycek. He'd admitted to himself months earlier that
he felt some attraction for his former partner but usually not to the
extent that his mere presence would make Mulder's mind blank
completely out like a snuffed candle. A gun battle raged outside
but all he could think of was how close together the tiny space
forced them to be.
Krycek had a talent for provoking him. No matter what Mulder
did those dark eyes seemed to look at him with amusement and
defiance, asking, "Is that the best you can do?" No matter how
hard he tried to batter Krycek into submission, that look never
changed. That look always brought out the worst in Mulder, even
as he wondered why Krycek kept asking for another beating, kept
provoking him when he knew where it would lead.
But something was disturbing Krycek now. Mulder found himself
following the jittery movements of Krycek's eyes and wondering
what upset him so badly.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Krycek asked, echoing
Mulder's earlier question.
Mulder didn't know who moved first but suddenly their lips and
bodies were pressed together and all thought fled. He felt the
unyielding hardness of Krycek's prosthetic hand at his waist, and it
excited him. Krycek's real hand was in his hair. Mulder touched
Krycek's hair but its shortness prevented him from getting any
hold so he stroked the peach fuzz at the base of his neck. His
former partner shuddered and moaned against his lips.
The combination of the cold stone and sand at his back and the
warm body in his arms tormented him. He wanted...
Krycek pushed himself away, breathing hard. "No, not like this."
"Are you telling me you have scruples?" Mulder gasped as he
strained to get closer again.
"You're too easy now, Mulder." Krycek stroked one finger down
the side of Mulder's face and shook his head as Mulder leaned into
that touch with a junkie's mindless desperation. "This isn't you.
When I have you, you're going to react as yourself."
"Now you're saying you love me for my mind?"
Krycek grinned. "Now, I could break one of your arms and you'd
get off on it. Besides, this drug gives you an out. Later on you'll
tell yourself that you weren't responsible and beat the shit out of
me next time you see me." He leaned back a little further. "They
knew pain wouldn't work very well on you."
"Were you there? Were they the conspiracy?"
"They figured I might be helpful after my long association with
you. The conspiracy? Which one? The one working with the
aliens, the one working against the aliens, or the one pretending to
be aliens? Which truth? Why do you think the conspiracy has
survived so long when there are so many people who break under
the pressure of a secret? No one knows everything so no one can
tell everything."
"What did I tell them?" Mulder swore to himself that, drug or no,
he would remember all this later and sort out truth from
misdirection then.
"Not as much as you'd think. You answered whatever they asked
you," Krycek smiled, "but you kept distracting them with useless
tangents. Most of the time they didn't ask the right questions."
"You didn't suggest any questions?"
"No. Why should I? I needed them for something but I didn't like
them. The fact that I'm here now, risking my life, should tell you
that. They were going to break your mind and send you back to
your apartment with no one the wiser. No one would be surprised
that you'd finally lost it. I didn't agree with their intentions and
organized this to prevent it."
"And look how well this is going."
Krycek smiled. "You're starting to sound like your old self again."
Brian suddenly spoke, surprising them both. They'd forgotten he
was there. "My God, don't you two ever get tired of one another?
I've only seen you together twice, and it's getting on my nerves.
You snap at and knock one another around, and the only thing
different is the order you do it in. Go into couples' therapy
already. I'll be here keeping my mind on the important things."
Brian's gaze snapped back to the entrance. "I don't hear guns
anymore, and someone's coming." He was ready to fire.
The sounds came closer. They heard something that they first
thought was talking but soon realizing that it was singing. A
woman's clear but hesitant voice softly sang, ""Please, Mister/If
you see them/They're missing/Won't you help them find their
way/Find their way home/Before the wolves find them first."
"That's Sera. She's singing 'Sheep' by Switchblade Symphony,"
Brian said but looked worried. "But she doesn't sound right."
"It's safe to come out!" Jake yelled. "Everyone's either dead or
gone."
Brian, Mulder, and Krycek, especially Krycek, scrambled out as
quickly as they could. In the distant they saw what looked to be
the tail of a helicopter, burning merrily, partially submerged in the
ocean. Seven men in camouflage gear flanked Jake, Stella, and
Douglas. Douglas carefully cradled someone in his arms. "Sera!"
Brian screamed.
"I'll heal," she croaked. In the moonlight, Brian could see a blood
clot in her left eye and blood streaming from her left nostril.
Someone had bound her right fore arm in white. It seemed to
glow. "You mustn't let Mulder see me like this, not after Scully's
cancer scare."
"Brian, we have to get her to a hospital," Douglas said. He looked
dazed, sick, and worried all at once. "Her left pupil is dilated when
her right one isn't."
At first Brian didn't understand, but then the medical reading he'd
done for his genre of writing kicked in. She had a blown pupil,
which was usually a sign of a blood clot in the brain or swelling.
Neither was good, and both could lead to brain damage or death.
He hoped the bleeding from the nostril didn't indicate cerebral
hemorrhage.
"No hospitals. What I've got is inoperable. Lobotomy. Paralysis.
Death. Those are my options if someone tries to remove the
implants. At best, they'll keep me under observation and never let
me out. This has happened before. I healed. I can do it again.
Even the bullet wound. I just need rest. Trust me." Only her eyes
and mouth moved, making the rest of her body seem like an
abandoned puppet.
In the distance Brian could hear his guardians telling Mulder about
Serafine's prowess, how many she'd taken down. Like a killing
machine, they said. They were also talking about Douglas— "I
trust you, Sera."
"The police will be here soon. You'll have to sanitize the house.
You may spend the night at the police station telling them about
how you were out here and didn't see anything."
"Who will take care of you?"
"I will," Douglas said. "Please, Brian. I don't think we have much
time."
Mulder awoke with a scream wrapped up with someone else in an
unfamiliar bed. At first he thought it was Brian but quickly
changed his mind. He was touching Krycek's stump. He quickly
pulled his hand away. The orange light from the parking lot that
broke in through the side of the curtain showed a bit of Krycek's
face. The pain and sadness Mulder saw there set him back.
"Doctors had to carve into it again to fit me for a better prosthetic.
The butcher work the Russians did—" Krycek couldn't finish the
sentence.
Mulder drowned in guilt. He had barely escaped such a fate
himself. To think that he'd had a hand in marring that body...
"I'm sorry. It's my fault."
"That would mean more if you didn't blame yourself for
everything." Krycek smiled a little, painfully. "It was my decision
to jump off the truck. I was the one who stayed with that group,
thinking I could talk my way out of anything. I even feel asleep in
their company." He laughed bitterly. "They showed me. A few
long hours under the business end of a hot knife taught me better.
I forgot to trust no one. Now I have a reminder to live with... for
the rest of my life." His gaze focused on Mulder, making him
squirm. "Nightmare?"
"Yeah." The usual one with himself paralyzed and watching
helplessly as the light carried his sister away forever. "What time
is it? Did I wake you?"
"3 a.m. No, I was already awake, enjoying this while it lasts."
To get away from thinking about Krycek's last statement, Mulder
tried to recall the time before he'd collapsed into bed with one of
his worst enemies. Corpse disposal, helping Brian make sure the
house was gun- and contraband-free, saying goodbye to the nice
militiamen who'd helped fight off the attackers, discretely
following the cop's car that picked Brian up to take him to the
station, dropping Jake and Stella off near the station so they could
unobtrusively keep an eye on Brian, checking into the motel. Dark
Angel's English patient had done an excellent job of making her
look as if she walked into the lobby herself. He'd taken her to a
room down the hall.
It bothered Mulder that Brian and Douglas had clustered around
her, refusing to let him see her. He knew she had been injured, and
from the ashen look on Brian's face it had to be serious. He should
be trying to help instead of snuggling with Krycek.
His cheek stung. Krycek had slapped him. "Hello, I'm still here.
Where are you, Mulder?"
At least the stinging told him he was clean of whatever his
abductors had used on him. "Trying to figure out if this has a
future."
Krycek laughed. "Are you kidding? I don't know where or who
I'll be even a few days in advance."
"I'm supposed to feel sorry for you that you're a triple-crossing
traitor?"
"You're not much better. You're married to your work, always
throwing yourself into danger, and attached to Scully at the hip.
You don't look like a man who wants a future. You're with me for
the danger." Krycek's hand strayed down Mulder's chest, lower
and lower, then clutched. "You have to grab happiness wherever
you find it."
"That's not happiness you grabbed," Mulder gasped. "I don't even
like you."
"Happiness is where you find it. Give up, Mulder. Our cigarette
smoking friend specifically chose someone you would find
appealing as a partner. Everything from my clothes to my initial
deferential attitude was engineered to affect you a certain way.
You want me, and you have no choice about it."
"...I've got the ways and means/To New Orleans/I'm going down
by the river where it's warm and green/ I'm gonna have a
drink/And walk around/I've got a lot to think about." Dark Angel
sang softly, and Douglas squeezed her hand again. Her hand still
couldn't squeeze back.
She had been singing almost non-stop since Douglas had caught up
with her again on the beach. At one point she'd seen his worried
look and explained to him that it helped her knit her damaged brain
back to together. In song lyrics one phrase always, irrevocably,
followed another. Pulling those phrases to the front of her mind
helped bridge the gaps, like defragmentizing a computer drive.
Also, her mind had linked a number of songs to memories of other
times and places.
She had a lovely, clear voice that sometimes hesitated as her brain
looked for the next verse. He helped her maintain that voice with
cups of lukewarm water. He'd tried cold first but she'd screamed
from the pain.
"...Flowers on a razor wire/I know you're here/We are few/And
far between/I was thinking about her... skin..."
When she wasn't singing she was apologizing to him for how
things had turned out or asking if Brian had come back yet. She
asked for Brian once every forty-five minutes. Timing her
revealed that she asked at exactly forty-five minutes every time. It
made him wonder what else was going on in that battered brain.
He started to worry about Brian himself. Douglas knew he had no
knowledge of the American legal system, but seven hours with no
end yet seemed a long time to keep someone if the police had no
evidence of direct wrongdoing. Brian hadn't even used his gun
this evening and really hadn't seen anything.
"...You thought I was a little girl/You thought I was a little
mouse/You thought you'd take me by surprise/But now I'm here
burning down your house..."
He left the light on because it seemed to make her feel better. She
lay utterly still, only her eyes and mouth moving, on the bed, her
pale skin almost the same white as the sheets and the gauze
bandage on her arm. He had felt guilty as he took off her vinyl
top, leaving her wearing her black sports bra and silver cross above
the waist, but he couldn't see how she could be comfortable in it.
Her guns and knives he left on the table. Scars of all sorts marked
her arms, burns and bullet holes and claw marks and knife cuts.
She said she needed to go in for dermabrasion again soon.
She swore that the bullet hole in her arm would be fine left to
itself. She said that having it go clean through meant that no one
would have to dig a bullet out. She seemed to be right. As far as
he could tell the wound stopped bleeding fifteen minutes after she
got it.
"...I'm so tired/Of playing/Playing with this bow and arrow..."
Her right eye was the color of pine needles with a little gold
around the pupil. Her left had only a rim of dark green around the
blown pupil, but he could swear that the pupil had shrunk a little in
the past few hours and that the blood clot on the white was starting
to break up and fade a little.
"...If I could kill without guilt or sin/There'd soon be a few less
record executives/If I could kill and receive forgiveness..."
Caring for her as she had for him kept his mind off other things.
He'd held himself together until they'd reached the room. Then
he'd been violently sick in the sink.
"They're Pinky and the Brain/Yes, Pinky and the Brain/One is a
genius/The other's insane—" Her eyes flickered to him. "What's
wrong, Douglas?"
Even damaged she seemed to have psychic abilities. "I killed two
people tonight, and please don't apologize again."
"And it bothers you deeply. Sometimes I almost forget that I don't
live a normal life. My own first kill was almost twenty years ago,
and anything I could say about killing you wouldn't want to hear.
I guess what it comes down to is this: could you see any other way
of guaranteeing your and Jake's safety?"
"But that's—"
"Was there any other way that you could see?"
"No."
"This probably won't make you feel better now, because you'll
have to make your own peace with it, but you made a sacrifice to
keep everyone safe, Douglas. I heard about the things you did, and
you thought clearly and well. Jake is lucky he had you with him.
I'm lucky to have you with me now."
"This must be a horrible thing to go through alone."
"It is, but that's not what I meant. Not all of it. I love Brian
deeply, but aspects of what I am bother him. I don't know if he
could nurse me through this as well as you are." She grinned. "I
don't know if he could deal with me singing for hours on end
either."
"You know you have a lovely voice. But, Angel, I failed someone
like you once, failed her horribly. She was different too. There I
was telling her wonderful and pure she was until I saw her teeth.
They were all sharp. She was regressing slowly but uncontrollably
back into the animal she had been. She saw the disgust and horror
on my face, and it broke her heart. She was killed soon after that.
I could never do that to anyone again."
"You've been sitting in that chair for hours, Douglas. Lie down
next to me and try to get some rest."
"I couldn't—"
"Don't worry, I can't move. Your virtue is safe."
"That's not what I mean."
"You're not a person who would take advantage of me."
Douglas settled next to her, still holding her hand. She started to
sing again. "In the not-too-distant future/Next Sunday A.D./There
was a guy named Joel/Not too different from you or me/He worked
at Gizmonic Institute/Just another face in red jumpsuit/He did a
good job cleaning up the place/But his bosses didn't like him so
they shot him into space..."
"Make up your mind, Krycek. First you say I like danger, then
you're trying to tell me that your first appearance was designed to
make me lust for you. The first time I saw you it was like meeting
Clark Kent."
"They miscalculated in their effort to make me seem totally
harmless, so I had to improvise. I quickly realized that if I didn't
show some fire you would use me as a doormat. They knew that
they couldn't replace Scully with another woman because you
would rip the poor girl apart. They knew you were also attracted
to men and chose me after they studied some of the choices you
made while at Oxford."
"They were watching me even then?" Mulder exclaimed even as
he tried to move away from Krycek's stroking hand, though he had
to admit he didn't try very hard.
"You were Bill Mulder's son and had expressed some interest in
the FBI."
"So you didn't mind them pimping you off?"
"It wasn't the worst thing I ever had to do," Krycek whispered
against his neck. Mulder shivered as Krycek undid him with his
touch and the Truth. "I told you the truth when I said I respected
your work. I even liked you when you weren't being an asshole.
They wanted you to bond with me; they didn't care how as long as
I could use that affection to steer you. It would have worked if you
hadn't been so damned observant and if circumstances hadn't
forced me to operate so openly." He started to laugh. "I can't undo
your damned buttons!"
"What are you talking about?"
"This is only one of the many times I miss the other arm. Have
you ever tried to undo a button one-handed? It doesn't work."
"How do you usually do it?"
"My rebel look usually doesn't involve buttons. When it does, I
have a button holer, a loop with a handle, to help me. I'm not
getting out of bed to get it."
"Can't you just bite them off?" Mulder asked, deeply sarcastic.
"I'm being polite and sensitive."
Mulder started to unbutton his shirt without really thinking about
it. "Some seducer you are."
Krycek grinned. "I'm getting you to unbutton your shirt, aren't I?"
"You bastard," Mulder snarled but he continued to take his shirt
off. He understood what Krycek intended now. There would be
no mind-erasing rush of passion that that would let Mulder deny
his complicity. Krycek did a gradual invasion, letting Mulder
acquiesce to and decide that he liked each touch before moving on,
until Mulder stood at the edge of the precipice unable to turn back.
He realized that he didn't want to say no, that he enjoyed all the
effort Krycek was going to. When he had collapsed onto the bed
mostly dressed some part of his mind knew even then that he
wouldn't end the night that way.
His mind screamed in protest but his body and soul appreciated his
final rueful acknowledgement of what had always been going on.
His mind, always bound in the tragedies and disappointments of
the past, had nothing to do with what he wanted tonight. He didn't
let himself think about what he was doing or about what anyone,
like Scully or Serafine, would say about it. Tonight he wanted no
past or future, just a very pleasurable now.
Krycek seemed to sense the shift. "Why don't you do something
more useful with that mouth?"
Mulder laughed. "That sounds like one of my lines."
"Yeah, but I don't have your full, sulky lips... That's nice,"
Krycek said with a sigh as Mulder nipped at his neck. "You made
overtures to me too, you know."
"The hell I did," Mulder muttered as he took Krycek's T-shirt off.
He stared, then took a matched set of nipple rings in his fingers and
pulled gently. The metal had been warmed from its contact with
Krycek's flesh. "What are these, handles?"
"That depends on your sense of originality, doesn't it? Bet you
never realized 'Clark Kent' wore these under his cheap suit. You
know I like it a bit rough. I doubt you learned your dry-humping-
the-suspect-against-the-phone-bank technique at the academy."
"I thought I was beating the shit out of you, and you were getting
off on it. That explains a lot." He took a ring and nipple in his
mouth and sucked. Krycek hummed happily under his breath and
pulled him closer. Again, Mulder felt the collaborative nature of
what they were doing. With his one arm, Krycek would have
difficulty stopping him from leaving if Mulder decided to go.
Apparently Krycek could talk no matter what was going on. Only
a slight breathy quality to his voice gave a hint. Mulder imagined
that such a talent would be useful in the circles Krycek moved in.
"Admit it; you got off on it too. That was one instance. Another
branded the sight of you soaking wet in a skimpy red Speedo into
my brain forever."
"It's good to be appreciated," Mulder said even as he wondered
about his own motives then. Had he really flaunted himself in
front of Krycek? He didn't know anymore. Some psychologist he
was.
As they kissed deeply, Mulder's mind still kept working, analyzing
the flavor of Krycek's mouth. Spicy and a little bit smoky.
Mulder's lips roved over a face only his fists had had any contact
with previously. Remembering the way Krcyek had reacted to it
earlier, Mulder stroked the buzz cut peach fuzz at the nape of his
former partner's neck and felt a surge of satisfaction and power as
Krycek bucked. Krycek's hand roamed everywhere, leaving heat
and sensitized nerves in its wake, and pressed him so close that
every movement created friction.
"Aren't you going to take my pants off? It's getting uncomfortable
in here," Mulder gasped.
Krycek grinned at him malevolently. "You have hands. If they're
not out of the way by the time I kiss my way down, you're out of
luck."
Mulder quickly got to work, but the hot mouth traveling along his
chest kept distracting him. He wanted to protest the unfairness but
his voice didn't work. He still claimed the fast-strip title and was
free and clear by the time Krycek got there. Krycek looked up at
him with that same grin and put two of his own fingers in his
mouth. At first, the gesture confused Mulder until he watched
Krycek do to those fingers what Mulder hoped he intended to do to
him. He almost came right there. Nothing like a mind fuck to go
along with the rest of it... The fingers exited Krycek's mouth with
a wet pop.
Krycek attended to Mulder's dick like it was a candy cane with
assorted licking, nibbling, and sucking, changing his approach just
as Mulder started to expect anything. He wanted to yell at Krycek
to get on with it before he died of anticipation, but he couldn't do
anything other than whimper and gasp.
As all this was going on, Mulder felt a hand slide over his buttocks
and down. When the first finger entered Mulder felt some pain
until it hit the magic spot that made him see stars. Then the other
finger came to visit too, and as they started to stroke in and out,
Krycek's mouth clamped down and started a synchronized rhythm.
The sensations from the two-pronged attack made him scream, and
he exploded into Krycek's mouth not long after that.
Krycek continued to suck like a baby happy with its bottle until
Mulder went completely limp. When he withdrew his mouth and
fingers Mulder felt so strangely bereft. When Krycek came up
and kissed him, Mulder tasted himself on the swollen lips.
"Alex..."
"No, it's either Alex and Fox or Mulder and Krycek. No in-
betweens," Krycek whispered, breathing hard.
Mulder asked himself if he was really going to do this. The answer
was yes. "Alex, I—I want you inside me."
Alex's eyes searched his, seeming to look into the dustiest corners
of his soul, then smiled. "If you really want it, Fox, who am I to
say no?"
When Fox pulled down Alex's jeans, he was initially surprised to
see that they had an elastic waistband, no zipper or buttons. The
jeans had been designed to look like it had a fly. Then he
remembered their earlier discussion. He had actually forgotten
about Alex's arm for a while. He felt a guilty surge of
disappointment that he would never experience what the very
talented Alex could do with two hands. The briefs came next. Fox
threw both to the foot of the bed.
Alex rolled him onto his back and positioned his legs. "I—I want
you to try to keep your eyes open. I want that legendary Mulder
focus on me." He entered with slow strokes that made the
anticipation and pleasure/pain excruciating and resisted all of
Fox's efforts to speed up the process. He gradually sped up, and
Fox wrapped himself around Alex and lost himself in the feeling.
He moved with Alex, and they worked together.
Some far-distant part of his mind knew that the world, pain,
secrets, and betrayals would still be waiting for him when he left
this bed, but for now he looked into Alex's eyes and saw the same
pleasure and shared purpose as he felt. He almost felt like he
looked straight into the man's heart. Alex had lied before and
would lie to him again, but he wasn't lying now. Not about this.
For now everything felt so good, and he knew a sense of peace.
They came together in an explosion of sound and sensation and
phased out from exhaustion, from their exertions and the previous
events of the night, before they could even disentangle themselves.
As Fox drifted into a deep, restful sleep, he still smiled.
"Some say the end is near/Some say Armageddon is coming
soon..."
Douglas spent a restless night drifting in and out of consciousness,
too worried about Angel and too wired to sleep. Sometimes her
eyes were closed and sometimes not, but she never stopped
singing.
At 5 a.m. her fingers suddenly tightened around his. She rolled
over to face him with a huge blinding smile and said, "Thank you,"
before she slid into sleep. Smiling himself, he soon followed her.
He had broken his sole survivor curse.
DEAD TIME III- CONSEQUENCES
Agent Dana Scully scrutinized Brian Kessler as he signed out of
the police precinct. It still shocked her how much he looked like
Mulder, even to the way his eyes seemed to drink in the world
around him, dismissing no detail as insignificant. From a distance,
only the scar on his face and the scars around his wrists gave his
true identity away. He looked tired and pissed off. His short hair
stood up a little, something it seemed to do when he was angry.
She couldn't help noticing the way his black T-shirt and worn,
tight blue jeans clung to him and told her mind to get out of the
gutter. The very officious-looking man in a suit standing next to
him was probably his lawyer. If so, it made her feel better
knowing that Brian was taking care of himself.
He smiled when he saw her, and her heart clenched. "Dana, it's
good to see you. Don't worry, everyone's fine." By "everyone,"
she knew he meant "Mulder." He dismissed his lawyer with the
usual round of promises not to do anything to incriminate himself
or antagonize the cops. When the man left Brian asked, "So what
brought you here?"
"I got worried when I tried to call back and the phone line was cut.
The cops at the beach house directed me here. What happened?"
"I'll tell you once we're away from here." A crowd of reporters
barraged them as they left the building. Brian fended them off
with "no comment," "I can't say while the investigation is going
on," and "I'm sure a police representative will be out to talk with
you shortly." Once they left the media barrage behind, Brian
muttered, "I was there all night. They decided it had to be a
terrorist plot, and, after the Oklahoma City bombing thing,
mentioning that word is a magic wand that waves a lot of rights
away."
"I'm glad you thought to get a lawyer."
"I learned after the Early Grayce thing. The cops took shameful
advantage of me while I was concussed and in shock. They
twisted everything I said and tried to put me up for murder and
aiding and abetting. Then the whole mess disappeared. I can only
assume that the people who wanted my existence kept secret from
Mulder took care of it. I won't have that working for me this time.
Hey, Jake! Dana, come meet one of Mulder's other 'brothers.'
Jake, this is Agent Scully. You talked to her on the phone
yesterday."
Another version of Mulder, followed by a big friendly dog, ran up
to Brian and gave him a big hug. Even Brian seemed nonplussed.
The man—Jake?—pulled back with a slightly embarrassed smile.
"Hi, Scully. Brian, they had you in there forever. I figured the
cops were applying the thumbscrews. I haven't known you long
enough to feel right about losing you now."
"But maybe later? I'm fine. Who's your lady friend?" Brian
waved to an attractive blond who was standing a few feet away and
considering the both of them with a highly speculative look.
Jake looked embarrassed again, and Scully realized that the
resemblance to Mulder didn't extend much beyond the physical.
He didn't share as many facial expressions as Brian did. "Well..."
"Do you mean that while I was being interrogated by the police all
night you were cruising for chicks?" Brian grinned. "You're my
idol. Good for you. Get on with your life."
"You sure you don't want to stay at my place? It wouldn't be any
trouble, and I think Cindy would be jazzed by the idea of a
threesome with you. Oh, damn, I'm sorry. There's Angel to
consider."
"Of course her name is 'Cindy.' It's okay. Angel's trying to wean
me off her, because she thinks her life is too dangerous for me. I
can't stay with you because I know the police will be keeping track
of me and seeing the two of us together would raise questions.
Matt has a big enough apartment, and he doesn't even have a
parking ticket on his record."
"Matt?" Scully asked.
"My copyeditor. Ours is an illicit friendship. Don't worry, he
doesn't stint on the criticism when my work needs it. He says I
remind him of his younger brother. I had to find out from someone
else that his younger brother committed suicide two years ago. I'm
in for some intense mothering, but I think I can stand it."
"What will your publisher think about all your troubles?" Jake
asked.
"Are you kidding? Considering my genre, she'll be thrilled. You
can't buy this kind of publicity."
Jake smiled. "Here's the motel's phone number and address.
Don't worry about me. Cindy promised to take me and Stella
home. Good-bye, Brian, Scully. Brian, don't forget to visit when
you can." Jake started to turn away, then said, "Oh, and please
thank Douglas for me. I wouldn't be alive if not for him." He
walked back to the blond and they left.
Brian looked a bit surprised by Jake's last words. Ignoring
Scully's questioning look, Brian found a phone and dialed the
number. "Sera, you're okay! I'm so happy. You just sound a bit
different. I'm fine. The police don't have anything on me but
they'll be shadowing me for a while to make sure. I can meet you
now because I have Agent Scully with me, and the cops will
probably let her be the one to keep an eye on me for now. Make
sure to tell Mulder that she's here." His voice went raw and choked
sounding. "I'm so glad you're okay. I love you. See you soon."
He carefully put the phone back down on the receiver.
"Brian—"
"I'll tell you everything on the ride over. You rented a car, right?"
"—I love you too, Brian." Serafine put down the phone. She took
her battered jacket, which now had two new duct tape Xs for the
entry and exit holes in one sleeve, off her lap and put it on the bed.
"Is Brian all right?" Douglas asked as he struggled his way through
the motel's idea of a Continental breakfast.
"Throw that box of Corn Pops over here, will you?"
"That is not a breakfast. That is a tiny box of sugar with a little bit
of corn for fiber." He threw the box to her anyway.
She caught it and ripped it open. "Oh, yes, I forget. You come
from England, the home of great cuisine." She softened the blow
by smiling at him. "Brian sounds tired. It seems that he wants me
to warn Mulder that his partner is coming over." She looked at her
fingernails again. The first thing she'd done after showering and
dressing was paint her nails black with a coat of blue sparkles.
After the damage done last night, she needed to be Serafine, only
more so. She had curled her hair, lined her eyes Egyptian-style in
thick black, and painted her lips deep red.
"Why?"
Her eyes went cold. "Because, and I think I'm remembering
correctly, Mulder took a room last night with a man involved in
her sister's murder. Brian must think that something's going on
that Agent Scully wouldn't approve of. Douglas, what's wrong?"
He had gone pale. "I'm fine."
"Douglas—"
"Aside from being the home of great cuisine, England is also the
home of people who don't feel the need to unburden themselves of
their life stories to everyone they meet."
She started to tie her boots on, paying great attention to her task to
give him some privacy. "Then I won't pry." As she left the room
she could just hear him whisper, "Montgomery," with so much
anger and confusion that she shuddered to hear it.
When she reached Mulder and Krycek's room she smirked at the
Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob and knocked. After waiting
two minutes she took a slim metal rod, one of three, off one of her
hoop earrings and picked the lock. After putting the lockpick back
on the hoop, she opened the door and carefully closed it behind
her.
She didn't need enhanced senses to know what had happened here,
but they did tend to rub her face in it. The rage hit her like a fever.
With a little bit of thought, she copied Scully's voice exactly and
yelled, "MULDER!" One of the bodies under the cover jerked,
bouncing the other one to the floor. The body on the floor scooted
under the bed but not before Serafine got a good view of a very
firm ass.
Mulder, still on the bed, peeked out above the covers. When he
saw her he first looked very angry, but that anger quickly turned to
fear as he saw the look on her face.
"Serafine, you look fine," he said, his voice shaky. Actually,
"fine" wasn't the word. Something seemed to have shifted behind
her eyes. She wore a fishnet mesh shirt over a black, lacy bra, and
the fishnet barely concealed a cornucopia of scars. It looked like
she had a knife sheath on each wrist. Black jeans with holes in the
knees and heavy, black boots with steel toes that Brian called
"shitkicker boots" completed the picture. She looked like Death.
"No thanks to a certain rodent. I just came in here to give you a
taste of things to come. Scully picked up Brian at the precinct.
He's going to take her the long way around, but she'll arrive
sooner or later. Party's over."
"That's not fair, Angel," Krycek said as he rolled out from under
the bed. Mulder had to appreciate the way he'd put his boxers and
jeans on while under there. No reason to antagonize her any
further. Mulder just wished Krycek hadn't opened his mouth to
Angel when she already looked at them like this.
"Not fair," she said, the words sounding like broken glass. "Not
fair is having a place you consider your sanctuary—and you know
how rare and precious that is, Alexei—discovered and violated.
Not fair is knowing that Brian and I have to stay away from one
another after this because the cops will be keeping an eye on him.
Not fair is the possibility that he's been further marked for
attention by the crazies. Not fair is having to reboot. I can see
from the look on your face that you know what I'm talking about.
How nice that the Consortium gives its agents my operating
manual. Some of my memories have been destroyed, and I only
know they're gone because they were connected to memories I still
have. One of the fortunate things of having an eidetic memory is
that most of my memories are linked to others, though I'm sure
there are things missing that I don't know are gone yet. I lost my
sense of taste for four hours last night. That's not fair."
Krycek stood up and approached her. "You're really angry
because—"
Her hand flew and so did Krycek. He hit the wall and bounced.
"Alexei, you can be sure that when I hit you, it's because I want to
beat the shit out of you so don't tell me how I feel." She laughed at
the sight of Mulder with his gun trained on her. "You're learning,
Mulder, but I'm faster than you can imagine. If I wanted to, I
could kill you with your own gun before you even saw me move. I
won't kill him. Hate would be a waste of time. Our deal is
completed, Alexei. I killed more than enough people last night to
hold up my side of the bargain. When I get over my mad-on,
maybe I'll even be able to work with you again. But if you ever do
anything that puts Brian in danger again, I'll make a hot knife in
Tunguska seem like a vacation."
What scared Mulder most about watching her right now was the
cold she radiated. Usually she had a fractured warmth and while
on the hunt she crackled with a kind of electricity. Right now, she
seemed like a machine.
He remembered that night she had helped him through the end of
the John Lee Roche effort. On the strength of Mulder's profile,
they'd caught the bastard, but Mulder couldn't get the man out of
his head. A child molester and killer who targeted little girls. If
ever a subject had been designed to break Mulder, it had been
Roche. Everyone else celebrated Roche's capture and couldn't
understand why Mulder sat in the corner with such a look on his
face.
When Angel had first approached him, he thought her another
person wanting to meet him either for being the FBI's golden boy
or Spooky, the freakshow. It still amazed him how long he
managed to reconcile the two before he started investigating the X-
Files. He knew her by reputation as a genius at profiling who
occasionally got lent out to the ISU from whatever top-secret
project she usually worked on. Danielle Morley. Back then he
hadn't known why they'd never met before. Now, considering that
he knew she called the Cancer Man "Mr. Morley," he wondered if
Cancer Man had given her that name as a mark of ownership or if
she'd supplied it as irony.
She took him out for coffee and listened in a silence sometimes
punctuated by supportive sounds as the words for what he felt
seeped out of him like blood from a deep wound. Staring into his
coffee made it easier to talk, but he felt the care she radiated like
warm sunshine toward him, a warmth he drank in. Sometimes she
rapped his knuckles when she felt him descending too deeply into
self-pity. All he remembered about her appearance that night was
that she had rich, dark brown-black hair like his sister's. It had
made it easier for him to talk to her. She walked him home, and he
didn't see her again until years later after she had cut loose from
the conspiracy.
After the remembered warmth from last night and that long ago
night, seeing her like this scared the hell out of him. Was this what
she meant by rebooting?
"So say your good-byes or exchange money or whatever. If you're
both still here when Scully gets here and she shoots you, I'll just
stand back and laugh. Don't forget your arm on the table, Alexei."
She walked out without seeming to worry that Mulder still had his
gun pointed at her and slammed the door behind her.
Mulder rushed to Krycek's side. His former partner had blood
running from one corner of his mouth. "You should feel
privileged. Not many people get to see her as the Angel of Death
and survive," Krycek said ruefully as he batted Mulder's shaking
hand away and wiped his mouth.
"Angel of Death?"
"Yeah, they still tell stories about her. She was so good so young
that the other assassins felt threatened and arranged some accidents
for her. She sidestepped them all and started hunting down the
people who planned them. Then she killed the people who just
knew about them and didn't warn her. She left a love note on each
body to make sure people got the point.
"Once everyone started to believe it really was her work, the
cigarette-smoking bastard had to intervene to make her stop. Some
people started calling her, not to her face, 'Infant Death' after—"
"—after Claudia, the child vampire, in Interview With the
Vampire."
Krycek smiled. "Right. One day she heard someone call her that,
but instead of killing him she just laughed and asked why she
would object to such an appropriate name. Once she gave her
approval, use of the name died out."
Mulder remembered that when he had met her in October of 1994
she had gone by the name "Claudia." He had been waiting for his
contact on the steps of the New York Public Library when a tall
blond woman in a business suit, looking like any other
businesswoman, walked up to him and introduced herself with:
"I'm Claudia Konanykhine. I'll be your guide to the role-playing
vampire world."
Despite the whole vampire role-playing thing and the release of the
movie that year, he had never thought about that connection. Sure,
Scully had been abducted and his new partner had betrayed him
two months earlier, distracting him, but none of that excused
sloppy thinking. The resolution of that case had affected his
viewpoint, even with Angel's assertion that true vampires existed
even if this killer wasn't one, on the Trinity Killers case that,
ironically, had come to him only a little while after that.
"She had to reboot. No wonder she's pissed." At Mulder's look,
he said, "The implants in her brain overheated and killed some of
the surrounding tissue. For her it'll grow back, but she's lost some
things." Mulder shuddered. "I have to go. She's right about
Scully."
"Will I see you again?"
"You know I turn up every so often. Now I have another reason to
come back."
"What are we to one another?"
"You're my... sanctuary, Fox." Krycek kissed him deeply. If he
hadn't already been on the floor, he would have ended up there.
"I'll help you get dressed, Alex. I especially want to help you put
on the arm."
Alex laughed at the gleam in his eye. "Dressed, Fox. It'll be much
worse for us if Scully comes in and we're going at it again." It took
them forty-five minutes.
Brian had passed out in the passenger seat, his head back, exposing
the long line of his neck. His recitation of the events of the night
before had taken a long time but Scully still sensed that he had left
a number of things out. His evasiveness on the identity of the
informant especially caught her attention. Amazing how many of
Mulder's tricks he'd used to try to skate her around the trouble
spots.
Even with his scars visible, even with him sitting in the passenger
seat, Scully still found herself thinking of him as Mulder. Brian
had once told her that, as far as he knew, he was the clone most
like Mulder. She imagined Brian in Mulder's position and could
only feel that the facial scar, visible but somehow not disfiguring,
would only make him more effective. Mulder sometimes looked
like he had walked out of a GQ spread, professional brooding
male model expression and all. Brian had the quirky good looks
but also the feeling of having survived something terrible and
transfiguring and having triumphed over it.
Suddenly they had to come to a complete halt as they hit traffic.
The stop jerked Brian out of his sleep. "Ah, California traffic.
Welcome to the world's largest parking lot." He sounded
altogether too happy about it.
He was holding out on something. "I get nervous every time you
start doing Mulder," she said.
"I'm not doing Mulder!" he protested suddenly, then flushed.
"Although that would be interesting," he said, recovering.
First, she realized that he really wasn't doing an impression of
Mulder to manipulate her, that he just shared this trait with him.
Second, she thought it strange that he'd made that interpretation of
her statement. Third, she realized that he was engaged in Mulder's
distracting-tangent routine, Mulder's equivalent of "Look, behind
you!" Fourth, she realized, to her disgust, that Brian's ploy had
worked, that he had succeeded in manipulating her. She had a
mental image trapped in her head that she couldn't shake loose.
Not an entirely unpleasant image...
She needed to distract herself. Seeing that they wouldn't be
moving for a while, she put the car in Park. "I don't understand
why you stay with this Dark Angel woman when she puts you in
such danger." That should do it.
His eyes went distant. "I love the way she can look at any page in
a road atlas and tell a story about any town or highway in any state.
I love the way she can describe those things, the way she notices
everything. That whole amnesia thing she had as a child gave her
problems in school that prevented her from having the confidence
to be the writer she should be. She makes me see the world
through new eyes. I can be anyone I want to be with her. I love
the way she walks into a room and instantly knows where every
exit and piece of furniture is placed. Watching her in action is like
watching someone with Jackie Chan's grace and ease and ability to
defy gravity."
She looked at the dark circles around his eyes, the way simple
consciousness seemed to drag at his weary body. "But, Brian,
she's a killer."
He turned to look at her with such desolation and despair. "But,
Dana, so am I." His voice sounded like raw silk.
She saw such hurt and loss and vulnerability in him. Surely it was
only his resemblance to Mulder that made her reach out to stroke
his hair. It was soft but with a slight sharpness at the ends that
suggested he had gotten it cut recently. Then she leaned over and
kissed him, leaving the excuse of him resembling Mulder far
behind.
The lips felt as good as she'd always thought they would. Her
fingers traced the slight depression of his scar—from the feel and
look of it, Grayce must have slashed him quickly with a very sharp
blade—and she felt Brian respond, his long fingers tracing patterns
on her neck. Then the blare of a car horn made both of them jump
back. Traffic had started moving again.
Brian looked flushed and confused, making her wonder what
expression was on her face. She felt so disgusted with herself.
She had taken advantage of a very tired man who had, only hours
before, been chased by killers and repeatedly raked over the coals
by LA's Finest. She had started him talking about his girlfriend,
who had been badly injured and whom he'd been worried about all
night, then jumped him. Of course he was confused. Considering
his bond and then her bond to Mulder, it was almost incestuous.
More car horns joined in the chorus. "Dana, I think you should
start the car." His soft voice wobbled a little.
"Right."
Scully and Brian spent the rest of the trip in uncomfortable silence.
Brian still hadn't lost his look of confusion by the time they
reached the parking lot. Mulder, Dark Angel, and her English
friend, Douglas, waited for them near a black van. It appeared that
they had already checked out.
Brian immediately engulfed Dark Angel in a hug, and they stood
molded together, leaning on one another. Scully, still feeling
guilty, walked over to join Mulder, who was grilling Douglas.
"Don't you want your story to get out?" Mulder kept displaying a
goofy smile that couldn't have anything to do with the
conversation. It made her wonder. He was so intent on prying
Douglas' secrets out that he hadn't noticed her yet.
Douglas was even taller than Mulder. Joining them made Scully
feel like a midget.
"I did before I saw the reaction. Angel tells me that you're having
enough trouble with factions in your own government. You don't
need to antagonize the UN."
"So the conspiracy is global."
Scully couldn't help smiling at the look on Douglas' face. "I have
no idea what you're talking about. It seems that the UN wants to
cover up my story. If I tell you anything else you might find
yourself in restraints in a high-security mental ward."
"I'm already expecting that to happen any day now."
Scully decided to rescue the poor man from Mulder. "So, Mulder,
you're looking well."
He smiled. "I don't remember a thing, but I seem to be fine. I
guess I proved to you that abductions were occurring in
Shelbyville."
"Actually, your abduction by the conspiracy doesn't prove
anything about the other alleged abductions." She laughed at the
look on his face. Things were back to normal.
Brian tilted Serafine's face up to his and looked for lingering signs
of last night's damages. He touched the new duct tape Xs on the
right sleeve of her jacket. "You have no idea how happy I am to
see you looking better."
"You've looked better, though. Brian, how much trouble are you
in with the law?"
"The fact that they're taking this from a terrorist angle is giving me
more trouble than I'd usually get, but they can't directly link me to
anything. I'm just tired, Sera."
"It's not just fatigue, Brian. I can tell. Tell me."
"Well, I was just starting to feel safe at the house again. Last night
I felt like I had a kind of family, then I got to see that whole family
put in danger. Talking to the cops bothered me. I've been terrified
of them ever since I last spoke to them and my concussion made
them look distorted and frightening, their features running like hot
wax. I still have nightmares about it sometimes."
"And there's your fa—" His finger at her lips stopped her. "I'm
sorry. I won't mention it again," she said.
"I have to stay in town while they're investigating, and we won't
be able to see each other safely. I was worrying about you all
night, and don't say I shouldn't have. You looked so damaged.
Douglas was my guest, and he had to kill to protect himself and
someone who's starting to seem like a kind of brother to me."
"That's my fault. I brought Douglas to the dance, marshmallow
bunny. He's my responsibility."
"All right, circus peanut. I'll try to let you keep that blame
yourself. It bothers me that my dinner got interrupted and ruined.
Isn't that stupid?"
"No, it's not. It ties in with your family thing. And I'm your
'spongy' circus peanut and don't you ever forget it."
"Dana kissed me on the way over."
Serafine's eyebrow raised. "That doesn't bother me, not on your
account."
"But I don't know how I feel about it. I was kissing her back. I
don't want to hear your speech on how it would be better for me to
find someone else."
"Brian, I don't care if you shtup every warm body that crosses
your path—"
"'Shtup'?" The word brought him out of his pit a little, as she'd
hoped, but it didn't distract him for long. "No one else understands
me about..." He patted the small bulges of her guns through her
jacket. He meant that no one else understood how he felt about
killing.
"Bunny, do you still want to continue the way we are?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, fear filling his eyes.
"No! I don't mean that. I mean, do you want to give up your
citizen identity and hit the road with me forever. Comforting the
afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. You already experience
the isolation and the paranoia involved. I want you to know that,
whatever decision you make, I'll understand and love you."
Brian looked torn. "That wouldn't work long-term. We both
know that."
"Okay. I'll leave with Douglas when you're better."
"Sera, it's not safe—"
"Fuck safe! Brian, I would give you the world if I could. I know
you well enough to see you falling apart."
"I'm not—"
"Hush. I'm not Carrie. You don't have to pretend with me. You
need rest, comforting, and industrial-strength pampering. I won't
go until you get it."
"What about Douglas?"
"He mentioned an urge to take a walk and go sight-seeing. He's
been drugged and tied down for months without fresh air."
"Don't let Mulder and Dana see me like this."
"Nobody has to know a thing you don't want them to. You just
had a really scary night."
Brian let out a long breath. "I love you, Peanut."
"I love you too, Bunny." She opened the passenger door on the
van and set him into the seat. "Take a rest, Bri. You deserve it."
She picked up a pair of sunglasses, one of the pairs he'd left with
her, from the dashboard and gently sent them over his eyes as he
smiled. Her hand trailed down to his neck and stopped at the silver
cross she'd given him.
"I like your nail polish, Sera," he said.
She grinned. "Siesta time, Bunny. I'll be back soon." She closed
the door as quietly as she could. She saw Scully start to walk away
from Mulder and Douglas toward her. Serafine's expression
darkened, and she started to walk toward Scully, to meet her
halfway. She imagined they looked like gunslingers getting ready
to face-off. With Scully gone, Mulder went back to interrogating
Douglas. Serafine could tell because she heard the change in
Douglas' voice. His voice always turned darker and flatter when
angry.
Serafine scrutinized Scully and felt the shorter agent doing the
same to her. Serafine had once described such a meeting as being
like matter meeting anti-matter. Serafine could respect Scully as a
warrior of a different kind on another side of the war, but she
couldn't understand how Scully could twist logic and facts into a
more personally palatable form to fit her viewpoint. Serafine had
spent her life battling the Scullys of the world.
"What more will you have to do to him to be satisfied?" Scully
asked.
"Whatever else I can say about you, I have to admit that you
certainly have nerve."
"You should make a clean break since he can't. What you have
with Brian could never work. Occasionally dropping into his life
bringing danger and lethal secrets with you, dragging him into
your hole with you. Tainting him with your own bloodlust. Then
disappearing for an irregular period of time, never the same one
twice."
Serafine smirked. "The members of the Fox group seem to find
that stimulating."
Scully frowned, not seeing the reference but also not willing to
admit it. "What could you possibly base your relationship on?"
"Mind-blowing sex. You'd be amazed what those pouty lips and
long fingers can do. Or maybe you wouldn't be. Brian has enough
people messing with his mind without adding you to the list."
Serafine's eyes narrowed. "We're bound by love, Scully. Duh."
"Love? It looks more like obsession to me. Has anyone ever told
you that you and Brian look like siblings? The height, the high
cheekbones, the eyes that range from any shade of green to hazel.
You seem to be proud that you don't know who you used to be,
when a simple blood test might answer all your questions."
"Are you suggesting that I'm Samantha Mulder now? Doesn't this
violate your beliefs? Or are you willing to bend them when they
get in the way of something you want? You're hardly the
impartial, objective observer you like to pretend you are."
"If I can bring myself to accept Mulder's clones, I can see a
number of new possibilities attached. Are you afraid that Brian
might not accept being his sister's lover?"
"We're back to schoolyard taunts now?" Serafine laughed.
"You're calling me a chicken."
"I don't know you very well, Dark Angel, but from what I've seen
you share some traits with Mulder. What I'm saying to you now,
the doubt, will stick in your mind and irritate you. Eventually it
will drive you to resolve the question."
"Maybe you're right, Scully. Stranger things have happened. But
if I were you, I'd be taken a long, hard look into my motives. It's
good for the soul. Now I'm going to rescue Douglas from your
partner."
As everyone said their good-byes, Mulder worried about Brian a
little. He'd looked like hell, and a worried-looking Serafine
refused to let Mulder wake him to say good-bye. Serafine
explained that anyone would look like hell after spending almost
half a day being interrogated by the L.A.P.D. She swore he would
be fine after a little rest and that she would take care of him.
Mulder couldn't doubt her word and didn't want to start another
fight with her. She didn't seem to be quite as angry with him
anymore, but the coldness hadn't entirely left her eyes. Besides,
Scully seemed to be upset and impatient to go.
He had gotten nothing out of Douglas, who seemed to find his
attempts at intimidation funny. Mulder got the impression that the
Englishman had previously been intimidated by much scarier
people. Douglas had the look of a man who'd seen madness and
death and come scarred out the other end. Why should he tell
Mulder anything when Serafine would soon make him disappear?
Stymied, Mulder decided to look into the U.N. angle. It might be
worthwhile to do some fishing around Marita and see what he
could dredge out.
When Mulder got into Scully's car to leave, his peripheral vision
caught some movement. He saw Krycek wink at him, then
disappear.
end...
Dead Time
by Viridian5
"I don't exist when you don't see me
I don't exist when you're not here
What the eye don't see won't break the heart
You can make believe when we're apart
But when you leave I disappear
When you don't see me...
You can lease the peace of mind
You bought a mask, I put it on
You never thought to ask me
If I wear it when you're gone"
—"When You Don't See Me" by The Sisters of Mercy
The drying of your tears
Today we escape
We escape
Pack and get dressed
Before your father hears us
Before all hell breaks loose
Breathe keep breathing
Don't lose your nerve
Breathe keep breathing
I can't do this alone"
—"Exit Music (For a Film)" by Radiohead
"Sing us a song
A song to keep us warm
There's such a chill such a chill
You can laugh
A spineless laugh
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you
Now we are one"
—"Exit Music (For a Film)" by Radiohead
