Dark Half

"Are you ready?"

I nodded. No-one is ever really ready for this, but I nodded anyway.

The attendant pulled back the sheet, and I stared down at the corpse. How many times had I dreamed of this? How often had I thought of standing over his body and howling in primitive victory? The moment had come, and I found myself unprepared. The blood thirst was buried somewhere in the years left behind, and all I had left to give was sadness. He was unmasked, this angel of death who had hovered over so much of my life; and now, lying there, naked, eyes closed, one arm coming to an abrupt end mid-bicep, he seemed like just another victim. Perhaps that was all he ever really was.

"Alexis Ivanovich Krycek."

The attendant nodded, twitching the sheet back over Krycek's still body on the gurney. It came to rest on his profile, hovering there a moment on shifting currents of air before draping limply over his form.

Reluctantly, I turned from him to the other table. The attendant waited patiently; I nodded at her to proceed.

This corpse carried less emotional baggage for me, but seeing her was just as sad. How many times had this happened? How many people had helped me along the way, only to be abandoned and then killed? Just how many people had I used up and thrown away, not from selfishness, but merely on the basis of the imperative of my truth? No new questions there; just the age-old ones every man of war has carried like battle-wounds since the dawn of time.

"Marita Elaine Covarrubias."

Same nod, same twitch of fabric. "I'll need you to sign off on the I.D., Agent Mulder. I'll be back with some forms in a moment." I nodded absently, and as the door snicked shut behind her, I went to the foot of the gurneys, and turned to look on the two shrouded forms as a pair. I shook my head, sighing, dull regret side-by-side with sadly indulgent amusement.

It wasn't them shooting each other - anyone could see that coming. Dark halves, those two; together and separate and ruthless as all hell. If they hadn't been lovers, they'd have been twins. Conjoined twins, with a single dark heart.

But it was what happened after they shot each other that was really creepy. I've seen monsters in sewers, and I've seen the dead alive; but never before had I seen what happens when two people, evil and rotten and insanely in love die together in a single heartbeat. It was perverse. It was depraved and twisted.

It was...beautiful.

He reaches for her.

His body is twisted, blood seeping out along his abdomen. He hasn't got long, but he fights for consciousness; fights to reach her. I think he plans to harm her; but then he pulls her against him and cradles her head in a mockery of an embrace. She slides a hand up to stroke his cheek. I lower my gun in stunned disbelief.

There is no rancour in her expression; nor, for once, in his. Protectively, he drapes his bad arm over her, for all the good it will do the wound in her chest. And then he does an amazing thing.

He smiles.

"If it had to happen, I'm glad it was you."

She laughs, and it comes out as a wheeze; but there's an undertone there, delighted, childlike. "I do love you, Alex."

His smile broadens. "And I, you."

Blood trickles from her mouth. He leans down and kisses her, drawing what he can of her woundedness and making it his. When they part, there is blood on both. It's obscene. It's exquisite. One blood, one body, communion at its most profane. Blasphemy and sanctity in a single heartbeat.

"Marita," he says softly, and it's an invocation.

He kisses her once more, and I think they're going to die that way, their lips intersecting on their dying breath; but this kiss is chaste, and he pulls away and leans his head against her shoulder. His bulk almost covers hers now, but still she holds him closer. "I'll see you in hell," he tells her, and his tenderness is such that it's an endearment...a caress.

"I'll be waiting," she says wistfully. "Oh, I'll be waiting."

Their voices fade after that, and they cling to one another, sighing out their final breaths, breathing fragmentary words of love, until finally, both are gone.

We buried them together.

It was my decision. When the bodies went unclaimed, the proverbial buck passed from the coroner to the FBI to the UN, and finally landed back in the FBI. Alex still had superannuation and other entitlements owed, and no family could be found. Eventually the union stepped in and suggested the funds be used to bury them, thereby solving both problems. It was as good a solution as any. So it was my decision, and I buried them as they had died - in one another's arms. It was easier to keep track of them that way. Scully laughed when I told her that. I wasn't joking.

Would she do it for me, I wonder? She'd die for me, I know that much. But would she follow me into hell? Would she wait there, and cradle me in her arms when I got there, and endure it to be at my side?

I don't know. I just don't know.

But sometimes, when I wonder, I could swear I hear them laughing. Two dark, evil angels, cackling together in adoring, insane depravity for all eternity.

Sometimes I think they got the last laugh.

I can't quite bring myself to hate him anymore. No-one who loves that much can be all bad. I'm still glad he's gone, though.

In my more generous moments, I'm glad that when the end came, they were together.

But more than anything, I'm glad that it was beautiful.

Author's Notes: I'm a sick puppy, I know. Only I could find romance in the phrase "I'll see you in hell". Heh.

As for why...Krycek's death scene was horrific. It assassinated not one character, but three. In this AU version, I sought to create a better death for Krycek and a better response from Mulder. As for Skinner...well, I'll deal with him later ;-).