New Recruit

Skinner pushed his glasses up slightly so that he could rub the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He felt a headache coming on. A major one. The kind of headache that was completely impervious to any amount of Tylenol or aspirin. The kind of headache that turned the slightest sound into the crashing cymbals of a marching band in too close proximity to his ear. The kind of headache that caused the light from his desk lamp to pierce his corneas and stab into his brain. The kind of headache he'd been getting more and more since he'd taken over responsibility for oversight of the X-Files division.

And don't even get him started on his stomach ...

A buzzing sound from his phone alerted him to the fact that his assistant wanted his attention.

"What?" he barked a little more forcefully than intended.

"The new agents are here to see you, sir," she responded, unperturbed as usual by his moods. It was one of the job requirements, and she was, Skinner had to admit, excellent at her job.

"Just a minute," Skinner replied. <Oh shit not today,> he thought to himself as he pushed back from his desk.

Every so often a few recent Quantico graduates were either so stellar in their performance during training, or more likely so well connected politically, that they were immediately assigned to the Washington D.C. bureau. This was one of those times, and it was A.D. Skinner's turn to welcome them into the warm embrace of their new FBI family. Little did they know that whoever had pulled the strings had done them no real favor. They couldn't know how their fellow agents who had worked night and day and risked their lives countless times for an assignment in Washington would resent the way the wheels had been greased for them.

Skinner pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out two bottles from their usual location. One 500 count bottle of aspirin, nearly empty, and one bright pink bottle of Pepto Bismal. He spilled two aspirin into the palm of his hand, then thought better of it, and added a third. The pills were washed down with a gulp of thick peppermint liquid. He returned his supplies to their drawer and glanced at his desk to ensure that the new agents' files were exactly where he expected them to be. Then he jabbed at the button on his phone and told his assistant to send them in.

Two fresh faced young agents filed in through the door and stood in a row before his desk. One woman and a man, if you could call them that...

<Christ, they look about twelve years old.>

Skinner rounded the desk and stopped in front of the first agent. The woman. She was small; she must have just barely passed the FBI's minimum height and weight requirements. Her petite stature reminded him of Special Agent Scully. But that was were the similarities ended -- pretty in an overt blonde-haired blue-eyed sort of way, dressed in a short skirt and silky blouse that made her look like she was going on a hot date rather than meeting her supervisor on her first day as a federal employee. She looked like a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen, and Skinner felt the pounding in his temple ratchet up a notch. He consulted the sheaf of papers on his desk for a name.

"Agent Mackenzie," Skinner addressed her.

"Yes sir," Agent Mackenzie acknowledged crisply, standing up straight and still as any marine recruit on graduation day. She held his gaze steadily, not allowing either his physical size or authority to intimidate her in any way.

Skinner had to clamp down hard on his reaction to burst out laughing. What a surprise! He had to quickly revise his estimation of her; she obviously wasn't the one who had family money or connections to thank for her position here, and a glance at the test scores contained in her file bore that out.

"Welcome to the FBI, Agent Mackenzie," Skinner replied with as much genuine feeling as he could muster given the throbbing in his head. Then he moved on to the second agent.

Tall, six feet at least. Physically imposing, although not compared to Walter Skinner. He wouldn't have had any trouble meeting the FBI's minimum requirements. A good looking kid, Skinner thought, although his too young face looked like he could go a couple of days at least without a shave. Skinner glanced at the file. Master's in Political Science. Well, well, well, either Georgetown University was handing out graduate degrees to teenagers these days or the boy was older than he looked. But the suit...

<Jesus God! Where does the poor kid get his clothes!>

Not every FBI agent could afford to dress like Agent Mulder, but the least the kid could do was buy a tie that wouldn't blind a man.

"Agent Krycek," Skinner greeted the boy. "Welcome to the FBI."

"Thank you sir," Krycek replied, thrusting his hand forward with such enthusiam, Skinner was momentarily tempted to jump back to avoid what at first looked like a gut punch. Skinner controlled his reaction with an effort and reached out to shake the boy's hand.

"It's an honor to be here, sir," Krycek continued, still pumping Skinner's palm.

Skinner pulled his hand from the other man's grasp and couldn't resist rubbing at the tense muscles at the back of his neck. So this was the ass-kisser who had used his use family's political clout to cut through the FBI's red tape. Not what Skinner had expected when they'd first walked in, but then he wasn't really at his best today.

Skinner slowly walked back around his desk and sank gratefully into his chair. Only eight more hours to go before he could go home and collapse, he realized with wry humor. He glanced back up...

"You're dismissed," Skinner instructed.

The new agents quickly filed back out of the room, and Skinner returned to the piles of paperwork needing his review and approval. Just before the door shut, Skinner glanced up and was caught in the suprisingly frank evaluating gaze of his newest junior agent -- Agent Krycek. But as soon as Skinner caught his eye, the expression of cool contemplation was replace by the boyish grin and then the door swung shut behind him.

Skinner pushed aside the pile of forms for a moment and studied Krycek's file once more. His test scores were impeccable.

<Well, I'll be damned. Not an ass-kisser in the bunch this time.>

Skinner was startled as a few flakes of ash fell onto the crisp white pages of Agent Krycek's file.

<Damn that smoking bastard.>

The man was such a constant and unobtrusive presence in his office, that Skinner sometimes found himself forgetting the smoker was there. An extremely dangerous habit to get into, and Skinner silently vowed to himself not to let it happen again.

"An interesting young man, don't you think," the man asked in between inhalations.

"In what way?" Skinner replied cooly.

The smoker reached for the file and studied it for a moment.

"Well educated, obviously intelligent," he finally commented as he flipped through the pages of the file. "A first generation American, naturally patriotic." The file was closed and replaced on Skinner's desk.

"Enthusiastic ... ambitious," the smoker continued.

"Leave him be," Skinner responded. "He's just a boy."

"Yes, just a boy," the smoker agreed. "And boys like Alex Krycek can often be molded into the greatest of men."

The smoker moved to leave Skinner's office by the same door the young agents had recently passed through, but before shutting it behind himself, he turned back to Skinner who was still staring after him with impotent fury.

"Provided they are exposed to the proper ... influences," the smoker concluded and then he was gone.

Skinner opened his bottom desk drawer, pulled out his bottle of aspirin, and shook out two more pills. Not even 9:00 AM, and it was already turning out to be a five aspirin day.

3 Months Later

"Sign it," the smoker instructed.

Skinner studied the two nearly identical 302 forms that had been delivered to his desk this morning. One initiated by Agent Mulder and the second by Agent Alex Krycek.

"It's a police matter," Skinner disagreed, pushing the papers to the side.

The smoker rose from his usual seat on the sofa at the far side of Skinner's office and approached the desk. He eyed the recently discarded paper work and used one thin finger to pull a sheet out of the pile and slide it back in front of Skinner -- the sheet with Agent Krycek's name on it.

"I suggest you sign it, Mr. Skinner," the smoker said mildly, as if it really didn't matter to him one way or another what Skinner did. Perhaps that was true, if Skinner didn't sign it some other A.D. would be persuaded to do so. And one glance at the cold dead look in the smoker's eyes convinced Skinner that his only real option was to simply signed the damn form.

Skinner scrawled his name hastily across the paper and then thrust it at the smoker as if he couldn't stand for it to be in his possession a moment longer.

The smoker turned to leave, but paused at the door.

"Thank you, Mr. Skinner," he said with a slight smile on his face before he continued with mock innocence, "Oh ... and I'll see to it that Agent Krycek is informed he must partner with a more senior agent on this case. I'm sure Agent Mulder won't mind."

As the door closed, Skinner let loose with the violent string of curses he had been holding back ever since he recognized the setup that was about to be perpetrated.

Skinner damned the smoking bastard and his schemes, as well as his own inability to do anything about it. The mad had power, both officially and unofficially, and Skinner had learned from the mistakes of others -- the smoker was not to be crossed. He damned Mulder for willfully attracting the attention of men like the smoker with his wild theories and quests.

And most of all Skinner damned Alex Krycek for being young and stupid. Damned him for being ambitious and for naively assuming that he could be anything other than a pawn for the men with the real power. Damned him for being entirely too much like the young Walter Skinner who had been enticed in much the same way so many years ago.

Skinner yanked open his bottom desk drawer and mixed himself the same aspirin and Pepto Bismal cocktail he had been downing every day now for months. With his stomach somewhat settled and his headache held at bay for now, he returned to the stack of paperwork sitting on a neat pile on the corner of his desk.

But Mulder's 302 form sitting right on top of the pile wouldn't let him move on. Skinner wasn't much for praying, but he did sincerely hope that Alex Krycek was a lucky man. If he was, Krycek could be sitting right were Skinner was -- pushing papers, but alive and with some semblance of power -- twenty years from now. And if he wasn't lucky... well... he'd have to be, if he wanted to survive as the smoker's newest recruit.