Come In From The Cold

Mulder trudged through the chill Siberian forest keeping a careful eye on his sure-footed young guide and not much else. They had been hiking for three days on their way to Krasnoyarsk where, for enough money, the boy had promised Mulder could begin the bus, train and plane journey that would eventually lead him home. Mulder silently wondered how he was going to explain all of this to the accounting department when he got back. If he got back.

<God, please let me get back.>

What was that saying about no atheists in foxholes? Apparently there are no atheists in Siberia either.

Mulder studied the rock strewn forest floor carefully to avoid tripping. His body, though not seriously harmed, was bruised and sore. The last thing he needed was a tumble over some loose rock or icy tree root to twist his ankle, then he might never reach civilization ... well, if you could call Krasnoyarsk civilization.

And then there was the oil, the Black Cancer, as his fellow prisoner had called it ... Mulder didn't want to think about what that had done or was still doing to him.

Mulder's thought process, as well as his body, was brought to an abrupt halt as he collided with his suddenly stationary guide.

Mulder glanced around and saw that what had moments ago been uninhabited forest, was now nearly crawling with people. Men actually. One armed men. Mulder had to swallow hard around the lump in his throat, and he tensed, ready to flee if necessary.

The newcomers and Mulder's guide exchanged rapid-fire Russian.

"What's going on," Mulder demanded.

The Russian men continued their discussion as if he wasn't there.

"What's happening," Mulder asked again.

The Russians still ignored him, but Mulder noticed that they seemed to be coming to some sort of agreement, if the nodding heads were any indication.

"Hey," Mulder shouted, grabbing the tattered coat sleeve that hung loosely from his young guide's shoulder. "I asked you a question."

"They have a man who wishes to go to Krasnoyarsk as well," the boy replied.

Mulder noticed three men emerging from the thick green undergrowth of the forest. Two of the men seemed to be half-carrying half-dragging a third, shrouded in a dirty army blanket, between them.

"No, I'm paying you," Mulder insisted waving at the obviously incapacitated man. "And I don't have time to wait for anyone else."

"He will pay more," the boy countered and turned away. End of discussion his expression said.

The man in the blanket was brought to the guide. The other men moved away, but without their support he collapsed in a heap on the damp forest floor.

"Wait, I'll pay you another...," Mulder began to protest when he really looked at the fallen man for the first time. Jeans, army jacket, dark brown hair cut short.

<Oh God, its Krycek.>

Mulder felt something that was almost glee. He thought he'd lost the other man for good when the brakes on their truck had failed, sending it plunging into a ravine. Now Krycek was his again, and fury for all the times the rat bastard had earned Mulder's grudging trust, only to betray it, flared up.

Mulder reached down, grabbed Krycek's jacket and yanked the man to his feet. As usual Krycek made no particular move to defend himself so Mulder delivered a powerful blow to the other man's unprotected gut. Krycek moaned and sagged back down to the ground.

Mulder took a closer look and noticed Krycek's ghostly pale face sheened with sweat. His normally clear green eyes were nearly black and glassy. Krycek's expression was one of excruciating pain, much more pain than Mulder's gut punch could possibly have caused.

Finally Mulder noticed the stains on the blanket and jacket.

<Mud, it has to be mud...>

But on closer inspection he realized it was ... blood.

<Oh God,> Mulder thought again as the glee was replaced by horror.

Mulder knelt and pulled at Krycek's jacket to confirm his suspicions. Krycek struggled weakly, his face a grimace of agony, but his usual strength was completely gone. Mulder was able to remove the jacket and pull aside the bloody remains of Krycek's t-shirt to see...

"Oh God," Mulder gasped. He scrambled away from the other man, and puked his inadequate breakfast onto the cold hard forest floor.

Mulder crouched on the ground for a few minutes just trying to get his breathing and his roiling stomach under control. He couldn't believe they'd gotten to Krycek. The man had always seemed so indestructible. But this ... this was something Mulder wouldn't wish on his own worst enemy. This was something he wouldn't wish even on Alex Krycek.

Mulder finally calmed himself, stood and noticed for the first time that all of the Russians except for his guide had disappeared into the thick forest. He had been so focused on Krycek that he hadn't even realized that they'd gone. And even the guide was a good 50 feet down the faint trail they had been following.

"Wait," Mulder shouted.

The boy turned and seemed surprised that the American men were not right behind him.

"We must go now," the boy insisted. He stared pointedly at Krycek, still on the ground. "He must keep up."

Mulder just stood there, uncertain.

He wanted Alex Krycek dead didn't he? Yes! With every fiber of his being. And here he was, not dead yet, but dying. All Mulder had to do was turn and walk away and blood loss, or dehydration or some animal in the forest would soon finish the job. But there was a difference between killing the man in what was, at least marginally, self-defense and leaving a crippled man to bleed to death alone. Wasn't there? Mulder had never had any problem inflicting pain on Krycek in the heat of anger, when the other man at least had a chance to fight back, but was Mulder cold-hearted enough to calmly sentence a man to slow death when his own life was in no immediate danger?

Mulder glanced from the boy, impatient to get moving, to Krycek, defeated, as good as dead without Mulder's help, and begging Mulder with his eyes.

No. Whatever else Mulder was -- driven, angry to the point of violence at times -- he felt things too deeply to be so deliberately cruel. Mulder concluded that he simply wasn't heartless enough to desert anyone in that condition. Krycek deserved to be punished for his crimes, but he deserved to be punished by the justice system, not by some poor confused Russians who thought the only way to protect themselves was mutilation. And not by Fox Mulder, not personally. It was the only explanation that made sense. It was the only explanation he could live with.

Mulder took a deep breath, and pulled Krycek to his feet once more, this time slipping Krycek's remaining arm across his shoulders and wrapping his own left arm around Krycek's waist.

"Why are you doing this, Mulder," Krycek asked. His words just a whisper of his normally deep tone.

"Shut up," Mulder answered. "Before I change my mind."

Krycek shut up.

A dark blanket of night had fallen over the forest before the boy stopped walking. Their campsite for the night was nothing more than a slightly flatter than normal spot of dirt with a few leaves pushed together for comfort. The boy took a few bites from the jerky he had stored in his pocket, made up his bed of leaves and promptly fell asleep.

Mulder would have liked to resent the boy for his lack of support, but he was just too tired to feel a damn thing. He searched his own pockets for the few scraps of jerky he had left. Mulder popped one piece into his mouth and chewed slowly. The second piece he held out to Krycek who made no move to take it.

Mulder turned to look at Krycek. Vulnerable. He looked vulnerable as he had at the airport when Mulder had surprised him into revealing that his parents were Russian. Krycek was waiting for the trap to spring.

"Come on, eat it," Mulder said pressing the food into Krycek's right palm.

Krycek sniffed at the food and wrinkled his nose at the strong odor.

Mulder shrugged. "If I'd known you were coming over, I would have gone shopping for some vodka and caviar."

Krycek snorted with laughter and popped the bit of food into his mouth.

When the brief meal was over, Krycek lay down on the ground to sleep, but was surprised by Mulder who began working to open the fastenings of his jacket.

"No," Krycek protested trying to push Mulder away.

"I need to clean the wound," Mulder explained.

"No," Krycek insisted. He could just imagine how badly that was going to hurt and struggled even more forcefully.

"It'll get infected," Mulder continued.

"It's already infected," Krycek countered. "Don't touch me."

But Krycek was no match for Mulder in his current condition. The jacket came away and the t-shirt was lifted up from the stump of what remained of Krycek's arm. Mulder knew what to expect this time, but it was still an effort not to be sick at the grisly sight. And if he could barely stand to look at it, how had Krycek managed to live through it? How would he live with his once strong body permanently maimed in this way?

Mulder shook off his morbid thoughts and went to work cleaning Krycek's arm. Meat ... it looked like raw meat. Areas were burnt where the wound had been carelessly cauterized and Mulder had to fight down another wave of nausea. Krycek wasn't doing much better. He moaned in pain and his breathing was coming in short gasps. Mulder had to sit on Krycek's chest and pin his right arm to the ground to keep the other man from twisting away.

Mulder prayed fervently that the pain would make Krycek pass out, but his prayer went unanswered. When it was over, the wound was marginally cleaner and carefully wrapped in a strip of cloth from Mulder's t-shirt. Silent tears of pain and rage slid from the corners of Krycek's tightly shut eyelids and into his short brown hair.

Mulder woke to see the full silver-white moon shining down on him through the dark silhouette of ancient evergreens. It was beautiful, he thought for a moment, until the events of the past few days came back to him and he shuddered with cold and fear.

It was then that he noticed a noise interspersed with the small rustlings and chirpings of night animals. A husky voice, whispering and sobbing in American-accented Russian. Krycek's voice.

Mulder sat up and looked around their small clearing. The bright moonlight made it easy to see. The boy was still sleeping soundly on his nest of leaves.

Krycek lay a few feet away, obviously in the throws of a nightmare. His body twitched and his brow was furrowed in an expression of intense concentration. Another quick burst of Russian and a quiet cry. He didn't make much noise. Mulder knew from experience that his own nightmares were accompanied by a great deal of thrashing about and yelling and screaming. His neighbors had gone so far as to call the police once thinking he was being murdered in his apartment. But Krycek apparently kept a tight control over even his subconscious. Mulder wondered what kind of life the man must have led to be so careful even in sleep.

The sweat-dampened skin finally caught Mulder's attention. The pale moonlight showed that Krycek's skin had a bright unhealthy flush. Mulder had no idea how far they still were from a town that had medical facilities, and if the other man was feverish ... Mulder didn't think his chances were good.

Mulder shifted closer and laid the palm of his hand on Krycek's forehead. He felt hot, but Mulder's hands were nearly numb with cold, even his own face felt hot by comparison.

Mulder recalled being sick as a child, burning hot and shivering cold at the same time. His mother had brought him steaming tea to warm him and settle his stomach and cool washrags to bathe his face. There was nothing like that here. He remembered how his mother had touched her lips to his forehead to both test for fever and offer comfort to her miserable son.

Mulder moved until he was lying next to the younger man. He hesitated a moment then leaned forward to press his lips to Krycek's brow. The skin under his mouth was soft and smooth and hot, too hot. Mulder drew back slightly and ran his tongue over his own lips tasting the salty moisture there ... Krycek's sweat. He looked down at the other man's face and saw unreadable green eyes open and watching him closely.

Mulder shoved back a few feet, sat up and began fumbling for the canteen and something to use as a rag. "You have a fever ... we have to bring it down ... you were having a nightmare ... I didn't mean to wake you," Mulder babbled as he finally decided to dampen the corner of the blanket and handed it to Krycek.

Krycek slowly sponged the side of his face and neck, his eyes never leaving Mulder's.

Mulder watched, rapt, for a moment then turned away suddenly with a muttered curse. He lay back down on his tiny pile of leaves and spent the rest of the night awake, listening to the quiet rhythm of Krycek's breathing.

As the rooftops and smoke stacks of Krasnoyarsk came into view, Mulder nearly cried with relief. Krycek, burning up and incoherent, had staggered through another day of hard hiking on willpower alone. Willpower and Mulder's ever-present arm around his waist. Mulder was ready to collapse from the effort it took to keep up with their young agile guide while supporting Krycek's powerfully built weight.

The townspeople barely gave the three men a second look. It apparently wasn't that unusual to see men, flushed with infection, stumble out of the woods after having their arms cut off. Mulder wanted to scream at them. He wanted to get the hell out of this god-forsaken country.

The boy stopped at what appeared to be a bus depot.

"You will take the next bus," he instructed Mulder.

Then the boy moved to slide his own shoulder under Krycek's right arm in place of Mulder's. Mulder hesitated.

"What about him," Mulder asked.

"I will take him to the doctor," the boy said as he experimentally hefted Krycek's weight.

"I'll help you," Mulder said.

"Nyet," the boy refused. "The bus is coming."

Mulder could see people starting to gather near the front of the station. He looked from Krycek to the bus depot and back again, unsure of what to do. Should he stay with Krycek or just get the hell out of here? And if he stayed, why? Was it only so that he could arrest the man once he was healthy and drag him back to the US to pay for his crimes?

Or was the reason Mulder had given Krycek so many chances to redeem himself -- with the DAT tape, the diplomatic pouch, this trip to Russia -- because Mulder so badly *wanted* the other man to be redeemed?

"You could come in you know," Mulder offered?

"Come in?" Krycek whispered, confusion and pain written on his face.

"Yeah, you know, witness protection..." Mulder explained.

Krycek frowned and shook his head. His expression told Mulder exactly how ridiculous he considered the suggestion to be. "Get out of here Mulder, before the authorities come looking for you."

"What about you," Mulder asked doing his best to hide the sting of Krycek's rejection.

"I have some ... friends ... who'll help me," Krycek replied.

A frown crossed Mulder's face at that. What kind of friends would Krycek have in Russia? KGB friends? Consortium friends? Krycek had been involved in so many of Mulder's own personal tragedies, Scully's abduction, the death of his father. The man had betrayed him just days before in the gulag. How could he have forgotten who this man was?

With a curse Mulder turned, sprinted over to the bus station and bought a ticket. He was the last one to climb onto the rusting hulk of a bus, and as he took his seat he pressed his face to the dirty glass of the window and watched the boy struggling to carry Krycek's long lean body down the narrow streets of this lonely Russian town.

Krycek opened his eyes and took in the unrelieved grayish white of the hospital ward. The stench of blood and urine was overpowering and he had to fight down the urge to vomit. Someone was crying, and someone else was yelling at them to shut up. His left arm, even though it was gone below the shoulder, still hurt like a son of a bitch. The whole scene was horrifying and surreal and Krycek was so overwhelmingly glad to be here -- to be alive -- that he nearly started laughing.

Aren't cats supposed to have nine lives? Well Alex Krycek was a cat and he'd just landed on his feet once again.

And Fox Mulder had kissed him. Oh it was no big deal, just a test for fever. That's what Mulder had wanted him to believe, but Krycek had seen Mulder's eyes when he drew away, had seen Mulder savor the feel of another man's skin on his lips. Fox Mulder had kissed him and now the opportunities for fucking with the other man's mind were infinite.

Krycek felt better just thinking about it, and he did, finally, laugh out loud.