Even despite the sense of dislocation, he knew he was waiting for
the train at New York City's Chambers Street station. The click of
high heels against concrete behind him made him turn. Claudia
Konanykhine, dressed in her vampire role-playing persona of Bette
Noire, paced nearby.
She had just given him neon green contacts and fang teeth to wear
with his suit for his cover identity, but she had gone all out for her
own. She wore black vinyl gloves, a flowing white poet's blouse
with a tiny, black vinyl skirt, black and white striped opaque tights,
and black, vinyl thigh-high boots. The boots had four inch heels,
bringing her height up to about 6"4. She had a teddy bear called
Micheleine, done up with red faceted eyes and demon fangs,
resting in a baby sling on her back. Her brimstone yellow contacts
stood out even more with the makeup she'd chosen: the half-
doll/half-bandit look Pris from Blade Runner had used. She'd
crimped her long blonde hair and let it stand out wild like a lion's
mane. Completely different from the pretty but average looking
businesswoman she'd first shown up as.
He'd suspected then what he'd later come to know for sure: that
she had no core identity or "real name," unless you counted "Dark
Angel" as a real name. She changed looks and personae
constantly.
Now he knew when he was. They had been investigating a
"vampire" murder in New York City together in October 1994. As
much as he'd wanted to be alone on it—no one could replace
Scully—he'd needed her knowledge of the local role-playing
community. One of the symbols it used had been cut into every
victim's neck. The results of this case had prejudiced him during
his other vampire investigation half a month later of the 3.
Back then, Mulder had been relieved that Dark Angel hadn't been
anything like either of his recent partners: Scully, who'd been
taken from him, or Krycek, who'd played him for a fool. He'd lost
both to treachery, one as the victim and the other as the betrayer, a
little over two months before. Right now he wondered what had
brought his mind back here.
Scully. He was losing her again...
He was trying to tell himself something. He looked at his
surroundings, which were the very epitome of decay. //Everything
decays; everything dies.//
Revealing her own fang teeth, Bette smiled at him. "In this time
period, none of the subway stations look like anywhere you'd want
to be. This is only one of the worst."
"How did you know what I was thinking?"
"This isn't a memory, Mulder." A sudden stale breeze whipped
through her hair. "Our ride is here."
Damp cloth and Scully's warm wrist, wet with his tears, against
Mulder's skin briefly brought him away from the subway station
and into darkness. He was helpless; she was helpless; the new chip
hadn't worked...
Then he returned to the subway station and had Bette's hand
clenched on his arm again. When she pulled him onto the train,
they almost ran right into Patterson. Mulder had associated his
former mentor with obsession and death even before the man had
finally gone too deeply into a serial killer's mind.
"What will you do if she dies, Mulder?" Patterson asked. "You
know there's only one thing you can do, and you know what that
is."
Yes, Mulder did know. He'd already come so close to it just
recently.
Patterson turned into his father. "It's your fault she's dying, Fox.
They wouldn't have done this if not for your meddling in their
affairs. Without you she would have been safe."
Shots rang out, and Bill Mulder stared down in horror at the blood
blossoming from his chest. He fell to the filthy floor, dead.
Mulder turned to see Alex Krycek standing there, smoking gun in
hand.
Krycek smiled darkly and reholstered his weapon with a
gunfighter's flourish, then shrugged. "He wasn't helping."
"Krycek, you killed my father, you son of a bitch! Again!"
"Yeah, and don't you feel better?"
The dead Bill Mulder morphed back into a live Bill Patterson, who
said, "You have no choice. You have to—" Gunshots and bloody
gurgles cut off his last words. The body disappeared, leaving only
a crimson puddle.
"Fuck you too, you bastard," Claudia said as she put her gun away.
"We're here to save your life," Krycek said. He looked the way he
had when Mulder had last seen him, even down to the odd stiffness
in the left arm. Mulder had wondered then if his former partner
had injured it.
At the end of the car a Jamaican woman, dressed as if going to
work in an office, started to preach, "When you eat of him, you
will have eternal life. When you refuse de body, you will turn to
dust and die..."
Another memory from another time. Mulder started to compile
and sort the details so he could complete the picture his mind was
trying to create for him. Decay, death, eternal life, changing to
survive... blame...
Darkness, occasionally studded with flashing lights, flew by
outside the window. He smelled death and felt shadows and
Scully's pain, which had become his pain, pull at him.
Krycek—as he'd looked in Hong Kong, haggard and with longer
hair—said, "I was impressed by the way you dealt with your
surveillance. Swift and ruthless. Destroying the face so you could
make up that suicide story to give you more time was smart."
"It disturbs the hell out of me to hear you complimenting me."
//Especially for acting like you. I'm not proud of what I did that
night.//
Krycek shook his head in wonder. "You would have swallowed
your own gun then if you hadn't discovered the peephole. Now
you're thinking of trying it again, and for what? Some tiny red-
haired woman who's always running around yelling and ordering
people about?"
"You wouldn't understand. It's my fault. What if she dies?"
//That's not even getting into the situation with my sister.//
"Like hell," Bette said, her yellow eyes glowing in the merciless
white of the fluorescent lights. "Those bastards win a little every
time you shoulder the blame for something they do. And how do
you think your death will affect them? They'll probably have a
party." She sat down. "And she always could have died at any
time. From cancer, or the dangers of being on assignment, or
getting hit by a car while buying groceries. You can only do your
best and nothing more."
"So what the hell is this, then?" Mulder asked.
"We don't have the time to be cryptic for once," Krycek said.
"Wow, I must be doing something right."
"Sarcasm looks so cute on you." Krycek gave him a smoldering
stare that made Mulder fidget. "We're parts of you. You're just
talking to yourself, trying to save yourself. You just finished
sobbing your guts out at Scully's bedside, and now you're looking
at your options. We're here to tell you to live and keep fighting."
The thought of these two representing parts of his mind scared the
hell out of Mulder. //What are they? The psychotic bit? The part
that wants to survive, no matter the cost?//
Dark Angel now had dark hair and eyes, the same way she had that
night even further back when she'd listened to him pour his heart
out about Roche over coffee. His profile had gotten the bastard
caught and jailed, but he still hadn't been sure if there were other
dead girls he didn't know about, that Roche hadn't confessed to.
And he still hadn't been able to purge the son of a bitch's way of
thinking from his own mind...
Angel's Alice Pryor identity said, "You already know what you
should do in tomorrow's meeting. You know what to say to
Blevins. The answers are in here, waiting for you to find them."
Krycek sat next to Mulder and put a hand on his tensed shoulder.
Mulder tried not to like it. "You survive, Mulder, no matter what
life throws at you. I always appreciated that about you. I know
how hard that can be."
In an instant Mulder saw all the Alex Kryceks he'd ever known:
the eager and adoring puppy agent, the harder man he'd pummeled
that drugged night, the worn-out and desperate man on the run in
Hong Kong, the buzz-cut militia member, the partner who had
followed him into the gulag despite being given the chance to
escape, the traitor who'd cozied up to the guards and administrator.
He and Krycek were bound by something he couldn't name. He
couldn't decide whether Krycek fascinated him for their
similarities or their differences.
Krycek grinned and moved closer. "I'm not the real one, just a
piece of you that identifies with him. No one would ever have to
know."
"Either way, it means I'm seriously fucked-up."
"I won't argue there."
Mulder felt himself balance on a knife-edge. Then he fell.
"C'mere."
Mulder grabbed Krycek, who grabbed him back. As they kissed
and ground against one another, Mulder couldn't help thinking that
it certainly felt like Alex Krycek, but the whole dreamscape felt
real. //Like you know how he really feels. He feels the way you
always imagined he would.// Their tongues met in a torrent of lust.
//I'd "always" imagined this? Hell, no.//
Angel cleared his throat. "Masturbation can wait. Scully's waking
up a little. I think you want to get your ass out of the room before
that happens. What you're doing in her room is poised between
sweet and creepy."
Mulder broke away from the kiss, horrified that he had just made
out with a man who'd helped kill Melissa while he was lying at
Scully's bedside, but couldn't find to energy to pull away
completely. "What do I do after that?"
"Your best. Keep on going, no matter what. You can wallow in
guilt and grief after you get everything done."
"It would make them too happy if you snuffed yourself," Krycek
said as he licked his lips. "Live to spite them if you can't think of
any other reasons."
"And you should know by now that life is full of surprises. Who
knows what might happen tomorrow?"
The train shuddered to a halt. "Last stop," the com box squawked.
"Everybody off." Then the lights went out.
Mulder woke at Scully's bedside exactly where he'd finally gone
under after sobbing out his despair. She did seem to be waking up,
so he just gently kissed her wrist and left.
He had miles to go before he could sleep.
THE END
"Cancer for my education.
Under
by Viridian5
Mulder wondered how he'd arrived here. He stared down at the
moist concrete, punctuated with black rosettes of ancient chewing
gum, beneath his feet. Above him, long, tattered sheets of peeling
paint dangled from the ceiling. Around him, once white tile
browning from rust, water damage, and filth furthered the
atmosphere of decay. The failing, dirty fluorescent lights
flickered, making his surroundings seem to strobe. When he
looked into the train tunnel to his left, the darkness seemed to
hunger, and a brief but all-too-familiar antiseptic smell of
hospital—with an undertone of Scully's scent gone wrong,
seriously ill—seared his nose. He had the sudden impression of
cold, damp cloth against his face. It was wrong, all wrong...
Watch the body hit the files.
Waiting for another war and
Waiting for my valentine..."
—"Valentine" by the Sisters of Mercy
