Crystal Heart

I sit at Mulder's desk, fingering his name-plate thoughtfully, as I have so many times since he was taken.

Nobody ever sees me - nobody ever comes down here anymore. Not Scully: too many memories, too much pain. Not Skinner: the only reason he ever entered this realm was to reprimand his disobedient agent. There is nothing left here for anyone now. Only me.

John Doggett. I still have to think about that one. I haven't ever met the man and he probably hasn't ever even heard of me!... Over the years, my business has changed from the original sin - unexplained phenomena, dealings with extra-terrestrials and various covert governmental agencies... or international syndicates... Mulder. To tell the truth I no longer want to imagine a life without him. He is... was... my nemesis as much as my associate... my guiding force. Now all this has been extinguished and I'll be damned if I don't give up all I've constructed to get it back. To get him back. I don't deny it anymore, see, I need Mulder. He was the vitality in everything I did.

After a while, I stop listening to the cacophony in my mind. Time to go. Once the silence gets unbearable and you start to hear voices, you know it's time to move on.

I get up, replacing all Mulder's desktop belongings neatly as always, when I realise a man is blocking the doorway. We meet at last.

"Who the hell are you?" Minus 10 for originality. I decide to bluff first and only get violent if all else fails. Hey, even killers have a low tension sometimes!

"I could ask you the same question," I snap back then cock my head a little. "Only, I already know. John Doggett, special Agent of the paranormal, no?" This obviously irritates him, but I couldn't resist the temptation. He frowns.

"I asked you who you were," he repeats stubbornly and already my mellow state starts dissipating. I sigh deeply.

"Look here, Agent Doggett, I really think -" I stop as he takes a menacing step forwards. I automatically step back warily.

"Don't waste my time!" I suddenly hiss, but of course it doesn't impress him. After all he knows he's right.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to come with me." Oh, how polite, considering he just caught out an intruder in a federal office.

"No, actually, I don't," I say simply and before he even has time to blink, the dull silver barrel of ye old faithful, Walther P38, is leering at him. His turn to take a large step back now, hands automatically going up - you got to love conditioning.

"So. Agent Doggett." Did I just sound smug? Probably. "If you wouldn't mind stepping aside, and -" my bravour is cut short by the opening of the lift doors and I know who it is immediately, before I hear the hard tone calling, "John?"

Walter Skinner. The only man in history to have winded me so completely that I couldn't eat or breathe properly for days. I almost groan, but outwardly nothing changes - my eyes stay coldly locked with Doggett's.

"John? What's taking you so long?" Ah the eternal paranoia - trust no one and all that. Doggett of course remains mute, he doesn't know that if they're so mistrustful around here, its probably because of me.

Finally Skinner enters the scene. I'm sure he almost groans too and I shrug a little in a sort of innocent way. Let's blame it all on Doggett, after all it's my God-given right to be down here.

"Skinner," I greet with a nod. His eyes darken and I fear he'll jump at me in which case I'll have to shoot his knee off or something, but he doesn't.

"Mind telling me what you're looking for?" he asks casually. Oh we're so good! All of us! Sound like we're reading scripts half the time!

"Mulder." Did that sound...? I mentally kick myself and Skinner raises an eyebrow.

"Nice try, Krycek. You're trespassing a restricted area and holding a federal agent at gunpoint." I don't point out that I actually, theoretically, have *two* hostages now. He obviously doesn't consider himself threatened and I'd hate to burst his bubble. Instead I shrug - we both know there's just a bit more history than that, but Doggett doesn't need to be let in on all that.

"I had hoped we were above all that, Skinner." He looks like he wants to throttle me, but strides past and sits on Mulder's chair. Bastard. You can't point a gun in two directions at the same time.

"Agent Doggett, please leave us. Alex, put that away. As you so nicely say - we're above all that." Touché.

Doggett doesn't dare contradict an order and almost bounds from the room. We forget him and after a brief hesitation, I holster my weapon and then we stare at... well sort of through each other for a moment.

"So," he finally starts knowing I'm not going anywhere. He can read the resignation on my face as surely as I can feel it.

"What do you know, Krycek?"

"No more than you. Maybe less seeing as I wasn't actually there when he was abducted."

"Abducted?"

"There can be no doubt about that, Mr. Skinner." He consents with a slight nick still don't understand. 'encoche'? of the head.

"I have no choice but believe. But I don't know a damn thing!" His readiness to talk disconcerts me and I crease the bridge of my nose as my eyes narrow.

"As I said - more than me."

He looks at me carefully. Surely, if he suspected me even in the least of having anything to do with Mulder's disappearance, no bullet in the world would have stopped him from getting at me? He looks down.

"So what were you hoping to find here?" I smile quickly. "Inspiration. What to do next. I'm not looking for Agent Mulder, I'm continuing my own quest. I thought maybe his aura would help." I decide to take a dive into the deep end. "The truth is out there, Mr. Skinner." His head snaps up sharply as he realises the obvious - I am still doing the same job. Mulder always has. Different means - better results, the inexorably the same.

He's thinking of the nanotechnology in his veins, I can tell because the way he strokes the rim of his glasses - he does that when he's nervous. On these rare occasions... "I'm keeping you alive," I remind him. He snorts, "You're keeping me 'not dead' boy, but I'll be damned if I return the favour." Yeah. Right. There was Mulder to think of and if anyone could get him back, then it was me. Of course I was actively looking for Agent Mulder, but Skinner didn't have to know that and the inspiration bit was true too.

Silence as we avoid each other's gaze. It could have lasted forever, but a new arrival joins the party.

She scowls when she sees me but I can see she was expecting it. Doggett is such a rat! Like Jeff! I block out Jeff Spender, a tragic element of the past, and turn to the petrifying gaze of Scully's ice blue eyes. She seriously chills me out, but she loves Mulder and I suppose I. oh what the hell, I've always loved Mulder in one way or a another. Probably care more for the great oaf than for myself. I make the sacrifice and smile at her.

"Where is he?" The ungrateful bitch attacks me with a direct accusation.

"I don't know," I snap back frostily. I couldn't smile now if I tried - that's the effect she has on me! I want to shudder.

"Yes you do. So tell me now or I'll kill you." Skinner just watches with interest, observing my reactions very carefully. He's probably biting his tongue right now to avoid laughing at the way his redhead agent has me pinned down.

"Agent Scully," I take a deep breath, "I'm sorry about your sister, but you're going to accept that this time, it's nothing to do with me. If it was, I wouldn't be here - think on that." As an afterthought I add, "I want him back too, you know." I sound sincere, but they know that doesn't mean anything with me. How to explain that I, Alex Krycek, can't face the solitude of a fight without Mulder? I whisper those words hoarsely.

"You worked with Mulder?" Now she sounds intrigued, even the reference to Melissa has been ignored.

"Yes. Right here in this office, a long time ago." They both exhale noisily and angrily.

"You spied on him, you traitor," she sneers and if looks could kill... I wince again, but she's made me angry too. In fact I flush a little as I face her.

"Agent Scully. Your precious Fox would have been dead and buried a long long time ago, if I hadn't so devotedly watched his back and saved his sorry ass every time he put it in the line of fire."

Disbelieving faces? Well believe! I have nothing to lose now. "Just think before you start flinging random accusations at me! Whatever happened during my placement here, happened. But you never go beyond that? In Hong-Kong I saved his guts from the Oilien radiation, I gave him the MJ docs - don't you think I was aware of that? Who dragged who to Siberia? He acts on a whim but doesn't know what the fuck he's doing! He would have died out there without me, charged as an American spy!" I could feel the heat in me rising, do they think I'm completely insensitive or something? I'm feeling selfish, but why can't they just understand that for the past decade, I have been living for Mulder only? I continue my discourse, enumerating the hundred times I have, directly or indirectly, risked everything to save the man's damn life or helped his investigations. When I'm done, I'm fuming - the last time anyone has driven me to this furious state of loquacity, I had yelled at Mulder in Russian - it all builds up you know, and in the end I'm as susceptible to a childish outburst as the next man.

I glare at them in defiance. Oh, just challenge me, maybe I'll just shoot you! Finally the AD shifts uncomfortably.

"Why?"

"What?" My answer to everything.

"Why all this covertness? Did Mulder know - you would have been such a welcome ally! The only reason we hate you is because you hurt us, Krycek! Over and over!" Don't make me laugh!

"Of course Mulder fucking knew. He only repressed it stubbornly." I know I hurt them, I know it! But I've saved them all really - I mean how hurt would Scully be if she lost Mulder? Ok, she's lost him for the moment, but that's hardly my fault.

"Help us find him." Her cold voice can kill. I swear it was an order she just gave me.

I catch her gaze intently. "No, I won't help you. But I'll do it." The final tone in those words along with the blazing defiance in my eyes are almost enough to convince her. "Alone," I articulate pointedly and hold her scowl with mine until she turns away, seemingly satisfied. Skinner gets up noisily, breaking the silence, and nodding at his agent, "Don't let me catch you here again," he warns me severely but I keep my defiant glower.

"I'll be here," I state. It's not a threat, just a fact. Then I watch them leave and almost have to pinch myself to believe any of this just happened.

Alone again with my silence, my voices.

I leave the building several minutes later and make my way straight to Mulder's flat. There I sit on his couch and wait. I know someone will turn up eventually - friend or foe, I don't care. I feel more alone than ever. Gone was the Consortium and its shadowy deals, gone was the project. Gone, gone, gone. I never will let aliens colonize our planet though the thought of it all makes me laugh. Ok, so this won't be easy but of course I'll get Fox Mulder back, whatever the cost, no doubt about it!

And then we'll do it together, go the whole way, expose whatever glitch in the system had permitted the Syndicate's existence in the first place. Expose whatever was left of the project - yes let the public see some smallpox infected bees, alien shape-shifters, human clones and dodgy cornfields. We'll show them what the black cancer is all about. Mulder and I... we can, and will, do that.

Expose what 'The X-Files' really means.

And maybe in the end, we'll even find that damn sister of his.

Yes, I'll get Fox Mulder back and then, the fight will only have just begun.

Alex Krycek, February 2001.