Echoes

It was a typically beautiful day in the city park. The sky was its typical shade of blue and the sun was shining predictably bright. Families were out in full force pushing their 2.5 kids on the swings. It was perfect. And very normal.

Well, it was almost normal. There was one thing that was out of place in that suburan haven. Not a thing really, but a man, specifically Alex Krycek. Of course he went unnoticed by everyone. After all, he was trained to be sneaky.

And that was the way he wanted it. Krycek had been given the day off and he intended to enjoy it. It was a day that he didn't have to think about that Dudley Do-right who didn't know that he wasn't a Canadian Mountie. Not that it wasn't usually a hoot when he had to follow the intrepid Agent Mulder. Usually it was a lot of fun. He was so far off the mark with most of his theories that it was hard to keep the laughter down. Besides, he rented the best movies. None of those sappy, Steel Magnolia-type chick flicks, unless of course he was joined by his partner Agent Scully.

Krycek was dressed in an uncharacteristically bland outfit: khaki cargo shorts and a dark blue T-shirt. Not a spot of black on him anywhere. He sat on a bench where he could watch what was going on. (Just because he had the day off didn't mean he had to let his guard down.) Suddenly he heard something off to his right. He looked but didn't see anything other than a small boy playing an exciting game of catch with his dog, and from the looks of it the dog was winning. (Big dog, small boy, you do the math.)

Then it happened again. The Sound had indeed come from the boy. Just hearing it pushed him back into times that he had struggled to put behind him. He was dragged down a third time in to the abyss of his memories as the boy called to his dog... "Sparky! Spaaarrrky! Bring me the stick, boy! That's it. Good boy. Good Sparky."

"Sparky! Bring me the paper!" yelled Brock. Brock is the name a woman gives to her son when she knows he's going to have a big neck, and this Brock was no exception. Even now, at the age of twelve, he was big and strapping ... and unnecessarily cruel to his little brother Alex.

Muttering under his breath, Alex deposited the Carver Press at Brock's feet. He looked up at his brother, anger flashing in his green eyes, and asked, "Why do you do it?"

"Why what?" asked Brock, amused.

"Why do you call me 'Sparky'? I mean why not some nickname that makes some kind of sense, like... I don't know... Al? It's just-- it's dumb!"

He smiled, reaching forward to tousle the eight-year-old's hair. "Because you hate it, Sparky."

Alex stomped off, muttering something else while attempting to fix his hair.

Brock was relentless. It wasn't so bad, though, until the kids at school picked it up. Alex didn't know about this until one Saturday when he was ten and Brock was fourteen. Alex was watching cartoons, specifically one of those half-hour commercials for action figures, when a knock came at the door. Mom and Dad were out, and Brock was sleeping in, so Alex answered it.

Two giggly girls stood there in all their lanky blondness. "Hi, Sparky!" one of them said, as the other one chuckled. "Is your brother home?"

Alex just gaped at them, in shock, unable to answer. Other people were beginning to call him 'Sparky'! This had to be his brother's work. Then he heard Brock's voice behind him on the stairs.

"SPARKY!" he boomed. "Not stealing my girls, are ya?" He chucked the ittle boy in the back of the head as he went by. "So, let's go!"

"Bye, Sparky," chorused the girls as Brock put an arm around each one.

Alex stood there in the doorway looking after them, rubbing the back of his head, unable to say little more than "But they... you.... Ow," he decided. He went back to his cartoons, hoping that this would not become a habit.

Three years and many noogies later, Alex thought he had finally managed to get out from under the shadow of his older brother. He finally had his own spotlight as the star of the tennis team. Sure, he was only in 8th grade, but there was talk of him starting on the varsity team next year.

Last year on a whim he had tried out for the tennis team, mostly because he wanted to be on a sports team and he knew that Brock would never ever be seen at a tennis game. And it had worked; so far, Brock had never been seen courtside.

Coach Wedderburn was shocked when he first saw Alex play. He just stood there agape, his mouth admitting only a few vowel sounds. For the last 15 or so years the Carver tennis team had lost almost every match. It had become something of a joke. It had gotten so bad that the school board had to practly force Wedderburn into taking on the tennis team. He already had his hands full with the high school football team, but people had stopped expecting anything from the tennis team, so the coach really didn't matter. But when Wedderburn saw Alex return that first serve and ace his opponent, he thought it was a fluke. Then Alex did it a second time. After five times in a row, Coach Wedderburn knew he had to sign this guy.

The team didn't make it to state that year; they didn't even get close to the finals, but with Alex and a few others they at least provided some competition. This year at least, there was enough money allocated to the tennis team so all the members could get their own sweatshirts with carefully chosen nicknames.

This was going to be a coup de grace. This was going to be the year that Alex made it out from under the shadow of Brock. He would no longer be associated with his thick-necked brother simply because they shared an unusual last name. (Alex suspected that he was the product of a not-so-torrid affair with the mailman. At least he hoped he wasn't geneticaly related to Mr. Football.)

It was the day before the first match of the year and Coach Wedderburn was handing out sweatshirts. Alex stood patiently in line, smiling at the name he had given himself. He had wanted a nick name that made sense, so he chose "Ace". That's what he seemed to do a lot of the time, and besides, Coach was already calling him that.

He smirked as he stood in line. Finally the guy in front of him got his shirt-- some nonsense like "Killer," Alex didn't understand how people could joke about that-- and then it was Alex's turn. He approached Coach Wedderburn with a huge grin.

"Hey, Coach," said Alex.

"Hello, Alex," replied Coach Wedderburn, smiling, "Here's your shirt."

He handed Alex a largish square of gray cotton, which Alex unfolded to find marked not "Ace," but the hated "Sparky." The sides of the shirt crinkled as he unconsciously tightened his grip. Closing his eyes, Alex said to himself "This is not happening, this is not happening." He opened his eyes. Yes it was.

"Uh... coach?" he asked.

The coach smiled back at him. "Well, ya see, your brother said you'd always wanted this nickname but couldn't tell me, because--"

"Because it's the stupidest nickname on the planet!" exploded Alex.

"Well, it's too late to do anything about it now, son." He watched the storm clouds cross Alex's face with concern. "Maybe you could wear it inside out."

"Thanks for nothin', coach." Alex tossed the shirt back at Coach Wedderburn and stomped off. A few of his teammmates had heard the exchange and chuckled softly as he passed them. They crowded around the coach to see exactly what had set off the star player.

Late at night, Alex would muddle over what Brock had done to him. Listening to Brock chuckle in his sleep in the next room, he would think about different ways to exact his revenge. After a few nights of this, he decided he was capable of murder. When that occurred to him, he nearly sat up in bed. Where had that thought come from? This was his brother he was talking about. At that moment Brock chuckled again. A slow smile spread across Alex's face. He *was* capable of murder.

Krycek smiled a thin smile, the echo of the smile he had had that fateful night. Now his brother was dead. At least he hoped he was. Oh well.

He sat there lost in thought, not paying attention to his surroundings. He didn't notice Fox Mulder walk by with a bag of groceries (if you can call a stack of "videos" and microwave popcorn "groceries"). Mulder, however, did notice Krycek. He stood in front of the bench for a little while before remembering he didn't have his gun. And it was his day off. "Eh," thought Mulder. He continued down the path whistling.